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Something wasn’t quite right.
Zoro peered out of the windows of the crow's nest, trying to piece together what might be causing his unease. They had just docked on some small island that he couldn’t remember the name of to restock. The small dock wasn’t very crowded, and he could spot Luffy running off towards town, with Usopp and Jimbe chasing after their rambunctious captain.
Zoro felt amusement fill his chest at the sight of the two running after Luffy’s bouncing. The laughter that had started up quickly turned into a tickle in his throat. He felt his stomach twist and flip and knew what was coming. A cough.
Closing his one good eye, Zoro focused on the pressure trying to escape. Pushing the cough down and holding it there. The pressure in his chest soon eases up, and the itch to cough disappears. He would not be letting himself cough again; he had already worried Chopper this morning when he had woken up in a coughing fit. His throat was still burning for something to soothe it, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. A bottle of alcohol would fix it right up.
Shifting his gaze to the sea, Zoro was greeted with the same view they had when they had sailed in and docked. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sea moved calmly across the seascape. Nothing odd in that direction either; whatever was causing his unease was not out at sea, nor anything near the boat.
“Marimo! Quit napping and get your lazy ass down here. You got pack mule duty today!”
Zoro clicks his tongue and chooses not to answer as he pulls his arms back through his green robe and checks to make sure his swords are in place before making his way through the hatch in the floor and down the ladder.
He is only about halfway down the mast when he feels the impact of a kick flow up through the mast as it vibrates under his hands in warning. “Calm down Curlybrow, we will get to the market in time for you to see everything before it closes.” His voice sounds a little weird when he speaks and the cook doesn’t miss his chance to comment.
“Am I witnessing our local plant life evolving?” Zoro clicks his tongue again, choosing to drop down the rest of the way to the deck. A sword meets the hard leather of a shoe, and the two trade blows back and forth. Even as they spar with each other, Zoro knows his strike is a bit sloppy, and the balance in his stance isn’t quite right. Sanji must have noticed too, as he backs off a moment later. Zoro frowns at Sanji as he shifts back into a more casual stance and chooses to llight a cigarette instead. Their little spar was over.
“Let's get moving Marimo, you are already making me late for the market,” Sanji states, but doesn’t meet his eye when he walks past him and down the gangplank. Zoro grumbles to himself, ignoring the raw burning feeling of tingling within his throat. Sheething his swords, Zoro follows after Sanji.
^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^
The two traveled through the market area of town and stopped at every food stand the Curlybrow deemed necessary. With each stop they made, his arms would get loaded with another small crate or a sack of something Sanji insisted they needed.
He has held back at least five coughing fits since leaving the ship, and he refused to tell the Cook how he had started feeling his muscles strain from the weight he was carrying two stalls ago. He was not about to let a few lousy crates stop him from doing his job, so he pushed on and kept on walking alongside Sanji.
“Marimo?” Sanji’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and he focuses on the Cook’s form standing in front of him, where he is blowing smoke into the air from his cigarette.
“What Cook?” He doesn’t like how rough his voice sounds to his ears and his mind feels like there is fog floating around it, making it hard to focus and filter his thoughts.
Sanji squints at him and makes some kind of face at him, but his brain won’t translate its meaning. “I have been calling you for five minutes now, is the sun frying your brain?”
“I’m fine, just want a drink.” he manages to grunt out and forces himself to step around Sanji to continue down the street. Clearing his throat again, Zoro hopes he sounds more like himself the next time he speaks. The cook pauses for far too long, studying him.
“We will make sure you get watered today.” Sanji twirls on the ball of his foot on the spot and takes the next step together with him so he can give his head two quick pats in a teasing manner. He finds that he actually doesn’t mind when those fingers brush his head briefly, but they are gone in a moment when the cook pulls away. He gives Sanji’s back a frown, as the blond escapes towards a fruit stand up ahead.
They might one day address their feelings towards one another, but for now, it seems like they would just continue to pretend these moments weren’t happening and run from each other when it gets too much.
