Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

- Shakespeare

It’s not Sanji’s fault.

Nami has told him this.

So has Chopper.

His nakama don’t blame him.

And yet he sits in the galley without a lamp, smoking cigarette after cigarette, alone in the darkness.

He doesn’t want the light. But even closed in here, in the middle of the night, light still comes in. Moonlight, bright and cold and heartless, striking through the galley windows onto the swept-clean floor. And around it the shadows, black and impenetrable.

He can’t stay in here all night. But sleep is unreachable right now: and he wouldn’t be doing any good in the infirmary, that’s Chopper’s territory. Sanji keeping vigil in the corner would be redundant.

Yet he knows that’s where he’ll go back to, very soon. Not because anything will have changed. But because this sitting in the darkness alone is a coward’s choice, and he’s not a coward.

And because this is a darkness he has the power to leave.

* * * * * * * * *

How did all this start?

Like most eventful days on the Sunny: with someone on watch yelling, Ship ahoy!  It must have been Usopp, he was on watch this morning; Sanji thinks he remembers hearing their sharpshooter cry out in that way he does, half-excited and half sounding like he’s going to piss his pants.

Any time that anyone announces they’ve seen a sail on the horizon, there is always that few minutes or so of waiting, to see what will follow. As they get closer, within spyglass range: until the Straw Hats are able to figure out whether they’re soon going to be within spitting distance of rival pirates or a shipful of Marines.

This time it’s pirates. Not a known group: their flag is a flaming skull, orange and yellow against the black. It’s a bigger ship than the Sunny and from the way it steers purposefully into a course that will coincide with the Straw Hats it’s clear that those on board don’t have friendly intentions.

“Oh, good. They’re coming this way.” Luffy jumps onto the rail by Sunny’s figurehead and grins at what’s coming, like the lunatic he is. “I was worried they might head in the other direction when they saw us.”

“We’re getting into another pitched battle?” Nami-swan with her voice of reason, bless her gorgeous heart. “We haven’t finished paying for the last lot of repairs you idiots were responsible for.”

“Well, we could still change course.” Usopp, ever-hopeful of avoiding trouble. “The wind’s in our favour, isn’t it?”

“No way!” Luffy sounds outraged. “We’re gonna kick their ass!”

“Nami,” appeals Usopp with a groan, cannily knowing who to enlist in his cause.

There’s a clump of heavy boots, but Sanji doesn’t bother looking round. Expecting who the next person to speak will be, and being proved right.

“We can take them. No problem.”

The swordsman’s customary cockiness is annoying, but accurate. They can take them. After all, they’ve taken on a lot worse than this.

“Oh. An enemy ship?” Robin appears beside Sanji on the deck, also looking out to sea. “I thought things had been a little too quiet.”

“...Super awesome.” Franky comes into view too, standing much too close to Robin: Sanji feels his own hackles rise. “I’m ready for some action.”

“I wonder what their flag means,” muses Robin thoughtfully. “A flaming skull.”

“It means we’re gonna light a fire under their asses! Owww!” Franky proclaims.

“Watch your language round the ladies, craphead!” Sanji growls this out while lighting a cigarette.

“Another crew of pirates? I thought I could feel trouble coming, in my bones... Which is all I’ve got to feel with! Yo ho ho!” Brook’s footsteps tap across the planking of the deck, accompanied by Chopper’s hooves. “Anyone we know?”

“Their flag is scary!” Their doctor sounds apprehensive.

“Okay, so we fight.” Nami sounds resigned. “Let’s try to keep the damage minimal.”

“Hoo hoo!” Luffy has clambered up front on the foredeck now, and is peering out to sea at the approaching pirate vessel. “They have loads of cannon! This is gonna be fun.”

“Which part of being shot at with big flying lumps of metal is fun?” bemoans Usopp, nonetheless starting to ready his sharpshooting gear.

“The part where I bounce it right back at them!” gloats Luffy. “Hey, there’s a really weird-looking gun thing on their deck.”

“Then maybe not standing right up front where you make a clear target would be a good idea, dumbass,” says Zoro. And then goes and stands up there beside their captain, like the cocksure moron he is.

Sanji exhales smoke in a long irritated breath. Then strides forward too, joining the pair in an attempt to bring some intelligence to whatever happens next. “Yeah, maybe we should give them a bigger target.”

“Good idea, dart-brow. Stick your face over the rail, your eyebrow will give them something to aim at.”

“I’m sorry, this conversation is reserved for those who actually know which direction to look in.” Sanji smirks.

The swordsman sticks one finger in his ear and wiggles it slightly. “Could’ve sworn I just heard something. Like some annoying whining insect.”

“The only one attracting flies round here is you, fucking plant life.”

“Maybe you should go sit this one out with the ladies, nose-bleed.”

“ENOUGH!” Nami’s shrill shout makes them both look around. “Is it too much to ask that you two put your hostilities on hold for long enough to actually fight someone else for five minutes?”

Sanji feels chagrin, for upsetting his lovely flower. And fury, for letting this moss-headed oaf bait him into it. “Your wish is my command, Nami-swan! Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

Beside him Zoro says in a barely audible mutter, “So whipped, twirly...” And the chef kicks him on the ankle, hard.

Luffy laughs. “You guys are nuts.”

Coming from Luffy, this makes Sanji clench his teeth on his cigarette almost hard enough to bite it in half. “Both of you shut the fuck up.”

Their captain just laughs again, and Zoro smiles too: looks right at the chef with that shark grin that says, Make me.

Sanji promises himself he will wipe that grin off the swordsman’s face. Either very shortly, or later on. When everyone else is asleep and they have the galley to themselves.

For the time being he contents himself with simply returning that smile. With interest.

It seems to take a long time for the other pirate ship to close in: then, as it often happens, suddenly it is within cannon range and the fun starts.

The battle goes pretty much as it usually does. Luffy gets his kicks rebounding their attackers’ own cannon balls back at them for a while, until they cotton on to the fact that by continuing firing they’re actually giving the Straw Hats more ammunition. That means they decide to go for close quarters instead, which means a chance to get stuck into some serious ass-kicking. Sanji intends to crack some skulls, while avoiding Luffy’s elastic mayhem and Zoro swinging his damn swords around like a threshing machine.

The chef is seriously motivated to cause some damage: one of the cannon shot that found its way past Luffy’s rubber defences took out a railing about five yards away from Nami. Admittedly their navigator was unhurt, and wreaked her own vengeance in the form of a thunderbolt tempo that melted the cannon the shot had come from: but the other pirate crew were shooting at a woman, so they are dead men walking as far as Sanji’s concerned.

But what actually happens before they finally close the gap and jump aboard the other ship is unexpected and somewhat horrific. And suddenly makes clear why this pirate ship flies the flag it does.

The weird gun that Luffy spotted on the deck, which they all assumed to be some sort of cannon, is in fact nothing of the sort. Because when the Sunny is just a few yards off, two men twist the large gun right round to face her and there is a kind of coughing roar and a sheet of flame flares out and strikes across the intervening space in a dirty yellow stream.

Flames play on Sunny’s flank and across her deck, and Sanji smells the singeing of wood. All the Straw Hats freeze in place – except for Brook and Robin and Franky, who are in the flame’s path and have to take serious evasive action.

The strange gun gutters and cuts out; then flares again: and this time the men controlling the sheet of flame direct it higher, playing it towards Sunny’s foremast. Aiming for her sail and rigging.

Beside him Sanji hears Zoro swear, and Luffy lets out a howl of fury. “Stop burning my ship!”

Canvas and tarred rope catch fire much more easily than wood. Sanji knows how quickly fire can spread on a ship once it gets hold, and this flame has an oily cast to it that seems to help it cling and set light to what it touches. If they lose their sails they’re dead in the water, with no way to manoeuvre... Which means the other ship will have the upper hand.

“Rrrraaagghhh!” Making an animalistic noise, Luffy takes hold of the Sunny’s figurehead, stretching his own arms to propel him – then he’s gone, flinging over the rail. Zoro is already stepping up too, turning back only for a moment to shout, “Franky, Usopp - douse those fucking flames!” Then he too is gone.

Sanji doesn’t wait to see if his nakama will follow these instructions. He’s already springing into the air, following after the rubber idiot and the brainless moss, because someone needs to make sure this whole situation doesn’t go to shit.

His feet strike the planking of the other ship’s deck and straight away half a dozen guys rush him, which is the last mistake they’ll make today. Sanji kicks them overboard with no fucking ceremony, then proceeds to work his way through a mêlée of yelling, weapon-wielding pirates towards what he thinks is the location he remembers seeing the fire-throwing gun standing in. He’s not a hundred per cent sure on this though, because one side effect of the damn fire is dense clouds of oily black smoke, so pirates and ship appear only in glimpses through the eye-watering fog.

He thinks he hears Luffy whooping somewhere off to one side, but chances are their captain doesn’t need any help.

A pirate appears suddenly through a gap in the smoke and levels a pistol at Sanji’s chest: before the chef can take him down though, the man is sliced from behind and falls without even crying out. Revealing Zoro standing there, Shusui in his left hand. “You taking a nap, cook?”

“Mind your own business, asshole.” Sanji is not impressed: he pushes past, continuing on his way.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

“To take out that shitty flame thrower, moron!”

“It was the other way, in the bows of the ship.” Zoro says this with absolute confidence. It’s uncanny how disorientated he is in the universe.

“The bows are this way, fuckwit. Follow me.” And without giving the swordsman time to argue, because they haven’t got time on their side, Sanji hastens through the smoke.

Of course there is some more hand-to-hand fighting to be done en route, but nothing that they can’t handle. And then the smoke up ahead lights up with that sickly orange-yellow glow, and Sanji smells a harsh chemical stink and feels the heat drifting back from the flame even though it’s directed towards the Sunny.

Suddenly Zoro is at his side. “Fucking let’s do this,” he growls, and Sanji feels the anger emanating from the other man. Anger at the flaming weapon: because it’s threatening his nakama. Because there’s something strangely evil about that toxic roiling orange flame, licking at Sunny with hunger to destroy.

When they take a few more steps they can suddenly see it through the smoke: an ugly squat-barrelled gun the size of a man, its wide nozzle almost like a whaling harpoon launcher. The metal it’s made from is blackened and everything about it glistens. The two men aiming it at the Sunny haven’t noticed Sanji and Zoro’s approach: they’re too busy playing the flame along the ship they’re attacking and laughing at the Straw Hats’ efforts to extinguish the fires.

Unfortunately they aren’t the only men there. Two others are standing either side as well, maybe as stand-ins to replace their crewmates if they fall, to keep the flame gun in action. And these two most definitely see the chef and swordsman. They yell a warning to their shipmates, and lift their cutlasses.

Sanji takes his guy out with two well-aimed kicks: and Zoro despatches his own opponent with similar swiftness. But the delay is enough for the men at the flame-gun’s controls to realise they have a more immediate threat, and to change their direction of fire.

Sanji is turning back from finishing his man, and he looks round into the dark round nozzle of the flame gun. Now pointing directly at him.

Time slows down. He thinks he hears, even over the din of battle, the guttering cough the gun makes as fuel sloshes to where it needs to be. Smells its chemical breath, which will be followed by orange flame.

“Move.” The command hits Sanji at the same time as the fist slams into his chest, sending him flying backwards.

Then there is a clang of metal on metal and the smoky air lights up as if one of Nami’s thunderbolts has found them.

Heat and brightness and noise for a moment that lasts for an eternity. Sanji feels scorching on his skin.

Then he is lying flat on his back on the deck, staring up at swirling smoke. While around him there is shouting, and the smell of fuel oil is stronger than ever. But there is no more flame.

“Ughh... Shitty cook... You okay?” Zoro, sounding about as stunned as Sanji feels.

The chef pushes himself up and discovers that he is not, in actual fact, on fire anywhere. Which, well, good.

Except that part of the reason he’s not on fire probably has something to do with getting shoved out the way by a certain fucking swordsman who is absolutely going down for pulling that kind of shit when Sanji can take care of himself.

So he gets to his feet and moves - a little unsteadily - to where he can see Zoro, who is also pulling himself up to standing. Not surprising that the other man has been thrown to the deck too: the flame-gun has exploded into several pieces, presumably cleaved by Zoro’s sword because of course that moss-brained lunatic would think that chopping into bits something that was on fire was a smart move. It does have the advantage of having taken out the weapon and the two pirates who’d been wielding it, but still: it was the sort of crazy fucking overkill stunt that Zoro reliably pulls, and that makes Sanji want to kick the other man back onto his ass.

“Nice move, craphead,” he snarls. “You nearly fucking toasted us both!”

“...Nnghh...” Zoro stumbles, his hand pressed to his face. And almost falls down again, without the chef having to do anything at all.

“Now what the fuck are you doing?” Sanji demands irately, irritated still further by the swordsman’s uncharacteristic clumsiness. “Get a grip.”

And then he stops. Because Zoro has lowered Shusui, the katana shaking slightly in a white-knuckled grip. The swordsman’s other hand covers his face, his breath catching raggedly. And in between the breaths, a sound that comes out tells Sanji that the swordsman is in intense pain.

What the fuck -

Sanji drops his combative stance instantly and steps up to his nakama’s side. “Shit – you injured?”

“Can’t - ” The swordsman speaks harshly. “My face – can’t fucking see  - ”

And just like that, they step into darkness.

The fighting doesn’t continue for long afterwards, not that Sanji is paying much attention. With the flame-throwing gun destroyed, the other pirate crew soon lose enthusiasm for continuing to fight the Straw Hats. Particularly once Sanji has gotten Zoro back on board the Sunny and everyone knows that one of their nakama is hurting.

Sanji himself heads back over to the other ship once he’s left Zoro with Chopper, and does his best to make every fucker on there rue the day they ever crossed the Straw Hats’ path.

When the masts are splintered to matchwood and no-one is still standing, he and Luffy return to the Sunny and they set a course to take them away.

The stink of oily smoke still clings about the deck when Sanji makes his way across it, and through the infirmary door.

Chopper is bending over Zoro, who is lying on the bed. There is a bowl of some liquid with dressings soaking in it: and a wet dressing lying across the upper part of Zoro’s face, covering his eyes and forehead. The skin that is visible below the dressing has a red, angry look: it’s blistered and raw.

Sanji speaks, in response to Chopper’s sober glance. “We’re done. Nami’s put us on a new course.”

“I thought it sounded quieter out there.” Chopper nods.

“Yeah, well... We finished wiping out those sorry-ass bastards. That’s the last time they’ll try playing with fire.”

The words are hardly out of Sanji’s mouth, before he cringes inwardly. His gaze switches to Zoro, and he wishes he could unsay it.

The swordsman’s mouth just twitches, one corner lifting slightly. When he speaks, his voice is rough: maybe from the smoke. “They do... much damage?”

Apart from you?

Sanji stares down at him. “No. Usopp and Franky and the others got the fires under control pretty quick.”

“...Good.”

“Zoro.” Chopper speaks quietly. “I need to change the dressing on your face, for a fresh one.”

“Go ahead.”

Chopper carefully takes one of the dressings that are soaking in the bowlful of liquid and gives it a slight squeeze: then he deftly peels the used dressing from Zoro’s face, before replacing it with the new one. That this hurts is evident, because although Zoro doesn’t make any protest, his hands clench into fists on the bed and he exhales hard.

In the few seconds it took Chopper to switch dressings, Sanji catches a glimpse of the swordsman’s burns: the skin reddened and swollen, with more blistering. It looks really bad, and the chef wonders if the knowledge that his nakama are standing here watching him is keeping Zoro from showing how much pain he’s actually in.

“Oi... cook.” Sanji jumps slightly: he realises he’d been standing staring at the swordsman. “Are you still here?”

“Yeah.” Sanji swallows.

“Shouldn’t you be... fixing supper, or something? Luffy’s... gonna want feeding.”

“Luffy can fucking wait.” Sanji has never felt less motivated to think about food in his life.

“Cook.” Zoro’s voice hardens. “Chopper’s doing his job. Go and do yours.”

So Sanji does leave then. Turns around and walks out and only just manages to stop himself slamming the door behind him, because it’s not Chopper’s fault. Lets the anger propel him into the galley; and through prepping a meal for everyone, that if it reflected the mind state of the chef making it would have poisoned them all on the spot.

Zoro hears the chef exhale hard, before the scrape of a shoe on the floor is closely followed by the sound of the infirmary door opening and closing. He releases his own breath, slowly.

“How bad is the pain?” Chopper’s voice is quiet and steady; but concerned.

“Had worse.” And Zoro has, undoubtedly. But right now that’s pretty academic, because his face really fucking hurts. A lot.

“I’ll keep putting on wet dressings for another half hour, to cool the burn and minimise further damage. Then I’ll take another look at the injury.”

“...Uh huh.” The application of each fresh dressing, soaked in some kind of cooling lotion, lessens the fire in Zoro’s skin for a few moments. But the searing heat quickly floods back.

“I’m going to give you something, for the pain.” Chopper sounds reassuring.

Normally when Chopper is patching him up post-battle Zoro would retort, I don’t need anything. This time he stays silent. Just lies on the bed and listens to the little doctor moving around the room; the clink of metal and glass.

Chopper touches his arm. “Just a slight scratch.” And the needle goes in. After a minute, it’s taken away, and something soft swabs the crook of Zoro’s arm. “That should start to work pretty quickly.”

“Okay.” Zoro doesn’t know why he says this: there’s no need to reply. But there’s something about lying there not being able to see his nakama, that makes him want to talk to Chopper. It’s a way of reaching out, instead of feeling just the bed under his back and the sweat crawling over his skin. The burning that has taken over his face.

Chopper seems to sense this, because he attempts a conversation. “You were starting to tell me how this happened.”

“That flame-gun. We were trying to take the fucking thing out. Before Sunny got totally torched.”

“You and Sanji?”

“Yeah...”

“But things went wrong.”

“They had guys guarding the gun, we took the two of them down... Then I looked round and the shitty idiot cook was just standing there in front of the damn thing, staring down its barrel.”

“But you managed to stop them firing it?”

“First I knocked the cook on his ass, to get him out the firing line. Then I dealt with the gun.”

“How?”

“The usual.” Zoro starts to smile at this – then stops, because smiling moves his face, and fuck.

Chopper touches his shoulder. Zoro wonders if he let out some kind of sound. “So you destroyed it. What happened?”

“Everything lit up. Big wooomph.” He can still remember the sound, the scorching wave that hit him. “Then that was all she wrote.”

“Um, what?”

Zoro remembers that sometimes, Chopper needs people to be more literal. “Gun go boom... Problem solved.”

“But what about what happened to you?” The doctor sounds like he’s trying to piece it all together. “Did you get hit by flames? Burning fuel?”

“Flame. Yeah.” Zoro can still remember it, like the after-image left on your eyes when you’ve stared at a candle too long. When you close your eyes and see a ghost of the bright thing you were gazing at.

Except now he isn’t seeing anything at all.

“Were you facing the flame? Was your eye open?” Chopper probes gently.

“I guess so.” Zoro can’t break the memory of that moment down into that kind of detail. Just the hard ringing impact of Shusui slicing into the gun’s barrel, interrupting the intended blast; then a wash of fiery heat and light spilling out.

He remembers turning away. Just not quickly enough. And the shockwave of the gun disintegrating, essentially blowing itself up, knocking him onto his knees.

And finding when he groped his way back up to his feet, that he couldn’t open his eye. And not knowing for a few seconds if the cook had been hit by that fiery blast: if Sanji was conscious, or even still breathing. Until Zoro heard his voice, and inevitably the first thing that came out from the chef’s mouth was him bitching about Zoro saving his ass.

“The good thing is that none of the gun fragments hit either of you.” Chopper says this as if he thinks that part of his job is to help Zoro find the upside of all this.

“Yeah.” That probably is a good thing, Zoro thinks. But doesn’t really feel.

“And you stopped Sanji from getting hurt.”

“Won’t be making that mistake again in a hurry.”

Chopper makes a Tchh noise, but he’s used to the verbal warfare that constitutes his nakama’s baseline state of co-existence. “I’m sure he’s grateful.”

Zoro lets out something like a short laugh. “No he’s not. He’s fucking pissed.”

“Why would he be?”

“Who knows how that curly-browed twit’s brain works?”

“He came to see how you are, just now.”

“Probably wants to give me shit for making him look bad.”

“I don’t think so.” Chopper sounds unhappy now. “I think he’s concerned.”

“I don’t need anyone hanging around in here right now.” Zoro knows that with absolute certainty. “Just do whatever you need to, Chopper.”

“I am.” Chopper lets out a breath. “And in a little while, like I said... I’ll take closer look at the burns. And then we can decide what to do next.”

Zoro says nothing to this. Because he’s pretty sure of what next is definitely going to involve, for him.

Pain, continuing in varying amounts, for a significant amount of time.

And darkness.

Sanji lays out place settings on the galley table with unnecessary violence, in between finishing dressing a green salad and checking that the fusilli pasta he’s cooking is perfectly al dente. The sauce is already done, a simple Bolognese: something he could make in his sleep, because right now his ability to concentrate is almost non-existent.

Fishing out some fusilli from the simmering water and testing it to find that it’s done, he’s tempted to just leave it cooking over the heat. Boil the pasta until it starts to disintegrate, serve the whole thing as a gluey clump. Scorch the sauce too and scrape it over the top. Add so much vinegar to the salad dressing that it will make his nakama wince and gag as the acid taste hits their mouths.

Of course he isn’t going to do any of those things. He takes the fusilli off the stove and kills the flame; tips the pasta into a colander and leaves it in the sink to drain while he goes to the galley door that leads to the outside deck and sticks his head out to shout, “Supper is dishing up!”

The first one inside is Luffy, of course. He bounds into his chair as Sanji turns round and places pasta and sauce on the table in two tureens, followed by the large dish of green salad and a platter of garlic bread. “Hey, pasta! Yum.” Luffy’s hands, which are grimy and grey, reach out in two different directions to start grabbing food.

Sanji stops his captain dead by whacking both hands smartly over the knuckles in quick succession, with the serving spoon he is holding. “Keep your filthy fingers off the food until you’ve washed them, craphead!”

“Aww...” Luffy gives his hands a shake, flinging Sanji a reproachful look before heading for the sink and doing the necessary, with a good deal of splashing of water.

By now the rest of the crew are assembling, pulling out their chairs and making appreciative sounds over the food.

“This looks wonderful. Thank you, cook-san.” Robin, ever the mistress of the perfect compliment, smiles up at him.

“My absolute pleasure. Bon appétit, Robin-chwan.” Sanji returns the smile, but this exchange doesn’t give him his usual little glow of pleasure.

“Hey, garlic bread – my favourite.” Usopp plunders four slices off the platter: then when he catches Sanji’s incendiary look, wilts and puts two back.

“Mmm, this smells good.” Nami-swan being her lovely self, inhaling the fragrance of herbs and tomato and spices wafting up from her plate.

It does smell good, Sanji knows this. And his nakama are already starting to tuck in, and the chef sits at the table too and waits for Brook to finish with the dish of pasta – and even with everything else in Sanji’s mind, he still finds a moment to wonder how the hell it is that a skeleton can have such an unholy appetite.

Sanji dishes up his own meal: not a full plateful, because he’s not especially hungry. Still aware of the scents of the food he’s just cooked. Wondering if he’s got the balance right: maybe it could’ve used just a soupçon more oregano?

And suddenly becoming aware that he can smell something else, under the pleasant scents of the food. A harsh off-note, chemical and oily. And a bitter tang of smoke. It’s clinging to all of them, to their clothes and hair and even their skin, after the fiery encounter they’ve recently been through.

Sanji feels his stomach close. And he sets down his fork.

Franky notices, pausing in devouring his own meal. “Something wrong, bro?”

The chef looks at him, then picks his fork up again. “No.” He digs his fork into his fusilli and slowly eats a mouthful. But finds his eyes shifting away, further down the table. To where two place settings stay unoccupied.

Robin, who is often the most perceptive of the crew, notices the direction of his gaze. She speaks: not specifically to Sanji, but to the table in general. “We should set some food aside for Zoro and Chopper.”

Sanji doesn’t know if Zoro will want to eat. And Chopper when he’s in worried-doctor mode usually forgets to: but of course what Robin says is correct. So he stands up and says, “Yeah, good point.” And thankfully abandons his own meal to dish up two more platefuls, then covers them and sets them on the still-warm stove top. “I’ll take these through to them in a little while.”

“How is swordsman-san?” Robin does look at him this time: her voice is a quiet enquiry.

Sanji is aware that everyone around the table is watching him. He hasn’t sat down again: he’s propped himself against a kitchen counter, and has taken out his cigarettes and lighter. Which is bizarre: he never smokes in there when people are eating.

Pushing the things back into his pockets, Sanji looks back at Robin. Her face holds only its usual calm. “Chopper’s working on him.” Which is a dumb answer: Robin and the rest of his nakama already know this.

“He looked pretty bad.” Nami says this, with her usual forthrightness. Her voice is tight: when Sanji shifts his gaze to her, he sees she’s frowning with concern.

“What happened over there?” Usopp’s the one to ask, inevitably: always wanting to know what the deal is when he hasn’t been in the thick of the action.

Once again Sanji finds himself reaching for his cigarettes: once again he reminds himself that people are eating. “We were trying to stop those bastards from setting fire to Sunny, with that flame-thrower gun.”

“Yeah, but what happened?” asks Usopp again, like the insatiably nosy craphead that he is.

Sanji folds his arms across his chest and stares their sharpshooter down. “What do you think happened? That idiot marimo chopped the damn thing in half, and it blew up.”

Usopp’s eyebrows hike up. “Whoah...”

“Shame you couldn’t have captured the gun instead, cook-bro,” Franky muses. “Would’ve been interesting to see how it worked.”

“Not to mention, maybe a less dangerous way of dealing with it,” Nami says grimly.

“Yeah, well – I guess the fact that I was about half a second away from being fried to a crisp meant we didn’t spend much time considering all the options.” Sanji directs his ire towards Franky and Usopp, because snapping at Nami is unthinkable. “Sorry, maybe you’d prefer it if I’d tried plugging the barrel with my foot instead?”

His explosion of words silences the room. Temporarily.

Nami is the first one to speak. “Of course we wouldn’t. Don’t be stupid, Sanji.”

Don’t be stupid. It’s only the fact that it’s his beloved Nami-swan saying this, that stops Sanji from losing it entirely.

“No-one’s saying you did anything wrong, Sanji-san.” Brook’s polite tones attempt to pour oil on troubled waters. Brook is habitually polite in the way that he addresses everyone, even when the shitty skeleton is sexually harassing the ladies by banging on about panties; but there is something even more careful than usual about the way he says this. “Injuries happen in the course of battle. And you and Zoro-san did indeed save us from a very perilous outcome... Things could have turned out a great deal worse.”

“Yeah? You want to try telling Zoro that?” This escapes Sanji before he can stop it. He clenches his teeth as soon as the words are out, but it’s too late.

Like his previous explosion, this mutes everyone for a few seconds. Robin is the only one brave enough to break the silence this time. “I think perhaps we should wait until we hear from Chopper... how Zoro is.”

That is sensible and at least has the merit of stopping people talking about what’s happened. Which Sanji needs right now, because he’s filling up with anger and something else that he doesn’t want to put a name to. “Good idea.” He turns to the covered plates he’s set aside, and picks them up. “I’m going to take these to the other two. If anyone’s still hungry, there’s fruit over on the counter for dessert.” And with that he turns away from the table and heads to the door that leads through to the infirmary.

Sanji has only gone a couple of steps when he realises that Luffy is following him. He pauses with his hand on the door handle and shoots their captain a dirty look. “Are you hard of hearing, craphead? Dessert’s over there.” And he jerks his head back in the direction of the kitchen counter.

“I’m coming to see Zoro,” says Luffy simply, giving the chef a look that says, Duh.

Sanji lets out a hard breath. “Whatever.” And balancing the two plates of food in one hand, he opens the door and walks through.

Chopper looks round as they come in: he’s sitting on a high stool next to the bed, evidently still tending to Zoro. “Oh: Sanji. And Luffy.” He says this slightly more loudly than necessary, and Sanji realises that he’s doing so for Zoro’s benefit: because of course the swordsman doesn’t know who’s just entered the room.

It gives Sanji a queasy kick in the stomach: that need to do things differently because of what’s happened to Zoro. To help the swordsman cope. It makes this feel much more horribly real.

“I’ve brought you both some supper.” And Sanji is doing it too: providing a narrative, where normally it would be totally fucking obvious what he was doing. He tries to normalise things, by adding, “And don’t think you’re getting waiter service next time.”

Chopper takes his plate from Sanji with a grateful smile, but when the chef holds the second plate out towards Zoro, he is halted by not knowing what to do next. Tell the swordsman the food is right next to him? Touch his arm?

Sanji settles for another verbal explanation. “Oi, moss-head. Your food’s getting cold. It’s right next to your elbow.”

Zoro is still lying down flat on his back, so he’ll have to sit up to eat. But what he actually does is grimace slightly... Then he moves his head slightly from side to side, as if shaking it. “...Not hungry right now.”

That makes Sanji angry, straight away. “Tough shit. Your food’s here, and it needs eating.”

“I could eat it for him,” Luffy offers, craning round Sanji to eye Zoro’s helping.

“Touch this plate and I’ll give Chopper another patient to work on.” The chef gives their captain an evil look.

“Mehhh...” Luffy groans with disappointment: and unexpectedly, over on the bed Zoro lets out a low laugh.

“Zoro, you should eat something,” Chopper admonishes. “And you should drink plenty of water, too – burns are very dehydrating for the body.”

“Right...” Zoro mutters, like Chopper has suggested that he drink urine.

“Listen to the doctor, idiot moss.” Sanji does prod the edge of the plate against Zoro’s arm, this time. “Sit up and do what you’re told.”

Zoro sighs, heavily. “Just leave the fucking plate, shit cook. I’ll get round to it.”

Sanji is about to insist; then he notices that Zoro’s hands have clenched into fists. And has a sudden realisation of what this must feel like: to be lying on a bed, sightless, with people telling you to do things. While being in a lot of pain.

So instead he just says, “Fine. I’ll put your plate over here. Chopper can give it to you when you’re ready for it.” And sets Zoro’s portion on the nearby desk.

Chopper only eats a few mouthfuls of his own supper, before he too sets it aside. “Zoro... I can put a proper dressing on your face now I’ve taken a closer luck at the burns. Shall I do that? Then you can eat, and get some rest.”

“Okay.” Zoro acquiesces to this in the same flat tone he’s said everything so far.

