#I've named a ship “the mackerel”

[loreofthejungle]

Rangers are the heavily armed members of any expedition crew. After your rodents guide you to your destination (often a ruined world), it's up to the Rangers to clear a path to its core. Whether it's overrun with daemons or the abandoned descendants of the previous tenants, it's the Rangers' responsibility to deal with it before the glorious work of plundering can commence

[shouyuus]

chapter two: tell no tales

roronoa zoro; 3,029 words; fluff and angst, enemies to lovers, slowburn, depressed!zoro, ship therapist!nami, dick!zoro bc he cannot process emotions, no "y/n", trauma bonding

summary: in which zoro starts to believe in ghosts

a/n: hi from the new blog friends! yes, i know it's a little confusing, but please bear with me !! this series is indeed moving to here to the new blog, but the masterlist will live on my old blog till i've got all the links up, and i can reblog onto the new one.

< to the table of contents

The following hours are a blur of bodies and color, the setting sun bleeding out over the distant sky, the tiny island retreating in the distance as the Merry jolts along the choppy waves. Nami’s hand, Luffy’s arm, Usopp offering to take his midnight watch, Sanji pressing a bottle of something and a tray of riceballs into his hands.

Zoro drinks. And drinks. And drinks.

He drinks until the earth sways beneath him in ways he’s certain isn’t just the rocking of the ship. He drinks until the sky pivots above him, seeping into the darkness of his little corner room. He drinks, and he sleeps.

And he dreams of you.

In his dreams, you’re vibrant and laughing, your cheeks full of color, your lips brushed in reds or pinks or purples. You offer him a freshly made mochi, your fingertips dusted in rice flour. He reaches out for it but just before he can take it, the tiny little sweet splits open to reveal a raw, bleeding heart.

Blood trickles between your fingertips, slicking down your arm like pomegranate juice.

Zoro looks up to find you smiling, but there’s blood oozing down the sides of your face, collecting in the dip of your collarbones from a massive gunshot wound to the side of your head.

You cock your head, offering him the bloodied mochi.

“C’mon, take it! Everyone else got one!”

He jerks awake to a quiet knock at his door and Sanji’s muffled voice from the other side.

“Breakfast, mosshead. Made your favorites — grilled mackerel and miso soup and rice. I’ll uh — keep it warm for ya, but not for long, okay?”

Zoro swallows passed the dryness in his throat, closing his eyes and pressing a hand to his face, shielding himself from the bright orange light seeping in from the little window in the corner. After a few more minutes, he swings himself out of bed, dragging his swords with him down the hallway into the kitchen.

Everyone is there, gathered around the hanging table, talking in whispered tones. They all go quiet when Zoro rounds the door, and Usopp clears his throat, leaning back with a forced lightness.

“Seems like we’ll be hitting the next island soon!” he says, eyes darting towards Nami, who sighs and nods.

“Yeah, it’s only a few more days till we get to the next island,” she says, glancing back down at her hands, “then it’s straight up into the Grand Line.”

Zoro nods, dropping into one of the empty seats and pulling the only fully set tray of food towards him. He stares at the carefully arranged items — the fish grilled to skin-crisp perfection, the miso soup still hot enough to steam, the rice fluffy and sweet.

He picks up his chopsticks.

“Good,” he says, his voice too soft, “the faster we get there… the better.”

It’s strange, how Zoro’s never before believed in ghosts. But now, he sees the shadow of you in everything he does. In the swift swish of his swords through the air, in the flutter of wind in the Merry’s sails, in the rhythmic creak of the planks of the main deck.

He thinks of you, of the sadness that had flickered in your eyes the second before Crocodile (or Mr. 0 as he’s known in Baroque Works; they’d since figured out his name and his ranking, but not much else) pressed the gun to your head and pulled the trigger.

He finds himself reliving the moment, sinking into the infinitesimal space between the breath and the gunshot; he searches it as if there might have been clues tucked in the way your throat had caught or the specific way your lashes had fluttered. He thinks, at least, you hadn’t looked scared.

And maybe, that in and of itself is the mercy.

— — —

He sees you again in Mag Mell, a tiny jewel box island tucked along the edges of Paradise. It’s an island of dreamers, of poets and painters, musicians and mystics, with wending streets papered in silver dust, and houses painted in dessert-bright colors, with pearl-gilded roofs, and golden-tipped steeples hung with glittering crystal bells that tolled by the passing hours.