Zoro shifts the bulky items he is carrying to try and ease the soreness in his body. He decides if the Cook was going to pretend it didn’t happen, he could too. With no other choice but to follow Sanji obediently, Zoro trails after him and hopes he might earn some extra alcohol if he doesn’t let Sanji get lost in the market.
Zoro only takes three steps in Sanji’s direction, when something taps the side of his foot. Zoro lifts his left arm, holding the crates up higher to look around the sacks he is carrying, and notices a ball resting beside his foot. Shouting children catches his attention, causing him to look back up to see what the fuss is about. Four of them are down a side street waving at him from on top of a small set of stairs. With a shrug, Zoro kicks the ball back down the street towards them, and tenses up as he watches all four run down the stairs to get to it, pushing at each other.
“Hey! Don’t push each other, that’s dangerous!” Zoro’s voice cracks hard, his voice and throat still irritated from whatever was wrong with him. He really needed that drink to soothe his throat, and maybe a good nap. That would fix it. The children don’t listen of course and they all make it down the stairs just fine despite their pushing.
“Marimo, how many times do I have to come find your lost ass.” Sanji’s voice startles him a bit, but it takes his attention away from the playing kids and Zoro looks over at him. There is a sack being held up in Sanji’s hand, meaning he wants to give Zoro another one to hold onto. Zoro looks at the supplies he was already carrying, and adjusts one of the sacks to rest differently against his forearm, then opens his right arm up more to let Sanji slide the burlap sack under Zoro's armpit.
“I wasn’t lost, Cook,” Zoro grumbles in response. The day had been wearing on him, and it was getting harder to have the energy to argue.
“It seems like our crew’s ship plant is wilting a little today. I need one more thing and we will return to the ship.” Sanji pats his arms and is off once again to another stall across the way before he can say anything about it.
Zoro adjusts the burlap sack under his arm to make sure it was secure, and in doing so, he spots two beetles clinging to the side of the sack and wonders how Sanji has missed them. He never told Sanji he learned about his fear of bugs, as they were in silent agreement not to talk about their fears. It was probably best to get rid of them before the cook returned.
“Listen bugs, I am going to need you to get lost,” Zoro croaks out, and the two beetles' antennae just wiggle in response. Shrugging, Zoro awkwardly scrapes the hilt of one of his swords against the bag to knock them off, and luckily they free themselves and fly away.
Sighing loudly bothers his throat again, and Zoro was getting real tired of this problem growing worse. He adjusts the sack once more to lay more comfortably under his arm and sluggishly weaves his way over to Sanji. As the day wore on, he was starting to feel a lot worse, and it was getting harder to keep up appearances. He just wanted to get back to the ship and take a nap.
As if the cook read his mind, Sanji turns around to face him, another large bag at his feet. He’s squinting at him again, assessing him for something Zoro was sure Sanji had already noticed. Zoro straightens up and wills away another cough trying to release from his diaphragm to try and keep up appearances.
“Are you sick Marimo?”
His throat still burned and he pretends his voice doesn’t sound as rough as it did when he answers. “I don’t get sick Cook.”
“You certainly look like you’re sick.” The Cook insists. The Cook is looking him over again, and not even with the appreciative look he has noticed Sanji give him from time to time.
“It's those pretty eyebrows of yours, they are making me dizzy.” Zoro comments, adjusting the items he was carrying once again to ease the ache in his arms. He would not be wasting the food they had gathered by dropping it on the ground, he could hold a few crates.
“You don’t have to make excuses to me you idiot. We're heading back to the ship, and getting Chopper to check you over,” Sanji decides, picking up the sack at his feet and taking Zoro’s elbow to pull him down the street.
“I am fine Curly,” Zoro tries again but lets Sanji pull him along, probably heading in the direction of the ship.
“You are not fine, have you heard yourself speak? Your voice sounds so awful, you barely sound like yourself.”
