Chapter 5
Title: Perchance to Dream Part: 5/11
Rating: From PG to R: This Chapter: PG
Words: 2,863
Pairings: Zoro/Sanji
Summery: “Because happy is what happens when all your dreams come true…well, isn't it?” -Wicked
Warnings: Everything from fluff to angst.
Spoilers: Takes place between Skypiea and Water 7, so…
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don’t own One Piece
Notes: Loosely based on and titled after an episode of Batman The Animated Series. If you’ve seen this episode…shhhhh…
Huge thank you: To bronzetigress for being my super-beta and putting up with my ellipses abuse and lack of commas. Thanks again my dear!!!!
Chapter 5
Zoro could smell the cigarette smoke mixed with other scents wafting from the kitchen; apparently the no smoking rule didn’t apply past the ‘employees only’ sign. He rocked back and forth in his chair mulling over what was turning out to be the weirdest roller coaster day of his life. He was sorting out the good from the bad:
•Waking up and finding out you’ve lost five years of your life: BAD
•Married to the love cook: It had varied but overall: GOOD
•Fighting with new husband, on more than one occasion: BAD
•Living on the most beautiful mystical island not known to man: GOOD
•Seeing your very own dojo: GOOD
•Finding out you forgot your life’s goal: BAD. VERY, VERY, VERY BAD
•Kissing Sanji: (will be) VERY, VERY, VERY GOOD
So good was currently winning by a small margin. But, he smiled remembering the lip lock near miss, he’d like to improve on that. Too bad said blond had run off to his kitchen and was seemingly intent on being all mysterious and coy and fucking confusing. He glared at the door to the kitchen and decided he'd had enough waiting. Climbing to his feet he approached the door warily. Even on the Merry he never knew how Sanji would react when he entered the galley as the cook was preparing a meal. Sometimes the man would give him no trouble except for the customary glare and other times he was kicked out with a cry of “I don’t have the time to deal with you!” but often much longer and much more colorful. But Zoro was never the kind of man that backed down once he had his mind made up, so he pushed past the swinging doors with one shove of his arm.
The kitchen was a large rectangular room lined with cabinets, shiny silver ovens and matching stainless steel sinks. In the middle of the room was a large island that, Zoro imagined, must have been the center of activity during a busy day. In one of the corners of the space Sanji was sliding some chopped up something or other into a pan. He turned at the sound of the door slamming shut behind the swordsman.
“What? Did you get lonely out there?”
“Nah, just wanted to see what it looked like inside here.”
Sanji gave him an amused sort of look. “Since when have you been interested in the culinary arts?”
Zoro snorted as he approached the other man and leaned against the counter beside him. “What d’you take me for, a pansy like you?” He grimaced as the cook bashed him in the shin with a deft kick. Sanji shook his head at him before returning to their meal and Zoro continued in peace, “I was just wondering. Earlier you told me that your second favorite thing about this place was the big window--”
“It’s a bay window.”
“Whatever, but it left me thinking--” Zoro shot a look at Sanji that stopped the quip that was bound to follow that phrase, “that since I didn’t see it earlier: this must be your favorite place and it was… worth a look.”
“And…”
“And it’s like the galley but bigger.”
“Spoken like the true Marimo head that you are.” He paused for the moment it took to shove something into Zoro’s mouth with a fork. “Try that.”
Zoro rolled the meat around his tongue. It was tangy- but not too much and cooked just below medium rare. Just the way he liked it.
“S’good,” he mumbled reaching for the plate.
“Ah!” Sanji spun the prize away, “That’s what we have dining rooms for.”
“Is everything a little game to you?” Zoro grumbled and followed the blond’s back into the main room.
“Thought you liked challenges.”
“I do.” He grabbed the back of Sanji’s pants and yanked up. The blond jerked up in surprise while Zoro swept in and seized his plate. “I like them when I win.”
“Humph,” The swordsman appreciated the annoyed expression on the other’s face as he readjusted his pants, “You, sir, are an asshole.”
