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Back then, Zoro’s favourite dream used to be about winning. He didn’t know what they were supposed to be winning, and it’s not like it mattered. Whatever it was, they’d win it. A war or a match or a jackpot. Everything in the world theirs to take.
They’d win, and Luffy would throw himself on Zoro, roaring until he wasn’t, until his lips were on Zoro’s, wet and burning. Then everything would slow. Luffy’s legs around his waist, the dig of his heels into Zoro’s spine, hell, the bruising press of the hilts of his swords. And Zoro would get a hand, finally, in Luffy’s rough dark curls, and maybe they wouldn’t be as rough as they looked, and Zoro would kiss him back. All while the world raged around them, everything slow.
It used to be his favourite dream. Until they won one day, and Luffy threw himself on Zoro, and for whatever fucking reason, bit his ear.
*
Swordfighting, he’d always thought, was a contact sport. Sure, the contact part of it didn’t really come in unless you were facing up against an asshole who, when cornered, preferred to jam his shoulder in your ribs and call it a day— but there was the other contact too, the combat. The ring of metal against metal, blades slicing through air like it was tangible, which it was. Everything in the world became woundable with a sword in his hand.
It wasn’t until Kuraigana that he realised how insufficient that contact had become. How the world had split into two kinds of touch: swords and hands.
Luffy’s hands.
Kuraigana was dense with growth. A green wetness to the jungle, the undergrowth fertile and sweet wherever he stepped on it. And, as he found out one night a month or two in, the weed it grew was the strongest on the Line.
Wasn’t all he learned that night. There was also the fact that Perona, despite those bright pink claws of hers, rolled as well as Blondie. She’d walked into his room the way she always did, without knocking or apology, and held out a square of velvet full of buds, the other hand pinching paper.
‘It helps with pain,’ she said, motioning with a chin to his collection of Sabaody scars. Zoro started to protest, she cut in, rolling her eyes. ‘I checked with your sword daddy. You’ll sweat it out before your next session.’
He’d last smoked with Blondie and Nami at Water 7, something spicy and light that Paulie’d scored for them, hemming and hawing about kids these days. It took an hour to kick in and then convinced Nami that the only way to spend their last night in the city was to go skinny-dipping in the water that’d almost killed them forty times in the past seventy-two hours. Zoro’d jumped just to make sure she didn’t drown, Blondie throwing a fit about being too high to follow suit. He had been high, fuck, not to have raised an eyebrow when Nami stripped, not even for pretence.
Kuraigana weed was nothing like it. It rolled over him lush and heavy from the first drag, so that his head was lolling back against the foot of the bed even as Perona rolled up another joint on the cool stone floor. The ceiling was so high, he’d realised that night, his room in the middle of a castle, after all. Dark blue curtains that blocked all light that he nudged a crack open at night to let the moon in, its pale cold white stretching over the sheets, the floor, the empty frame on the opposite wall. The empty room, empty castle save for the three of them, and—
‘Oh, fuck, get that out of here,’ Zoro groaned, even as the last of Perona’s sprites floated into the room, peering all curious at their setup. Candles and pot, fruit and cheese. ‘Keep those things away from me, I’m serious.’ Already his skin was prickling with the plant and the memory of the misery those phantoms were capable of drawing up from his bones, and he wasn’t in the fucking mood.
Nor was Perona, because instead of doubling down, she laughed and waved the sprites away, took the joint from him. It had already kicked in; he turned his head to watch her smoke, the pink ring of her lipstick around the filter, her thick black lashes against her pale cheeks as she took the drag, the flash of her teeth as she exhaled the smoke slow and steady.
‘Why?’ Zoro asked. Why waste good weed on a Strawhat, why bandage him, why speak to him at all.
‘Oh, don’t start,’ she sighed, passing him the joint again. ‘I don’t know, all right? You’re like a wounded dog.’
‘Thanks, I guess?’
‘Look, stabby boy.’ Perona picked a big blue grape, popped it into her mouth. ‘You know why I don’t like people? Because they’re needy. All of them. You want to be the world’s greatest swordsman and here you are, away from your crew for, what, a month so far? And you’re dying for a warm touch.’ Zoro’d scoffed, too fuzzy to say more, and she’d pressed. ‘I see it, you know. When you’re not fighting. You move like you’re not used to having so much space. Like there’s supposed to be someone in your perimeter.’
And— that’s what’d done it. That she was right, that she wasn’t. Because yeah, the Merry’d been crowded despite her size, him and Blondie shoving into each other in hallways, spilling soup and wine and curses. And yeah, God forbid one of them had to take a leak just as Nami was stepping out of the bathroom with her two hundred bottles of perfume and virgins’ blood. But the Sunny’d fixed all that, more space than they could ever have imagined, enough for Usopp and Franky to have workshops, enough for Chopper to have an infirmary and Robin a library and Zoro a place to train.
And yet nothing’d changed about Zoro’s— perimeter, yeah. He was always being crowded in, poked and punched and tickled, laughed on and at, hung onto and pulled this way and that.
So much so that he’d forgotten what it was like before, when the sharp young pine of Luffy’s scent wasn’t always in his senses.
‘Not a warm touch,’ he’d said, when he finally remembered how to move his tongue. Perona’d already forgotten what they were talking about, and he had no idea how much time had passed, only that he was still on the floor but now so was she, hair splayed out, roses on stone, hands crossed over her stomach. He’d thought about it for a second, but her skin looked like it’d freeze his. ‘Not just anyone’s.’
Not just anyone’s. It had to be fleeting and blazing and stinging, and it had to be careless. Had to smell like pine and feel like callouses, and— and Zoro hadn’t realised how much he knew about the way Luffy touched him until he was too far to do it anymore. Until the drug was smoking across his system and amplifying the memory of every single time Luffy’s brash hand came down on him. Wrapping around his wrist, curling around his collar, yanking, pushing, clinging. Zoro, here, catch. Zoro, leg cramp, I’m gonna die. Zoro, give your captain a lift, won’t you. Creeping over him heavy and hot, Luffy’s unthinking proximity, how he laughed and swatted away every evidence of Zoro’s— every evidence of something he had to know.
He had to know. He must have known.
Perona laughed high and loose, like it was slipping away from her. ‘You really are obsessed, aren’t you. Does he even love you back?’
‘I’m not obsessed.’ Zoro eyed the second joint, then realised the first one wasn’t even halfway gone. Obsession’s an activity, a state, he remembered thinking. This is forever. ‘It’s just— like this.’