“I think you should sleep here in the infirmary tonight.” Chopper says this firmly. “I’ll sit here a while, just to make sure you’re all right.”

Yeah: the moss-head’s not gonna like that, Sanji can’t help thinking. But Zoro doesn’t react, other than to respond just with another short acknowledgement. “Whatever.”

Luffy has wandered closer to the bed: now he reaches out and grabs Zoro’s foot, giving it a shake as he speaks cheerfully. “Get better quickly, Zoro.”

Zoro’s mouth makes a wry smile. “...Yeah.”

“Chopper’ll fix you up!” Luffy still sounds like he’s smiling; but what he’s actually doing is looking determinedly at Chopper as he says this, with that no-nonsense expression Luffy sometimes gets. Of having decided that This is how things will be, and nothing anyone else says will change that outcome.

Usually that expression is only ever directed at enemies or obstacles to be overcome: so it’s not surprising that Chopper’s eyes widen slightly. Kudos to the little doctor, though. Instead of just meekly agreeing with their captain, he takes a deep breath. Nods; but then says, “I’ll do what I can.”

The room suddenly feels very quiet.

Chopper turns to Zoro then. Places one hoof on the swordsman’s shoulder. “Zoro. There are things I can do, to help you heal. But you have partial-thickness burns across your face, and they’re especially bad on the right side.”

The right side. Sanji has a bad feeling he knows where Chopper is going with this.

“There’s a lot of swelling and blistering, and I’m sure that there’s also a lot of pain right now.” Chopper says this calmly and quietly. “You must have been hit up close by the flames from the gun. But what may have helped, is that extreme heat triggers our blink reflex: so you probably closed your eye very quickly when it happened. So it may only have been exposed to the flames for an instant.”

The memory of that scorching heat washing over him makes Sanji blink himself. He can’t help it.

“There’s no way I can carry out an examination of your eye right now. And it’s best not to,” Chopper explains. “I’ve disinfected and cooled the burns: taken out the residual heat with those wet dressings. Now I can cover the burns with a special antibacterial dry dressing, that won’t stick to your skin. Then the best thing for us to do, is to leave the burns to heal.” He pauses, momentarily, keeping his gaze on Zoro as though the swordsman can see him in return. “I’ll need to check them every day: apply a fresh dressing, make sure that the burns aren’t getting infected. Then when they’ve healed up enough, we can take the dressings off permanently; and I’ll examine your eye properly.”

Zoro nods, just once. Seems to be taking a moment to think; then asks the first obvious question. “How long?”

“Before we can take the dressings off and I can do the examination? Four, maybe five weeks.” Chopper regards his patient with an apprehensive expression. “I know it sounds a long time... But it’s best to give your eye plenty of time to heal.”

“...Uh huh.” The swordsman‘s mouth settles into a hard line, for a moment... Before he asks the second obvious question, in almost flippant tones. “So when you take the bandages off, then... What’s the odds I’m actually gonna notice the difference?” 

Chopper actually winces at the way the swordsman says this. And Sanji thinks, Bastard.

“That’s dumb!” Luffy thumps his fist against Zoro’s ribs. “Of course you’ll notice. When Chopper takes the bandages off you’ll be able to see.”

Zoro doesn’t respond to the captain’s blow, or to his optimism. “I’m asking Chopper.”

The little doctor blinks, and his eyes dart from Sanji, to Luffy. Then back to Zoro. “Uh...” He swallows; then squares his shoulders as if he was in Heavy Point. When he speaks again, his voice is very steady. “I think... that the human body has a remarkable ability to heal, given the right conditions.”

Sanji feels something constrict in his chest.

But Zoro doesn’t get the full implications of what Chopper’s saying. Or maybe he does, but he chooses to adopt his usual bullshit I’m-fucking-invulnerable attitude of total denial. Whichever it is, his mouth curls up at the corners into a grim smile. “Thanks, Chopper.” As if the doctor has confirmed what Zoro already knows.

“Hah...” Luffy folds his arms across his chest and his fierce grin mirrors the swordsman’s, as he regards Zoro. “See? You’ll be fine.”

Sanji says nothing. Because really, there is nothing else to say: in the face of Chopper’s medical expertise, and Luffy’s iron-clad certainty, and Zoro’s infuriating determination not to yield to the fact that he has taken major damage.

Four to five weeks is going to seem like a very long time.

Chopper reaches to one side and picks up a dressing, and a roll of bandage. “Zoro: if you sit up, I’ll put the dry dressing on.”

The swordsman does so: slowly, using his arms to steady himself. As Chopper carefully peels away the used dressing, Sanji gets another glimpse of the burns on Zoro’s face. They look worse than ever, the skin darker and misshapen with blisters and swelling. Even if Zoro’s actual eye isn’t damaged, there’s no way he’d be able to open it.

Chopper deftly covers the burns with the new dressing, and secures it in place by winding the bandage a few times around Zoro’s head. When he steps back the dressing looks shockingly clean and white, but also a little surreal: as if Chopper has blindfolded the swordsman for a child’s game.

“That’s done.” Chopper steps back. “Do you think you can eat something now, Zoro?”

The swordsman’s jaw is clenched, delaying his reply for a moment. It’s clear that Chopper’s changing of the dressing, however carefully done, seriously hurts. “...Yeah. Okay.”

Sanji picks up the plate from the nearby table, and brings it to the bed. Instead of nudging the swordsman with it this time though, he takes the fork from the plate; holds it out and says quietly, “There’s a fork here, just by your left hand.”

Zoro’s left hand lifts slightly, drifting up and to the side until it brushes the chef’s: pauses, then redirects to the fork itself. Takes it from the chef’s fingers.

“And the plate is just in front of your right hand.” Sanji positions the dish of food. This time Zoro uses his fingers to test the distance, before sliding his hand underneath the plate to take it from the chef. Sanji waits to feel the swordsman take the weight of it: but even then he checks with the other man, before releasing his own hold. “Okay. Got it?”

“Yeah. You can let go, cook.” Zoro’s voice has just the beginning of an edge to it: a warning to Sanji to stop hovering.

So Sanji steps back. But not without responding, “Just making sure you don’t drop that plate, moss-head. Luffy causes enough breakages, I don’t want to lose any more kitchenware.”

A muscle jumps in Zoro’s jaw, but his only response is a grunt. He takes a forkful of pasta and manoeuvres it cautiously towards his mouth; but he’s only been chewing a moment when it becomes evident that even this small action of eating is making the pain worse. He puts the fork on the plate, then sets the whole thing down on his thigh, letting out a breath.

“Don’t you like it?” Luffy sounds surprised. “It’s really good.”

“It’s fine.” Zoro makes no move to pick up his fork again. “Just... really not hungry, right now.”

This is the closest admission the swordsman has made to saying how he actually feels. That he’s hurting and clearly wants to be left alone. To deal with what he’s been told. That he will be like this: eyes bandaged, sightless, for four or five weeks.

Which is not the worst case scenario.

Sanji wants to argue with Zoro: make him eat, refuse to leave until the plate is empty. But he understands that if he was in Zoro’s place right now he probably wouldn’t want to eat either. If he was Zoro, he might be throwing that plate at the wall.

“Okay, moss-head.” Sanji’s voice, when he speaks, is quiet. “No problem. When you’re feeling hungry, just let me know.”

Zoro makes no reply. His head tilts forward a little; his hands stay resting on his thighs, one holding the plate with the fork resting on the uneaten food.

Chopper is the one who speaks next. “You’ll probably be feeling drowsy, with the shot I gave you. You should get some rest.”

“...Yeah.” The swordsman’s voice is low.

There’s no-one left in the galley when Sanji goes back through, to clear up and wash the dishes. Luffy wanders off to the men’s bunkroom, after Sanji has made it clear that Zoro’s unfinished supper is going in the refrigerator and not in their eternally hungry captain. Chopper stayed in the infirmary, but doubtless after a while he’ll also be heading to bed.

There isn’t much to be tidied away in the galley and some of the crew have already made a start on washing up their dishes. Sanji suspects that Nami might have been the instigator of this, bless her authoritarian little heart. He finishes what’s left, then wipes down the counters. Puts on a kettle of water to make tea and sits down at the table, to check his meal planning for tomorrow and the rest of this week. And when that’s completed to his satisfaction he decides to run inventory on supplies, because that always needs doing.

Sanji has been sitting there frowning over his supply ledger for a while when the quiet creak of the door from the infirmary opening and closing makes him glance around. Chopper walks through: stops when he sees Sanji. “Oh... I thought I’d be the last one to bed.”

Resting his arm on his chair back, Sanji shakes his head. “No... I had some paperwork to do. Making sure we’re okay for supplies till we next hit land.”

Chopper nods. “I do the same thing.”

“You want anything?” Sanji gestures at his own small teapot and cup next to him on the table. “A drink?” He considers this, then elaborates on his offer. “Milk?”

The small doctor gives a nod. “Yes... Please.”

Sanji pours a glass of milk and sets it down on the table in front of Chopper, where he has taken the seat next to the chef. Sitting back down again himself, Sanji closes up his ledger and puts his pen away. Chopper watches him do this, taking a sip of his drink; then gives him a small smile. “Thank you, Sanji.”

“No problem.” Sanji pours himself another cup of tea; then raises it towards the doctor in a mock salute. “Down the hatch.”

Chopper does his own slightly self-conscious salute, and takes another drink.

It’s very quiet in the galley.

Sanji finds he needs to break that silence. “What you said in there.” He looks at the doctor. “About Zoro. When he asked you... how likely it is he’ll be able to see, when those bandages come off.”

Chopper hunches slightly in his chair. “Um... Yes?”

“I knew what you were saying, even if that idiot marimo was pretending not to.” Sanji finds himself picking his cigarettes up off the table: pulling one out. “Those burns are pretty bad, aren’t they?”

The doctor nods. “Yes.”

“So the chances that his right eye hasn’t been damaged by what’s happened, aren’t good.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t able to examine his eye to see.” Chopper says this cautiously.

Sanji flicks his lighter open: holds the flame to the end of his cigarette. “But what do you think?”

“What I said. That injuries can heal, given time and the right care.” There’s almost something stubborn about the way the doctor says this.

Sanji gazes at the lighter flame: sees instead that fiery wave that scorched over him when he was knocked flat on the deck of that other ship. “I really fucking hope so.”

“I’ll do what I can to help.” Chopper sounds determined.

“Yeah. I know you will.” The chef snaps his lighter shut, extinguishing the flame with a sharp click. “I just wish I’d done something different.”

“What do you mean?”

“Over on that ship. When we were taking on those guys at the gun. Maybe if I’d been quicker, this would have turned out another way.”

“I’m sure you did the best you could.”

“Or maybe if that fucking moss-brained idiot hadn’t sent me flying, I could’ve done something. Something that didn’t involve chopping the damn gun in half.” Sanji says this harshly, and realises that he is so full of anger and other things about what went down that he doesn’t know how to deal with it. There’s nowhere for the fury to go: and now Chopper is looking at him with widened eyes. So the chef takes a hard pull on his cigarette; then lets out a cloud of blue smoke. “...Shit. Sorry; ignore me. I’m just... pissed about what happened.”

“It was just bad luck.” Chopper tries to be comforting, like he always does. “And anyway: if Zoro hadn’t pushed you out of the way, maybe you would have been burned instead of him. That wouldn’t have been any better.”

Inwardly, Sanji feels himself wince at this.

- You would have been burned instead of him.

It’s the exact same thing Sanji has been thinking. With the exception of thinking should  instead of would.

There’s no point turning this into an angst-fest, though. And definitely no point in burdening Chopper with any more of his dark thoughts. So when Sanji responds, he just says, “Yeah. Guess not.”

They sit there for a little while longer: Chopper drinking his milk and Sanji sipping his tea. At last the doctor gets up. “Eh... I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll check on Zoro in the morning.”

“Okay.” Sanji nods. “I might stick my head in there myself before I hit the sack, make sure the moss-head hasn’t fallen out of bed or anything.”

“Hopefully he’ll be able to get some rest.” Chopper has a small frown of worry, his usual expression whenever one of his nakama is injured. “The shot I gave him should have helped... But those kind of burns are very painful. Especially on an area like the face.”

The chef wishes he could unhear this. But really, he’d already worked that out. He tries to give Chopper some kind of reassurance, though. “The marimo’s pretty tough. He’s taken worse damage than this.”

“I know.” Chopper responds quietly. And his tone makes it clear that he’s not comforted by this: any more than Sanji himself is, for having said it.

After a short pause, the doctor gives an unconvincing smile, and a nod. “Well... I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

“ ‘Night.” Sanji nods in return. Watches his nakama leave; then sits at the table in silence, smoking his cigarette and sipping his tea.

When the pot is empty and his cigarette is down to the filter, Sanji washes up cup and teapot; dries them and the other crockery and cutlery from supper, then puts everything away. He turns off the lamps... But sits back down at the table. Lights another cigarette. Stays there alone, smoking it, in the dark.

Except it’s not really dark. Moonlight comes through the portholes and paints bars of silver-grey light across the table. Sanji gazes at this: the contrast of light and darkness. Watches the smoke from his cigarette spiral into being as it hits the moonlight, then wink into nothingness as it passes back into shadow.

He knows that the smoke still exists, even though he can’t see it. Sanji himself is sitting in shadow, but when he inhales the tip of his cigarette glows cherry red. Glows like a small distant sun lost in a wide universe.

He focuses on this for what seems a long time. The little fiery glow, waxing and waning as he breathes life into it. The smoke drifting away until it becomes lost.

Zoro has never noticed before how noisy Sunny is at night.

He’s been awake at night on the ship, many times. He’s pulled his share of night watches, like everyone on the crew has: and he’s sometimes woken up in his bunk and listened to the sounds around him before going back to sleep. His nakama’s breathing; the ruffle of blankets as someone turns over; a stifled fart or unstifled snore. The creak of timber and rope that any ship has, like a living thing. The sounds of waves and wind, insistently reminding you that you’re guests on the surface of the ocean only as long as they let that happen.

So Zoro is used to those noises: they’ve been a background to his time living as a pirate with his nakama, ever since they sailed in Merry. He supposes that Sunny sounds different to how Merry did, but the swordsman doesn’t know that for sure. He doesn’t recall listening hard enough to tell.

Now though, he can hear all kinds of things he’s never noticed before. Maybe it’s partly because he’s lying in the infirmary rather than in his bunk. He’s hearing sounds from a different perspective. Not as close to the fore mast as the men’s quarters, so he can’t hear the creak and flap of canvas and rigging. The gaff sail on the main mast must be furled right now... It feels from the gentle pitch and roll of the ship that they’re moving steadily but not fast.

The sounds that Zoro can hear are quiet but clear. He guesses that Chopper has left one of the infirmary portholes ajar, to let in the night air. Above the sea sounds there is a whispering rustle: the leaves of Nami’s tangerine trees, moving in the breeze.

Earlier, while Chopper was still in here sitting with him, other sounds had filtered through from the galley. The clink and splash of the cook clearing away and washing up in there, doubtless making everything neat for morning. After a while the sounds had quietened. A little later, Zoro had heard Chopper get up and approach the bed where he was lying. There was a pause, in which he guessed the little reindeer was peering at his patient.

Zoro had just lain still and done nothing other than breathe. Which had seemed to work: because half a minute later, Chopper moved away. The swordsman had heard the infirmary door open and shut; then a few moments later, the quiet sounds of conversation between the doctor and the chef in the galley beyond. Zoro hadn’t been able to hear the actual words, just a murmuring between his two nakama. Which was good, because he really hadn’t wanted to know what they were talking about.

Chopper’s words from earlier return to Zoro now.

- I think that the human body has a remarkable ability to heal, given the right conditions.

The swordsman knows that the crew’s doctor never bullshits anyone about his medical abilities, or about likely prognosis. Chopper sometimes nags Zoro not to do certain things when he’s injured, sure; and the little reindeer has a tendency to exclaim and fuss far more than is necessary. But that he’s a good doctor, is something that no-one on this ship doubts.

So hearing Chopper’s cautious reply to Zoro’s question has told the swordsman everything he needs to know. That there are no guarantees. Until Chopper is able to actually take a look at Zoro’s right eye, the doctor won’t entertain a worst-case scenario... but neither will he raise any false hopes.

Wait and see.

The phrase leaps into Zoro’s mind and he almost smiles grimly at the irony of it, except he doesn’t because smiling hurts right now.

Scratch that: even doing nothing, hurts right now. The shot that Chopper gave him a couple of hours earlier helped for a while: but a while has passed, and it feels like whatever painkiller it was has worn off.

Under the dressing bandaged across his eyes, Zoro’s face feels as though layers of skin have been ripped away. As though fire is being played across the unprotected flesh, wave after burning wave lighting up the nerve endings there. It never stops: and whenever it ebbs a little, the pain simply returns at higher volume.

Chopper explained this, in that unsolicited doctory way he does. Telling Zoro that the kind of burns he has are the most painful type: deeper than superficial burns, therefore affecting the nerves more severely... But not the severe damage of full-thickness burns, where flesh and nerve endings are completely destroyed, ironically resulting in less pain.

Chopper also talked about possible scarring and treatments to avoid this, at which point Zoro stopped listening, although he kept making the occasional grunt of assent to convey otherwise. That he doesn’t give a shit about what scars he winds up with should be evident to any of his nakama by now.

Pain though is another fucking thing entirely. Zoro can most definitely endure it: but it dominates his world right now. Not least because he can’t see a damn thing, there’s nothing to focus on except those small night-time sounds and his own less-than-sunny thoughts and the tight, burning sensation of his injured face.

Chopper’s suggestion that the swordsman get some sleep is a good one, except fuck, yeah: try sleeping when it feels like someone set your face on fire.

Which technically is what actually happened. But with the added twist that the someone responsible for this, is Zoro himself.

He finds himself re-running those few seconds over and over in his mind. No clearer now than when Chopper first asked him: but Zoro replays those moments anyway. Trying to figure out what he could have done differently.

Not pushed Sanji the hell out the way?

Then the cook would’ve just been lit up, standing frozen on the spot like some dumbass slowpoke. So: no, Zoro considers that decision was the right one.

Not sliced Shusui down into the fire gun’s barrel, releasing the wave of flame?

Well, shit: considering he hadn’t had lot of time to make that call, what else could he have done? And it wasn’t like he knew the goddamn thing was going to explode.

It makes sense, whenever Zoro rethinks it. No-one died, and they stopped Sunny from being torched. So it was worth it.

But he doesn’t let himself continue that line of thinking. Because the next thought after it is, You don’t know yet what the price is going to be.

It would help if he could sleep, because hopefully then he could stop replaying the whole scene in his mind. But sleep evades him: and the more Chopper’s painkiller wears off, the more Zoro shifts restlessly on the bed and wonders how long it is till morning. Though why that matters is unknown. When morning comes he’ll still be in the dark, both figuratively and literally.

He starts to feel thirsty, after a while. Remembers what Chopper said about him needing to drink water, and telling him that there was a glass and jug of water on the shelf by the head of the bed. Pushing himself to sit upright, Zoro gropes sideways and his fingers touch the smooth coldness of glass. Maybe he’s still a little dopey from Chopper’s shot though, because instead of closing his hand round it to pick it up Zoro knocks the glass over instead, and water spills over his arm and into his lap.

“ – Shit!”

Zoro makes a grab for the glass and somehow bats it away. A half-second later there is a crisp smash, the glass shattering as it hits the tiled floor.

Zoro grips the edge of the mattress with his hand and lets out a hard breath. “...Fuck.”

Another sound breaks into the room, making Zoro’s head turn, tracking towards it: the door that leads to the galley opening. An instant later, Sanji’s voice addresses him. “You okay, moss-head?”

Zoro directs his reply towards the patch of space the chef’s voice seems to be emanating from. “Yeah.”

Footsteps approach across the tiled floor. “...Mm-hm.” The swordsman hears the soft brushing sound of clothing, Sanji maybe bending over; then the slight chink of a fragment of glass being picked up. “That why you’re busting up the place?”

“I knocked the fucking thing over.” Zoro mutters this, feeling somehow angry that the chef has witnessed what happened.

“Well... No harm done. Just one less tumbler for me to wash up.” More sounds of broken glass being tidied. “And a wet floor.”

Zoro himself is also wet, where he spilled most of the glass’s contents over himself; but he doesn’t mention that. “Just leave it, shit cook.”

“Yeah, good plan. Because sharp pieces of broken glass combined with a slippery wet floor is bound to end well.” Sanji’s snort is dismissive. “I’ll just go grab a cloth, clear this up.”

The chef’s footsteps move away before Zoro can argue. When they return there are more sounds of glass being swept up, followed by the sound of methodical wiping. Then there’s the sound of glass being dumped in a bin, before Sanji says, “Right, that’s better. Now Chopper won’t impale himself on glass shards when he comes in here to check on you in the morning.”

“Great.” Zoro tries to discourage further conversation with this terse answer. He could really use some alone time.

The chef, of course, either doesn’t get this or more likely doesn’t care. Because the next thing Zoro hears is the trundling of what must be the chair being brought across the room: then the slight creak that is evidently Sanji sitting down on it, somewhere close beside the bed. “Here...” Zoro hears the rustle of the chef’s clothing and suddenly has a sense of the other man’s nearness. He realises that Sanji is leaning right across the bed, his arm brushing against the swordsman for a moment. Zoro is about to bristle when he hears the clink of glass against glass; then the lup-lup of water being poured. “...I fetched another glass. You were thirsty, right?”

The cool smoothness of something touches the swordsman’s left hand now. It holds steady while Zoro moves his fingers and thumb, lifting them slightly to find and encircle the glass of water that Sanji has filled for him.

The swordsman tightens his hold on the glass and gives it a slight tug, to lift it free. There’s just the slightest pause before the chef releases his own grip, as if he’s judging whether or not Zoro can manage what he’s doing. Anger starts to flower in Zoro again but he holds it down. Sanji most likely thinks he’s being helpful. Which admittedly he is: but Zoro doesn’t want to be helped. Doesn’t want anything right now except to be left alone.

Okay, and he wants a drink of water. So maybe just drink it and keep things simple.

The water feels blissfully cool going down his throat, a pleasant contrast to the fire elsewhere. Zoro drinks until he’s drained the glass, then lowers it to rest on his thigh. Sanji must be watching, because the chef asks quietly, “You want some more?”

“I can do it.” Twisting so he can reach the shelf by the bed, Zoro reaches out cautiously with his right hand, while lifting the empty glass with his left. His searching fingers find the jug that Chopper has left there: he curls them around its handle and brings the glass to where he thinks the jug’s lip must be. Once he makes contact with a chink, he tips the jug. Water sloshes out faster than Zoro predicted, and he feels it spill over his fingers. He straightens the jug up too quickly, and splashes some again. But now at least the glass must be full, so Zoro plonks the jug down on the shelf and brings the glass to his mouth. Takes another cool mouthful.

“Do me a favour, moss-head.” The chef sounds like he’s smirking. “Don’t ever go into the restaurant trade.”

This is a gibe at Zoro’s pouring skills, which he resents. “Like I’d ever want to do something that lame, curly-brow.”

“You’re wet.” The chef still sounds smug.

“And you’re annoying. Pretty soon I’ll dry out, but you’ll still be annoying.”

“Asshole.” Sanji says this without his usual ire. As if he feels the need to rein in their usual verbal combat somewhat.

Zoro takes another swallow of water. He rests the glass on his thigh, before asking, “How come you’re still up?”

“Running inventory.”

“At whatever fucking time in the morning this is?”

“It’s only...” The soft ruffle of a sleeve being pushed up, as the chef obviously checks his watch. “...A little after one.”

“Some reason you can’t check the stores in daylight?”

“It’s nice and quiet when everyone else is asleep. Means I can get the job done without interruptions of the Luffy variety.”

“You’re usually up fixing breakfast before everyone else anyway, shit cook. You plan on getting any sleep at all?”

“What the fuck do you care, craphead?” The chef’s response has an edge to it.

Zoro lets out a dismissive breath. “I don’t give a shit. Except when you come wandering in here bothering me.”

“You didn’t want attention, you shouldn’t have started hurling glassware around.”

The swordsman clenches his hand on the glass. “In a second I’m gonna start hurling it again.”

“Want me to keep talking, so you know where to aim?”

If the chef is aiming to get Zoro’s fist in his face, he’s going the right way about it. And Zoro is pretty sure he can manage it, even blindfolded.

But the urge not to yield to the provocation Sanji is offering is stronger than the one to lash out. So after a few seconds of silence, Zoro says, “If you’re done with giving room service, shitty cook, you can get lost.”

“I’m not a fucking bellhop.”

“You’re not getting a tip, either.”

“Holy crap.” Sanji does sound annoyed now. “I just swept up your mess, moss-head, and brought you another glass. Would it kill you to say thanks?”

“Thanks. Now can I get some sleep?”

“Be my guest.” The chef lets out an angry huff. Which is not followed by sounds of him standing up and getting the fuck out of the infirmary. Instead there is the rustling of clothing; shortly followed by the click of his lighter, then a sharp inhale.

Giving it a few seconds, Zoro eventually says, “What’re you doing?”

“I’m smoking, fuckwit.” There is the sound of Sanji blowing out: a moment later, Zoro can smell the cigarette too. “You got a problem with that?”

“I don’t give a shit. But Chopper’ll bust your ass for smoking in here.”

“Yeah, as if.” Sanji snorts. “Anyway... This whole fucking ship smells like an ashtray right now.”

The chef is right. Even in the infirmary, Chopper’s antiseptically-clean kingdom, the tang of charred wood and black smoke and fuel oil lingers in the air. Zoro knows it’s on his clothes, in his hair: he can smell it over the medicinal odour of the cooling solution Chopper used to treat the burns on his face. “...Right.”

“We were lucky, though. That those bastards didn’t manage to catch our sail properly alight.” Sanji pronounces this grimly, not as if he feels lucky at all.

“Yeah... You said the other guys managed to put the fires out quick?”

“Uh huh. Otherwise we could’ve been in deep shit.”

“What happened, with the other ship?”

“Totalled,” the chef replies succinctly.

“They give you guys much trouble?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle. I was up for holing their ship below the waterline, but I got outvoted.”

Zoro lets out a low laugh. “Doesn’t sound like your style, shit cook.”

“For those motherfuckers? I’d have done it and watched them go down with a smile on my face.” Sanji sounds like he means it.

Zoro smiles at this: then the smile hurts, and he stops it. His fingers tighten around the glass he’s still holding as sweat floods his skin.

“You okay?” The chef’s inquiry comes swiftly.

Letting his breath out slowly, Zoro holds still for a second. Waits for the fire to ease off a little, before he answers. “...Yeah.” Waits another few seconds, before lifting the glass and taking a mouthful of water. Coolness as a distraction from the stinging heat.

“You want me to fill that up again?” Sanji’s offer is quiet. Almost solicitous. And suddenly Zoro is caught unawares by a different wave of heat: anger, welling up in him and needing an outlet. Frustration and pain and inability to change this fucking thing that has happened to him, that has robbed him of his sight. Even if it’s just for four or five weeks - and he realises now how intensely he is hoping to fuck that’s all it will be - that’s over a month where he’s almost useless. Deadweight on this crew: unable to protect his nakama. Unable even to pick up a fucking glass of water without smashing it on the floor.

The anger rips through him, seeking a way out. But Zoro spends a large part of his life working on control, so that’s the part of him that surfaces now. His voice sounds level when he answers the chef. “I can do it.”

Sanji gives a short, irritated sigh. “Fine.”

Having said he can refill his glass, Zoro has to do it, to underline his words. It goes slightly better this second time and he spills less water. He sips some, then sets the glass aside on the shelf by the bed. Carefully. Before turning his head towards where he knows Sanji is sitting. “Oi. Cook.”

“Sitting right here.” The chef responds drily.

“I’m gonna have to manage a shitload of stuff for myself, the next few weeks. So I’m starting as I mean to go on.” Zoro needs to spell this out. “I don’t need to be tripping over you guys, the whole time.”

“What: you thought we were all gonna start waiting on you hand and foot? Hate to break it to you, moss brain, but no-one on this ship likes you that much.”

“I’m saying, I can deal with this. Just give me some fucking space.” The anger swirls and eddies inside him, but Zoro has got it under control. “Starting right now. Okay?”

There is a silence which stretches for almost a full minute. Which is finally broken by the sound of the chair moving away across the floor. Followed by Sanji, speaking in a voice that is controlled as Zoro’s own. “Fine. Then I’ll say good night.” And footsteps walk away without waiting for an answer. The door to the galley opens... then quietly closes.

Zoro lets his head rest back against the pillow. Releases a long breath. And goes back to not sleeping.

After being told to go away by Zoro, Sanji doesn’t attempt to finish his inventory in the galley. Instead he walks straight through the darkened room and out the other door, into the night. His anger carries him as far as the ship’s rail, where he stands and smokes his cigarette. Gazing out over the dark heaving sea, which looks as restless as he feels.

- Just give me some fucking space.

Sanji should be used to the swordsman’s total lack of tact by now, but it still grates on him: the way Zoro will just say what he feels, regardless of how it sounds. Where other people would find a way of phrasing things so that they don’t offend, the swordsman always seems to think it’s not worth the effort. Either that, or the mossy shithead is just too damn lazy or stupid or both, to even think about his impact on people around him.

Sanji inhales smoke and realises that his mouth and throat have had enough of it. He’s been chain-smoking since suppertime; and even before that, smoke has been a major theme on the Sunny today.

He holds the cigarette between finger and thumb; before neatly flicking it over the rail towards the sea. Its glowing end makes a red ember that arcs outwards then down, like a tiny falling signal flare. A moment later it vanishes: snuffed out by the cold saltwater embrace of the waiting waves.

Letting out a slow sigh, Sanji turns away from the rail and heads down the steps to the deck. Knowing he’s probably as tired as he can make himself, so there’s a good chance he’ll get some sleep. And at least he can shed his clothes before climbing into his bunk. Try to get away from the stink of burning that has dogged him all day.

Chapter Text

“One poached egg or two, Nami-swan?”

The Straw Hat crew’s navigator sets down her glass of orange juice. “Just one; thanks, Sanji.”

“Coming right up.” Sanji hums quietly as he works at the stove, timing the simmering water in the poaching pan carefully to ensure that Nami’s breakfast is as perfect as such a gorgeous specimen of womanhood deserves.

“I want scrambled eggs and bacon!” Luffy announces this from his vantage point at the table, as if Sanji is some kind of breakfast vending machine that will produce on demand. “And sausages. Can I have four sausages?”

