let's try that again 11
Sanji has never been one of those guys that finds mysterious sexy. It just doesn’t do it for him, so he doesn’t appreciate Zoro’s cheeky cunning smile and hush hush nature, he just wants to know what the damn plan is. Halfway down the road away from Creuset’s house Zoro pulls out his phone and makes a call.
“Oh, hi boss. It’s Zoro…. Yeah. I ah… I won’t be able to *cough* come into work this week.” Zoro says into the phone in a strained gravelly voice that he mostly manages by pressing his knuckles into his throat as he talks.
Zoro waves at him and tries to pull him closer, reaching for his hand. Perplexed Sanji holds his hand out and Zoro walks forward into it so that his hand is inside Zoro’s chest. Zoro uses the opportunity to let out a cough or two that Sanji swears has a death rattle in it and he realises that he can feel Zoro’s lungs shuddering to get away from his touch. Creeped out he snatches his hand back and Zoro grins and mouths thank you at him.
“Yeah, I don’t know what with but it’s pretty bad. I… yeah I’ll call you at the end of the week and let you *cough* let you know.” Zoro finishes and hangs up after a moment.
The marimo shoves his phone in his pocket and gives him a conspiratorial look before strolling off.
“O-oi! You’re not sick, what’s going on?” Sanji demands as he runs after Zoro. He hopes that the marimo isn’t sick anyway, he’s pretty sure that he’s not but Zoro isn’t exactly the communicative type.
“No, but I’m going to be.” Zoro shrugs slightly.
“You… what?” Sanji frowns feeling confused, but Zoro says no more on the topic.
When they get back to Zoro’s place the marimo shuts the door behind him and grins at Sanji. He’s still pissed off with the moss brain, even if he does have an attractive grin.
“What’s this big plan then?” Sanji asks with a glower and his hands on his hips.
“Did you ever read the tell tale heart by Edgar Allan Poe?” Zoro asks with a smile.
“What? No. I asked you a question dumbass, don’t just respond with a completely different question.” He frowns at the crazy psychic.
“It’s one of my favourites, come on. I’ll read it to you.” Zoro declares enthusiastically and marches off to the living room trailing the perplexed Sanji with him.
“I’m asking you how to prove Creuset guilty, idiot. I’m not asking for an English Literature lesson!” he snaps but Zoro grabs the book and sits down on the sofa anyway. The book is old and well worn, clearly Zoro has spent hours pouring over the volume of Poe’s collected stories. He flicks open to the right page, apparently by memory and begins to read, ignoring Sanji’s protests.
The story is strange, it’s told from the perspective of a madman with apparently superhuman hearing. He plots to kill an old man that he lived with because he didn’t like his eye or something. The guy is nuts. But he keeps going on and on about how he can hear the man’s heart, like a pocket watch wrapped in cotton.
In the story he’d killed the guy and then even been so brazen as to invite the police in when they came knocking. He didn’t really like the story, he guesses that being a murder victim kind of dampens your passion for stories about murder. The police are even sitting above the man’s body on chairs at this point and the murderer can still hear the beating of his dead victim’s heart. But Zoro’s voice is deep and smooth as he reads and Sanji kind of likes the sound of it so he sits and listens as Zoro continues.
“No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone?” Zoro narrates in his well practiced voice.
“I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! what COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!” Zoro continues. The guy was completely nuts, was he going mad with guilt?
“And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -- no, no? They heard! -- they suspected! -- they KNEW! -- they were making a mockery of my horror! -- this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! -- and now -- again -- hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! - "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"” Zoro finishes smoothly and snaps the book shut.
Sanji blinks a few times as Zoro gives him this big expectant smile as if expecting him to get it. In all honesty Sanji doesn’t get it much, he was never that good at literature in school, it just wasn’t what he was interested in. But still, he doesn’t want to appear stupid in front of Zoro. What was the point of the story? Well, clearly it was about a murderer coming to justice, but it was his own madness that drove him there. How did that help him?
“I don’t see how this helps me.” He admits unhappily, if Zoro thinks him stupid for that then there’s nothing that he can do about that.
“And you say I’m dumb. The murderer in this story didn’t leave any evidence that the police were likely to find, they only found the body because he showed it to them. Sound like the murder of anyone else you know?” Zoro points out, replacing the book in the shelf with care.