Perona didn’t reply for what felt like a year and a half, but the ugly old clock on the wall only ticked sixteen times.
‘I don’t know you,’ she said. ‘But you don’t look the type to go on your knees before daddy cat-eyes over there—’ She pointed with a long pink nail to wherever Mihawk’s chambers were, eyes wide and dark— ‘—for just anybody. It’s like you’ve got an animal in your chest.’ Long pink nail on his sternum now, when did she even sit up? ‘It’ll do anything for him.’
Zoro’d only stared. At her pale hand, pink nail, dark eyes. At the orange embers of the joint, at the ash in the old wineglass. He’d thought about it then. About telling her what he’d done at Thriller Bark, just to see if he could shake some feeling into those big dark eyes of hers. Just to see if someone else could see it too, the burning, aching, pulsing life inside him that wasn’t so much dying away from Luffy as it was screaming to stay alive until they met again.
‘So do this, no?’ Perona said. ‘For him. Endure it, Roronoa Zoro.’
*
Still, he doesn’t expect it. Isn’t ready for it when it inevitably happens— so much so that he has no time to deal with it, in the whirlpool of action and trouble that they kick up the moment they’re all back together, and so— doesn’t.
Zoro doesn’t deal with it for days, with any of it— Nami’s long hair and Chopper’s new forms and Brook’s fucking sunglasses. Any of it. Blondie and Robin and Franky, and Camie and Pappag right there as if the world had been put on pause while they were all away, as if nothing had changed, only everything had. Everything has— Zoro’s vision and Luffy’s heart and the map of the world. If he tried to take it all in at once he’d die, so he doesn’t. Slashes away and plants his feet firmly on the strange ground of Fishman Island, and does not as he’s told, but as he’s supposed to.
Slipping back into it is as easy as he thought it’d be. It isn’t as if he ever stopped being first mate, after all, and the stronger Luffy gets, the higher the honour of watching his back. Zoro leaps and flies and cuts through air, and sweats, and sweats.
It starts to hit the night of their victory, all of Ryugu sparkling with joy and music, Zoro inhaling as much of their heady, bittersweet alcohol as he can. It curdles if it leaves their bubble, Fukaboshi explains, and can only be drunk underwater. And well, Zoro’s never been one to waste nectar. They’ve got a week to get their act together before setting off for the New World, and he’s going to spent at least half of it buzzed.
It starts to hit then. When he’s lying down, half-asleep, the party uncaring and loud around him but starting to fade from his ears, only Nami’s occasional remark getting through, Chopper’s laugh. There’s nothing like it, every memory of being on the Merry and Sunny washing over him in a mix of nostalgia and relief and silly boyish joy. They’re back— he’s back, his friends are back, and yeah, that’s Luffy chewing loud enough to make it through the haze of booze and sleep. That’s Luffy’s whiny, selfish, distracted voice, Blondie laughing at Jinbei’s annoyance, saying we’ll explain it to him later. That’s the hem of Luffy’s shirt tickling Zoro’s jaw, that’s Luffy settling close enough to him to smell.
That’s Luffy’s pine. Still the same. Still the same, his fingers clumsy around the bottle Zoro still has in a loose fist, as if he doesn’t care about waking Zoro up. Never has. And he always does. Zoro could never sleep through it, especially not tonight: the brush of Luffy’s fingers against his own, the heel of his curled hand touching Zoro’s thumb, warm from the plate he must’ve been holding, warmer still against the chill of the glass.
That’s when it hits. So sudden he can’t fight it, so subtle he wouldn’t have seen it coming anyway. Luffy’s touch thrums through him in a small, shivering ripple, so that all of Zoro shudders, managing to catch a sound before it leaves his throat.
To cover, he tightens his hand around the neck of the bottle. Keeps his eye closed. ‘Mine.’
‘Greedy.’ Luffy isn’t surprised he’s awake. ‘I wanna taste.’
‘Get your own.’
‘You drank it all, dumbass.’ Tugging, now, and Zoro lets go only because it’s a lost cause. If he pulls Luffy’ll just let his fingers stretch and they’ll be locked in a stalemate for the rest of the night, something Zoro learned early enough with Luffy. Like the night they’d all decided to try arm-wrestling, and Zoro’d won against everyone but Luffy, who wrapped his arm around Zoro’s thrice and slammed it down before anyone knew what was happening.
Back then Zoro was just mad. That’s not fair, you fucking gremlin. Now, as he hears Luffy make all those silly pleased sounds at the taste of the liquor, all he can think about is how it felt. Luffy’s palm against his own, deliberate, focused, if for just a second. Zoro the only thing sitting in front of Luffy, if only for a second.
But he’s gone already. Bottle tucked back into the crook of Zoro’s bent elbow, Luffy’s laugh floating away, into the thick of the party.
Close one, he thinks, cracking his eye open. Luffy’s in a soft yellow shirt, shorts hanging low, covering the stretch marks on the backs of his thighs. His hair curls lower than usual too, down to the nape of his neck. He’s gotten just a little taller. Four fingers, maybe five, the golden rum of him reaching closer to the edge of the glass. Long and lean and—
‘The more things change, huh.’
With some effort, Zoro rolls his head to the left, where Nami’s sitting cross-legged, picking at the seashell bracelet one of the mermaids slipped on her wrist. Her eyes are tipsy-bright, the edges of her hair brushing the floor with how she’s hunched over, thin stomach caved in.
‘What do you want,’ Zoro says.
‘Oh, nothing. I’m not the one trying to practise ocular telekinesis with our captain.’
‘Shut up.’ He turns to look at the ceiling, its glass skylight opening into the black nothingness of the ocean at night. Descending from it are strings of giant pearls, their spheres lit pale gold from the inside, light soft and diffused like the sun. ‘He’s grown taller, s’all.’
‘Sure.’ Nami reaches out and plucks the bottle from his grip, knocking it against his temple when he curses. ‘Did Mihawk teach you anything about romance or was it just clang-clang and daddy issues?’
‘Oh, fuck off.’ Zoro finally makes himself sit up, to glare at her better. She locks her gaze on his and makes a show of downing a third of the bottle, even though she has to grimace when she puts it down. ‘If he didn’t want me two years ago, what the hell makes you think he’ll want me now?’
