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Usopp wasn’t like, a perfectionist or anything. If he was, then he would actually never know a moment of peace. Not that there were many of those on the Sunny in the first place.
When he did get time to himself, he was never able to relax. His hands had to be doing something. His mind had to be doing something. Usopp always knew if it would be the kind of night where he would toss and turn and lay in the hammock for three hours before finally falling into the same version of sleep that small prey animals had.
So he was awake.
The only sounds right now were the creak of Sunny as she rolled across the waves, the occasional slap of water against the single porthole in his workshop, and his own breathing. His own breathing always sounded so loud.
So no, Usopp wasn’t a perfectionist. He just needed to make sure that the stuff he made worked. That if some freak was barreling straight at him with a some stupid ability from their fuck-you-no-mi, he would be able to exploding star them so fast that they got sent to the other side of the island, Bartholomew Kuma style. He needed to trust the things that he made so he didn’t have to trust in himself.
And to be clear, it wasn’t that he didn’t! Trust himself, that was. He did. How could he not, when he was the greatest sniper in the world, feared by enemies and admired by children across all the blues?
It was only that it was a lot easier to plan in the quiet of the ship now than to have to think of how to face his opponents in the chaos of battle. That was Luffy’s thing. Zoro’s thing.
Not that he couldn’t do those things. He was capable of it, of trusting in his abilities honed after two years of training, but. You know. There were bad days. A bad sleep. A bad meal (though never from Sanji, not even Usopp could fuck that up). It’s just that a lot of things could go wrong. And they often did go wrong, because they were the Straw Hat Pirates and that’s just how things went for them.
But making sure this one exploding star worked? He could make sure that when he fired Kabuto, that at the very least that could never, ever go wrong. That if nothing about him was true, maybe Kabuto could be.
Usopp hasn’t been on the main deck since dinner, and the clock he kept in his workshop had been knocked off the wall and shattered after Luffy agreed to test drive one of his new weapons—which, now that Usopp thought of it, made no sense. Why would he ever use one of Usopp’s inventions?
The point was that it was probably really late, he just had no idea how late it was. The bags under his eyes felt like someone was hanging off of them. Now that he thought of it, it was because he had spent last night and the night before last just like he spent this one. Alone and awake, trying to get this fucking. Thing. To work. Were these the wrong kind of seeds? This is what he got for trusting Nami to not cheap out on—
“Usopp?”
“SHIT!” Part of the powder concoction he had been working on was blown across his entire worktable. It smelled like mildew.
At the very least, Usopp was 80% sure it was safe to ingest in small amounts. Actually, he was feeling a little light headed already, so maybe 70%.
The powder settled in the air just as Usopp turned around to yell at whoever interrupted his work. Zoro—alongside the rest of the room—was tinted slightly blue beyond the lens of Usopp’s goggles.
“Uh, sorry,” Zoro said. “Did I screw something up?”
Usopp deflated at the spoken apology, exceedingly rare on the Sunny, especially from Zoro. Zoro was hard to stay mad at. Kinda felt like being mad at a large, elderly cat.
“No, it’s…it’s fine. Probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.” Usopp turned back to his workstation and adjusted his goggles.
“What’re you working on?” Zoro asked. His voice sounded closer.
“New exploding star. Supposed to cause temporary nausea, but I can’t get the mix right. Every time I work on it I can’t smell anything for the next few hours.” Usopp hazards a few sniffs just to test his theory. Smells like nothing. Not to mention the fact that he was losing a bit of feeling at the tips of his fingers. 50% safe, then. It was fine, Chopper would take care of it.
Zoro leaned against the table and crossed his arms. His forearms were all veiny from the workout that he almost certainly had just concluded. “Is this what you’ve been working on the past few days?”
Usopp didn’t know Zoro paid attention to things like that. He wanted to look up from his work, but he was afraid that Zoro would be all judgy, for some reason. His eyes stayed trained on the seeds. “Yeah, why?”
