Chapter Text
Zoro blinked harshly against the burning sensation in his eyes. He’d been traveling to Zou with the samurai and the rest of his crew. There was a fleeting moment of pain that registered on a level so deep that he felt his blood go cold. He knew Law had noticed it, the doctor stealing a quick glance between the people assembled before tilting his head towards limited privacy.
“Roronoa-ya, you look like you’re going to be ill,”
There was a vice around his heart, this pain.
This trauma.
He hasn’t felt this feeling since he was a child. He knew that this feeling didn’t belong to him. This bone deep, chilling fear belonged to Sanji.
“Something’s wrong,” He gasped, hand flying to his chest as tears rose. He could feel himself shaking. He couldn’t draw a breath, the edges of his vision were tinged in dark smudges that were moving rapidly towards the center, his vision tunneling.
He could vaguely hear muffled and warped sounds of distress above him. Law’s hands were on his, shifting him to a more comfortable position as he barked at him to focus on his voice. Law’s face pinched as Luffy all but clamored over him to Zoro. Zoro would have laughed about his sudden realization if he could draw in a breath.
His heart felt like it had shattered in two. Whatever the others faced on Zou, they would be too late.
Zoro awoke with a groan, head situated in Robin’s lap, Luffy’s fingers threaded through his own. Franky hovering over them too.
“Zoro,” Robin began, her voice soft like she was soothing a startled animal.
He realized he probably looked like one.
“What do you remember?” Law asked from his left. He seemed the most sympathetic Zoro had ever seen him.
“I think I passed out.”
Law nodded, and Zoro caught the concerned glaces the others shared between themselves.
“Do you remember yelling anything?”
“No, but is that why my throat feels like shit?” He felt like he’d been gargling razor blades.
“Zoro-ya,” Law had started but all of a sudden he had his arms full of Luffy, whose face was splotchy like he’d been crying. The tear tracks a wet, angry red contrasting his natural tanned, almost glowing skin.
“I’m so sorry. If only I had realized. I’ve been a terrible captain,”
Zoro blinked in confusion, arms gently cradling Luffy.
“Little Bro we had no idea,”
“Had no idea, what?”
Usopp regarded him with an expression he’d never seen before. Pity, remorse, empathy, and something else that unsettled Zoro. None of his crew were supposed to look like that.
“Some of them had no idea that you and Cook-san were soulmates,” Robin finished for him.
“Oh,” He said dumbly.
“Luffy was a blubbering mess, babbling about how he never would have separated them if he’d known, he didn’t want his nakama to hurt.
“Luffy, it’s not your fault.” Luffy burrowed his face further into the crook of Zoro’s neck, mumbling that Zoro was lying.
“It really isn’t. We didn’t tell anyone yet because we wanted to keep it a secret. We wanted some time to ourselves to understand one another, to cherish the bond. We’re pirates, we know what kind of dangers lurk on the open seas. We knew that something might happen, hell stuff already has. But,”
Zoro took a steadying breath. He needed to find a way to bring this up without betraying Sanji or his past.
“Sanji didn’t have an easy childhood, and what I felt before passing out. I haven’t felt that since we were children, and even then it had never hit the level of emotional pain that this did. Something went very wrong,” He said solemnly.
Law looked perplexed.
“Roronoa-ya, I don’t mean to be insensitive but we need to know what kind of danger we are going to be walking into.”
Franky had started to protest, he was a total romantic and was still mourning Zoro and Sanji’s mutual pain. Zoro noted that Robin soothingly ran her hand over Franky’s and he settled a bit.
Things were starting to make a lot of sense.
Zoro thought through the sensations since that part of the crew had spilt off and gone ahead to Zou. He tuned out the sensations of their final battle at Dressrosa.
“It was emotional. They were blind-sided by something. The physical injuries seemed to be minimal, but something happened to him. He wasn’t prepared, and it gutted him.”
Law nodded, obviously trying to piece together what happened.
Luffy shifted, leaning back to look at Zoro. The exhaustion weighing him down reminded him of the pain he’d taken from him back at Thriller Bark.
“Luffy, I hope you know, none of this is your fault.”
“But I needed to be stronger. I needed to be better. I needed to see it before you. I needed to protect you,” His voice broke around the words, and Zoro saw the way Law tensed, trying to hide the pain.
Arriving in Zou had been nothing short of a miracle after the emotional roller coaster. Zoro had to endure the merciless teasing from the rest of the crew about their relatinship and how dumb they were fighting with one another. Robin was a traitor and didn’t vouch for him. He’d heard from Sanji that she’d pretty much known the entire time.