“Well, mine obviously. But they found my body and thought that I killed myself.” Sanji frowns up at Zoro, he really doesn’t see how this is helpful.
“The murderer confessed because he could hear the heart. We need Creuset to confess obviously, no other evidence will do.” Zoro points out, as he turns back to Sanji with an impatient huff.
“Well, forgive my pessimism, but Creuset didn’t exactly seem consumed with guilt when I last saw him. Definitely not to the extent that he’s going to start hallucinating my beating heart.” Sanji grumbles, it’s as if taking his life didn’t even matter to the other cook.
“Which is why you need to be your own tell tale heart. Or have you forgotten that you’re a poltergeist?” Zoro grins at him and touches Sanji’s jaw. Sanji leans his head into Zoro’s touch and feels the man’s fingers move under the pressure.
“I don’t want to drive him into a madhouse though, I want him to go to jail.” He replies dubiously.
“You leave that to me.” Zoro smiles mysteriously.
“Now get to Creuset’s house and get haunting dart-brow. I’ve got work to do here.” Zoro says sticking out his tongue and shooing Sanji off.
Sanji arrives back at Creuset’s house and watches the man who murdered him. He’s sitting on the sofa, watching TV and drinking a beer. Bastard. He stalks around and tries to come up with things to do, he’s not really sure how to haunt someone, he never watched many horror movies. He supposes it’s all about things happening that you can’t explain.
He wanders around to the back of the TV and pulls the plug out, cutting the power to the TV. Creuset frowns and presses the buttons on the remote uselessly, with a grumble he gets up and presses the buttons on the TV with no effect. After a few moments he realises that the power cable is out and plugs it back in again with a confused expression. Sanji waits until the murderous bastard is sat down again before repeating himself. He only manages a few rounds of that before Creuset gets bored and wanders off, leaving his TV unplugged. So much for that.
Sanji isn’t sure so much that he’s haunting Creuset as he is just irritating him. He’s not really any good at this whole haunting business. He starts turning off lights but again that just seems to irritate Creuset and if what he says is anything to go by he keeps putting it down to power surges. Creuset goes into his bathroom to take a leak and Sanji gets an idea. He slides into Creuset’s body and possesses him. He ignores the beating of Creuset’s gross heart and his full bladder and instead snags the soap from the sink and writes his name in soap on the mirror. He washes the soap off of Creuset’s hands and dries them before giving the bastard his body back.
Creuset stumbles light headedly and rubs his head as he stops himself from falling to the floor. He glances around the room and Sanji grins in satisfaction as he sees Creuset spot the mirror and pale rapidly. With a horrified gasp he leaps forward and washes the mirror clean and leaves the room quickly with shaky hands. Sanji smirks, this could be fun.
Over the next few days he tortures Creuset more and more, he moves things in his house and keeps moving his bottle into the middle of the kitchen counter whenever Creuset isn’t looking. He writes his name over and over again on mirrors by possessing the other cook. He flings open windows whenever Creuset passes, so much so that the man nails all of the windows in his house shut. He’s jittery and scared but he doesn’t seem inclined to go to the cops. He likes seeing Creuset suffer though.
What Sanji doesn’t like is seeing what his activities are doing to Zoro. The marimo was right to call in sick to work. Sanji’s powers cost energy and the only place that energy comes from is Zoro, whenever he returns Zoro almost passes out and spends the rest of the day looking pale and worn out. He tried to stay away from Zoro but he faded out of existence and snapped back to Zoro, just like how he used to snap back to the window ledge if he tried to jump when he was stuck on the building.
He snaps back to Zoro after a particularly gruelling time, he expended all the energy that he had by throwing his bottle at Creuset’s face, the cook’s scream had been particularly pleasing. He’s startled to see that Zoro isn’t at his flat but is instead at Sanji’s home. Zoro’s eyes roll back in his head and he drops like a puppet with its strings cut. Zeff yelps and catches Zoro before he crashes to the floor.
The old geezer cradles Zoro’s head and touches his palm to Zoro’s cold, clammy forehead. The marimo’s skin is almost grey in colour and his breathing is shallow and troubled.
“God, what are you doing to him Sanji?” Zeff mutters, picking up the psychic and carrying him to Sanji’s old room.
