Chapter Text
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
-Dylan Thomas
He was falling.
Flying?
Air rushed by his ears, his body weightless, the absence of anything solid beneath, above, or around him.
He was falling.
Zoro’s brain strained, blurred, tried to fight against the darkness. Pain. His body hurt; his head throbbed. His lungs struggled to expand; he couldn’t feel his legs at all.
Did he still have legs?
Copper filled his mouth, liquid gurgled in the back of his throat with each dragged breath.
Was he falling? Or was he drowning?
Agony ripped from the base of spine and his mind retreated- dived back into the dark to escape.
F
A
L
L
I
N
G
Luffy?
Gravity found him with a vengeance. Air shot from his body, a horrible sound wrenching from his throat as his mind was brutally wrenched back into the physical world. His eyes shot open as his body crashed into the dirt, rocks and debris digging into aching bones.
A dark sky greeted him from the edges of a crater.
His vision blurred, black spots creeping from the corners. Everything smeared together. Grey. Brown. Red. Black.
His body spasmed. Hacking. His chest echoed hollowly. Dirt clotted beneath his fingernails as his hands clawed the ground. His breath rattled in his ears.
Was he dying?
No. He was already dead. He was dead. He died. He died…
Dead.
How …?
Colors swirled together. Something moved.
Pink.
A voice somewhere. He couldn’t understand what it said. He didn’t know that voice. Did he?
“H… are you…still alive?”
No.
He closed his eyes. Fell.
Where was…. Luf…y?
He was standing on board the Thousand Sunny. Sun warmed planks swayed gently beneath his boots, he could hear the rolling thrum of the ocean, the crash of waves against the hull. The air tasted like salt, sat heavy on the back of his tongue as he inhaled. Warmth enveloped him, the feeling of rightness and belonging within space. The wood beneath his feet, the soaring mast and full sails as familiar as his own body. Home.
Luffy stood before him; shoulders back, hands hanging relaxed at his sides. He stared off over the water, a soft smile playing with the corners of his lips as he watched the horizon. The breeze rippled the brim of his hat, tugged at the corners of his vest. Sun kissed skin shone bronze in the light, the red of his shirt vibrant, smeared across all the other colors, overtaking the blues, golds, greens. Scarlet tinted the air.
Zoro took a step forward, hand reaching out-
He didn’t move. Stayed still. Stood locked in place by chains that wound up his legs, cut into his wrists, dug into his throat. He didn’t have a voice, or a thought or a mind he was-
The ocean heaved a tainted purple, the honeyed light now garish beneath sooty clouds that’s boiled and loomed. The day bled. Luffy gazed off at the horizon, the barest of smiles curled on his lips. Around him the peace was being ripped apart by jagged claws of lightning, Sunny battered like a toy on the raging waves.
Zoro stared at Luffy, couldn’t look away even if he wanted, gaze tied to that single place of sanctity amongst the chaos. Luffy’s chest moved in even breaths, his pulse a steady beat at his exposed throat.
When he turned his head, his eyes found Zoro’s and he let out an exasperated sigh before a smile glowing with affection and warmth bloomed; marred by red, blood on his teeth.
Red.
Red.
“Dummy, wake up if you’re scared.”
He opened his eyes to a dark ceiling. Shadows clung to the edges, dust danced through the air, coated his nose as he inhaled. Dried blood, antiseptic, forgotten spaces, and the slightest of floral scents drifted to him. His body felt heavy, as if he had been asleep in one spot too long, his muscles cramped and lax from disuse for too long. The mattress beneath him was hard, smelled old. Lumpy bits of tied bandages poked at random increments across his form. There was something squeezing his temples, fabric clung to his cheeks.
He turned his head.
The room was large, empty except for the bed on which he lay, a discarded pile of bloodied bandages, a handful of medical supplies and a single chair on which a garish amount of pink sat dozing.
…pink…?
Too heavy. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in to pull him back down.
He closed his eyes.
He woke up screaming, Usopp’s panicked whimpers echoing in his ears. Adrenaline raced through his veins, snapping his lax body tight instantly as his brain entered battle mode.
Usopp.
The crew.
Kuma. God damn fucking Kuma again, again again!
