Chapter Text
Zoro's soulmate turns out to be dumb as fuck.
He shouldn't find this surprising, given the amount of insane bullshit life likes to throw at him and the absurd people he's started gravitating towards lately. But apparently having access to someone's emotions for nineteen years does not prepare you for when your soulmate completely ignores you in a crowded, floating restaurant that looks like a fish.
The soulmark on Zoro's wrist looks like the ocean—a thin band of waves drawn in neat, black lines, three tiny fish tucked inside the stylized curls. He's never bothered to cover it. It's amazingly innocuous. He figured his soulmate likes the ocean or lives near the ocean or on the ocean, like 98% of the world's population. Big fucking hint, there. Thanks, universe.
(Of course, the guy turns out to work at a floating restaurant that looks like a fish. Of course.)
People have come to find it a bit intimidating, the way he just has his mark out for anyone to see. The way he doesn't give a shit.
All the pirates Zoro's killed treated their soulmarks like weaknesses. Like someone was going to see their mark, know exactly who the hell their soulmate was despite them most likely being on the far side of the world, and then use that bond against them. As if Zoro needed to do any of that to bring them to their knees.
(Nami and Usopp hide theirs. Most people do. Nami has a bunch of leather bracelets, and Usopp has a pair of sweatbands around his wrists like he's ever going to exercise. That doesn't mean Zoro hasn't seen both of them, what with them all living on top of each other.)
(Luffy wears his out in the open, because—according to him—his soulmate is the Gum Gum Fruit. Either that's true and weird and yet makes complete sense, or it's a lie and none of Zoro's business.)
In quiet moments, Zoro presses his thumb to his mark and closes his eyes and feels what his soulmate feels. He thinks of the bond like a window between them. Touching his mark opens the window, and he could just sit there, his soulmate vaguely aware of his presence. Or he could reach through and feel what his soulmate is feeling. Or he could gather up his own emotions and push them through the bond, hurling them at his soulmate like a snowball.
When he checks in, he feels his soulmate's jumbled mess of longing and anger and delight and smugness and fear and frustration—a lot of frustration. But underneath all that, there's strength. Like a solid spine that never wavers, supporting all those churning, wild emotions. Zoro's watched that spine build over the years, felt his soulmate get stronger as they overcame the fear and anguish present in their childhood. They would reach out to Zoro across the bond, desperate for help, or Zoro would check in to find them panicking, and he would gather all the calm and determination he knew, all his fierce protective instincts indignant at whatever it was that made his soulmate feel so shitty, and he'd press it through the bond, sending it to his soulmate across the sea until they calmed, until they took that strength and built their own.
These days, his soulmate checks in every night or so. A soft pulse of greeting and curiosity, like a fond hand brushing through his hair as someone passes behind him, like a light squeeze against his shoulder, there and gone. And Zoro takes his wrist in hand and opens his heart and sends out calmness, letting his soulmate simmer in the tranquillity Zoro finds in meditation until the bond goes kind of blurry, which Zoro thinks means his soulmate has fallen asleep.
So he knows some stuff, right? He knows his soulmate is a chaotic mix of emotions. He knows his soulmate cares about him, because he can feel the fondness and the longing. He knows his soulmate thinks about him, because of the check ins.
And then here he is. At a restaurant in the middle of nowhere that Luffy has literally sniffed out. The waiter slams some dude's head into the floor with his foot, and Zoro's soulmark burns.
He lowers his eyes from the spectacle to his wrist, and it's funny how the world goes still, how he freezes and stops breathing and the bustling dining room fades away around him, how everything stops moving except the waves on his wrist. Those have started to dance.
They crash over each other in a little animation. The fish jump from the water and enter again with a splash. The sea is angry, and the fish are joyous, and the whole thing repeats on a loop like a zoetrope with only about ten frames.
He's heard about this, but never seen it before. First sight. A soulmark coming alive with possibility and connection and a bunch of other shit. Zoro has to tear his eyes away, locking them onto the waiter, who's flicking his hair out of his face with a huff.
Of course his first sight of his soulmate would be his soulmate kicking someone's ass. That makes sense. That feels right. He can recognize the waiter's simmering frustration as something familiar.
"Good fighter!" Luffy says. Zoro agrees. A little pleased. A little proud.
This might actually work out?
Zoro's a straight forward guy, and he's never wanted to hide his soulmark before. But suddenly, this feels private. There’s just some things he doesn’t talk about.
Maybe if the crew weren't sitting around the table with him, he'd say something. As it is, he doesn't really want them all in his business. Could you imagine that? Fuck.
