Title: Sail Away With Me

Fandom: One Piece

Pairing: Zoro/Tashigi (mention of Zoro/Kuina)

Themes: All of them

Rating: PG 13

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, they´re Eichiro Oda´s.

Summary: Zoro has achieved his goal. Now what?

(dedicated to alkanet )

*

7. superstar

There is not much for him to do these days, except wander around, kicking some dust into the already dusty streets. The days are companiably long and Zoro enjoys a relatively mediocre happiness. He looks for new challenges in every corner, he does every good action he can think of, he lives in kind enemity with the marines, tolerating them as the tolerate Zoro, tainting them and killing the time with cheap simulacrum of battles.

Luffy is now the King of pirates.

He himself has become (almost unwittingly, he was too busy trying to survive to notice it) the best swordman in the world.

Now what? he wonders sometimes, but calm can be incredibly numbing, and there is nobody to fight against.

Luffy doesn´t have need of him: he has a reputation that scare off any threats, he no longer has his straw hat (he returned it to his real owner) but he has Nami´s kisses instead.

Nobody needs him anymore, not really. Not even himself. He has accomplished everything he had set for. Days are long and cast a grey light on things, like clouds.

Sometimes he fantasizes about buying a ship and sailing away once more, on his own; and sometimes he laughs at his own illusions, teen fantasies, nothing more, teen silliness and Zoro is more than a grown man now.

The sea roars, just dabbing at the edge of town and Zoro likes the sound. It sounds like chance, like change, he wonders if they are not the same. He never cared for semiotics. He dresses in black now, it gives him a feral look. He is thinner now, leaner. His muscles are as strong as ever but chiselled elegantly, like those of a Greek statue.

He doesn´t talk much these days; simply because there is no one to talk to.

When he meets Tashigi she is the first person he has talked to in days, and his voice comes out coarse as his manners.

16. invincible; unrivaled

"That is Roronoah Zoro," many whispers as he passes by, but then soon forget about it.

He doesn´t really mind the rumors (there is even pride to them, for the villagers apply such extreme adjetives to his legend) but they keep people from talking to him, out of fear or sometimes out of admiration, or despise; and even a pirate feels alone sometimes.

Zoro tells himself this is the reason he doesn´t mind Tashigi around, the reason why he talks back when she speaks to him.

2. news; letter

"I didn´t know you could read."

"I can guess."

"I didn´t mean it as an insult."

"I can guess that, too."

"What does that mean?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?"

"Why does everything has to mean something else?"

"..."

"See?"

"What´s that, then?"

"Why do I have to tell you?"

"You don´t. Whatever you like."

"It´s a letter from Luffy."

"I didn´t know he could write."

"You are annoying. Some times I don´t know if I want to slap you or k-..."

"Go on. What?"

"No. It doesn´t matter."

"No, really, Roronoah. You don´t know if you want to slap me or..."

"Nevermind."

"Okay. Be my guest."

21. violence

It´s been a while since he has fought and he fears he is losing skill.

Tashigi offers to help him train.

When their swords clash Zoro doesn´t have to hold back as much as he had imagined. Tashigi is an excellent swordswoman and has grown incredibly strong and fast over the years.

For a moment Zoro stops to reflect that Kuina would be happy to know such a woman as Tashigi exists. She would be proud.

12. in a good mood

"I know there is not much work lately," Smoker tells her one morning, when he catches her sliding off the office. "But you´ve been slacking off a lot."

Tashigi grins sheepishly and that infuriates Smoker.

She has been smiling a lot lately, and he cannot resent that fact so he lets her go this morning, too.

11. gardenia

It is Tashigi who tells him that this town used to be called "the city of wind" long ago, and Zoro isn´t surprised, the way her hair gets into her face at the worst times, and Zoro wants to brush it off, wants to reach and touch her face with his finger. He thinks one would be enough; one, two fingertips against her pale skin and he would be satisfied.

The city of wind, Zoro ponders. catching whirlwinds in his hands. Everything here smells of earth turn over and over, of bruised flowers.

14. radio-cassette player

Music comes from out of the windows, half-open, the chores resting sweetly on the charged summer air.