“No sausages this morning, craphead. And wait your turn.” Sanji gently scoops the nicely teardrop-shaped, tenderly poached egg out of the water and lets it drain for a moment; before dishing it up onto crisp freshly-toasted bread, placing a couple of grilled tomatoes beside it, and delivering the whole appetising plateful of food to Nami with a flourish. “Bon appétit, mademoiselle.”

“Mmm...” Nami eyes her breakfast with a smile. “Heavenly. Thanks!”

Sanji smiles back, then turns next to Robin: studiously ignoring Luffy, who has picked up his knife and fork and is jittering them against the table impatiently. “And what may I cook for you this morning, Robin-chwan?”

“Oh, I think I’ll just have toast.” Robin takes a sip of her coffee. “Is there any of that delicious blackberry jam left?”

“Of course!” Sanji delves into a cupboard and places it and the butter dish beside his lovely dark-haired nakama, along with a teaspoon and a knife; whips a couple more fresh slices of wheatbread toast from under the grill and delivers them to her on a plate. On the way back to the stove he detours to pluck Luffy’s cutlery from his hands, cutting short their captain’s impromptu drumming performance. “Quit that racket! You’re disturbing the ladies.”

“Food..!” Luffy groans, letting his head fall down until it’s resting on his empty plate.

Sanji ignores him: practice makes perfect. He is actually planning to feed Luffy next - not least because if he doesn’t, experience has shown that no-one else is likely to be able to finish their own breakfast before Luffy attempts to steal it. Except Nami and Robin, of course: Luffy knows that if he tries stealing the ladies’ food, his teeth will wind up in close proximity with Sanji’s shoe.

A quiet clunk signals the opening of the door that leads from the infirmary and Chopper enters the galley. He hops up onto a chair and gives his nakama a slightly distracted smile. “Morning.”

Everyone says or mumbles a reply, depending on how awake they are and whether or not they’re currently eating their breakfast.

“How is Zoro this morning?” inquires Robin.

A small frown dints Chopper’s brows. “He says he’s not staying in bed any longer.”

Over at the stove, Sanji snorts. “Haven’t you got some kind of horse tranquiliser you can shoot that lunkhead with?”

“Um, no.” Chopper looks alarmed at the notion.

“Is he okay, then?” Usopp asks this hopefully.

“Not really.” The little doctor shakes his head, and the room goes quiet.

Nami is the one to ask the question they all evidently want to know the answer to, her voice quiet when she addresses Chopper. “How badly is he hurt?”

“He’s got serious burns on his face. I’ve treated them the best I can: now it’s a question of waiting, to allow healing to take its course.” Chopper says this steadily.

 “Zoro-bro must be hurtin’,” Franky exclaims, with a grimace.

“Yes. But that’s not the biggest problem.” Chopper takes a deep breath: his eyes glance at Sanji briefly, then at Luffy... Before he delivers the unwelcome news to the rest of his nakama. “Zoro’s right eye may have been damaged, as well. So for the time being... he has to keep it covered.”

“Whoah...” Usopp’s brows hike up. “You mean - he can’t see?”

“Yes.”

“But – he will be able to, once he’s healed up? Right?” The sharpshooter says this on a rising tone, as if he’s audibly processing what everyone else round the table is doing privately. “I mean – Chopper, you’re not saying he’s gonna be permanently blind, are you?”

Usopp means well and he’s a genuinely caring guy. But right now Sanji wants to hurl the cast iron skillet from the stove at the longnose’s head.

Permanently blind. The words go through him brutally, like a poorly-sharpened knife.

Chopper looks around his nakama at the table. “I don’t know how badly Zoro’s eye has been hurt. And we won’t know, for four or five weeks. For now, it has to stay covered: that’s the best way to help it heal.”

“Five weeks, not being able to see?” Nami is frowning. “That’s going to be difficult for Zoro.”

“It could be funny!” Luffy offers a typical contribution from Luffy-Bizarro-Land.

Sanji fixes him with an angry stare. “What the fuck is funny about this, craphead?”

“We could play all kinds of practical jokes on him! He won’t be able to see what we’re up to.” Luffy waves a finger in the air. “Ah! We could pass him sugar instead of salt at mealtimes, he wouldn’t know till he’d covered his food with it! Heh... Zoro hates sweet stuff.”

“Firstly: no-one is wasting perfectly good food on this ship, by ruining it with practical jokes.” Sanji grinds this out. “Secondly: I doubt Zoro will find big laughs in having the fact that he can’t fucking see made into the butt of your deranged sense of humour.”

“Yeah, but it’s only for a few weeks.” Luffy responds with absolute certainty. “We ought to make the most of it.”

Sanji shakes his head angrily. “What Chopper’s saying, is we don’t know how bad the damage is. We may not be talking about Zoro not being able to see just for a month: it could be for a lot longer. It could be - ” But Sanji stops himself before the word permanent leaves his mouth; because hearing it said once already in this conversation was one time too many.

And also the chef catches himself because their voices are starting to rise in volume: and sound travels.

Chopper glances at Luffy, who is now scowling at the chef. “Until I can actually examine Zoro’s right eye in a few weeks’ time, there’s no way of telling if his sight is damaged. So we all need to be patient.” His gaze switches to Sanji. “And it won’t help Zoro if we speculate on gloomy outcomes. We have to be positive: and think of ways we can make the next month easier for him to manage.”

“Like, how?” Usopp, ever-practical, wanting to get into the specifics. “I mean... Just finding his way around the Sunny is gonna be kind of difficult for him, isn’t it?”

“Many blind people can navigate their way around familiar places, by creating a mental map of their surroundings,” Robin contributes. “Despite not being able to see, they often develop a remarkable ability to memorise the layout of different locations and orientate themselves.”

Robin often comes out with utterances that silence the Straw Hat crew, usually because she never shies away from voicing the fearful things that everyone else shrinks from saying aloud. But this time, everyone is silenced for a different reason.

Which can roughly be summed up, by the communal thought: Zoro is screwed.

No-one says this aloud, not even Robin; but everyone is thinking it, nonetheless. Because the idea of Zoro being able to navigate anywhere successfully, with or without a map - mental or otherwise - is about as likely as Luffy announcing he’s become a vegan.

Nami breaks the silence. “Perhaps if we strung up some kind of system of ropes he could follow?”

“That might work,” Usopp agrees. “Hmm... Maybe we could attach an object to the end of each rope, to show where it leads to? Like, a spoon for the galley? An empty wine bottle for the aquarium bar?”

“A sock for our bunk room!” Luffy suggests cheerfully, scowl forgotten.

“Make it one of the dirty ones you leave lying all over the floor,” Sanji responds.

“What about the bathroom? Maybe a sponge...” Usopp muses.

“Yeah; it’s not like that moss-head actually bathes often enough for that to be an issue,” Sanji comments drily.

“There’s plenty of spare rope in storage,” Franky remarks. “I’ll fetch out a few coils, string up some lengths round the ship.”

“I’ll give you a hand with that,” Usopp offers, obviously keen to contribute to the Keep-The-Swordsman-From-Stepping-Overboard project.

“Okay, then that’s fine!” Luffy turns back to Sanji and gives him a quick grin, before lapsing back into his more familiar mealtime refrain. “Can I have my breakfast now?”

There isn’t actually much else to talk about, now the big topic has been tackled. So Sanji merely gives an irritated shrug, before returning to the stove.

A little while later, everyone has a full plateful and Sanji is just fixing himself scrambled eggs when the infirmary door opens for a second time and Zoro appears.

He takes a couple of careful steps into the galley and then pauses for a moment; evidently trying to figure out his bearings from memory. His nakama have gone quiet, everyone’s gaze drawn to the swordsman’s bandage-blindfolded face.

Chopper is the first one to react: scrambling from his chair and hastening towards his patient, waving his arms fretfully. “Zoro! You should still be resting.”

Zoro’s head turns towards the doctor. “I’m fine.” He takes another step forward – and knocks into the corner of the small cabinet that stands at the end of the galley couch, rattling the den den mushi that stands on its top.

“Be careful!” Chopper flutters nervously around him.

“Damn it, marimo: sit down at the table and stop breaking up the place,” Sanji instructs, before returning to his eggs on the stove before they burn. “Chopper: show him where he needs to go.”

Zoro scowls. Chopper looks nervous, but holds out his arm until it touches the swordsman’s hand: after a pause Zoro grips it, and the two head towards the table. When they reach it, Chopper guides Zoro’s hand to the back of an empty chair. “That’s a chair, you can sit there,” he explains helpfully.

“No shit.” Zoro’s responds drily, as he sits down. “Thanks.”

Over at the stove, Sanji is irritated by this. Okay, Zoro doesn’t want people fussing over him – and most likely the swordsman is still in considerable pain – but the chef is still not going to tolerate that kind of surly rudeness over the breakfast table. He dishes up his scrambled eggs onto his plate and sets them on the stove top to keep warm, before raising his voice. “If you got out the wrong side of bed this morning, moss-head, lose the attitude. It’s eggs for breakfast. How do you want yours?”

Zoro’s head tracks in Sanji’s direction, the swordsman evidently triangulating by sound. “...Omelette.”

“Fine. There’s coffee on the table: someone can pour you a cup.” Sanji reaches for a nearby bowl and cracks four eggs into it; adds a dash of soy sauce and seasoning; then begins whisking it all together with a fork.

Zoro likes his omelette rolled up in thin layers as it’s cooked, which requires more attention than an ordinary French-style omelette; so Sanji has to concentrate on what he’s doing for the next few minutes. When the eggs are cooked and rolled up Sanji dishes the omelette onto a plate and cuts it into thin slices, the layers making neat spirals. He partners it with toast and the last of the grilled tomatoes before carrying the swordsman’s plate and his own and sitting down at the table, setting Zoro’s breakfast in front of him. “Here.”

The swordsman’s right hand finds the edge of his plate, while the other explores for his fork and picks it up.

“You want salt?” Luffy leans in helpfully, a mischievous gleam in his eye. Sanji skewers their captain with a look, and Luffy folds his arms with a thwarted expression. “I was only asking...”

Zoro’s head turns slightly towards the younger man, as if he’s trying to follow what’s going on from the only clues he has: what’s been said. “Yeah. Salt and pepper.”

Usopp helpfully passes them across the table, plonking them down in front of Zoro’s plate so that the sound of the salt cellar and pepper mill hitting the table will guide Zoro to them. “Right in front of you.”

Picking one up at a time, the swordsman applies seasoning more or less onto his food. In too-generous amounts, but then it’s impossible for him to judge how much he’s using. Sanji wants to point out that he himself has already seasoned the food so it doesn’t need to be condimented to death, but he restrains himself and concentrates on his own breakfast instead.

Zoro picks his fork up again and hovers it for a second over his plate. Then prods downwards, in an attempt to capture some food. First time he misses and the fork clinks against the plate; but on his second go he spears one of the rolled omelette slices and manages to convey it to his mouth.

Everyone is sort of watching but pretending not to. It’s weirdly hypnotic, watching someone eat when they can’t see what they’re eating. Zoro succeeds in conveying a second piece of omelette to his mouth, but his third fork-foray skewers an entire grilled tomato. He’s about to shovel the whole thing into his mouth when Sanji intervenes. “Okay, wait. Luffy devouring food like a sea king is bad enough – cut that up before you eat it, craphead.”

Letting out an irritable sigh, Zoro replaces the tomato on his plate; spends a few seconds locating his table knife and positioning it against the fork; then cuts the tomato in half.

Or at least, that’s presumably what his plan was. What actually happens is that Zoro applies too much force when he uses the knife, as if the moss-headed idiot’s wielding one of his katana... and the half of the tomato that isn’t still pinned by the fork skates off his plate and onto the table itself.

Luffy lets out a snort of laughter. “Hey, tomato on the loose!”

“Damn it...” Zoro lays down his knife and fork heavily, and gropes with his free hand for the escaped foodstuff.

Sanji props his head on his hand and watches the swordsman locate the tomato and retrieve it; hesitate a moment, then simply shove it into his mouth.

Fuck it.

Rolling his eyes, the chef says, “Good plan, moss-head. Just ditch the cutlery and use your fingers, it’ll be easier for you and less gruesome for the rest of us.”

Zoro’s mouth momentarily tightens into a line at this... But then a grim smile quirks up the corners. “Whatever.” And he abandons any semblance of table manners, picking up a slice of toast from his plate and positioning several slices of omelette on top of it; then folding this into an improvised sandwich before chomping into it.

Sanji shakes his head, then returns to finishing his own breakfast.

Usopp rests his folded arms on the table, leaning slightly towards Zoro. “Hey, Zoro: Franky and me are gonna rig up some ropes around Sunny. So you can, y’know, find your way around a little easier.”

The swordsman swallows a mouthful and looks like he’s giving this some thought. “Ropes?”

“Yeah: tied up in strategic places along the rails and walls, so you can follow the rope to wherever you want to go. And we’ll hang different objects on the ends, so you know where each rope leads to. Like, across the lawn deck to the men’s quarters; or to the aquarium bar.”

“We’ll make it so you should be able to get around, bro. Might take you a little longer than usual, but that’s no big deal,” Franky adds helpfully.

“Uh huh.” Zoro nods slowly in agreement. “I guess I’ve climbed up the rigging to the crow’s nest some nights in the dark, when there’s been no moon... Not such a big difference.”

Sanji’s ears prick up. “Oi, wait a minute. Franky and Usopp are going to put up these ropes for you at deck level. No-one’s talking about you going anywhere near the crow’s nest.”

“That’s where I train.” Zoro responds in a voice that makes it clear he’s not going to get into a debate about this.

“So for the next month you’ll be training on the deck. Get used to the idea.” Sanji isn’t going to yield to this bullshit. “We’ll bring down your weights and other crap, you can store them in our bunkroom when you’re not heaving them around.”

The swordsman folds his arms across his chest. “Hell with that. I can train in the gym, like I always do.”

“Get real.” The chef feels his own anger also starting to rise up. “You think climbing about in the rigging sixty feet above the deck when you can’t see a thing, is a smart idea? Forget it, moron.”

“You plan on stopping me? Just try it, dartboard-brow.”

Robin manages to interrupt their escalating war. “Maybe... a safety line? As we use sometimes on deck, when we’re sailing in high winds and storms?”

“That makes sense, Zoro-san,” Brook agrees in similarly calm tones. “That way, you could still maintain your training regime... but take sensible precautions to avoid any further injury.”

This is a clever way to frame it: by implying that by doing otherwise, Zoro is possibly risking adding to his woes. Sanji would have said something similar, except he is too occupied with being angry that not even the fact that Zoro is sightless deters the swordsman from continuing to be an idiotic reckless bastard. And rather than reasoning with the moss-brained shithead, Sanji wants to kick his fucking ass the length of the galley.

But right now is not a good time for a fight. So Sanji lets out a long breath, and waits. And after a moment, Zoro grudgingly acquiesces to his nakama’s suggestion. “Fine: I’ll wear a damn safety line. Whatever.”

“I’ll fix that up as well, Zoro-bro.” Franky gives a thumbs-up. “I’ll rig something you can clip onto and unclip from, like a climber’s harness... It’ll be super-easy.”

Breakfast ends pretty soon after that, as the only one still eating is Zoro. Usopp and Franky head out to start creating their rope network; and Chopper heads back into the infirmary, no doubt to tidy up. Robin and Nami walk out together, talking about some book Robin has read that she thinks Nami will like; while Brook saunters after them humming a jaunty tune. Finally Luffy, who has lingered at the table with an acquisitive eye on Zoro’s breakfast, ventures to sneak one of the swordsman’s remaining omelette slices... Until Zoro’s fist nails their captain’s hand to the table, with a warning growl of, “Oi.”

Luffy is utterly unrepentant: he chuckles as he wrings his fingers, then lopes away from the table and heads for the door. As he goes, he addresses his first mate. “I’ll bet I can grab something at lunchtime!”

“Just fucking try it,” Zoro retorts. “Next time I’ll use a fork.”

Luffy laughs again, then vacates the galley.

Sanji is over at the sink, starting to run hot water ready to wash up. He glances at Zoro, half expecting the swordsman to be scowling.

But the swordsman doesn’t look pissed at Luffy’s antics. He’s actually smiling a little.

Huh.

Sanji turns back to the sink and adds dish soap, thinking about this. The warm water feels pleasant on his hands as he stirs up a froth of bubbles; slides the first dish into the basin.

Behind him there’s a clink of cutlery being placed on a plate, then the clunk of an empty mug being set down. Zoro has evidently finished his breakfast. Without turning round, Sanji asks, “You want anything else? More coffee?”

“No.” There’s a longish pause; then the late addition. “Thanks.”

Sanji hadn’t expected anything different. It’s not like being injured is likely to produce any improvement in the swordsman’s manners, it never has before. “Just leave your plate and stuff on the table, I’ll come and get it.”

There is no answer. But a moment later Sanji hears Zoro’s chair scrape back, followed by the chink of crockery being stacked together and picked up. He turns to see Zoro stepping away from the table with plate and mug in one hand, while the other rests on the back of his chair. The swordsman seems to be considering something: maybe trying to remember the layout of the galley? Then Zoro takes a determined step forward.

Sanji opens his mouth. Before shutting it again, watching. It’s only a couple of steps from where Zoro’s sitting at one end of the table to the bar counter, and the swordsman negotiates the distance successfully. His knee bumps against the padded bar seat and he stops; before reaching out and placing his plate and mug down on the counter top with only a slight clatter. In spite of himself, Sanji is impressed. “Thanks.” Zoro just nods.

Sanji resumes washing up; but after a moment, becomes aware that Zoro is still standing there.

Well, shit: yeah. How the hell is he going to go anywhere else?

Quietly placing a rinsed frying pan to drain, Sanji thinks about what to say before he says it. “...You hanging out to be sociable, or is there somewhere you’d rather be?”

Zoro’s mouth quirks with either frustration or annoyance, it’s not clear which. But when he speaks his voice is neutral. “You busy?”

“No more than usual. But you want to take a walk, I don’t mind being your seeing-eye dog.” Sanji makes sure his tone has no sting in it. “Where’d you want to head to? Bunkroom?”

“That direction, yeah.” Zoro’s mouth twists slightly again, then he admits gruffly, “I need to use the head.”

“Okay...” Sanji responds in measured tones.

“I just want pointing in the right direction, shit cook. I don’t need fucking assistance in there,” Zoro clarifies.

“So very glad to hear that.” Sanji wipes his hands dry on a dish towel, then comes around the counter to where the swordsman is standing. He steps alongside the other man: reaches out with his hand to take hold of Zoro’s arm, then stops.

No, wait. How did Chopper do this?

The chef thinks for a moment, before raising his right arm again until it just touches Zoro’s left hand. “Ready when you are.”

The swordsman’s hand lifts, then those strong fingers slide along Sanji’s arm: curl round his elbow and grip. “...Right.”

Sanji walks and Zoro does too, just half a step behind him. It feels strange to be close together like this, almost as if they’re walking along holding hands. The chef can smell the swordsman; the medicinal scent of whatever Chopper used on the burns, along with the persistently clinging acrid overtones of smoke on his clothes and hair. And beneath both of those the smell that is Zoro himself, that Sanji is so familiar with: sweat and choji oil. Honed strength, clove-spiced steel.

They navigate the galley door successfully to get outside, then turn left and head the few paces along the deck outside. The stairs down to the deck take them a moment to figure out: but of course there’s a rail on their right-hand side, so Zoro can hold onto that while resting his other hand on Sanji’s shoulder.

Once they’ve reached the level grass deck things get easier. They pass Franky and Usopp, who give them a cheerful hello as they busily attach a rope along the rail; then they’re at the bulkhead of the foredeck with its door through to one side of the men’s quarters. This is where Sanji halts; before saying, “Okay, we’re just outside our bunkroom. Think you can take it from here, or you want me to give you door-to-door service?”

Zoro reaches up and out with his right hand: his fingertips touch the door, then he lets go of the chef’s elbow. “Which way’s the mast?”

“To your right.” Sanji rolls his eyes at this, safe in the knowledge that the swordsman can’t see him. Then he realises that just saying right  and left probably aren’t going to cut it, so he lightly taps Zoro’s right shoulder. “That way.”

The swordsman nods; turns slightly, placing his left hand instead of his right against the bulkhead, and starts to walk where he needs to go. Grunting as he does so, “Thanks, cook.”

“No problem.” Sanji watches the other man move away. Wondering if maybe he should ask Zoro if he wants another escort after he’s done... But decides against it. Instead he turns on his heel and heads back to the galley, to finish clearing away breakfast and start prep for lunch.

Zoro manages to find the toilet door without too much trouble, not least because the stairs from the foredeck stop him from overshooting and going astray. Using the toilet itself is also straightforward enough.

Afterwards, the next challenge is finding his way into the men’s quarters from the foredeck stairs. He keeps his hand on the bulkhead until it touches the door frame, then walks inside. It’s quiet in there, which hopefully means no-one else is around. Zoro gropes along the wall for the wash basin, which he knows is by the entrance somewhere: his fingers find a cool smooth surface, the glass of the basin’s mirror. So far, so good.

The swordsman washes his hands, then feels sideways, where he thinks his toothbrush will be. But of course his fingers touch not just one but several.

Shit.

There is absolutely no way to tell which his own toothbrush is, he realises. For a moment he wonders about using his finger instead, but it doesn’t seem likely that would work... So he randomly selects a toothbrush and gives it a go.

Maybe don’t mention that to the other guys.

Ablutions over with, Zoro considers his next move. A change of clothes would be good, because he’s been sleeping in the pants and shirt he’s wearing, and both still reek of smoke and fuel oil. This however necessitates finding his own locker, which turns out to be an epic quest.

Using his hand on the bunkroom wall Zoro makes it to the bunk beds, knocking his head and knee simultaneously into the nearest pair. Then he has to detour around them, until he finds his locker by trial and error. Shucking off his dirty clothes and pulling on some clean ones is easy enough: he abandons the dirty laundry on the bunkroom floor by his locker for the time being, this being not uncommon practice anyway. He also abandons his boots, because it’s quickly becoming obvious that touch is going to be a useful sense; going barefoot will add to his ability to navigate around.

Heartened by his successful negotiation of these various tasks, Zoro decides to head back outside. Opting to abandon the wall and try making straight towards where he thinks the door is, he steps boldly out... And trips over some more dirty laundry, that his nakama have also left lying on the floor.

Zoro manages not to fall, but he does stagger. When he takes a couple more steps his foot snags on the sofa cushion and he goes down. Right onto the sunken table, which has sharper edges than he remembers.

“ – Fuck!”

It’s an ungainly sprawl: he can’t see where he’s landing so he’s only able to bring his hands in front to fend off what’s coming. Which is basically a wooden table with extremely square corners, one of which catches Zoro neatly in the solar plexus because his left hand misses the table entirely and goes down into the sunken foot-well instead. He just manages to prevent himself from face-planting on the table itself, which is a lucky escape. Maybe giving himself a broken nose would be a partial distraction from his other problems, but Zoro isn’t eager to test that out.

The table corner knocks out his wind so he stays there for a few seconds, swearing once his breath returns... Before pushing himself up to his knees and taking stock. His lower ribs feel bruised where they collided with the table; his wrist also aches, from catching his weight. But nobody was actually here to see him fall over, so Zoro calls that a win.

Once he’s on his feet again, Zoro proceeds a lot more cautiously: exploring the floor ahead with his toes, left hand outstretched, palm frontwards. This gets him back to the bulkhead and the door without further incident.

Outside he thinks for a moment, before placing his right hand against the bulkhead and stepping forward until he reaches the rail. As he gets there, Franky’s voice hails him from somewhere in his vicinity. “Yo, Zoro-bro. Where you going?”

It’s been mildly disconcerting, not knowing which of his nakama are in his vicinity until they speak. But only now it occurs to Zoro, that he could use observation haki to address this issue.

Meantime, he thinks about Franky’s question... And decides there’s only one answer. “Figured I’d head up to the crow’s nest.”

Franky gives a little chuckle, as if he’s unsurprised by his crewmate’s decision. “Yeah, I guessed you might want to go up there sooner rather than later. Wait there a second, bro. I’ll just go get what we need.”

Zoro listens to Franky’s footsteps walk away. Then he concentrates... and yeah, haki shows him an instantly-recognisable longnosed glowing silhouette also nearby. He directs a question towards it. “You guys finished stringing up those ropes?”

Usopp answers cheerfully, “Pretty much. ‘F you move your hand downwards, you’ll feel one.” Zoro does so. As his fingers curl around it, Usopp explains how their guide lines work. “This one leads between our bunk room and the stairs up to the galley... Try following it to either end.”

It’s easy to keep one hand on the rope and walk along the lawn deck. The grass feels cool and soft under Zoro’s bare feet. When he reaches the rope’s end at the foot of the stairs a teaspoon greets his questing fingers, dangling from the stair rail where it has been tied on.

“We’ve hung a bunch of different stuff around the ship. We thought you’d figure them out easy enough.” Usopp speaks from behind him; so Zoro turns around and reverses his journey, until he stops near their sniper again.

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll go exploring later.” Zoro smiles after saying this, because he wants Usopp to know he’s grateful for the effort his nakama have put in.

“Heh... Yeah.” Usopp also sounds like he’s smiling. But when he speaks again, his voice has changed. Become more earnest. “Like... Whatever we can do to help. Y’know?”

This offer of assistance feels too much like sympathy for Zoro to be comfortable with it. Okay, he’s... incapacitated, and will be for a few weeks. But he doesn’t plan to rely on his crewmates on a daily basis. Being temporarily sightless reduces his usefulness in combat situations, but the swordsman has already decided he isn’t going to let any of his nakama feel even slightly responsible for him. “What you and Franky’ve done is fine... Thanks.” And he wants to add, I can take it from here.

Usopp seems to perceive this without Zoro having to say it though. He just responds, “Hey, no problem.”

No problem. Zoro hopes that this is the case. But he already has a sense that the next month will not be problem-free.

Franky rejoins them shortly afterwards, and proceeds to hand Zoro a knotted rope harness with three loops: two smaller ones for the swordsman’s legs, and a larger one which fits round his waist, over his haramaki. The shipwright shows Zoro how to put the harness on and take it off; how to attach himself to rigging or ropes using a clip carabiner that is tethered to the harness by a shorter length of rope.

“It’s a pretty standard rig that climbers use, bro,” Franky explains. “You can just clip on to wherever you are up in the rigging: then if you miss your footing or whatever, you won’t fall on our heads.”

That sounds like a win for all involved. Zoro nods, “Great.” Then places his hand on the Sunny’s rail.

“Gonna take it for a test drive?” Franky says this cheerfully, but there’s a hint of seriousness in his voice. Like he feels some degree of responsibility for what Zoro’s going to do. Which is logical: because Franky has made the safety harness, so if Zoro does fuck up and take an accidental dive from the masthead into the ocean (best case scenario), Franky is something of an accomplice in this scenario.

So Zoro gives his nakama a grin, regardless of the pain that this causes his injured face; and responds, “Wanna race me up there?”

Franky laughs, and a moment later the shipwright’s sizeable hand slaps Zoro on the shoulder. It’s like being given a friendly slap with a plank, but no matter. “Nah, bro. Have fun.”

Thus encouraged, Zoro steps forward, running his hand along the ship’s rail until his fingers touch the first of Sunny’s deadeyes, the discs of wood that secure the ship’s ropes to the rail. From there it’s simple to follow the rigging up to the second, higher deadeye: then above that to the criss-cross ropes of the ratlines.

“Try clipping on,” Franky suggests. “Check everything’s working okay.”

The metal carabiner at the end of the short length of rope is easy to use, and the rope lanyard itself is long enough for Zoro to reach up an arm’s length before clipping onto a horizontal rope in the ratlines. The carabiner closes with a slight click.

“Just test your weight on it.” This time Franky sounds intent, like he’s watching carefully to make sure his handiwork is reliable.

Zoro lets go of the clip... then leans back from the rail until he feels his weight taken by the harness. He places one hand on the lanyard, which is taught; lets himself lie back further.

“Super.” Franky pronounces this with satisfaction. “Harness feel okay?”

“Yeah.” The knotted rope round his waist and upper thighs holds him securely, but isn’t uncomfortable. Zoro stands up straight again, and the pressure slacks off.

“...Cool.” Usopp comments this, evidently admiring Franky’s creation. “You use a square knot and half hitches?”

“Uh huh. And a figure-of-eight for the lanyard. Coulda used an overhand or a barrel knot, but those puppies ain’t so good for this kinda thing...”

Zoro recognises as this knot conversation escalates that his nakama are mutually geeking out, so he uses this as an opportunity to escape. Placing one hand on the upper rail he lifts his bare foot and finds the lower rail with it: then hoists himself upwards. His other hand finds the ratlines and from there the only way is up.

At first he takes it slowly, finding a rhythm between climbing and pausing to unclip the carabiner from one part of the ratlines to reattach it higher up. It would be quicker not to bother with this: simply scale the rigging unattached, using the ladder of rope squares as he’s done hundreds of times, it’s not difficult. But a sense of that grudging promise he’s given to his nakama stops Zoro from doing this.

- Fine: I’ll wear a damn safety line.

No-one except the damn nagging cook made any objection to Zoro scaling the heights, but still the swordsman is aware that there is an unspoken trust involved. He recalls Brook’s calm words.

- Take sensible precautions to avoid any further injury.

There was nothing implied then, that the injuries Zoro already does have are his own fault. But really, who else’s fault are they?

Once again, those few seconds pass through his mind. The split-second decisions he made, the actions he took. His fist connecting with Sanji’s chest and the cook flying backwards. Shusui sweeping down and slicing into the gun barrel, releasing that flaring wave of heat and blinding yellow light.

Blinding.

The word resonates as though Zoro has spoken it aloud. No-one has actually said it around him or anything like it: the word blind hasn’t been mentioned, even by Chopper.

The chef has come closest, with that crack he made before guiding Zoro out here: I don’t mind being your seeing-eye dog.

The swordsman is used to their verbal sparring, giving as good as he gets. And when the chef reaches a certain level of aggravation, using physical means to shut the annoying fucker the hell up.

Since yesterday the tension has almost reached that flashpoint a couple of times, but instead of fighting they’ve backed off. The only physical contact has been Sanji touching him as some form of assistance. Pouring him that glass of water, last night. Steering him out of the galley and down the steps, the chef’s arm steady in Zoro’s grip.

