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They had taken away his swords.
Which, while understandable, was still kind of fucking stupid. He didn’t need a blade to break such tiny bodies, but the crew was working with an abundance of caution.
No risks. No mistakes. No slip ups.
Nobody wanted a child’s blood on their hands. Nobody wanted a child’s blood on Zoro’s hands.
Especially not these children.
Luffy and Usopp were posted up just outside the men’s bunk room, flanking either side of the door, ready to subdue him with clenched fists and grappling vine pop greens if necessary. Chopper was just beyond them, armed with a powerful, fast-acting sedative in a wicked looking syringe.
He couldn’t believe this was what it had come to.
Zoro paced the length of the room, hackles raised, scenting the air, doing his absolute best to calm himself down. He breathed in deep, inhaling the somewhat stale smell of the boy’s room, all their scents mixing together into something that was generally unpleasant – like old socks and gunpowder and meat and cola and smoke – but always familiar and calming. His crew, his pack, his mate. He huffed it in greedily, held it in his chest a long moment, then reluctantly let it out in a sigh.
The click of a latch made him tense, and he held his breath for an entirely different reason. Careful, cautious steps sounded behind him. The door stayed open.
“Sit down, Zoro. Against the wall.”
Hearing Sanji’s voice helped soothe his frazzled nerves, especially after spending days apart, and he moved to obey without even a customary argument, shuffling to the far end of the room and tucking himself into the corner. He knew it was so he couldn’t run should anything happen. So Luffy and Usopp would have an easier time controlling him if things went wrong.
So Chopper could tranquilize him like a rabid dog if he bit.
Sanji moved closer. Zoro looked up at him, feeling such a profound, bone-deep longing as he stared at his mate. His golden hair was unbrushed, not styled, mussed up everywhere except the left side of his head where it lay flat against his skull, as if he’d been laying on that side for a while. Zoro wondered absently if this meant he had just woken up, though he moved like he’d been awake for a while.
The pregnancy had taken its toll on Sanji’s already abysmal sleep schedule, but the constant dark circles under his eyes that had stained his skin purple from all those sleepless nights being kept awake by the pups kicking were much darker now. Heavier than they’d been only a few days ago. Zoro knew he was to blame for that. He figured Sanji was getting as much if not less sleep than he was before their pups were born.
He was wearing Zoro’s clothes, the old shirt and pants both slightly too big for him, hiding the elegant lines of his lithe body and making him appear much frumpier than usual. Even still, Zoro wanted him. His beautiful mate, so strong, so kind, so alluring. His teeth ached for want of sinking into his scent gland and reaffirming their damaged bond. His hands itched to grab and hold. His mind fogged, consumed with the desire to claim, bite, mate, breed.
In Sanji’s arms, a squirming bundle of Zoro’s shirts. The fabric draped over his arms in a way that half hid the bandages wrapped around his right forearm. Seeing them, Zoro lowered his head in shame.
He twitched when Sanji stopped in front of him and, unable to hold his breath any longer, finally released his exhale and breathed in again, pulling in the scent of himself, and his pack, and of Sanji, but something unfamiliar tickled his nostrils and made him growl.
“Zoro.”
The sharp, scolding tone Sanji used with him mollified him enough to swallow the sound down, where it rumbled more quietly in the pit of his chest. His body stayed tense, every muscle stiff.
“If you can’t behave, I’m going to leave.”
Zoro swallowed again, nodding. He shook his head to clear it, silenced his growl.
Slowly, so slowly it felt like entire minutes were passing between each movement, Sanji crouched down beside him. Zoro’s eye immediately locked onto the squirming bundle in his arms. A tiny, pale fist gripped the cloth.
“Okay?” Sanji asked him. After a moment Zoro nodded slowly, still uncertain. Sanji delicately shifted the pup to one arm, wound the other around Zoro’s shoulder, and pulled him to the opposite side. Zoro immediately buried his nose in the crook of Sanji’s neck, finding the scent gland with his mark and inhaling his spicy scent, warm in his olfactory like cinnamon and tobacco. Tension drained from his body as he grabbed handfuls of his own clothes hanging off Sanji’s smaller frame, pulling tight and keeping him close as he stayed there, tucked in the safety of his omega’s arms, just breathing, until Sanji gently pushed him away.
“Do you want to try holding her?” Sanji asked him, voice barely a murmur, like speaking too loud would set Zoro off.