“What can I say, I wanted you to have company.” Zoro leaned back in his chair comfortably, savoring his food the way he always did on the Merry but never showed it on his face. It felt different now, just the two of them and in a fancy place like Sanji’s restaurant… it was date-like. It was starting to make Zoro all sweaty thinking about it like that. He cleared his throat. “Ah…so I was wondering, what with the house, and dojo and restaurant and all…how did we pay for all of this? I mean I’m sure we’re doing fine now and everything but in the start?”
“Did you think Luffy would let us go with nothing? We did pretty well, you could say, with the pirating. We had enough for all three buildings and then some.”
Zoro nodded. “So, ah, what happened to those guys?”
Sanji looked at him and tilted his head before the light bulb turned on. “Oh! That’s right, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you before. I guess I forgot for a while that you forgot other things then just our marriage.” He tapped his finger on his chin in thought for a moment. “Well Luffy, of course, became the Pirate King. That was some battle- we both almost died. Numerous times. It was like the CP9 times ten. I’ll have to tell you about it some time. To my knowledge, their current adventure is finishing up the fine details of Nami’s world map.”
“So Nami is still aboard?”
“Yeah…the last one of us. Usopp left the last time we passed by his island. Said he’d been having a lot of dreams about having to be there and save the place and his girl again. We all just thought it was his last attempt to impress us until we found out later that it really happened, confirmed by Kaya,” here he winked, “at their wedding.”
“Usopp a married man eh?”
“And a father…Uncle Zoro.”
Zoro raised an eyebrow to that. “Kid will never be bored at least.”
Sanji nodded. “Robin left just before we did. In an interesting turn of events, she ended up saving the world with her readings and now she’s a teacher at some high league school. Is that ironic or what? Bounty gone. Now everyone wants her brain instead of her head. Now Chopper, he left after we did, so I only know what Nami wrote to us in a letter, but apparently he found a little island way out in the middle of nowhere that really needed a doctor and connected with them like that.” He snapped his fingers. “So that’s where he stayed. We’ve got Strawhats all over the damn place. But that’s good. That way Luffy always has a safe place to stay no matter what sea he’s in.”
“I suppose everyone is after him now.”
“Oh yeah, he drew us a rendition of one of the fights once in comic form. I should dig it out when we get home to show it to you…well you can’t really understand what’s going on, but it’s funny anyway.”
“Everyone’s happy huh?”
Sanji smiled, “Yah, everyone is happy.”
The swordsman smiled and settled back into the chair folding his arms behind his head. “So tell me about the battle that made our captain the Pirate King.”
Pushing his plate aside the blond leaned over the table resting on his elbows. “Well, we were closing in on the last leg of the Grand Line when…”
* * *
Zoro chuckled. They had been talking about old times for what seemed like hours. It was long enough though that the sun had fully set in the sky and the chandeliers had to take over where the stars couldn’t reach. It was a sparkling clear night.
“Ha! I can picture how huge he must have been grinning.”
“You know the expression ‘from ear to ear’?”
“Yeah?”
“Literally.” Sanji traced an invisible line on his face illustrating the rubber man’s grin when he got the title.
They had moved the conversation into the kitchen a little while ago since Sanji insisted on doing the dishes before they went home. Zoro was sitting on a stool at the island listening to the cook’s voice just as he had been doing since supper started. It was really quite nice when it wasn’t yelling at him.
“What’s his bounty up to?”
“Oh, some ungodly number I’m sure…I don’t remember. It's like it changes every day.”
“I suppose we get people attacking us all the time huh?”
Sanji stilled and looked back at him curiously “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“We don’t get attacked?” he asked in surprise
“Geeze, Zoro, why would we?”
Zoro almost blurted out ‘DUH’ but he figured he really didn’t need to start another fight.
“Why wouldn’t we? Our bounties? Fighters trying to take my title? I’m sure Mihawk got challenged all the time, I’d bet my life that people called him out constantly.”
“I…uh…” Sanji turned away and resumed scrubbing at a pan, “It is rather hard to find All Blue, Zoro-”
“No, I searched the world for Mihawk and I found him even though he was constantly moving. Surely one person either stumbled on me here or searched me out.”
