Chapter Text
The headline: Sanji is gone.
The run up to departure in the wake of the fight with Jack is chaotic; to Zoro it feels as though the crew barely see each other in anything more than glimpses, passing by Franky’s worksite carrying supplies, brief, transactional conversations; busied. Preparatory. No time to waste.
It’s only during the final briefing in the hours before they actually leave that Zoro feels like he actually has a chance to catch his breath, to think of things in anything other than intervals of ‘the next 30 minutes’; now, with everyone gathered, exhausted, faces a mixed bag of hopeful, determined and worried, he has an opportunity to let it all sink in. Luffy, the Minks’ representatives, Kin’emon and Law stand in the centre of the clearing, finalising the plan as leaders; Zoro isn’t really listening. He knows the outline well enough. Instead he finds himself watching Luffy, searching every inch of him like he’s trying to commit him to memory; remember him exactly the way he is, grinning, underestimating the enemy, headstrong, the center of attention. Zoro isn’t worried about him. But he is worried.
He and Usopp had talked, before they’d arrived at Dressrosa. Zoro had, since the gut wrenching moment of confession that he’d rather not dwell on, been avoiding charged moments alone with Luffy; in the carnage of the fight against Doflamingo and his family there’d been little time to think of such things, but in the lulls, on Bartolomeo’s ship, the feeling had returned. Failure. Fear.
Ships were such transient spaces. Liminal. They had a way of bringing out a pensive side of Zoro that once he wouldn’t have known existed. Back in Usopp’s workshop, Zoro had spoken at length about what transpired with Luffy, just once; turned it over and over in a trial of words until he barely knew how he felt about it any more, Usopp trying his blessed best to help, if fruitlessly. He had tried to be reassuring, as much as an eternal pessimist could be, for Zoro’s sake; unfortunately, Usopp rarely believed what he said, where Luffy never said anything he didn’t mean. It was hard for someone like Zoro to be comforted by the kind of things Usopp would think to say, the advice he’d try to give.
It was hard, but oddly, Zoro had been craving it over the past few days.
The Usopp who’d attempted to be strong and dependable for him before they’d arrived at Dressrosa was miles away, now; at present he was trying so hard not to seem overly worried about Sanji that he seemed to have convinced himself of the fact. Instead, as it always did, the anxiety found other outlets; he dropped things, bit his nails, couldn’t stay focused on conversations. He was neurotic, a bundle of nerves and panic, and completely unable to give Zoro his attention. So: Luffy. Luffy who would be gone soon; Luffy, who Zoro might not see for months, years. It’s his problem, and one he needs to face alone, whatever the Usopp of one month ago might try to tell him.
There had been an impulse forming in Zoro’s mind during the journey to Zou, one that he never quite acted on; confront him. Talk to him. Get it out. Hand in your weapons. All things that Usopp might’ve said were he not preoccupied. Things that Zoro knew would have to be done at some point, and yet for whatever reason, there was never quite the right moment; always an invisible wall, someone interrupting, a problem on deck, a silence that lasted a second too long.
The thing is, Zoro can’t afford to wait any more. He says something now, or never.
He catches Luffy in the moments just as the meeting is adjourned and people begin to split off into their respective groups, a hand on his captain’s shoulder to pull him aside, a little ways off from the rest of the Whole Cake Island group.
“Luffy,” he says, his voice low and urgent. “I need to know.”
Luffy cocks his head to the side, humming. “Know what?”
“The night you caught Usopp and I together— I told you something. You’re my captain, and the man who’ll be the pirate king. That will never change. But before we split up, Luffy, I—”
Luffy blinks at him, face blank and questioning for a moment , before cracking slowly into a grin; then, a laugh, open-mouthed.
“Zoro, you’re so stupid,” he giggles, snorting. “I said I loved you, too, didn’t I?”
“What— well, yes, but the context was—“
“Hah?” Luffy peers at him, scratching his head mockingly in a way that makes Zoro flush a deep red. “Context? Man, you’ve been spending way too much time with Usopp. I always say what I mean, don’t I?”
Zoro blanches, considering that possibility.
“Yeah— but then, you never brought it up again, and it seemed like you didn’t mean it in that way—”
Luffy blinks at him again, frowning. “Well, yeah. But we weren’t in a rush, right? I mean, you had Usopp naked below deck, I wasn’t gonna go making out with you. Don’t be a jerk, Zoro.”
Zoro’s gut sinks, then quickly resurfaces when he realises Luffy’s messing with him.
“Unbelievable.”
“Heh. Idiot.”
“You’re something else,” Zoro scoffs after a moment, shaking his head fondly, and Luffy only responds with a wide sunbeam grin, and hugs him.
“You knew, right?” he says gently, and it’s in that low, low voice that he uses so rarely, barely above a whisper in the shell of Zoro’s ear. It sends a chill down his spine. “I don’t hide that stuff.”