Zoro doesn’t have the energy to argue with him, and his voice does sound awful. Talking just made the itching and burning of his throat worse. So, he was going to refrain from answering. The soft pressure of Sanji’s hand wrapped around his elbow helped ground him, and he enjoys the warmth it gave as Sanji guides them toward the ship.
As much as he complained to the Cook about being part of the resupply team, there were parts of it he did enjoy. While teasing the Cook and getting into squabbles would never get old, he did like watching the Cook haggle with the vendors. Sanji showed a lot of care when he was checking over the ingredients he was getting for the crew. But most of all, his favorite part was when they both returned to the ship. The two of them would just sit in the galley together, with a bottle of whatever alcohol Sanji wanted to pour them, and bullshit about so many things. The last time they did that had been months ago. He realized he missed those moments with Sanji in the galley. They didn’t get too many of those kinds of days.
“Will you just set those down?!” Sanji’s voice breaks into his thoughts, and he blinks away the fuzzy trance he had gotten himself into. They had made it back to the Sunny and he had missed the whole way back. Sanji had taken the many sacks he had been holding with one arm, but Zoro was still standing in the middle of the deck, holding the crates up.
With a grunt, Zoro drops the crates to the deck of the Sunny and wobbles on his feet at the sudden weight shift.
“Hmm- Sorry, Curly.” He finds himself apologizing. Warm calloused hands wrap themselves around his arms to steady him, but as he focuses on Sanji’s face. He still feels a bit dizzy. He needs a nap, and it would fix everything.
“I- m-ight be s-ick,” Zoro finally admits, his voice barely a whisper. His head plops onto Sanji’s shoulder and he wraps his arms around the Cook’s waist. This was nice - Sanji was warm, and his brain felt a little less fuzzy.
“About time you admitted that, you idiot swordsman.” Sanji's statement sounds fond to him, and his shoulders shake in amusement under him. The two of them stand there together for a while, and Zoro was sure he was almost asleep standing up when he hears the clopping noise that came from Chopper’s hooves.
Zoro shifts off of Sanji’s shoulder quickly as a cough trickles up, and this time he isn’t able to hold down the rough-sounding coughs from releasing into the air. “Will you at least cover your mouth, that’s disgusting,” Sanji comments, just as Chopper reaches the two of them. He feels unbalanced as he tries to stand up to his full height, but wobbles.
Zoro gives the reindeer a small smile when he spots him, and hears the start of something before his vision goes black.
“ZORO! Sanji told me you-”
Perfect time for a nap.
&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&
When he finds himself awake again, Zoro realizes he had been placed in the bed in the infirmary. Even with the blanket wrapped around him, he feels cold, and he notices his throat still itched and burned. Even his head was still feeling foggy and his body just felt heavy. Guess a nap didn’t fix everything like he had thought. Sitting up, he spotted his swords leaning nearby, and Sanji sitting beside the bed in a chair, watching him.
“About time you woke up, Marimo. You scared Chopper pretty bad with the way you just passed out on deck,” Sanji informs him. The way the Cook’s fingers are tapping on a book in his lap makes him think that he might have had the cook worried too. “Chopper says you have a high fever, sore throat, a cough, and most likely other symptoms of the flu. He was waiting for you to wake up again to run some other tests. Knowing you, you were going to choose to deal with being sick, and not get it looked at.” Sanji sounds a bit frustrated, but this wouldn’t be the first time he upset the cook, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
“You aren’t allowed to do any training for a few days, and you have to rest. Just lay there and take extra naps, something you can easily do,” Sanji says as he continues to scold him.
He didn’t like that he would be missing a few days of training, but he would make up for it after he recovered a little and they were out at sea again.
“Hm, where is Chopper? Why am I stuck with you?” He manages to ask, just as another cough trickles up, and three more follow it.
A glass of water is forced into his hands, and Zoro lifts it to his lips to drain the cup of its contents. The water has a nice soothing effect on his throat, and Zoro was grateful for that. Only when it was empty, did he realize Sanji had been speaking, and telling him about Chopper. Something about the reindeer going back into town for ingredients, and him possibly getting worse. He thinks there was probably another warning about getting out of bed and nods like he was listening.