“You must be here right? Zoro said that it’s only like this when you come back, so you must be here.” Zeff says quietly as he pulls Sanji’s blanket over Zoro’s form. Zeff straightens and looks around the room, looking through Sanji but never at him.
“You can’t keep doing this to him. Tomorrow night is all we have left, that’s when we’ll get to see if this works. I can’t believe that I’ll have to talk to a goddamn journalist. Only for you eggplant.” Zeff shudders as if the word pains him to say.
“What’s happening tomorrow night?” Sanji asks with a frown but of course Zeff doesn’t answer him. His old man leaves the room, leaving him with just the sleeping Zoro.
“What’re you up to?” He frowns at the marimo.
He waits a long time for Zoro to wake up, long enough for the sun to set and the moon to come out, but eventually the man stirs. Zeff had come up in the meantime and left a hot meal for Zoro which is now more room temperature than it is hot.
“What’s happening tomorrow night?” He questions, giving Zoro a stern look. Zoro looks shifty and slightly guilty at that question, as if Sanji has caught him at something naughty.
“I didn’t want to bring it up too soon, I didn’t want to get your hopes up. How is haunting Creuset going?” Zoro asks, his expression weak.
“It’s fine, now answer me you bastard.” Sanji demands, flying up and landing across Zoro, his knees on either side of Zoro’s hips.
“The TV station that Usopp worked for and that filmed your contest has been calling Zeff constantly. They want an interview with him about you, about your life, how tragic your death was.” Zoro sighs weakly, his head lolling back and exposing his throat.
“Zeff would never agree to that, except… except I heard him say something about journalists. He’s not agreed has he?” Sanji balks. Surely Zeff wouldn’t agree to? It’s too cheap, too tawdry, too disrespectful of his death.
“I talked him into it, I need cameras recording it. And our friend Creuset is going to be there too, giving his side of the story.” Zoro grins, apparently having enough energy to muster to waggle his eyebrows at Sanji.
Sanji slides off of Zoro’s lap in shock and lands on the floor. He gets Zoro’s meaning, he plans to have Creuset confess on camera, where he couldn’t deny it and the evidence would be solid. In front of a recording studio full of witnesses no less. Smoker had told Zoro that nothing less than a confession would do but really, Zoro couldn’t hand the police officer a better confession unless he stuck a goddamn bow on it. He understands now why Zoro has been getting him to traumatise Creuset so much now, he needs him in as fragile state of mind in front of the cameras as possible.
Zoro has recovered somewhat and is sipping at the hearty soup that Zeff prepared for him, it’s bringing some colour back into his cheeks thankfully.
“You think it’ll work? You think he’ll confess?” he asks hopefully.
“I made you a promise didn’t I?” Zoro says simply and knocks back the last of his soup.
Zoro sleeps in Sanji’s bed that night and the next day around lunchtime he drives to the studio with Zeff in the van that has Sanji’s face on the side. Zoro recommended it because that way when Creuset gets there he’ll see Sanji’s face all over again.
Zoro and Zeff are sitting in a VIP room, Zoro is sitting in the corner with his laptop on his crossed legs and typing furiously as he chews on a sugar loaded candy bar. He’s been eating the things all morning, chocolate, candy and even energy drinks. The man is practically vibrating but he keeps feeding himself the same stuff. His teeth will fall out of his head before Sanji leaves this world at the rate he’s going.
“I hate this, it’s so wrong.” Zeff grouses at the vanity table. He stares at his face, the staff had put make up on him to make him show up better under the lights and Sanji can tell right now that he hates it.
“It’ll be worth it.” Zoro answers absently and clicks on the keyboard a little more. He gives a triumphant little laugh, clicks a few more times and then shuts the laptop.
“What were you working on there anyway?” Zeff asks with curiosity.
“Just a little video surprise, something that might push Creuset over the edge. Just in case what Sanji does doesn’t do the trick.” Zoro replies with a secretive smile.
“Now, remember-” Zoro starts.
“Yes! I know what I have to talk about, I might be old but I’m not senile broccoli-head!” Zeff snaps making Sanji snigger.
“Fine, go on then Sanji. Ruin Creuset’s day.” Zoro nods and leans back against the wall to sleep, although how he can do so with all that sugar in his veins Sanji has no idea.
