Work Text:
Sleeping Habits
Zoro has trouble sleeping.
Most of the crew would laugh if he said it out loud, but it’s true. When the night falls over the Sunny everyone goes still- but the world around them still moves . All he can pay attention to is the wind flapping in the loose sails and the waves rolling against the hull.
Sleeping through other things (conversations, whirlpools, assassination attempts) is much easier than that- listening to the world roll by. So Zoro does. When he can. When he’s not hounded.
“Zoro, where are you?” Usopp sing-songs outside of the galley door and the swordsman grits his teeth, annoyance mixed with frustration.
Loser of hide and seek today has to clean the aquarium in the lounge, as decreed by their sneaky sniper, who is very good at weaseling out of chores. Zoro didn’t even agree to play, but if he gets caught he still gets the chore. The witch will make sure of it. So. Time to hide.
“What are you doing in here?” Sanji grunts. He’s standing at the counter in his doskoi apron; a tray of parfaits waits at his elbow as he cuts strawberries into shape with a paring knife. “I don’t need the fixings for salad until dinner, lettuce head.”
“I can go where I want, curly.” Zoro barks back and stalks deeper into the kitchen to stay out of view of the windows. “At least I’m not at the witch’s beck and call.”
It’s a weak comeback, but Zoro didn’t sleep last night. Couldn’t. There was thunder rumbling, but not a drop of rain, for five hours. And getting caught unawares by a Grand Line storm could spell the end of their voyage.
Sanji sneers at him and unlocks the fridge to put away the remaining berries. He doesn’t bother with a return barb, which adds insult to injury. Zoro needs a drink.
He catches the fridge door before it can close behind the cook and reaches in for a bottle of beer. A six-pack of his favorite brand is nestled in the rack on the door, clinking lightly.
“Don’t let Luffy in there,” Sanji says idly, occupied by the parfaits as he adds the final garnish. “And make sure you close the door completely when you’re done. Also, only take one bottle. You can have another after five, you drunkard.” With that Sanji sweeps the tray up onto one hand, slips the apron over his head to drape over a chair, and makes for the door with that lovey-dovey spring in his step.
Zoro pops the top off the bottle and considers the fridge. It’s looking a little empty, since they haven’t made landfall in two weeks now. Experimentally, he nudges the tall jar of pickling eggs on the bottom shelf to the side. It seems like there’s a lot of space.
Zoro gets down on one knee and shoves the few things populating the bottom space haphazardly into the upper parts of the fridge, cramming some things onto the door also.
It’s pretty perfect, he realizes as he snugs his broad shoulders into the space. The strange arrangement of his limbs is refreshing, to be honest. Opens up his spine. Only Sanji and Nami can get into the fridge, so he’s safe from Usopp. And he can do some mild cold resistance training. He pulls the door shut, making sure it seals like Sanji said (he won’t have Luffy angry because he let the meat spoil) and wriggles into a semi-comfortable position. It’s a little small, but mostly fine. It’s not so different from doing crunches, he decides while contemplating his knees where they rest a few inches from his face. Just, only once, and for a longer time.
With the door shut, the internal light goes out, and the fridge goes dark. Zoro listens to the motor and the fans hum. Feels his breath cloud warm against his knees. It’s a much calmer place than his bunk when a storm is threatening. And he’s already decided to wait here until the game is over. There’s no sense in wasting the time.
When he wakes up, it’s to Sanji saying “Listen, I don’t know where he went. I’m just saying he was here before I went out with the-- Zoro??”
The lights inside the fridge flicker on and warm air pools in as Sanji opens the door. Zoro grunts and keeps his eyes shut- even as Sanji reams him out for mistreating his fridge and worrying the ladies.
Usopp pats the cook's shoulders, halting the tirade.
“Yosh, I see what this is…”
Zoro opens one eye to watch the sniper. Usopp is wearing his performance face of haughty unconcern. “It can’t be helped. He is a man who puts his all into a challenge of seeking and hiding- the true test of ultimate subterfuge and determination.” He clenches his fist dramatically. “For a whole hour we have scoured this ship in search, but you evaded us.”