It’s unfamiliar, this kind of guarded touching: and somehow it sets Zoro’s teeth on edge. As does the vibe he’s already getting from his nakama, of them wanting to help. Except Luffy, who is his usual asshole self. But for some reason, the unwanted attention grates most of all from the chef.

Zoro is thinking about all this so hard he forgets to unclip his lanyard and is brought up short by it tugging against his harness. Letting out a grunt of irritation he lowers himself back down a step, unclips the carabiner, shifts it upwards and reattaches. Resumes his steady upwards progress, resolving to stop thinking about stuff he doesn’t really want to ruminate on.

When he reaches the topmost extent of the ratlines, he pauses to consider the next challenge: moving across from the rigging to the foremast’s yard, then stepping from there onto the ladder that leads into the crow’s nest. It will have to involve unclipping his safety line from the ropes of the rigging, and he’s not sure where it should go next. Maybe he can transfer it to the crow’s nest ladder?

Zoro decides to give it a try. He moves to the furthest edge of the ratlines: hangs on with his right hand, before reaching out as far as he can with his left. Normally he doesn’t even think about making this move, high up above the deck. It always felt easy, stepping swiftly from rigging to yard and up onto the crow’s nest ladder.

But now he can feel the sway of Sunny’s mast head, arcing him back and forth. The breeze has picked up since he started climbing and the ship is rolling and pitching as she traverses the waves. He can hear the creak of her rigging; the flap of the fore sail; the rub of tarred ropes against sun-warmed wood.

Zoro’s left fingertips just brush against a metal rung: the crow’s nest ladder. To reach it properly he needs to shift his weight, which means stepping out with his left foot too. His bare toes find the curved wood of the yard and he feels a rough line of rope there too: one of the robands that secures Sunny’s foresail to the yard. It’s at once familiar and strange, because he’s touched it with his hands countless times when helping to fix broken rigging; but he’s never explored it like this, with the bare sole of his foot.

Zoro stands there for a while, poised halfway between rigging and yard, trying to call up a visual memory of this part of Sunny. Sometimes when he’s been training on hot days he’s come out and stood here on the yard, to catch the breeze and cool his head.

Then it suddenly occurs to him that if anyone is watching him from below on deck, it will seem like he’s frozen in place, uncertain. This instantly makes Zoro unclip his safety lanyard and lean further left, his right foot and hand leaving the rigging. He brings the carabiner across: metal clinks against metal as he reattaches himself to Sunny, then he’s climbing upwards, to where he needs to go.

The gym is quiet. Zoro steps out onto the floor and the metal feels cool and smooth under his feet. Franky’s harness comes off pretty easily and he loops it around one of the ladder supports, on the basis that then he’ll know where to find it when he’s ready to climb down again.

This makes him pause for a moment. Reflecting on how the downward journey might feel, retracing the route he’s just taken.

No big deal. I’ve got up here, I can get down.

Even so, he’s careful to step well away from the ladder and crow’s nest entrance. Because he really doesn’t want to inadvertently step down it and get back down to the deck a hell of a lot faster than he intended.

The bench that runs round the gym perimeter makes an easy-to-follow boundary, though at first Zoro finds the telescope by walking into it and almost sending the fucking thing crashing to the floor. He reverses direction and tracks down the training locker, with the couple of weights he’s left on the floor in front of it.

It’s only when Zoro begins doing his reps that he starts to really understand how important being able to see a horizon is for maintaining balance. On the climb up here he was able to gradually adjust to the sway of the mast: but hefting weights about raises his centre of gravity, which makes for tricky lifting.

Eventually he gets a feel for it and settles into some serious training. Forgets everything except concentrating on the numbers; on his breathing; on the slow burn as his muscles get a decent workout.

But after a little while there’s a stinging heat elsewhere too. Zoro’s sweating freely and this includes on his face, under the bandaged dressing Chopper put on him the night before. The stinging becomes a fierce burning, until at last it’s too distracting to keep training through. It feels like it’s not exactly doing his injured face much good, either. So reluctantly Zoro stops. Gropes for a towel hanging on the nearby rail and sits down heavily on the bench.

The smouldering pain in his face goes on while he wipes his neck slowly, blotting sweat from his skin. Zoro focuses on his breathing and waits it out: and eventually the fire calms down by degrees.

It’s annoying that he can’t push through this, but at least he got most of his reps done. Actually, now he’s sitting still, he feels kind of tired. He got fuck-all sleep during the night. And since he joined his nakama in the galley first thing this morning, Zoro has been concentrating hard to manage a world for which he has no visual input. Trying to remember Sunny’s geography, and move around successfully within it. Locating his individual nakama by sound: then trying to figure out their reactions or intentions from the tone of their voice. Even following conversations is harder when he can’t see people, as if the words themselves gain some of their meaning from the movements of someone’s face.

Observation haki helps, but it takes concentration. And even ordinary actions have become time-consuming tasks. Opening a door. Eating breakfast. Walking across a room. Climbing up here felt like a major victory, not least because this is the space Zoro most claims as his own when he wants space from his nakama. But on top of the training he’s just done and the shitty sleepless night, all this has left him feeling... just really fucking tired.

He lets out a lengthy yawn, which hurts his face some more. And is suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to make the darkness he’s been in since yesterday complete. To go all the way under, at least for a while.

So Zoro lies along the bench, bringing his feet up and using the towel as a makeshift pillow. Curls one arm around his head and folds the other across his stomach. Listens to the rhythm of his own breathing weave in and out of the sea-rocked sounds of the Sunny. Lets himself be rocked too, the crow’s nest cradling him, swaying him in the sky.

When Sanji returns to the galley after ferrying Zoro to where the swordsman needed to go, it takes a little while for him to finish clearing away after breakfast. He doesn’t hurry: while he’s washing up, cleaning the stove, wiping down the table, he thinks through his plan for lunch. It’s going to be sandwiches and soup, but he hasn’t fixed on what type of soup yet. There are still plenty of fresh vegetables in the pantry, along with dried pulses like lentils and beans. And of course there is always fish in the aquarium: their dual-purpose fish tank and live larder.

The chef runs through his mental card index of soup recipes, both classic dishes and his own invented recipes. And when he reaches bouillabaisse, he silently goes, Ah ha. And nods.

Mostly Sanji plans what to cook a week ahead, based on their provision stores and what will need using up first. But sometimes he does it this way: lets himself wander in the library of his mind, bringing up dishes and remembering what they feel like to prepare, what they smell like, their unique savour.

Bouillabaisse is an old favourite. It’s one of the first soups he learned to cook under Zeff’s impatient tutelage, and also a dish he’s cooked for his nakama many times. The beauty of it is that pretty much any type of fish and seafood can be used, which helps when you’re never quite sure what one of Luffy’s fishing forays will have produced.

The traditional way to serve the soup is with bread and rouille, a spicy and garlicky mayonnaise. But sandwiches will work too. There won’t need to be huge quantities, because the bouillabaisse itself is substantial, with chunks of fish and seafood. The exception of course being Luffy: he will continue demolishing sandwiches as long as there are any remaining, so Sanji will make sure there’s a special extra-large plateful for their captain.

Choosing and catching a selection of fish from the aquarium is the first task; Sanji also hooks out a few crabs, because he likes the rich flavour these impart. He slices onions and tomatoes and crushes garlic; pours a few glugs of olive oil into a deep saucepan and browns the first ingredients. After the fish have been cleaned and scaled and cut up they go in too, along with water and herbs and seasoning; then he turns the heat down so that everything can simmer for a little while.

Taking advantage of this natural pause, Sanji decides to take a smoke break on deck. He walks outside and pulls out his cigarettes, leaning on the rail and gazing out over the Sunny.

Something catches the corner of his eye, a movement up in the rigging. Sanji’s gaze sharpens on it and he sees Zoro, making good on his crazy-ass intention to climb up to the crow’s nest.

The sharp inhalation Sanji makes pulls smoke into his lungs, hot and fierce. He narrows his eyes, gazing at the swordsman. And his gaze fixes on small things, as a way of breaking this down.

Zoro’s barefoot, presumably because that’s easier for feeling his way. And he’s wearing some kind of rope harness, the thing Franky talked about making for him. As Sanji watches, Zoro’s hand reaches down and unhooks something silvery: what looks like a metal clip, which he shifts upwards to hook onto the ratlines a couple of feet above his head.

At least the moron is doing what he was told and using a safety line, then. But this still seems like a minor concession to sanity, as Sanji watches the swordsman ascend higher. A stiff breeze is building and the sea has a growing swell now, which means that the higher up the mast Zoro goes the more movement there must be. It doesn’t seem to slow him down though; his bare feet press into the ratlines, his fingers curling round the ropes as he climbs.

Sanji can’t help himself. He stays at the rail watching, forgetting his cigarette so that it goes out. And when Zoro reaches the top of the ratlines and stretches out one hand and then one foot, reaching across the gap between the rigging he’s on and the crow’s nest ladder he has to move to, it looks so fucking precarious that Sanji clenches his fists.

Maybe it feels that way to Zoro too. Because for half a minute or so the swordsman doesn’t move: just stands there near the top of the foremast, one foot on the yard, the other just barely still on the rigging.

For fuck’s sake!

Sanji feels his nails bite into his palms.

Go up or down, moss-head. That’s not a good place to hang about.

It’s almost as if Zoro hears him. But what the swordsman does is this: unclips his fucking safety line. Stepping sideways onto the yard; one foot and one hand all that’s keeping him aloft, from dropping like a fallen angel to the deck.

Zoro’s other hand moves slowly, almost casually, bringing the clip at the end of his lanyard over. There is just the faintest chink of metal on metal, a small sound that nevertheless carries to Sanji watching from the deck below like the chime of Skypeia’s golden bell.

And then the swordsman is climbing up the ladder, from where he disappears into the crow’s nest.

Sanji lets out an unsteady exhalation. And realises his neck is aching from staring upwards. And that one hand is now gripping the rail in front of him.

Holy shit.

Deliberately, he releases the rail. And relights his cigarette, with fingers that are hardly unsteady at all.

When lunch is ready Sanji calls out to his nakama and waits for them to come and take their places round the table, exclaiming at the good smell of the soup and helping themselves from the platters of neatly-cut sandwiches.

But no matter how long Sanji waits, one place at the table stays empty. He glowers at it, then asks, “That crappy moss-head lose his hearing as well?”

“He must still be training,” Usopp responds.

“Which is not an acceptable excuse for being late to meals,” Sanji growls.

“Maybe he didn’t hear you call out that it was lunchtime?” Robin suggests.

“Do you think he might need help climbing down from the crow’s nest?” speculates Chopper, his face gaining a small anxious frown.

“Don’t think so,” Franky responds assuredly. “Zoro-bro got up there fine this morning.”

“He’s probably taking a nap up there.” Nami contributes this, and as usual she’s probably bang on the money.

Sanji scowls at the empty chair one more time, then shrugs. “His loss.” He gets up and fetches a thermos and bentō box; ladles soup into the former and stuffs sandwiches into the latter, then sets them to one side. “I’ll take them up when we’ve finished eating.”

Lunch over with, the chef sets off on his delivery mission. It’s not like this is unusual – he’s lost count of the number of times he’s toted food up to Zoro in the gym – but today he feels irritated by the necessity.

If you can fucking climb up here, you can climb back down and get your ass to meals on time.

Variations on this theme run through Sanji’s head as he scales the rigging, food nestled safely in a small basket he often uses for this task. He’s added a large bottle of water to the sandwiches and thermos of soup, because before he left the galley Chopper asked him to remind Zoro to drink plenty.

- Burns are very dehydrating. Chopper had repeated what he’d said yesterday and Sanji had nodded, although it isn’t him who needs to be listening to their doctor and following his instructions: it’s the fucking moss-head, who is playing his usual trick of ignoring Chopper’s advice and not doing what he should to let himself heal.

When Sanji finally reaches the top of the metal ladder and sticks his head into the crow’s nest, he’s unsurprised to see what Nami predicted. The marimo is sprawled along the bench and snoring loudly.

Tchh-ing, Sanji steps up and walks across the gym. He unpacks the lunch basket, setting the items down firmly on the wooden bench. The swordsman doesn’t rouse, though. He has one arm curled loosely round his head and the other has fallen along his side: his mouth is open and his snores continue. He’s so deep under that even when Sanji stands over him and nudges his arm, it takes a moment before the snoring breaks off.

Zoro’s hand closes into a fist and he pulls in a breath. Sanji sees the swordsman’s whole body tense. And guesses instantly what it might feel like, to be suddenly woken but not able to see what has woken you. So he speaks, immediately – not least because he doesn’t want to be fending off a katana. “It’s me. With lunch.”

The startle response goes out of the swordsman at once. Then he grunts. “...Mhh.”

“I’ll assume that means, Thank you.” Sanji steps away, and sits down on the bench a few feet from the swordsman, the food in between them. “When you’re vertical, lunch is next to you. It’s soup and sandwiches. And there’s some water.”

Slowly Zoro sits up; rubs his fingers through his hair, and yawns. Then grimaces, maybe because yawning is not comfortable. “...What the hell time is it?”

“Lunchtime.” Sanji sits back, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. “When civilised people join their fellow crewmates round a table and eat together.”

“Okay, shit-cook – I fell asleep, in case you hadn’t noticed. Otherwise I’d have heard you squawking Time to eat, or whatever the hell you shouted today.”

“Consider this your first and last warning.” Sanji isn’t going to debate this: mealtimes are non-negotiable. “Next time I’ll kick your lazy ass down that hatchway to the deck.”

“Fine.” Zoro mutters this before groping sideways until his fingers touch the water bottle: he picks it up and unscrews the cap, then drinks in long swallows. Sanji watches the Adam’s-apple bob in Zoro’s throat, under the tanned skin. He notices where the sun-bronze starts to take on a reddish tone, inflamed areas along the swordsman’s jaw and mouth; over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, below the bandage covering. The higher up his face, the worse it looks: blistering visible in many places.

This reminds him of the other message Chopper asked him to deliver. “After you’re done with lunch, Chopper wants to see you.”

Zoro lowers the bottle of water and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, lips twisting in a grimace again. “Why?”

“He said he needs to change the dressing on your face. And put lavender oil on it; or some shit like that.”

“Lavender oil? The fuck is that for?” The swordsman doesn’t sound impressed.

“To make you smell like a beautiful flower.” Sanji smirks.

“Like hell.”

“It can only be an improvement. Right now you’re giving off a pretty toxic aura of sweat, moss-head. I’m sitting two feet away but I’m glad I’ve already eaten my lunch.”

Ignoring this, Zoro takes another swig of water then sets the bottle down: explores the bench and locates his own lunch. Sanji watches him carefully take off the cup from the top of the thermos, then twist out the stopper. The swordsman takes a sniff of the steam emanating, and grunts. “Fish soup?”

“Brilliant. We’ll make a sous chef out of you yet.”

“I’d rather fall on my swords. All three of them.” Zoro holds the cup and slowly tips up the thermos, pouring out a little soup; then he pauses, hooking the tip of his forefinger over the cup rim.

Sanji frowns... Before he realises what the swordsman’s doing. Using his fingertip to check how full he’s pouring the cup of soup.

Zoro pours a little more, then stops when he feels the warm liquid. Carefully he sets the thermos down on the bench; relocates the stopper and replaces it. Then he lifts the cup to his mouth and blows on it before taking a sip.

Watching him, Sanji is struck by how precise and deliberate every move is. As if the swordsman is working everything out before he does it, unlike the improvised way he’d eaten breakfast. Zoro is already adapting to his changed circumstances.

“...S’good.” Zoro sets down his soup and feels for the bentō box: opens it up and takes out a sandwich. “Thanks.”

“Bon appétit.” Sanji takes out his cigarettes and lights one up, knowing that the swordsman isn’t bothered by him doing this. His gaze runs over the other man, and he notices that Zoro is wearing different clothes. Which means that he must’ve found his way into the men’s bunkroom and changed. The smell of yesterday’s encounter has lessened, although a ghost of it still lingers. Zoro’s hair looks vaguely sooty, and at the front his fringe is slightly singed. “Make sure you drink all the water, as well. Chopper asked me to remind you, you need to drink plenty.”

“You couldn’t have stuck a bottle of sake in with this?” the swordsman grumbles.

“Not what he means, and you know it.”

“You better not be telling me Chopper says I’ve gotta lay off alcohol. ‘Cos if he is - ”

“Relax, moss-head. As far as I know, you can keep on pickling your liver. But no, I didn’t bring sake up here. You can have some with supper.”

“Good.”

They sit on the bench for a while longer, not saying much; Zoro eating his lunch, Sanji finishing his smoke. It’s not unusual for the two of them to be together up there: like the galley, the crow’s nest is territory they often share. Passing time, talking or not talking. Fighting, or fucking, or both. No-one ever locks doors on the Sunny and they sure as hell don’t post a sign, but somehow their nakama usually know when to give them space.

Zoro knows they’re close to each other on the bench, but it doesn’t feel like it. Not being able to see the chef makes a barrier. Even though he can smell cigarette smoke and the spices Sanji has used in making lunch; hear the soft pull in and release out of the chef’s breath; it feels like he’s only halfway there.

Maybe Zoro’s just tired, but it bothers him. This creeping sense of unreality, because he can’t see his surroundings. Because he can only focus on Sanji with haki, concentrating to bring his luminous silhouette into focus. Not enough detail to read what is really being said. Just picking up on the chef’s pissy vibe, which keeps creeping into his voice.

Despite his nap Zoro feels jaded. And his face still hurts a lot. And what he wants is for things to be as uncomplicated as possible right now, given that the situation he’s dealing with is challenging enough. So he elects not to get into whatever it is that’s brewing between them, until it becomes strictly necessary. The cook will just have to untwist his own panties; for the time being, at least.

He’s finished his last sandwich. A few moments later he hears the clatter of Sanji collecting up bentō box and flask, presumably tidying away preparatory to leaving. Zoro stretches both arms upwards with a yawn, then stands up. “Guess I’d better go report to Chopper.” He uses the touch of the bench against his right leg to walk around the crow’s nest periphery, one hand raised a little so that he finds the telescope: stops and turns to his left.

“Whoa, wait just a damn minute!” Sanji’s voice rises, warningly. “Don’t go any further forward, asshole – or you’ll end up on the deck quicker than you planned.”

Zoro gives a slow smile... Then slides his foot forward. “Yeah. I know.” His toes touch the slightly raised metal rim of the round hatchway that leads downwards. He steps towards it deliberately, then crouches down. His hands find Franky’s harness, and he begins pulling it on. Cinches the ropes tight, and tests that the lanyard is still securely attached. Then he clips the carabiner to the top of the ladder and turns his head to where he thinks Sanji is still waiting. Hopefully, staring at him with a stupid look on his face. Zoro finds he enjoys the idea of this: that he’s exceeded the chef’s expectations. “Okay, I’m heading down. Unless you want to go first.”

The chef lets out a breath, either irritable or dismissive. “So you can land on me if you slip? No thanks.”

“Whatever, shit-cook.” Zoro swings himself onto the ladder, and descends.

It isn’t too bad a journey back down. He’s more used to it now: even the transition from the yard back onto the ratlines isn’t too difficult. He’s beginning to find the trick to traversing spaces sightless. It helps to think of movement rather than distance; taking his hand or foot in an arc rather than straight to a known point. He has to be slower than usual, but deliberate: both looser and more precise.

It reminds Zoro of something, but he’s almost descended as far as the deck before he figures out what.

Kata. The moves he practices with his katana. That same precision and flow.

Zoro’s feet meet the grass of the deck. He takes off the climbing harness and ties it to the lower rail near the dead-eyes, so it’ll be there when he needs it again. Turning over what he’s just been thinking. And realising that maybe it could make this less of a total shitfest, if he can frame what he has to do in these terms. Not coping with sightlessness; but training himself to develop new skills. Refining new kata, for walking through the dark... For as long as he needs to.

A clunk of shoed feet on the deck next to him announces that the chef has also landed. “You need a guided tour to the infirmary, or you think you can find your own way there?”

“I can find it, if those guys finished stringing up all their ropework.”

Sanji grunts. “Looks like it. Go round the outside though, not through the galley... That way we can keep the glassware casualties to a minimum.”

This reference to the accident from the night before nettles Zoro. “Get bent, swirly. I’ll go wherever the fuck I want, on this ship.”

“Fine. You break it, you can clear it up.” Sanji’s tone makes it clear that as far as he’s concerned, this conversation is over. And a moment later, his rapidly departing footsteps confirm it.

Zoro checks out the rope network that Usopp and Franky have erected, following it from his starting point on the Sunny’s rail. The teaspoon still dangles at the foot of the stairs: at the top of the steps another spoon hangs from a rope that leads left, presumably towards the galley door. On the rail at his right a second rope has something flat tied to it which Zoro has to feel for several moments before he figures out what it is: a wooden tongue depressor.

This rope gets him more or less where he needs to go. He feels out the infirmary door with his outstretched fingers, and opens it. Chopper’s voice greets him, the little doctor sounding both surprised and pleased. “Zoro! You found your way here all right... Usopp and Franky’s ropes are helping, then?”

“Yeah.” Now he’s inside the room, Zoro waits... And Chopper’s hooves advance towards him.

“Just sit down here for me.” The reindeer evidently pats the bed, the sound of this signalling which direction Zoro needs to move in.

Zoro does so: he hears the sounds of things being moved about, a rustling and clinking. Then Chopper’s hoofsteps approach again, before his nakama asks, “I need to change your dressing. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“Good... Just sit forward a little. And remember, don’t try opening your eye.” Chopper unfastens and then unwinds the bandage from around Zoro’s face, as gently and deftly as he does all his medical procedures. When he reaches the dressing and lifts that away from Zoro’s skin, he does this even more carefully, obviously trying to minimise the discomfort.

It still fucking hurts though, and Zoro finds himself clenching his hands on the bed’s edge. All the nerve endings in his burned flesh come alight at once and scream at him: first from the sensation of the dressing being stripped away, then from the cool air striking against his raw face.

“Sorry,” Chopper apologises quickly. “I know this must be painful.”

“...S’okay.” Zoro is able to say this in an almost-normal voice, though it takes an effort. His skin has dampened with sweat again, not from exertion this time.

“Before I put the new dressing on, I want to apply something that will help with healing the burns more quickly. It should reduce any scarring, too.” Chopper says this hopefully, the urge he feels to make things better showing in his voice.

“Sure... Go ahead.” Whatever might help, Zoro is willing to try.

“Okay.” Some small sounds nearby show that Chopper is readying something. There is the faint sound of what sounds like liquid sloshing in a container. “I’ve prepared a mix of oils, in a water base: there’s peppermint which should be cooling and soothing, and lavender which is antiseptic... It’ll reduce the risk of your burns becoming infected. But it also promotes healing. I’ll mist it onto your face, in a fine spray.”

For some reason, what comes into Zoro’s head is Sanji’s mocking comment, up in the crow’s nest.

- To make you smell like a beautiful flower.

“Zoro?” Chopper’s voice is tentative. “Um... This will feel cool, when I first apply it. Then it will probably sting. You need to make sure that you keep your eye closed. Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Zoro tightens his hands just slightly on the edge of the bed.

There is a hissing, squirting noise: and then moisture meets his skin, bringing with it a scent that is both clean and cool. The noise continues for a few seconds and Zoro feels the medicated mist settle across his face, especially the upper half, as though Chopper is ensuring that he gets proper coverage.

It does feel cooling at first, slightly soothing. But this is followed an instant later by fiery stinging, as Chopper predicted. Zoro pulls in a breath and the scented oils fill his nose and he focuses on them, on the feel of the bed’s edge in his clenched fingers. Counts silently from one to five, over and over; measuring each breath in and out.

The quiet clunk of Chopper setting down whatever he used to spray Zoro’s face is followed by the doctor’s voice. “We’ll leave that for a little while, before I put on a new dressing.”

This time Zoro just nods.

A few minutes pass. Chopper busies himself doing something in the room: Zoro hears the trundle of the wheeled chair; the rustle of paper; a drawer opened and shut. He waits, bringing his arms up to rest across his thighs. Lifting one hand to swipe at a tickling droplet of moisture that’s tracking down the side of his neck. Slowly the fire diminishes, becoming more bearable by increments.

“That should be long enough.” Chopper’s steps advance. “Lean forward a little, and I’ll put on the new dressing.”

Once they’re done, Chopper tells Zoro he can go; but not before he imparts a list of Dos and Don’ts that he instructs the swordsman to follow. Do drink lots of water (Zoro has yet to come across a medical condition that Chopper doesn’t say this about); don’t touch or scratch the burns on his face while they’re healing; do get plenty of rest; don’t spend too much time in the sun, because that could cause extra burning to the vulnerable healing skin.

To save time and hassle Zoro assents to the lengthy list, while mentally placing reservations against some of them. He’s totally on board with doing whatever is necessary to get fixed sooner rather than later... But Chopper’s notions of what’s necessary don’t often tally with the swordsman’s.

“We’ll need to change the dressing on your face every day.” Chopper finishes up his list of instructions with this. “But if you notice any problems – if your face or your eye starts to hurt worse, or to feel very hot or swollen – tell me straight away. If you start feeling feverish that could be a sign of infection, I’d need to treat that immediately.”

“Yeah, sure.” Zoro stands up and uses the bed to find his way to the wall, and from there to the door. “Thanks, Chopper.”

“Okay. And be careful when you’re moving around the Sunny – I don’t want to have to treat you for any more injuries.”

Zoro doesn’t answer this with anything more than a nod, before he turns the door handle and exits onto the deck.

* * * * * * * *

The afternoon continues more or less normally. Zoro can’t of course take a turn on lookout (so this whole not-being-able-to-see thing has an upside), but he can do other stuff. Cleaning and polishing his katana, for instance: his hands can do this without needing sight to guide them. Laundry, which it turns out is easier because stubborn stains are not currently a problem that will bother him. (Not that they ever were.) Providing a listening ear for Usopp’s tales; for Franky’s dirty jokes (seriously, the guy’s mind is not so much in the gutter as digging a sewer); and for Brook’s improvising on the violin.

This last occupation is the least taxing, because Zoro can do it lying on his back with his arms folded under his head, on the upper deck by the main mast. The sail casts shade over him and he can hear the rustling of Nami’s tangerine trees. Every now and then he gets wafts of smoke from the galley chimney, with faint hints of whatever Sanji is throwing together for supper.

When Zoro walked into the galley to climb up here, the cook didn’t say anything. The swordsman knew he was there though, by the sounds of simmering pans and chopping which seemed to get just a little more forceful as he passed through.

There are other sounds on the upper deck: Nami is up here too, watering her precious trees and also the small garden plots that belong to Robin and Usopp. The glug-swoosh as she tips her watering can, and the soft rain-sounds of droplets falling blend seamlessly with the waves and the flap of the sail.

Brook’s quiet playing wanders in and out of the background noises, as he tinkers with a tune for some little while. Occasionally he breaks off to hum a melody, then replicates it on his violin; experimenting with variations, trying things out. Sometimes he utters a Hmm or a No, under his breath... Not with annoyance, but as if he’s gently correcting a friend.

Zoro feels the deck reverberate slightly: Nami’s footsteps come close to him, then she speaks from above his head. “Eh, Zoro: don’t fall asleep out here. Supper won’t be long, and Sanji’ll be pissed if you miss another meal.”

“...Uh huh.” Zoro responds, but doesn’t put much effort into it.

A moment later he feels sudden cold wetness soak into his shirt, over his stomach. With irritated disbelief, he realises that Nami has just watered him. “Oi – the fuck was that for?”

“Just making sure you’re actually awake.” Nami sounds like she’s smirking.

“Witch,” he mutters.

His annoying nakama’s footsteps move away, and she addresses Brook. “I’m going down. Don’t let him fall off the edge.”

“I shall endeavour not to let him do so, Nami-san,” replies their skeletal crewmate, before resuming twiddling on his violin.

The damp patch on Zoro’s shirt feels cool against his skin. It reminds him of the cooling spray Chopper used on his face, though fortunately Nami’s watering can doesn’t have the similar after-effect of stinging like fuck.

His face actually hurts marginally less now than it has done all day. Maybe it’s the cooling evening breeze up here in the shade, or maybe Chopper’s ministrations are starting to work. Either way it’s a relief.

Brook attempts something complicated; repeats it; tries it a third time, then lets out a sigh. “Oh, hush. That, I think, is quite enough time spent on you.”

“You and your violin having a difference of opinion?” Zoro enquires drowsily.

“With some melodies, the harder one pursues the notes the faster they seem to run away, alas.” Brook plays a melancholy chord that somehow manages to be self-mocking. “Apologies if I’ve disturbed your peaceful rest, Zoro-san.”

“No problem.” It takes a lot more than that to disturb Zoro, on a ship whose crew includes Luffy and the shitty cook. “You learning a new tune?”

“Rather, attempting to create one. Which I offer in defence for the inharmonious noises I’ve been producing.”

“They weren’t so bad.”

“You are too kind. And possibly too tactful.” Brook sounds amused. “However, I shall make amends. When my muse fails, I gladly borrow another’s.” And, after a moment’s pause, he begins to play again.

Zoro listens as the music rises, the melody skipping playfully up and down like a bird taking wing on the air currents over rolling waves. Brook taking the music and making it a live thing: pushing forward, pulling back; running trills and bold chords interweaving; mood shifting between joyful and serious, poignant and glad.

The intricate piece swoops and runs, and for the brief time it lasts Zoro is there with Brook. Listening to his nakama, following every sweep of his bow. Until the music dances its way to the end, with a final drawn-out chord.

There is a long moment of quiet, save only the sounds of the sea and the tangerine trees. Then Brook pronounces, “A fine muse indeed.”

Somewhere below them a door opens.

“Supper!”

Sanji’s shout hails the evening air.

Chapter Text

The days settle down into a pattern. Zoro does as many things as he can manage in his sightless state, trying out a new task every day. Some are straightforward enough, like washing and weight training; others take a little time to master. There are a few mishaps at mealtimes – minor stuff like knocking over a water jug, or accidentally taking hold of a dish that was sizzling hot from the oven – which have the result of making the cook huff like an aggravated prima donna; but Zoro is used to ignoring the curly-brow’s hissy fits.

It’s not all smooth sailing. The first time Zoro decides to run through his sword kata, Franky nearly gets an impromptu haircut when he walks out of a door onto the deck without giving ample warning. This prompts the Katana-Practice-Only-To-Be-Done-In-The-Crow’s-Nest rule, which is manageable.