People here sang easily and laughed freely, and it’s all Zoro can do not to look for you around the bend of every street corner, to jolt at every single peal of bright, unabashed laughter.

You would’ve been so happy here — at least the you from his childhood memories. Guilt claws at his insides. He should’ve done more — should’ve tried harder to save you —

So when he does catch glimpse of you, the you that’s been haunting all his all sleepless nights, he isn’t sure if he’s actually dreaming. But how could he be? They’d just docked hours ago — with Sanji and Usopp off shopping for groceries, and Luffy plowing through the market for food, Nami doing… whatever Nami does in cities like these.

At first, he thinks its his eyes playing tricks — his subconscious toying with him in this place that seems so cruelly perfect for the you of his memory, as if his dreams hadn’t been ruthless enough. But then, he hears your voice, and he’s sure it’s you.

He follows you down one twisting alley, and then another, the streets folding over one another like tributaries to a mother stream. Around the third bend, he loses you, and for a frantic moment, he finds himself spinning around himself once, twice, until a thin pair of arms slams him up against the far wall, painted a deep mahogany red.

“What part of don’t follow me are you not understanding?” your voice is nothing more than a hissed breath, tight and angry and pleading, but it’s yours.

The next moment, Zoro has you flipped, pinning you to the opposite wall, this time in a blinding turquoise, his teeth bared, a sword poised at your throat.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, forcing out the words, his heart a wild, untamed thing beating in his chest, hard enough to sting. His eyes are too wide, searching your face desperately as if looking for a sign, a slip-up that might prove you’re not who you look like you are, and yet —

The wry way your lip twists up has his stomach roiling within him. You stop struggling, tilting your head to look at him in the gather of shadows of the deserted alley.

“What? Forgotten me already? And here I thought dying in front of you would make more of a lasting impression —”

“Exactly,” Zoro bites back, unable to stop his sword from digging into the skin of your neck, a thin line of blood seeping out from beneath your otherwise unmarred skin, “I saw — I watched you —” his throat seizes forcibly over the word die and he struggles for a few seconds before he jerks back, “I watched you get shot.”

You rub at your throat with a ginger hand, drawing it away to stare at the rub of red there, your expression inscrutable.

“Yeah… that you did.”

He whips his sword out to the side before slipping it into its sheath with a dull shink.

You eye it warily, the late afternoon sun creeping into the alley inch by golden inch. It kisses at your toes and creeps up your ankles as you stare at the sword at Zoro’s side.

“That was Kuina’s, wasn’t it?” you ask.

The name slams into Zoro like a gut-punch, and it’s all he can do to keep himself from stumbling.

“So what if it is?” he asks, a quaver to his voice that he almost doesn’t recognize. He turns away from you to stare at the strip of street visible from the darkened alley. A little girl with twin pigtails skips by holding a fistful of multicolored balloons, giggling as a boy races after her, trying to steal one.

“Can’t believe you still have it after all these years.”

“Yeah, well. Call me sentimental,” but his voice is flat, almost sardonic as he turns back to stare at you.

You allow him a helpless grin, “You always were more sentimental than you’d let on. Even when we were kids.”

“You died,” he spits the word out like poison, and you flinch, almost as if struck by it. He takes a deep, steadying breath but makes no move to back down as he asks, “so how the hell are you still here?”

You press your lips, casting your eyes away, your head lowered.

“You’re on a crew with a guy made of rubber — can’t you figure it out?” you ask, rueful and quiet.

Zoro scoffs, “So far as I know, there ain’t no Devil Fruits that can make you immortal.”

You wince again, though when you do speak, there’s a weary humor tacked to the ends of your words.

“You were always smarter than you let on too,” you say, finally looking up, “you’re right. It’s not a Devil Fruit.”

Zoro frowns, unable to keep the intrigue from bubbling up his chest as he watches you.

“Then…” he trails off, waiting.

A golden shaft of sun slants fully into the alley now, finally high enough to hit the side of your face, casting your features into stark relief. Like this, he can see the hollows of your cheeks, the blueness in your lips. But also, the flicker of light that once danced like fireworks behind your eyes.

“It was a deal,” you say, as the sun shifts behind a soft gauzy cloud, tossing the island into a momentary shadow once more, and your face is again shrouded in darkness, “with the Devil himself.”

— — —

“So… you can’t die,” Sanji says, stubbing out what must be his fifth cigarette since the beginning of the conversation.