Zoro flexed his empty hands. “I don’t know if I should. What if I…” he trailed off, unable to speak that dreaded scenario into existence.
Sanji combed his fingers through Zoro’s hair. When Zoro readily leaned into his touch, Sanji purred, kissing the top of his head. “I’ll be right here. I won’t let anything happen.”
Zoro hesitated, still unsure, the unfamiliar scent still haunting him, but ultimately he nodded and held his arms out. Sanji smiled, and it didn’t quite reach his tired eyes. He shifted the bundled shirts into Zoro’s waiting arms, showing him how to hold their pup so her tiny head and fragile neck was supported. He didn’t miss the stiffness to Sanji’s movements as they made the transfer, or the way his hands shook as they pulled away from their pup, or the way his voice trembled as he explained how to hold her. Zoro’s own jaw tensed, brow furrowed, angry with himself for putting his mate through so much stress. He had to get over this.
He brought the little bundle close to his chest, sniffing curiously. She smelled of Sanji, mostly, and she smelled of Zoro himself, swaddled tight and safe as she was in the shirt he had worn just yesterday, but her scent carried an underlying level of wrongness as well, something unfamiliar. Something indescribable that was just slightly off, just enough to make him wary.
He didn’t know her name. Didn’t know any of the pups’ names. Didn’t know if they had been given names yet. Sanji had wanted the genders of the triplets to remain a surprise until the birth, and in the meantime, they had argued over every single name they’d come up with, not agreeing on a single one.
Zoro wished they could go back to that. Back to fighting over whether or not Saffron and Claymore were suitable names for a child. Not…this. Not Zoro locked up like a wild animal away from his mate and pups and Sanji taking care of them alone when he should be resting.
He’d been fine when they’d just been born. Happy. Tears in his eyes as he’d held them, held Sanji. Awed by and in love with these small humans he’d helped create. They’d smelled good then, so much like Sanji with a sweet undertone that almost reminded him of the fresh bread Sanji would bake every morning. He’d felt so protective as he’d taken turns sitting back with each one on his bare chest, stroking their tiny backs, still sticky with vernix caseosa and amniotic fluid, feeling the gentle warmth of their every exhale against his skin. He would have done anything for them in that moment, from fighting a hundred armies to keep them safe to learning how to sing just so he could rock them to sleep with lullabies.
They’d spent the night in the infirmary, some order from Chopper he hadn’t paid much attention to. He’d watched as Sanji kissed each pup goodnight and settled them down into their own individual bassinets beside the bed, before leaning down to do the same. When he caught their scent he’d recognized it as a little odd, not as sweet as before, but hadn’t paid it much mind. The infirmary bed was too small for either of them to sleep comfortably, but Sanji insisted he lay down, and he was happy to hold his mate and kiss his mark and whisper praise until they’d both fallen asleep.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he was woken up by the sound of one of the pups fussing. He’d shushed Sanji as he’d stirred, saying he would take care of it, and had gotten up to attend to his baby. But something was wrong. When he smelled them, it made his hackles raise. When he looked down at the one causing the noise, he didn’t feel those same cozy, protective feelings from before. What he felt now was dark, and violent.
He'd stood over the bassinets, staring down at his pups as the one fussing grew louder and louder, sick with bloodlust. His hands wrapped around the edge of the middle bassinet, the wood splintering beneath his grip, breaking the skin. He clenched his teeth so hard he swore they might crack. His muscles spasmed, eager to move, to destroy, and bile rose in his throat.
A gasp behind him drew his attention. Until his dying day he would never forget the absolute, unfiltered terror he saw on Sanji’s face when he’d turned around. He’d tried to step away from the bassinets, to go and comfort his mate, but stopped when the pup began crying.
He wasn’t completely sure what happened after that. Everything was a little blurry, and if he thought too hard about it he felt sick. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know exactly what happened, so he hadn’t asked. Just listened as Chopper, looking more tired and tense than he’d ever seen the little reindeer look, explained the bare bones of it when he said he didn’t remember.
Chopper said none of his pups had gotten hurt.
He knew Sanji had been without needing to be told. He had tasted the blood between his teeth for hours after he’d been shut away. It was both a relief and a torment that it was Sanji’s.