Nevertheless Sanji flies down the TV studio hallway to where he knows Creuset’s VIP room is and slides through the wall. His agent has her head around the door nervously.
“You need to calm down Creuset, you’ve been so nervous this week. What’s wrong?” She asks timidly.
“NOTHING IS WRONG!” Creuset bellows frightening the tiny woman out of the room.
The fire of rage inside of Sanji burns brighter, not only is Creuset a murderer but he’s viciously verbally abusive to his female agent. Sanji has never tolerated that kind of thing and even over his cold dead body he still refuses to.
He focuses his anger into a fine point and directs it at the mirror that sits in front of Creuset, in one slow movement the thing cracks horizontally, decapitating his reflection and sending it crashing to the floor. Creuset yells in fear and leaps back.
Zoro had told Sanji to go all out on this last attack, to use up all the energy that he wanted and push Creuset as far as he could.
He knocks over the makeup on the vanity and drags his finger through it, writing the word “confess” across the vanity top. Creuset’s breathing is ragged and unhinged now but he violently swipes his hand through the makeup, erasing Sanji’s message.
“It’s all in your head.” He repeats to himself over and over again. Gritting his teeth Sanji blows the light above him and vanishes back to Zoro’s side. The marimo is slumped in a chair off stage now, watching Zeff through sleepy eyes. Zeff is being interviewed in front of the cameras and an audience.
Zoro sags a little at his reappearance but a quick chug of an energy drink seems to bring him back to life.
“Check out our mystery guests.” The psychic says pointing into the audience. Sanji squints and makes out Smoker sitting at the end of an aisle with Tagashi next to him. Sanji’s eyes widen, he wants the cops there as soon as Creuset confesses, if he actually does.
“How did it go?” Zoro asks quietly, his eyes focused on Zeff.
“Not great, he seems to think it’s all in his head.” Sanji answers unhappily.
“Hm, well. We’ll see.” Zoro shrugs and returns his attention to Zeff. Creuset is lurking now off of the other side of the stage, waiting for his cue to come on. The interview with Zeff is just about wrapping up.
“I know that he didn’t kill himself, Sanji would never do that.” Zeff asserts to the interviewer.
“It’s so tragic for a parent, so hard to believe that their child would take their own life.” The interviewer says sadly, clucking her tongue.
“It’s hard to believe because it’s not true, someone killed Sanji. Someone with motive.” Zeff states firmly. The interviewer doesn’t seem to know what to say about that and flounders for a moment.
“But the police-” She starts.
“Are wrong. And that’s all I have to say about that.” The old man says finally and folds his arms clearly ending the conversation. Sanji winces, Zeff for all his qualities is not a man made to be on TV.
The interviewer panics and with too much enthusiasm to be genuine welcomes on Creuset who smiles and waves as he comes on set and sits down on the other side of the interviewer to Zeff. The interviewer starts some spiel about how does it feel to see such a young fellow chef come to a tragic end and did he feel like Sanji deserved his win on his last day.
“We actually have a clip for you here. Let’s take a look.” She announces.
“Showtime.” Zoro grins.
On a screen behind them a clip of the show starts. It begins with Sanji and Creuset cooking, seeming normal but then the screen splits into two views, one of Sanji and one of Creuset. It’s the same part that Zoro had played him, his cooking being enthusiastic and showing the bottle whilst on the other screen Creuset’s expression becomes darker and darker.
It’s clear now from the interviewer’s face that this was not the clip that they had been expecting but clearly no one has the sense to pull the plug or someone has prevented them. Sanji’s gaze darts down to Zoro who’s grin is wide, vengeful and bordering on psychopathic. This was his work. That’s what he’d been doing on his laptop all that time, he’d been putting the video together and hacking into the studio’s files somehow! He’d replaced the intended clip with this one of his own design!
The screen blows up to a tight shot of Creuset’s face and the audio suddenly becomes loud and over enhanced. The screen flashes up subtitles as Creuset’s lips move, making it clear to everyone that the slightly garbled audio did indeed come from the man’s lips. Zoro must have spent ages scouring the tapes for this, but it’s worth it.
“Fucking cheat… I’ll kill him.” Creuset’s distorted voice booms through the studio, the subtitles are almost unnecessary Creuset’s lips are moving right along with the words and it’s clear as day that he said them. The clip starts looping, playing Creuset’s threat over and over again. The power suddenly cuts and the screen goes blank throwing the studio lights back on. In the light it’s clear to see that Creuset’s face has gone ghostly white whilst Zeff looks like he might just leap across and paint his shoes with Creuset’s brains.