Sanji clicks his tongue against his teeth in annoyance as if he knew Zoro hadn’t been listening, and starts repeating the information. Zoro barely has enough energy to huff under his breath for an answer after that.
His focus shifts after a while, and he finds himself admiring the curl of Sanji’s eyebrow and thinks about how he likes it when he can see them both. They were pretty eyebrows; they really complimented the passionate fire reflecting from his eyes.
Coughing that wasn’t his own catches his attention. The blond sitting with him avoids looking at him, and his face looks a little red too. Maybe he had gotten the cook sick at some point, but to his knowledge, Sanji couldn’t get sick.
“You get sick, Curly?” The cook sputters at the question and runs his fingers through his hair a few times before digging into his pockets for his cigarettes. Sanji slips one between his lips to gnaw on the filter and doesn’t light it, as he must have remembered Chopper’s rule about smoking in the infirmary.
“I am not sick you Shitty Swordsman! You can’t just say crap like that out of nowhere!”
“Huh?”
“The eyebrow thing!? Did your fever already fry your brain?” Sanji snaps quickly, pointing over at him accusingly.
Zoro shrugs his shoulders and realizes he must have said what he was thinking out loud. “I meant it,” Zoro admits, finding it easier to just tell him instead of arguing. This whole flu thing was surely messing with the filtering of his thoughts.
“Why don’t you lay back down and get some rest? Clearly whatever you have is making you say ridiculous things.” Sanji pushes at his shoulder to lay back down, rolling the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other.
Zoro allows himself to fall back into the bed, deciding he doesn’t have the energy to push the matter right now and is just glad he isn’t being kicked through a wall. He makes himself as comfortable as he can with this stupid flu.
Zoro turns his head in Sanji’s direction and finds him messing with a bowl of water sitting on the table. Sanji pulls out a soaked towel and wrings the water out of it, then turns towards him to set the towel on his forehead. The cool cloth feels refreshing on his face, and he’s glad Sanji thought of it. He hadn’t even realized he had a fever, with how chilly he had felt all day.
“Get some sleep Marimo, I will be making you soup in a little while.” Sanji’s voice breaks him from his thoughts again. The swirlybrow slides back into the chair beside the bed instead of leaving to make soup, so that must mean he would be staying for a while. Sanji picks up the book Zoro had noticed earlier and then opens it up a ways in. While he did feel like taking a nice nap again, curiosity got the best of him.
“What are you reading?” He asks, letting another cough roll out of his body. Sanji clicks his tongue and sighs, setting the book back in his lap to look up at him.
“Nothing caveman barbarians can read, it wouldn’t interest you.”
“It's some boring romance story isn’t it?”
Sanji sits up again, leaning towards him, still chewing on the cigarette filter between his lips. His face was all red like it had been earlier. “First of all, romances are not boring! They are beautiful and showcase the best things about love! Second, this book is a fairy tale! It’s about a magical music box that maps the way to the All Blue. It’s a beautiful tale, now go to sleep.”
Another cough escapes him when he tries to answer, but he still manages to get it out. “Read it to me.”
Sanji’s eye widens, and the cigarette hanging from his mouth finally falls to the ground. He readjusts to cross his legs and the book lays open in his lap. The cook goes silent and then lets out a soft sigh.
“Fine, I will read a bedtime story for the little Marimo.” Sanji lifts the book off his lap, flipping back to the first page, and begins to read.
The Cook’s pronunciation is clear, and he does enjoy Sanji’s husky tone as he reads. Occasionally, Zoro will catch a blue eye peek over at him, and Sanji will pause for a moment, but continue when he realizes Zoro is still listening. He seems to be waiting for something, but Zoro isn’t quite sure what he is waiting for.
He doesn’t remember when he falls asleep. The last thing he remembers is the soft tone of Sanji’s voice, reading about the main character learning how to open the music box, and discovering it’s also a map.