“It’s late.”
“How late?”
“Late enough for curly-cue to start his morning routine.”
Usopp felt the full weight of eleven straight hours of tinkering weigh his eyelids. He looked down at his hands caked in powder and spores, the desk littered with sketches and diagrams of his ideas that would never work, the plate of fruit delivered to him by a disembodied hand that he had left untouched because he was too busy to eat.
Tomorrow (or today) was supposed to be more sailing through empty sea, but knowing his luck there would probably be a ship full of devil-fruited bounty hunters or a newly awakened, ultra powerful sea king. And then his new exploding star wouldn’t be ready for it because he spent the past few nights sitting at this very spot waging chemical war on himself. This couldn’t be good for his nervous system.
A moment passed before a pair of hands lifted Usopp’s goggles from his face.
“Hey, do you want me to lose a—”
Oh.
Zoro was the first thing in twelve hours that was not goggle-tinted blue. He was close enough that Usopp could smell the sweat and sea salt of him.
Nami cut Zoro’s hair earlier, so it was a little shorter than usual on the sides. It looked soft, like one of his plants that grew fuzz on its leaves. He was maybe growing a stubble too, but Usopp was like, 80% sure that he used his gigantic-ass swords to shave when everyone was asleep.
“Dude,” Zoro said, suddenly glancing at the single porthole, though the ocean was too choppy to see anything but the tide. “Are you good?”
Usopp was simultaneously exhausted and the most wired he had been since dinner. “I need those,” he said weakly, reaching for his goggles.
Zoro lifted them out of reach. “Not to sleep.”
“I…can’t.”
“Why not?”
Dangerous sea kings. A surprise visit from a marine admiral. A ship of bounty hunters. His overwhelming sense of mediocrity.
“I need t’ finish—” Usopp’s next yawn was bigger than the rest of the sentence. “The thing. The star.”
“Rest is important.”
Usopp half-snorted. “Sure, Mr. I Lift Dumbbells Under The Dinner Table.”
“I make up for it by sleeping a lot. You might have noticed.” Zoro said.
Usopp was pretty sure the entire Grand Line had noticed. He was honestly surprised that Zoro’s bounty poster wasn’t a photo of him dozing off on the Sunny.
“It’s not a forever thing,” Usopp said. “I just need to get this right before tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow.”
“Ugh. Don’t be one of those people.”
“Quit stalling. Let’s go to bed.”
Usopp registered a spark of something, but it fizzled out before he could ruminate it further. He was too busy facing the reality that was his desk. It hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. Maybe he should at the very least do that before going to bed. Tidy up the papers a bit. And his books were also everywhere, too. Maybe he’d dewey-decimal system them.
“I caaaan’t,” Usopp said, and it really was despair that made his voice sound so irritating even to his own ears. He had no idea why Zoro was bothering to put up with him. “I have to clean uuuup.”
“Clean up tomorrow. Bed now.”
More sparks fired but died out in Usopp’s brain before they could reach the next synapse. Usopp did manage to look at Zoro though, and the open, completely earnest look on Zoro’s face made him want to burst into tears.
What Usopp had been afraid of was precisely true. Zoro was judging.
But it wasn’t in a “I hate Usopp” way, or even a “I tolerate Usopp” way. It was in a “I care about Usopp way.” Because Zoro could have easily gone straight to bed after finishing his watch, but instead he chose to try and coax Usopp from the early stages of spore-induced paralysis. 30%.
Maybe Usopp wasn’t bursting into tears because the lack of sleep was already loosening the water from his eyes. Usopp wanted to hug Zoro but remembered he was still covered in powder and spores.
“But my arms.” Usopp heard the words before he realized they came from his mouth.
This gave Zoro pause. He appraised the desk, the notes, the powder, the seeds, the spore, Usopp.
“Okay. Bathroom first. Rinse off and then bed.” He said it slowly, like he might spook Usopp otherwise. Which was not. An unfair assessment.