But stepping onto Zou, bidding goodbye to their ride, it all became real.
Zoro felt himself on edge, coiled tight and ready to snap.
The others seemed to note the tension in his frame, the group solemnly trudging forward to find their friends and supposed allies.
Finding the mink tribe had been nothing short of a miracle, especially considering how large the “island” was.
Law had slipped away to find his crew, leaving the Straw Hats to their own reunion.
Seeing Chopper and Nami come racing towards them had been something else. Even though they hadn't been separated that long, reunions were always worthy of celebration. Zoro wouldn’t admit to them that he was desperately searching for a familiar head of blonde hair.
The way Nami’s face fell when Luffy prompted about Sanji, the way Chopper seemed to deflate.
Zoro felt like he couldn’t breathe again.
He was sometimes slow on the uptake. He knew that there was a pattern. He knew something was amiss and there was a glaringly obvious reason. He knew that the events were connected.
It wasn’t until hearing that Sanji had left that the dam broke.
It was like a howling storm, roaring winds tearing his ears apart leaving him alone with just his mind.
He could tell that something had happened, but he isn't registering anything. He felt something hard tearing into his knees, felt the world tilt.
There was shouting, and cursing. He could have sworn someone screamed. It sounded a lot like Nami, there was crying. Luffy? Usopp? Franky? Maybe it was him? He couldn't tell anymore.
Zoro’s face scrunched up, he was doing it again. He was supposed to be strong. He was supposed to be the pillar of support. But here he was falling apart, disintegrating as soon as he heard that name. That damned name.
Vinsmoke.
Oh Zoro had a few thoughts on the Vinsmokes after what they’d done to his soulmate. He’d vowed to end them all, to hunt them to the ends of the earth to chase away Sanji’s demons. The ones that abused him so thoroughly as a child.
For the second time that day, Zoro awoke disoriented, but this time it was obvious he’d been crying. His face burned, his eyes stung, his nose was stuffed to hell.
He pushed himself to sit up, breathing hard and trying to blink through the feeling.
Someone pushed something into his hands, telling him to drink. It didn’t smell like sake.
He must have made a face, because that was Chopper’s voice begging him to drink. He was dehydrated.
When his vision wasn’t so fuzzy he recognized that he was in some sort of makeshift hospital bed, the rest of the crew lingering around him.
He could see the devastation in his crewmates faces.
“Zoro,” Nami had started. Her voice trembling between them.
He just opened his arms, knowing that they’d find more comfort in the action than him. But he didn't know if he would be strong enough for the next leg of this journey alone. They were nakama, and they would always support one another. They would be his pillar.
“You said Vinsmoke?” He asked. He cringed at the sound of his voice with the others. God he sounded terrible. Like that time he'd put just ice in the blender to piss off Sanji. The assault on the ears, thats the way his voice felt.
“Yeah, they had something over him, he had to go.” Someone answered.
“Has he ever told you about his family? Before Zeff found him?”
They all looked at Zoro, face’s furrowed in confusion, and even curiosity.
“I thought Zeff was his family?”
“Zeff isn’t his blood father, but Sanji knows better than any of us, that blood doesn’t define family. Zeff is more of a father to him than his biological father had ever been.”
Zoro remembered that day, prior to the nightmare at Sabaody where he and Sanji lay tangled up in the sheets, their voices hushed as the crew slept around them. Sanji took a drag of his cigarette, holding it until his lungs burned. He knew eventually he’d need to tell someone.
He knew he should tell Zoro. The mirrored scars on his soulmate’s body only reiterated that.
“Zoro, I need to tell you something. It’s-” He shivered. He hated how weak he felt in the face of such a feat.
Years and seas later Judge still held power over Sanji, over his happiness. Even though he escaped with the help of his sister, the only one of those monsters who ever seemed to care for their “normal” brother, he still had a prickling fear that he’d only ever escaped because of Judge let him. He’d already told him that Sanji was no son of his.
Zoro closed the distance between them, sensing Sanji’s distress. He peppered kisses over Sanji’s face, trying to force the feeling of calmness and peace over his other half. It didn’t always work but Sanji always seemed to know what he was doing and appreciated it nonetheless.
Sanji huffed a laugh, mumbling something about Zoro being like a lazy cat, as the green haired man stretched out, and shuffled closer to Sanji’s warmth.
“If it bothers you that much we don’t need to talk about it. It can wait until you’re ready.”
“I’ll never be ready for this, but you deserve to know.”
“That’s alright, you know that I’ll still love you no matter what.”
Sanji makes a face, ashing his cigarette in the tray.
“Have I ever told you about my life before Zeff?”
“Your old man?”