%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%
When he wakes he is alone, and his mind still feels foggy. Where had the cook gone? And why did he feel so uneasy? Pushing the blanket off of him, Zoro stumbles as he climbs to his feet. Assessing himself quickly, he finds that his limbs still felt heavy, and his throat still itched. So he must still have the flu, and the nap hadn’t fixed it.
His swords are still leaning against the wall, and he secures them to his hip. One of the Cook's cigarettes is lying on the ground, and his gut twists in his stomach at the sight of it. Sanji would have picked that up, so why didn’t he? Did something happen while he was asleep?
Overcome with worry, Zoro steps towards the door and grumbles to himself when he realizes his balance is still off, but if the crew was in danger he had to get there. Another urge to cough starts to bubble up in his chest, and he tries to will it away, but the pressure in his chest becomes too much and it spills out into his arm.
Opening the door to the deck, he doesn’t see any of the others wandering about and hopes they aren’t in danger. He had thought he was using the door into the galley, but they must have switched the ship’s layout again. His eye scans out toward the island and it widens when he spots Sanji running into the treeline and into the jungle not far from the docks.
What was going on?! Why didn’t Curly wake him up?! Even if he had this stupid flu, he wanted to fight whatever it was. Sanji had probably thought he would let Zoro sleep, and deal with whatever it was himself. While he trusted Sanji to deal with whatever enemy or issue the straw hats might be facing, he didn’t want him to do it alone if he didn’t have to. With no one keeping tabs on him, there was no one to keep him in bed.
Vaulting over the railing, Zoro lands on the dock and rushes for the jungle. He swallows away the scratchy feeling in his throat, but the rawness of his throat remains lingering anyway. He hates how weak he feels with a cold, flu, or whatever.
It doesn’t take him long to reach the treeline he thought he saw Sanji in, pausing long enough to spot a trail of fallen trees and guessing it must be the way everyone went. Whatever creature they were after was large. Something is strange about why he thought it was a creature, but that is what his mind was coming up with. He had to trust it, so Zoro presses on and tries to listen for the Cook’s movements or the sound of combat, but to his surprise, he doesn’t hear either of those things.
The fuzzy feeling in his head was making it difficult to keep track of where he was going, but Zoro trudges on. Up ahead, he spots something moving through the trees.
“Curly!?”
He doesn’t stop moving and listens for what would probably be Sanji’s angry shouts or even the sound of movement, but they never come. The foreboding feeling twists in his stomach again, and his hand clenches the handle of Kitetsu as he scans the forest around him. His gaze travels up and makes eye contact with a creature with many eyes. The large creature screeches at him and scurries away through the next set of trees. It looked like some kind of beetle mixed with a spider.
Part of him wishes he could see the look on Sanji’s face if he ever ran into this creature. It had to be larger than Franky. Another part of him wants Sanji to see him defeat a giant bug for him.
Maybe this bug did something to the cook? Is that why he couldn’t see him anymore? If that’s the case, then he would take it down and find Sanji.
Plan made, Zoro hurries after the creature hoping it hasn’t gotten away from him. Luckily, he catches another glimpse of it, and races after it. It leads him to a large open area, and Zoro watches as the Beetle-Spider climbs around a large rock cropping and disappears on the other side. He can’t hear it moving anymore. It was waiting for him.
A series of coughs stop him from pushing on, but once it clears again he focuses on the rock cropping. The Cook was in danger, and he needed to help the cook. The cook didn’t like bugs. Someone should protect him. Why couldn’t it be him?
Maybe in exchange, he could talk to Sanji about his fear of stairs, which would make it feel equal, right? Sanji could talk to him about that.
Zoro circles the rock cropping, drawing Kitesu into his hand, and is surprised to find that the large bug creature is no longer there. A creature of that size would have made noise if it had left, so could it turn invisible? Squinting around the area, Zoro tries to sense the creature’s presence but it still doesn’t turn up. Was the flu causing this?
