#zobin

Strength was something he was knowledgeable on. He knew how to hone it, and how to control it. It wasn't intangible, and unknown—like the uneasiness in his chest. A creature of habit, he focused on the bag of soil in his possession and switched shoulders for the time being.

"Where do you want it?" he asked Robin, noticing the thinly veiled hint of annoyance in his own voice. If he was any less shameless he would have been embarrassed at himself. Zoro's dark gaze swept over to Robin's silhouette. She stood there bathed in sunlight and utterly clueless to his dilemma. "Robin?"

He watched her eyes focus once more, and a smile bloomed like a delicate flower on her pale face.

"There's fine, thank you!" she said, her voice a warm toned melody. Zoro had to blink himself free from the weird spell, and followed her finger with newfound discipline. It was the best he could do to hide his embarrassment. He frowned at the empty garden bed, and had half a mind to ask her if she had made it before he reminded himself he knew better.

It was no big secret in the crew that Franky had a soft spot for their archeologist. Surely, this was just another one of his dedicated inventions. Zoro scoffed before he could stop himself, his mouth a crooked and disdainful as he rolled the bag off his shoulder. He watched it slump there, looking pathetic and powerless against the empty flower bed.

Good. It had it coming, he thought.

There was that feeling again, as if he was being watched. When he glanced over to Robin, she was watching him again in that quiet manner of hers—as if she was judging him with an indecipherable smile. He thought he had gotten used to it, but as of late, it was starting to make him feel anxious again. At least, that's what he was willing to name the feeling in his chest—the kind that fluttered, and buzzed, before warming the rest of his body.

"Robin," he said, calling her name he felt, for far too many times in the span of a few minutes. It felt like obsession, at this point, and his pride was threatening to lodge in the middle of his throat. Was she that bored by his presence?

The bag of soil became his punching bag once more, as it tore under his strength. He enjoyed the sound of tearing canvas. The ripping that he felt through his fingers was oddly satisfying but not enough to soothe his bruised ego.

"Are you even listening to anything I say?"

The words were out before he could swallow them back. He wanted to cuss himself out. If it was possible, he would have jumped into the sea rather than to sound like a petulant child begging for attention. What had gotten into him, anyway? Didn't he have other things he could be doing? Yet, there he was. The sun was hot on the back of his neck, fingertips covered in dirt, while being completely ignored by the one person he wasn't sure he wanted to impress.

"What am I even doing here?" he muttered, once again, his own damn mouth betraying him. He never even had this much lack of control when he drank.

He should get up and leave. He had done the heavy lifting—a task that he was positive she could have handled on her own. What was there left for him to do for her? Robin was completely self-reliant. She had survived on her own since she was a child even with the World Government on the hunt for her head. She had been through things Zoro could only imagine.

What did Nico Robin need from a swordsman like him?

"I'm so sorry, Zoro," her voice, like silk, wrapped around him, startling him into speechlessness. As he blinked quickly, his breath hitched in his throat. Robin reached into the bag. Her arm snaked like a vine between his. "I'm being a bit inconsiderate here, aren't I?"

His body tensed, not daring to move. If he did, he might touch her. Zoro wasn't sure if that was a good idea, especially not while that strange anxiety slipped through him once more, warming him down to his fingertips. There was a heat on his face he longed to ignore, and he hoped she did as well. As if seeking an answer from her, his brown eyes sought hers. They shone brighter under the sun, as if they had swallowed the sunlight themselves.

Zoro wasn't sure he had ever seen something so surreal.

"I should fill the flower bed," he heard her say—her voice adopting a new lilt to it. Zoro frowned. "You can't plant anything if there's no soil to begin with."

Unsure of the situation, and unsure if there was anything unspoken at all to fuss over, he decided to let it go. He was more interested in work he could do with his hands, than his brain anyways. Dirt felt real, solid under his fingers. He seized handfuls of it and tossed them into the empty flower bed, enjoying the sensation of it squeezing past his knuckles. As satisfying as it was, it was slow work, and he grew impatient. Sensing little protest from the unofficial project director, Zoro stood up, tilted the bag and emptied it all at once.

"Well done, Zoro!" Her voice was cheerful, inciting a strange sense of accomplishment. Zoro wanted to slice right through it. If it had a head, he would cut it off immediately. That blossoming smile was on her face again—and so was a dark hand print right over that bewitching grin.

He frowned, unsure of what to say or if what he was seeing was real for a second. He wanted to laugh, more than anything, but he didn't know if Robin would appreciate that. He felt the corners of his lips twitched as he tried to reign it in. She looked so comical. The usual cool, and effortless Nico Robin rendered into a physical comedy gag by the power of what—carelessness?

It almost broke him.

"What is it?" she asked, her clear eyes on his face. It was almost enough to make him confess.

He stared back at her, feeling his chest swell up. Wind danced around his ankles, warm and almost sensual. The silence between them invited further conversation—a secret space just for them, but he still didn't dare. Robin was so hard to read, and Zoro wasn't as big of a risk taker as he thought.