“It’s impossible to tell with you,” Zoro returns weakly, his hand brushing against the small of Luffy’s back. He smells of sea salt and burning.
“I think you knew.”
Zoro says nothing, his heart beating like a drum.
“We can talk about it when we’re all together again,” Luffy says as he pulls away, and Zoro’s skin seems to chase the feel of his hands as they leave him. Pause, and then, more lightly: “If talking is your thing now, heh.”
Zoro stares at him a moment longer, then nods, trying to process all the emotions that were blooming in his chest, overwhelmed. Luffy’s always operating on some unmarred psychological level far above him and ten steps ahead, and so he just grins at Zoro’s frozen expression, shi-shi-shi. He flashes a peace sign, then uses it to poke Zoro’s chest affectionately.
“I’ll see you in Wano when I’ve got Sanji back,” he says, and his voice is so assured, gentle, that any shred of doubt Zoro might’ve housed vanishes then and there like dew under the hot sun. “Take good care of Usopp and the others for me while I’m gone, vice-captain.”
“Yes, captain.”
Luffy leaves him with a smile and a nod, turning to go.
“Luffy, I—”
Luffy turns back in surprise, silhouette dark against the low sun.
“Yeah?”
I love you. I love you.
“...Give ‘em hell.”
A grin, wide and confident.
“I’ll see you soon,” Luffy says, and then he’s gone.
***
Days and nights in the Polar Tang blend together. They haven’t been guests on a ship since Bartolomeo had taken them to Zou, but even then, there’d been more for them to do; the crew had been incompetent, the ship and journey average. In a submarine nothing was how the Straw-hats were used to, and Law’s crew, despite being incredibly laid-back, were quite firmly handling everything, leaving their guests twiddling their thumbs, devoid of purpose.
It also didn’t help that the Polar Tang was a pigsty. Robin’s first cutting words on setting foot inside: what is that smell?, a question that had ominously gone unanswered, and was no more obvious even after two weeks had gone by. The Wano group of the Straw-hats had become intimately acquainted with many other charms of the Heart Pirates’ vessel besides the odd smell; roaches that the crew was seemingly fond of, damp green patches on the walls, dirty shards of broken glass half-heartedly swept into corners or underneath moth-eaten rugs, suction-packed organs of unknown origin in the fridge next to cartons of milk and crates of vegetables labelled DO NOT TOUCH, and most disconcertingly, blood stains and rusty medical equipment forgotten in conspicuous places. Usopp’s anxiety had also spiked to new heights ever since, on their first night, he mistakenly walked into the morgue thinking it was a bathroom, and found Penguin and Shachi doing a moonlight postmortem; when he’d ran back shrieking, Law had offered a half-hearted apology, with an absent remark that he needed to label rooms better. (When Franky asked why they kept a stock of cadavers on their ship, Law had given some worryingly vague answer about how it’s good to have spares. Robin, conversely, had asked if she could watch next time they did an autopsy.)
Naturally, Zoro and Usopp pass the time with sex; Zoro was stir-crazy from the submarine’s lack of a gym or any kind of open area with enough room for him to train in or use his swords, and itched for any kind of physical activity that he could do in the cramped space they had. Usopp meanwhile was a ball of high-strung nervous energy, working himself into knots panicking over anything from the state of the Sanji rescue mission to a particularly unsettling stain he’d found on his pillow, and was in dire need of both distraction and relief from the tension that he tirelessly generated.
The seedy, rank vibe of the submarine, while unpleasant to live in, did thankfully lower whatever feelings of guilt or reservations they might’ve had about having sex on a normal crew’s ship; the Heart Pirates, on the other hand, seemed to care so little for the sanctity of their home that they actually encouraged it. In the first few days, Usopp had tried more than once to clean up, make the place a little less hazardous for his own comfort, only to give up when some of Law’s crewmates had settled onto a nearby couch to spectate, and started a drinking game based on Usopp’s noises of disgust; when Usopp finally snapped and yelled at them, kicking over his mop bucket, they’d whooped and cheered. One of them had tried and failed to convince him to relax, insisting that the mess just made the place feel homey, while some of the others had started jokingly calling Usopp Mom. He stopped trying to clean after that. Zoro, meanwhile, had absent-mindedly squashed a cockroach that had crawled out of his beer mug one night, only to be furiously chewed out by the only female member of the crew, Ikkaku, who informed him that he’d murdered her favorite cockroach, and cost her 20,000 berries in underground bug-fight bets. Another Nami, Zoro thinks.
Franky and Robin, for their part, are far more comfortable on the ship than Zoro or Usopp; Robin’s morbid sensibilities and dark sense of humor make her incredibly popular with the Heart Pirates, and Franky is too taken with learning about the craft and details of deep-sea vessels to be particularly bothered by the cramped space or mess. Without similar reasons to enjoy the journey, plus Zoro’s introversion and Usopp generally being too creeped out and worried to enjoy socialising, they don’t settle in quite as well; and so in the weeks that pass they end up spending most of their time together, as if to chase after some sense of normalcy, the feeling of being on the Sunny, being home.
