Chapter Text
Usopp hated mushrooms.
He hated them. Period.
He ate a mildly poisonous one when playing in the forest as a kid, thinking it looked just like the ones his mom put in pasta, and threw up for three days straight.
No force on earth would get him to repeat such a core-memory trauma from his youth, and no matter how Sanji dressed up the awful things he always caught them.
No, he would not eat them stuffed, or sauteed. Not chopped up fine or ground up. Not hidden in burgers or covered in sauce.
No. Mushrooms.
And so, Sanji had adjusted his recipes, accommodating the sniper, and he hadn't had to worry about the monstrous demon-food-from-hell infecting his body ever again.
Right?
“Dammit!” he screamed, looking up helplessly at the protective canopy above: the source of all of his frustrations.
A purple mushroom, looming tall as a house with delicate gills the color of the sea. It was so ostentatiously colored and obviously dangerous it was obnoxious!
“We can make a run for it,” Zoro said gruffly, as if it was any kind of answer to Usopp’s outburst.
The sniper sat down hard, hands digging into his hair. “How do you figure?” he asked, more than a little snappy. He was scared, sure, but mostly he was just frustrated… this whole situation was just so stupid!
“We dodge the water and run back to the ship.”
“You can dodge, sure, but you really think I can do that!?”
“...I’ll carry you.”
He entertained the idea for a moment, thinking… but then, “How long do you think, exactly, you’ll have to be running and dodging and carrying me?”
The swordsman shrugged, looking out at the damp forest beyond the edge of the mushroom canopy. “Took us about a half hour to get out here, yeah? So thirty minutes. I have enough stamina for that, easy.”
Oh this beautiful, incredible, simple-minded fool. “Zoro,” he began carefully, crossing his legs and leaning back on his arms to gaze up at the stoic man, “We are not any stronger or faster than we were previously. There is no way we can keep up the same speed: you understand that, right?”
“Of course I do!” he replied indignantly, though the faint blush gracing his tan skin told a different story. Usopp sighed… of course Zoro would not have thought through such things. He was a “do the thing” guy and not a “strategize and think it through” guy.
It was silent for a long moment, and Zoro must have read something in that, turning to stare down at Usopp with his one available eye. “What!? You think I didn’t know that?”
“I said nothing.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Yeah, well, you were thinking it… and damn it if you were right. We can’t run that far in one go.”
Usopp tried to do the math; it wasn’t his strong suit, but he figured he didn’t need to be a genius to guess they were roughly… 1/24 their size? Like three inches, give or take. That meant it would take 24 times more effort to travel, right? Did it work that way?
“So like twelve hours of walking… we can do that.” When it wasn’t raining.
So, the thing about being tiny (or so they had surmised in the past five minutes), was that you couldn’t predict what things you once took for granted could become deadly. The rain was coming down lightly, hardly a nuisance, before they stepped on the cluster of purple mushrooms. The moment those spores were released, however, and they found their bodies shrinking…
Well, damn, each drop was like a cannonball hitting the earth, dispelling dirt like shrapnel! Every drop produced a small pond, and Usopp knew if they were hit directly it would not only hurt, but probably drown them very quickly.
Usopp had nearly suffocated in his clothes when it had happened- the shrinking-, and was only saved by Zoro digging him out, supporting him as they both dodged rain long enough to hide under one of the offending mushrooms.
So, not only were they trapped, weaponless, and facing a half-day walk through danger… they were also completely nude.
It had been an annoying thing to recognize, at first, though after the shock of the last few minutes really started to settle ,Ussop found himself pretty damn uncomfortable. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been naked in front of his friends before; in fact, often bathing was rather communal among the men of the Straw Hat crew. That wasn’t the point: It was being vulnerable in a strange place.
It was also, if he was being honest with himself, rather hard to concentrate with Zoro’s rock-hard ass at eye level. Damn. The man was built solid, and while Usopp did pretty well keeping his mind out of such inspection when surrounded by their friends, alone with the swordsman it became something of a challenge…
Usopp noticed people. He couldn't help it! He was surrounded by objectively sexy people every day, and he was a man with an artistic eye that could recognize such… er… okay, well, maybe he was just attracted to people pretty easily.
Sanji, for example, had always garnered his interest with his gorgeous hair, lithe body, and quickness to protect his friends. Nami was incredible, curves and shining hair like a beacon to covert eyes over the edge of a sketchbook. Even Luffy, who he most often counted as a jovial best friend and cohort in childish antics, had a certain sexy charm to him…
But Zoro? Zoro was intimidating in the most solid, perfect, untaintable way. A stalwart protector he could rely on. Sweaty muscles on easy display as he constantly worked out, putting on a show for anyone who may find handsome, strong, tan, square-jawed Adonis-es attractive.