“He fell asleep in the fridge.” Sanji snaps. “He doesn’t need a medal, he needs an alarm clock.”
Zoro yawns and steps out of the cramped space while the two of them bicker. An hour of sleep, huh? Not bad. He feels refreshed already, and the game is clearly over. His afternoon is free. When he steps out onto the deck, the sky is still brightly clear. Behind him, Usopp yells loudly and something crashes.
Maybe he should catch up on some more sleep. While things are peaceful.
Robin makes a habit of noticing things. It’s like trivia, but more unnerving because people don’t like to be told the exact number of times they fidget per day on average, or that sixty-five percent of the time when they complain of a headache they simply haven’t had anything to drink that day.
She notices that Jinbe flinches away from animals being used for hard labor. She notices that Usopp polishes each goggle lens seven times in the morning for luck. And she notices that, out of their entire crew, Brook is on watch the most nights of anyone- except for Zoro.
Robin notices that Zoro doesn’t sleep very much at all, actually. At least not at night. Mostly he seems to enjoy the sun-splashed deck, surrounded by the jovial noises of the crew in motion. Robin can relate. Silence has a tendency to mean something ominous on the Sunny.
Still, Zoro rarely sleeps longer than four hours at a time, less than that in each of the numerous naps he takes throughout any given day. It seems unhealthy and strangely at odds with his character.
And when he does sleep, it is in sunshine.
“Zoro!” Nami calls from somewhere within the ship and Zoro’s sleeping expression scowls. Robin continues reading and gleefully considers the show about to unfurl.
Ignoring her only buys him a few minutes and Nami comes stomping out of the upper deck with her arms full of a hefty looking crate. Usopp trails behind her, looking dejected.
“ Zoro ,” Nami shrieks again and this time the swordsman sighs and lifts his head up to glare through the sun. Nami props one hand on her hip and points up toward the crows nest. “I’m worried about the weather shifting, tie up the sails.”
“Why do I have to do it?” Zoro grumbles in what would be a whine from anyone else but from him it is simply disgruntled and righteously so.
“Because I said so,” Nami tells him and turns back inside before he can argue.
Zoro closes his eyes and seems to go back to sleep. Robin reads on and the day persists- for perhaps ten minutes.
Surprisingly, it is not the stomping of Nami’s heels on the deck that disturbs this relative peace, but a large cloud that spreads, slow and sure, from the far horizon and into the sky almost just above them. Robin lowers her book to watch it spill in, liquid and quick and dark. There is no wind to accompany it, just an encompassing shadow that throws everything into muted tones.
Zoro opens one eye to glare at it.
Robin watches as he tries to sleep again, but it is clear he isn’t having much luck. He holds perfectly still with an active rigidity in his shoulders. He grumbles softly to himself. He opens his eye and sweeps the deck, perfunctorily, glares at the sky.
“Zoro,” Robin says finally and he turns one of his blunt-edged glares at her. “If Nami sees the sails aren’t pulled in she’ll be unhappy with you.”
“Let her,” he says sourly. “We don’t need the sails up for a cloudy day.”
“Perhaps,” Robin says, slow and with enough implication that she holds the sleepy swordsman’s attention, “If you went up to fix the sails, you’ll find there is still some sunlight left to be had.”
“Huh?”
She gestures upwards and an arm blooms from the mast. Zoro squints up after it and Robin reaches out and passes her finger through sunlight. The cloud cover has not reached the upper regions of their ship yet.
“Huh,” Zoro repeats.
He gives her a suspicious look, as though she is tricking him and not genuinely trying to help him get more comfortable, and pushes himself to his feet. He stretches and then climbs the mast up to the first crossbar. The sun is there and he stands, holding the mast and squinting at the cloud with a scowl on his face for a moment before he busies himself with the ropes of the sails. He ties them out of his way, not up as Nami had requested, and settles himself in the crook of the wood beams and shuts his eyes.