“Sort of, family isn’t defined by blood. I can’t believe that it is.”
Zoro tilted his head, settling over Sanji, he knew when he got anxious he fidgeted, so Zoro urged him to embrace the tactileness. Sanji’s fingers trembled through his hair, tracing his jaw, flicking his earrings.
“I’m the third son of the Vinsmoke family.”
Zoro blinked. He had heard of the underground powerhouse family in the north blue. Most never dared to speak their name. It was only ever whispered either in awe or in fear. Their scientific progression was incomparable. To think that Sanji was a part of that family. Zoro thought that might explain some of the cook’s freakish strength, but he’d never ask.
Zoro let himself recall any information regarding the main family he could.
“But there’s only-”
“Four children, one girl and three boys.”
Zoro stared at him, Sanji’s gaze was distant.
“I was never like my siblings. They grew into their freakish abilities and I lagged behind. I was normal. They never let me forget it. I was like my mother. But my father. He hated that. He hated me. So because of his obvious distaste of me, my brothers took to tormenting me. Part of the reason I had wanted to hate you, aside from the recklessness,” he said with a half-assed glare at Zoro.
“The other reason was that one of my brothers had green hair. Seeing your hair had been a reminder that even though I was free of them they still held the chains on my freedom. I know they’re still lurking.”
“Part of the reason I never let myself have a physical bounty picture was because I knew that they would remember that I’d made it out. It's part of why I hated Duval. But I know that they’re out there. When my mother died.”
Sanji took a shuddering breath. He forced the feelings of guilt that still plagued him. The lingering sensation that he had been responsible for her death.
“After my mother died it got worse. They’d lock me up, forced me to wear that stupid helmet to hide my face because they were ashamed of me. They’d told the world that I’d died. So that I became invisible to the world around us. They let the world forget I existed so I could be some sort of toy for my family to torment. I’ve never forgiven them for not letting me attend my mother’s funeral. I don’t think I ever will,” Sanji whispered.
“Are they the ones who did all those things to you as a kid? The pain and the-”
“Yes,” Sanji said, voice trembling as his hands shook.
Zoro moved Sanji’s hands from his hair to hold them in front of him, he kissed his way up his fingers, mouthing over the palms, nipping slightly at the wrists.
“Zoro,” Sanji started, voice thick with emotion.
“I’ll kill them for what they did to you. No one, and I mean no one should ever have to go through that Sanji. No one deserves that, much less an innocent child. So unless you’d rather be the one to finish them off, I plan on ending each and everyone of them. Maybe not your sister because she gave you that chance at freedom. But the rest. They don’t know what's coming for them.”
“Zoro,” Sanji had said, eyes glinting in the dim light of the bunk.
“I know that Sanji hates talking about it, about what they did to him and how much he suffered while he was a part of that family. But it kills me to have to break my word to let you know just how awful things are about to get.”
The crew looked upset, and Zoro couldn’t blame them.
“Sanji was the outcast of his family, they tortured him, manipulated him, abused him. The physical and psychological damage, that’s-” Zoro felt the lingering pain weighing him down.
“No one should ever have to go through that, especially not a child. I don’t care if I have to go alone but he cannot stay with him.”
“Even if he fights us, no matter what we need to get him… because they’ve broken him before. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if they did it again.”
Zoro felt the tears streaming down his face. He was sure this was the most he’d cried since that day at the Baratie.
“I can feel him, that connection we have as soulmates. I can tell he’s barely holding on. I know he would never willingly go back to them, not after what they did to him, so they are threatening him with something. Apparently something he’d rather die over than let them have. So that makes me think its one of three things.”
“Us, Zeff, or you,” Luffy whispered.
The collective gasp drew Zoro’s attention back to the others.
The plan came together quite nicely, aside from the whole, Sanji engaged to one of the Emperor’s daughters.
Luffy didn’t try to stop him, he actually begged Zoro to accompany him, Nami, Chopper, and Brook to Whole Cake to rescue Sanji.
Parting ways with the rest of the crew so soon after reuniting was challenging, but they knew that they needed to get Sanji back.
A couple days into their journey to Whole Cake, Zoro had started to feel it. The full force of beatings that Sanji had felt as a child. Except this time the hits were harder, more precise, more deadly.
Zoro wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to Sanji.
He’d made Sanji promise, especially after the two year split, not to go where he couldn follow.
Zoro let his eyes trace the unfamiliar constellations in the sky, let himself pray to a god he didn’t believe in that his soulmate could hold out a little longer.
“ I’ll find you, ” He promised to the crisp night air, the stars twinkling against an endless sea of midnight was his only answer.