Sanji was quiet for a beat longer than what would constitute a normal silence as he rinsed off the pan and set it in the drying rack.
“I suppose-” he started but was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering, a lot of glass shattering. “The fuck?”
Sanji was moving quickly, making it to the door even faster than Zoro who was closer to begin with. The swordsman was right at his heels though; in fact, so close that he ran into the blond when the cook stopped short with a startled gasp. After backing up and regaining his balance, Zoro could see the bay window’s middle panel of glass shattered and lying scattered all over the carpet. Sanji was moving slowly off to the side and bent down to retrieve something off the floor. When he straightened he had a large round rock in his hand.
“Who would…” He stared at the rock like it would give him an answer.
Suddenly the recent memory of Sanji throwing the curtains open for him earlier that evening popped into Zoro’s mind. That and the happy look on his face-
“Not even you can say a bad thing about this.”
Sanji was so damn proud of that window, and some fucker decided it deserved to be smashed? Like it was nothing? Well it sure as Hell wasn’t ‘nothing’ to Sanji. Zoro narrowed his eyes while mounting the window seat underneath the shattered glass. He surveyed the ground beyond the window looking for any sort of movement. Zoro knew how a lot of lowlifes thought and he knew that they tended to wait around to see their victim’s reactions. So when the swordsman found him, he was going to kick this guy’s ass.
“Zoro,” a clatter of glass as Sanji moved some of the larger pieces around behind him, “what are you doing?”
“I’m lookin'.”
“You think they’re still out there?” Zoro nodded. “Good, ‘cause I’m going to kick their fucking faces in.”
“Wait.” Zoro replied placing a hand on Sanji’s shoulder holding him off. “We need to know for sure where he is.”
The cook remained on the floor but leaned forward peering through the window beside the swordsman.
“There.” And Zoro leapt from the window.
“Zoro!”
He heard Sanji yell at him but he had already hit the ground running. He was going to catch that fucker, teach him a lesson or two about respecting other people’s property. In the last few moments he had reached a decision that now anyone who messed with Sanji would be rewarded with pain, or even death depending on his or her crime. He was quickly gaining on the dark figure ahead, and vaguely aware of Sanji following him. Soon he recognized the vandal’s clothes as those of the crazy man’s from the market, what did Sanji say his name was? Yo, Yach, Yashin! That was it.
“YASHIN!” Zoro yelled
The figure’s head turned back at him at the name- and smiled.
Zoro almost stopped in his tracks. It was the most unsettling thing he’d ever witnessed. The way it sat on the man’s face was alien. It stretched the human flesh into a gruesome mask of the species and made the swordsman’s skin crawl. Warning. But just as Zoro was close enough to start to snatch at the ends of the black threads the man took off with an amazing jump in speed and disappeared without a trace into the inky night.
Slowing to a stop Zoro glared into the surrounding darkness. There was something just so wrong about that fucker. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he’d bet good drinking money that there was something more to the guy than being a whackjob. This bastard was a dangerous whackjob who was much more of a threat than any of the townsfolk really knew. He heard Sanji come to a stop beside him and then felt a light hand on his arm.
“Did you say…” he paused taking in a breath, “that- that person was Yashin?”
“It was,” Zoro answered, still staring ahead.
“But- he’s never done anything like that before.”
“You were wrong about him earlier.” He turned his head holding Sanji’s eyes with his own. “He may be crazy, but he is anything but harmless.”
“That’s nonsense. You just met him today, how can you make a judgment like that?”
“Instincts.”
“For Pete's sake,” a quick roll of the eyes, “lets go back inside. There’s a mess to clean up.”
Zoro hung back for a moment giving the darkness behind them one last scan. “If Sanji had seen that guy’s smile he would believe me,” the swordsman thought.
Satisfied that the creep was gone for now he jogged to catch up with the blond. “You’ve never done anything to piss him off have you?” he asked.
“Marimo,” Sanji shook his head, “No, and I told you before this is the first time he’s ever done anything violent. Perhaps his illness is progressing,” he mused at the end.
Zoro didn’t think so. If this were just a random act of vandalism why would he choose a place with all the lights on? This guy either had it out for one of them or both of them.