They lie together afterwards in the dark, a dim blue light filtering through, and talk. They’ve been talking a lot, too, as a result of all this; more than they’d used to, back before Dressrosa, when things had been more clandestine.
“You’re quiet,” Zoro murmurs, his breath warm against Usopp’s neck. They’re lying on their sides, spooning on an old mattress that they found in a storage cupboard of medical supplies; it’s become their usual spot, since it has a small latch on the door, though it probably wouldn’t matter if it didn’t. The Heart Pirates all seem to know Zoro and Usopp are fucking, and none seem to mind, given several pairs amongst them are all quite comfortable sitting on each other’s laps or making out in the kitchen when everyone’s had a few drinks.
“Just thinking about stuff,” Usopp breathes. “You know me.”
“You want to share?”
“You’re gonna hate me for it,” he mumbles.
“Try me.”
Usopp sighs; arms shifting, he starts to fidget with a coil of his hair, pulling it taut and then letting it spring up again.
“Just… they went after Sanji when he left. And Luffy was… like, there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation. Y’know?”
Zoro pauses, watching the muscles in Usopp’s shoulders shift as he fidgets, and idly traces a line along one. They don’t talk about when Usopp left often, for obvious reasons; not explicitly, anyway. He’s not sure where it’s going to go.
“Well, you chose to leave,” he says, measured. “We don’t really know what’s going on with that idiot. Something about marriage. They’re going to find out, remember?”
“I know, I know. I don’t think Sanji would leave because he wanted to. I don’t think he’s gonna leave for real.” Usopp pauses, hesitant. “It’s just— even when Luffy thought he left for himself, before Nami told us about what happened properly, he said he was gonna convince him to come back. And he’d have his wife on the ship, too, if that’s what it took. Because the thought of him leaving just… isn’t even an option.”
“Usopp,” Zoro says quietly.
“I know. I know! It’s small and petty and bitter of me. And I know you’re on Luffy’s side. And I know none of this is Sanji’s fault. And I’m worried about him. You don’t have to tell me.” Usopp viciously rubs at his eyes with his forearm. Crying again, then.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Zoro murmurs. “The circumstances are just different.”
“Sanji’s indispensable, I know. He’s— he’s the cook, and he’s still one of our strongest fighters. He takes care of everyone and protects everyone and saves people, and I just— my only job is offense, but I’m still the weakest member of the crew. And I don’t bring anything else. I get it why Luffy wouldn’t be set back by me leaving like he would by Sanji, honest.”
Zoro just eyes Usopp, who’s abandoned fidgeting with his hair to curl up a little, hiding his face in his arms. He keeps going, his voice still small, like he’s confessing a sin.
“And I know the circumstances are different, and it’s not fair for me to compare them. But I just keep thinking— I mean, his reaction didn’t change after Nami told us everything. There was a bit where Luffy thought he’d really left over a woman, but he was still saying we had to go get him back. And I agree! I’d agree no matter what. But it just… makes me remember.”
“Remember?”
“Yeah. Back when— he told me to leave.” Usopp sucks in a breath through his teeth. “I know I’m the one who made the decision, and he just shouted it in anger. But it was… scary. It was like I was hearing him finally say it. What he’d been thinking all along. What I’d been worrying about.”
Zoro digests this, his gaze idly fixed on a mole on Usopp’s back. “You’re upset with Luffy?”
“Well— no. I don’t know. Not really. I think I’m just… jealous. Or confused. And when I get confused or unsure I always start thinking of the worst option, so…”
“Are you upset with me?”
Usopp blinks and shifts, lifting his head to look over his shoulder at Zoro. He looks surprised.
“No?”
“I mean if you’re upset about that. Because I think I was angrier than he was, back then.”
“Y-yeah, I know. But… you’re consistent.”
Zoro blinks at him questioningly, eyebrow raised. Usopp gives a brief smile, remembering.
“Yeah, like… well, you reacted like you always do. ‘Cause Sanji said in his note that he’d be back, so you said you didn’t know what the fuss was about, and we should just leave him to it. And I mean, I didn’t agree, but that’s just you. It made sense, ‘cause that’s how you are with everyone.” A pause, his smile fading as he rests his head back against the mattress. “But with Luffy, it just… felt different. He wasn’t mad, or annoyed, or anything, just… worried. Determined. So I was watching him go off about how he was gonna bring Sanji back, and if he wanted to get married for real, then he could bring his wife to join the crew, too, and… I don’t know. I was just thinking… if it was me, would he be the same? Sometimes I just… can’t tell. So I think about that, and that makes me think about what happened at Water 7, and that makes me think about… all the stuff I feel sometimes. About being weak, and useless, and a burden. So I get like this.”
Zoro exhales, considering.