People run downtown, towards the festivities. In days like these, of children being carried over their parent´s shoulders, of clear evenings and clear midnights where you can see each and all of the stars, the air doesn´t seem sea-salty but sweet and thick.

These are such peaceful times and such a peaceful place that people still stare at Zoro´s swords and then look away, pretending they never peaked in the first place, praying Zoro never noticed.

There is music coming out from wide-open windows, and there are people dancing in the streets, and people rushing down, towards the festivities.

While they walk side by side Tashigi wonders how it is that he spends so much with her, when it´s obvious by his behaviour that he despises her.

"I don´t. You know?"

"Mmm?"

"I don´t hate you."

She is alwarmed that he might read her mind but then she concludes that Zoro must be talking about something else, some other conversation that they´ve had.

He has told her he hated her more than once and more than twice, after all.

23. candy

Neither of them consider it a date; they are just two people in the town´s festival who happen to walk side by side and talk to each other. Nothing more.

Zoro concludes that the fair is small and bleak, after all the things he has seen. Tashigo doesn´t agree, thinks it´s rather nice.

(a gypsy offers to read Zoro´s palm; she says something, looking at Tashigi, about past lives and being lovers by heritance; Zoro withdraws his hand, bothered; Tashigi doesn´t believe a word but thanks the woman anyway; he is gone by then and she has to seep up to catch him down the street)

Sun turns to golden orange and Tashigi marvels at how quickly the day has come and gone, and she would like for them to stay this way forever. For a moment she really believes her own lie: that she has enough with this.

(he buys her some apples and sweets, he insists in paying, and keeps telling himself it means nothing, really nothing)

19. red

Sometimes Zoro wonders exactly how has he acquired such mastery at acting aloof.

Stay calm.

Keep cool.

He looks more important that down-to-earth necessities.

He pretends he doesn´t care because he cares too much.

It´s sedative, and it´s a self-preservation mechanism. Maybe it´s a gift due to his quiet nature, maybe it´s the way he always seems to be bothered by the sun, eyes narrowed to block it off when not plainly shut.

He is aware of how many things are wrong underneath. Aware of the way he wants to pull Tashigi down on the ground, most of the time, violently (he dreams about dirt under his fingernails, of kisses so rough and hard that there is blood in his mouth, her red blood, blocking his vision no matter how tightly he shuts his eyelids together), unannounced, the way he wants to grab her wrist, red rings around her skin, the way he years touch her deeper and deeper, until he is painted with red from her insides.

It´s such a visceral feeling that it´s almost too easy to ignore it, its brutality. Tashigi is in his blood like wine, and he has not been drunk in years; he has forgotten how to deal with it.

It´s raw like dead meat.

15. perfect blue

Later she´d deny that she was looking for him on that particular day and that this fateful meeting was pure chance, as all of theirs, but no matter her intentions she found him, by the water, always by the water.

"Do you miss the sea? The adventures?"

Her tone it´s like they are younger than they are, like he has never been a pirate and she never a marine and it´s an innocent question.

"I´m stuck here, I feel," he says, not talking to her but to the wind that blows and messes with their hair, and Tashigi is an intruder, and a witness. "Sometimes I think I should just buy a small ship and leave, like I know there is something out there, maybe for me, maybe not, but out there, and waiting."

1. look over here

"You bought me a ship?"

Zoro tries to look surprised, and more than a bit vexed, as much as his raised eyeborw can convey.

"Well, you said..."

"I know what I said. I was just fantasizing out loud."

"Well, it´s yours, anyway."

Tashigi thinks she can hardy look sillier than she does now.

A couple of seconds pass and Zoro sees only blue; this piece of junk, this wreckage of cracked wood and traces of what used to be red paint, is really much more, it´s a promise, and Zoro sees only the sea, adventure, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

And then he quietly realizes that it´s the first time anybody has bougth him a gift. Tashigi looks expectant from the corner of his eyes, peeking at his vision.

"If I sail in this... thing... maybe you should come too," he says, non-chalant.

29. the sound of waves

"I´m sorry, I shouldn´t have said it. I didn´t mean it. Of course you wouldn´t sail on this ship. That was silly."