“Maybe I did something I don’t remember.”
“Oi! Zoro you're going to overwork your brain.” Sanji stepped in front of him and cupped the sides of his face with pale hands. “It’s okay, we’re okay, stop thinking about it. If Yashin really were a psychotic murderer or something it would have gotten around town. It’s a small gossipy place, you should remember all the excitement that carried on after we arrived.”
“So he’s a talented whackjob and he’s got you all had.”
Sanji’s hands left his face as he threw them up in desperation.
“Fine, fine. Then could you just pretend that you’re not thinking about it? 'Cause that ‘I must destroy with pointy steel’ look you’ve got going on is freaking me out.”
Zoro rubbed his face as if to rearrange it and sighed. “It’s been a long day,” he said finally.
“Hmmm, yes quite an interesting first one huh?”
“You could say that.”
They reentered by the front door this time and returned to the window.
With a sad sigh that irked the swordsman’s nerves Sanji told him there were a couple of brooms in the closet.
Zoro had boarded up the glassless window and all the large pieces of glass had been placed outside beside the garbage cans. Sanji was just finishing sweeping up all the small shards when he handed the dustpan to the swordsman.
“Could you dump that while I put the brooms away?”
He nodded and took the little container. Walking into the kitchen, Zoro realized that he didn’t know where the small garbage cans were. After a quick search he found one hidden in a cabinet next to where the cook had been working earlier. He quickly disposed of the glass, pulled the dustpan up and promptly smacked his elbow into the drying rack with all Sanji’s clean dishes on it. Zoro stared at them as they rattled around as if using his will power to steady them; luckily none fell out. The last thing Sanji needed to see was more broken glass. He was just about to return to the main room when he felt the sudden urge for one last look at the dishes. That ‘something is not right’ feeling was budding again at the back of his neck. “Ridiculous,” Zoro thought, “Sanji’s right, I’ve been too overwhelmed today. They're dishes for fuck's sake.” One last look, he was just on the verge of understanding.
“Hey,” He turned his head toward Sanji who had just entered the room. “Ready to go home?”
He was.
Rating: From PG to R: This Chapter: PG
Words: 2,863
Pairings: Zoro/Sanji
Summery: “Because happy is what happens when all your dreams come true…well, isn't it?” -Wicked
Warnings: Everything from fluff to angst.
Spoilers: Takes place between Skypiea and Water 7, so…
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don’t own One Piece
Notes: Loosely based on and titled after an episode of Batman The Animated Series. If you’ve seen this episode…shhhhh…
Huge thank you: To bronzetigress for being my super-beta and putting up with my ellipses abuse and lack of commas. Thanks again my dear!!!!
Chapter 5
Zoro could smell the cigarette smoke mixed with other scents wafting from the kitchen; apparently the no smoking rule didn’t apply past the ‘employees only’ sign. He rocked back and forth in his chair mulling over what was turning out to be the weirdest roller coaster day of his life. He was sorting out the good from the bad:
•Waking up and finding out you’ve lost five years of your life: BAD
•Married to the love cook: It had varied but overall: GOOD
•Fighting with new husband, on more than one occasion: BAD
•Living on the most beautiful mystical island not known to man: GOOD
•Seeing your very own dojo: GOOD
•Finding out you forgot your life’s goal: BAD. VERY, VERY, VERY BAD
•Kissing Sanji: (will be) VERY, VERY, VERY GOOD
So good was currently winning by a small margin. But, he smiled remembering the lip lock near miss, he’d like to improve on that. Too bad said blond had run off to his kitchen and was seemingly intent on being all mysterious and coy and fucking confusing. He glared at the door to the kitchen and decided he'd had enough waiting. Climbing to his feet he approached the door warily. Even on the Merry he never knew how Sanji would react when he entered the galley as the cook was preparing a meal. Sometimes the man would give him no trouble except for the customary glare and other times he was kicked out with a cry of “I don’t have the time to deal with you!” but often much longer and much more colorful. But Zoro was never the kind of man that backed down once he had his mind made up, so he pushed past the swinging doors with one shove of his arm.