Zoro pushed fabric aside and stared down at the pup Sanji’d handed him. The silky wisps of soft, downy hair on the crown of her head were the same shade of grassy green as his own hair, but she was pale like Sanji. Her cheeks were round with baby fat, rosy and pink, so it was hard to tell exactly who she looked more like in the face. He thought her nose might resemble his own a little bit more, but the faint hairs that made up her pale eyebrows were already starting to resemble Sanji’s signature curl. She gazed up at him with big blue eyes the color of the ocean, the same color as Sanji’s, and she gurgled around a bubble of spit, and Zoro’s heart broke.
She was his third-born, but the pup he had cradled first.
She was so beautiful.
She was in the way.
His breath stilled in his chest, blood running cold in his veins.
Chopper had explained, after he’d calmed down and his own injuries were dealt with, that this was natural. That it was an archaic instinct, mostly phased out in the current age, left over from ancient times when reproductive competition between dominant alphas was much more common, and resources more scarce. That usually this instinct would have him killing another alpha’s pups in order to have a chance to mate with their omega, but some wires were crossed somewhere, and this instinct was making him unable to recognize his own offspring. That as long as they were around, Sanji would be lactating, and while he was lactating, he would not ovulate. That Zoro wanted to kill his own pups because it would speed up the return of Sanji’s heats.
It was an unfortunate, but completely natural, instinct, one Chopper reassured him he knew how to deal with.
Zoro hated that.
He hated himself more.
He was not the kind of alpha who was slave to his instincts. He was better than those base urges, had trained and meditated until he could control them, so he could choose when to indulge in them. Let his drive to dominate out during fights with Sanji, who hated when he held back, even if they were just playing. Channel his aggression and need to protect his pack into every battle Luffy dragged them into. Stalwartly ignore the sticky, luring scent of an omega in heat until Sanji, in his right mind in the middle of his cycle, gave him permission to claim him.
He was stricken that he couldn’t control this instinct. He would die before he hurt his pups or his mate, but as he had this thought his eyes strayed back to the bandages wrapped around Sanji’s arm, and he felt sick with the knowledge that he’d tried to attack his pups only hours after they’d been born and had hurt his mate in the process.
Sanji should hate him. Refuse to let him see any of their pups. Tell him they were over despite the matching bite marks on their glands that would forever mark them as a pair long after their bond was severed. And his crew should want nothing more to do with him after he’d attacked his own pack. He was a threat to them. A threat to his own children. Sanji should hate him.
Instead, Sanji rubbed circles across his back and purred as Zoro held his pup for the first time in days.
“You’re doing so good, Marimo. See? Nice and calm,” Sanji was murmuring reassurances into his ear, his cheek resting on Zoro’s shoulder.
Keeping the girl’s head nestled safely in his elbow and his hand steady under her body, Zoro brought his other hand up, using the very tips of his pointer and middle fingers to brush a wisp of her green hair from her forehead. He traced the subtle curl of her eyebrow, wondering if it would be as prominent and dizzying as Sanji’s someday, and she grunted, tiny hands reaching for him. As if in a trance, he cupped his hand around her head, his palm alone enough to completely dwarf her skull, still soft and flexible.
It would take nothing at all to end her life. He'd barely even have to squeeze.
Sanji’s fingers wrapped gently around his wrist and pulled his hand away just as his fingers tensed. He kissed the back of Zoro’s hand as Zoro let out a choked breath, tasting stomach acid at the back of his throat.
“Calm down, Daddy,” Sanji soothed, using the new nickname he’d taken to calling Zoro every now and then since he began showing, around the time he claimed Zoro was getting clingier. Usually the nickname made him swell with pride and excitement, but in this moment it was an obvious attempt to remind him exactly what he was to these tiny, defenseless humans he was baring his fangs at. “Deep breaths, Mossy. I’m right here. It’s okay.”
Zoro followed Sanji’s instruction, but it didn’t help. It just made that off smell of hers invade his senses again, clouding him mind with confusion and tamping down his every paternal instinct. He shook his head as if to rid himself of the offending scent, squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see the way she looked at him with those bright blue eyes. He felt her tiny hand wrap around his pinky finger, and her grip was so strong for something so small, and he was so weak. He bit back a growl behind clenched teeth, dropping his head until his chin met his chest, the lines of his body rigid as he held himself back.
He felt Sanji remove their pup from his arms the instant the sound left him. He heard the sound of his footsteps getting further away, then a few hushed words between Sanji and Usopp. The footsteps returned, along with Sanji’s scent.