It’s a precarious position to take on a ship sailing a sea as unpredictable as the grand line, but Robin has seen him sleep through worse than a fall like that, should he actually let himself topple- which she doubts. A few minutes pass peacefully and Robin redirects most of her attention back to her book. But it’s not long before there is a quiet curse from up above and when she looks up, she finds Zoro scrambling higher up the mast and out of reach of the shade.
Robin supposes she can relate. She prefers the shade of a parasol to rest beneath when she spends time on deck, but Zoro is accustomed to the beating of the sun as the best napping place. And the grand line is a difficult place to find uninterrupted sunshine.
She can’t help but want to assist. So little sleep to be had and he can’t get anymore without sunshine.
Zoro finishes securing the next level’s sails so that they don’t block the light or threaten to billow in the wind and knock him from his perch. The higher mast cross-section, however, is much thinner than the one below. He tries to get himself oriented comfortably for a moment and eventually settles on a tremulous position of lounging, like a tiger on a tree branch, with his stomach braced against the sail beam with his legs hanging down on either side. He pillows his head on one of his elbows and lets the other hang, a counterweight, like his legs.
The sun settles here and the shade halts in its onset, at least for a time. Robin quietly blooms the appendages needed to tie the sails up the last third of the way and then another few to hook their fingers in Zoro’s belt loops. So that if he starts to fall, she will know it first and can summon a net. The swordsman is unlikely to be so careless- but Robin would hate to see the mess he would make if he fell from such a height! She chuckles on this for a moment and returns to her reading. The day goes on, in shade and in sunshine, exactly as planned.
“Zoro- wHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?”
Until Nami checks in about forty-five minutes later and shatters the peace. But well. Sunshine naps are best enjoyed in small portions.
“Yeah, so I was thinking about your SUPER suggestions for the equipment you were talking about.” Franky holds open the door and waits for Zoro to walk a full two steps past it before reaching out and guiding him in the right direction. It’s funny. The swordsman ends up in their workshop looking for ridiculous places, like the crow's nest, all the time. He’s the most frequent visitor actually, besides Franky himself and Usopp.
“So yeah, there are some counterweight mechanics that I think I can work around to make sure the weight of this thing doesn’t mess with the stability of the mast,” he continues, “But I still think you should let me add the spikes and lasers. For training.”
“I’m weight training, not haki training, Franky.” Zoro says, and then mutters to himself, “I have my own observation regimen already.”
Franky thinks he and Zoro get along alright. Zoro doesn’t talk a whole lot, unless he’s trading insults with Sanji, and he sleeps all the time. Franky is pretty loud, so maybe that’s why they fight fine beside each other but, aside from giving directions out of the workshop and to other parts of the Sunny, Franky doesn’t think he and Zoro-bro have really connected.
But maybe that’s just his skewed perspective though. After all, his whole gang used to call him brother! He’s used to being very close to his criminal-teammates-he-considers-family.
He likes being the ship dad! But Zoro is more adult than most of the others, Robin excluded. If Zoro bro doesn’t want a ship dad then that’s fine. Doesn’t mean Franky can’t make him some SUPER workout equipment to his exact specifications!
“Hey,” Zoro says suddenly. Franky turns and finds him pointing at one of the catapult guns Usopp and he had been working on last week. “You finished it.”
“Huh?” Franky lifts his sunglasses and squints at the machine. He can’t remember which model it is but it looks mostly done. “Yeah, that’s the F.U. Catapult! Pretty sure that’s model four. Did we try it out on deck, Zoro bro?”
“No,” Zoro crosses his arms and finds some spot on the wall to look at. “I remember it. You and Usopp were working on it when the halls moved last week.”
“Bro, I may have built a SUPER ship but the halls don’t move.”
“Of course they do, I don’t know how everyone else keeps track of it!” He grumbles. “They must move when you’re not looking.”
Franky lets it slide and picks up the catapult gun. It’s the last iteration before their final model, he realizes now, but he remembers, vaguely, Zoro wandering in looking for the library.
