Help! A zombie plot bunny resurrected itself!!!
Yeah, so this is yet another entry in the Silvertongue "trilogy" that was supposed to consist of these three fics, and got extended by an omake. Just felt the urge to write some Zoro and Robin nakamaship. And throwing in some ZoNa, naturally. :-P I don't really like the ending though. Might be OOC too. Eh, I'll think about it some more while I'm making dinner.
Robin paused for a moment in her book when she heard a series of clanks and then a familiar creaking sound from the deck below. She stood up to investigate, ignoring the far more expedient method of simply growing a pair of eyes on the main mast and instead, allowing a chain of hands to lower her gracefully down to the deck, to find that a certain training-crazed maniac was back at his katas.
"Still at it, Swordsman-san?" she asked, leaning against the railing and folding her arms.
"Obviously," Zoro grunted. He seemed to be having more trouble than usual, and though Robin was at first inclined to ascribe this to the fact that he had received a thorough beating that day - from his nakama, no less - she soon realised that the reason was right in front of her.
"You added a new weight to the end," she observed.
"Yeah, bought it today. Nami finally loaned me the money," he shrugged, with an effort.
So that was where Zoro and Chopper had gone after dinner, Robin realised. "And you were so eager to try it out that you had to start training in the middle of the night?"
Zoro shot her an annoyed look. "Couldn't sleep, that's all," he muttered defensively.
Robin smiled. For a man who spent half the day asleep, the statement was nothing short of ironic. "Does that have anything to do with the fact that you were almost killed today?"
His response was a muted growl.
Robin reminded him, her voice gentle, "You do realise that no amount of physical strength could have stopped Silvertongue? There was nothing you could have done."
"Yeah," Zoro said reluctantly. "I get that."
"Then what is bothering you, Swordsman-san?" That something was eating at him was obvious - she could read him like an open book. Which reminded her... "Perhaps it was our forced criticism that stung a little?"
"Huh?" Zoro stared at her as if he'd entirely forgotten all the "negative" things they had said about him. "Hell, no! 'Doesn't read enough?' 'Doesn't spend enough time playing?' 'Takes off his bandages without permission?' It's nothing I haven't heard before. Well, except for the 'not enough reading' thing." He paused, giving her a curious look. "What was that supposed to mean, anyway?"
"Exactly what I said, Swordsman-san. Since our captain pays little attention to current affairs, it is your duty as first mate to educate yourself so you can assist him in making the right decisions."
Zoro scowled. "How many times do I have to say it? I'm not first mate." This was an old, old point of contention. "I was here first, that's all."
Robin said nothing. She had made her own arguments in the past. If he refused to accept them, there was nothing else to be said. Until the day Luffy himself declared Zoro first mate, he would probably never admit the truth to himself. Still, his insistence that they were all equals under Luffy was rather sweet, although he would certainly hate having the word applied to him.
"Anyway," Zoro continued, sounding less disgruntled since he hadn't been forced to repeat his rebuttals, but still eyeing her bemused smile suspiciously, "we have you and Nami for that, don't we?" She inclined her head, accepting the gruff compliment. "And besides, it's not like Luffy doesn't always know what to do, whether he reads the 'paper or not."
"You're thinking about Brook?" she hazarded a guess.
"Yeah." Zoro set his weights down with a pained grunt, realising he hadn't swung them for quite some time now. "I told Luffy not to let Brook join, but...I was wrong. Just as I was wrong about Nami. And about you." He looked straight at her, and she could see the disgust in his eyes. Self-disgust.
"In other words, what's bothering you from today is not what we had to say about you, but what you would have had to say about us?"
Zoro nodded. "If it had been anyone else besides me, I would've had plenty of negative things to say. If it'd been Luffy, I'd have said he isn't serious enough to become Pirate King. If it was Nami, I'd've said she's a greedy witch. I'd have told Usopp to stop lying. Sanji, that he's an annoying bastard who's gonna get us all killed someday just 'cause he can't kick a woman. Chopper, that he needs to grow up. Franky, that he really needs to put on some pants and stop that infernal dancing. Brook, that he should be training harder." Zoro took a deep breath at the end of his litany of complaints, and clenched his fists as if he wanted to turn them on himself.
"And what about me?" Robin asked, with a smile.
"You?" Zoro considered. "I guess I'd have said it's about damn time you stopped being so distant and started calling us by our names."