The room was the same and there was the ghost girl from Thriller Bark, screaming her head off like she was the one plagued by nightmares. Zoro growled, lips peeled back as he tried to push shaking limbs into motion. Was he back on Thriller Bark? Did that bastard warlord really send him back to the one place he would happily never step foot on again? His swords were missing from his waist, his whole body was covered with twisted bunched bandages. He ripped the ones covering his face angrily, ignoring the throbbing spreading out between his eyes and settled his gaze on were the girl had pressed her back against the door.
“Where are my swords?” he rasped with as much force as he could manage around a mouth that felt like sandpaper.
The ghost girl trilled in response, boldly stating that she wouldn’t be giving his swords back as if he couldn’t simply make her tell him. Stumbling out of the bed his legs trembled like a child barely learning to walk, his vision swam and clouded darkly at the edges. Pain was overruling the adrenaline rush that had gotten him moving and his body stalled, barely managed to remain standing as he grit his teeth around a series of curses.
He had to go. It didn’t matter where he was he had to go. The crew needed him. He had to get back to Saobody, he was probably already late for their meeting time. They had to be there. If he was alive then that meant everyone else had to be too.
…Right?
The girl said something in that horrendously grating voice of hers and Zoro could only brace himself as the flimsy ghost slid through his chest. His knee’s colliding with the cold stone floor was jarring, shook every bone in his body and rattled his barely clinging on brain. Despair curdled in his chest, self hatred and every miniscule mistake he had ever made within his nineteen years came flooding over him, drowning him.
The crew-
The crew they needed him-
They were probably dead.
He couldn’t save them.
Useless.
Useless.
Useless.
Choking against the tide of agony that thought provoked Zoro felt his arms give way, the floor rushing up to meet his cheek as his body failed him once more.
He woke to a real-life nightmare which involved the most ridiculous bear suit and far too many of those stupid ghosts the annoying pinky kept throwing at him. Perona. Her name was Perona. He didn’t know why the hell he bothered to remember it though, as he was going to get off this damn island as soon as he could. This island being not Thriller Bark as he had originally feared but some other gloomy forgotten place where the sun never quite managed to beat through the clouds and the air seem to permanently smell like stale smoke. It was a dismal place, which is apparently why pinky liked it so much. They were the only people left alive on the island.
There had been people once, Zoro could feel it. The presence of death pressed heavily on his shoulders, the air itself seemed to vibrate with the bitter screams of spirits long ago forgotten by the living. This island had been a battle ground, the soil made rich by thousands of corpses and the plants thriving from the exchange of life.
All he wanted to do was leave.
A feat easier said than done even after convincing pinky(Perona) to give him back his swords after sending him on a wild goose chase throughout the whole damn castle. The girl was beyond infuriating. If she wasn’t screeching about one thing or another she was zapping him with those horrible ghost minions of hers just to laugh at him. Horrible. Annoying. A complete waste of his time and he should have just cut her to pieces as soon as his swords were back in their rightful place at his side. Never mind that she purposefully drifted around in her spirit form, he could have figured a way around that. He had entertained the idea of bringing the whole damn castle down on her head more than once.
She had saved his life though.
According to pinky(Perona) he had been passed out for days after she found him in a paw shaped crater barely clinging on to his life. She had carried him back to the castle- something that he had no idea how she had accomplished considering the spindly nature of her limbs- and re bandaged his injuries. Badly, and not nearly as efficiently as Chopper could have done but he wasn’t dumb enough not to realize that he would have died in that hole if she hadn’t. Despite a growing list of personality flaws, he did owe her that. It didn’t make any sense why she would have bothered to save him-the last time they met they had been enemies- but he figured it might have something to do with the oppressive silence of the island, her single presence a lonely spark of life amongst the dead. Even a macabre loving idiot can get tired of the solitude after a while. He could accept her assistance as being just a selfish wish to cure her own boredom, though he doubted it turned out the way she had planned. He was grateful however, for the help no matter how much it grated at him that he had needed it so desperately.
He needed to be alive if he was going to get back to the crew.
Trepidation skittered passed his clenching heart as he wondered about their fate, what had happened after he had been sent off of Saboady. They had to be alive. He had to believe that. Luffy wouldn’t have let anything happen to them, even without Zoro there, they would have found a way out of it. After everything they had been through as a crew, this couldn’t be the end. He believed in Luffy.