“Oh, wow, we got a little distracted, huh?” Franky scratches the back of his head. Usopp had promised to guide Zoro to the library, and Franky might have called out that he would give him directions in a minute, but the catapult gun had been very close to completion at that point. It would have taken Usopp some time to get his hands untangled from the interior wiring and even more time to reach in and get a hold of all the right pieces again when he came back. Franky was just easily distracted. “We never showed you the way like we said we would, huh? Did you figure it out?” He honestly couldn’t remember the swordsman leaving the room…
“I decided to take a nap instead.” Zoro shrugs. Franky glances around the workshop. It’s full of electric tools and hair triggers and weaponized odds and ends. The idea of Zoro finding somewhere to sit down, no less sleep, surprises him. And the fact that he and Usopp didn’t notice- no, actually, that part made sense just fine.
“I’m sorry we forgot about you bro.” Franky apologizes. “I hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable in here for ya! These surfaces are built for my SUPER iron tush!” He poses, jutting his hips to the side and lifting his arms over his head- minding the wires and various tools secured to the ceiling.
“It wasn’t terrible.” Zoro shrugs again and tips his chin toward a corner. Franky follows his gaze and finds… a scrap metal bin. The place he tosses all sorts of odds and ends into from across the room. There’s a saw blade bigger than Franky’s torso leaned against the wall behind the half-full crate and a bowed rip-cut saw sticking out of one side. A bed of bolts and ripped metal sheets and bent nails make up the rest of it.
“That doesn’t look super comfortable, bro.” Franky says apologetically.
“I’ve slept in worse places. The witch couldn’t find me down here.” Zoro meanders over to another workbench and squints at the mess of tubes and triggers that Usopp has been weaving together for the past few days. It’s gonna be one heck of a water gun, that’s for sure. “Besides.” He pops one of his sword hilts out of its sheath with his thumb. The steel glistens like something Franky has buffed scratches out of for twenty minutes. “Sharp edges don’t bother me.”
Franky laughs, loud and full in a way that shakes the casings of his implants and makes his internal fans whir a little faster to compensate.
“If you say so!” Franky claps a hand on Zoro’s back. The swordsman grunts at the impact but doesn’t complain- of course he doesn’t! He can see it now, even though he doesn’t remember noticing Zoro-bro sticking around after asking for directions last week. Their swordsman can probably sleep anywhere he pleases- hands tucked behind his head and Zs peacefully adding up. “I bet you sleep in all kinds of places around the Sunny, but if you don’t mind it down here I can tell ya the workshop is always open for a naptime!”
(If a hammock ends up hung in that corner of the room later that week, well, Zoro doesn’t mention finding it strange at all.)
They choose a brilliantly sunny day to half beach the Merry on a sandbar and set to work scraping barnacles off her hull.
Zoro rather thinks he’s already done his part by pulling helping Luffy pull the ship up out of the water- and they’ll make him push it back too- but no one on this ship seems to think he does enough so Nami handed him a chisel and Usopp and Chopper hoisted him up on a rope bench to pry at all the cretaceous stowaways.
Bottoms of boats don’t smell very good either.
“Zoroooo~” Luffy calls and swings over. He looped his arm around the mast when they first started working and has been bungeeing down on both sides of the ship to periodically scrape and pester everyone else just trying to do their job. “Zoro, I’m bored, do you wanna sneak away and play a game?”
Zoro leans back on the bench and looks over the hump of an island they found for their cleaning day. It’s small enough that he could run around the entire shoreline in just a few hours and peppered with low shrubs and tufted palm trees. There’s a boar scuffling along in the beach grass where the sand turns into dirt, but it’s too small to make much of a meal.
“There’s not much to do here, Luffy.” Zoro says. “It’s better to finish the job so we can go somewhere more interesting.”
“Hmmmm,” Luffy hums and spins himself slowly around. Zoro pries another barnacle free. “What do you think will be interesting on the next island, Zoro?”
Ha. What won’t be interesting would be an easier question. Their adventure seems to get crazier and crazier with each passing day.
“We should find somewhere with a lot of enemies to fight.” he says. “And with lots of beer.”