Other things are not so easily resolved. Like the suggestion some of Zoro’s nakama make over the supper table towards the end of the first week, that in the event of there being a combat situation onboard maybe he ought to remove himself from the action.

“The hell I will.” Zoro says this instantly and in deadly tones.

“It’s just common sense,” Nami contributes her opinion, with her customary in-your-face refusal to take a hint from the way Zoro’s spoken. “What good will it do us in a fight, if we’re having to watch out for you the whole time?”

“I don’t need watching over.” Zoro clenches his hand hard around his fork.

“Yeah, sure.” Nami snorts. “So how’s your head?”

She’s referring to the fact that earlier that day, Zoro walked into a store cupboard door that some asshole had left open. Which could have happened to anyone. And okay, yeah: he’s collected a few bruises and scrapes over the past few days from collisions with various obstacles and parts of the Sunny, but so fucking what. “It’s fine.”

“Sure about that? No brain damage?” Nami says this with heavy sarcasm. It also sounds like she’s smirking. “Because if a cupboard door can get the upper hand over you, it doesn’t seem like you trying to fight an actual enemy is a good plan.”

“I can use haki for fighting.” Zoro’s been managing fine with observation haki, the past few days. It takes concentration but he has no problem with that.

“Even so,” Nami stubbornly persists with her opinion.

“I’m not some fucking helpless weakling.” The swordsman just as stubbornly persists with his own. “I can still fight.”

“Oi...” This growl comes from Sanji, somewhere across the table. “Watch your language when you’re talking to a lady, craphead.”

“Drop dead, shitty cook.”

“You want a lesson in table manners, moron? Listen to what Nami’s telling you. She has a point. You’re not exactly at full strength right now.”

At this Zoro clenches his teeth and resists the urge to throw his fork directly at where he can tell the cook is sitting. “If we step outside I can show you precisely how wrong you are about that, asshole.”

“Hey, guys – can we not do this?” This from Usopp, trying to keep a lid on things. “There’s got to be a way we can figure this out together. Like, maybe one of us could pair up with Zoro if we get into a fight with another ship, make sure we’ve got his back.”

Their sharpshooter probably means well, but Zoro feels his temper spike up another notch at the suggestion that he needs anyone to watch his back. But before he can respond with a decided negative, Luffy speaks up. “Good idea! Sanji – you can do it.”

There is a moment of silence, the calm before the storm. Then Sanji and Zoro both react simultaneously, in equally outraged tones.

“How come I’ve gotta be the one to babysit the idiot moss?”

“I don’t need that curly-browed dumbass getting in my way!”

Luffy simply laughs. “Okay, that’s sorted. Can I have seconds?”

Sanji splutters irately, but only manages to say, “You’ve had seconds.”

“Ah?” Undaunted, Luffy presses home his demands. “Then can I have thirds?”

And that is how the whole thing is left. Resolved as far as Luffy and the rest of their nakama are concerned; but a source of irritation for Zoro and Sanji alike.

Privately, Zoro determines that if they do encounter a hostile ship and get into battle he will just get on with fighting however he damn well wants to, and the cook can either get out the way or suffer the consequences. Sanji says exactly nothing to him about it: so for the time being, they let their captain’s decision stand.

As it turns out, days pass into weeks without them encountering anyone... So they don’t have to put Luffy’s plan into effect. For the time being.

The burns on Zoro’s face slowly start to heal, under Chopper’s careful ministrations. Each day the doctor changes the dressing, and sprays on the same mixture of oils. After the first week he also applies a gel, which he tells Zoro is made from the leaves of aloe vera plants. Like the oils, the gel stings like a bastard against the raw skin; but as time goes on the pain gradually decreases. The areas where his face is less badly burned now start to itch as the skin peels, sloughing away as healthy new tissue replaces it from underneath.

Zoro has never knowingly suffered from sunburn – even in childhood, his skin just darkened in sunshine to the dark tan it is now - but he guesses that this is what it must be like. The itching and peeling are annoying, but better than the nagging pain of the deeper burns.

The one thing that doesn’t change is Chopper’s instructions regarding his eye. When the little doctor takes off the bandage and changes the dressing, he always reminds Zoro to keep his right eye closed. Zoro follows these instructions with deliberate patience, not yielding to the temptation to see if the darkness is starting to clear. Sometimes he thinks he notices a slight increase in light through his closed eyelid, when the dressing is lifted away: but being able to tell the difference between light and dark is not the same thing as being able to see.

So Zoro keeps his eye closed, waiting for when Chopper will tell him that it’s time to open it again and discover how much of the world is still visible. Five weeks passes slowly, but the time will pass. He just has to take it one day at a time.

For Sanji, the time passes slowly too. Apart from the argument over the supper table about him being designated as the swordsman’s minder in the event of shipboard battle, things settle down into some semblance of normality. His nakama adjust to Zoro’s sightlessness much as the swordsman himself seems to: making some changes to accommodate the situation, but otherwise trying to continue as usual.

Sanji himself tries to act as if things have not changed, as far as possible. But things have changed. He and the swordsman still bicker and insult each other at every opportunity, but Sanji never lets himself be drawn into a physical fight. Something inside him balks at it: even when he’s provoked enough to want to kick the moss-head across the deck, he doesn’t do it. Instead he turns on his heel and just walks away. But there’s an uneasy awareness that by doing this, he’s doing something worse to Zoro than fighting him.

At other times he catches himself watching the swordsman, from a slight distance; as he did the first day Zoro climbed up to the crow’s nest. Observing him unobserved.

Being a voyeur is definitely not Sanji’s thing, but he can’t seem to stop himself. There’s something fascinating about seeing how the swordsman interacts with his surroundings, in this new way that he does. There’s an intentness about how Zoro uses his other senses, now he can’t rely on sight.

Like touch, for instance.

One morning Sanji is out on the rear deck, doing a load of laundry. Once he’s rinsed and wrung everything he ties up the length of washing line that is stored in one of the galley cupboards for this purpose, and begins to peg out his clothes to dry.

A set of footsteps ascending the stairs makes him glance round. It’s Zoro, shirtless, with a towel draped round his neck. As he gains the deck and stops a few feet away, Sanji catches the tang of sweat, and notices that the swordsman’s hair is darkened, slightly damp.

Been working out, then.

Without stopping from pegging out his washed laundry, Sanji addresses the other man. “There’s a wash tub just in front of you. Don’t fall over it.”

Zoro pauses; his head turns, just slightly, in the chef’s direction. “...I won’t.”

Sanji smiles wryly at this blunt response to his considerate warning. Considers moving the wooden wash tub out of the way, but decides not to. Fine. Find your way round it then, moss-head.

But Zoro doesn’t walk past straight away. Instead he steps up to the railing, one hand resting on it, and turns his face out to sea. He sometimes does this: almost as if he’s looking out at the ocean. “Good laundry drying weather, huh.”

The chef speculates for a moment what the swordsman can perceive from his surroundings. The smell of laundry soap, the ruffle and flap of the wet clothes already hung on the clothes line. Sanji picks up a shirt and shakes it out, before answering. “Yeah. I guess.”

Zoro doesn’t say anything else straight away. Which is not surprising, small talk has never been the swordsman’s forte. But he stays at the rail, head still turned out to sea; his hand resting on the sun-warmed wood. Sanji finds his gaze drawn to it; and that’s when he notices something. Zoro’s fingers aren’t still: they’re moving slightly, flexing against the top of the rail. Fingertips travelling over the grain of the wood, exploring it. Almost stroking it.

The swordsman’s hands are large and strong and calloused from years of sword wielding, Sanji knows this. Not least because he’s felt those hands himself, moving over his own skin. But there’s something about the way Zoro’s fingers touch the rail that holds Sanji’s gaze. A unexpected sensitivity, reading the wood grain as if it were Braille. And just for an instant, Sanji finds himself wondering how that feels.

Which is strange. Because of course he knows how Zoro’s hands feel. He’s been touched by them, countless times. They’ve both had their hands all over each other, held on with clenched grip. Fingers tangled, or tugging at hair. Hands pulling off clothing. Fingernails scraping roughly down skin.

But this is another thing that has changed now. Just as they haven’t fought each other since the swordsman got injured, they haven’t connected in that other physical way.

Sanji feels the lack of it. But he doesn’t want to close the distance. Because he still can’t figure out exactly what it is that puts him on edge; about what happened, the day of the fire battle.

He still feels angry, but how much and with whom he’s not entirely sure. And whenever he starts to consider maybe getting into it with Zoro, the two of them having it out... The swordsman’s inability to see gets in the way. Eyes are the windows of the soul, and Zoro’s are hidden from view.

It reminds Sanji of when they first met again at Saobody, after their two-year separation. He can still remember the visceral shock he felt, seeing that vertical scar on the left side of Zoro’s face. That eye cancelled forever.

He doesn’t get sentimental about this thing he and Zoro have together, sentiment is something the chef saves for the fairer sex; but there was something about that loss that resonated for a long time. The swordsman is a habitually scowling bastard, but the gaze of those brown eyes could change like weather out at sea. Dark and stormy; clear and thoughtful. Occasionally lightening with a smile: like a welcome glimpse of sunlight after a storm.

Now even Zoro’s remaining eye is covered, the swordsman wearing his bandage almost like a bandana. And though he can still show what he’s feeling through the expressions on his face, Zoro is practiced at the art of stoicism. Or in other words, he’s annoyingly adept at not giving anything away. So with that window to his soul covered, it makes having a meaningful conversation with him even more challenging than usual.

So the silence that stretches between the two of them now is familiar, even though it’s unsatisfactory. But Sanji is dismayed to feel an emotion briefly flicker, as he watches Zoro’s fingertips caress the weathered wood of Sunny’s rail. It shouldn’t be possible to feel envy for an inanimate object, but that’s the closest name he can put to the hot, tightening sensation in his chest.

Fuck. Get a grip.

The chef becomes suddenly conscious that he is just standing motionless holding his washed shirt, and that it’s dripping onto him. And swiftly then he feels a rush of foolishness; and anger.

Letting out a hiss of breath, he snatches up a couple of pegs, and attaches the shirt to the line. Bends down and gets another. And somehow the action shakes him out of whatever weird headspace he was temporarily in, so that he’s able to occupy more familiar territory in the swordsman’s proximity. Namely, irritation. “So, you heading to take a shower, or what? ‘Cos if you’re gonna hang about up here, at least stand downwind.”

Zoro’s hand tightens, clenching into a fist on the rail. And when the swordsman replies, his voice is as unfriendly as Sanji’s. “What’s it to you, shitty cook?”

“Your sweaty reek is turning my stomach.”

Zoro turns on him then, and his lip curls. “Then light up one of your stinking cigarettes.”

“I’m busy.” Sanji shakes out another shirt. “And before you showed up, I was enjoying the view.”

Letting out an angry breath, Zoro steps away from the rail. “Che... Then knock yourself out, shithead.” Turning on his heel he takes a couple of steps, his hand feeling for guidance: touches the cabin wall, and follows it to the galley door. Which shuts hard behind him.

Sanji continues pegging out his laundry for several more minutes, scowling. When he’s finished he lights up a cigarette, sitting on the upturned wash tub to smoke it and gazing out to sea. There’s still a hard knot of anger in the pit of his stomach. And underneath it, something more uneasy.

* * * * * * * * *

Two weeks pass. Life on the Thousand Sunny goes on as normal, with little incident. Chopper continues to check daily on Zoro’s progress, pronouncing the healing of the burns to be proceeding satisfactorily. He does however also confirm that the bandages should stay on for the full five weeks.

Zoro is half expecting this, so he doesn’t argue for long against it. Chopper can be a stubborn little fucker where medical matters are concerned; and it’s only three more weeks, after all. The dressing that Chopper carefully bandages on over his upper face each day helps to keep his right eye closed, the slight but firm pressure close against his healing skin.

His nakama have more or less adjusted to his sightlessness. There is still more attention than Zoro would like, mostly in the form of people telling him about potential hazards... But largely now he’s left to manage his daily life without overt offers of assistance. Which is the way he wants it.

Unfortunately, where most of Zoro’s nakama have picked up on his vibe and backed off, the friction between himself and the chef has, if anything, grown worse.

The cook is still emitting pissy vibes, whenever the two of them occupy the same space. Their usual sporadic volleys of mutual insults have gained an edge. And where in the past they would have worked things up to a brief and noisy fight to blow off whatever irritation triggered things... Now there’s nothing. Sanji says a bunch of obnoxious shit, and Zoro answers him in kind. The chef keeps coming back at him verbally, things escalate until Zoro’s fists begin to itch; but then the chef usually just walks away. No matter how hard Zoro tries he can’t seem to provoke Sanji into lashing out with a kick.

Either way, after these encounters Zoro is left angry with nowhere for it to go. Except training, and yeah: the number of reps he does are way up, not least because he spends increasing amounts of time up in the crow’s nest just to get away from that annoying curly-browed bastard.

Not one of Zoro’s nakama comments on this, maybe because they are only too aware of the shift in the atmosphere. Shit, to miss it they’d have to be not only as blind as Zoro currently is, but deaf as well: the acrimonious encounters he and the chef have been having aren’t exactly conducted at low volume. But they’re smarter than to comment on it.

Zoro himself is reaching a point where he’s this close to dumping the chef overboard. Or punching him in the face, maybe without warning. Or stealing Sanji’s beloved finest silk shirt and using it as a polishing rag, the next time he cleans his swords. Whatever it takes, to goad the chef into coming back at him physically, instead of just this stinging exchange of words that keep pushing them further apart.

And buried far underneath all of this – the frustration at the chef’s refusal to fight him, the growing anger which has nowhere to go – is something else. Something that Zoro doesn’t want to admit to. Something he won’t give a name to, but is there nonetheless: a gnawing, cold, hollow feeling. Something that makes the darkness he is in, just a little bit darker.

This is how things stand, after two weeks. And this is when the Straw Hats meet another hostile ship.

It happens sometime late in the afternoon, which is why Zoro is napping up on the observation deck when a yell wakes him.

“Incoming ship!” It’s Franky’s bellow, loud enough to wake the dead. Zoro jerks up from slumber, sitting up almost before he knows he’s awake.

There is a thudding of footsteps below him and Zoro stands up and concentrates... and there are his nakama, haki showing their glowing presence in various spots around the Sunny. Each silhouette distinct and identifiable: Luffy and Usopp way up front, presumably at the bows; Nami, Robin, Brook and Chopper moving around in the mid-distance, which must be the main deck. Franky is descending downwards, from his lookout post in the crow’s nest; and finally Sanji emerges from the galley door beneath the observation deck.

Zoro waits for the chef to take a few steps away, before he moves to the edge of the deck and jumps down to join him. He has the quick dark satisfaction of perceiving Sanji twitch in surprise, and hearing the cook let out a startled exclamation. “Shit! Where the fuck were you lurking, marimo?”

Zoro makes his grin wide and mocking. “Didn’t see me coming, shitty cook?”

There is a hard exhalation. “Asshole.”

Somewhere up ahead, there is the dull thud of a distant cannon... Followed by the much closer splash of a cannon ball ploughing into the sea in front of the Sunny.

Down on the deck below, Nami shouts commands to Usopp to turn the helm to bring them onto a more favourable course. Everyone moves to where they need to be, to take on the enemy ship. And Zoro and Sanji step forward too, reaching the top of the stairs and then descending them so that they reach the Sunny’s grassy deck together.

Zoro draws Shusui, already turning his haki outward, seeing how far he can project it towards the approaching ship. He senses Sanji stepping away, starting to move towards Robin and Nami; because of course that’s where the dumbass curly-brow wants to be.

Then Nami’s voice reaches them both, loud and clear. “Sanji: remember, your job is to stick with Zoro.”

It stops them both dead, for a moment. Then Sanji begins to argue, in a voice which is both slightly stunned and deeply reluctant, “But Nami-swan...”

“Captain’s orders.” Nami sounds smug.

There is a brief pause. Then the heavy sound of footsteps comes trailing back across the deck, accompanied by the glow of Sanji’s silhouette. The chef halts, a couple of yards from the swordsman; takes out a cigarette and lights it. Only then does he exclaim, in a smoky mutter, “This fucking sucks.”

Zoro agrees. He won’t admit that though, because he isn’t about to agree on anything with the shitty cook at the moment. So he says instead, “Forget what that sea-witch says. Once the action starts, she won’t be looking this way. I’ll fight on my own.”

Sanji hisses, “What did you call her, you mossy bastard? I’ll kick you the hell overboard!”

“Yeah, right.” Zoro isn’t impressed. “Focus, eyebrows. We’ve got incoming, you can show off to impress the ladies later.”

“Fuck you, you dumbass seaweed.” Sanji stalks a couple of paces further off and folds his arms, standing only just close enough to follow the instructions from Nami while making it absolutely clear he’s there under protest.

Zoro could care less. The enemy ship is closing in: soon he’ll have a chance to fight. And he has a lot of pent-up anger to release.

Slightly more anger now, after the exchange that just took place.

Sanji is fuming when the battle begins. Not at Nami, of course: she’s absolutely correct in reminding him that it was Luffy’s orders, for Sanji to keep an eye on Zoro in the event of them doing battle with anyone. No, the chef is angry with Luffy, for making the decree in the first place. But mostly with Zoro, for the simple and unchanging reason that he is Zoro. An uncouth, moronic, musclebound, annoying obstacle in the way of Sanji fighting as effectively as he normally would.

It’s not that Sanji’s not up to the job, of keeping an eye on the swordsman. But what if it hampers his own combat, with the result that he isn’t able to fight alongside his nakama to the best of his abilities? What if – he can hardly bear the thought – it prevents him from protecting Nami-swan and Robin-chwan, should they require his assistance?

It’s not like Zoro is helpless. He has haki, and three swords, and certainly no lack of confidence in his own abilities.

So when the Sunny draws alongside the enemy ship and eager pirates from there leap over the rail, confident that their superior numbers will win the day – dumb shits that they are – Sanji turns his attention to his own endeavours. Only occasionally casting a quick glance round to check that Zoro hasn’t stepped overboard, or accidentally stuck his katana into the mast.

The swordsman appears to be coping, though. In fact, if anything he appears to be relishing the fight. There’s a grim smile on his face as he takes on opponents, slashing them down with his usual brutal efficiency. At first the opposing pirates approach Zoro with eagerness, taking the blindfolded swordsman for an easy target. But as his body count climbs they grow warier.

Sanji himself is kept busy, which suits him fine. It’s not a battle the Straw Hats are going to have much trouble winning, he can tell that already: the other pirates are rowdy but their onslaught starts to falter quite quickly once they realise the Sunny is not the soft target they took it for.

The action starts to wind down at last, and Sanji has a moment to look around. He sees all his nakama are busy, in their separate ways. Nami brandishing her Clima-Tact, unleashing meteorological fury on all and sundry. Robin with her graceful arms crossed, stopping potential attackers in the unbreakable grip of her Clutch. Franky and Brook and Usopp, scrapping and duelling and shooting. Chopper barrelling through pirates in Heavy Point; Luffy delivering his own brand of rubber warfare. Pretty soon it will be game over: they can toss the groaning pirate debris overboard and head on their way.

Something flickers in the corner of his eye, and Sanji looks up. A movement high in the rigging of the enemy ship. He sees a man silhouetted there, leaning against the ropes, one arm outstretched and pointing down at the deck of the Sunny. It looks as though he’s pointing at Zoro: maybe trying to warn some of his fellow shipmates about the swordsman, who is still cutting a swathe through the rival pirates.

Then Sanji’s mind catches up with what he’s actually looking at. And he sees that the outstretched pointing arm is too thin to be part of a human.

It’s a flintlock rifle.

So they have sharpshooters too.

This is the thought that passes through Sanji’s brain, with almost academic interest. Before the realisation kicks into his gut.

The attacking pirates have a sharpshooter with a rifle, who is sitting up in the rigging lining up his shot. On Zoro. Who cannot see the danger he’s in.

Sanji is moving while this thought is still flowering, adrenaline shocking through him like an electric current, gathering his muscles and filling them with the power he needs to leap into the air. Pushing up into a sky walk that launches him up towards that silhouetted figure, aiming straight at the enemy sniper so he can take him out with a single kick. Launch the fucker into orbit, before he can make good on his intent.

Sanji’s moving so quickly he knows no-one’s seen him, even the sniper only spots him at the last second. Sanji is right on him, he’s in time to stop it happening, he feels relief and satisfaction and the beginnings of smugness about how much he’s going to rub Zoro’s nose in this afterwards, that the moss-head did need his back watching after all.

But before his foot connects with the rifleman in the rigging, the flintlock fires with a flare of sparks and smoke.

Sanji’s a fraction of a second too late. The sniper has got his shot in, after all.

No, is the only thought that fills Sanji’s mind. No, as the chef’s kick lashes out and catches the sniper in the chest, flinging him from the rigging and into the air. No no no!

It’s done and Sanji is moving downwards again, landing in a crouch on the Sunny’s deck. Pushing himself to his feet and looking swiftly around, to where Zoro had been fighting. Half expecting, half-dreading to see the swordsman staggering wounded, or fallen on the planking.

But Zoro is fighting on. Apparently oblivious to the drama that has just played out: still hacking and slashing his way through his remaining attackers.

Sanji takes a deep breath. And a burning pain stings along his left side, making him lift his hand to his ribs.

And his hand comes away bloody. He stares stupidly at his reddened fingers.

The sniper took his shot. Which, it seems, Sanji got in the way of.

Then there’s a growl, and Sanji looks up to see a pirate coming at him. So he reacts without thinking, kicking out hard enough to send the asshole crashing into the rail; but there’s more coming so Sanji deals with it, forgetting that he’s wounded, time enough to think about that when they’ve dealt with the matter in hand.

It doesn’t seem to take long after that to wind things up, which is good. By the time they’ve ejected the last marauder overboard and watched the other ship flee at top speed, Sanji’s side is starting to ache.

But he isn’t going to show that in front of the ladies. So when they’re gathering together and Chopper cries out, “Sanji! You’re injured!” the chef just lights a cigarette and blows out a stream of smoke, before giving them a cocky smile.

“You should see the other guy. Actually, no, you can’t: on account of him currently floating about in the ocean somewhere half a mile off in that direction.” He gestures casually with his cigarette.

“You’re bleeding!” shrills Chopper. “Let’s get you to the infirmary, right away.”

“Impressive amounts of claret, cook-bro,” comments Franky. “What happened?”

Sanji finds he doesn’t want to go into more details. “No big deal. Just a scratch, from some asshole with a pistol.”

Over to one side, Zoro snorts. “Sure you didn’t just look for too long at the ladies and give yourself a nosebleed?”

Sanji feels a stab of anger. “Drop dead, shitty moss.” And then remembers that’s what could have happened. And is momentarily confused by how that feels.

“Eh; the guy had a rifle, not a pistol,” Usopp interjects helpfully. “I saw that sniper too, up in the rigging – but I wasn’t quick enough to get a shot at him before you took him out. Cool kick!” And then Usopp being Usopp, never knowing when to stop talking, makes things infinitely complicated by adding, “That guy had you in his sights, Zoro – Sanji dealt with him just in time.”

There is a brief crowded silence. Then Zoro says, slowly and deliberately, “What?”

Sanji tries to defuse whatever is unfolding. “Okay, Chopper. Let’s go so you can stick a band-aid on me.” And he starts to walk away.

“Wait a fucking moment.” Zoro’s voice is hard. And carries enough of an edge that Sanji stops; and turns around.

The swordsman is standing a couple of yards from him. He’s sheathed his swords but looks dishevelled from the skirmish, as they all do. There’s blood on his clothes – mostly other people’s, but there’s a cut on his arm too. He speaks again, and this time his voice is cold. “What the hell is he talking about?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Sanji makes his own voice nonchalant. “It’s all over, marimo. Go polish your swords.”

Zoro takes a step towards him. “Some sniper was lining up a shot on me, and you got in the way to stop him?”

“I kicked the fucker out the rigging, actually. Just my bad luck the bastard pulled the trigger as I was doing it.” Sanji says this dismissively.

“Are you fucking crazy?” The swordsman’s hand clenches where it rests on the hilt of his sword. “How bad are you hurt?”

“I’ll live.” Sanji starts to turn away. “Let’s go, Chopper.”

Zoro’s voice holds him back. “What the fuck were you doing, cook? I said I didn’t need anyone watching over me!”

Sanji is feeling tired, and his side aches, and he’s frankly had enough of fighting for one day. Which is why he doesn’t think too carefully about his retort, before he says it. “Well, shit: someone’s got to keep an eye on your blindfolded ass. I just drew the short straw.”

Maybe it’s also because he’s tired, that he doesn’t react quickly enough to what Zoro does next. The swordsman’s punch catches Sanji squarely on the jaw and knocks the chef back almost hard enough to make him fall down.

“Whoa - time out, guys!” Usopp’s yell of alarm is accompanied by Chopper’s equally loud cry of distress.

“Stop fighting! Sanji is injured!”

And when Sanji straightens up, his hand going to his jaw, Zoro has both fists now clenched - but Luffy suddenly steps in between them, one hand raising and shoving Zoro back... And then he turns and looks at Sanji, and their captain’s eyes are dark under lowered brows. “Go with Chopper and get patched up,” he directs the chef.

Sanji lets out a hard breath. “Yeah.” And with that he turns and walks away.

It doesn’t take Chopper long to tend to Sanji’s wound. The rifle bullet has just glanced his side, scoring a ragged but shallow gouge through the flesh. Chopper speculates that one rib may be cracked, but there’s no way of telling for sure. In any case, there’s not much he can do about it. The little doctor stitches the bullet wound closed and tapes a dressing across Sanji’s side; instructs him to take things easy for a the next few days; and not to do any heavy lifting for a couple of weeks.

“And no fighting,” Chopper adds, as Sanji re-buttons his ruined shirt. “Even with Zoro.”

The chef gives him a look. “He’s the one threw a punch at me.”

“So I noticed.” Chopper looks severe. “I hope you’re not planning to retaliate.”

“Pffff...” Sanji stands up, making a dismissive sound. “I don’t give a shit. I’ve had harder punches from girlfriends.”

The bruise on his jaw shows this statement to be the untruth it is, and even Chopper doesn’t buy it. “Maybe you and Zoro could, uh, put a hold on jumping down each other’s throats for a while?” His reindeer nakama sounds like he’s trying to phrase things tactfully. “Um... At least till the both of you aren’t actually wearing bandages?”

“Sure, whatever.” Sanji acquiesces, partly to save both of them further mutual embarrassment. “I’ll stay out of his way if he stays out of mine.”

Of course, being on the Sunny makes this difficult. Sharing space is a part of shipboard life. Sleeping in the bunkroom, dressing and undressing; relaxing on deck, or sitting round the table during meal times in the galley. Sanji and Zoro are around each other a lot of the time, whether they want to be or not.

But Sanji tries to keep things civil; and it seems like Zoro is trying too. They don’t trade insults as vehemently as before, though that side of things doesn’t stop completely because it’s so ingrained a habit it’s difficult to break. But outside of necessary conversation over meals, they barely speak.

Their crewmates studiously avoid remarking on the frosty ceasefire, or on the altercation that preceded it. Sanji’s biting words and Zoro’s answering punch are never mentioned. But it’s an uneasy truce.

Sanji himself has such a tangle of emotions inside that it’s hard to unravel the knot. He’s still angry with Zoro about what happened weeks ago, that hasn’t changed; it’s just been topped up with fresher anger from more recent events. The bruise on his jaw takes a while to fade, and the injury to his side takes even longer to heal. Until it does Sanji has to remember not to turn onto that side in his bunk. Annoyingly, this means that he has to lie facing the swordsman.

There are other things threaded through the anger, though. Relief, that he spoiled the sniper’s aim enough for the bullet not to find its intended target. But unfortunately this weaves another thread of anger: that instead of receiving Zoro’s gratitude for this, Sanji received a fist in the face.

Inexorably that train of thought leads to the next emotion. The acid rejoinder he fired at Zoro replays in his mind, and each time it does Sanji feels his shoulders tighten a little, in a flinch of something that is very like guilt.

- Someone’s got to keep an eye on your blindfolded ass. I just drew the short straw.

In two short sentences, Sanji managed to declare – in front of all their crewmates – not only that Zoro in his present state is a liability; but also that that the job of watching out for him is one the chef would rather not do. In short, that Zoro is currently a burden to his nakama.

For someone as proud as Zoro, it’s hard to see how Sanji could have said anything worse.

The chef considers himself lucky he only got punched the once. Being already gunshot probably helped, as did Luffy getting in the middle of things. But Sanji hasn’t forgotten the major stink-eye Luffy gave him: their captain often acts like an idiot but he isn’t stupid. The fierce loyalty that Zoro gives Luffy is a two-way street, and the younger man’s eyes had held the chef’s for a moment in a way that showed he understood perfectly what Sanji had just done.

By this point in his attempts to untangle the mess of conflicting thoughts, Sanji gives up. Figuring that it’s too late to change anything that’s already happened, so the best thing he can do is quit losing sleep over it.

This doesn’t solve the him-and-Zoro-not-talking thing, though. Neither does it get them past the constant uncomfortable awareness of each other’s presence, whenever they have to occupy the same space.

Unsurprisingly, the only one of their nakama who is determined enough to challenge this state of affairs is Luffy. Which he does one evening after supper, by the simple expedient of hanging around in the kitchen until everyone else has gone and Sanji is clearing the table, then demanding matter-of-factly, “How long are you guys gonna keep this up?”

Sanji dumps the dishes he’s cleared away by the sink, and gives Luffy a look. “Huh?”

“You and Zoro.” The steady gaze Luffy pins him with shows their captain isn’t buying the chef’s evasion. “How much longer are the two of you gonna be like this?”

Turning away and starting to run hot water into the washing up bowl, Sanji shrugs. “That’s up to him.”

“Nope.” Luffy sounds unimpressed. “It’s up to you.”

Stirring dish soap into a froth of bubbles, Sanji finds himself frowning. “How’d you figure that? He’s the one punched me in the teeth.”

“Uh huh.” Luffy agrees easily. “But you asked for it.”

Luffy’s logic is undeniable. Nevertheless, Sanji finds himself falling back on denial. “I didn’t do shit.”

There’s a sigh, and Luffy slumps down in his chair, tilting his hat low over his eyes and folding his arms. “Can’t you just say sorry to him?”

“I’m not fucking sorry.” Sanji responds with this, the anger that is just beneath the surface bubbling up a little. Albeit towing with it that queasy little cloud of guilt.

“Are you mad at him for not being able to see?” Luffy fires out this somewhat random question.