He didn’t want to think about the man. Didn’t want to revisit those last few moments before everything went black. His last vision of Luffy had been a crumpled form in the dirt. His last words-
Luffy hadn’t been looking at him then, Zoro’s words had not reached him.
He didn’t know if he was glad, or bitter about that.
The unease wouldn’t go away. Anxiety settled just beneath his skin, an itch persisted beneath his breastbone, aching softly in a way that wouldn’t allow him to rest. His dreams were haunted, blurred images of his crewmates horrified eyes, the echoing bursting of bubbles as they floated languidly in direct contrast the garish hue of blood that always soaked through his mind and the frantic pace of his heartbeat. He woke up panting any time he dared close his eyes for a moments rest. Not that he had bothered trying much ever since fully waking up from his injury induced coma. He had wasted so much time already.
Weak.
He didn’t close his eyes. Every time he did, he was there. He could see the panic in his crews eyes. Taste the blood in his mouth, smell the smoke in the humid air. He could feel the burn as stitches tore out of his skin, the groan and tremble of his legs. He could hear Luffy, voice torn and shattered with desperation as he screamed at them to run.
He lived that moment. That moment when he knew he couldn’t run. Even if he had wanted to, even if he tried. He couldn’t have run.
Weak.
He was still so weak.
There were damn monkey’s crawling all over this god forsaken island, challenging him with harsh eyes too fierce to ignore- standing in his way. He needed to go. He needed to be moving with an urgency unfamiliar to him, a cold sliver of dread lodged between his ribs - a knife to the heart; it drained the air from his lungs and bled his barely healing body dry. His gut told him he needed to move, like he was two seconds away from being ambushed in his sleep, a blade bearing down on a throat promising death.
Zoro’s? Luffy’s? Usopp? Nami? Chopper? Sanji? Robin-Franky-Brook?
He didn’t know- couldn’t know without the crew before his eyes and proof of their vitality real and tangible beneath his hands. The empty space at his side felt foreign, the silence pressed against his ears alien in its completeness. For months now, Luffy had filled that space, that silence, his very presence enough to vibrate the air and send the shockwaves of his voice fluttering against Zoro’s skin. Then there was Nami; loud, demanding, clever. Usopp’s tales always decorated the air, spinning tall and bright even on the cloudiest night. The shitty cook was always cooking something, prancing around the kitchen and forever tempting the gullet of anyone within a 30 feet radius. Chooper’s hooves against the planks, the quiet swish as Robin turned the page of her book, the clang of Franky’s hammer echoing dully from somewhere, even Brook’s constant crooning had solidified in Zoro’s brain. The Thousand Sunny, and the Going Merry before, had never been silent, not completely. In closed spaces breaths sounded loudly and ships always muttered softly along the waves.
Constant.
He didn’t understand how smoky silence could be so incredibly loud in contrast.
His back hit the ground, Wado ripped from his hand by the force of the blow. Zoro gagged on the thickness of blood in his throat, heaving as monkeys hooted and yelled in victory. He was wasting so much time.
He had to get up.
Get up.
Get up.
Get-
A presence came to his mind; strong, imposing, deadly. He’d felt it before. The monkeys scattered, chittering and scampering in fear. Zoro looked up, already knowing who he would find, hissing and snarling like the wounded animal he was.
“Roronoa Zoro,” Dracule Mihawk’s golden eyes shone bright in the overcast lighting. He regarded Zoro’s crumpled form with distain. “This is not where you should be.”
The warlords voice is low and even in the sudden silence, oppressive as the dark clouds overhead. Rage filled Zoro’s chest and he wanted to scream at the man that of course it isn’t! He knew that. He knew that he needed to move but just like at Saboady he couldn’t. His pride was in the dirt next to his swords and Mihawk was the last person on this planet Zoro wanted around to witness it.
“Mihawk,” Zoro growled, shoved his body into sitting and tried to pull any kind of strength left in his soul. If he had to fight now…
This man had beat him once. Zoro was stronger than before and yet-
If he fought now, with his body in such bad shape that a pack of dumb monkeys could force his shoulders to the dirt-
This time- This time, this time he-
This time he really might-
‘I love you.’
Zoro stood up.