"Yes, silly," Tashigi repeats, trying not to sound as dissapointed as she feels.

But he needs help, that was true, Zoro concedes, and they go together to buy litres and litres of paint. They don´t speak the whole afternoon, but, fortunately, this is a city by the sea and silence are never quite like their name might imply; there is always the sea, galls, waves, the undertow...

6. the space between dream and reality

It is not the first time she dreams about him; but never so clearly, never the features became so defined, the gestures so alive.

Maybe, she reasons, it´s because of their meeting at the armoury.

The funny thing is Tashigi doesn´t remember the dream as a whole, just pieces of it.

Pieces of him.

She remembers the wind sweeping her off her feet, messing her hand; his strong arms holding the balance; his skin that was like bronze and felt like sand under her fingertips, familiar and adventurous at the same time.

When Tashigi wakes up she can still taste the salt from his lips.

5. "ano sa"

The painting (in wildgreen and aged red, they keep the same red as the original, as a memento of the old ship this new ship used to be) stretches for days and days; the ship is not very large but they are just two people and there are many layers to apply.

"Hey, you know? I dreamt about you last night."

His hand stops its rhythmic movements even before Zoro can process the words and their meaning.

"Mmm," he mutters carelessly, resuming his task. Tashigi has sat, cross-legged, by him, a thin brush painting over the cracks.

"I dreamnt that you kissed me," conversationally, so much that this time Zoro really thinks he has misheard. He doesn´t know that, despite her cool exterior right now, it has taken all of Tashigi´s courage to utter that sentence.

"Mmm-uh..." he mutters, and they continue doing things as usual.

There are many things in this world Zoro knows nothing about, and many he doesn´t want to know about, and Tashigi dreaming about him falls into that last question, even if only questionably so, but most of the time she is a brick and he is drowning not as slowly as he has predicted, when he still believed he could stop the impact against the water.

9. dash

"You see that dash on the wall of the building?" Tashigi offers, timidly pointing the spot out with her finger. Zoro realizes through her chipped fingernails that she´s been biting them.

"Yeah. What?"

"They used to hang pirates from there." Then she turns to him, a very strange smile upon her small lips, Zoror reflects. "Roronoah, you represent everything I hate."

Zoro shrugs.

"So what?"

She has dissapointment written all over her face. She takes off her glasses and pretends she cleans them.

"Nothing."

Of course nothing. This weakness makes her skin itch, like something of him crawled under her dermis, like an insect. She should hate him, but she wonders if she ever has, even for the briefest time, in Loguetown. Once, she thought she wanted to kill him; so much that her head would doble itself in pain, his mere existence nauseated her. She should have known it, then, that it was just a self-preservation mechanism. That the body has its own ways of telling something is wrong with the mind.

13. excessive chain

By the end of the month he is so used to hurting Tashigi in a million subtle ways that he doesn´t feel guilty anymore.

Tashigi is young but doesn´t heal like she used to (she spent the greater part of her life without Zoro, and even years have passed since their last encounter, but now, something inside her is beginning to miss him before he even leaves) and even Zoro is not so strong as to survive love twice, no matter how many swords he carries.

There are luxuries Zoro cannot afford, and they go like this (in no particular order):

- Hesitate in an attack.

- Refuse to follow Luffy´s orders (even if they don´t see each other anymore, Luffy could say "jump" and Zoro would shrugh and ask "how high?" without even betraying that laid-back attitude of his).

- Eat any kind of fish that look badass enough as to be poisonous; he knows, he´s fought many of those.

- Tashigi.

He ads the last one as an afterthought, because one month prior he didn´t know she would make into the list.

(Zoro is a lame liar, he knew from the first time he saw the girl kick the ass of two men twice her height and weight)

The only thing he has always craved, even more than power, is freedom, and Tashigi looks enough like a restriction to his.

Of course Tashigi has to get the tears out of her eyes first and pretend it´s the ocean salt stinging. Zoro doesn´t look at her, he never does these days, and Tashigi picks up the completely wrong vibe about it, so much that she is about to give up.

To the point that she thinks he is being intentionally rude and she grabs him around the wrist and almost says "if this is reverse psychology I don´t want to hear about it" before remembering that´s sort of the thing that you never really say out loud, and that Zoro is not supossed to know she loves him, anyway.