He rounds the rock cropping to the other side again, but nothing is out of the ordinary there, where could it have gone? Movement in the treeline catches his attention and he swings Kitetsu just at the blade meets with a familiar leather shoe.
“Curlybrow! The bugs didn’t get you?!” Zoro hoarsely comments as he sheathes Kitestu back in its sheath.
“What? Bu-” Sanji starts to ask in confusion but dismisses it quickly to yell at him. “Oh no, forget that Marimo! Are you an idiot!? You have the flu, you should be resting! Why the fuck are you out here in this shitty forest!? I have been looking for your lost ass for hours. Why did you leave the ship, you were told to stay in bed?”
“Huh?” Zoro grunts out. “What are you talking about Cook? You went into the forest first, I just followed you.”
“No, I didn’t, I went into the galley to get you the soup I had prepared, and when I returned, you weren’t there! It was barely five minutes!” Sanji proclaims, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
“But I saw you, and there was this giant bug! You hate bugs, I had to defeat the spider-beetle for you!” Zoro coughs out.
“For the last time, I never left the ship until after I noticed you were gone! Wait, you were going to fight a bug for me?” Sanji’s voice quiets and grows soft as he continues. “I didn’t want you to know that about me.”
“It felt like the right thing to do, someone has to look out for you too, Curly. I care about you, it just makes sense. You would do the same for me if you could fight stairs. We all have fears, cook.”
“You are quite sentimental when you’re sick, you know that?” Sanji chuckles fondly, a red hue across his cheeks as he takes Zoro’s hand, making something in Zoro’s stomach flutter.
“Let’s just get you back to the ship before you keel over and become one with your species. You look terrible, and Chopper is going to flip once he learns you wandered off the ship and I didn’t stop you.”
“It’s fine Cook, stop worrying so much.” Zoro advises, raising his other hand to cup Sanji’s face, and brush his thumb along his cheek.
“You know I can’t.” Sanji points out, and his eye glances at his lips and then back up to lock eyes with him.
“This flu thing will be over in no time, we got the best doctor on our ship and the best chef there is,” Zoro comments with a soft crooked smile knocking his forehead against Sanji’s with a small whack.
“I hope you know, I am going to be constantly reminding you of what you just said. Flu or not.”
“Oh, I do,” Zoro whispers, and then lets his impulses take over and locks his lips with Sanji’s. He has to pull away sooner than he would like to cough into his arm again.
“Ugh, I can’t believe you kissed me while you were sick! You could have waited! What if I get sick!” Sanji huffs in complaint, but the squeeze of his hand tells him a different story.
“You don’t get sick, Curly,” Zoro states, as Sanji tugs Zoro along by their linked hands and begins their way back to the ship.
Zoro spares one more glance towards the rock-cropping, but there is no sign of any kind of bug, and he has what he wants. Turning forward again, Zoro concentrates on his steps and the palm against his as it was the only thing helping him keep himself upright. The calm atmosphere makes it easier for him to zone out as exhaustion begins to take over. Sanji breaks the comfortable silence
“I always thought it was unusual for a moss like you to stick yourself next to the stairs on the ship. As time drew on, and we visited island after island, I realized it was more than that. Like today, when we were in the market today. I heard you yell at those kids. In reality, stairs bother you, don’t they?”
“I lost someone when I was a kid. It felt like my fault, even if it wasn’t.” Zoro admits, pushing through his fatigue to answer. “It's the only way I can ease my mind, and hope that if it ever happens again. I will be there and I can save them.”
Sanji gives him an understanding smile and squeezes his hand tight. “Even from stairs, the mighty moss will keep the crew safe.”
“And squash every bug that might cross paths with a swirly love cook.”
“How sweet for a large and sick piece of moss to defend my honor,“ Sanji teases.
“I could still take them.”
“Sure you could,” Sanji teases with a boyish grin. If he had the energy for it, he would continue to make his point, but for now, he would settle for a frown. Even if Sanji kept asking him if he was pouting and sulking the rest of the way to the ship.