“No - of course not.” Sanji frowns at him.

“ ‘Cos it must kinda suck to be Zoro, right now.” Once again, their captain exercises his talent for pointing out the phenomenally obvious.

“Well, yeah.”

Luffy nudges up the brim of his hat just enough to fix Sanji with his gaze. “So why can’t you be nicer to him?”

There’s a silence then, which stretches for several moments. While Sanji considers several replies.

Because he’s an annoying asshole.

Because when I do something nice like stopping him from getting shot, I get punched in the face.

Because every time I look at that bandage covering his eyes I feel like shit.

Only the last reason really matters. But Sanji doesn’t voice it. Instead he says, “That won’t change anything.”

Luffy gives him a puzzled look. “It might make you feel better.”

“Eh?” The chef is equally puzzled.

“When I do nice things for people, it makes me feel good.” Luffy’s face breaks into one of his sudden irrepressible smiles. “Maybe if you do something nice for Zoro, you’ll feel good too.”

Sanji doesn’t really have a comeback for this, so he just grunts and turns back to the washing up. After a minute or so, he hears Luffy scrape back his chair, followed by his footsteps walking away. The galley door opens and closes, quite quietly.

- Captain’s orders.

Nami’s words from the day of the shipboard battle return to the chef; and he scowls slightly.

It’s not like Luffy has ordered him to do anything. Not in so many words.

- It’s up to you.

There are two ways of reading this statement. Either that Luffy is suggesting it’s Sanji’s responsibility to take the first step... Or that it’s up to Sanji himself, whether or not he does anything at all.

The chef scrubs at a saucepan, scowling harder. He doesn’t feel much like extending the olive branch right now. He suspects that even if he did, it would probably get snapped in half and thrown at his head.

- It must kinda suck to be Zoro, right now.

Sanji knows this: has known it since the day the swordsman got injured. But hearing Luffy’s words replay in his head now, he realises suddenly that knowing it and feeling it are two different things. He hasn’t wanted to feel it. Because when he lets himself do that, he feels responsible. And then the anger kicks in, because it was Zoro himself who chose the actions that got him injured. Although he did save Sanji from getting burned... At which thought the guilt comes back; and so on and so on, a tedious spiralling dance of feeling crappy which the chef can’t let go of or resolve.

But what if he stepped aside out of that? Stopped trying to unsnarl his own feelings... and let himself connect to Zoro’s, instead?

The idea makes Sanji grimace, it sounds so unbelievably touchy-feely. Not to mention, highly improbable. The likelihood of Zoro sharing anything from feelings-territory is laughable.

But that doesn’t mean that Sanji can’t figure this stuff out for himself.

Okay. If it sucks to be Zoro, right now... Why is that?

The answer is obvious. And it lies in the heart of darkness.

Sanji waits until all his nakama have turned in for the night (except Brook, who is on night watch up in the crow’s nest), and the Sunny has become quiet.

The chef often stays up after everyone else to claim a little quiet time in his galley domain, so no-one comments on it. He lights a lamp and makes a pot of coffee and sits at the dining table, updating his menu plans. When that’s done he simply sits and smokes a cigarette, waiting for a decent amount of time to elapse after hearing the last sounds of footsteps and closing doors as his nakama head to their bunks.

When it’s been quiet for a good hour or so, and the only sounds are the plash of waves and the creak of the ship, Sanji stands up and walks to a nearby drawer and pulls it open. He takes out a clean dish towel and closes the drawer; then lays the towel on a worktop. Deftly, he folds it twice lengthways: then picks up the narrow band of material.

Moving back to the table, Sanji turns out the lamp, plunging the galley into semi-darkness. There’s some moonlight, enough to see the shapes of familiar things around him. The dining table and chairs. The couch. The counter bar, and beyond it the stove and worktops and cupboards.

Sanji turns his gaze to the galley door a few yards away. Then he closes his eyes and the darkness that has been waiting enfolds him.

Slowly, keeping his eyes shut, he lifts the folded dish towel up with both hands and lays it across the upper part of his face. Wraps the cloth round, making sure his eyes are well covered, and ties it into a firm knot at the back of his head. Once it’s secured his fingers find the edges of the material and tug at it, repositioning his improvised blindfold slightly: he wants to make sure his ears are uncovered.

When he’s satisfied that the blindfold is properly in place, Sanji toes off his shoes so that he is barefoot. He steps away from the table; takes a moment to envision the galley in his mind’s eye, as he last saw it, shrouded in moonlight. And then he walks forward, slowly, in the direction of the door.

The first thing that he notices is that even though he was looking at the room mere seconds before, he doesn’t trust his own memory of it. He knows there are no obstacles between himself and the door, because he saw the empty space: but still he finds himself walking slowly and cautiously, one hand automatically lifting to fend off the unexpected. It’s disconcerting how unnerving it feels, especially when after a few paces he thinks he should have reached the door but his fingertips haven’t touched anything. He takes smaller steps, hesitating and stretching out further with his hand as if he’s trying to detect a hazard rather than a simple exit.

At last his fingers bump against wood: Sanji places his palm flat against it and feels, moving his hand sideways to try to find a feature that will identify whether he’s touching the wall or the door. The texture of the planking under his fingertips feels like a landscape, his hand mapping it as he moves, until he comes up against the edge of the door frame. Reaching this landmark gives him a ridiculous little kick of satisfaction: a point he can orientate himself from.

From there it’s easy to find the handle and open the door and step through. And everything changes.

In the galley the air was warm and still, infused with the scents of the supper they’d eaten earlier. But as soon as Sanji is out in the open, his senses assail him. Cool air moves against his skin: a slight night breeze pushes at him, stirring some loose strands of hair against his forehead, above the blindfold. He smells salt; hears the waves rising and falling along the sides of the ship. Under the soles of his feet the deck timbers are roughened by weather and use, a contrast to the galley’s meticulously swept-clean floor.

Although Sanji knows there’s a railing in front of him that will keep him from falling, it still feels challenging to move forward.

You know this. You know Sunny like the back of your hand.

He’s stepped out of the galley door onto this strip of deck hundreds of times, to light a cigarette or to call his nakama to meals. But the distance seems further than he remembers it: he steps carefully forward and his hand finds the rail.

Fuck, this is weird.

The noises of the sea fill his ears. He can feel the slight sway of the ship now too, rocking between the waves. He realises that his hand is gripping the railing tightly; deliberately, he eases off, sliding his fingers along the wood. They follow the rail’s curved edge and move lower... and suddenly find the rough braid of a length of rope. One of the guide ropes that Usopp and Franky put up for Zoro to use.

Okay, then.

Sanji keeps the fingers of one hand just touching the rope, and turns to his left. Walks slowly forward, one step at a time. All the time listening to a soundscape of noises, inhaling the messages of the night air, feeling the warp and grain territory of the planking under his feet.

At the top of the stairs that lead downwards Sanji pauses: lifts his hand slightly to grip the stair’s rail and holds it as he descends, one step at a time.

At the bottom his foot moves from the firm roughness of timber, to the yielding softness of grass. The intensity of it, of the different texture, makes Sanji slow down. He finds himself spreading his toes: setting each foot down gradually, as if he’s trying to walk on rice paper without tearing it. Feeling first the faintest brush of the tips of the grass against the ball of his foot. Then its softness giving way, like the pelt of some giant animal. The night cool of it, a faint dew dampening his skin. The way it gives just slightly when he finally puts his full weight on each foot. And when he inhales, he can smell the sweet earthy crushed green scent: even over the ship’s tang of tarred rope and sunbleached wood and salt.

It draws the chef in, this seductive immersion. Slows him further still, focusing just on the shift from footstep to footstep. The cool touch that is just cool enough.

Sanji turns to his right, away from the side of the ship. He can hear a slight breeze moving the leaves of the tangerine trees a little way ahead: behind him the ruffle of Sunny’s foresail. Sanji knows that somewhere in front of him is the wooden bulkhead that leads to the aquarium bar... So as walks slowly forwards he keeps one hand raised, fingertips outstretched like feelers.

It’s totally peaceful. The lap of waves against the ship, as it rides steadily on the ocean’s sway. Somewhere way up above, Brook is probably playing his violin quietly to himself in the crow’s nest... But the only sounds down here are those made by the elements. Sanji lets himself be held by the breathing, rocking solitude. It’s a rare moment on this lively ship, of being utterly and completely alone.

Immersed in the experience, he takes one more step. And his foot catches against something solid but yielding that immediately scuppers his balance. Blindfolded he has no chance of recovering it and falls headlong, landing in an ungraceful sprawl mostly on the grassy deck but also partly on someone who grunts and then swears.

“Oi... Watch where you’re walking, shitty cook.”

Sanji twists off hands and knees to sit on his ass, and tugs his improvised dish towel blindfold down from round his eyes. Moonlight, unbelievably bright, floods his vision and he blinks.

“...Asshole curly brow.” Zoro is sitting on the deck too, his back against the wall, swords propped alongside him. His legs are stretched out as if the swordsman had been slouched in a nap, which he probably was. So it really isn’t Sanji’s fault he tripped over the fucking marimo’s size-twelve feet.

The chef decides to point this out. “If you lie around in the dark where people will fall over you, craphead, don’t complain if that’s what happens.”

“It’s not dark, idiot. There’s plenty of moonlight.”

For a second Sanji is totally thrown by this. “How the hell do you know how dark it is?”

Zoro lets out a dismissive breath. “It’s only a couple of days after full moon. How much more light do you need, fuckwit?”

The chef is given pause by this. He looks up at the night sky, and Zoro’s absolutely right: a fat gibbous moons sails up there, among a scatter of stars.

The swordsman obviously picks up on what Sanji’s thinking. “It was last quarter moon the night before we ran into the flame ship. That’s over three weeks ago.”

Sanji is surprised by Zoro’s accurate reckoning. Although maybe he shouldn’t be. “How’d you know it’s not cloudy?”

“Because the air feels clear.” Zoro answers simply. “Colder than when there’s cloud cover.”

In spite of himself, the chef is impressed. “...Right.” And then remembers another detail. That the swordsman knew it was Sanji who tripped over him, as well. “I guess you used haki to tell it was me who fell over your roadblock ass.” Even as he says this, he mentally kicks himself for not having used observation haki himself, to avoid this kind of scenario.

Zoro snorts. “No need. You stink of cigarette smoke.”

Sanji goes straight to being pissed. This moron has absolutely no business flinging phrases like You stink at any other person on this ship – not when it’s usually the moss-head who pollutes the atmosphere, when he appears at the supper table reeking of sweat from training. “I’m not even fucking smoking right now!”

“You still smell of it.” Zoro’s mouth curves into a mocking smile.

Sanji contents himself with kicking the other man’s foot, just hard enough to teach him some manners. “Dumbass.”

“So how come you’re falling over me, anyhow?”

“Like I said: if you lie around like a corpse on the deck, then expect some consequences.”

“I’m fucking blind, shit cook. What’s your excuse?”

Blind.

The word hooks wickedly into Sanji. “What the hell’s wrong with lying in your bunk, like a civilised human being?”

Zoro lets out a slow breath: almost a sigh. “I felt like sitting out here.”

That makes the chef pause. He looks at the other man. “Couldn’t sleep?”

A smile quirks the swordsman’s mouth again: a slightly wry one, this time. “Doesn’t really matter where I nap, does it? Not like I need it to be dark or anything.”

Sanji can’t argue with this. “Guess not.”

“It was nice and peaceful sitting here. Till you came stumbling along. What’s the matter: been hitting the wine supply?”

“I haven’t been drinking, craphead. Can’t your freaky powers of smell detection pick that up?”

“Just hoping you might’ve brought a bottle out here with you.”

“You had sake, with supper.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So the rules haven’t changed, just because you can’t read them at the moment. There’s only so much alcohol in store before we get somewhere we can replenish it again. Like everything else, I dish out a daily allowance. That’s not enough for you, then tough shit.”

“Give me a fucking break.” Zoro sounds even surlier than usual.

“Why the hell should I?”

“Because when you’re stuck in the dark for weeks, sake’s one of the few things that keeps its appeal.”

It’s Sanji’s turn to sigh. “...Right. Nonetheless: I’m not dishing out infinite amounts of alcohol to you, just so you can get shitfaced.”

“Tightass bastard.”

“Of course, I can also downsize your daily alcohol ration.”

“I’ll steal it.”

“Then I’ll hide it where you’ll never find it.”

There are several seconds of silence after Sanji says this. Then Zoro responds in level tones, “Yeah: that won’t exactly be a tough job.”

The chef finds himself wincing slightly at the words. And makes no reply at all.

After a few moments, Zoro speaks again. “You still haven’t answered my question, shit cook. How come you’re throwing yourself at my feet? Missing me, or something?”

“As if.” Sanji settles himself into sitting cross-legged, tugging the knotted dish towel round his neck so that it sits like a loose neckerchief.

“Then what’s with the clumsiness?”

“I tripped over you because you were in the way. Can’t your mossy brain process the concept of cause and effect?”

“Yeah, because that’s really you, cook: clumsy on your feet.” Zoro shakes his head. “What’re you dodging around saying?”

“I’m not dodging anything.”

Zoro’s hand shoots out suddenly, bridging the space between them. The swordsman can still move very swiftly and Sanji doesn’t have time to flinch back, when the other man’s hand finds his shoulder. Zoro’s fingers slide sideways – and touch the dish towel that lies looped around the chef’s neck. Fingertips hook into the soft cloth and tug on it, slightly: Zoro lets out a grunt. “What’s this?”

Sanji twitches the dish towel free. “Bandana. I’ve been experimenting with a new look.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s what I thought. So the experiment’s over.” Sanji unknotted the cloth and slid it off. “Only a total moron would wear one of these.”

“That’s not what you were experimenting with.” Zoro sounds very stiff now.

“How the fuck would you know?”

“You suck at Blind Man’s Bluff about as much as you suck at lying, shit cook. Want to tell me what you’re playing at?”

Sanji exhales equally lengthily, to buy time. At last he says, “Wanted to try something out.”

“Uh huh.” This comes out of Zoro almost as a growl.

“Not being able to see.” Sanji fidgets, drumming with his fingers on his knee. “I wanted to know what it was like.”

“Didn’t occur to you there was someone you could ask?”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Too late for that.” Zoro’s tones are still unfriendly.

“Getting that.” Sanji states this evenly. “But: I wanted to know, like I said. So I decided to try it.”

“Yeah? What revelations did you discover?”

The chef takes the time to think about his response. Because he wants to say this right. “The world feels totally different, when I’m not filtering it through my eyes. Even though I have a mental picture of how Sunny is, what I experience isn’t what I expected. Things seem bigger, or smaller. Distances are further. Textures feel more... intense.” He pauses for a moment; then continues. “Sounds are all around me, like a landscape. Smells are like colours. And everything feels unreal. By covering my eyes, I made the world disappear... But somehow, it felt more like I was the one who wasn’t really here.”

Zoro’s head tilts up, just a little. As though he’s considering all this. Then he just says, “Yeah.”

Sanji is so surprised by this assent, he can’t help remarking on it. “Really? You get what I’m saying?”

The swordsman nods. “Some of it. The hearing and smelling things more. And the sense of touch, too... That’s definitely stronger.”

The chef remembers then watching Zoro many days ago, running his fingertips over the weathered timber of Sunny’s rail. The way the other man’s hand had slowed, almost caressing the wood. As if he was exploring something he needed to know.

“But the last thing you said, about not really being here.” Zoro’s mouth tightens slightly. “That most of all.”

Sanji wonders how that feels, for weeks at a stretch. “Well... That’s what I was doing, anyway.”

“Hhn.” Zoro makes a sound of assent. “Trying to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes?”

“No.” Sanji picks up the dish towel, then lets it fall again. “Not even close. I’m not stupid. I’m not pretending doing this gives me even half an idea of what this must be like for you. This is something I just played with for while. I can take this blindfold off.”

“Two weeks from now, I can take mine off.” Zoro states this simply. And Sanji literally doesn’t know what to respond. His muteness seems to amuse the swordsman: one corner of Zoro’s mouth hikes up. “Don’t deafen me with your overwhelming optimism, curly brow.”

“I didn’t - ” Sanji grits his teeth. “Damn it....”

“Another thing, about this deal? It gets so you can almost hear what people are thinking. Don’t ask me how that fucking works, it just does. So don’t worry. I know what you’re trying not to say.”

“You don’t know shit about what I’m thinking,” Sanji retorts.

“Yeah? Something like, When those bandages come off there are no guarantees you’ll be able to see anything. Close enough?”

“There’s no point thinking that way.”

“Why not? Could be that’s what’ll happen.”

“So unless it does, don’t fucking dwell on it.”

“Yeah, that’s always a winning strategy. Stick your head in the sand and hope things’ll be okay.”

“What, it’s better to keep thinking about what the worst outcome could be?” Sanji snaps this back at the other man. “Like things aren’t bad enough?”

“Things are what they are.” The swordsman says this with finality.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. If you’re going to sit there quoting bullshit philosophical slogans at me, I’m going to bed.” Sanji moves to uncross his legs and stand up, but he’s only half risen when Zoro’s voice stops him.

“Wait.”

It’s not the word itself that makes Sanji pause. It’s the tone it’s spoken in. Not a peremptory command, or even an angry exclamation. Instead the swordsman’s voice is low: no antagonism edging it. Almost a request.

Slowly, Sanji finds himself sitting down again. He looks at the swordsman, who has his head turned as if he was meeting the chef’s gaze. “...Okay. What?”

“Why’re you so fucking pissed, cook?” Zoro asks, deliberately.

“Well, let’s see.” Sanji pretends to consider for a moment. “It might have something to do with the fact that I got a fist in my face, a week ago. Amongst other things.”

“Yeah, right.” The swordsman grimaces. “Okay: I clocked you. But it started before that. You’re always bitching about something, I ought to be used to it... But the past few weeks you’ve been like a bear with a hornet’s nest up its ass.”

“You have that effect on people, in case you hadn’t noticed. You’re a pain in the ass.”

“If you’re mad about something, stop dancing around it and spit out what’s bothering you.  ‘Cause it’s starting to get annoying.”

Sanji glares at the other man. Then wonders if the swordsman can sense that. “What is this, another weird side effect of you not being able to see? Normally you wouldn’t notice if someone was irritated with you until their fist hit the side of your head. Or their shoe, in my case.”

“You haven’t tried to land a serious kick on me since this happened. That’s another reason I know something’s up.” Zoro gives a shrug.

“You think I’m the kind of asshole who’d kick someone who can’t see?” Sanji exclaims. “I’m not fighting you in this state, you fucking dumbass.”

“Best chance you’ll ever get to win, shit cook.” The swordsman bares his teeth in a grin.

“How would beating you right now be winning?”  the chef responds pointedly.

Zoro’s grin wipes away. “Wrong fucking question.”

Sanji knows it: not least from the way the swordsman’s voice has gone flat and chilly. “Are you gonna punch me again?”

“Thinking about it.”

It would be a very short step from this, to making Zoro swing that punch. And then Sanji could retaliate and all this would turn into a fight, right here on the deck. It’s a dance they know well, one where the moves are familiar... And the temptation to go with it is strong. But Sanji resists it. Instead he says, “Hm, yeah... About that.”

Then he stops. Debating whether getting into this is a good idea.

When the pause has stretched for several seconds, Zoro prompts him. “About what?”

Reaching for his cigarettes, Sanji extracts one. Taps it slowly against the palm of his hand, weighing things up; then places it in his mouth and lights it. He waits until he’s drawn in and released a smoky breath, before answering with a question of his own. “Why’d you punch me, before?”

The swordsman’s mouth tightens slightly. “Because you were being an asshole.”

“Really? That’s the only reason?” Sanji pushes the question, because he wants Zoro to truly answer it.

Letting out a hard breath, the swordsman folds his arms across his chest. “You seriously need me to spell it out to you, shit-cook?”

“Humour me.”

“Fine.” A muscle jumps in Zoro’s jaw. “I fucking decked you because you were way out of line, saying what you said to me.”

“That’s all? You were mad because of what I said? Or because of what I did, as well?”

“That too.” Zoro’s voice hardens. “I made it pretty damn clear I didn’t need, or want, anyone babysitting me if we got into a fight.”

“Yeah. You did.” Sanji flicks ash away. “But I also remember Luffy being pretty damn clear about the fact that he expected me to watch your back, in that eventuality.”

“You didn’t just watch my back.” The swordsman gave a half-shake of his head. “You got in the way of a bullet for me.”

“I didn’t plan on doing that – I was just unlucky.”

“Are you totally fucking crazy, cook? You could’ve been a lot unluckier, and wound up dead.”

Sanji draws on his cigarette. Makes his voice level when he replies. “Yeah. I guess I could have.”

There are a few tense seconds of silence. Then Zoro speaks again. “So when you pull that kind of shit, don’t be surprised if it pisses people off.”

“The alternative being, what? I should’ve let that bastard with the rifle decorate Sunny’s deck with your meagre brains?”

“You could’ve shouted a warning to me.”

“What, like: Hey Zoro, watch out for that guy up there!”  Sanji gives the swordsman a moment to work this one out. “There wasn’t time. And anyway, you were kind of busy.”

With the upper part of his face hidden under the bandage Zoro’s scowl is less fearsome than usual, but it’s still visible. “That’s bullshit.”

“Look: I saw that sonofabitch lining up a shot on you, and I knew I could skywalk and take him out, it was the simplest solution. Him getting a shot off was just bad luck: but shit happens.”

“It better not happen again,” Zoro states ominously.

“Oi, dumbass: if any of my nakama are in trouble, I help them out. That includes you. So stop bitching about it.”

Zoro moves quickly, his arms unfolding and one hand shooting out and grabbing the chef by the front of his shirt. “I fucking mean it.” His voice is a low growl.

Sanji doesn’t try to pull free. Instead he says, very deliberately, “So it’s okay for you to put yourself in harm’s way to save your nakama... But it’s not okay for someone else to do the same thing?”

They stay motionless for a few seconds, Zoro’s fist clenched in the chef’s shirt. Then his hand opens, releasing his hold. When he speaks his voice has changed. Quieter, but still forceful. “What?”

Sanji brushes his front, straightening his shirt; then he replies, equally quietly and fiercely. “Three weeks ago, you stepped into the firing line of that flame gun. After knocking me out the way. So you don’t get to tell me what I fucking can and can’t do, asshole.”

It’s finally out there, between them. Sanji clenches his teeth on his cigarette and glares at Zoro – which is wasted on the idiot, being as how he can’t see it – and feels the anger that he’s been carrying for the last three weeks fill his chest with heat.

Long moments pass. And at last Zoro says slowly, “That’s why you’re pissed at me.”

“Pretty much.” Now that he’s allowing himself to feel it, Sanji has to work at containing it. There’s a reckless energy zinging through him that would make it very easy to lash out with a kick now, channel the fury he’s held onto all this time. But he’s determined not to. “And point of information: instead of ‘pissed’, try ‘totally fucking enraged’.”

“Those guys were gonna barbecue you, curly-brow. I just did what was necessary.”

“Like hell. You sliced that gun in half: it blew up and nearly took us with it.” Sanji doesn’t try keeping the anger he feels out of his voice. “You could have got yourself killed... And you wound up like this.”

“Yeah. So?” Zoro’s response is in combative tones.

“So, to quote something some asshole recently said: ‘When you pull that kind of shit, don’t be surprised if it pisses people off.’ ” Sanji fires this back at him.

There is a short and tense silence. The only sounds are the lapping of waves along Sunny’s sides; the faint rustling of leaves on Nami’s tangerine trees.

At last Zoro releases a sigh. “...Fuck.” His head tilts back slightly, until it rests against the bulkhead behind him with a small thud. “Y’know, shit-cook... It would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if you’d just had this out with me three weeks ago.”

Sanji fiddles with his cigarette. Then admits, reluctantly, “Took me a while to figure out what I was most pissed about.”

A wry grin hitches up one corner of Zoro’s mouth. “You could’ve just tried to kick my ass. That usually works things out.”

That makes Sanji even more uncomfortable. But full disclosure seems to be a theme right now, so he feels he has to be truthful. “I didn’t want to fight you.” He doesn’t expand on his reasons, but the swordsman’s mouth tightens anyway.

“Because I can’t see?”  Zoro’s voice falls into a low growl. “Fuck you. I can still take you, shitty bastard. You want me to prove it, let’s go right fucking now.”

“Not just that. Yeah, I admit it: the first few days, it was because you couldn’t see. And because you were hurt, moss brain. I was the one helped you get back here after it happened, remember? I saw how bad you were injured.” Sanji takes a slow breath in. “But more than that... It was because I felt responsible. For your face being burned. You being unable to see. I felt like it was partly my fault.”

Zoro’s head tilts a little to one side, as if he’s considering this. Then he says simply, “Then quit beating up on yourself, cook. I got injured because of what I did.”

Sanji takes a pull on his cigarette to ground himself. It helps: so when he speaks again, his voice is even. “You really have to quit pulling this kind of crap.”

“Huh?”

“Being so fucking reckless. And taking damage from stuff that’s aimed at other people.” The chef picks his words carefully, trying to make the other man understand. “It’s unfair.”

Zoro snorts. “Unfair? If one of you guys looks like you’re about to get your ticket cancelled, you think I give a fuck what’s fair? I’m on this crew as a swordsman, shit-cook: I’m a fighter. My job is to protect my nakama.”

“Yeah? Well, if me or Luffy interfered in a fight you were having with someone, you’d be incandescent, marimo.”

The swordsman seems to be about to make a terse reply; but he bites it back. After a moment, he admits, “Yeah. I would.”

“Well.” Sanji pulls in a breath; releases it. “Then I think maybe we’re on the same page now.”

Zoro grunts. “You mean, you’re pissed because of what I did: and I’m pissed because you did the same thing?”

In spite of himself, the chef lets out a short laugh. “That about covers it.”

A slow smile curves the swordsman’s mouth, too. “...Okay.”

And it is okay, Sanji realises. He’s told Zoro how he feels about what happened; and they’re both still sitting facing each other. They haven’t started trading blows, or snarling insults. For the first time in three weeks the chef can look at the swordsman, at his blindfolded face, and not feel angry. At Zoro, or at himself.

Sitting leaning back against the wooden bulkhead, Zoro feels a shift in the atmosphere too. As though they have sailed out of a storm into clearer air.

Everything the chef has said makes sense. Kind of.

After that incident with the sniper, Zoro felt furious... But Sanji saying the shit he did then gave the swordsman an excuse to lash out. So if the chef’s been feeling something similar since the flame gun skirmish, but without venting his anger by getting into a fight with Zoro... Then it’s hardly surprising that the tension’s been ratcheting up between the two of them.

Fucking curly brow. Always has to make things way more complicated than they are.

Zoro wouldn’t have minded Sanji trying to kick his ass. He’s confident he can take the other man on, sighted or not. He isn’t about to admit it out loud, but he’s been missing the fights that were a regular feature between him and the chef.

There’s another thing that he’s missed even more. Since he got injured, not only has fighting seemingly been out of bounds... But he and Sanji haven’t been close in that other physical way. Which isn’t too surprising: if the chef’s been feeling seriously pissed with him, then it’s unlikely he’s been in the mood for... that kind of stuff.

But maybe now they’ve cleared the air, things have changed in that respect too?

Zoro considers this. And hopes that this side of things is, not to put too fine a point on it, back on the menu. He wants to close that distance that’s been there between them for the past three weeks. Wants to do something that will connect him back to the chef, and to the world. Something that might stop this feeling, of not really being here.

He hears Sanji exhale: a scent of cigarette smoke comes strongly, then there is the soft rustle as the other man shifts position. A shoulder nudges against his as the chef sits alongside him, the two of them with their backs against the bulkhead.

It’s a promising start. Zoro can feel the brush of Sanji’s shirt sleeve against his bare forearm. They’re close enough that he can smell the chef, not just cigarette smoke but food and coffee and cologne. The way the other man always smells: mingled scents of good things, like walking through a busy market square on a sunny day. The familiarity of it relaxes something in the pit of Zoro’s stomach, uncoiling tension that has been there for too long.

“So... You plan on sleeping out here?” Sanji’s question is put quietly.

Zoro smiles. “Depends what other offers are on the table.”

The chef chuckles under his breath. “Brook’s on watch tonight... Guess the crow’s nest isn’t an option.”

They wind up in the galley, because that’s the other default territory they both know they can take this to. On the couch where they sit side by side as they did on deck, but turned towards each other. One of Sanji’s hands lifting to the back of Zoro’s neck and the swordsman responding in kind, the two of them drawing close and mouths finding each other in a kiss that starts out as exploratory but quickly intensifies.

Sanji is the first to pull back. He feels Zoro’s hand slide down from his neck to his shoulder: the swordsman is breathing slightly faster than he was a moment ago. Sanji’s lips tingle; he wants to taste the other man again, but something holds him back. He looks at Zoro’s face, the bandage pale against the swordsman’s tanned skin. They haven’t lit any lamps and it’s dark in the galley, but there’s still moonlight, stealing in through the small round windows.

Sanji closes his eyes. Now he can’t see the moonlight; but somehow that’s not enough.

The chef opens his eyes again and reaches to one side: picks up the dish towel he’d laid on the arm of the couch. Takes hold of Zoro’s left hand and turns it palm uppermost... before laying the cloth across his fingers.

Zoro doesn’t close his hand: simply stays as he is, holding it in an open palm. “...What’s this for?”

Sanji feels a small kick of nervous tension in his stomach, because what he says could sound so very wrong. “I want you to blindfold me.”

Zoro’s mouth tightens slightly... but then his lips part, and he takes a slow breath in. “What for?”

“So I know how it feels. For you.”

A quick wry smile quirks Zoro’s mouth; and then it’s gone. “Pervert ero-cook.”

It’s easier to make this a joke; but Sanji is serious. He wants this, and he wants Zoro to know that he wants it. “Tie it on me.”

The swordsman hefts the folded dish cloth in his hand, as if considering this. Then without a word, he moves his arm sideways and discards the cloth on the couch.

Sanji feels his heart fall, a curious pang of disappointment dig in there.

But then Zoro reaches up to his own left arm and his fingers curl around the black bandana there: tug at the knot until it comes loose. Then he shakes the bandana out with a flick of his wrist, before folding it lengthwise. Lifts up the narrow black strip of cloth with both hands. And only then he speaks. “Turn around.”

Sanji does so, twisting on the couch and sitting with his back towards the swordsman. His heart is suddenly speeding up in his chest as Zoro’s arms brush his shoulders; the swordsman reaching round him and bringing the bandana up against his face.