Gold eyes watched him rise, examined the way he straightened his spine, pushed his shoulders back and lifted a chin dripped with blood. Mihawk’s face showed no emotion, betrayed none of what he thought about the broken yet determined figure before him. Zoro met his eyes, clenched his jaw and promised himself that no matter what happened, he would make it off this island.
Luffy hadn’t been looking at him. He didn’t hear.
It wouldn’t end this way, not now.
Mihawk opened his mouth and Zoro braced his knee’s in anticipation but-
Nothing could have prepared him for the words that left the warlords mouth. Nothing in all of his 19 years could have saved him for that tale soaked in blood and broken skin and sorrow. Each decimal stabbed at his ears, sank into the very core of him and festered; deeper and deeper.
Luffy, his captain. Luffy, his best friend. Luffy, the very center of his universe.
Had broken.
Zoro stared at Mihawk with eyes that couldn’t see. His brain filled with fabricated rubber limbs that swung and flailed and fought with every last ounce of strength because that was who Luffy was. Luffy went into each battle with the intent to win. Zoro thought of hazy smiles and teeth covered in red. Bleeding gums and bright eyes that were too far away.
Zoro hadn’t been there.
Luffy had gone to save his brother- the brother that he loved more than anything. The brother that stood before Luffy like the edge of the horizon – something to chase into eternity and gaze at with that dumb kind of determination as if you’ll catch it one day. Ace had been Luffy’s world, everything he wanted to be and who he had modeled himself after for years. Zoro had only met the man once, and it wasn’t as if Luffy was in the habit of talking about his past without prompting, but it had been enough. It had been enough for Zoro to see the boyish rosiness to his captain’s cheeks under his brothers praise. To see the stars light and catch fire to Luffy’s eyes as Ace recounted adventures and tales and places he had seen. It had been enough for him to know that Ace held a whole section of Luffy’s love that could never be touch by another. That was a whole part of Luffy he didn’t know, couldn’t know, but he could understand. He could see it.
Then, that brother that was everything to Luffy had been set to be executed. Luffy had gone, because of course he had. He had fought and screamed and bared his teeth at enemies and allies far greater than anything any of them had ever come across. He charged head first into a war, alone, armed only with a straw hat and a promise. Luffy had gone through Hell, fell more than once and got back up. He had held his brother in his arms finally- Finally.
Only to have that same brother crumble before his very eyes.
All that. All of that. Luffy had gone through all of that!
And he had been alone.
His Luffy, who didn’t even like to sleep alone. Luffy who craved people, who reached and clung with needy hands. Who had scoured the ocean for just the right people to stand beside him. Luffy who put all of his trust in his friends, who always believed that they would be there when he needed. Who had reached for Zoro’s hand and asked for his strength. Who Zoro swore to, promised, vowed to always, always be at his side.
Yet.
Zoro had left him alone.
He didn’t register Mihawk leaving. Didn’t notice the passage of time, that he was standing alone in the center of a deserted ruin of an island. He didn’t breathe. Didn’t dare to blink.
Luffy had been fighting for his brother’s life, for his own life, for something more important that treasure or reputation or pride. He had bashed his fist against the entire might of the Navy, spilt only god knows how much blood in testament to his determination and Zoro-
Zoro had been here. Asleep. Playing the ghost girls games. Fighting monkeys. Drowning in his own self-pity.
“This is not where you should be.”
No. No it was too late for that. Even if he started running now, even if he swam across the ocean, crawled his way bloody and bruised back to Luffy’s feet it was too late. Far too late.
He had already failed. He had broken his promise so many times now.
Without his crew. Without his brother. Luffy had been left alone.
Fingers knotted in his hair, a horrendous choking sound in his ears as his lungs remembered how to breath. He felt lightheaded. His vision blurred, became watery. His head was about to explode, words spinning and pulsing over and over until he couldn’t think. He was falling apart. He couldn’t.
Weak. Weak weak weakweakweakweak-
He screamed.
His throat tore, his limbs shook, his forehead pressed to the ground, gravel dug into his skin, yet he screamed. Anger. Pain. Hatred. Guilt. Regret.
Fear.
He screamed until he ran out of air, squeezed his body dry of oxygen until black spots danced in his eyes.
Again. He had failed.