“Yeah, well.” He reaches out idly, brushing an errant strand of hair at the nape of Usopp’s neck so it went in the same direction as the rest of it. “If it makes you feel any better, sometimes I can’t tell what he’s thinking, either.” Zoro pauses. “But… Luffy has changed, y’know. He isn’t the same person he was back then. None of us are.”
“Sometimes I feel like I am,” Usopp mumbles. “Even after all that training, it just feels like I can’t do anything worth remembering. Anything that makes me indispensable.”
“You saved all those slaves,” Zoro points out. “They worshipped you for it, remember. Built a statue.”
“They thought I was a hero. Even this stupid bounty, I— I didn’t do anything, no one gets it. I just got my ass kicked, like usual. It was just luck. I was going to run away.”
“You didn’t.”
Usopp ignores him. “It’s only because my face is so weird and my opponent was a sheltered little girl,” he persists. “All my wins are like that. I only beat Perona because— I barely even tried, I was just me. I just said some miserable stuff and scared her, that’s not the same thing as strength.”
“She talked about you a lot, you know,” Zoro says. “About how she couldn’t believe her power didn’t work on you. She used it on me a couple of times to prove it, when we started arguing. Didn’t you take, like, three of those things in a row?”
“That’s just my personality. It’s not really a win.”
Zoro sighs, closing his good eye, weary. “Usopp, I thought we’d been over this.”
“So did I! I just can’t stop thinking about—”
“Usopp,” Zoro warns. “I’m not gonna do this. I’ve said my piece. If you don’t wanna take it, that’s on you, but you know I don’t lie. I can’t talk you through this like you want.”
Usopp really hates when Zoro does this. Because it’s fair, and it makes sense, and that’s everything Usopp isn’t.
Zoro will tell him not to go, and stay at the fault line, leaving the choice in his hands. Usopp doesn’t want a choice. He wants to run, and be chased, and dragged back by his hair. He wants other people to love him so he doesn’t have to.
“I know,” he says quietly.
They lie in silence for a few moments, breathing together. It’s probably close to 1am by now, but the Heart Pirates are night owls, so there’s the faint sound of some glasses clinking in the kitchen down the hall, distant voices. Zoro sighs heavily, and leans in closer, hand sliding down over Usopp’s hip.
“Do you want me to take your mind off it?” he asks, transactional.
“You can’t just stick your fingers in me and expect that to make things better,” Usopp says dully, not moving. Zoro sighs again, abandoning the thought and returning to his previous position.
“I don’t know what else I can do, Usopp. Is there something else you want?”
“I don’t know,” Usopp murmurs. “If I knew, I’d tell you. I really would.”
More silence. Periodical sighs.
“I don’t get you,” Zoro says after a moment. “You love being praised. You never shut up about how great you are. But if I tell you you’re important to us you cover your ears.”
“I don’t get it either,” Usopp says, sounding distant. “Sometimes I feel like I’d do anything for a compliment. But sometimes they just make me feel sick. Like I want to cry.”
“Why?”
“Because I never agree with them. They’re wrong.”
“It’s like you spend half your time begging people to see how great you are, and as soon as they start to, you immediately try to convince them you’re worthless.”
“I’d feel bad otherwise,” Usopp says.
“For what?”
“For lying to them.”
Zoro sighs.
There’s a cloud that hangs over Usopp, sometimes, makes the air so heavy they can’t breathe. In times past, whenever Zoro felt it coming, he’d turn tail and leave until it was safe to return; that’s not an option any more, but even so, the weight hurts. The powerlessness hurts. Zoro can’t stand to be reminded that there’s nothing he can do.
Usopp’s not done. “For pretending to be something I’m not. Everything about me is fake. I’m inauthentic.”
“Usopp,” Zoro says, tired, but not unkindly. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I can’t listen to much more of this.”
“So shut me up, then.”
Zoro glances at Usopp, who’s looked over his shoulder again. He looks defiant, daring.
“You just said you didn’t want to.”
Usopp just shrugs, nonchalant.
You’re trying to get me to chase you again. I’m not going to chase you. I’m tired.
“No,” Zoro says. “Not when you’re like this. I’d just be giving you ammunition.”
“I love ammunition,” Usopp jokes weakly. It’s a poor effort, more of a knee jerk response than an indicator of his mood.
Zoro sighs, and without warning, he wraps his arms around Usopp’s middle, pulling him back tight against his chest. It’s warm, firm against Usopp’s back. His mouth opens a little in surprise, and he goes slack in Zoro’s arms, like he’s playing dead.
“Just sleep,” Zoro murmurs.
A pause, and then: “Okay.”
***
Usopp’s already up when Zoro stirs from his sleep the next morning, his arms curling in slowly, like he’s noticing there’s something missing. He glances around blearily, his gaze landing on the source of the noise, Usopp pulling his clothes on with a vengeance, like there’s something to prove.
“You’re up,” he observes, yawning.
“Uh-huh.”