So, like, everybody, right?
And now he was standing tall, and nude, and Usopp was trying very hard to maintain his annoyance so he wouldn’t let his mind wander to other, more distracting aspects of the man before him.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, we can, um, tear some fabric from our clothes and make something to wear before we start heading back.”
“Hm? Oh, sure,” Zoro muttered, distracted as he looked out into the rain. Just what was the silent figure thinking about, staring out like that? Grabbing Usopp and just running off in the direction he chose to believe the ship was in, no doubt. It made Usopp uneasy.
“So we’re going to wait here, right Zoro?”
He made a noncommittal noise that did not instill confidence.
“Zoro… whatcha lookin’ at?”
“Swords,” he responded gruffly, and all at once Usopp got it, and the mountains of red, white, and black came into sharp focus.
Ah… Usopp was inconvenienced, kept from his pop greens and Kuro Kabuto, sure, but for Zoro… his swords were like allies. Like nakama, lying out prone in the rain.
“When the rain stops, we’ll head for the Sunny, and when Chopper figures out how to undo this mess we can come back for them.”
Another grunt from the pillar of taut muscle in front of him.
Usopp sighed, tearing his eyes away to stare down at his own knees, drawn up now to hug. This was supposed to be a quick walk to find some bubble-bubble mushrooms to help refuel the Sunny.
See, there was a small fishing village along the coast where they stopped, and while they weren’t totally out of fuel they were lower than Franky would have liked. The crew had gone into the village in the hopes of purchasing the effervescent concoction, only to find they had none on hand… but they did know how the Straw Hats could make more on their own.
Bubble-bubble mushrooms were not unique to this island, apparently, but it was certainly the first Usopp had ever heard of them. A carbonated fungus that could be used to make a (blurgh) mushroom soda? Franky was ecstatic.
Everyone paired up and set out into the forest, though, sadly, the locals had failed to mention any shrinking mushrooms as a possible danger!
Maybe the others would walk by sooner or later and find their two shrunken crewmates? Or maybe they, too, would be dragged down to the size of a tontatta…
“If we run,” Zoro began after several minutes of silent introspection, “we can make it in much less than twelve hours.”
Usopp was glad, at least, that his nakama was taking him at his word about the distance; he half expected some stubborn protestation. He felt relief, relaxing a little against the stem of the mushroom. “Well, I guess…”
“And if I leave you here and go on ahead, I can be even faster.” He turned, and the sharpness of his eye silenced the gurgle beginning to grip Usopp’s throat, the severity he saw there making it clear that this was not a flippant suggestion. Zoro had been weighing their options carefully- he wasn’t taking such abandonment lightly.
Still…
“Are you CRAZY!? Physically, I’m probably the weakest on our ship!” This was a fact he only stated when it suited his purposes; on a normal day, he would not like to broadcast that simple fact, the difference in their abilities so vast it went without such degrading inspection. Now, however… “I’m all small-ified, on top of it! The first squirrel or snake or something to pass by will see me as a tasty snack!” He envisioned his head, in particular, being cracked open like an acorn. “Please, Zoro…!”
He turned, his body a harsh, strong-lined silhouette against the dim light beyond the mushroom shelter. Perhaps the sun was starting to come out…? Well, it was hard to concentrate on such details, when Usopp was doing everything in his power to stop his eyes from flicking down the body of his friend… er, enough to be suspicious, anyway.
No. Deadly situation. Not the time to fantasize inappropriately about what it would feel like to to have those strong arms around him, holding him to his chest, kissing at his neck-
“You’ll be alright.”
“No- no I won’t! Zoro, will you take responsibility when I die here!?”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Usopp huffed, standing as he puffed up his chest indignantly. “This is exactly the time to be dramatic! I’m cold, naked, and tiny, and you’re directionless and, uh… also naked!”
Something loosened, the swordsman’s stance drooping a little in exasperation and that aloof samurai-persona dissipating as he finally groaned, “Fine- we’ll get clothes, first. Then you can hide yourself away, and I’ll come back with help-”
“No, no!” Usopp protested as Zoro stepped out from the safety of their hideout. The rain had indeed stopped, the sun filtering cool and green through the canopy of trees above. He was striding forward confidently, apparently unfazed to be without clothes.
Usopp personally thought he had acquired at least a dozen splinters in his bare feet on the run over from their wet, over-heavy piles of discarded things, but he still managed to bound out after the swordsman in order to complain as they walked to the puddled fabric. A few errant drops of water still dripped from the leaves above, loud and exploding and nearly giving the sniper a heart attack every time they fell a little too near.