“Oh, oh, we’ll need meat too!”
“Good hunting shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“A hunting party!”
“That doesn’t mean what you think it does.”
“Shishishishi!”
The work goes quicker with Luffy there, but he gets bored, as Luffy does, and bounces back up towards the deck, where Robin, Nami, and Sanji are doing a thorough cleaning of the inside of the ship. Chopper and Usopp are over on the other side of the figurehead, Zoro is suddenly alone.
He clears the area that he’s working on, scrubbing soap into the wood to ward off future hitchikers at least for a week or two, and then reaches for the ropes to try and haul himself a little higher or lower so as to reach a new workspace. The ropes don’t shift at all, though. The knots are too tight.
“Oi.” He calls up toward the deck. The sea wind snaps through Merry’s sails and all the leaves of the tangerine trees rustle. Nami laughs, high pitched and exuberant from somewhere by the grove and Luffy yelps from over where Usopp and Chopper are working. No one comes.
Zoro sighs and leans as far to one side as he can. There’s a little more space to reach, but it's uncomfortable. The odd position works a kink into his shoulders by the time he’s done cleaning.
“Oi!” He calls again, and still no one comes. He grumbles for a moment and rolls his shoulders, but there’s nothing to lean against on the little board seat Usopp had jury rigged to hold him while he worked. Zoro looks to his other side, annoyed but determined not to sit here miserably for the next whoever-knows-how-long, and finds the anchor hooked around the railing, the lower hook of it resting against the side of the ship just a few feet away.
He looks up to the deck again but no one seems inclined to come help him resume his work.
Well. That’s just too easy, isn’t it?
Zoro scoots all the way over to that side of the seat and leans out over the distance. It’s still just out of reach. He braces his boots against the hull of the ship and leans his weight out further. With just a slight swing he grabs ahold of the anchor’s stem and pulls himself free of the board swing and onto the metal seat.
Zoro has handled the anchor a good few times. He raises it for training sometimes and because Nami doesn’t want to wrangle Luffy into doing it other times. Usually, he’s working with the chain though. Now he can feel the hard steel rusted with salt. There are a few barnacles clinging to it as well but Zoro scuffs them off with his boot and situates himself in his new seat. He braces his back against the wooden frame of it and stretches his shoulders back. His spine pops. From here it would not be so hard to climb up to the deck proper and fix the ropes himself but... He's just out of sight of the deck. And he's awfully comfortable already. He props his feet up, sitting in the crux of the anchor frame, and shuts his eyes.
He's slept in way worse places than this.
"Zorooooo~"
The chain of the anchor clanked and Zoro's eyes shot open. When he looks up he finds Luffy has both arms stretched down and his fingers wrapped around the bottom hooks of the anchor on either side of Zoro. His neck stretches so he can bob his face down closer and he beams.
"Luffy, what are you doing?" Zoro grumbles. He squints up at the sun and determines that he's only slept for forty-five minutes or so. "Are Chopper and Usopp done?"
"Nah," he grunts and tugs at the anchor, shifting Zoro in his perch just slightly. Pouting when his arms pull a little farther out of their sockets in response. "Sanji says it's lunchtime and to get you!" He pauses, blinking owlishly at Zoro. "Hey, weren't you over on the ropes before?"
"Luffy, what are you doing with the anchor?" Usopp calls. "Sanji said to get Zoro!"
"That's what I'm doing!"
There's a clomping of boots, and Usopp appears at the railing. Zoro is still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
"Ah!" Usopp shouts and points down at Zoro accusingly. "You weren't working, you were asleep!"
"Asleep!" Chopper peers over the railing too. "Sitting on the anchor?" He transforms into his larger human form and plants his hands on his hips. "All this time we were working and you were asleep."
"Oi, oi, the ropes got stuck." Zoro says but none of them listen. Their chorus of complaints summons Sanji and Nami over as well to put in their two cents, and Robin to watch.
Zoro leans his head down again and shuts his eyes. They're a headache he'd rather sleep through.