The kitchen was a large rectangular room lined with cabinets, shiny silver ovens and matching stainless steel sinks. In the middle of the room was a large island that, Zoro imagined, must have been the center of activity during a busy day. In one of the corners of the space Sanji was sliding some chopped up something or other into a pan. He turned at the sound of the door slamming shut behind the swordsman.
“What? Did you get lonely out there?”
“Nah, just wanted to see what it looked like inside here.”
Sanji gave him an amused sort of look. “Since when have you been interested in the culinary arts?”
Zoro snorted as he approached the other man and leaned against the counter beside him. “What d’you take me for, a pansy like you?” He grimaced as the cook bashed him in the shin with a deft kick. Sanji shook his head at him before returning to their meal and Zoro continued in peace, “I was just wondering. Earlier you told me that your second favorite thing about this place was the big window--”
“It’s a bay window.”
“Whatever, but it left me thinking--” Zoro shot a look at Sanji that stopped the quip that was bound to follow that phrase, “that since I didn’t see it earlier: this must be your favorite place and it was… worth a look.”
“And…”
“And it’s like the galley but bigger.”
“Spoken like the true Marimo head that you are.” He paused for the moment it took to shove something into Zoro’s mouth with a fork. “Try that.”
Zoro rolled the meat around his tongue. It was tangy- but not too much and cooked just below medium rare. Just the way he liked it.
“S’good,” he mumbled reaching for the plate.
“Ah!” Sanji spun the prize away, “That’s what we have dining rooms for.”
“Is everything a little game to you?” Zoro grumbled and followed the blond’s back into the main room.
“Thought you liked challenges.”
“I do.” He grabbed the back of Sanji’s pants and yanked up. The blond jerked up in surprise while Zoro swept in and seized his plate. “I like them when I win.”
“Humph,” The swordsman appreciated the annoyed expression on the other’s face as he readjusted his pants, “You, sir, are an asshole.”
“What can I say, I wanted you to have company.” Zoro leaned back in his chair comfortably, savoring his food the way he always did on the Merry but never showed it on his face. It felt different now, just the two of them and in a fancy place like Sanji’s restaurant… it was date-like. It was starting to make Zoro all sweaty thinking about it like that. He cleared his throat. “Ah…so I was wondering, what with the house, and dojo and restaurant and all…how did we pay for all of this? I mean I’m sure we’re doing fine now and everything but in the start?”
“Did you think Luffy would let us go with nothing? We did pretty well, you could say, with the pirating. We had enough for all three buildings and then some.”
Zoro nodded. “So, ah, what happened to those guys?”
Sanji looked at him and tilted his head before the light bulb turned on. “Oh! That’s right, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you before. I guess I forgot for a while that you forgot other things then just our marriage.” He tapped his finger on his chin in thought for a moment. “Well Luffy, of course, became the Pirate King. That was some battle- we both almost died. Numerous times. It was like the CP9 times ten. I’ll have to tell you about it some time. To my knowledge, their current adventure is finishing up the fine details of Nami’s world map.”
“So Nami is still aboard?”
“Yeah…the last one of us. Usopp left the last time we passed by his island. Said he’d been having a lot of dreams about having to be there and save the place and his girl again. We all just thought it was his last attempt to impress us until we found out later that it really happened, confirmed by Kaya,” here he winked, “at their wedding.”
“Usopp a married man eh?”
“And a father…Uncle Zoro.”
Zoro raised an eyebrow to that. “Kid will never be bored at least.”
Sanji nodded. “Robin left just before we did. In an interesting turn of events, she ended up saving the world with her readings and now she’s a teacher at some high league school. Is that ironic or what? Bounty gone. Now everyone wants her brain instead of her head. Now Chopper, he left after we did, so I only know what Nami wrote to us in a letter, but apparently he found a little island way out in the middle of nowhere that really needed a doctor and connected with them like that.” He snapped his fingers. “So that’s where he stayed. We’ve got Strawhats all over the damn place. But that’s good. That way Luffy always has a safe place to stay no matter what sea he’s in.”
“I suppose everyone is after him now.”