Zoro watches him sleepily a few moments more before giving in, stretching like a cat and propping himself up on his elbows, one hand running through his mussed hair.
“Why’re you up?”
“I’m going to clean. I seriously can’t live like this.”
“You’re going to clean?” Zoro stares, like he’s not sure he heard correctly. “You hate cleaning.”
“I know! That’s what this has driven me to! If I don’t, they sure as hell aren’t gonna.”
“I thought you liked mess. Your workshop is a tip.”
“Yeah, but like, that’s my mess. It has an order to it. Plus, it’s just tools and materials and stuff, I know where everything is. This is just... squalor.”
Zoro blinks at him, his head following Usopp as he steps around the small room, picking up scattered possessions. “All right,” he says eventually, and yawns again. “Happy hunting. Go get ‘em.”
“Thanks,” Usopp says, and then hesitates, his hand on the door latch; he glances back at Zoro, flopping back onto the mattress, and pauses for just a moment, considering. Then he steps back, dives down, and gives Zoro a quick, chaste kiss.
“Yuck, morning breath.”
“You’re the one who kissed me,” Zoro mumbles, lazily amused; he’s too lethargic to reciprocate properly to Usopp’s ad-hoc affection, but his hand comes up to run along the back of Usopp’s head and neck as he dips and rises, his hand warm from the covers. Usopp smiles, watches him a moment, then gets back to his feet and goes, closing the door to the cupboard behind him.
Usopp has been on edge for much of the trip. The primary source of the anxiety attacks initially were when Law recounted in savage detail how much pressure a submarine faced, what not to do, what not to touch under any circumstances or they’d all die horrible, watery deaths. A couple of encounters with sea kings that threatened the submarine’s structure, forcing them to resurface for maintenance, hadn’t helped; any reminder of how deep underwater they were had set him off, running Zoro’s nerves thin.
Of course, it was more than that. It was everything. The thousands of gallons of water threatening to crush them, held at bay only by a few thin sheets of steel and insulation, was simply the most immediate threat.
Usopp’s anxiety was often like this. Born by something he couldn’t touch, couldn’t put a face on. His mother’s sickness. His own incapability. Sanji’s disappearance. His mind took those formless things that kept him awake and tried to identify them, ill-fitting, in the form of other things; a large wave on the horizon, a dangerous animal, a dark forest. It stuffed his fears into the things around him and warped them, like mess swept under a carpet. The lumps showed. The lumps always showed.
It would explain why during the second sea king attack crashing against the side of the Polar Tang, Usopp had instinctively screeched Kaido.
Sometimes I feel like I’m crazy, Usopp had said to Zoro quietly at one point, and Zoro had laughed softly.
You are crazy. You’re batshit crazy.
That’s not very nice.
If you want someone to lie to you, you’re talking to the wrong guy.
This is the part where you say that it’s okay that I’m crazy, ‘cause you’re not, and you’ll protect me.
...Well, I’d still like it if you were a little less crazy. But yeah. That’s more or less it.
Usopp isn’t keen on giving Zoro the satisfaction of being okay the next day, usually. Because Zoro had an annoying tendency of avoiding arguments by telling Usopp to sleep it off, that it’d be better in the morning, and that meant whatever Usopp said in the night wasn’t being taken seriously.
But the truth is, it usually was better in the morning.
Not fixed, obviously. Usopp has problems in his personality that he doesn’t think will ever really go away; things he can’t imagine not being. But there are times when they get him down, and there are times when he’s fine with them. Zoro wasn’t particularly nurturing, or delicate, or even kind, most times; but still, he had a way about him, the way that could make any situation seem normal. Livable. Zoro could get comfortable anywhere, migratory as he was. Usopp was rarely ever comfortable, and when he was it took him a lot of persuading to leave, but somehow, Zoro made it easier. Zoro was like a shelter in and of himself, resting his head anywhere without worry; and if Zoro was fine with something, it felt a little less daunting to Usopp, too. He supposed that was called trust.
He rolls up his sleeves, and kicks the door to the kitchen open. Three of Law’s crew are lighting a large glass pipe around the table.
“Hey, Mom’s here!”
“Take your drugs and get out,” Usopp orders. “I’m cleaning your horrible kitchen.”
***
Zoro doesn’t sleep.
Months ago— though it feels like years, now— back, back before they’d barely begun their travels in the New World, before they’d even reached Fishman Island, Zoro remembers the first time he’d thought his and Usopp’s relationship might be turning a corner.
Before setting sail from Sabaody, they’d had several long, good days and nights to themselves as a crew, catching up, regaling each other with stories of their exploits in the time they were apart, drinking, making merry; the things they used to do after a battle. Because it had been a battle, really, their separation; the hardest one yet.