“Wh-what is this? Some kind of sick joke? Did you invite me here just to show these… these LIES?!” the cook screeches furiously.
“You’re a goddamn genius.” Sanji breathes in awe.
“Perhaps not, he looks like he’s in denial, not about to confess. I overdid it.” Zoro scowls standing up. He turns to face Sanji and takes a deep breath.
“It’s all up to you now.” Zoro breathes, locking eyes with Sanji.
“You don’t have much time, give it everything you’ve got.” Zoro adds before stepping in close to Sanji and pressing his mouth to his. Sanji tries to jerk away out of shock but somehow Zoro has him locked where he is. His mouth feels hot at Zoro’s kiss, like a sudden ray of sunshine on skin. He feels… something coursing through his body, something similar to what he felt when he first possessed someone. Something in his chest pulses like a heartbeat.
As suddenly as it started it stops and Zoro drops to his knees, sliding down Sanji’s body as he falls. Sanji manages to catch him before the idiot brains himself on the chair that he was sitting on before. That’s when he notices his hands, they’re solid. They’re solid and not at all see through. He glances down, he has a body and a shadow!
“Go.” Zoro breathes in a rattling wheeze. His expression says goodbye. This is Sanji’s last chance, and he can’t waste it at any cost. He stands up and stretches his arms feeling the power and energy flow through him, he’s not alive, he’s more powerful than that.
With a mere thought he blows the power to all of the white lights in the room and vanishes and reappears in the centre of the room. With another thought all of the red filtered lights turn on, bathing the stage in a hideous red colour. His shadow strikes the wall behind Creset in a terrifying visage. The eyes of Creuset, the interviewer and Zeff are on him, all wide and shocked. They can see him.
This is no time for celebration though, he doesn’t know how much time Zoro has bought him. He ominously points his finger and raises his arm to point at Creuset.
“Confess.” He hisses, his voice sounding almost reptilian and seeming to echo from every point in the room.
Creuset backs up against his seat like a terrified cornered rat. He’s visibly shaking all over and chanting “no, no!” over and over again.
“My blood is on your hands!” He screams, sounding like a thousand voices from hell. Creuset glances down at his hands and thick red liquid is oozing out of his palms and flowing from between his fingers, leaving a bloody puddle on the floor. It’s an endless waterfall of blood. He advances closer. The interviewer shrieks in horror and tries to climb up onto her chair away from the rapidly spreading pool of blood.
“I CONFESS!” Cresuet screams in terror, staring at his bloody hands.
“I killed him! I did it! Make it stop, make it stop!” Creuset shrieks.
Sanji stops in his tracks and feels the power flow out of him. The lights click back onto normal and Creuset’s hands look unmarred without a drop of blood to be seen. Sanji glances down at himself and finds himself semi transparent again, he’s invisible once more. Creuset however is crouched on the floor rocking back and forth on his heels repeating “I did it” endlessly.
“Well, I think you had better come down to the station with us about that.” Smoker states behind Sanji, as he and Tagashi stand up from their seats. The clearly shaken sergeant Tagashi runs past Sanji without seeing him and handcuffs Creuset as she reads him his rights.
They did it, Creuset confessed, he’s going to go to jail. He feels… glowy almost. He’s going to be- no!
Sanji dashes across the room to Zoro, trying desperately not to think about what just happened. He doesn’t want to thin about it because it might be the last thing that he thinks about here. He crouches down before Zoro, his heart in his throat. Zoro smiles at him weakly.
“You were great.” He breathes with a small smile.
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Sanji answers honestly and places his hand on Zoro’s heart, reassured by its steady thump. Zoro is still alive, he’s okay. His hand is starting to glow golden though, as though a brilliant light is escaping from every pore.
“Wait for me on the other side?” Zoro asks gently.
“You’d better make me wait a long time, asshole. I mean it.” Sanji grits out.
“I promise.” The marimo nods.
And with that something inside of Sanji relaxes like a muscle finally letting go of something heavy. Creuset is going to jail, everything will be okay. Zoro fades from his vision to be replaced with white light.