4. our distance and that person

"I think we should name it Kuina," Tashigi spills out suddenly, the brush dipping into the white paint as she tries very hard not to look up at Zoro.

Something flutters, like a caged dying animal, inside his chest. It hurts.

Zoro gets up.

She curses very softy under her breath. Goes after him.

But of course Tashigi being Tashigi and the universe having its unmutable laws, she trips and falls before she can catch up with him. The sound of her small body against the stones and the wet sand stops Zoro like no word could have.

He shakes his head and goes over to her, rather reluctantly.

"I´m sorry," Tashigi says, suddenly feeling very stupid, and horrified of feeling so in front of him. Zoro crouches by her, his clothes dampening, and examines her hand.

There is a small, clean, bleeding cut there but Tashigi is afraid he notices how much she is shaking, his fingers over her skin.

"I didn´t think..."

"No," Zoro stops her. "I think it´s a great name. Really. It´s just that..."

His head tilts from side to side, pensive, like he is searching for an answer buried deeply inside him. Without warning he bends and puts his mouth over the wound. For a moment Tashigi thinks he would lick it (the thought sends a tingle through her body, one she is getting used to, from so much time together) but he doesn´t. He just applies a small kiss to her palm.

Zoro does this, but still he won´t look up to face her.

"It´s just that I can´t... I can´t," he mutters.

17. kHz (kilohertz)

The radio in here should be of a higher frequency; but because Smoker is as looked down in the Navy as he is feared, the communications equipment is old and rusted. The Government keeps saying that it will be replaced shortly.

That, of course, never happens.

And since Smoker doesn´t seem to mind much anymore, neither does Tashigi.

She flips through the channels, hopelessly, carelessly too; more bored than contraried.

Zoro peaks through the door.

At first she doesn´t notice him and Zoro can watch her like a stranger, like they´ve never met (for a moment he wonders if another life would bring the same outcome, like a star plotted destiny, then dismisses it shaking his head, because he is too old for such silliness) and with a stranger´s eyes Zoro makes sure that her hair is darker that he has been pretending, and her eyes deeper, too, her face rounder and lovelier, and on the whole Zoro is a bit more in love than he has been pretending.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, still scanning for news.

"Mmm, you didn´t appear and there is still a lot to do about the ship."

She tilts her head, deciding if she should believe him.

"You missed me. Uh?"

Zoro takes enough time to deny it that the silence filling the air in between could be translated as affirmative.

3. jolt!

Tashigi has no wise reason to trust in him, yet she does; and it feels natural, like Zoro´s bigger body could protect her from everything.

He puts his hands around the back of her neck and they are cold, so much that Tashigi shivers and jerks a bit, startled.

"Why do I have the feeling I shouldn´t be here?"

"Because you shouldn´t?"

Shadows fall into the storage room in a way that prevents Smoker from seeing them when he enters. He comes with the same roaring energy he usually displays, making Tashigi jump for the second time; Zoro steadies her body with one hand on her shoulder and the other cupping her elbow, bending into her hair, her ear, and hissing an order, something she can´t make out but intrerprets like she should keep quiet.

Smoker goes around doing things as he usually does (loudly, full of life, a bit too loudly even) and each little noise punctuates at the end of each of Tashigi´s breaths.

Zoro´s hands slides from her elbow to her wrist and then takes hold of her fingers, entwinning them with his. His thumbs run over the lines of her palm. Tashigi catches her breath; it´s such a sweet, intimate gesture. There is no more teasing in his embrace.

A stack of paper falls over the desk, thudding.

She jumps at the sound (almost betraying their presence to the captain) and in doing so the curve of her exposed collarbone gets caught up in Zoro´s lips. The brushing is fleeting, but the heat remains, spreading like a disease over her skin.

When Smoker leaves Zoro pushes her hips to face her, eye to eye, and Tashigi notices something dark and endless in his glance, something that takes hold of him completely, shuts him off.

He leaves without a word, and explanation, an excuse.