And Usopp, of course, had regaled them all with long, dramatic, well-told stories, the kind of things you heard in legends and kid’s books, all plants with teeth and gargantuan bugs, the same sorts of things he’d been raving about since the day they met him. No one had believed him, obviously, though they enjoyed listening all the same, laughing along; but as things came to a close and the others dismissed him, cuing his typical protests, it’s true, it really happened! Zoro came to notice that Usopp wasn’t doing his usual tirades any more, the time-wasting streams of bullshit that used to come out of his mouth like second nature; in fact, other than the ridiculous stories about the islands he landed on, Zoro had barely noticed Usopp tell even one of his usual lies.
Here was the thing: Zoro had thought a lot about Merry, in the time that he was apart from his crew. With little else to discuss but training, Zoro had turned that conflict over and over in his mind, and he had thought about his role in the crew, as a vice captain, as an enforcer. Usopp had been out of line, that much was true— but the thing is, Zoro remembered the night it had started, on Skypeia; though it had seemed insignificant back then. He remembered it down to the paltry detail of Usopp asking him fearfully to stand watch while he took a piss. If they had taken what Usopp said he saw on faith, investigated it— there were endless if tangents that Zoro had caught himself wandering down just in time. There was no point thinking about ways to change the past. What there was a point in was learning from past mistakes to prevent future ones, and Zoro regards what happened at Water 7 as one giant, crew-wide mistake. The book had been closed on that discussion when they left that godforsaken island, but it stayed in Zoro’s head, turning.
Trust was earned. It was a two way street. Give and take. But for the sake of keeping the crew whole, Zoro wondered: could they afford dismissal? Could a crewmates’ concerns be ignored based on a chance they weren’t legitimate? Uncharacteristically, Zoro analysed. For the sake of the crew’s integrity. For the sake of their strength as a band of pirates.
These were all ideas that had lain dormant in Zoro’s mind since the reunion and idled in the days they spent reconnecting with one another, reacquainting themselves with the real people they’d promised to share their dreams with, and not the memory-constructions of them they’d built in one another’s absence. Things that Zoro hadn’t spared another thought until the first night that Usopp woke up drenched in cold sweat like a man possessed, and then again, two hours later; and then again.
Zoro was an inconsistent sleeper, always had been, and in days past he’d always been the resident insomniac, the go-to night watchman. So it was him that knew the sleeping patterns of the others best, knew Luffy’s bizarre sleep talking, knew how many times a night Sanji reached out for a hand to hold, knew the patterns of Usopp’s dreaming. And it was him that bore sole witness, in those first nights back, to Usopp’s genuinely disturbed sleep pattern, two hours apiece, three times a night; each time waking in a panic and a survivalistic rush before he realised his surroundings, processed, and tried to go back to sleep.
After two nights of this, he’d given up on his attempts to return to normal; after the first awakening he’d get out of his hammock and go up to the deck, where Zoro was usually sat with a bottle of some booze or other, and they’d keep each other company. Make small talk.
So, an island that tried to eat you, huh?
It had biorhythms, Usopp had explained. Every couple hours, things would rotate, and at dawn it closed its petals to feed. So if you weren’t keeping track of the time, uh…
Dinner.
Yeah.
Pause.
Wait, so… you believe me?
Shouldn’t I?
No, no, I’m happy! It’s just— sorry, hah. I’m just… surprised that you would, of all people.
Zoro had glanced at him sideways, one eyebrow quirked in intrigue, but said nothing.
Eventually, Usopp’s biological clock adjusted to the lack of bi-hourly mortal danger, and allowed him to sleep for longer than two hours at a time; four, then six. Zoro hadn’t thought much of their nightly insomniac chats at the time, but he found himself missing them, once they stopped.
Funny, to think that Usopp had earned back Zoro’s trust with something as accidental as that.
***
The submarine surfaces just as the afternoon starts to shift into evening, and the sky is a warm orange when they break the water, the sun beginning its descent into the horizon; in the far distance, Wano’s just visible, mountains so thin on the skyline they could be a mirage. They’ll arrive soon.
Usopp volunteers to fish, as he usually did whenever the Polar Tang would surface for maintenance; on the Sunny, Usopp had done the most fishing, so Zoro supposed it made sense. Any semblance of home.
Zoro waits until the Heart Pirates have had their fill of fresh air and headed back to their stations before he climbs back up the hatch; Usopp’s sat with his back to Zoro on the far end of the lower deck, legs dangling through the rails; his feet are bare, his boots neatly settled nearby.
“Can we talk?”
Usopp nods attentively, pulling his headphones down to his neck, and Zoro sits beside him, mirroring his posture.
“What’s up?”
“I made a decision.” Zoro inhales slow and deep, interlacing his fingers, unlacing them again. “When we reach land… we’ll be busy. We’ll all probably have to split up, to keep inconspicuous.”
Usopp nods sadly, his gaze lowering; he seems to know where it’s going.
“And in my last conversation with Luffy, I… he told me he felt the same. So when I see him again, I—”
“I get it.” Usopp gives him a weak but honest smile, and puts a hand on his shoulder softly. “That’s great, Zoro.”