Nami rolls her eyes, hands him the bottle. ‘Oh, all right, so we’re still there. You still don’t see it.’ Then her eyes go wide with the glee and guilt of the joke he knows she’s about to make. ‘Well, you can’t see—’
‘I’ll gouge both your eyes out,’ Zoro informs her. Takes a swig, wipes his mouth. ‘Look, let me get my fill, all right? I’ll— I haven’t—’
‘Yeah,’ Nami says after a beat, gaze softening. Reaches out to pinch Zoro’s cheek between two fingers. A distant part of him registers that he doesn’t feel anything when she does it. ‘I know.’
*
But he can’t. He can’t seem to get his fill.
Shirahoshi manages to convince them— all but two— to stay a few days longer with those big wet eyes of hers. Zoro’s proud to be the only one standing tall beside Luffy against her wiles, but changes his mind awful fast when he learns they’ve unearthed a crate of aged violet wine for the occasion. He’s heard of it before, sommeliers getting a faraway look in their eyes when they talk about the long-lost wine of the Ryugu vignerons, who stopped all alcohol exports once Whitebeard’s protection spared them from having to appease the nobles overhead. Drove up the prices of what few bottles remained, and Zoro never got his hands on one.
Blondie takes it seriously too. Delays his trip to the mermaid café by a full three hours just so he can be the first one to taste, elbowing Zoro out of the way, muttering something about palates and moral duty. That Zoro lets him do it, is the loudest he’ll be about having missed the fuckhead. And he had. He had missed them all, Nami and Usopp, and Brook and Franky and Robin, and Chopper, God.
And Luffy. Luffy, who must’ve held himself together with the godly will of black holes all this time. Luffy, who doesn’t let it show, for a second, that he must’ve missed them too. Hasn’t changed how he talks to them and what he expects of them, hasn’t changed the careless, unthinking, owning way he calls Zoro, touches him. Even though every time he comes close, something whips alive in Zoro and carves a path of want in him so ugly and urgent he thinks he might vomit.
The wine is gorgeous. Sinks into his tongue, uniquely bitter, sharp green aftertaste. The sort that forces a smile on your lips because you can already see yourself at the end of a glass. Fukaboshi laughs at their faces, slides them the bottle even as Blondie starts to pester him with a volley of questions. Do they really make just three every year, why three and not two or five, is it true that it doesn’t give you hangovers, this oaf here sleeps too much as it is. Zoro tunes out their chatter and focuses on his wine, turns to the huge glass windows that open into the garden.
Luffy’s sitting on a little stone bridge cutting across the lily pond, extending his legs so he can dip his toes, the most he can manage without the water doing him in. He’s pointing out fish in the water to Chopper, who’s got his journal out, sketching away. Puffing up his cheeks to mime one, then flattening his hair to mime another. Robin’s sunglasses hanging from the cut of his vest, because of course he’s not even wearing them, squinting instead, and smiling so wide it closes his eyes either way.
He turns. The sun hits his face in a neat long stripe, and all the way from here Zoro can see the stitches on his cheek. He inhales strong and sudden, then holds it behind his teeth when Luffy locks eyes with him, and doesn’t even blink. Like of all the things he took on and let go of in the past two years, the ease of holding Zoro’s gaze never left him. The knowledge of it, maybe. Not only because he’s so perceptive he always knows who’s watching, but because he’s sure Zoro always is. Always listening, so that when Luffy calls out something without tacking a name onto it, everyone knows who he’s talking to.
But Zoro isn’t that strong. Not up against his captain. So his answering smile’s a beat late when Luffy beams at him all teeth and eyes, and the only thing that keeps his heart beating steady is knowing that in less than a minute, Luffy’ll be at the bar with them, demanding a taste.
‘There goes your wine,’ Blondie sighs on cue. ‘Why do you make eye contact with him when you’ve got anything edible around?’
Zoro snorts, turns away once Luffy’s scrambled off the bridge safely— all water’s seawater here— looks into the purple bottom of his glass. ‘What’s it to you? I’ll drink less this way.’
‘There’s more where that came from,’ Fukaboshi reassures them. ‘And—’
‘Taste.’ Luffy’s cheek is warm against the crook of his neck, his chin digging into the edge of Zoro’s collarbone near-painful. He didn’t think the sun could get so hot down here. ‘What is it?’
‘Wine,’ he replies. Only something in his throat twists the syllables, pitches them higher than they should be, and out of the corner of his eye he sees both Blondie and Fukaboshi smirk. Which, sure. Anyone who’s been in a room with Zoro and Luffy probably knows. He just hates that it’s in cahoots with fucking Blondie. ‘Get off me, you’re—’ What, heavy? Luffy?
‘No,’ Luffy grins. Drapes himself even more, hooks his arms under Zoro’s and reaches for the wine. ‘Taste.’
Only Zoro isn’t as strong. Holds himself, for the first time, weird and rigid against Luffy’s curving embrace. Makes every effort not to accidentally— lean into it. Lean his head back. Lean his swords against the wall just for a second.
Just a second. Luffy tastes the wine and makes a disgusted sound, and untangles himself from Zoro. ‘Do you guys have floats? You know, like, ice cream floats?’
‘I don’t know what that is, I’m afraid,’ Fukaboshi says. ‘We do have ice cream…?’
‘Oh, you need to try this. Here, Sanji, can you—’
Zoro tunes it out, holds his glass up to the sun streaming through the windows. Thin like river water, but dark like the heart of a gem, enough to leave clear lines on the glass with every sip that descends. There’s only one ring of purple, Zoro’s swig. Luffy hasn’t had a drop.
*
No, he can’t get his fill, and Luffy’s never cared what Zoro thinks of his ideas a day in his life. Doesn’t hold back an inch, all of his touches twofold. Careless, thoughtless, mean, almost. If there was intent behind them, they’d be selfish. But Zoro knows there isn’t any, just that Luffy’s insane elasticity goes all the way to his brain and heart and soul, so that he’s stubbornly bounced back from not having Zoro around for two years and gone right back to poking and prodding and pulling.
But Zoro isn’t elastic. He goes hot and cold at every blink of Luffy’s, the tendons of his shoulders hurting from how careful he holds them, ready for Luffy to come down on him at any second, and not ready when he finally does. He never flinches, but his breath always catches dry and sharp in his throat, the pins and needles down his arms and legs like a drug, almost. So that despite it all Zoro finds himself inching closer to Luffy at tables and on walks, and hates that Neptune’s palace is big enough for everyone to sleep alone. Lies awake at night staring at the seaglass ceiling and the water beyond, and thinks about what it could be like if Luffy was beside him. Just like he used to dream in Kuraigana and in the Sunny and in the Merry before that. And in that beat-up old boat where he first realised he could conquer the world if he was devoted enough, and to the right man.