So he tucks his hands under the table and holds his wrist, feeling out the waiter's frustration. It wasn't just the pirate guy and the marine that have him riled up. There's something deeper going on. The stiff set of his shoulders eases a bit as Zoro siphons some of it away, sending over whatever it is he's feeling. Curiosity. Interest. Maybe some excitement. Honestly, it probably feels like a mess, and if Zoro doesn't even know what he feels, he doubts his soulmate will be able to sort through it.
"Welcome to our shitty restaurant, where the only thing worse than the ambiance is the food. My name is Sanji. What can I get for you?"
Maybe it's because he has his thumb on the guy's emotions, but this seems an entirely normal and typical thing to say.
His accent is real weird. That's unexpected, but also not, because—by the nature of soulmates—the guy’s not from the East Blue. Zoro thinks he likes it.
Luffy orders everything on the menu, and Nami gives a bland appraisal of the waiter's enthusiasm.
And then the waiter's hitting on her.
Laser focused on hitting on Nami.
That’s…not what Zoro expected.
…It’s really fucking weird, right?
It turns out meeting his soulmate is nothing like how people describe it, but then again, what was he expecting? (Besides, obviously, nothing, because he was never expecting to meet them.) He can't even say he's that irritated about it, because it's just so weird. Weird like when Luffy wakes him up to show him that he's been pinched by a big, pink crab that's still hanging off his eyebrow, the crab swinging past his manic grin. It's the kind of what-the-hell weirdness that runs rampant through Zoro's life. The kind of thing he usually deals with with a sigh and a roll of his neck as he gets ready to fight something.
Zoro waits for the guy's eyes to shift, for him to take in the other people at the table. He waits for the waiter to spot him and for his wrist to burn and his face to fall in shock. When that happens, Zoro's going to smirk at him. Let him know that he's an idiot.
But the waiter keeps his eyes locked on Nami even as he listens to the rest of their orders. He keeps his hands tucked in his pockets, his wrists covered by the long sleeves of a suit jacket and the long sleeves of a dress shirt beneath that. There's no indication that the waiter's mark is doing anything. No indication that he's noticed yet.
When he leaves, they all stare after him.
Wow.
Just wow.
Zoro has no idea what to think, and he can't help the snort that trips up his throat.
"What?" Nami snaps.
"Nothing," he says, letting go of his wrist. "Madam."
#
When Zoro's soulmate checks in, Usopp has gone to get yet another drink, doing a terrible, little dance as he makes his way over to the bar. His soulmate sends a warm pulse of curiosity, a little stronger than usual, probably because of whatever emotions Zoro might have sent out earlier when he was sitting across from the guy.
For the first time in years, Zoro hesitates to answer. Frustrating, because his soulmate can read his hesitation. A thread of concern comes in on the next push. Asking if Zoro's okay.
He's not sure how to respond, what he ought to be pushing back. Excitement, frustration, mocking superiority. He's kinda annoyed that his soulmate wants to check on him now. He's holding back having his feelings hurt, because that would be kind of pathetic.
Really, he ought to just go talk to the guy. The waiter must be done with work if he's checking in. Maybe he'll be less blinded by Nami's "beauty" if she’s—ya know—not around.
He checks lazily over his shoulder to see how Usopp's doing. Not great, but not awful. He'll be fine.
The waves on Zoro's wrist are still animated. The effect is supposed to last twenty-four hours (or "a night and a day" when people get poetic about it, but Zoro is not in the mood to be poetic about it). He hasn't tried to cover it up. Nami's too distracted by whatever her deal is to notice.
It's worrisome how everyone around him is really unobservant.
He downs the rest of his drink and turns to where Nami is giving their dancing crewmate a look of pure consternation.
"You think you can get him back to the ship?"
"What?" Her eyes snap to him, and her voice turns demanding. "Of course I can't. Where are you going?"
He shrugs. "Got something to do."
She blinks at him, then her eyes widen, her lips tightening, and her nostrils flaring. She leans in to hiss at him, "You are not abandoning me with Drunk Usopp for a hook up. Are you kidding me?"
Her eyes dart around to try to guess who's caught his attention. Nosy.
"Not a hook up."
"Uh huh." She scowls at him.
"I was gonna check on Luffy." It's not quite a lie. If he finds Luffy, Luffy might know where the shitty waiter went. Of course, that means asking Luffy, but Luffy probably won't think anything of it.
"And you can't check on him and come back? If Usopp passes out, I can't carry him."