Sanji sets up lunch on the beach and Robin and Zoro lay out beach chairs while Chopper, Usopp, and Luffy smack around a beach ball and skid through the sand. The Merry rests, still beached and mostly barnacle free, further down the beach while the crew prepares for an island barbecue picnic.
Sanji gets to work at the grill. Robin pulls out her book. Nami jogs over from the ship in her best sunbathing outfit.
Zoro picks out the nearest lounge chair and falls into it.
"Zoro!" Nami scolds. "You just slept! No one else got a nap!"
"Perhaps he cannot sleep well because demons plague his dreams," Robin suggests serenely.
"If I want to sleep through lunch I can sleep through lunch." Zoro grouches back. He settles his arms behind his head and shuts his eyes. The sun beats warm and fuzzy on every inch of his skin. "Good weather for it, too."
"Hm." Nami sniffs at him, but is effectively distracted when Sanji brings around a tray of grilled fruit skewers. Zoro drifts off and Usopp takes one of the skewers and munches, staring at the snoozing swordsman.
"It really isn't fair." He says, quietly, to Nami while Luffy and Chopper pester Sanji for seconds. "Here we are, breaking our backs." He stretches backward dramatically and rubs at his lower back with a wince. "And he slept through half of it. He sleeps through half of everything."
"I'll triple his debt, I think," Nami says idly while she flips through the first few pages of the magazine she had brought along. "That'll annoy him enough to make him think more carefully before dodging a chore again."
"Will it though?" Usopp asks. Nami lowers her magazine. Usopp waggles his eyebrows. "What if we did something that impacted something he cared about? We all know he's never gonna pay you back-"
"Oh yes, he will."
"But listen, what about, well-" He leans in and whispers in the navigator's ear. Nami listens. She smiles a Cheshire grin.
"Usopp," he says sagely. "Sometimes I really do like the way you think."
Robin is the biggest help. While Usopp and Chopper go searching for a suitable vessel, Robin blooms limbs around Zoro so slowly and quietly that he doesn't even stir. Sanji keeps Luffy entertained with a steady supply of small snacks and strange tasks like- 'go see if you can find a coconut.' 'Oh, no luck? what about a palm fruit?'
"I'm surprised to see you all enacting vengeance like this," Robin tells Nami. "It seems unlikely that our swordsman will not complete his side of the ship. He's not the type to leave things half done."
"Sure, but he's skipped out on other things." She rolls her eyes. "Helping with the ropes in storms, keeping Luffy out of the kitchen, even fights if there are no swordsmen to go against. He gets bored way too easily. Besides." She waves at Usopp and Chopper as they come careening back across the beach, floppy green tube of sorts in hand. They slow down once they get close and tiptoe through the sand past Zoro before kneeling down and giggling. They take turns blowing up the inflatable. "The way he goes sometimes, I bet he could sleep anywhere and not even notice."
"This will certainly be a test of that." Robin agrees.
Once the inflatable is full of air and ready to float, Robin walks Zoro off his lawn chair and onto the waiting vessel with her army of extra feet. Then, as a crew, they maneuver that to the shore and then push it out into the surf.
Luffy almost wakes him up first thing. He can't stop snickering. Luckily, it seems Zoro is plenty used to that being part of the ambient chaos on the Merry and so he doesn't stir. They push him far enough that the waves don't push him back in with each lap and then let him go. The inflatable raft spins lazily out into the sea- not fast enough to get torn away from the coast, but enough to make getting back- and therefore all wet- a hassle.
This is when Luffy finally can't contain his laughter anymore. He rolls in the sand, and Chopper joins him. Usopp shouts a victory call and does an accompanying dance. The ruckus is enough that, out on the raft, Zoro wakes up.
He looks around for a moment then back to the shore at all of them.
"OI." He calls, which is enough to send Sanji sputtering and Nami giggling. Luffy and Usopp call out taunts and Sanji stamps his foot in the sand. Robin laughs quietly and watches the antics fondly.
Out at sea, with the waves rocking his raft gently, Zoro squints at the shore and wonders what all the commotion is about.
He lies back down and returns to his nap.