Robin nodded, accepting the rebuke with as much reaction as she had his compliment earlier.
"And that's just the beginning," Zoro went on, his voice heavy with self-loathing. "I'd probably have had plenty more to say. They're too noisy. Eat too much. That sort of thing." He ran a hand through his short green hair, looking supremely annoyed with himself.
"You think you are too harsh on them?"
"Harsh, cruel, whatever you wanna call it." Zoro gave a hollow chuckle. "Thinking the worst of people until proven otherwise."
"That isn't necessarily a bad thing," Robin said carefully. "After all, you were right about me, in the beginning. I was planning to just use you and then cast you aside when the time was right."
"But you didn't, because they liked you. If everyone had treated you like I treated you, you probably wouldn't have changed your mind."
"On the contrary. If your reaction had been like everyone else's, I would have been even more paranoid about the crew. At least with you, I knew exactly how I stood. What you call harshness, or cruelty, I would call honesty. Honesty to the point of bluntness, but honesty all the same."
Seeing him waver a little, she pressed forward. "Besides, I'm certain I've heard you tell some of the others what you just told me. Didn't you call Nami a 'greedy witch' at dinner tonight, when you were arguing about your allowance?"
"I guess so," Zoro admitted.
"And if Usopp or Chopper or Franky were to come up to you now and ask you for your most negative thought about them, would you say something else just to make them feel better?"
"Not if they asked," Zoro shrugged.
"I hardly think it would be news to them. I am fairly sure they wouldn't feel as hurt as you seem to think they might."
Robin watched as Zoro digested all of this, and pressed her point home.
"And no matter how harsh you are on other people, you're always harshest on yourself."
Really, it happened like clockwork. Every time there was an opponent who got the better of him, even for an instant, every time there was a battle in which someone got hurt, you could count on Zoro to put himself on an even more punishing training regimen that would strain his body to the limit. Even now, by the light of the moon, she could see his arm muscles trembling from having to lift that additional - a surreptitious eyestalk grew here, to check the detail - one-tonne weight.
Perhaps that should have been her most negative thought about Zoro.
But at least this time, it looked like her arguments had worked. Zoro looked a good deal happier, even if he didn't look fully satisfied, and he gave her a reluctant grin as he said, "I'm glad I was wrong about you."
"And I'm glad I was wrong about you, Zoro-san," she replied.
Zoro's grin stretched still wider. "I guess that means I'm gonna have to start reading the newspaper from now on, huh?" He bent down and picked up the weights once more.
"Going to train some more?" she queried.
"Nah, I think I'll go to bed," he said, echoing the statement with a yawn.
"Good night, Swo - Zoro-san." Getting rid of that habit would be more difficult than she thought.
"Night. Oh yeah. There was, um, something I was planning to ask you."
"Oh?" she asked, wondering what it could be. Though if the faint blush on his cheeks was anything to go by...
"What d'you think Nami's negative thought would have been? About me, I mean?"
Robin congratulated herself on the correct guess. "You didn't manage to get around to hers, then?"
"No, Silvertongue kinda skipped her."
"Well," Robin said consideringly, "I would say..." The rest of her sentence was delivered by means of a mouth grown next to Zoro's ear, which turned out all for the best since Zoro promptly dropped the weights where her feet would have been, waking up the rest of the crew with a five-tonne clang, which gave Zoro yet another opportunity to be scolded by Franky for breaking the deck again, Chopper for pushing himself too hard, Sanji for being a noisy jerk who woke the ladies from their beauty sleep, and Luffy for sneaking out on deck without inviting the others to play as well, until Nami came out in her pyjamas and told them all to be quiet or else I'm gonna triple all your debts!
She turned to stomp back to bed, only to stop when she felt a pair of eyes on her. She swung around and looked accusingly at Zoro. "What, gonna call me a greedy witch again?" she challenged, hands on her hips.
"Um. No," Zoro said, forcing his straying eyes upwards, but not before being caught by someone else.
"You were just ogling Nami-san, weren't you, pervert swordsman?" Sanji yelled.
"Who the hell are you calling a perv, ero-cook!"
Moments later, their attempted quarrel had been soundly quashed by Nami's fists and everyone slunk back to bed, cowed by the navigator's sleepless wrath.