*
One evening, a betta fish merman called Jun wraps the flaming pink-and-blue fan of his tail around Zoro’s legs mid-sentence, and looks up at him through his pink-and-blue lashes.
‘Ah,’ Zoro says. ‘No, thanks.’
Jun laughs, and yeah, it shimmers and chimes like the water around his bare shoulders, and yeah, he can hold his own in a conversation, and yeah, Blondie’s been glaring this way even though every mermaid in the hot springs is flocking to him— ‘All right, it was worth a shot. But just for my ego, before we go back to samurai lore— is it men or is it me?’
‘No,’ he says, clears his throat. ‘Neither?’ Because if he hadn’t met Luffy— well. Zoro doesn’t know who else he was supposed to have met. ‘It’s not you, seriously. You have— a nice—’ Probably not a bright idea to tell a merman he has a nice tail. ‘You’re great.’
‘Well, that’s reassuring.’ Jun shifts, leans against the rock beside him, shoulders touching. Stares out at the candles on the edge of the pool, flames waving in the heat like dying stars. ‘So you were saying, the landscape of Wa—’
But he cuts himself off. Anyone would if the world’s dumbest cyborg walked out of the changing rooms in a baby pink swimsuit, with a woman on his shoulders to boot. ‘Franky in the house, baby, make space!’
It wakes Usopp up, and his back and knees realise what a stupid position he fell asleep in and send him slipping into the spring. ‘Fuck! Franky, don’t you fucking jump in here, you remember what happened in—’
But Franky’s already cackling and pretending to run, then settling into the water, careful to keep Robin out. She rewards him with a kiss on his stupid breadloaf haircut, and goes right back to the doorstop she’s been devouring since things calmed down the other day. Not history for once, some poetry collection she borrowed from the king himself.
Zoro vaguely remembers her talking about it last night when he was already two pints in. It’s a set of poems that recount the story of a whale whose song no other creature in the ocean can hear.
That’s a personal attack, Miss Nico, Brook had said, and even Zoro agreed that it didn’t sound like the happiest book in the world. Then again, nothing Robin reads does.
On cue, Zoro sees her sigh, sees Franky turn around. He doesn’t know how they survived those two years. They don’t bring it up, keep it in the same secure silence as everyone in the crew keeps their own stories, so strong and strange that Zoro almost doesn’t know who started it. Only knows that the closest he got to stopping it was when he first set his sight on Luffy after two years, and felt something tighten and writhe and give in his chest all at once, and thought that if he could empty the world for a minute just to go to his knees, he would.
He would have. Right there in the middle of the ugly bright woods where they were thrown apart like birds from an explosion, and found each other again. Zoro would have sunk to his knees and said it all. Said I thought I would, I thought I, do you even fucking know.
But it didn’t matter. Not then, not now. Because Luffy started it, with his huge grin and call to arms, and not a second to spare for— any of it.
Any of it.
‘Must be nice,’ Jun’s saying when he blinks back into it. Franky’s leaning into Robin now, all smug smiles as he claims more kisses. ‘You’ve got other lovebirds in the crew?’
‘Nah.’ Zoro scoops up some water and washes his nape, tries not to elbow Jun. ‘Just those two. Though our cook’ll go for anything on legs.’ Well, actually— ‘Or off them, as you can see.’
Jun throws his head back, laughs high and loud, swats Zoro’s shoulder with the back of his hand. Despite himself Zoro smiles, then grins when Blondie squints at them, his Zoro’s laughing at my expense radar going off. And just for that, Zoro holds up a hand, and Jun only takes a second to high-five him, catching on quick enough. Even makes a big show of hanging off Zoro’s shoulder, exaggerating his laugh, and yeah, they’re about to get laser beamed to death and not by Franky.
For a second almost everything’s right with the world. Blondie’s mad at him and Franky and Robin are swapping spit in public again, and at any given point in time Zoro just has to strain his ears to hear Nami or Chopper or Brook screaming up a storm about the problem of the day. Earlier in the afternoon there was something about lobsters. Fucking lobsters—
Luffy walks out of the changing rooms in a cocky old stride, whipping his towel, and stops short at the sight of Zoro and Jun.
And, sure. Zoro’s not an idiot, knows Luffy’s hardly got the time for him. So he doesn’t understand why his shoulder goes cold where Jun’s leaning on it, why he stiffens and almost says shit. Luffy isn’t even— well, he’s stopped. Towel trailing to the damp stones of the path, face blank and faraway.
Franky breaks it. ‘Oi, kid, that towel better be for me. It’s seawater, you’re not going in—’
He isn’t in a swimsuit, the towel really must be for Franky. And yet a split second before he moves, Zoro’s already lunging forward, cutting through the warm curling water, shit, shit—
Luffy throws the towel at Franky and breaks into a run. Lets out a whoop and cannonballs into the water with a huge white splash, the girls shrieking and Robin covering her book with seventeen arms, Usopp roaring you fucking idiot. But it’s over before it starts because Zoro’s already on it, one arm under Luffy’s knees and the other around his back, his form strangely light in the bubbling springs. His breaths are already coming hard and slow, eyes fluttering shut, but his arms are around Zoro’s neck. Weak but deliberate, different from all those stupid times he jumped or dived or fell overboard, and angled right into the pull of the deep. So fast, sometimes, that Zoro has nightmares about it. Woke up sweating in the Kuraigana manor once a week, seeing nothing but blue death and Luffy’s pale thin hand.
‘Are you completely fucking—’ He finds a seat on a carved-out rock, leans against its gritty surface, breathes out. Luffy slumps into his chest, ear right above Zoro’s thudding heart. The others’ve already gone back to business. ‘Was it worth it, dumbass? Did you have fun?’
But Luffy’s too drained to answer how he usually would, with a grin and a cackle and no regret for miles. Instead he takes a shuddering, sopping breath, and says, ‘Dunno. Sorry.’
The setting sun catches on the candles by the edge, half of them put out by Luffy’s stunt, and flares their flames into refracted red. As Zoro’s heart calms, the weight of Luffy registers. His quiet pose, his dark dripping curls. The warmth of him, pressing against Zoro in places he could chart on maps, eyes closed, a decade from tonight. Shoulder digging into sternum, temple on collarbone, thighs on one arm, ridged spine on another. Luffy’s out of it. If Zoro wanted, he could— just shift his head, lean a chin on his hair, or press his cheek to the crown of Luffy’s head. Just for a second.