“Thanks.” He touches Usopp’s hand with his own, and watches it as it trails back down to rest between them. “You’re okay?”
“Huh? Yeah.” Usopp smiles, and shrugs bashfully. “Time’s probably right to call it a day on this thing, right? It went on longer than I thought it would, anyway.”
“...Yeah.” Zoro pauses, then glances down at Usopp when he’s quiet. “What’re you going to do?” About Sanji goes unspoken.
“I don’t know,” Usopp says quietly. I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I love him. I guess we’ll see when we’re all together again, but... I don’t think he’s ever going to change. Or... be ‘ready’. Whatever you wanna call it.” He sighs a self-deprecating sort of chuckle. “Maybe it’s time I should try to just move on.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
A silence, and then Usopp lets out a burst of laughter, which he promptly tries to stifle with his hand.
“You’ll talk to him?” Usopp giggles. “Who are you?”
“Your best friend, apparently.”
Usopp blinks, digesting, his mirth dissipating from the surprise. The knowledge had been there for some time, but hearing it said out loud was another matter. “Huh,” he says flatly. “Weird.”
“Weird?” Zoro raises his eyebrows. Usopp stares into space a moment longer, then shrugs, grin returning.
“I dunno. Just thinking about it.” He laughs, weakly. “Like, when did that happen, right?”
“Sometime in between the fifth or sixth fuck, I think.”
“Whoa, was that a joke?!”
“Well, don’t shine a spotlight on it. It’ll wilt.”
“Like your dick?”
“You just have to outdo me, don’t you?”
“I’m the funny one around here, man.”
Usopp sticks out his tongue childishly, Zoro shaking his head in fond chagrin, and the quiet that follows is comfortable. Zoro wonders when that happened, too, when the silences stopped being awkward, when they stopped tip-toeing around each other; when the snipping back-and-forth became natural and lighthearted rather than a crutch, their substitute for sincere conversation. It all seems to crest at last like a wave to shore, like orgasm, how far they’d come; looking back to where they’d begun. Walking on eggshells around one another, unable to communicate. A language barrier.
“Hey,” Zoro says suddenly. “Thanks.”
Usopp blinks at him. “For what?”
“This. The past few months. They’ve… they’ve helped.”
Casually he throws one arm around Usopp’s neck and shoulder, leaning down sideways to press a quick, chaste kiss to his forehead.
“Ew. What the hell?”
Zoro frowns in confusion. “What? Aren’t you always complaining that I don’t show affection?”
Usopp pulls a face, squirming. “I mean, yeah, but like, out of nowhere? No warning? Spontaneous? Yuck. You’re like Sanji.”
Zoro goes very red. “I am not like— I’m nothing like that shitty— wouldn’t that be a good thing for you, anyway?!”
Usopp snickers softly, patting Zoro on the back like he was a toddler having a tantrum. “I never wanted you to be Sanji, man. You’re Zoro. Don’t want you to be anyone else.” Then he gives Zoro a sideways glance, smirking irritatingly. “What, would you rather I was like Luffy? Picking my nose, and... shoving pork chops down my pants for later?”
“What?”
“I saw him do it once, man.”
Zoro shudders at the image, then sucks his teeth.
“Tch.”
“Aw, don’t sulk.” Usopp leans over to kiss his cheek in return. “Thank you, too. I’m happy for you.”
“You’re not depressed? Scared of being alone? Jealous?”
“Don’t load the question, I’m always all of those things, all the time. Jeez. I’m trying to be less clingy, man, I thought you’d be happy.” Usopp peers at him sideways, a bemused smirk pulling his lips. “What, you’re disappointed? You wanted to break my heart?”
“No.”
Usopp just looks at him.
“No! I was just… geared up for a worse reaction. I don’t know.”
“Oh, Zoro-kun, please don’t leave me! We can be happy together, I know I could never be Luffy but—”
“Agh, shut up.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t feel good, right?”
“Not really.”
“I can keep going, if you want.”
“Don’t, you’re too good at it. You’ll guilt me into staying.”
“Oh, so the plan worked!”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?”
“Shut up.”
Usopp chuckles, but complies, letting it go.
“Best friends, huh?” He smiles, shaking his head. “Nami’s gonna be jealous.”
“Well, serves her right. This whole thing was her idea.”
“Yeah, but to make the others jealous.”
“Play with fire, get burned.” Zoro snorts softly, and glances over to catch Usopp’s smile— or so he was expecting, but he stops, because Usopp’s crying, wiping at his eyes with his wristband, his breaths hitched. “Oi, oi, what’s— hey, are—”
“I’m okay,” Usopp interrupts quickly, shaking his head and waving his free hand. “I’m okay, I’m okay. I’m sorry, I just—” his voice catches again on a shuddering exhale, a restrained sob as he tries and fails to compose himself. Zoro watches him patiently, folding his hands in his lap; he debates putting an arm around him, but opts to wait until he’s recovered enough to speak.