"Maybe you should turn in soon then," he says, pushing himself to his feet.
She scoffs in disgust.
"Hey, guys," Drunk Usopp slurs, coming up beside him and leaning heavily on Zoro's shoulder. A second later he loses his balance and falls, barely making it into the seat Zoro just left. He lands mostly sideways with limbs sprawled everywhere. "Meet my new best friend."
Crap. He's gonna have to help Nami get Drunk Usopp back to the ship before he can go find the shitty waiter.
But then he turns. And Drunk Usopp's new best friend is Dracule Mihawk.
Today's been a really big day.
#
Sanji has no interest in dealing with Zeff's bullshit this morning. It's going to be a struggle, but he's going to help with morning prep and he's going to keep a lid on it so he doesn't throw the old man off the side of the boat for being so fucking irritating.
It's not just Zeff and his better than you/I don't need your help/you'll never be good enough garbage. Although that has Sanji so irate that it boils under his skin. There's also the chore boy and all his earnest talk of following his dreams, and Sanji's never going to get to follow those dreams, is he? He's stuck here with this shitty old man who doesn't even appreciate him, but he's been reminded of his dreams, and he honestly didn't need that, and it pisses him off.
Then there's how his soulmate is being weird.
Sanji's soulmate is pretty simple. Calm. Whatever his soulmate is up to (Sanji has guesses, but doesn't let them take root, because he doesn't want to have to completely rethink everything when they meet. And they will meet. His romantic heart is certain. He’s in a different ocean from where he was born, right? So he has an infinitely better chance of meeting them)—whatever his soulmate is up to, they have straight forward feelings about it. Sure, excitement and exhaustion and irritation and happiness are present, but they're under a thick, thick blanket of determination that makes the nuances hard to read. Sanji’s unsure if his soulmate is just extremely single-minded, or if Sanji is just shit at understanding these things. He wonders what his own emotions feel like, but he'll have to wait until he meets his soulmate to ask.
But lately, there's been a lot more going on through the bond. It's been like this ever since his soulmate got weak and tired a month ago. Uncomfortable. Dull pain. Tiredness. All underneath the determination of course. It lasted a week and got worse every day. Were they sick? It made Sanji anxious, an echo of his time on the rock. So he tried to send his soulmate all the affection and certainty that he received during that time, but he's not sure how much good it did.
His soulmate got better, thank fuck. But since then, things have been more complicated. Under the determination, their emotions are muddled and hard to parse. Sanji's not used to parsing complex emotions from his soulmate, so he has no idea what's going on.
Sanji has no idea how to help. Or if help is needed.
For all his talk about how beautiful soulmate bonds are, he's really bad at this.
And Zeff is bitching about the thickness of his batter. He cannot be serious right now. Sanji's going to break somebody's face, and it's going to be ugly.
He's saved from what promises to be a really nasty fight by the chore boy charging in and ranting about...something. One of his crewmates was hurt. A warlord was involved? That didn't make sense. But Luffy is freaking out and his friend is dying, and Sanji is moving, and the next thing he knows he's following Luffy and the old man onto the ship with the sheep head, his arms full of the fattest yellow-tail he could find.
Because why not?
Chore Boy's whole crew has gathered in their ship: Luffy, the beautiful woman, One Beer, and Two Beers. He thinks it's One Beer on the table. Oh fuck, that slash looks bad. There's blood everywhere and the man is pale and...and—
Sanji's soulmark burns.
He nearly drops the yellow-tail.
With everyone's attention on the dying man and fighting about whose fault this is and Zeff stitching him up, Sanji hides his wrist below the table, slides up the cuffs of his sleeves and thumbs back the thick, stretchy band of his watch just enough to look.
His soulmark is moving. It twists around itself, forming a row of Xs, forming shapes he never expected.
None of this is what he expected, what he’d dreamed of when he imagined eyes caught across a room, awed and hesitant smiles, bashful greetings before he held out his hand to take theirs.
His head jerks back up, gaping at his soulmate in horror.
His soulmate is dying. He's found him, and he's going to die.
Eyes snapping to his soulmate's wrist, he finds it completely uncovered, lying there limp at his side, the soulmark moving.
A roar hums in his ears as his feet drag him closer. He can’t help but stare at it: the ocean in thin, tender lines, a fish leaping in and out of the water over and over as waves crash around it.
He never thought his soul would look beautiful like that, and his heart swells with it.
Then he realizes: his soulmate is unconscious. But his mark is moving. Because his soulmate saw him. But his soulmate didn't see him right now. Because he's unconscious.