Zoro holds himself so straight his neck tightens in pain. He avoids Blondie and Robin’s knowing eyes, but accidentally catches Jun’s from where he’s leaning against another rock, right across the pool.
Jun raises an eyebrow and smirks. Mouths, I see.
*
Of all people, Brook’s the one to break it to him.
To be fair it’s at the tail end of the week, two nights before they set out for the New World, their last chance to get dizzy drunk if they don’t want a hangover to mar the trip. Zoro’s only halfway there, but Brook’s been downing some kind of eau de vie that not even Blondie wanted more than a sip of, and his whole frame smells of it, bright bursting peaches and cinnamon, when he comes to sit beside Zoro at the bar.
‘Young man,’ Brook says sagely, which is how he usually starts a sermon that’ll put Zoro to sleep. ‘How much longer are you going to be cold to our captain?’
And all right, Zoro’s maybe tipsier than he thought, because he can’t come up with a reply to that. Only turns and squints slowly beyond Brook, beyond the counter.
In the distance, flailing his limbs like noodles on the dance floor to make the children laugh, Luffy doesn’t look like Zoro’s being cold to him. Which he isn’t. Wait.
‘Wait, what?’ He turns back to squint harder at Brook, who sips at his disgusting alcohol like it’s tea, and only faces Zoro half a minute later. ‘Brook.’
‘You know,’ Brook says, ‘you’re hardly the first first mate— ha, first first mate— and captain to be in love. I suppose you think there’s something inappropriate about it, that it will get in his way, but take an old man’s word for it: the tales of the most glorious captains to have sailed the Blues are often love stories.’
‘No, that’s great,’ Zoro says dumbly. ‘I know that.’ He’ll never forget the time he came closest to dying on a mission— he’d done the captain of a small crew in, and the first mate’d nearly ripped his throat out. Something red and rabid in his eyes that could only come from love. ‘But that’s not what’s happening here.’
‘Whatever do you mean? You’ve been acting strange around the boy. It’s hurting him.’
And— even though Brook’s wrong, just the idea that Zoro might be— the wine tastes like saltwater suddenly. ‘Yeah, well. I’m acting weird because we’re not in—’ Well. ‘I mean, not— you’ve got it wrong.’
Brook leans his chin on a hand, circles the rim of his glass with a fingertip until it rings. He doesn’t say anything for a long endless minute, the music from their little party filling the part where explanations are supposed to go, and Zoro feels his face growing hotter with each passing second.
Finally, Brook says, ‘Son, are you really still as thick as you were two years ago?’
Which does it. Zoro’s got enough ethanol in him to go oi and reach for a sword, point it at Brook’s cane. Always up for a playfight, always up to act stupid. Only this isn’t funny, not all that much. ‘It’s bedtime for you, grandpa—’
‘Zoro! Look!’ No, he doesn’t fucking want to look, but if Luffy said Zoro, heart, Zoro’d find a way to stay alive long enough after carving it out, to personally hand it to him. ‘Look at me!’
They both turn to the dance floor, where Luffy’s— doing the wave to a fucking shanty, arms stretched to twice their usual length and going up and down while the children scream in delight. Even Nami’s hollering, Usopp trying to mimic it, yelling about unfair gods and rigged competitions.
But Luffy’s mission of the moment is to make Zoro laugh, and he’s going to make it. Because even though Zoro’s skin is still simmering from the exchange with Brook, Luffy looks too dumb not to laugh at. So Zoro gives in, shakes his head and raises a toast to the dancer of the year. Then feels his heart lurch as Luffy pulls his arms in and makes his way over to the bar, eyes bright, grin wide.
Brook turns away, playing at polite, just as Luffy reaches Zoro’s chair. This is new too, Luffy drinking, and enough for it to climb to his head, too. The last of Zoro’s resolve, which used to hinge on Luffy looking and acting like he was barely fifteen, took a hit the first time he saw Luffy throw back a shot, the first time he saw him hug Blondie, the first time he saw the new, slim age of his body. The baby fat gone from his cheeks so that he’s all jawline and eyes, the smile that’s a shade sharper now, the sweat turning his curls.
‘You’ve been sulking all week,’ Luffy says, and Zoro blinks. Brook is nice enough not to say anything. ‘Are you mad at me? You’d better stop being mad before we leave.’
‘Why would I be mad at you?’ Zoro gets out. His chair’s high enough that he has to look down at Luffy, and if Luffy steps any closer he’ll be in the space between Zoro’s legs. The night’s starting to swim. ‘I’m not—’
‘Then come.’ He doesn’t say where, to do what, and Zoro would still go— but Luffy closes a hand around his wrist, tugging, and suddenly it’s too much.
Zoro pulls his arm away.
Only the captain he’s in love with is Monkey D. Luffy, fearsome enough to put one of the world’s most dangerous islands under his protection, and reckless enough to have eaten his stupid devil fruit, and shameless enough to use its powers to keep holding onto Zoro’s wrist, muscles stretching to make up for Zoro’s— for Zoro’s—
Luffy isn’t smiling at him anymore. He’s staring at their arms, blank and faraway again, like he hadn’t realised what he’s doing.
He finally looks back up at Zoro for a long close-mouthed moment. Then lets go and steps back.
*
Once, somewhere between Skypeia and Water 7, they’d won something stupid and small, and Luffy had jumped on him and bit his ear. Zoro’d yelled and flicked Luffy’s forehead, growled, what was that for?!
I don’t know, Luffy’d chirped. His arms and legs around Zoro, sun and sand and sweat. I just felt like I could eat the world.
*
Their last day on the island goes by in silence.
Zoro restarts training a day in advance, wraps his hair, code in the crew for don’t talk to me. A code only the captain’s allowed to break, only he disappears at the crack of dawn and doesn’t come back until dinner, sits at the place farthest from Zoro to inhale his meat. Talks up a storm with Jinbei and Shirahoshi, and doesn’t look once— and he’s doing it on purpose. Luffy, for once.
It claws, nail by nail, something hot and scared into Zoro’s stomach, so that he can barely eat half his plate. The beer doesn’t work either, but he forces a glass of water down, and excuses himself to turn in early.