“Sorry,” Usopp says again once he’s found some stability, wiping at his face. “I’m sorry. It’s all just— it’s a lot, you know? S-Sanji, and this whole thing, and my new bounty, and fighting Kaido, and sneaking into the country, and— sorry, I… everything’s just...” He laughs weakly in between his sobs, shuddering, a barely-held-together mess of emotion. “It’s not— sorry, I know you don’t like when I cry, it’s not because of you, just sometimes it’s— it’s just like everything’s happening at once, and I don’t know how to cope with it, and I wish that I could just stop time and catch my breath because everything’s moving so fast , but if I stop I’m scared I’ll get left behind so you just have to keep going forward and—”
“Usopp.”
Usopp makes a small noise, glancing up at him.
“It’s okay.”
“H-huh?”
Zoro reaches over and pulls Usopp into him, arm settling around his trembling shoulder. Usopp stiffens in surprise, his sobs temporarily stopped.
“It’s okay to be scared. Everyone’s scared. But it’s all gonna be fine, and you know how I know that?” He glances down at Usopp, smiling softly. “‘Cause we’re the crew of the future pirate king.”
“...Y-yeah,” Usopp sniffles, drawing in a shaky breath. “I know.”
“And for the record, I just broke up with you. You’re entitled to some tears. Frankly, I’m impressed you held it together this long.”
Usopp punches him in the stomach, though Zoro barely feels it. “I told you, it’s not because of that—”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Zoro tugs his arm down tighter, knocking Usopp’s head into his chest. “Just let it out, idiot.”
Usopp’s stiff for a moment more, frozen; then like clockwork, slowly he crumbles into Zoro’s side, arms coming up shakily to wrap around his neck, clinging at his shoulder, at the fabric of his kimono; and he sobs into Zoro’s collar, shame forgotten. Zoro rests his head against Usopp’s and holds him tight, hand curling protectively around his bicep. It’s odd how it feels more intimate, somehow, than all the months they’ve spent sleeping together, more honest; there is a vulnerability in the closeness that feels new, despite it marking the end of their relationship. Zoro holds Usopp; Usopp lets himself be held. Usopp doesn’t try to stop crying for Zoro; Zoro doesn’t want him to. They’re synchronised in intention, finally, neither performing, neither wanting performance from the other. It wasn’t what Zoro had expected from the relationship, or particularly even wanted, but it was a serendipitous byproduct just the same, one that almost made him forget what the real purpose was for their relationship in the first place.
The sound of footsteps break him from his thoughts, two sets of feet up the hatch ladder; Zoro glances over his shoulder to see Franky helping Robin up to deck.
“We’ll be submerging again soon,” she says lightly, then cocks her head. “Traffy asked to see if you were nearly done fishing…? Is everything alright?”
“Oi, Zoro!” Franky pipes up. “You making our sniper cry?”
Zoro snorts, patting Usopp’s back gently as he breaks away, the front of his kimono slightly damp. Usopp wipes at his eyes, for the most part cried out.
“I’m fine,” he sniffs.
“Uh-oh. Lie detector mode activated—” Franky puts on his fake robot voice. “A lie was detected- mecha. ”
Usopp groans, but he smiles in spite of himself. “Cut it out, I’m not a kid.”
“He was just having a last-minute panic attack, no big deal,” Zoro offers. Usopp nods in agreement.
“No big deal? Super big deal, little bro! But have no fear, Franky is here. C’mon, you wanna go mess around in the workshop, see what they’ve got going on this hunk of junk before we hit land?”
The goofy dad routine is something Franky pretty much does exclusively for Chopper and Usopp’s benefit and everyone knows it, but Usopp doesn’t seem to mind going along; it’s play-acting, sure, but it seemed to be comforting for them. Zoro passes no judgement. He squeezes Usopp’s hand lightly as the latter gets to his feet, and Usopp returns the motion without looking; a small message, passed privately between them like a parcel. The warmth lasts on Zoro’s palm even after Usopp goes, Franky throwing a boxy arm around him and pulling him away; but just before Usopp vanishes into the ship he glances back over his shoulder and shoots Zoro a soft, grateful look, his face a little flushed and puffy from crying. Zoro waves once, and curls his fingers down, holding onto that last contact, etching it into the nerves; embedding the warmth into the grooves of his skin. Making a print. He glances down.
“The airhead forgot his shoes,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Robin. She chuckles anyway, stepping closer as Zoro gets to his feet, bending over to pick up Usopp’s boots and hooking them over his shoulder; and peers at him curiously as he straightens up.
“And are you alright, Zoro-kun?” she asks, her tone gentle, unintrusive.
“What? I— yeah.” Quickly, he brings his free hand up to his face, and wipes away the traces of tears pooling in his own eyes. And then, he meets her eye, and he smiles.
“Yeah. Everything’s gonna be fine.”