A half-finished dinner service lays in an array of dishes before you, but even Luffy isn’t reaching out to pick at the remains.

You shake your head, “No, that’s the thing — I can. I just don’t tend to stay dead.”

Nami frowns, “But how does that even work? You get killed, and what — you just… respawn?”

You sigh, letting out a tired laugh, “Something like that. I die, and I wake up the next morning exactly in the last place I went to sleep.”

“Whoa, weird,” says Luffy, finally reaching for the remains of a whole roast chicken, stuffing a drumstick into his mouth.

You nod, “Very.”

Usopp is chewing on his bottom lips, looking concerned, “But… I mean — when you do d-die… does it still hurt?”

You slowly pivot to stare at him, your expression carefully neutral.

Beside you, Zoro shifts slightly, and everyone goes strangely still as they wait for your answer.

“Sometimes,” you say, carefully, “if the person killing me decides to make it hurt.”

Sanji leans back, staring up at the broad canopy of stars above the deck of the Merry.

The silence that stretches over the table is fraught with implication. Eventually, you let out a long breath, leaning back in your chair.

“But you get used to it after a while,” you say, the shadow of a smile quirking your lips.

Zoro narrows his eyes, “You make it sound easy.”

His voice is hard, his gaze fixed on a point just over Luffy’s shoulder. Beneath the low dip of his unbuttoned shirt, you can still see the remains of the scar Mihawk had left him with. No doubt he was remembering his own close tangle with death.

You lilt your head and roll your shoulders.

“What they don’t tell you about dying is that it’s the easiest thing… but easy doesn’t mean painless,” your voice is light and airy and painfully frivolous, “eventually, easy just means that at least… you know it’ll end.”

Across the table, Sanji lets out a breath as Nami gasps. Luffy purses his lips.

“But… as long as you fall asleep in a safe place, then even if you die, you’ll just wake up there again, right?” he asks.

You fix him with a look, before letting out a helpless laugh.

“Yeah, something like that. The only thing is — when you’re working for the big-bads, they tend to make sure you only ever fall asleep somewhere they can get their hands back on you.”

“But you’re with us now!” Luffy grins, puffing out his chest, “so we’ll make sure you stay alive without having to uh — die first. Good?”

Others might only see childish innocence in his words, but you can see the absolute certainty he evokes in the rest of his crew. And that, more than anything else, makes you believe him.

You let out a shaky breath.

“Yeah, okay.”

Zoro grunts as he gets up from the table, stalking off without another word. Nami sighs, watching him go before rolling her eyes and going after him.

Sanji strikes a match and lights up a new cigarette.

“Let him be. He was real beat up after seeing you —” Sanji dips his head, “well, you know. And he’s not what you’d call super in touch with his emotions, I think.”

He shoots you a good-natured wink.

You laugh, a tired, rubbed-raw sound, nodding.

“Yeah. I know.”

Sanji taps off a bit of ash and leans forward, “So — what’s the story?”

“What makes you think there’s a story?”

Sanji blows out a series of smoke rings before reaching over to refill your glass, “Mosshead’s not exactly known for makin’ friends wherever he goes, if you know what I mean,” he slides you smile before continuing, “so if he’s this —” Sanji pauses to cast about for a proper word, “attached… to someone, I figured there’s just gotta be a story, right love?”

You sigh, nodding as you take a long sip of your drink, savoring the coolness as it slides down your throat.

“You’re right… there is a story. But I’m not sure it matters much anymore. We’re both…” you look down at your hands, pale and pink in the fading firelight, “not the kids we used to be.”

Sanji shrugs, “Neither is any of us,” he coaxes, voice gentle, “but that doesn’t mean the kids that we were don’t matter any more.”

You nod, finally allowing the warmth of the fire to wash over you as you sit back in your chair.

“Alright then — it was a long time ago but… we grew up in the same village…”

— — —

“Hey — where’re you going?” Nami catches up with Zoro just beneath the main deck, the hallway scattered with pinpricks of light, seeping in through the cracks in the planks above.

Zoro spins around, his shoulders hunched.

“To be alone.”

Nami sighs, stopping a few steps short of him.

“What’s with you? Aren’t you happy that your — your friend is alive?”

Zoro bears down on Nami, his eyes flashing.

“I don’t trust her — what if it’s not her? What if it’s a —” he waves a hand through the thickening darkness between them, “an imposter?”