The bath is scalding. Zoro sinks into it slowly, tries to empty his head, fill it with steam. The tiles are all a rich dark blue, the lanterns throwing strange shadows against the ceiling. Starting tomorrow it’ll be the Sunny’s whitewashed walls and halogens again, laughs and screeches bouncing off the tiles, Brook carefully teasing Usopp’s hair, Franky showing off his dozenth style. Tomorrow time will start up again, and they’ll have nothing to show for this week between adventures, where nothing happened, no one broke.
Zoro’ll have nothing to show for this week— this reunion— but the bruising inside his ribs. The tinnitus, unbearable, of Luffy not speaking to him.
The steam’s too thick, too suffocating. He pulls himself out of the bath so fast it makes his head spin, grabs a towel and a robe, stumbles out and into his bed. The curve of the glass room gleams with candlelight, so that the gardens of the palace, just beyond, come alive like a painting not yet dried. Anemones and sleeping corals, and the gentle shifting sand.
He perches on the edge of the bed for what feels like hours. One knee jumping, the white cotton of his robe sliding over it, head in his hands as he stares at where the wall meets the floor. Stone pressing into glass, both strong enough to keep the ocean at bay, the entire night of it, the candles placed at that edge like sequins in the water. His heart thuds so hard against his chest he thinks it’ll flatten his lungs— his blood feels thicker than usual, every pulse sending cold prickles to his brain. Like a drug, like the memory of the memory— him lying on the cold stone floor at the Kuraigana manor, and remembering what it was like to have Luffy touch him, have the sun on him.
Zoro doesn’t hear the door open or close. Only realises he isn’t alone when the light shifts, when he looks up.
Luffy looks like he pulled himself out of a bath, too. Hair still damp, thin rivers running into the open collar of his bathrobe. Feet bare, face bare. The tie of the robe is so loose it could give way any second, but Luffy doesn’t seem to care. He’s stopped right before Zoro, arms by his sides, hands curled. Eyes fixed right on Zoro, right on him. In the green-gold-blue light of the room, his scars and freckles fade, so that he looks like an angel, or a sea creature, or something else from Zoro’s dreams. The Luffy who almost drowned, maybe. Pale and foreign, with how quiet he is.
He’s the most beautiful thing in all the Blues.
‘I’m,’ Zoro starts. ‘I’m s—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Luffy says. Low and sincere like Zoro’s never heard him be. ‘Sorry, Zoro.’
‘Don’t.’ Zoro’s chest twists. ‘I’m the one who’s been acting out.’
Luffy steps closer, so close it’s easy to count the trails of water on his chest. Pine and soap and Zoro’s hammering heart.
‘And I’m the one,’ Luffy says, ‘who didn’t ask you how much you missed me.’
How much. Not if. Because if Zoro’s an open book to everyone they come across, he must’ve been obvious to Luffy from the very first moment. Because though everyone’s kept their silence, Zoro’s only guarded his jealously, like a dog, waiting for the moment Luffy’ll ask him to open it. Waiting for the moment Luffy’ll ask him to do something, anything. Slit a throat or carve his heart out or, God forbid, talk.
‘You didn’t.’ Zoro swallows, closes his eyes. ‘Don’t make me say it, Luffy.’ His captain’s kinder than that.
Or not. Because Luffy doesn’t answer for a minute that lasts a year, and then a hand comes down on the nape of Zoro’s neck and pulls him forward, until his forehead’s pressing into Luffy’s chest.
The sound that leaves him could never have stayed in his throat, it’s so surprised, so relieved. Luffy’s chest is hard and warm and houses his brave wild heart, and for the first time, Zoro can hear it. Safe and full of life, and close.
‘Then show me,’ Luffy growls. Fingertips pressing into Zoro’s neck, his every inhale bent around them. ‘Don’t make me say it, either.’
The sea, the glass, the candlelight. In all the Blues, then. No one as lucky as Zoro.
He keeps his eyes closed even as Luffy’s fingers curl into his hair, as Luffy pulls his head back. Only when his face is tipped up does he finally look, into that open, expectant gaze, the one that never forgot Zoro even when Zoro dared— dared— to forget him enough to miss him.
Longing comes over him deep and terrible. He wants this attention, Luffy’s attention. That thundering concentration he has when he’s angry. Zoro wants it on him, burning big and bright and red. He wants to wrap Luffy’s long boyish legs around his neck and drink. He wants to feel those heels in his spine.
He never wants to have to get used to Luffy again.
‘Show me,’ Luffy says. Puts one knee on the mattress, and then the other, caging Zoro in, looking down fierce and focused. ‘Take something from me for once.’
Then let me, Zoro thinks, and without saying it aloud, pulls Luffy down to kiss him.
The ocean pulls into a tunnel of light, and breaks open on him. So heavy and constant it squeezes his bones, sparks up behind the eye he’s lost, forces his mouth open to let Luffy in. Tongues curling hot and wet as Luffy makes a sound, as his hands clutch at Zoro’s shoulders, painful even through cotton— too much cloth between them— but Zoro can’t do anything about it right now. Can’t do anything at all but kiss Luffy, breathe him in, his warm lips and uneven breath and all of him in Zoro’s arms in a way he’s never been before. So easy, no one half as lucky, to have had this all along. All along, so that now that Luffy’s mouth is on him, he can’t believe how long he spent without it.
He finds the strength to pull back, then, though Luffy chases him unthinking and greedy, a petulant whine in the back of his throat that Zoro’ll have to lick out later.
‘I,’ Zoro tries, and it comes out so rough it makes Luffy laugh, then cut himself off with a sharp inhale, like he can’t believe he’s here either. Settled heavy and safe in Zoro’s lap now, legs wrapped around his waist, forehead to forehead. ‘I needed you. Couldn’t sleep.’ Or eat, or breathe, every action manual. ‘Couldn’t sleep without you.’
‘We never slept together.’
‘No,’ he says, steals a kiss, then another one, like the corner of Luffy’s mouth might be hiding honey. ‘We didn’t. Just having you in the room was enough.’ On the ship. In the world, or so he thought, until time and his body and his hungry aching soul proved him wrong. Until no touch was close enough.
No touch is close enough. Luffy tests it. Kisses Zoro again, deeper than ever this time, his hands tight on Zoro’s face like he’s trying to press bruises into his bones. Pulls back and breathes, ‘More?’, and laughs when Zoro nods before the syllable sounds fully. Undoes Zoro’s sash and pushes the robe off his shoulders, and embraces him again, tight, tight.