“Oh yeah, he drew us a rendition of one of the fights once in comic form. I should dig it out when we get home to show it to you…well you can’t really understand what’s going on, but it’s funny anyway.”
“Everyone’s happy huh?”
Sanji smiled, “Yah, everyone is happy.”
The swordsman smiled and settled back into the chair folding his arms behind his head. “So tell me about the battle that made our captain the Pirate King.”
Pushing his plate aside the blond leaned over the table resting on his elbows. “Well, we were closing in on the last leg of the Grand Line when…”
* * *
Zoro chuckled. They had been talking about old times for what seemed like hours. It was long enough though that the sun had fully set in the sky and the chandeliers had to take over where the stars couldn’t reach. It was a sparkling clear night.
“Ha! I can picture how huge he must have been grinning.”
“You know the expression ‘from ear to ear’?”
“Yeah?”
“Literally.” Sanji traced an invisible line on his face illustrating the rubber man’s grin when he got the title.
They had moved the conversation into the kitchen a little while ago since Sanji insisted on doing the dishes before they went home. Zoro was sitting on a stool at the island listening to the cook’s voice just as he had been doing since supper started. It was really quite nice when it wasn’t yelling at him.
“What’s his bounty up to?”
“Oh, some ungodly number I’m sure…I don’t remember. It's like it changes every day.”
“I suppose we get people attacking us all the time huh?”
Sanji stilled and looked back at him curiously “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“We don’t get attacked?” he asked in surprise
“Geeze, Zoro, why would we?”
Zoro almost blurted out ‘DUH’ but he figured he really didn’t need to start another fight.
“Why wouldn’t we? Our bounties? Fighters trying to take my title? I’m sure Mihawk got challenged all the time, I’d bet my life that people called him out constantly.”
“I…uh…” Sanji turned away and resumed scrubbing at a pan, “It is rather hard to find All Blue, Zoro-”
“No, I searched the world for Mihawk and I found him even though he was constantly moving. Surely one person either stumbled on me here or searched me out.”
Sanji was quiet for a beat longer than what would constitute a normal silence as he rinsed off the pan and set it in the drying rack.
“I suppose-” he started but was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering, a lot of glass shattering. “The fuck?”
Sanji was moving quickly, making it to the door even faster than Zoro who was closer to begin with. The swordsman was right at his heels though; in fact, so close that he ran into the blond when the cook stopped short with a startled gasp. After backing up and regaining his balance, Zoro could see the bay window’s middle panel of glass shattered and lying scattered all over the carpet. Sanji was moving slowly off to the side and bent down to retrieve something off the floor. When he straightened he had a large round rock in his hand.
“Who would…” He stared at the rock like it would give him an answer.
Suddenly the recent memory of Sanji throwing the curtains open for him earlier that evening popped into Zoro’s mind. That and the happy look on his face-
“Not even you can say a bad thing about this.”
Sanji was so damn proud of that window, and some fucker decided it deserved to be smashed? Like it was nothing? Well it sure as Hell wasn’t ‘nothing’ to Sanji. Zoro narrowed his eyes while mounting the window seat underneath the shattered glass. He surveyed the ground beyond the window looking for any sort of movement. Zoro knew how a lot of lowlifes thought and he knew that they tended to wait around to see their victim’s reactions. So when the swordsman found him, he was going to kick this guy’s ass.
“Zoro,” a clatter of glass as Sanji moved some of the larger pieces around behind him, “what are you doing?”
“I’m lookin'.”
“You think they’re still out there?” Zoro nodded. “Good, ‘cause I’m going to kick their fucking faces in.”
“Wait.” Zoro replied placing a hand on Sanji’s shoulder holding him off. “We need to know for sure where he is.”
The cook remained on the floor but leaned forward peering through the window beside the swordsman.
“There.” And Zoro leapt from the window.
“Zoro!”
He heard Sanji yell at him but he had already hit the ground running. He was going to catch that fucker, teach him a lesson or two about respecting other people’s property. In the last few moments he had reached a decision that now anyone who messed with Sanji would be rewarded with pain, or even death depending on his or her crime. He was quickly gaining on the dark figure ahead, and vaguely aware of Sanji following him. Soon he recognized the vandal’s clothes as those of the crazy man’s from the market, what did Sanji say his name was? Yo, Yach, Yashin! That was it.