Robin chuckled to herself as she retreated back to the crow's nest to resume her watch and the ship returned to its slumbering state. If she hadn't fully convinced him that his self-criticism was unjustified, surely the words and actions of the rest of the crew would.
What Robin whispered to Zoro is revealed here.
Robin paused for a moment in her book when she heard a series of clanks and then a familiar creaking sound from the deck below. She stood up to investigate, ignoring the far more expedient method of simply growing a pair of eyes on the main mast and instead, allowing a chain of hands to lower her gracefully down to the deck, to find that a certain training-crazed maniac was back at his katas.
"Still at it, Swordsman-san?" she asked, leaning against the railing and folding her arms.
"Obviously," Zoro grunted. He seemed to be having more trouble than usual, and though Robin was at first inclined to ascribe this to the fact that he had received a thorough beating that day - from his nakama, no less - she soon realised that the reason was right in front of her.
"You added a new weight to the end," she observed.
"Yeah, bought it today. Nami finally loaned me the money," he shrugged, with an effort.
So that was where Zoro and Chopper had gone after dinner, Robin realised. "And you were so eager to try it out that you had to start training in the middle of the night?"
Zoro shot her an annoyed look. "Couldn't sleep, that's all," he muttered defensively.
Robin smiled. For a man who spent half the day asleep, the statement was nothing short of ironic. "Does that have anything to do with the fact that you were almost killed today?"
His response was a muted growl.
Robin reminded him, her voice gentle, "You do realise that no amount of physical strength could have stopped Silvertongue? There was nothing you could have done."
"Yeah," Zoro said reluctantly. "I get that."
"Then what is bothering you, Swordsman-san?" That something was eating at him was obvious - she could read him like an open book. Which reminded her... "Perhaps it was our forced criticism that stung a little?"
"Huh?" Zoro stared at her as if he'd entirely forgotten all the "negative" things they had said about him. "Hell, no! 'Doesn't read enough?' 'Doesn't spend enough time playing?' 'Takes off his bandages without permission?' It's nothing I haven't heard before. Well, except for the 'not enough reading' thing." He paused, giving her a curious look. "What was that supposed to mean, anyway?"
"Exactly what I said, Swordsman-san. Since our captain pays little attention to current affairs, it is your duty as first mate to educate yourself so you can assist him in making the right decisions."
Zoro scowled. "How many times do I have to say it? I'm not first mate." This was an old, old point of contention. "I was here first, that's all."
Robin said nothing. She had made her own arguments in the past. If he refused to accept them, there was nothing else to be said. Until the day Luffy himself declared Zoro first mate, he would probably never admit the truth to himself. Still, his insistence that they were all equals under Luffy was rather sweet, although he would certainly hate having the word applied to him.
"Anyway," Zoro continued, sounding less disgruntled since he hadn't been forced to repeat his rebuttals, but still eyeing her bemused smile suspiciously, "we have you and Nami for that, don't we?" She inclined her head, accepting the gruff compliment. "And besides, it's not like Luffy doesn't always know what to do, whether he reads the 'paper or not."
"You're thinking about Brook?" she hazarded a guess.
"Yeah." Zoro set his weights down with a pained grunt, realising he hadn't swung them for quite some time now. "I told Luffy not to let Brook join, but...I was wrong. Just as I was wrong about Nami. And about you." He looked straight at her, and she could see the disgust in his eyes. Self-disgust.
"In other words, what's bothering you from today is not what we had to say about you, but what you would have had to say about us?"
Zoro nodded. "If it had been anyone else besides me, I would've had plenty of negative things to say. If it'd been Luffy, I'd have said he isn't serious enough to become Pirate King. If it was Nami, I'd've said she's a greedy witch. I'd have told Usopp to stop lying. Sanji, that he's an annoying bastard who's gonna get us all killed someday just 'cause he can't kick a woman. Chopper, that he needs to grow up. Franky, that he really needs to put on some pants and stop that infernal dancing. Brook, that he should be training harder." Zoro took a deep breath at the end of his litany of complaints, and clenched his fists as if he wanted to turn them on himself.
"And what about me?" Robin asked, with a smile.
"You?" Zoro considered. "I guess I'd have said it's about damn time you stopped being so distant and started calling us by our names."
Robin nodded, accepting the rebuke with as much reaction as she had his compliment earlier.