‘Enough?’ he asks.
‘No,’ Zoro answers. Free, now. Honest. ‘Closer.’ Luffy’s knees coming up now, digging into his ribs childish and possessive, Zoro’s own arms around Luffy’s back. ‘Closer still.’ Luffy’s robe slipping off his slender shoulder, Zoro pressing his lips to a flutelike collarbone and sucking, licking, biting. Still, closer still. His thin stomach, scarred chest, both of them now, both of them. Zoro’s never going to let Luffy out of his sight again, not for a minute, not a second. ‘Still.’
Luffy leans back then, rises into a half-kneel again, and even in the blue-green light Zoro can see the heat that’s risen from his chest to his face, the flush of what must be a dark breathless red, the same shade as his wet parted lips. Luffy’s eyes are dark, glowing coals, his hair falling into them so perfectly. When he grows up he’s going to be even more arresting, when his face sharpens more, when his smile toughens from prince to king. When he’ll still be Zoro’s, every dream of Zoro’s.
Want digs claws into his throat. Zoro chokes on air, eyes burning. ‘Is this real?’
Luffy keeps staring down at him, unblinking. Then he reaches down and pulls his sash free, and lets it fall to the floor.
The bed is huge, made for men much bigger than them. Zoro lays Luffy down on it and strips him bare, sits back on his heels to stare at all the pale scars winding down his wiry body, at the perfect curls leading to his cock, at the jungle of stretch marks on his thighs, the only part of his skin that never understood his power. Zoro wants it all, wants to taste it all. Wants to take Luffy’s nipples into his mouth one by one and see what that does, wants to bite his ear too, sweet secret revenge. Wants to press every part of their bodies together, feel Luffy climb into him like smoke.
Doesn’t want to take— wants to give. And give and give, let Luffy take the way he always has. It’s so simple when it strikes him, every facet of his desire flattening into that one clear need. To be kept.
Zoro lowers himself on Luffy, forehead to fluttering stomach— Luffy gasps— lips on his damp trail. He reaches up to take Luffy’s hands, guides them down until they’re curling in his hair— slides his own hands under Luffy’s thighs then, lifting them over his shoulders. Already his own cock is leaking against the mattress, core and hamstrings protesting, so he twists, takes Luffy with him until they’re both on their sides, gravity pressing Luffy’s thigh on the base of his throat and making him breathe slower, more careful. Zoro could die like this, right here, surrounded by Luffy. Every other thing in the world be fucked.
‘I want you in my mouth,’ he says, and whether it’s the words or the hum of them into the crook of his thigh, Luffy whimpers. ‘Don’t hold back. I can take it.’
‘What if I can’t?’ It’s difficult, but Zoro looks up, and Luffy’s grinning, cheeks and nose flushed rose in the sealight. ‘It’s my first time, you know. Maybe I’m scared.’
His first time, God. And he could joke about it, bring it up for years, tease Luffy like a friend first, lover second— but something swoops in Zoro’s gut, its wake hot and heavy like a pit. The thought of being Luffy’s first— of being the only one to ever kiss him, touch him, take him. Be inside him, one day, they’ll have to do that one day, the only thing that’ll bring them close enough for Zoro’s taste. He’ll take his time that day, until Luffy’s falling apart, until he can’t tell up from down.
For now—
‘It’s just me,’ Zoro murmurs. Brings a hand up to stroke Luffy’s ribs, counting them in caresses. Can’t think of anything else to say, so he says it again. ‘It’s me.’ No one else in the world could ever feel this grateful. ‘You’re all right.’
Luffy exhales. Inhales, and guides Zoro with gentle hands, until Zoro’s lips are wrapped around the wet head of his cock. It’s not the best angle and he won’t be able to swallow Luffy down the way he wants to, but that’ll be for another day. Because if anyone— even Luffy— tried to pull Zoro away from this exact tangle of limbs right now, he doesn’t know what he’d do. Everything’s perfect— the salt of Luffy’s precome, the buzzing that starts up in Zoro’s head when he can’t breathe enough through his nose, Luffy’s thigh still pressing into his throat. The way Luffy’s hips jerk when he sucks, a quiet startled sound leaving him. Like he can’t believe it either. Like he can’t believe it, when Zoro’s the only thing he should still be believing in at the end of the world. The only thing he should have left.
He pulls back to lick at the thrumming veins of Luffy’s length, licks a wet stripe up his own palm before taking Luffy in hand. ‘How does captain like it?’
When no answer comes he cranes his neck, frowning— then exhales like he’s been punched. It’s barely been a minute but Luffy’s eyes are dangerously bright, teeth biting the edge of a thin pillow, both hands tight in Zoro’s hair like he’ll float away otherwise. His hips are still jerking forward in Zoro’s grip, and he’s looking down at Zoro like— like—
Like he doesn’t know. Like he’s at Zoro’s mercy.
‘Oh,’ Zoro whispers. So proud he can barely breathe, especially when he tries a tug and a twist, and Luffy screws his eyes shut, whining. ‘Shh. I’ve got you.’
He tries it again. Two, three strokes, twisting at the base, and Luffy lights up like a livewire, his groans muffled through the pillow, each one pitching higher and higher at the end, then tumbling down as Zoro slows his hand— because he doesn’t know whether he wants to make this last as long as possible, or to make Luffy come already, show him how good Zoro can be to him, for him. For this, and everything else.
And if Luffy hadn’t said take something for once, hadn’t asked him to be selfish, Zoro would’ve dragged it out slow and careful and hot. Made it unforgettable. But he’s selfish and starved, and if he doesn’t feel Luffy spill down his throat he won’t be able to sleep tonight. So he presses Luffy’s hips flat again, holds them down with an arm, rises up just enough to lower his mouth fully on Luffy’s cock.
His arm’s almost not enough, with how Luffy thrashes. Zoro groans around the fullness of his mouth, the head that presses insistent into the back of his throat, an ache he wants to feel for days, keep Luffy in his mouth for days, voice ripped and breaths burning. Already his mouth is leaking around Luffy’s cock, easing his slide, free hand reaching up to play with a peaking nipple— Luffy lets go off the pillow and moans into the wet air— then scratching lightly down his flank. Zoro knows he’ll never last. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be wound up like this, this, the only part of his body he’s not familiar with.
And Zoro gets to be the one to show it to him. Break him in so that no one else will do.
He pulls off— Luffy whines— and looks up at his flushed shivering captain. ‘Don’t push me away when you come. I want it.’