“YASHIN!” Zoro yelled
The figure’s head turned back at him at the name- and smiled.
Zoro almost stopped in his tracks. It was the most unsettling thing he’d ever witnessed. The way it sat on the man’s face was alien. It stretched the human flesh into a gruesome mask of the species and made the swordsman’s skin crawl. Warning. But just as Zoro was close enough to start to snatch at the ends of the black threads the man took off with an amazing jump in speed and disappeared without a trace into the inky night.
Slowing to a stop Zoro glared into the surrounding darkness. There was something just so wrong about that fucker. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he’d bet good drinking money that there was something more to the guy than being a whackjob. This bastard was a dangerous whackjob who was much more of a threat than any of the townsfolk really knew. He heard Sanji come to a stop beside him and then felt a light hand on his arm.
“Did you say…” he paused taking in a breath, “that- that person was Yashin?”
“It was,” Zoro answered, still staring ahead.
“But- he’s never done anything like that before.”
“You were wrong about him earlier.” He turned his head holding Sanji’s eyes with his own. “He may be crazy, but he is anything but harmless.”
“That’s nonsense. You just met him today, how can you make a judgment like that?”
“Instincts.”
“For Pete's sake,” a quick roll of the eyes, “lets go back inside. There’s a mess to clean up.”
Zoro hung back for a moment giving the darkness behind them one last scan. “If Sanji had seen that guy’s smile he would believe me,” the swordsman thought.
Satisfied that the creep was gone for now he jogged to catch up with the blond. “You’ve never done anything to piss him off have you?” he asked.
“Marimo,” Sanji shook his head, “No, and I told you before this is the first time he’s ever done anything violent. Perhaps his illness is progressing,” he mused at the end.
Zoro didn’t think so. If this were just a random act of vandalism why would he choose a place with all the lights on? This guy either had it out for one of them or both of them.
“Maybe I did something I don’t remember.”
“Oi! Zoro you're going to overwork your brain.” Sanji stepped in front of him and cupped the sides of his face with pale hands. “It’s okay, we’re okay, stop thinking about it. If Yashin really were a psychotic murderer or something it would have gotten around town. It’s a small gossipy place, you should remember all the excitement that carried on after we arrived.”
“So he’s a talented whackjob and he’s got you all had.”
Sanji’s hands left his face as he threw them up in desperation.
“Fine, fine. Then could you just pretend that you’re not thinking about it? 'Cause that ‘I must destroy with pointy steel’ look you’ve got going on is freaking me out.”
Zoro rubbed his face as if to rearrange it and sighed. “It’s been a long day,” he said finally.
“Hmmm, yes quite an interesting first one huh?”
“You could say that.”
They reentered by the front door this time and returned to the window.
With a sad sigh that irked the swordsman’s nerves Sanji told him there were a couple of brooms in the closet.
Zoro had boarded up the glassless window and all the large pieces of glass had been placed outside beside the garbage cans. Sanji was just finishing sweeping up all the small shards when he handed the dustpan to the swordsman.
“Could you dump that while I put the brooms away?”
He nodded and took the little container. Walking into the kitchen, Zoro realized that he didn’t know where the small garbage cans were. After a quick search he found one hidden in a cabinet next to where the cook had been working earlier. He quickly disposed of the glass, pulled the dustpan up and promptly smacked his elbow into the drying rack with all Sanji’s clean dishes on it. Zoro stared at them as they rattled around as if using his will power to steady them; luckily none fell out. The last thing Sanji needed to see was more broken glass. He was just about to return to the main room when he felt the sudden urge for one last look at the dishes. That ‘something is not right’ feeling was budding again at the back of his neck. “Ridiculous,” Zoro thought, “Sanji’s right, I’ve been too overwhelmed today. They're dishes for fuck's sake.” One last look, he was just on the verge of understanding.
“Hey,” He turned his head toward Sanji who had just entered the room. “Ready to go home?”
He was.