Usopp shut his eyes tight to a) summon the energy to get up and face the inevitable Leg Tingles that always happened when he stayed at his desk for too long, and b) will the water from his eyes to quit with their whole deal.
He uncrossed his legs and touched his bare feet to the floor. The floorboards slightly groaned, but only because according to Franky, “A floor that creaks is a floor that bends, and a floor that bends is not a floor that snaps.” Sunny was like Merry in many regards, but that one especially. Usopp owed Franky thanks. God he was tired.
Zoro watched Usopp get to his feet, and yeah, there were the tingles. He’d just need to walk a bit and it would be fine. But he couldn’t feel his toes. That was maybe the spores. It’s fine. He’d walk it off.
Usopp took one (1) singular step and tripped over air. Zoro caught him mid stumble, and Usopp got a face full of pectorals. Comfy. Warm. Safe. Usopp yawned again.
Zoro started. “Um–”
“The hair on your arms…is also green?”
Zoro blinked and furrowed his eyebrows. “...Yeah? Why wouldn’t it be?”
“...Nevermind.”
At some point on the way to the bathroom, Usopp had regained feeling in his extremities. Still, it was kind of nice to be holding Zoro’s arm for balance that he didn’t actually need. Usopp’s cheek was pressed against his shoulder as they walked. Zoro, to his credit, let him. He didn’t even say anything. Maybe just walking a little stiffly, but that always happened whenever Usopp attached himself to Zoro.
Once in the bathroom, Usopp knelt over the bathtub and rinsed his arms under the lower faucet. Zoro handed him a towel once he was done.
“Look okay?” Usopp asked.
“Uh. Turn around for a sec?”
Usopp did as he was told. Zoro took the towel and dabbed it at a few spots near his shoulders.
“You. Had some there.”
Great. Usopp had managed to get powder behind him, somehow. Hopefully nothing had gotten in his hair, but that was a tomorrow problem. Today problem. Whatever.
“Oh, thanks! Anything else off back there?” As long as plants weren’t growing from his scalp, it could be dealt with later. Usopp rolled his shoulders and cracked his joints, satisfied with himself. He heard Zoro let out a very loud puff of air.
“You look good. I mean fine. I mean. Your back is fine.”
“Cool. Thanks!”
On the way back to the men’s quarters, Usopp swayed when Sunny swayed.
“How are you—” Usopp punctuated with a yawn, “—not sleepy?”
“Lots of naps,” Zoro said, and even gave him a close-mouthed smile. Usopp kind of missed when Zoro would laugh more.
The sky above was not as light as Usopp had expected, considering that it was supposed to be early enough for Sanji to be awake.
Lo and behold, by the time they got to the men’s quarters, Sanji was in his bunk and knocked out. Their footsteps had been masked by the sound of Luffy’s snoring, so their arrival only caused Sanji to turn on his other side.
“Thought you said Sanji was up by now,” Usopp said.
“Like I give a fuck if the cook is awake,” Zoro said, proceeding to lay in his bunk. “‘Night.”
“Buh?” Usopp said intelligently. Synapses firing. Trying so hard. They’ll get there maybe in the morning. But right now Usopp really didn’t want to figure out how to move his legs up some fucking ladder to the top bunk. Zoro’s it was. Usopp joined him in laying down.
“Night,” Usopp said.
Zoro laid very still for a moment.
Wait. Had Usopp pissed him off? Annoyed him too much? Was this the last straw before he told Usopp to get his shit together and go in his own bed?
But then, because the bed was too small if they didn’t get up close and personal, Zoro looped an arm around Usopp’s waist. Still warm.
It could have been seconds or hours later, but at some point Usopp was falling asleep. He caught himself before he was fully under.
“Thanks,” Usopp said.
(An hour or so later, Zoro finally fell asleep while staring at the ceiling, willing his heart to beat at a normal speed.)