He shook his head once, ashamed; unable to bear looking back into her eyes that seemed to see everything. He shifted his weight to one foot, and looked down at them before directing his attention to the garden bed.

"What are you planting anyway?" he asked, eager to push past whatever had just happened—or not happened—between them; brushing his nose twice before hand. It was a nervous habit he couldn't quite quit.

"Ah!" Came Robin's excited voice, clapping her hands once. Zoro bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Her skirt moved elegantly despite her eager bounding steps in the direction of a tray of sprouts. She moved quickly, showing him some satchels he barely had a glance of before she was tossing them back down. Her excitement was palpable in her erratic movements. In a sense it reminded him of Luffy. "I'm so glad you asked. I have been holding on to these for the right climate. I grew what I could inside and after talking to Nami it seems there is no better time than now."

Roronoa Zoro stayed quiet as he stood there, his weight on one leg, knuckles pressed against his hips. He watched her through dark lashes, the sun was again shining around her. Was it her hair? Did it attract sunlight like flowers did butterflies? Was it normal for light to hang from someone's crown like a halo? Had he lost his damn mind?

He had lost his damn mind. Or he was hungry. Should he eat?

As he ruminated in a panic about his options, he stayed eerily still—only his chest rising and falling faster as he tried to talk himself off the ledge. Robin continued, a map or something in her hands now.

"Of course, being at sea means anything could happen. We could get swept away by a massive wave, or we could get eaten by a Sea King and all my planning would have been for naught."

As Robin paused for breath, Zoro's left eyebrow rose a fraction. If he had lost his mind, at least he was no more crazier than anyone else in his crew if Robin's little speech was anything to go off by. He stepped forward to tug the drawn layout from her fingers, wordlessly declaring it his distraction from his inner thoughts.

"You could also die while eating an onigiri," Zoro muttered, turning the layout Robin had painstakingly drawn, color coded, and wrote notes on with careful penmanship here and there like he was waiting for secrets to pop out of it. He could go for an onigiri now, maybe four. As he thought about the list of foods he'd like to eat soon, Robin tried to take his distraction away. He snatched it back in time only to be thwarted by her Devil Fruit.

He gave in this time, letting her have the victory. At least that's what he was going to tell himself.

He watched her slip away from him, seemingly finding the garden bed more interesting than him. Zoro tried to find no offense to that but his pride was bigger than he thought; and here he thought that had been beaten out of him a long time ago.

"If you chew your food, you don't have to worry too much about that," Robin said coolly, as she laid down the layout she had claimed from him. He stepped forward to watch her work over her shoulder. The rocks she used to pin the sheet down caught his interest, and he frowned at them only to realize he recognized the artwork to be Usopp's. "Unless you're severely allergic to an ingredient in the onigiri. What a shame!"

As he figured, there really wasn't much he could do for her yet he couldn't control his next move. He found himself there, inexplicably knelt by her side, staring at the soil as if he could find answers buried in there. If he dug enough, could he get down to the reason for the strange feeling that liked to occasionally live inside the cavity of his chest? If he toiled, dug again would he find another side of Robin that he didn't know about—that no one did?

The sun was unforgiving above him, threatening to burn a hole through the back of his head. Zoro almost welcomed it, if the sun felt daring enough to take him on. It would be a welcome reprieve to all the insufferable thoughts. He didn't think he was much of a thinker; the irony was enough to give him a nosebleed if he continued to ruminate it further.

Robin was saving him from himself again.

She placed a shovel in his roughened hand, and he looked at her briefly—her cheeks bright and pink, eyes downcast. It was a sight that tempted him to drink it up to the point of intoxication.

He gripped the shovel's handle tighter, and got to work. He spaced out holes for the seedlings, doing the math in his head quite easily.

"Is that deep enough?" he asked, and a part of him—the one he wanted to behead—wished she would praise him again, like she did before.

"Yes, that should be fine. I'll go get the trays."

It was not the reaction he was hoping for, and he swallowed the bitter taste of disappointment. He clenched his jaw to keep from sulking, ignoring the risk it posed on his molars.

Robin made an attempt to stand up to get the trays , but Zoro pressed a calloused hand on her forearm, pushing her down gently. It wasn't her fault that he had lost his mind. It was entirely his responsibility.

"I got 'em," he mumbled, as he stood up, desperate to get away from her for a moment to breathe and gain his sanity back.

He wished the trays were heavier. He wished they were his confusing feelings, and his stupid wishes, and his childish desire for praise, that way he could have flung them into the ocean in a fake accident.

Instead, they were Robin's precious seedlings—ones she had told him, that she had taken the extra care to raise inside away from the unpredictable elements of the oceans. As such, he started walking them back to her, careful not to jostle them too much.

Unpredictably, his previous distraction flew into the air, and he reacted before he could stop himself by catching it with one hand. Not wanting to drop the trays, he shoved it into his shirt for later retrieval.

"How do you want these anyway?" Zoro asked, reaching her quicker than he had planned. He wasn't sure he was back to his regular senses, and didn't trust himself to make a fool of himself once more.