Nami’s eyebrows kick up, “What, finally get your hands on a dictionary in Mag Mell?”

“Fuck you.”

Nami laughs, folding her arms as she leans up against the darkened hallway wall.

“Fine, you don’t trust her — but what else can we do? Leave her here for Crocodile and the rest of Baroque Works to catch up to her?”

Zoro tsks, turning around to pace the length of the hallway, every muscle in his body feeling tight and wrung out.

“Wouldn’t matter much — she can’t die remember?”

“Yes, she can,” Nami says, her words harsh enough to stun Zoro still. She stalks up to him, her eyes blazing in the imminent dark. “You’ve almost died once — tell me, was it a pleasant experience?”

A muscle ticks in Zoro’s jaw, but he keeps his mouth clamped shut.

He remembers it in pieces, in fever-break moments and mind-numbing delusions. He remembers the bone-deep ache that had seemed to permeate every inch of his body, of the dull pounding in his head as he tried to piece together what his crewmates were saying to him, sitting by his bedside. He’d known they were there, but he’d couldn’t let them know, couldn’t force him limbs to move the way he wanted.

It had been nothing short of agony.

“Look, I’m not asking you to trust her but at least think — think about the life she would’ve led in Baroque Works. What they might’ve made her do if they knew that every time she died, she’d just wake up in the last place she fell asleep.”

Like this, Nami’s voice is soft, almost silken. A spate of unease slithers down Zoro’s spine.

Zoro stares down at her. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d regarded Nami with the same kind of vague distrust.

“Think for a second, about the suicide missions they would’ve made her take.”

Those words ring through Zoro like a death knell, and he takes half a step back, his head spinning with the implications. She’s right, he hadn’t thought of the life you’d led; he’d been so caught up on the vast dissonance between the person you were and the person you'd become. He’d been so tangled in his own feelings of shame and anger that he hadn’t paused to think.

Nami sighs and takes a few more steps back.

“I mean. You heard her — just because dying is easy, that doesn’t make it painless.”

“I just —” Zoro closes his eyes, letting a clenched fist thump softly against the wall beside him. A terrible, hot prickling sensation is working its way up the back of his throat, constricting his airways. He swallows hard around it before turning to look at Nami once more.

“I just can’t stand the thought of losing her again.”

Nami lets out a breathy laugh, bobbing her head once. There’s still a steely light to her eyes, but her voice when she finally does speak is soft —

“Then make sure it doesn’t happen again. I mean, what are those three swords for anyway?”

TAGLIST: @brairslair @msheds0519 @yunabelless @lynndt-chocolate @lostonthrillerbark @stunies @tsumu-senpai @phroggii @ssailormoonnn @breathinginyoursmoke @guridoodles @kyllium @naomihatake @itoshiexx @mythicallystupid @mars-mizuko @astroniii @crispynutella @enhastolemyheart @fanficwriter101 @jamesbparker @dira333 @weirdowithaphone @ink-perfect @lodeddiperrodrick @not-a-glad-gladiator @vinskypuff @itsagoodluckkiss @blondethinkpink @ellelowthere @annievrse @m333myselfandiii @tsubaki3192 @grapelover2000 @teewon @keigoskrio @ggyuslovie @manuosorioh @one17 @monkey-d-hoshizora98 — pls comment below if you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series!

[silvermuffins]

NieR:Automata: get me out get me OUT OF HELL

Sidequest hell, specifically. WIll there be more plot tonight? Iunno!

- where'd I leave off, gonna go talk to anemone? and then hit up the forest

- yep anemone sure did work with A2

- anemone doesn't know shit about the current A2 situation....

- god i need to farm up a lot of shit for my weapons

- do....i need to go kill animals for this quest

- gets a little lost but gets there eventually

- oh fuck moose machine

- OH FUCK IT'S LEVEL 40-SOMETHING

- OW IT HITS HARD

- OW MY THUMB

- WHY'S IT ALWAYS MEESES

- we have navigated to a part of the area where i can't see SHIT through the bushes

- also my pause screen is currently full of animal butt

- and the beast machine's record is pain, of course

- and now we break for meal

- well over an hour and closer to two later i have had the foodstuffs as humans do, let's get back to no humans. i got a couple more hours in me.

- "how can you love animals and not bat an eye at the death of another machine?" .....the androids, made by humans, don't get that.....and yet, it's kind of a very human thing

- kind of. i like to think the vast majority of people couldn't hear about something like that and be unfazed.