Luffy’s chest is already heaving too hard for him to form words. Still, he tries. Looks down at Zoro, gasping, eyes struggling to stay open.
‘All,’ he breathes, ‘all of it?’
‘All of you,’ Zoro replies. Then wraps his lips around Luffy and gets back to work, this time faster and harder, and wetter, dripping down to collect in the rough curls at the base, right where they start to thin out into the smooth stretch of his pelvis. Zoro runs a thumb over the mix of precome and saliva, smears it into Luffy’s golden skin, pressing down into the joints he knows’ll make Luffy’s toes curl.
They do. Zoro feels the way Luffy’s heels drag up his back, knees falling open as he moans and bucks up, as his cock pulses hot and urgent. All of Zoro’s brain is humming, with pride and heat and want, with a love so red it could bleed out of his eyes. All of his reasoning thinning into a line that leads to and wraps around Luffy like string, tying him to Zoro. The pale shadows of the glass walls on his skin, the movement of light and water, the tides of his body as Zoro works it to completion, the least graceful thing about him and the most sacred. His youth and warmth— Zoro’s.
‘I’m,’ Luffy says, ‘Zoro—’
His hips jackknife off the bed, so sudden he might snap. The rush of come that fills Zoro’s mouth is as warm and perfectly bitter as Zoro’d imagined it, like citrus rinds, like alcohol. He groans, fingers curling into the uncanny muscle of Luffy’s thighs, as he swallows it. Keeps his mouth locked around Luffy, all the way to the base, so that he can feel every single feverish twitch of his orgasm, everything his captain has to give him. Listens with keen ears to every whine, whimper, breath of Luffy’s, until they wind down into deep shuddering breaths, until Luffy’s legs slide restless against Zoro, trying to get him away.
Only then does Zoro straighten up. Wipes his mouth with the heel of his hand as Luffy looks up at him, dazed.
A prickling foreboding fills Zoro before Luffy even opens his mouth, but then he’s opening it, and it’s too late.
‘I love you,’ Luffy says. ‘Zoro.’
‘No,’ Zoro says, pinches the bridge of his nose even as his heart kicks, ecstatic. Oh, God, really. ‘You— you don’t get to say it like that—’
‘Then how do I get to say it?’ That doesn’t sound light or funny, though nothing looks as stupid, as natural, as Luffy’s arm extending, hand around Zoro’s wrist again. Pulling so harsh that Zoro goes on all fours to keep from crushing Luffy. He doesn’t seem to care, and pulls harder, until Zoro’s lying next to him, breathing in sweat and sex, Luffy like Zoro’s never had him, naked and open. He doesn’t look amused. ‘Tell me how. Because I’ve been saying it, but you—’
But Zoro, and Zoro’s stupid brain and noble heart. He surges forward and kisses Luffy again, even though he wants to keep the taste of him safe in his own mouth. See, Zoro’s generous— gives Luffy back to himself, gives, gives. As Luffy runs a hand through his sweaty hair, fingers skittering down the side of his face, as Luffy licks into Zoro’s mouth with a frantic, unskilled tongue.
‘I have to learn what you like,’ Luffy says against Zoro’s lips. ‘But I’m too tired. So just show me tonight.’ He reaches between their bodies and takes Zoro’s hand, guides it to wrap around his own length, fist sure over Zoro’s. ‘Wanna see you.’
And so he does, though the show doesn’t last long. Zoro’s body’s been on edge all week, rationing Luffy’s touches like grams of psychoactives, like water in a desert, like stars in a dying universe. Just a breath against his throat could be enough, so the fact that he even holds out enough to touch himself for a minute is a miracle.
But he does, because Luffy asked. Zoro grits his teeth and presses his forehead to Luffy’s clavicle, strokes himself as slow as he can when all he wants is to let go. Tightens the ring of finger and thumb at the base of his cock on every downward swipe, but it doesn’t work, not with Luffy so close and real and impossible. And not when his arms come around Zoro, just once, like he doesn’t want his power to get in the way, wants to hold Zoro with all of his human might.
Zoro breathes in deep and huge, and Luffy closes careful teeth around his earlobe. His breaths are a typhoon, and Zoro’s a leaf. Not as strong.
He spills on Luffy’s stomach with a sob that flays the inside of his chest, that rips open the silence he’d been keeping safe. Out comes another one, then another, as Zoro holds Luffy close and writhes into him, scrapes his teeth over the scar that’s haunted him ever since he saw it. Every complaint spilling out, every sorrow. Every loving synapse, as he reaches up to get a fist in Luffy’s hair, grip so tight it must hurt. As much as Luffy’s arms around him hurt, his mouth sucking a bruise into the crook of Zoro’s neck. It hurts, and it’s glorious boiling love, and it’s everything Zoro needs. Enough to cover him in starbursts and seafoam, enough to finally, finally soothe him.
*
‘Don’t ever send me away again,’ Zoro says when he can finally get words out, rough and wet. ‘You know I’d do it for you. Don’t make me prove it.’ Even lying here in Luffy’s warm, tight arms, the memory makes him go cold. ‘My place is beside you.’
Luffy doesn’t answer, first. But just when Zoro thinks he’s fallen asleep, he tightens his hold.
‘Then don’t ever leave,’ he says. ‘If it happens again, find a way to stop it. Find a way to stay with me.’
*
It’s an order from his captain, clear as day. Zoro knows what to do with those.
*
The next morning, as they say their goodbyes to the new friends they’ve made, as the Sunny gears up to take them to the New World, Zoro steps up beside Luffy on the deck, and takes his hand.
Luffy looks down at where their fingers are tangled, then up at Zoro even as Usopp wolf-whistles from behind them and Chopper’s chin goes wobbly enough for Zoro to hear it in his voice. Even as every pair of eyes on them is trying to hide a laugh. Including Luffy’s. Especially Luffy’s.
Which is why Zoro ignores them all. Keeps his gaze fixed ahead, where it belongs, especially when his captain’s too careless— too in love— to pay attention to the route this morning. Someone’s got to do the work around here, after all, though Nami’d crack his skull open if he tried to pretend at navigating.
Zoro keeps his gaze fixed ahead, even as Luffy’s sun-bright eyes laugh at him, the softest they’ve ever been.
He lifts Luffy’s hand to his mouth, smiles, and kisses it.
*
Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.
Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,
when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you
& touch you with
its mouth.
Kingdom Animalia, Aracelis Girmay