26. if only I could make you mine

Tashigis imagines life after the boat is gone; how Zoro would leave and she would probably never see him again, or, more probably, she would see him once every five years or so, a bright flash, a remainder, a searing pain, and it would all be exactly like now. Painfully exactly.

27. overflow

She has asked for it, after all. There is no one else to blame here.

She wanted the whole story, and not just the ruins inside Zoro´s eyes. She knew a name, a title ("his best friend"), she was the one who decided to name the boat after her, she knew just a couple of certainties (she dies, she is not coming back) but now she wants to know if he still misses her.

Kuina and not the wreck she left behind.

That´s what she wants.

There hasn´t been a summer storm in this town for decades.

"Why are you crying now?"

Zoro always has this tone of exasperated impatience, hoarsely voiced.

"I´m not crying."

She is aware the tears run quietly and shamelessly down her cheeks but she´d die rather than wipe them in front of him.

Zoro puts his arms around her shoulders and pulls her to him. Tashigi is too startled to refuse him, and too tired to stop him.


28. Wada Calcium CD3

She is so small that when Zoro holds her his chin rest perfectly on the top of her head, perfectly fitting into each other. He breathes heavily, they are so pressed against the other that Tashigi can feel his breathing into her ribs.

Zoro brushes his lips against her hair, but dares nothing more.

She feels so small, like she hasn´t grown up properly but then he realizes that she is okay, she only feels small because she is trembling, and his long arms cover her whole.

30. kiss

And it´s so unexpected that she almost misses it, too busy with her own tears, her own despair, his absence in advance, that he always misses his lips and their taste and of course they taste of ocean, just like she has always imagined.

It´s so unexpected that it would almost be out of character for him, if not for the way his fist clenches into knots, the quiet intensity underneath, like the stream of a river, pulling her and pulling her to the sea.

10. #10

It is only at the tenth kiss that Zoro is able to stop and regain a bit of will, draw some breath.

The first kiss came as a shock for both of them; before he even knew they were kissing Zoro already had his eyes closed and his lips met warm and soft lips. He doesn´t know what came over him.

That first kiss had the excuse of surprise but then (and Tashigi had looked back at her, blinking furiously, like trying to wake up from a deep dream) he, and this time purpousedly, put his hand on the back of her neck and drove her into his body again.

There was no excuse for that one and he lost the count after a quick kiss in the corner of her lips and a couple of wet, slow-dives, long kisses on her throat, strange and marvellous noises under his lips, under her flesh and skin.

His hands wander of their own, when Tashigi archs her back he can count the vertebrae through the fabric of her shirt, pulling it and rolling it up so he can touch bare skin. His fingers are cold from sea-water and she shivers. The sixth kiss came with the biting of her lower lip, Zoro smiling against her.

When they can not tell their kisses apart Zoro begins brushing his body against Tashigi, with desperate intensity, as if he couldn´t get close enough, until his ribs pierce her breasts and they are drawing one and the same breath and Tashigi clutches at his shirt, her hands running up and down his back.

It´s only in the tenth kiss (her taste filling every corner of his body), when he feels Tashigi dangerously pressing herself against his erection, that Zoro realizes they can´t do this.

24. good night

"I have to go."

"Now?"

"Yes. Now. Right now."

"But..."

She holds his fingers in her hand, clinging to him. Zoro looks down at their hands together, he feels a bit sad. He feels a bit confused, too, and slightly nauseated, like the sea swelled under his feet.


25. fence

Tashigi truly believes she is not going to see him again.

She sits on the fence of a nice big house near the beach and imagines what kind of life people inside lead. A normal life, for sure, with that house and those colours and not a crack in the painting.

She can never lead a normal life.

She is in love with a swordsman, a pirate, an adventurer.

The winds grows wilder as the evening closes in. Sea water mixes in the air and salt stings her eyes. No, she is not crying.

20. the road home

"Sensei..." Zoro begins, but there are not many words he can use in such an occassion.

Kuina´s father looks exactly the same, like his face has been torn from a photo of the period and pasted over him.

He looks exactly the same but everything else in the dojo seems cheapened down, the colours desaturated and a thin layer of dust like a second skin to everything, or maybe just over his memory, maybe it is only Zoro´s memories playing tricks on him, heightened and washed over by sheer nostalgia.