- ah this quest is the new resistance camp

- i. look like someone who cares very deeply about gastronomy.

- who cares very deeply

- about gastronomy

- GASTRONOMY

- CAN I EVEN ACTUALLY EAT????

- okay no mackerel end proved that i can, and that i can taste, but

- why.....would one robot assume this of another.....

- yeah i can do a spot of hunting

- oooh androids generate energy from water....that's cool

- huh.....interesting stuff about cooking and needing to or not.... Why? Why can androids eat and taste if it serves no purpose? this is now up there with the "why can they feel things if it's forbidden" question

- also, yeah, wtf happens to the soldierbots when the war ends?

- it's like worrying about Ritsu all over again

- hello parade man.....oh

- he's given up.....and his comrades vanished in the desert

- oh wait quest log indicates this machine's not the same one

- imma go hit the fairgrounds for emil's frickin' flower

- his backstory gets more and more ominous and also he gets here faster and faster

- okay the only things left are either beyond where i've been, down in an area i'm not sure how to safely reach yet, and daddy serves who is level 50 surely and not to be trifled with. oh and also the racer dude.

- one more crack at him with +20% move speed....

- almost made it. my route's not optimized.

- i have no idea how to make that better.....

- we're just gonna move on

- i think i am out of sidequest hell for the moment so let's get this show on the road

- i do not remember this bigass pipeline but ok

- wheeee!!!

- "The Flooded City" this area name is a goddamn aesthetic and I am for it

- where the fuck is all this water coming from

- can androids swim???

- what makes the line between one machine war and the next? are there periods of truce?

- androids cannot swim i just get mario karted back to land

- let's do some ocean fishing!

- i caught a pod....neat i have three now

- lots of shit to catch here

- i appreciate that the ocean water actually moves in and out, nice detail

- also why the fuck did machine versions of all these fish get built

- holy fuck coelacanth

- anyway that's a big boost to my fish encyclopedia, that was like ten new fish

- i know there are chests over there, how do i get over there?

- holy fuck a rocket ship

- annnnd immediately sent to fly around and do some more shit

- she can wait im fishing a little more--

- SHARK

- okay let's fly

- flying tank, not too hard. weirdly easy, actually

- o

- o fuck

- MACHINE DUNKLEOSTEOSAURUS OR SOMETHING???

- fuck dude why couldn't i fish THAT up

- thing's ancient. okay. also, devastating.

- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

- ALSO APPARENTLY INDESTRUCTIBLE

- is that A2--

- nop

- ooooh, mortars! why is shielding against the satellite laser striker possible but not close-range mortar fire?

- ftr most of my knowledge of what a mortar actually IS comes from there being one in Bastion

- EAT CANNONFIRE, BITCH! LITERALLY!

- sweet

- fuck

- OH FUCK IT'S GOT LEGS

- shiiiiiiiit down they go--

- we OUT OH FUCK

- FUCKFUCKFUCK

- !!!!!!!!!!!!!! PASCAL AND PALS

- shiiiiiiiiiiit so this thing went berserk??? even the machines don't like it??????

- POD DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE CALL 9S A DESERTER

- looks like two emp thingies on this thing's back

- actually like three

- it keeps trying to punch me

- i only needed to destroy two and 9S wrecked it...

- where the fuck is he

- commander got a little emotion there....

- god. that was epic. hooboy.

- ....is Pascal okay?

- OKAY MENU, WHAT WAS DUNKLEBOT'S NAME....lemme translate.... GRUN? Is it GRUN? I like dunklebot better.

- aaaaaa the Operator was so happy to hear from 2B.....and we already have permission to search for 9S!

- oh i think i found the body of that other android who came to my aid

- im finding a lot of bodies

- this is not what i meant when i wanted a way to turn 9S off to get him out of the way of my platforming!

- right we're just gonna. transport back to the resistance base. instead of going the long way lmao

- oh....we. can't. go right there.

- get close, then

- didn't i get mail at some point? should check that too

- oh it was emil giving me fishing tips

- redheaded twins?

- the resistance camp is....pretty empty.....

- anemone says the twins are my next bet! and also DOESN"T say something probably important

- Popola and Devola!

- i like them

- seems like this is basically the itemfinder from pokemon?

- i have no idea how the fuck it actually works

- dammit it's getting late i think i need to stop for the night

- let me find a save point