RIIIIP!
Already, he was shredding some yellow cotton (with his bare hands, mind you… Zoro’s strength was no joke!), tearing a crude tunic that he quickly encapsulated himself with.
“MY pants! Why!? Why Zoro, why!?”
“It’s lighter fabric. You want to try tearing off a piece of my linen robe? My knit haramaki? My canvas pants?”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it… even your clothes are tuff,” Usopp muttered, the last part said under his breath. Gladly he accepted the proffered square of yellow fabric the swordsman, now covered, held up for him. It would be about two yards, he judged, if they were normal-sized, and so he fashioned a kind of toga for himself. Zoro had used a secondary strip to secure his tunic, though they both looked equally ridiculous with the uneven hems with frazzled threads like ropes.
Usopp pulled at one thread, dislodging it from the bottom of his toga, and frowned in thought. Could be useful to have some rope in their position… this was a survivor situation, after all.
Next, Zoro turned to the rust-colored fabric beside his discarded pants… and immediately gripped at the seam, tearing a small hole in it.
“My bag! Zoro, don’t go in there-”
Too late. Usopp rushed to follow, throwing himself into the hole and tripping a little, sending him careening into the near-darkness. “You don’t know what all I have in here! Don’t go messing with- are you even listening!?”
No, he wasn’t, the green-haired monster helping himself to a small displaced box of stitching supplies. Waxed thread, scissors, needles…
Zoro immediately grabbed for the scissors, and as soon as it processed in Usopp’s head what the man was doing he couldn’t help but laugh.
A sword. Zoro was trying to arm himself, though the scissors were so comically big they’d never work. With a displeased suck of air through his teeth, Zoro selected a needle and stored it in his fashioned belt.
“There. Stay here.”
“In my bag?”
“Should be safe, yeah?”
“But Zoro… how do I say this… you’re dog-shit at finding your way anywhere. Terrible. Absolutely blind.”
“Hey! I don’t know what you’re-”
“-Trash. Like a bat with an ear infection-”
“-I’m going to kick your ass when we get out of this!”
“The truth hurts, Zoro.” He grinned. He couldn’t help but pick on his friend- it was in his nature, and besides… he was right. “You can’t go alone because you’ll get lost. Or worse, you won’t be able to find your way back and leave me to die-”
“-Never.”
The jovial smirk melted from Usopp’s face at that single word cutting through the muffled quiet of the bag’s interior. It was hard to see, but he was certain Zoro was staring right at him, his response full of that warrior’s conviction he got when focused on a task of honor. For the crew, for Luffy, for his own growth… the tone that said he would move mountains, quite literally, to get what he wanted.
“I… I know not on purpose, Zoro, but-”
“Let me go try. Just point me the right way.”
Again, a small concession, admitting he needed at least that small nudge.
Usopp sighed and led the way out of the bag again, trying to get his bearings. “Well, we came in from the west, and it has to be late afternoon by now, so… see the sun? The big orb in the sky?”
Something hit the back of his head and he hissed, grabbing it.
“Ow!”
“Yes, I see the damned sun. You’re lucky you’re you; if the love-cook gave me such gripe, I’d have smacked him through the treeline by now.”
“Uh, huh… gee, thanks. But seriously, just follow the sun. It’s heading in the right direction, and that should be easy enough for you, too.”
A dangerous glare.
“Hey, Zoro, I love you and all, but we all have to be real about our strengths and weaknesses. For example, I am bite-sized and probably delicious, and at any minute I expect a mongoose or something to swallow me whole, and I know I can’t do fuck-all about it since I’m weaponless. You are strong, armed (sort of), and probably taste awful, but you would be lost even if you were normal-sized. Accept it, and take my advice.”
“You talk a lot.”
“See! A flaw. And I accept that,” Usopp responded, doing his best “humble” pose, which looked a bit like gloating, but more bent-over.
He was completely ignored. “Keep quiet and keep low. I’ll be back as soon as I can, so… don’t get eaten.”
“Ah! That does not instill confidence- so you agree?”
“...that you are probably delicious?”
His face colored quickly, the flush of blood heating him at Zoro’s careless, offhand joke. He had said it himself, and he knew how he meant it, but… but…
“Uh, haha…yeah! So hurry so you can protect me and stuff.”
“I always do, don’t I?”