The cloth feels soft and smooth, doubtless from use. But it obviously isn’t freshly laundered: Sanji can smell salt sea spray and clove oil and Zoro himself as the material settles over his face. He lifts his own hands to guide the bandana to where it needs to be, covering his eyes: his fingers brush against the swordsman’s.

Zoro adjusts the bandana slightly; then his hands move back and Sanji feels them tying a knot to secure it in place. There’s just a slight tug against his hair as the bandana tightens. Zoro’s voice comes again. “That too tight?”

“No.” Sanji feels the bandana, pushing at it just a little with his fingertips to check that it won’t come loose. “It’s fine.”

The darkness is velvety now and absolute. Because his eyelids are covered, he no longer has to concentrate on keeping them closed. It’s restful: he feels himself relax slightly.

Except. His heart is still beating a little harder than it usually does.

Fingertips graze the nape of his neck, then brush lightly up around his ear. A moment later Zoro’s lips follow, moving lightly against the angle where neck and shoulder meet. The lips part and then Sanji feels the wet heat of the swordsman’s tongue press against his skin... Before travelling slowly up his neck, coaxing a shiver from the chef’s body.

It’s disconcerting how much he feels from this simple touch. Sanji finds himself tilting his head sideways, offering his neck up; and when Zoro nips softly at his ear before delving into it with his tongue, the chef can’t help letting out a sound that has him blushing to the roots of his hair.

This seems to encourage the swordsman, because he spends a little while concentrating on exploring the chef with his mouth. Eventually his other hand creeps round Sanji’s side and settles on the chef’s stomach, tugging him closer... Then inevitably, this hand starts to gravitate downwards.

Sanji lets out a breath between his teeth, before twisting round on the couch and extricating himself. “Hah... Slow down, craphead.”

Zoro exhales too. One of his hands comes to rest on the chef’s wrist: his fingers tighten there. “Why?”

“You in some kind of hurry?” The chef asks this in a voice that betrays the fact that he’s grinning.

It’s been three fucking weeks, so if Zoro was being totally honest he would just answer Hell yeah, and commence to push things along a little.

But. Underneath the chef’s slightly mocking tones there is a breathy unsteadiness. Zoro can feel the other man’s pulse thrumming beneath his fingertips, heartbeat speeding up with excitement. And Zoro himself is caught up in this. From the moment Sanji asked the swordsman to blindfold him, something was lit up and now he can feel it burning under his skin. He’s already so aroused, hard, wanting to take this to the next level.

Then Sanji draws his arm away. Before shifting on the couch: the swordsman feels movement, the cushions dip as the other man turns around and leans in and captures Zoro’s mouth again with his own. Lips parting the swordsman’s, tongue sweeping in with an exhaled Mhmm  that is both eager and appreciative.

They stay like that for a while; connected by kissing. Tasting, enjoying. Mouths slick and warm, yielding and taking. Sharing breaths until they grow lightheaded.

It’s the chef who initiates the next phase. Zoro feels him pull back slightly... Then fingers work their way under the lower edge of the swordsman’s shirt, before they tug it upwards. They both lean apart and Zoro raises his arms, letting the chef pull his shirt up and over his head, freeing his skin to the night air.

His own hands reach out to do the same: fingers searching out the buttons on the front of Sanji’s clothes. It takes longer to uncover the chef, unfastening his jacket and shirt front; longer still because Sanji keeps interrupting the process by kissing him, biting at his lower lip. Zoro perseveres and the last button slides free, enabling him to reach up and strip the shirt off the chef’s shoulders.

Now their hands can travel over each other. Take possession of skin.

Zoro lets his fingers drift down from Sanji’s shoulder to his chest: strokes his thumb just hard enough over the other man’s nipple and feels the sensitive flesh start to life. Hears the small breath the chef pulls in.

It makes heat intensify, in the pit of the swordsman’s stomach. Makes him want this, so much.

He tracks his hand downwards, fingertips mapping the lean geography of Sanji’s chest. The way the chef is all muscle and sinew, sculpted planes that rise and fall as he breathes.

Then Zoro’s fingers touch something soft: material of some sort, taped to Sanji’s skin. And he stops.

- You got in the way of a bullet for me.

Stillness holds between them for a few seconds. Then Sanji says quietly, “You okay?”

Zoro doesn’t move. His hand stays where it is, fingertips just touching the dressing taped on the chef’s side. “...Was gonna ask you the same thing.”

“It’s healing up pretty quick.” Sanji sounds like he’s being truthful. “Anyway, it was only a scratch to begin with.”

“A bullet in the side isn’t a fucking scratch, shit-cook.”

“Well, this one was.”

“It crack your rib?”

“Don’t think so.”

Zoro’s fingers ghost over the place, lighter than a moth’s wings. “You’re a fucking lousy liar.”

Sanji sighs irritably. “Chopper said maybe. That a good enough answer for you?”

The swordsman lets his hand fall, settling onto the chef’s hip. “Just want to know how bad you’re hurt.”

“I told you: it’s healing up. Don’t worry.”

“Not worrying.” Zoro leans forward and kisses him determinedly, his other hand coming up to cup the back of the chef’s head to hold him there. Taking his time about it. And when he finally releases the other man, adding a clarification. “Just finding out whether I need to go easy on you or not.”

The chef’s body stiffens, twitching with annoyance. “Fuck you, moss-head!”

“Yeah, that’s where I thought this was going. Just making sure.” Zoro grins.

Holding back definitely isn’t what happens.

When they’ve shed more clothes – which doesn’t take long – it’s not clear which of them has missed this more. They roam over each other’s body with increasing urgency, tracing skin with fingertips, caressing it with tongue and lips and teeth. Feeling it come alive and shiver and flush with heat.

Sanji kisses along Zoro’s clavicle, then follows the curve of his neck, the angle of his jaw. Up as far as his earrings which are thin and cool and smooth as he runs his tongue through them; bites gently at his lover’s ear and smiles at the hard catch of breath Zoro makes.

His mouth brushes against the lower edge of the bandage that covers Zoro’s eyes. The chef breathes in the scent of lavender and peppermint and aloe, cool green healing things. As if the swordsman’s face is a warm garden coming alive under sunlight.

He lets his lips drift to Zoro’s cheek, laying a light kiss there, against the healing skin. And hears himself asking a question. “Does it still hurt?”

The swordsman grunts. “Not much... Kinda itches.”

“But at first...” Sanji isn’t sure why he pursues this. “It was pretty bad.”

“For a while... Hell, yeah.” Zoro doesn’t sound like he really wants to be reminded.

Being a chef, Sanji has had several burns and scalds over the years. One of the worst was when he stupidly dumped potatoes too quickly into a roasting pan of smoking hot fat and splashed his hands. He can still remember how it felt.

Deliberately, Sanji lowers his mouth to the swordsman’s and guides the other man’s lips open with his own. Kisses him and kisses him until they both forget everything except the here and now.

He uses his hands, his body, to roam over Zoro’s skin until he has recreated the memory of it in his mind’s eye. Thinks that the swordsman is doing the same. The two of them finding each other in the dark.

It should feel strange but instead it’s hypnotic, immersive, intimate in a way it’s never been before. Losing where the heat of his own body ends and Zoro’s begins.

For the swordsman it’s like drinking cold water when he’s been working out on a scorching hot day. How it feels when he first starts to swallow down coolness, in gulps that make his throat ache: like it will never quench the thirst. The urge to keep drinking, to slake what his body is telling him he needs.

The chef tastes and smells and sounds and feels like everything he needs. He wants to drink Sanji down: breathe him in. The galley, the rest of the ship, disappears; the world is only what they can touch. Each other made real, by how far their hands can reach.

Zoro holds on tighter, pulls the chef closer. Their lips bruise against each other; fingers tangle together, clench. It’s like fighting, it’s always been like fighting with them, but somehow this is different. Fierce but slow. As if the anger they’ve both felt is flickering just under the surface... but something else is burning underneath that. Something that might grow from this, like wildfire. If they want it to.

Zoro feels Sanji’s arms rest on his shoulders, the chef wrap around him. Long slender fingers curl against the back of his neck; strong legs press against his hips. Heat building between them like a thundercloud, skin slick where they move against each other.

And then they’re closer still, he’s inside Sanji, right in that tight, hot, sweet place. Both of them moving, pulsing like waves through the ocean. Holding on to each other, rocking, pushing, seeking that wildfire. Capturing each other’s mouth and tasting the other’s excitement; trying to find as many places to touch as they can.

And when it hits Zoro sees stars. Brilliant and sparkling in the darkness. The first thing he’s seen since darkness claimed him weeks ago.

Afterwards they make up a bed on the galley floor, like they usually do. Cushions from the couch, blankets and throws, improvised comfort. It’s enough.

Moonlight still fingers its way through the windows. Sanji can see it now: he’s taken off Zoro’s bandana, laid it aside with all their other discarded clothes. They lie curled together, him at the swordsman’s back. One arm lying loosely over Zoro’s waist; thumb stroking slowly against the other man’s stomach.

Sanji knows that Zoro is still awake. He can feel it, in the stillness of the swordsman’s body. It’s not the relaxed stillness of sleep: rather, a focussed awareness. As if the other man is waiting. Or listening, for something.

The only sound is their breathing, and the night music of the Sunny: small creaks of relaxing timber and moving rigging, the faint plash of waves. But Sanji finds that he’s listening too, waiting to hear or see or sense something. Some external sign that things have changed. Because everything feels different. He knows this; like he knows that Zoro is lying beside him, also wakeful and watchful.

There’s a curious feeling, of both peace and suspense. Something new they’re holding between them that could easily be shattered by a wrong move, or a wrong word. It fills Sanji with elation, and recklessness. A need to fix this moment in time; or to test it, to see if it will break.

Immediately he thinks this, he feels that not testing it will somehow break what’s there anyway. So he moves his mouth closer to the back of the swordsman’s head and murmurs quietly. “So, blindfolds... Definitely worth trying again?”

The muscles of Zoro’s stomach shake slightly under his hand, as the swordsman lets out a low laugh. “...You got some weird fucking kinks, ero-cook.”

“Just making the most of the situation.”

“Uh huh.” Zoro sounds like he’s smiling.

Sanji tightens his arm around the other man’s waist. “Like you weren’t getting off on it as well, craphead.”

“...Mhmm.” The bass hum Zoro that makes is the clearest affirmative the chef could ask for. He smiles too, against the swordsman’s neck.

Evidently Zoro feels this. “Oi... What are you smirking about?”

“The fact that you’re so fucking easy to read.”

“Bite me,” the swordsman growls, but without rancour.

“I did,” Sanji reminds him.

There’s a grunt. “... Yeah.”

“In all kinds of places.”

“... Shut the fuck up.”

“Make me.”

“You plan on talking all night?”

“Depends on what the alternatives are.”

There’s movement under the blanket: Zoro rolling over, until he lies facing the chef. One hand lifting up and coming to rest on Sanji’s side. Carefully avoiding his injury. “It’s kinda late.”

The unexpectedness of this comment takes the chef by surprise. “Eh?”

“Or kinda early.” Zoro speaks quietly. “It was after midnight, when you tripped over me out on deck. Then we were... busy, for a while.”

Sanji smiles again. “Yeah. So?”

“So you’ll be have to be up in a few hours, to start making breakfast. So go the fuck to sleep.”

That strange feeling fills Sanji again, like a warm bubble of light expanding inside him. “I’m not very sleepy right now.”

“Do me a favour, cook.” Zoro’s voice is level. “Make believe like you are.”

The chef can feel the swordsman’s hand where it rests against his side. The roughness of Zoro’s calloused thumb, as it moves slowly back and forth against his skin. The warmth of the contact. “Am I keeping you awake, marimo?”

There’s a slow exhalation of breath. “Che... It’s the middle of the night, idiot. What do you think?”

Sanji does think about it. Thinks back, to when he found Zoro earlier that night. Remembering that the swordsman never really answered his question.

- Couldn’t sleep?

The chef wonders about this. Which is what makes him try asking again. “When I tripped over you earlier... Why were you out on deck, instead of in your bunk?”

Zoro lets out a long breath. “Like I said. I felt like getting some space.”

“Yeah? How come?”

The swordsman shifts his head slightly against the pillow. “It’s gonna sound weird.”

“Let’s hear it, anyway.”

There’s a long silence. Which is broken at last by Zoro, sounding reluctant. “Sleeping in my bunk... I dream.”

“I hate to break it to you, moss-head, but that’s not weird. Everyone dreams.”

“I fucking know that. I mean, when I dream... I can see.”

Sanji is momentarily silenced by this.

After a few seconds, Zoro continues. “But when I wake up: I can’t see anything. I lie there and think, Okay, I can feel the bunk swaying. The pillow. The blanket. I can hear the ship creaking, and Luffy snoring. I can smell a week’s worth of laundry. So I must be awake. But for a while, I’m not sure. Because you can dream stuff like that, too.” He pauses for a moment, as if considering how to continue. “It’s like... everything’s flipped around. When I’m asleep and dreaming that seems real, because I can see. When I’m awake that feels like a dream, because I’m in the dark.”

“Huh.” The chef blinked. “That sounds... really unsettling.”

“Just dumb fucking tricks my brain keeps playing on me.” Zoro says this disparagingly, as if he’s dismissive of the massive thing he’s just said. That for him right now, reality is something that feels intangible. Something he has to constantly work at staying connected to.

Sanji lets out a slow breath. Trying to figure out a way through all of this. The contradictions of everything he’s experienced this night.

Being unable to see has somehow dissolved something, some barrier between them, that he didn’t even know was there. The two of them having to find their way by touch, by listening, by sensing the other, has wrought some irrevocable change. As though under the cover of darkness, something has started to grow.

But for Zoro this darkness isn’t a gift. It’s a loss. A loss that he’s woken to every day, of the past three weeks.

That he might wake up to for a long time to come.

Sanji realises that they’ve both been quiet for long moments. Maybe they could let this silence stretch until sleep claims them both, but the thoughts in his head are unlikely to let that happen. Somehow he knows that the same thing is true for Zoro. So there’s not much to lose, by asking the question that’s in his mind.

“You often... think about it?”

“Think about what?” Zoro’s reply is quiet.

“Two weeks from now. When Chopper takes the bandages off.”

There’s a long silence. Sanji wondered if he’s pushed things too far; but his question is out there now, he can’t take it back. So he waits.

At last Zoro responds. “Yeah.”

Sanji waits for more. And when there seems to be no more forthcoming, risks a cautious prod. “So what do you think?”

The swordsman lets out a slow exhale. “Sometimes... I think, what if I stay like this?” He speaks steadily, without any hint of self pity. “But if that’s what happens... Guess I’ll just have to deal.”

It’s a typical Zoro response. Pragmatic, simple, unflinchingly honest. But it pulls a sudden knot of pain tight, in the centre of Sanji’s chest. And he finds himself pleading silently, though he doesn’t know with whom.

Don’t make him have to live this way.

Sanji can think of a hundred sights he would grieve for, if he lost his own vision. Sunrise over a turquoise ocean. The faces of his nakama. Foods, in all colours of the rainbow. A silver moon path shivering on barely-moving waves. Dolphins riding the Sunny’s bow wave, arcing joyfully out of the water.

Zoro himself.

Wanting something doesn’t make it happen. But Sanji lets himself want it, hard enough to hurt.

He doesn’t say anything out loud. But his hand tightens its hold on Zoro’s side, just for a moment.

The swordsman sighs. And when he speaks, his voice is low. And uncharacteristically soft. “Oi, shitty cook... Go to sleep.”

And because there’s nothing else that either of them can say, that’s what they both do.

Chapter Text

A couple of days pass and nothing much changes, except the fact that Zoro and Sanji are back on good terms. But Zoro still wears his bandage blindfold; and Sanji still can’t see the swordsman having to negotiate some task unsighted, without feeling a fleeting shadow pass over them.

On the whole though, things feel easier. The tension between them that had soured the atmosphere on board the Sunny lifts. The first morning after Sanji and Zoro work things out, Luffy grins at the two of them all through breakfast, and is so cheerful he almost neglects to try to steal extra bacon from the skillet when Sanji’s back is turned.

Life goes on, and chores need doing. The weather stays good, which means they all get to catch a few hours relaxing on deck during the day. The younger guys mainly fish and play games; Robin and Nami sunbathe and read; Brook and Franky jam and riff together; and of course Zoro trains and naps.

Sanji even takes some time out himself to relax, although feeding this crew is a full time occupation and there’s always something he could be doing in the galley or storeroom. But the skies stay blue with fluffy white clouds, the sun shines, the sea sparkles: the weather’s really too nice to stay cooped up indoors all day. So he compromises by giving himself extended smoke breaks on the lawn deck; and by bringing out drinks and snacks for his nakama (well, mainly for the ladies) and using that as an excuse to linger in the sunshine.

Sanji’s doing exactly that one mid-afternoon, sitting on the bottom of the steps that lead up to the galley and reading a newspaper, when their sharpshooter’s voice reaches him.

“That’s weird.” Usopp says this musingly, leaning with both arms folded on Sunny’s rail.

“What’s weird?” Nami looks across from where she’s sitting in her sun lounger on the lawn deck.

“Something...” Usopp answers vaguely, peering out to sea. “Out there, off the port side. I dunno. Looks like... silver flashes, just above the water.”

“It’s heading this way.” Brook comes to stand beside the sharpshooter, also peering out to sea.

“Towards us?” Nami frowns, and stands up. Crossing the deck in a few strides, she reaches her two nakama at the rail and shades her eyes with her hand, looking across the shifting waves at the phenomenon. “Hm... Whatever it is, it’s moving fast.” She casts a quick glance up at the sky, reading the clouds; turns her head to check the billow of Sunny’s sail. “Whatever it is, it’s nothing to do with the weather.”

Their talented navigator is never wrong about these things. Deciding that Nami-swan might appreciate his input, Sanji gets to his feet and strolls over to the rail too. He gazes out to starboard, following the direction his nakama are looking in, and sees it. Just like Usopp said: some distance off there is a strange haziness where sky and sea meet, glinting with flashes of silver.

They all watch for a minute or so, trying to figure out what they’re looking at. Until Usopp suddenly exclaims, “Ah! Fish!”

Their sharpshooter has the keenest eyes on board, so no-one argues. And a few seconds later, Sanji sees it too. That haze is the surface of the sea, thrown up like surf breaking on a shore: the silver glints are the flashing bodies of fishes leaping out of the water. Literally hurling themselves into the air, as if trying to fly. But Sanji has seen flying fish skimming above the waves, and this is not the same thing. He narrows his eyes and watches the dancing fish approach.

“Oh, wait up...” Usopp’s voice gets a familiar edge of trepidation. “Can anyone else see that?”

No-one replies, because they’re all too busy staring at what is approaching. At a great dark shadow in the water beneath the dancing silver mist, that is moving so quickly it’s creating its own bow wave.

The fish are not dancing. They’re fleeing.

“Sea monster ahoy!” Franky’s bellow reaches the deck from the crow’s nest, where’s he’s on lookout duty.

“Yeah: thanks for the memo, craphead,” Sanji snorts.

For a few moments no-one does anything useful. Franky’s alert rouses everyone who wasn’t on deck already, so pretty soon the entire Straw Hat crew is standing along the rail staring out at whatever the hell it is that’s heading through the sea towards them.

“Is it a Sea King?” Robin regards the approaching menace thoughtfully.

“Unlikely,” Nami answers, frowning at the unknown threat. “But whatever it is, we better get the hell out of the way. Turn the helm to - ”

“It looks really big! Cool!” Luffy scuppers his navigator’s commonsense course of action, as he invariably does. “Let’s see if we can catch it!”

“Luffy, we don’t even know what it is - ” Nami’s protest is doomed to failure.

“We will if we catch it,” Luffy points out, with his usual cast-iron logic.

“Or if it catches us,” Robin comments.

Usopp groans. “Please don’t.”

“Hey, guys.” Franky interrupts the debate. “I think it’s noticed the ship.”

They all look out to sea, and their cyborg crewmate is right. The huge shadow in the water seems to have swung on its course, making directly towards the Sunny. And at the rate it’s moving, it will soon be alongside.

“It’s coming to get us.” Usopp begins ransacking his person for weaponry.

Beside Sanji, Zoro stands with folded arms, his blindfolded face turned out to sea. The chef glances at him, and wonders if the swordsman is using haki to try to make out something of the approaching menace. He tries it himself, but gets only a blur: distance and seawater obscuring the shape of what’s coming.

“What can you see, cook?”

The question surprises Sanji: it’s the first time Zoro has asked anyone this. “Something big, a ways under the surface, moving towards us. Whatever it is, it’s scaring the fish: they’re practically going into orbit trying to get the hell away.”

The swordsman grunts; drops one hand onto the hilt of his katana.

But as the shadow draws closer to the ship, it suddenly fades into the deep water and disappears. Whatever it was, the sea monster has evidently had second thoughts about tangling with something Sunny’s size. Sea King or whale or mighty shark, the creature has dived back down into the depths it usually inhabits.

Usopp exhales with noisy relief. “Heh, that was a close one...”

“Awwww...” Luffy droops over the rail with both arms hanging, his lower lip sticking out. “Stupid fish.”

Nami lets out a laugh. “All’s well that ends well.”

With a noise like a steam train something erupts from the sea on the other side of the Sunny in a welter of foam and slams onto the deck, with an impact that makes the entire ship rock and tilt to starboard.

Everyone is thrown sideways, in a tangle of limbs and loose objects. Sanji loses his footing and hits the grassy deck, flinging out his hands to catch himself. A loose barrel bowls past, nearly hitting him.

There’s a creaking of timber and the Sunny lists further over. Sanji feels himself start to slide and digs his fingers into the turf, clinging on grimly, before looking over his shoulder to try to see whatever the hell is causing this.

Curled over the railing are two thick purple-grey tentacles, many yards long and marked with suckers. As Sanji watches the tentacles tighten their hold on Sunny’s rail and the ship’s woodwork lets out a pained creaking sound.

“Whoa!” Usopp lets out a shrill yelp. “It’s got a hold of us!”

The tip of one tentacle lashes about as if seeking a better hold, then stretches towards the foremast.

“Oi, don’t let it grab the mast!” Franky bellows. “It could flip us right over!”

“Maybe it just wants to play?” Luffy suggests, springing to the foremast. “Hey, it might know Surume!” He stretches out one rubber arm and gives the tentacle an experimental pat. “Hi there!”

The tentacle end whips round and encircles Luffy’s waist, before wrenching the Straw Hat captain from the mast and flinging him the length of the deck. Luffy crashes into a bulkhead, before sitting up and groaning. “Owww... What was that for, you dumb sea monster?”

“I really don’t think it wishes to play, captain-san,” Brook observes.

A cracking sound from the rail under the other weighty tentacle’s grip confirms that the creature’s intent is anything but friendly. The ship rocks violently again, throwing the Straw Hats sideways.

“How do we get it to let go?” Chopper cries. “It’s going to break Sunny!”

A third tentacle curls over the ship’s side, reaching across the deck towards where Nami crouches trying to keep her balance. She lets out a yell. “Ahh! Stop it!”

Sanji feels his ire at this unknown attacker increase a hundredfold. Pushing up to his feet he launches himself across the deck. “Don’t you dare, you shitty squid!” The momentum he’s created adds to his attack, so that when he lands his kick squarely on the tentacle that’s groping towards their lovely navigator he feels it sink deep into the clammy flesh. It’s an unpleasant sensation but it has the desired effect: the giant squid’s suckered arm jerks, then recoils as if scalded.

“Yeah, Sanji!” Usopp cheers him on, and Chopper follows suit. Sanji bends down to help Nami to her feet, guiding her to the relative safety of the foredeck stairs and giving her a gentlemanly smile. “Best to stay up here, Nami-swan.”

“Thanks, Sanji.” Nami nods, but then her gaze shifts past him. “Oh no - ”

Sanji turns to look too, but he’s too slow. A tentacle twists round his ankles and tightens like a noose, gripping hard and jerking his feet from under him. Sanji doesn’t have time to grab the stairs or anything else: he’s pulled sideways and down so hard that when he hits the deck it knocks all the wind out of him.

An irresistible force yanks him by his feet, skimming him over the grass deck so fast he feels friction heat. Sanji flails and tries to grip the turf, then lets out an Ufff  as his rapid transit is halted by him colliding with the Sunny’s rail.

The impact jars him so hard his teeth rattle. And before he can recover and do anything sensible like struggle or kick or somehow loosen the grip of the tentacle around his feet, he’s lifted up from the deck like an anchor on a chain – and unceremoniously hauled overboard.

Sanji has just sense enough to grab a gulp of air before the sea swallows him. The giant squid that has snatched him intends to keep him: he feels his ears ache as they head towards the depths. He holds his breath and feels the grip around his ankles tugging him downwards, away from the light.

For Zoro the moments that follow that squid’s first impact with the Sunny are noise and confusion. When the ship lists to starboard the swordsman loses his footing and struggles to regain it: not being able to see makes finding your balance on a wildly tilting ship well nigh fucking impossible.

He sees the squid’s arms, sickly green glowing tentacles curling through the darkness: the silhouettes of his nakama tumbling and scrambling across the deck. When Luffy gets attacked and hurled away Zoro draws Shusui but another lurch of the ship throws him down again.

By the time he’s scrambled to his feet this time, cursing loudly, Nami is squawking and the chef is, of course, going to her rescue. Sanji gets in the first blow on the marauder, but Zoro is now steady on his feet and is about to even things up when everything goes to shit.

Another tentacle whips on board in a blur and lashes round the cook’s ankles, flipping him onto his ass. It would be funny except it doesn’t stop there: the squid is evidently pissed enough at being stomped on by the chef that it intends payback, which takes the form of it dragging Sanji speedily away.

Fuck -

Zoro moves but he’s not fast enough. He’s still a few yards from the chef when Sanji collides with a jolt into what must be the ship’s rail, then is gracelessly upended and dragged overboard.

Reaching the rail Zoro directs his haki downwards. There’s a great greenish tentacled gleaming shape, swirling below him: and within it he can make out the brighter blue glow of the cook’s silhouette.

Then both start to diminish. Fading into darkness.

Zoro doesn’t think. He just pulls himself up onto the rail, gripping his katana, and jumps out into the black. He hears his nakama shouting to him, and then the sea hits him in a rush of cold.

Below the surface there’s nothing to orientate him, not even gravity. He tumbles in the black, hearing muffled roars and rushes of bubbles. Nothingness surrounds him: he gropes out with the hand that isn’t gripping Shusui’s hilt and concentrates hard, extending his haki outwards like sonar, scanning for some sign of chef or sea beast.

He feels a sudden swirl of water and half turns, just as a glowing tentacle lashes through the blackness towards him. It misses. Zoro doesn’t. Putting all his strength into it, he answers the tentacle’s swipe with his katana: feels brief resistance, then flesh parts under his blade.

The squid swells and pulses like a firework in the darkness. Zoro can feel it: the sea creature’s fury at its injury, at meeting an enemy that can retaliate. There’s a malice roiling through the cold salt water, seeking him out.

A surge and flurry in the sea pulls the swordsman downwards... Or maybe it’s upwards, he can’t tell.

Where the fuck are you, shit cook?

Then he sees it: a glimmer of blue, somewhere below his feet. He uses his hands to push against the water, to try to move down or up or wherever the fuck he needs to go, to get closer. The oily green of the squid’s tentacles lash and coil around Sanji’s silhouette, dragging the chef in to their centre.

Zoro has seen squid before. Ordinary-sized ones, dead on a wooden chopping block in the galley, waiting to be sliced cleanly by Sanji’s knife. He’s watched the cook take squid apart: pulling out the white stringy guts, removing the head. Long fingers moving swiftly and deftly, spreading the tentacles and pushing out something hooked and black tipped, like a pair of wickedly sharp thick claws. When he’d asked Sanji what that was, the cook had flicked it across the counter. “That’s the beak.” And at Zoro’s cocked eyebrow, elaborated. “Its mouth. What it bites chunks out of its prey with.” Before going on to regale the swordsman with tales of unfortunate fishermen gone overboard into squid shoals, being hacked to death by scores of razor-sharp bites. The chef smiling grimly as he finished his tale, silver knife flickering as he sectioned up the soft tentacles and body, dipped them in sauce, then flipped the squid into hot oil to sizzle and come out succulent and flavoursome.

A squid’s mouth with its savage beak lies in the centre of its tentacles. Exactly where this giant squid is trying to pull Sanji now.

Zoro thrusts water aside and focuses on the green glow of the tentacle that seems to be the one hauling the chef in. Sanji seems to be resisting, his silhouette wriggling and thrashing, but with his legs restrained the cook has lost his main weapon.

It’s harder to swing a katana through the denser medium of water than it is through air, but Zoro puts everything into the sweep of his blade. It severs the squid’s arm and the water becomes a maelstrom as the giant sea creature wrenches itself back from this brutal assault.

Zoro tumbles in the darkness, swirled like seaweed in a current. Then he sees that unmistakeable blue silhouette tumbling too, they’re both adrift in the black. Which means he cut through the right tentacle: the chef is free. He thinks they should both get the hell to the surface while the going’s good... Whichever the hell way the surface is.

But he’s distracted for too long: a moment’s inattention is all his giant enemy needs. A rush of moving water is all the warning Zoro gets before solid flesh slams into his ribs and sweeps him sideways like a fish in a tsunami. Shusui drags out of his fingers and is gone. The little air he had left in his lungs bursts between his teeth and escapes.

The pressure of flesh wraps around his ribs; circles his body once, twice, then clenches tight. Zoro’s arms are pinned: he feels the suckers on the tentacle get a purchase on him, their small sharp rings of teeth cutting viciously into his skin.

Damn it –

He fights the grip, bracing the muscles of his arms to force the heavy smothering flesh to give. It’s like trying to push away something immoveable: nothing yields or shifts.

Then pressure assails his eardrums. The squid is diving again, trying to seek the safety of the depths to finish off its prey. The heavy grip around the swordsman clenches tighter, tighter still; pain arrows through his ribs.

The last of the oxygen in his bloodstream dwindles and Zoro starts sinking into a deeper place. Just time enough for two thoughts to come.

Shusui’s gone to the ocean floor. Fucking waste of a good sword.

And,

Hope that dumbass cook made it to the surface.

Then the blackness crushes all the way into him: becomes absolute.

Dim awareness pulls Zoro back from the depths. A vague sensation of weight against his chest. No longer squeezing him tight: instead the dull sensation of blows thumping against him.