Eyes still closed, arms still cradled around nothing, he felt Sanji sit down next to him and draw him into his arms. His calming, familiar, spicy scent enveloped him, and Zoro buried his face in Sanji’s chest, clutching weakly at his sides.
“I’m so sorry.”
Sanji hushed him with a kiss to the top of his head. “It’s okay, big guy. You can’t help your instincts.” His voice was strained, obviously fighting between his own instincts to comfort his alpha and quell the threat to his pups. And how vile was that, that the only reason Sanji even needed to comfort Zoro in the first place was because his own fucked up instincts made him want to kill his own pups so he could be closer to his mate again. How was Sanji not disgusted by him, how was he even able to be in the same room with him knowing what he had tried to do, and would try again given the chance?
Sanji had carried these pups for nine months. Had read every book on parenting he had gotten his hands on, had adjusted his own diet week to week to ensure he was getting enough nutrients to keep all four of them healthy. Had spent morning after morning getting sick on an empty stomach, then crying because the smell of certain things made him nauseous and he couldn’t cook whatever he wanted. Had argued with Zoro about whether their babies would be cooks, or swordsmen, or swordsmen cooks, or neither of the two. Had thought tirelessly of names that went well together, but didn’t force the triplets to be a matching set; he wanted them to have that sense of individualism he didn’t have as a numbered quadruplet. Had spent a small fortune on clothes and diapers and bottles and the bassinets, making jokes about Zoro being a deadbeat dad because he couldn’t contribute with his perpetually empty pockets.
Sanji had gained weight and had been unable to join fights, had suffered through sore feet and a sore back and sore breasts and the pups kicking him in the bladder in the middle of the night. Had developed even worse insomnia, unable to sleep comfortably as his belly continued to grow, and mood swings, going from carefree and cuddly to prickly and spiteful over the smallest things. Had spent hours in pain to deliver their pups and had still smiled so wide and bright when Chopper handed him the first born.
Zoro couldn’t help with a lot of that. He’d had to make his peace with the fact that a lot of what Sanji was experiencing were simply things he could not shoulder for his mate. He could deal with that because he knew once they were born he could take over. Sanji could finally lay down and rest and Zoro would handle everything else, only waking Sanji up when one of the pups was hungry, and only because he refused to bottle feed them. Zoro would handle the crying, the dirty diapers, bathing and swaddling them until Sanji had recovered, and then, as a team, they would handle it all together.
And he couldn’t even give his poor mate that. Couldn’t even allow him to take the break he so desperately needed. Surely, surely the crew wasn’t making him take care of three babies alone? But even if they were helping, Zoro should be there instead. They were his pups, damn it! He was responsible for them! They deserved a father who was there for them!
He didn’t realize he was growling again until Sanji’s fingernails scratched through his hair, the subtle sting distracting him from his spiraling thoughts. He looked up at his mate, so beautiful, so tired, said again, “I’m sorry.”
Sanji pursed his lips, his eyes hardening subtly. “You’ll get over this in no time, and I know that when you do you’ll be doting on them just as much as I am.” He tugged Zoro’s two remaining earrings. It was only then that Zoro realized Sanji wasn’t wearing the third.
He swallowed back the gut-churning emotions that caused, and asked, “What if I never get over it? What if I can’t ever be around them?”
“Shh. Chopper said we just have to keep introducing them to you slowly like this. Once you get used to their scent you’ll love them.”
Zoro’s hands tightened in the fabric of his shirt draping too big from Sanji’s body. He imagined days, weeks, of this. Of only being able to tolerate his own children for a few minutes at a time, of having to be supervised every time he interacted with them to ensure he wouldn’t hurt them. Tears sprung to his eye, burning as they fell. “I do love them. I promise I do. I don’t want to hurt them.”
Sanji hugged him tight, running his hand in soothing circles across Zoro’s strained back. “I know, Daddy. I know.” He tucked his head and kissed the mark he’d left on Zoro’s scent gland, and Zoro chuffed around the thick sob building in the back of his throat. “We’ll try again tomorrow, okay?”
Zoro nodded shakily. “Okay.” Though he dreaded having to repeat this moment even one more time, he would do it. He would do whatever it took to be able to hold his pups again, and listen to them breathe, and rock them to sleep with poorly sung lullabies.