Yes. Zoro was steady and true for his nakama; there was no one more easy to rely on. While Usopp tended to fall into and out of crushes very easily, noticing the attractive qualities of just about everyone… with Zoro, his crush had endeared for a long time, now. Probably had something to do with that very dependable quality he held, and all the times Usopp had used the man as a shield. Now, being reminded of that fact (along with the, er, “delicious”remark) had his head spinning, and he found himself really struggling with what expression to make. He schooled his features into what hoped looked like an encouraging smile, hiding his blush the best he could, and nodded.
Yeah. Zoro always came through.
And then he was off, and Usopp stood watching until Zoro passed through a spiky fern, hiding his progress from view. It took a minute, staring into space, for the sniper to recognize how exposed he was out in the open, and when an ominous shadow shifted over him he quickly scurried into the opening in his bag with an unmanly squeal.
__________________
Zoro was a simple man. He knew his goals in life, and could focus so singularly on those goals that he often missed certain branching pathways.
Metaphorically, that is. Hell, he wasn’t stupid: he knew his internal compass was a mess, and he could easily get turned around when venturing on his own. Didn’t mean he liked others pointing it out, but he was certainly self-aware.
But when it came to life and the journey he and his nakama had all set out on…. Well, they followed Luffy. Luffy was their guiding light, and Zoro didn’t think it was too corny to think as such. His goal was to be the best swordsman in the world, and install Luffy as the Pirate King. Simple and direct, and the path was always forward even if it often diverged and ran away from them all. The goal remained the same.
But those divergent paths… sometimes they came with new priorities he missed. For example, he couldn’t explain when he had come to care so much for his crewmates that he would die for them, but die he would. For Luffy? Well, that just made sense and was in line perfectly with his two goals. But for Nami? Chopper? Robin? Hell, even the cook?
Yes. He would die for them.
But he had never agreed to such a design. Never made any formal declarations or meditated on it or anything. One day, for one reason or another, the realization had just dawned on him without the need to be tested or spoken.
They were family, in a weird way, but like a family Zoro had never known before.
Zoro could recognize the motivations and emotions of others much quicker than he recognized them in himself, however, so the sniper’s oddities were quite apparent. He was shy and quiet in the moments when he watched him… after all, the cook was the pervert on the crew, right? And to a lesser extent, Brook… but Usopp? To think of Usopp as a sexual being at all seemed at odds with the childish image he exuded when running around with Luffy and Chopper, for example.
And so for a while he simply shrugged it off as cautious curiosity on the sniper’s part. He wanted to be a warrior of the sea, right? A goal; Zoro could easily understand that. So maybe he was admiring Zoro’s workout routine.
But no: his first instinct had been correct. Usopp was, when sketching on the deck or on watch for the night, eying him up whenever possible, and if Zoro was reading the heat in his eyes correctly, the sniper’s corresponding thoughts were perhaps not as innocent as his usual jocose nature would otherwise indicate.
So that understanding came quickly, and was especially obvious after they all met up again on Sabaody. But what took time was Zoro’s internal reflection.
Just as it had struck him suddenly and belatedly that he would die for his friends, so too had it taken him forever to recognize that he liked being watched.
He liked the sniper’s gaze.
Huh.
Zoro didn’t have time to waste on considering it much further than that, however; his training required a clear head and a calm body, and delving into the way his skin tingled at the idea of the sniper moving closer… maybe confessing his attraction… maybe touching…
Well, that was just not part of his training routine, and such thoughts didn’t often float through his brain.
Now, however, when considering their isolated situation and Usopp’s plea to not be left alone… well, it was hard not to consider the odd protectiveness he felt for the man. Usopp wasn’t weak- but he was the weakest. There was a difference. Zoro had full confidence in Usopp’s ability to survive on a normal day, because all the Straw Hats were just built like that.
It could be hard to separate the sniper’s usual whining from an actual cause for concern, though Zoro still had to admit to feeling a twang of guilt on leaving him behind… maybe he should have carried him, after all? But then it would take so much longer, and it would be harder for Zoro to face any threats and opposition he encountered on the way… no. They needed help to return to their original size, and they needed it with speed.
He heard the rushing water before he saw it.
Of course, how could he miss a sound like an avalanche advancing with such speed? The water crashed from the brush in a violent tsunami, choked with debris as it rushed the already-wet ground towards the wandering swordsman.
He cursed, pushing at the ground and rebounding off a bolder (er, pebble), flying out of the way with the ease of practiced skill as a torrential river bisected his path.
He settled on higher ground, frowning at the current. The path he and Usopp had followed was steep and uphill, and no doubt the recent rain had pushed down gentle streams that were, to his perspective, raging floods. The way it fell made it impossible to cross unless he wanted to be drawn downhill as a drowned corpse.
He was a strong swimmer, sure, but not that strong. Not at this size.
With a growl of frustration he turned and began to backtrack.