“...Fucking breathe, you shitty swordsman!”

A voice that’s familiar. Or at least the furious tone is.

“Come on, bastard! I said breathe, damn it!”

Another blow pounds against his chest and it seems to shake something into motion. Zoro jolts and then he’s coughing, hacking up sea water in between trying to drag air into his smarting lungs.

“About fucking time, asshole.” That aggravated voice sounds again, this time sounding marginally less pissy. But only marginally.

“Sanji, move back! I need to examine him!” Another voice, higher than the first one. Zoro feels careful touches on his shoulder, his chest: another choking spasm of coughing makes him splutter and gasp. “Zoro?” A touch against his shoulder again, resting lightly there. “Zoro? Can you hear me?”

As more of his brain comes back online the swordsman registers this voice as Chopper’s. And with that awareness comes a jumbled flood of information from his other senses: that he’s lying on his back on the Sunny’s grassy deck, that his skin stings in several places, and that it hurts to breathe.

Immediately he thinks about this, he starts coughing again. This hurts a fuck of a lot more than just breathing, so Zoro tries not doing either for a few seconds; with limited success.

“It’s okay, Zoro. Take slow, shallow breaths.” Chopper’s voice and his grip on the swordsman’s shoulder are gentle and reassuring. “You took in some sea water, your lungs are just irritated. Breathe in and out evenly, and try to relax.”

Following the little doctor’s instructions, Zoro finds that this does indeed help. After a minute or so he’s able to breathe without coughing. This good result is tempered however by the fact that his ribs ache savagely, sharp little knives of pain shooting through his sides with each breath in.

“Good.” Chopper pats his shoulder encouragingly. “I’ve got some water here. Let’s get you sat up, and you can swallow just a small sip to start with.”

Zoro tries to reply and emits an inarticulate croak. He grips what is presumably Chopper’s arm and uses it to haul himself up into sitting; coughs violently, tries again, and manages to get out an incredulous protest. “...Water?”

A little distance away he hears a chuckle. Sanji laughing. “Heh... Think the moss-head would rather have sake, Chopper.”

Zoro feels irritation at the shitty cook’s gibe. Then sudden realisation fills him: Sanji is alive. They’re both alive.

Close beside him, Chopper speaks again. “Please drink a little water, Zoro. You need to hydrate your body as much as possible, salt water can affect the lungs and heart. I don’t want you going into cardiac arrest.”

The swordsman doesn’t want this either, so he grunts assent and feels the cool rim of a glass against his lips. He parts them and water fills his mouth, so he swallows. Just a small amount, then the glass is taken away. Chopper’s voice comes again. “That’s good. We’ll wait a couple of minutes, then you can have some more.”

The fresh water soothes some of the burning in Zoro’s throat, but the ache in his sides and the curious stinging on his skin remains. He breathes in cautiously, then addresses whoever is within earshot with a question. “What... happened with that fucking squid?”

“Beat a swift retreat, after it got a few of its arms pruned.” Sanji sounds grimly triumphant. “That shitty tentacled nuisance won’t be messing with this crew again.”

This is cheering news, but Zoro still wonders how things turned out this way. Especially as the last thing he remembers is being pinned and losing hold of his sword.

Shusui.

It goes through him sharper than the ache from his ribs, and he lets out a harsh sound. At once Chopper touches his shoulder again. “Are you in pain?”

“Hell.”  Zoro clenches his hand into fists. “I... I fucking lost Shusui. When that thing grabbed me. It fell out my grip.” The legendary katana, sinking into the blackness of the ocean depths. To lie there forever unreachable.

There’s a quiet sound: a scraping noise, then a small clunk close by. “Oi, marimo: quit moping.” Sanji speaks roughly, before something gets laid down on the deck beside the swordsman. “It didn’t sink far.”

Zoro’s hand moves sideways and finds a hilt. His fingers track downwards and meet the familiar flower-shaped tsuba. Slide back to the hilt, where they curl around and grip it. Not lifting the katana: just holding it. Feeling its real, solid presence.

Sanji speaks again. “It sank past me, so I used it to slice off the arm that crap-squid had wound round you. After that the damn thing kinda lost enthusiasm for tangling with us. Guess it was running out of arms.”

Tracing his fingertips again over the curves of Shusui’s hilt, Zoro finds himself giving a grim smile. “...Yeah.”

“Hey, Zoro!” A cheerful exclamation signals that their captain is also in the vicinity. “You and Sanji kicked that squid’s ass!”

“Does a squid have an ass?” This from Usopp, sounding doubtful.

“Of course it does!” Luffy answers easily. “Right, Sanji?”

The chef doesn’t seem to mind being called on as the authority for squid anatomy. “Yeah. A squid definitely has an ass. And we definitely kicked it.”

Zoro picks up Shusui, and slides it smoothly back into the empty saya on his right hip. And feels complete. And suddenly really fucking tired.

He starts to ask what the damage is to Sunny from their encounter with the squid, but winds up coughing again instead. And winces at the fireworks of pain this explodes through his ribs. “...Nngh. Fuck.”

“You okay, moss-head?” The cook’s voice reaches him.

“...Mhh.” Zoro grunts, hoping that this minimal response will reduce further discomfort.

“Let’s get you up to the infirmary, then I can do a proper examination,” Chopper fusses.

“I don’t need that.” Zoro doesn’t want examining. He wants some dry clothes, a strong drink, and a long nap; in that order.

Their tenacious little doctor isn’t having any of it, though. “Yes, you do. You and Sanji. I want you both up in the infirmary, right now.”

The swordsman thinks about arguing, but doesn’t. Because eventually Chopper would win, simply because the persistent little bastard never stops nagging.

Sanji is surprised when the marimo doesn’t resist Chopper’s dictat... And annoyed, because it means he has to comply with doctor’s orders too. Which is how they both end up in the infirmary together: Zoro sitting on the bed (because the moss-head is still stubborn enough to refuse to lie down) and Sanji occupying the chair, while Chopper flits about tending to them both.

Mostly this medical ministration consists of dabbing antiseptic onto the ring-shaped wounds which decorate Sanji’s legs and Zoro’s arms and torso, left by the razor-toothed suckers on the squid’s tentacles. Chopper tuts and frets as he bends over Sanji’s ankles. “These are nasty cuts. We’ll need to keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t become infected.”

The chef eyes the sucker marks. “We got off pretty lightly, if you ask me. Those giant squid can kill a full-grown whale.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Chopper gives Sanji’s wounds a last dab, then turns his attention to the swordsman. “Zoro, can you take your shirt off?”

With a grunt of assent, the swordsman lifts his arms and strips his shirt off over his head. A grimace briefly twists his mouth: evidently moving like this is painful. Chopper, attentive as a bloodhound, spots this. “Where does it hurt?”

“I’m okay.” Zoro rests his arms across his knees.

The swordsman doesn’t look okay. Not just because his arms and body are tattooed with the same circular squid-sucker injuries that Sanji also bears, but also because he’s holding himself carefully upright, as if he doesn’t want to make any sudden movements.

Not to mention the fact that scarcely quarter of an hour ago he was lying blue-lipped and not breathing on Sunny’s deck, water spilling out of his mouth as Sanji and Chopper took turns pounding on his chest and forcibly blowing oxygen back into him.

The minute or so it took to bring Zoro back keeps replaying in Sanji’s brain, like a stuck movie clip. The ashen pallor of the swordsman’s skin; how cold his mouth felt against Sanji’s own. The disturbing way a human body seems heavier when life has left it. Temporarily, in this case; but still, the memory is one he wishes he could erase forever.

The chef watches Chopper and Zoro argue now, and feels suddenly tired of all the noise. If he had a cigarette he would light one up, infirmary or not; but his cigarettes are drowned so he’ll just have to ride this out without anaesthetic. “Oi, marimo: shut the fuck up, and let Chopper check you over. The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you’ll get out of here.”

Zoro’s head turns towards to him. “Butt out, curly-brow.”

“Look, dumbass: that shitty squid tried wringing us both in half. If your ribs feel anything like my legs do, you should let Chopper take a look at them.”

The swordsman scowls, but stops arguing. The sulky face he wears the whole time Chopper is carefully checking him over wouldn’t look out of place on a six year-old, but at least he submits to the necessary.

“Two cracked ribs.” Their doctor pronounces this when he’s finished, with a sober expression. “I’ll give you some pain killers to take; and you should put an ice pack on them to reduce the swelling. But most importantly: absolutely no training, under any circumstances, for at least three weeks.”

Zoro mutters something indistinguishable and surly under his breath.

“Suck it up, moss-head,” Sanji contributes.

“Get lost, swirly.”

“That’s your speciality.” The chef smirks, and lets it show in his voice.

“And absolutely no fighting either!” Chopper interposes at this point, evidently recognising the signs of imminent mindless violence.

Once Chopper has finished his doctoring and reluctantly allows them to vacate the infirmary, both the swordsman and the chef head for the men’s bunkroom to change into dry clothes.

Sanji inspects his wet trousers after taking them off; lets out an irritable Tchhh at the sight of the ragged fabric. “Damn it.”

“What’re you bitching about now, shit cook?” Zoro has divested himself of all his clothes and is roughly towelling himself dry.

“I liked these trousers.” Sanji scowls at the ruined item of clothing, which is beyond salvaging.

“So pick out another pair from your wardrobe. You must have twenty suits in your locker.”

“I do not.” Sanji turns his scowl onto the swordsman.

“You own enough clothes to start up a store.”

“I like to look good, you shitty moss. Unlike some people I could mention, who only change their clothes when they start to stink.”

“You’re such a fucking girl.”

Sanji balls up the wet trousers and pitches them hard at Zoro: they hit the swordsman in the face with a dull splat. “Neanderthal.”

“Oi!” Zoro claws the clothing off and flings it back. “Keep your dumbass rags to yourself.”

Sanji ducks the missile, letting it land on the floor behind him. “Missed me.”

“Whatever.” Zoro starts towelling his hair, rubbing at the wet green spikes until they stand up like the tuft of moss Sanji so often compares him to.

“Ma-ri-mo...” sings Sanji quietly, selecting some dry clothes from his locker to change into.

“What?” Zoro’s growl comes indistinctly, from under the towel.

“Nothing.” Sanji pulls on a pair of narrow black pants, and picks up a light blue shirt. “Hey. You want me to pass you anything?”

“I can manage.” The swordsman finishes scrubbing at his hair and tosses the towel aside, before stepping up to his own locker. One hand reaches out and fingertips graze the metal before finding the handle: then pull it open.

Watching Zoro find what he needs by touch and take it out, Sanji is struck again by how well the swordsman has adapted to his sightlessness. The way he moves doesn’t betray any uncertainty: he still does things confidently.

Maybe too confidently.

Sanji watches the swordsman fasten the button on his pants; pick up a shirt and pull it on over his head, tugging it down so that the angry red rings of squid-sucker marks across his torso disappear. A brief grimace of pain flits across Zoro’s face as this movement jars his injured ribs.

The chef sees again that little horror clip unspool in his head. Zoro’s blue-grey lips; the cold clammy feel of them against Sanji’s own mouth, as he tried to force air and life back into the other man.

It comes out before he can stop it. “Diving overboard was a pretty stupid idea.”

Zoro’s head jerks around. “What?”

“You - jumping in after I went over the rail, dumbass.”

Underneath his bandaged eyes, Zoro’s mouth pulls into an angry line. “Seriously, shitty cook? You want to get into this again?”

“I could’ve handled that crap squid.”

“Yeah? Before or after your head imploded?” Zoro shoots this back at him. “That thing was making for the depths with you, curly brow. You didn’t look like you were making much headway in ‘handling’ it.”

Gritting his teeth, Sanji folds his arms. “However I was doing, shithead, you diving blind into the ocean was a crazy-ass move.”

“You were the one crazy enough to think you could use two legs to fight something that fights with eight.”

“Actually, a squid’s got ten legs. Or eight arms plus two tentacles, if you want to get technical.”

“Yeah well, now it’s got a few fucking less.” Zoro shuts his locker door with considerably more force than is necessary.

“Fighting blind on board Sunny’s one thing. Fighting blind underwater when you can’t even tell which way’s up – that’s totally insane, moss-head. You’re lucky that getting some squid hickeys and nearly losing your sword was all that happened.”

Zoro turns sharply away. Moves to where the aforesaid sword is propped, along with its two fellow blades: picks them up and slides them onto his belt. Then stands there silently, his back to the chef, for several seconds.

When he finally swings back around and speaks again, his voice is quiet but firm. “Oi. Cook.”

Sanji blinks at the change in the swordsman’s tone. It catches him off guard: he finds himself unfolding his arms, lowering them. And when he replies, his own voice is quiet too. “...Yeah?”

Zoro lets out a long slow breath. One hand rests on Shusui’s hilt at his hip. “If it turns out that when this comes off, I still can’t fucking see...” He indicates the bandage across his eyes with a gesture from his other hand. “...Then you - and everyone else round here - are gonna have to get used to me doing a whole bunch of crazy things.” His jaw sets in a typically stubborn way. “Because I don’t plan on becoming dead weight on this crew.”

An almost physical pain clenches in Sanji’s gut: it feels like Zoro has punched him. “You’d never be that.”

The swordsman’s voice gains a steely edge. “Damn right I won’t.”

Clenching his fists, Sanji feels a strong craving for a cigarette. He turns back to his locker and fishes out a new pack and a box of matches – his lighter is still too waterlogged to work – before lighting up and inhaling deeply. The dark treacly hit of nicotine makes his head swim a little, then steadies him: he blows out a long blue stream of smoke, using all of this as thinking time.

At last he makes a reply. “Okay, then. In that case... Thanks.”

“For what?” Zoro sounds suspicious.

“For cutting through that squid’s arm so I could finish the bastard off.”

The swordsman’s head lifts slightly, as though he’s considering Sanji’s reply. Then he responds gruffly in kind. “You too... Thanks.”

“For cutting you loose as well? Glad to be able to return the favour.”

“No.” Zoro shakes his head. “For catching Shusui. If I’d lost that sword, I’d have been really pissed.”

Sanji smiles then. Because of course that damn moss-head would be more concerned about his sword than about the fact that he breathed in half the ocean and was technically dead for a minute or so. But mainly he smiles because they’re both arguing; and here; and alive.

* * * * * * * * *

Over a week later, Nami announces over breakfast that a change in the weather is due.

“Pressure started falling yesterday evening,” she explains, sipping her coffee. “We’ll get rain this morning.”

“A storm?” Chopper asks nervously.

“Nothing like that. Just a few heavy showers, probably.” Their navigator smiles at the little doctor.

“That’s annoying,” Sanji comments, clearing away empty breakfast dishes. “I was planning to do laundry today... No point if it’s going to rain, though.”

“The rain should clear away by afternoon,” Nami reassures him. “So you could still get your washing dry, as long as you wait till after lunch to hang it out.”

“Thank you, Nami-swan.” Sanji bestows a grateful beam upon her, and places the last pain au chocolat he’d made that morning on her plate.

Zoro listens to Nami’s meteorological predictions absently. Something else is occupying his mind.

Five weeks.

He knows exactly how long it’s been since the fire gun incident. Not because anyone has told him how much time has passed: even Chopper doesn’t mention it, at their daily checks in the infirmary of how his burns are healing. But Zoro knows how long it’s been, because he began a countdown on the day it happened. When Chopper said, Maybe five weeks.

The swordsman knows precisely how many days have passed. Just like he knows that over the last couple of nights a crescent moon has been waning, its silver curve dwindling each night as the new moon approaches. Bringing darkness.

Sometimes when thoughts come into his mind like this they bring pictures with them. It’s weird: almost as if he’s really seeing them. Vivid images that come without his volition, triggered by sounds, smells, textures. He feels the cool night breeze stir the hairs on his arm and sees a silver-white moon riding through a deep black sky. Hears the susurrus of waves against Sunny’s side: and in his vision electric-blue phosphorescence flickers in the ocean. He smells sharp citrus in the galley as Sanji prepares a meal, and suddenly Zoro is watching those pale long-fingered hands deftly manoeuvring a flickering steel knife, bright yellow slices of lemon falling away from the moving blade.

The visions are vivid but always fleeting. Zoro doesn’t know whether they’re good sign, or just yet another trick his brain is playing on him in a world of darkness.

Now he’s tuned out his nakama, who are still talking over breakfast. Picking up his coffee mug Zoro finds that it’s empty.

“Want a refill?” Sanji’s voice reaches him from across the room, the chef ever-observant of people who might be thirsty or hungry.

“No thanks.” Zoro places his empty mug on his plate and stands up; moves deliberately to where the galley counter is and places them there, before walking to the door.

Out on the deck there’s a stiff breeze and the air temperature is noticeably lower than the day before.

Looks like Nami was right about a change in the weather.

The swordsman considers his options. Rain means being cooped up indoors somewhere, which is bothersome. He’s not really in the mood for company.

Behind him the galley door opens and then closes softly. He hears hooves on the deck; they stop beside him and he waits for Chopper to speak. There’s a short pause, as if their little doctor is considering how to launch into what he wants to say.

“Um, Zoro... It’s been five weeks.” Chopper speaks as if he’s not sure how what he says will be received. “When you come to the infirmary this afternoon... I think we should remove your bandages completely.”

“Right.” Zoro responds without hesitation. He’s known this was coming: it’s not like he hasn’t had plenty of time to prepare for it.

“And then I’ll need to carry out a thorough examination of your eye.” Chopper sounds cautious.

“Uh huh.”

“Do you have any questions?” His small nakama asks this tentatively.

The only question that matters will be answered when the bandages come off, so Zoro simply shakes his head.

“Well... Okay. We’ll see how things go this afternoon, then.” Chopper shifts from one hoof to the other beside the swordsman, the sounds of his fidgeting a clear signal of how apprehensive he is about what will happen later. “Um. What are you going to do till then?”

Gesturing upwards with one thumb, Zoro shrugs. “Gonna go up to the crow’s nest.”

“You shouldn’t be training!” The sudden snap in Chopper’s tone shows his determination not to yield on this point. “Your ribs are still healing!”

“Yeah, alright.” The swordsman knows there’s no point arguing. “Just heading up there for some peace and quiet.”

“Oh. Okay.” His small nakama still sounds reluctant; but as if he too knows that arguing will get him nowhere.

Everyone on the Sunny is familiar with their swordsman’s need for regular solitude. Zoro’s daily training regime is usually what gets him the alone time he needs; so Chopper’s embargo on doing this has been irksome.

However it’s been a week now since the squid attack, and although Zoro’s ribs still ache they’re definitely healing. And he figures that what Chopper doesn’t know won’t hurt him: so once he’s climbed up to the crow’s nest he runs through a few reps.

Afterwards he sits on the bench and wipes sweat off his skin with a towel. The circular sucker wounds on his arms and body feel like they’re healing too.

Squid hickeys.  Isn’t that what Sanji called them?

Zoro finds himself smiling wryly, both at the chef’s turn of phrase and at the memory of their underwater battle.

- A squid definitely has an ass. And we definitely kicked it.

The crow’s nest shifts suddenly, listing sideways: a gust of wind must have caught the Sunny. Because he’s already sitting down Zoro simply braces his bare feet against the floor, letting his upper body lean slightly to balance out the tilting mast.

After a few seconds the crow’s nest levels out: then there’s a light tapping sound, a thousand tiny drumbeats striking the domed roof above. Nami’s predicted rain showers have arrived.

That means there’s not much point climbing down the rigging back to Sunny’s deck right now. Zoro doesn’t really mind getting wet, but the bench is comfy enough for a nap so he simply swings up his feet and lies along its length. Rain patters above him and against the crow’s nest windows. It’s actually quite a pleasant sound: a blurred soundtrack that slowly amplifies as the rain grows heavier.

In the darkness Zoro sees silver circles expand on a smooth grey surface, overlapping each other. Raindrops hitting a pool of water, ripples resonating outwards. His ghost vision is making the rain: falling in slow motion, sending droplets leaping up like polished glass; droplets that dissolve back into the pool’s pewter surface.

After a while the vision fades. Or maybe he falls asleep. Either way, he goes back into the dark.

Something wakes him. Zoro gradually becomes aware of the bench under his back, and another presence in the room.

Cigarette smoke, mixed with something else. Rice... and seaweed?

Oni giri.

Zoro swings his legs over the edge of the bench and sits up. “Hmm... That you, cook?”

There’s a snort, from a few feet away. “Who else is likely to be giving you take-out service?”

Zoro reaches sideways with one hand and his fingers encounter an open bento box. More investigation yields exactly what he’d hoped: rice balls, neatly wrapped in nori. He smiles and picks one up: bites into it.

“You’re welcome.” Sanji’s tone is heavily sarcastic.

Taking another bite, Zoro swallows before answering. “...Thanks.”

“Was skipping lunch again an actual plan, or were you just too lazy to get your ass back down to the galley?” The chef doesn’t sound mollified.

“It’s lunchtime? ...Huh.” Zoro takes another bite of food and rubs his other hand through his hair, trying to stir his brain fully awake. He must have slept longer than he thought.

“Actually, it’s way after. Close to three o’clock.”

“Shit...” The swordsman rubs his head again, wondering how many hours he’s been out of it. An absence of something makes him turn his head, listening. “It stopped raining?”

“About a half-hour ago.” Footsteps approach over the crow’s nest floor. “You been training up here?”

“Fell asleep,” Zoro responds noncommittally.

“Yeah, right.” The chef doesn’t sound like he’s buying it. “I meant before that. You snuck up here to pump iron, right?”

The swordsman takes another bite of oni giri and shrugs. “What if I did?”

“Chopper’s going to bust your ass."

Zoro snorts. “Who’s gonna tell him?”

The bench cushion moves as the chef sits down beside him. “What’s it worth not to?”

“I won’t toss you out the hatch to the deck.”

“Try it, fuckwit.” The smell of cigarette smoke comes more strongly, as if Sanji is blowing it in Zoro’s direction. “I guarantee you a world of pain.”

“Like hell, curly-brow.” The swordsman finishes the last bite of his tardy lunch, and extends his middle finger vertically in the chef’s direction.

“Shithead. That any way to act when I brought you food?”

“I said thanks. Anyway, you only came up here to rag on me for sleeping through lunch.”

“Au contraire, moss-head. I was sent on a mission. Chopper asked me to remind you that he requests the dubious pleasure of your company in the infirmary, as of right fucking now. He’s been waiting around for you, the past hour.”

Zoro suddenly remembers his encounter with Chopper after breakfast. “Oh... Yeah.”

“So if you’ve finished inhaling lunch, the doctor’s surgery is now open. I suggest you haul ass, the little guy was getting pretty antsy about you not showing.”

“Okay, I get the message.” Standing up, the swordsman starts moving towards the hatch that leads down to Sunny’s deck.

He’s cinched on Franky’s safety harness and set one hand on the metal railing when Sanji’s voice holds him back. “Oi. Chopper’s taking off the bandage today. Isn’t he?”

Zoro stands for a moment. Then turns his head towards the chef. “Yeah.”

There’s a silence that stretches for a while. At last Sanji speaks again. “You cool with me being there when he does it?”

The swordsman thinks about this. “Why?”

“Look - if it’s a problem just say no, craphead.”

“I don’t have a problem with you being there, cook. Long as you don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll restrain myself.” The chef says this ironically. “Just...” He pauses, as if debating whether to say more; then spits it out. “You don’t have to deal with this shit on your own.”

Zoro gives a small shrug. “Sooner or later, that’s what everyone has to do. Deal with shit on their own.”

“Fine. Do whatever noble lone samurai bullshit you think you have to. All I’m saying is, I’d like to be there.” Sanji sounds exasperated.

“Okay.” And the swordsman nods, before turning away and climbing down the ladder.

As Sanji clambers down the rigging after Zoro, he’s inwardly fuming. Or okay, maybe fuming is not quite the word for it: but he clenches his hands harder on the ropes than he needs to. It’s not like he suggested that he wanted to hold Zoro’s hand while the bandage comes off; the swordsman is big enough and ugly enough to handle whatever the next half hour brings.

It bites though: that Sanji asked to be there, and Zoro’s response is just, Okay. Like this is no big thing.

Maybe for Zoro it really isn’t a big deal.

Maybe that thick-headed moron just thinks he’ll be fine, because he’s always fine, so why bother worrying about it.

As if Sanji is some drama queen wallowing in angst, when there’s no need to get his panties in a wad.

Asshole, Sanji thinks irritably.

They’ve reached the deck: it takes Zoro a few seconds to divest himself of his climbing harness, which he loops over a nearby rail. His hand checks that the harness is securely hung up. As if he wants to be sure he’ll be able to find it again later.

Then the swordsman turns away and heads along the deck to the stairs that lead up to the infirmary.

Sanji is about to follow, when for some reason he looks around. Sitting cross-legged on the foredeck is Luffy, watching them; his arms folded across his chest. Their captain’s gaze follows the swordsman, then flicks to Sanji. Luffy doesn’t smile at the chef: instead he gives just a single nod.

Turning on his heel Sanji follows after Zoro, who’s now a few yards ahead of him. He catches up just as Zoro reaches the infirmary door. In fact he almost walks into the swordsman, because Zoro pauses there. Just for an instant.

It’s on Sanji’s lips to ask why they’ve stopped: but he catches himself in time.

Once Zoro walks through that door, everything changes. Either his five week sojourn in darkness is over... Or his life as a blind swordsman begins.

It occurs to Sanji in that moment that he’s never seen Zoro hesitate even fucking once before facing whatever he has to.

Then Zoro’s hand is pushing open the door and he’s stepping through.  

Inside the infirmary is unexpectedly dark, which makes Sanji slow down as he follows Zoro in. Chopper is sat at his desk, where a lamp burns. The little doctor turns around and exclaims at their arrival. “Ah, Zoro! Sanji found you. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Found him snoring up in the crow’s nest,” Sanji explains.

“Um, good.” Chopper pushes his chair towards the swordsman and pats one hoof on the seat. “Zoro: if you sit down, we can get started. Sanji, can you close the door?”

The chef does so and the room becomes even darker. Chopper’s covered the windows with what looks like towels pinned up on the wall, so the only light source is the small lamp on the infirmary desk. To keep out of the way Sanji stations himself against the door.

“Zoro, I’ve made this room as dark as possible. There’s a lamp near us, so I can see to take off the bandage and dressing,” Chopper explains. “But when we’re ready for you to open your eye, I’ll turn the lamp down. You’ll probably be very sensitive to light at first, after having your eye covered for weeks.”

“Uh huh.” Zoro nods.

“We’ll take it slowly. I’m going to unwind the bandage and take off the dressing: but I want you to keep your eye shut, just as you have been doing the past few weeks. When I tell you it’s okay to go ahead, I want you to open your eye gradually, a little at a time. It may hurt. If it becomes too painful I want you to stop. All right?”

“Yeah.” Zoro nods again, hoping Chopper will finish detailing the instructions soonest and just get the hell on with it.

“Okay. Just lean forward a little...” His small nakama’s skilful touch presses against the back of Zoro’s head: the swordsman feels the slight tug of the bandage being unsecured. Then the pressure of the cloth around the upper part of his head slackening off, as Chopper unwinds the covering.

Once the bandage is gone Chopper’s careful movements peel away the dressing that was laid over Zoro’s eyes. Cool air strikes against his skin. It doesn’t hurt, the burns have almost healed now, but the nerve endings there still feel like they’re lighting up as his face is uncovered.

“I won’t apply the oils today,” Chopper states. “Your burns are looking much better. I’ll just turn down the lamp...” There’s a slight creak as his nakama leans across Zoro to reach the desk. “Okay, Zoro: the room’s pretty dark now, but I still want you to turn away from the light.” Hooves rest on the swordsman’s shoulders, guiding him as he shifts in the chair. “That’s fine. Now, to start with try opening your right eye just a crack – no more than that.”

It feels unbelievably weird doing this, after Zoro has spent weeks concentrating on keeping his eye closed. Almost as if the muscles of his eyelid no longer respond to the signals his brain is sending. For a few seconds nothing happens: then he feels movement.

“Good. Now open your eye a little more, slowly.” Chopper’s voice is steady, encouraging.

Zoro does so, or he thinks he does but there’s only more darkness. In his chest something clenches down, a cold crush that cancels his breath.

“Try opening your eye fully.” Chopper’s voice still reaches him, from out of the black.

There’s no reason to. Gazing open-eyed at the dark will be like how it’s been for five long weeks, minus the hope.

Get it done.

Anything that he’s had to face, Zoro’s always met head on. He’s never let an enemy stare him down. So that’s what he does now: opens his right eye all the way and stares the blackness down.

It comes like a curtain being torn aside: light, sudden and fiery and brutal, stabbing at his eye so that he breathes in hard. He blinks, and feels water trickle down his face. Then forces his eye open again, daring the pain, fiercely squinting into the light.

It’s dazzling and sharp, like sunlight glinting off glass fragments. A scalding brightness that hurts. A memory washes over him: the ringing of metal against metal, the sudden flare of the flame gun exploding and washing him in fire.

“Zoro?” Chopper’s voice, close and concerned. “Can you see anything?”

And the swordsman can, now. But nothing his brain can make sense of: flat shapes, glaring patches of colour, no depth or definition. And all washed-out, in a dazzling blur of harsh light.

It’s overload. Like a dozen voices all talking at once in a room where loud music is playing, no way to separate out anything meaningful. Zoro feels himself blink again, but forces himself to look out once more at the scintillating chaos.

“Does opening your eye hurt?” Chopper, still sounding anxious.

Speaking is more than Zoro’s rapidly adjusting brain can cope with right now, so he merely shakes his head. Blinks yet again and tries to stare at the blurry lightshow, to force it to resolve into something he can make sense of.

He hears movement in the room: footsteps coming closer. Then Sanji speaks, from somewhere close in front of him. “Oi, moss-head... You okay?”

And then, slowly, it starts to happen. Like sea mist melting away. Zoro feels something strange, almost a kind of tingling in his head: and the blur of light and colour begins to resolve into focus.

There’s a shape, dark on one side and warmly bright on the other. As his vision sharpens the shape suddenly becomes three-dimensional; he sees that yellow light is falling onto it from one side.

He sees it.

And now he can see everything. The soft texture of cloth, each individual stitch in a shirt sleeve. Strands of hair like spun gold, falling over a dark fine-scrolled brow. Sea-blue eyes gazing back at him.

Zoro studies the face that waits close to his own. There’s so much there to read.

He smiles slowly. Then gives Sanji his answer.

“...I see you.”