He didn’t know how much time had passed by time the ghost girl found him. It could have been minutes, hours, days, weeks. He didn’t know. He couldn’t think anymore. He didn’t know anything except the chill of the ground beneath him, the solidity of the rock at his back, the tremble that hadn’t left his limbs.
“Dear god what did you do?! The whole forest is gone!” Perona’s voice was high, shrill it poked through the fog in his brain. Zoro lifted dead eyes. Blinked up at her horrified face.
Around them lay a mountain of devastation. Fist shaped craters pocket marked the ground. Deep angry gouges ranked through the rocks, the trees, anything any everything that had the misfortune of being in his way.
“Oh no, don’t go off and die on me now sword boy. Look what you’ve done to all my hard work!”
He tilted his head in the direction she pointed, stared down at his bloody limbs with an odd sort of detachment. All the white bandages were now brown and crusted where they hadn’t come off entirely. Torn open wounds leaked red droplets in growing puddles beneath him. He watched them fall, noted the splash. Perona was still talking, but she was always talking. He let his head fall back against the stone behind him, turned his face from her.
“Tsk, and here I went out of my way to find your mopey ass because I thought you would want to know what that crazy captain of yours is up to,” Perona’s voice suddenly reached him and Zoro cracked his neck flipping to face her.
“What?” His voice was trashed, ripped to pieces during the deepest stages of his anger. She lifted a haughty brow at him but held a newspaper to his eye level.
“This. He caused a giant ruckus again. As usual.”
It took a moment for Zoro to process what he was looking at. Luffy stood on the front page, wrapped in bandages and head bowed as chaos insured behind him. He had his hat placed on his chest as he stood in silent respect amongst the crumbled remains of Mairineford. Zoro’s eyes drank in the image of his captain hungrily, fixated over every bruise, every scrape and wound visible on his skin. He stared at Luffy’s face, desperately seeking some kind of verification, some kind of clue of the man’s state of being. But a black and white flat image could never compare the reality of everything Luffy was, and Zoro was left wanting.
With effort, he tore his gaze from those familiar features to land on the most peculiar part of the image.
“3D 2Y,” he muttered, frowning at the black written on Luffy’s arm.
“Oh yeah,” Perona flipped the newspaper back to herself, tilted her head in puzzlement. “What is that? Some kind of tattoo?”
No. Luffy wouldn’t get a random ass tattoo like that.
Though it did bare a resemblance to this tattoo that had been on Ace’s arm…
“Hey, what else does the article say?” he asked and Perona huffed.
“Just that he ran around and caused a fuss. And rang the OX bell. Something about a new era,” she waved a hand as if to dismiss the whole thing. “You’re his first mate right? You figure it out.”
First mate.
Right.
Zoro leaned back, tipped his head up to the sooty clouds. He knew Luffy better than anyone; had spent months at his side watching the way he moved, memorizing every held tilt, every inflection of his voice. Luffy said far more than the words that came out of his mouth. He was always yelling loudly- with his fists, his smiles, soft touches on the arm and knee’s knocked together beneath tables.
Why would Luffy return to Marineford to ring some bell?
3D 2Y
Slowly, a smile curled the edges of Zoro’s lips, and he let out a weary chuckle.
“Seriously, Luffy?” he muttered to the air, as if the words could somehow travel the distance between them. He threw an arm over his eyes and sank further into the ground, pretended Luffy really could hear him. He felt more focused. “You’re really gonna make me wait that long huh?”
He wasn’t exactly happy. His body hurt all over and there was an uncomfortable gap in his chest. Ghost girl was still yammering in his ear and goddamn Mihawk was looming someone on the island. He wanted nothing more than to be back in his bunk on the Sunny, listening to Usopp’s snores and Luffy’s nonsense sleep talking. God did he want that.
But.
Luffy had sent them a message. A message saying it was time to take a break, time to press pause on their grand adventures and dreams now while they had the chance. Take time and fix all the things they were lacking. The Grand Line had chewed them up and spit them out. They weren’t prepared. It hurt, to have to admit defeat and it left a bitterness on Zoro’s tongue. He was getting far to familiar with that taste.
It had to end.
He was too weak and the world had pummeled that into his body again and again until he finally admitted it.
Luffy had told them to wait. There were things they needed to do, before coming back together.
Later.
Zoro never disobeyed a direct order from his captain.