"By height of course," Robin answered. Zoro nodded, as if to say 'of course', as well. He should have thought of that. "Sunflowers in the very back, then coneflowers and then the zinnias."

Zoro watched her point at them, and nodded once to acknowledge her instructions. He grabbed what looked like the right seedling and tried to plant it in one of the holes in the back but was stopped by the feel of Robin's cool hand on top of his.

"Zoro," she said. Zoro's fingers twitched, as if they wanted to act on their own. "Do you know about the language of flowers?"

Zoro stayed silent, as she moved his hands, and a seedling, to the right spot. His heart hammered away in his chest. Together, they covered the seedling with dirt.

"I don't know," he said hoarsely, his mouth dryer than it's ever been. "Am I supposed to?"

Robin giggled, shoulders briefly shaking with her mirth. The sound played atop his skin, every single note stinging it's way up his spine. She bumped the back of her hand with his, and it was enough to make him hold his breath.

"I could hardly expect a swordsman like you to busy yourself with learning such things, but…" She guided him again to plant another seedling, her lithe fingers brushed over his. Zoro wasn't sure how much longer he could take this. "Would you like to know?"

Zoro reminded himself to breathe. Adrenaline coursed through him, the kind of head rush he usually found in battle. Every sense felt alive, he could smell her every time he breathed in—sweet and floral, like an expensive tea.

"Go ahead."

"Zinnias, for example," she pointed to the front line. Zoro squinted at the leaves. They hardly seemed different to him but he trusted her to know. "Symbolize enduring friendship and remembrance. Isn't that wonderful?"

Robin smiled at the seedlings, the kind of glow on her cheeks that she had when she would smile at Chopper—not that he had been watching too much.

Zoro shrugged, as if this would throw the weight of his own suspicion off.

"It also represents lasting affection."

Zoro's hands froze momentarily, before he forced them to work—his heart lurching painfully as if he had been caught stealing from the kitchen. Just what the hell was wrong with him? Was it sun poisoning? Was that what was going on? Because it sure felt like it. He was melting.

"What about these?" he asked, burying a coneflower that Robin had to save by shaking off a top layer of dirt.

"Coneflowers symbolize strength, resilience, and healing. Something I wish for you," Robin murmured before quickly adding. "All of you."

"I'm already strong," Zoro mumbled, looking away to frown at Robin. Was she doubting him? He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He wanted to remind himself this was Nico Robin not that stupid Ero Cook. She wasn't Nami either. There was no need to look for hidden meanings in her words. "And I'm not sick. I don't need healing."

Robin smiled back at Zoro, and the corners of her eyes crinkled.

"Yes," she said simply before turning her attention back to their work. "You're not sick."

"And these?"

Robin planted the last of the sunflowers with Zoro's help as a bemused expression took over her face.

"Sunflowers are my favorite," she said quietly. A warm breeze blew through her hair. Zoro leaned closer to hear her, and found that quickly to be a mistake. He could smell her again, more strongly than before. If he breathed deep enough, he could taste her scent in the back of his mouth. Robin looked up into Zoro's eyes.

His breath was arrested; anchored, thrown into the abyss. Still, he held on.

"They symbolize adoration, loyalty and devotion."

"Devotion," he muttered under his breath, his eyes finding Robin's face. He watched her quietly, his eyes tracing the planes of her face. What did Robin know of devotion? She seemed like a solitary creature, or at least she had been before joining them. If she was devoted to anything it was to her books. Was that what she thought of it?

And why did he care? Did he not have his own things to devote himself to? His own missions? Why was he bending his tiny brain in every direction trying to solve the mystery of Nico Robin like he was the archaeologist on the ship and not the other way around?

Irritation settled on the nape of his neck.

"You have dirt on your face," he told her simply.

Robin wiped at her face with the back of her arms. In her moment of panic, Zoro seized the opportunity and stood up. Now would be the time to retreat, although he'd be loathed to admit it out loud.

He looked down at her, a frown heavy between his brows. As silence fell between them again, Zoro felt guilt bite the back of his knees. He was a coward.

Zoro held out his hand to her. And he waited.

Her blue eyes, sparkling in the sun, took in the sight of his hand and Zoro wondered what she was looking for in them. After listening to his own heartbeat in his ears for far too long, Robin wrapped her cold fingers around his.

Zoro pulled her up, surprised at how light she felt. Slightly unsettled, Zoro stood there in silence, watching his shadow cast partially over Robin. The sunlight still found its hanging place on her crown—a suitable throne.

He tilted his head and scoffed softly—a gentle laugh that barely made a sound.

"I half expected you to plant a bunch of poisonous plants. I guess I was wrong again."

Now was the time to retreat, before he said something else that would give too much away.

"Again?" Robin asked his retreating figure. Zoro turned slightly to look at her over his shoulder with a sideways grin.

Would it be like this, every time? Her voice the sound that could stop him on his tracks, and reel him back like a fishing line.

"Robin," he called out.

"Yes?"