"And that's just the beginning," Zoro went on, his voice heavy with self-loathing. "I'd probably have had plenty more to say. They're too noisy. Eat too much. That sort of thing." He ran a hand through his short green hair, looking supremely annoyed with himself.
"You think you are too harsh on them?"
"Harsh, cruel, whatever you wanna call it." Zoro gave a hollow chuckle. "Thinking the worst of people until proven otherwise."
"That isn't necessarily a bad thing," Robin said carefully. "After all, you were right about me, in the beginning. I was planning to just use you and then cast you aside when the time was right."
"But you didn't, because they liked you. If everyone had treated you like I treated you, you probably wouldn't have changed your mind."
"On the contrary. If your reaction had been like everyone else's, I would have been even more paranoid about the crew. At least with you, I knew exactly how I stood. What you call harshness, or cruelty, I would call honesty. Honesty to the point of bluntness, but honesty all the same."
Seeing him waver a little, she pressed forward. "Besides, I'm certain I've heard you tell some of the others what you just told me. Didn't you call Nami a 'greedy witch' at dinner tonight, when you were arguing about your allowance?"
"I guess so," Zoro admitted.
"And if Usopp or Chopper or Franky were to come up to you now and ask you for your most negative thought about them, would you say something else just to make them feel better?"
"Not if they asked," Zoro shrugged.
"I hardly think it would be news to them. I am fairly sure they wouldn't feel as hurt as you seem to think they might."
Robin watched as Zoro digested all of this, and pressed her point home.
"And no matter how harsh you are on other people, you're always harshest on yourself."
Really, it happened like clockwork. Every time there was an opponent who got the better of him, even for an instant, every time there was a battle in which someone got hurt, you could count on Zoro to put himself on an even more punishing training regimen that would strain his body to the limit. Even now, by the light of the moon, she could see his arm muscles trembling from having to lift that additional - a surreptitious eyestalk grew here, to check the detail - one-tonne weight.
Perhaps that should have been her most negative thought about Zoro.
But at least this time, it looked like her arguments had worked. Zoro looked a good deal happier, even if he didn't look fully satisfied, and he gave her a reluctant grin as he said, "I'm glad I was wrong about you."
"And I'm glad I was wrong about you, Zoro-san," she replied.
Zoro's grin stretched still wider. "I guess that means I'm gonna have to start reading the newspaper from now on, huh?" He bent down and picked up the weights once more.
"Going to train some more?" she queried.
"Nah, I think I'll go to bed," he said, echoing the statement with a yawn.
"Good night, Swo - Zoro-san." Getting rid of that habit would be more difficult than she thought.
"Night. Oh yeah. There was, um, something I was planning to ask you."
"Oh?" she asked, wondering what it could be. Though if the faint blush on his cheeks was anything to go by...
"What d'you think Nami's negative thought would have been? About me, I mean?"
Robin congratulated herself on the correct guess. "You didn't manage to get around to hers, then?"
"No, Silvertongue kinda skipped her."
"Well," Robin said consideringly, "I would say..." The rest of her sentence was delivered by means of a mouth grown next to Zoro's ear, which turned out all for the best since Zoro promptly dropped the weights where her feet would have been, waking up the rest of the crew with a five-tonne clang, which gave Zoro yet another opportunity to be scolded by Franky for breaking the deck again, Chopper for pushing himself too hard, Sanji for being a noisy jerk who woke the ladies from their beauty sleep, and Luffy for sneaking out on deck without inviting the others to play as well, until Nami came out in her pyjamas and told them all to be quiet or else I'm gonna triple all your debts!
She turned to stomp back to bed, only to stop when she felt a pair of eyes on her. She swung around and looked accusingly at Zoro. "What, gonna call me a greedy witch again?" she challenged, hands on her hips.
"Um. No," Zoro said, forcing his straying eyes upwards, but not before being caught by someone else.
"You were just ogling Nami-san, weren't you, pervert swordsman?" Sanji yelled.
"Who the hell are you calling a perv, ero-cook!"
Moments later, their attempted quarrel had been soundly quashed by Nami's fists and everyone slunk back to bed, cowed by the navigator's sleepless wrath.
Robin chuckled to herself as she retreated back to the crow's nest to resume her watch and the ship returned to its slumbering state. If she hadn't fully convinced him that his self-criticism was unjustified, surely the words and actions of the rest of the crew would.
What Robin whispered to Zoro is revealed here.