"Why now?"

"I´ve kept my promise to her. I´m the world´s best swordman."

"But why?"

"I need to go on. I cannot do it if I´m stuck in the past."

He owes it to Tashigi, maybe even to Kuina herself. He has to stop running away.

His former sensei nods, then smiles.

"I understand, then."

And slowly, as ceremoniously as is fit, takes the sword from his hands. Zoro knows he is going to feel a bit odd without it.

He thinks about telling the man a million things about his daughter; things he may not know. How she was deep down incredibly kind at heart, despite her arrogance, how once, after beating the crap out of Zoro she helped him heal his wounds, and even kissed his scrapped knee better, that was the first time a girl ever kissed him; he wants to tell him how, despite being a tomboy, everybody in the dojo thought that Kuina was really very pretty.

For a moment Zoro thinks he would like to know about it.

Then he decides against it and stands up to leave.

22. cradle

But he comes back, her predictions were wrong and he starts to fill the ship, food and clothes cradled in his arms, his eyes already full of future sceneries. Eyes full of tomorrow and Tashigi want to follow there, too.

"So? Follow then."

And he takes her arm when she is about to step in the boat and helps her.

18. "ahh?"

The hardest part, the part that makes it all definitive (and that scares her a bit, because it´s been 100% her decision, there is nobody left to point and blame), it´s telling Smoker that she is leaving.

"Then it´s true, ahh?. You like him."

Tashigi feels all her blood pooling in her cheeks. She will never be able to look Smoker in the eye. Ever again.

"Do not be bad," Hina says behind him, burying her fingers in his hair, an intimate gesture Smoker would have never allowed in front of other than Tashigi. And even in her presence it makes him uncomfortable. To Tashigi is like seeing an old movie, you can´t affect what happens on the screen, and you should not be watching, but you can´t tear your eyes from it.

Tashigi holds her breath.

"Hina thinks you let her go" and Hine crosses her arms, developing a pose menacing enough even for Smoker.

"Ahh," Smoker ruffles his hair, fishing for some time to meditate about it. "Okay. You can go, if you want to."

Before he finishes that sentence Tashigi has already landed herslef on him, throwing her arms around his neck, covering him in kisses.

"Stop it. Let´s stay formal. Can we?"

He ruffles his hair again, a tick, looking slightly flushed.

For a moment he grows serious, as he cups her chin with his hands.

"Though I have to admit, it makes me crazy that a stinking pirate may have..." he brushes his thumb over her lower lip, "this."

Hina makes a gulping noise, between a giggle and a snort.

"Don´t be so old-fashioned."

And this time Smoker rolls his eyes, putting up with the conjuction of two strong women in love. He lets go off Tashigi, slowly turning his face to Hina, wearing a killing glance.

"Thank you," Tashigi repeats over and over, making her move for the door.

Then just before leaving she stops, like glued to the floor. She will not cry. She turns around and bows formally to Smoker.

"I will be back soon. I promise, major."

And Smoker can always tell when she is lying.

8. our own world

The main mast holds out like it´s about to defy the whole world. Maybe they are. There is something contagious in Zoro´s easy smile, not really childish, but wide and awake, and with eyes that see more than the universe have to offer. She has never watched that raw hunger in him, that expression on his face.

For a moment they glances meet and connect, and Tashigi wonders what he is seeing.

"Do I really look so much like her?" Tashigi asks, although she doubts it is audible over the wild wind.

Zoro grins.

His voice gets through just fine, low and touched of mirth and courage. There is sunlight and water and expectations in his voice.

"I cannot understand how I believed you did once," he replies, and it´s an answer Tashigi has been waiting for a long time.

He comes up to her, careful not to trip with the ropes spread over the prow.

He takes Tashigi´s hand in his, fingers fitting perfectly in the hollows between knuckles. He kisses the back of her hand with fondness.

"You think it will sail?" She wonders out loud, drowned in a comfortable haze, adrenaline blurring the edges of everything that could be sharp and dangerous in the world.

Zoro shrugs.

He is aware he sucks when it comes to ships and navigation and all those things.

But that makes it interesting.