Work Text:
...(opening with a dream)
“Bbleeechh!!! Ahh! G—ahya-”
“Aw~ what's the matter there, Luffy?” A Pirate named Roo teases a seven year old boy in a small bar on a summer's day. The huge guy wearing green and white stripes. Him and a bunch more guys. The Red Hair Pirates. Sat about in every chair and bench. “You're a man, ain't ya? Gatta be able ta' drink like one.”
“Blech!! No way!” Whining, and wiping at his own tongue. The few drops from the Pirate's hip flask were like hot dry nothing. Making his lips tingle and itch. Drying out his tongue, and crept up the back of his nose. Glad none made it down his throat. “I'll never like that stuff!!”
“Ah haha-! Ya hear that boys? He said never. Ha-ha-ha-!”
~*~**~*~**~*~***~**~*~**~*~**~
Music plays on the frayed edges of blending images. Outlines of smiling faces half remembered, half romanticized by want to remember but can no longer. Luffy blinking awake on a day some ten years later. A day where he is seventeen years old, and a Captain of his own ship. The Going Merry. A few gold and pink beams of sunlight piercing the room through rounded portholes. Rolling over, the young Captain wriggles into the course fabric of his hammock hung up in the Men's Quarters.
The hammock above him is lax, so that means Usopp's out of bed. His sniper always takes Chopper with him to breakfast. Sanji would have been up even before them to make it, always first to wake up everyday. Luffy cranes his rubber neck over the edge of the hammock. Towards a low couch in the dim light of early morning. Not surprised in any way, to find Zoro there. His First Mate's green head muted in color. Pale, for lack of proper lighting. The captain smiling, when the older man's removed a cork from the bottle of sake in his hands with a loud pop.
“You've woken up,” A raw, gravely voice. The swordsman easing the bottle across one wrist. Guzzling a few swallows of rich rice wine down his throat. Liquid sloshing against glass sides when he's lowered it. “Sencho.”
Luffy sidles onto the couch, stretching his legs out in front of him. Barefoot. Enormous brown eyes watching, when his nakama's drank again. This time finishing nearly half of what there was. “Shi-shi. Zoro really likes to drink.” He's giggled.
The swordsman's blinked jade eyes at his Captain. Pale green eyebrows pinching together as he's turned his head. His three gold earrings a wind-chime over his left shoulder. “Che' What's with that?”
Their small caravel rocks gently from side to side. A high swell sent towards them from out in the ocean. The wake of a passing Sea King close to the island they are harbored? About to introduce the topic of food, because his captain usually wakes up starving to death...
“Brrr...” Rubbing at his arms, Luffy's shivered head to toe.
A heartbeat, and certainly no more, for the former Pirate Hunter to twist himself. Grabbing a blanket out of Luffy's hammock, and he's drug it forward. Manhandling the smaller teen into a wrap of warm cotton with his own powerful arms hugged around. “Better?”
“Y-yea.” White teeth still clattering, like a bag full of loose marbles. Eyes closing, Luffy confirming a warm shoulder next to his cheek.
“You're not recovered from being frozen solid by that Admiral.” Squeezing blanket and nakama to his chest. “Stop being so determined to get yourself killed.”
“Had ta make sure Zoro and Sanji went back.” Luffy's skin is cool to Zoro's touch, only half listening to his captain's stilted explanations. “That they would make sure Robin got away. And Nami.... Usopp... Chopper...”
“Yea? As long as we're there doing that you're all the sudden allowed to die? Baka Sencho... Drink this,” Splashing a measure of hot sake into a glass on the little table beside them, the swordsman's held it under his captain's nose.
“Eh? No way!” Luffy's wriggling. Squirmed and kicked, but he's really... weak... And... he's cold. Cold.... way deep down inside his bones.
“That's some fight you don't got in you.” Mocks his nakama. Zoro pulling Luffy fully against him. On the older's lap with their legs tangled together. Body heat shared within the wads of fabric between them. His captain sighing, and it sort of pisses him off. “Quit trying to act so tough.”
Skin missing its rosy glow, Luffy's pale and blue. His smile a little less radiant. Breath rattling in his chest like he were breathing into an ice box. “...”
Waiting... for what the swordsman considered a long time, before he's shifted them, Roronoa Zoro pulling wine from the bottle. Holding the liquor in his own mouth as he's shoved Luffy back into the couch cushions. Pinning the other down for his leaning in close. Tongue and booze sliding between his Captain's lips. Prying open teeth and jaw. Zoro's heard a desperate gulp that is the younger swallowing.
Hot trills bleeding into Luffy, flowing outward. When the liquor reaches his stomach it's like a little fire. Warm. He does feel warmer. And it tasted.... well... it tasted a whole lot different than he remembered. Relaxing for Zoro's encouragement. Rough, calloused fingertips kneading life into his arms and shoulders. “More?” It might not even have been a word, so much as a bestial sound coupled with understanding; that Zoro was asking Luffy if he should keep doing what he was doing. Offering an opportunity also, to candidly request he cease.
“More.”
Sake didn't taste the same to Luffy, after those long cold days spent recovering after his first encounter with an Admiral in the World's Government. Grain alcohol, steel, and spice. A feverish chill that'd been burned slowly, steadily out of him. Cradled, and protected. By his First Mate. A taste not leveled in his mind as delicious... not like meat. But one he's willing to try more of. On other cold nights, held against this warm body, by these strong arms.