One Beer. His soulmate saw him last night. At the table.
And Sanji hadn't bothered to even look at him.
Oh fuck. No. Nooooooo.
How could he have—He didn’t—
(Honestly, this is fucking typical. Of course, Sanji would fuck up one of the most important moments of his life. Of course.)
Did One Beer—Zoro! They said Zoro, right? What a beautiful name! Fuck—Did Zoro tell his friends? Is that why Luffy pushed so hard to get him to join the crew? That doesn't feel right, but Luffy is very weird.
Is that why Zoro challenged a Warlord of the Sea? Zoro thought his soulmate rejected him and he felt he had nothing to lose?!
Sanji wants to throw up, but he holds it down by focusing on his soulmate's face. His lips, his eyelashes, his cheekbones, his...stupid looking hair.
"Guys," Two Beers says, and there's a note of sharp panic in his voice that cuts through Sanji’s internal meltdown and has everyone instantly on edge. Like maybe the warlord is back or there's yet another wound that he's only just noticed and it's bleeding more than any of the other wounds.
"What?" the beautiful woman snaps. She's stressed. Reasonably so. She's already snapped at Luffy and Zeff, and she looks like if anything else goes wrong she's going to kill everyone in the room. (Sanji might help her.)
"Is that what I think it is?" Two Beers points at Zoro's wrist.
A stiff silence falls over all of them, everyone's eyes locked on the moving soulmark and its unmoving bearer. (Except Zeff, who sighs and keeps stitching.)
"How—" the woman says. "Wait."
"How long has that been there?"
That answers that then: Zoro didn't tell his crewmates. Something in Sanji loosens that they don't hate him and Luffy asked him to join the crew on his own merits. But also, Zoro kept it to himself. Zoro's soulmate rejected him, and he wasn't going to mention it to anyone.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
"Has that been there since last night?" the beautiful woman asks. "Was he covering it?"
"He never covers it."
The crew stares at each other, none of them sure if it wasn't there or if they just hadn't paid enough attention. Sanji really has no room to judge them there.
"It—Noooooo," Two Beers says. Then, "It can't. Right?"
"I don't..." The beautiful woman shakes her head and looks down at Zoro in horror and confusion.
"Zoro's soulmate is a Warlord of the Sea?!"
Sanji's head snaps up. What?! Zoro’s soulmate is most certainly not a warlord!
"And they fought in a duel to the death?" the beautiful woman asks. She sounds even more horrified now.
Two Beers grabs anxiously at his hair through his bandana. "Mihawk did keep asking if he was sure. He said Zoro had a lot to live for."
"And then didn't kill him outright." This is apparently enough to convince the beautiful woman. She looks down at Zoro's face and in despair hisses, "You idiot."
"But why would they do that?"
There's a moment of silence before Luffy breathes, "It's his dream."
That sets the beautiful woman off again. She throws her arms in the air with a painfully dramatic eye roll.
Sanji needs to say something. Correct them. Step up and claim his soulmate the way he failed to do last night.
But Zoro hadn't mentioned him. So the words die in his throat.
Luffy leans over to get a better look at Zoro's wrist. "His soulmark's pretty. Do you think Mihawk likes fish?"
The beautiful woman purses her lips and crosses her arms over her chest.
"Maybe we shouldn't be looking at it," Sanji says, speaking up for the first time. His voice sounds brittle. "Privacy, you know?"
"He never covers it," Two Beers says, and Sanji's heart tightens in his chest.
But the beautiful woman agrees. She moves to take off her own bracelets, but Sanji gets there first. He touches his soulmate's hand—clammy and cold and distressing. But he's careful not to touch the soulmark as he stretches out the watch band around the tips of his fingers and snaps it into place. It lies over the dancing waves, covering them completely.
His own soulmark is still hidden in his sleeve.
Zoro never covers his. Sanji always does.
When Zoro is bandaged up, Sanji tries to linger, but Zeff snaps at him to come along and leave them be, and it'd be weird for him to ask to stay, right? He decides to come back soon to feed them all. Offer to take someone's place watching over Zoro so they can get a break.
Back on the Baratie, he locks himself in his room and rolls up his sleeve. For a long, long time, he watches his soulmark move. The black marks strong and bold. The pattern twists together, again and again, around and around, binding him tight to a man who he’s let down without even meeting. Binding him to a man who is dying.
#
Zoro wakes up feeling like absolute shit. And why the hell is he wearing a watch?