Work Text:
It was warm. Sweltering even. Sweat dripped down his back, even the coolness of night refused to offer relief. The lights on the deck swung against the rhythm of the waves.
Zoro was decently drunk, but he still had some semblance of dignity. Well, as much dignity as a guy who showers once a week and spends an inappropriate amount of time naming his sword techniques can have, anyway. Luffy looked out into the darkened sea next to him, uncharacteristically still and quiet, like even he felt that there was a mood being threatened by his big mouth. Zoro tried not to think too hard about it. He found that thinking didn’t ever do much good. At least when it came to his Captain.
Everyone was already asleep down below, bellies full and bodies fatigued. Zoro had noticed Luffy, who wasn’t exactly known for denying simple pleasures, hesitating to join them. Unable to resist his silent call, Zoro went to him. If Zoro was a little more poetic he’d compare it to a sixth sense, a frequency only audible to the both of them. Immediately finding the implication kind of lame and blaming it on the alcohol, he roughly pushed it out of his mind. He had stopped trying to verbalize what he felt about Luffy a long time ago. It just felt impossible.
“Can I kiss you?”
His Captain’s voice cut through his thoughts swiftly, knocking him upside the proverbial head.
Zoro felt himself flush.
“Like it matters what my answer is,” he said, regarding him wryly. “You’ll do whatever you want like always,”
He smirked as he wrapped his lips around his sake bottle, tipping it up and swallowing slowly. Luffy watched it drip down his chin and onto his bare chest. His gaze didn’t make his bones rattle. He was perfectly in control. He was more disciplined than this.
“No,” Luffy looked up at him then. His tone was conversational, playful even, as he spoke. His eyes betrayed him a little bit though, resolute and pitch black, bearing a resemblance to looking down the barrel of a rifle. Gunpowder hidden behind the coolness of metal, waiting for its handler to finally strike a spark so it could fire. Lethal, might have been a good word. Barely contained. Bloodthirsty. Zoro swallowed hard, fire pooling in his stomach.
“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he didn’t smile as he made his small declaration. Zoro’s eyes widened at his seriousness, the sudden shift in tone. If Zoro didn’t know any better he would have said he sounded almost put out by Zoro’s implication. His head felt like it was spinning. Effortlessly, Luffy had thrown him again, and Zoro fumbled with his pass, in what he thinks is the hardest game of catch he’s ever had the misfortune of playing. Zoro shocked himself with the calmness of his voice as he spoke, words flowing out of him instinctually, like Luffy had tied a string to them and had methodically begun to pull them out.
“Since when do you ask permission?”
Luffy paused, eyes wide and mouth parted, like a starving king being offered an endless feast after the abstinence that only comes with a touch that turns everything to gold.
“Can I?” he asked, voice beginning to quiver in what Zoro thought might have been excitement. He didn’t know anymore.
“You can,” Zoro doesn’t meet his eyes, unable to bear their intensity without feeling like a python had his heart in a death grip, constricting tighter with each pulse. He wasn’t so scared of the feeling itself so much as he feared how much it excited him. He moved to set his sake on the ground, which had been the worst decision he made that night by far, because Luffy decided to catapult himself towards Zoro at the same time.
His head rattled for a second on impact, faintly releasing that yeah, he was on the main deck now, and Luffy was smashing their lips together.
“Zoro's burning,” Luffy laughed against his lips, gleeful and uninhibited. A soft hand curled around his neck.
“It’s 400 fucking deg-,” he started to quip as Luffy took the opportunity to lick the shell of his ear. Zoro practically flew out of his skin, unexpected pleasure curling his hands into fists.
Valiantly, he started again.
“It’s hot,” he wheezed, voice shaking. The irony of that statement wouldn’t hit him until morning.
Luffy leaned forward, holding his jaw still so Zoro couldn’t speak. His stomach started doing disgusting, exhilarating little flips.
Luffy kissed him again, Zoro’s lips tingling and tongue still burning from the alcohol. He twisted a hand in his hair. He felt himself being ripped apart as violently as the wind battered their sails, lips parting to let Luffy’s insistent tongue into his mouth. An involuntary sound left his mouth, and he gripped his own thigh, just to remain grounded. He was being devoured, and whatever animal like fear a normal person might have felt was replaced with red hot excitement. His Captain’s grip on him was almost bruising.
When Luffy broke away to breathe, Zoro finally felt himself shake with terrible, terrible want. His fingers were trembling as they gripped Luffy’s arm.
“I…” he began, not knowing what he wanted to say or how to say it. It still felt insurmountable. He just wanted. He could no longer stifle it. He couldn’t let his years of discipline and self preservation rescue him now. He was in the thick of it.
“I know,” Luffy beamed, bringing his hand up to caress Zoro’s burning cheek.
“I know you know,” Zoro groaned, leaning into his touch. “I just,” I just want to be able to say it.
Zoro, brow still bent in frustration, huffed again, and gripped Luffy’s forearms before pulling him roughly into an embrace. A shaky hand came up to hold the back of his head. It took him a moment but Luffy returned it fiercely, gripping the back of Zoro’s shirt. It was so hot out, not a good time to be doing this at all, but Luffy had never been particularly good with timing.
“Why now?” Zoro asked, voice muffled.
“Jus’ felt like it,” Luffy chirped.
“You were thinking awfully hard about it,” he closed his eyes like he was about to start meditating. It was familiar. It was comforting.
“Eh? Was I?” he sounded like he would be scratching his head in confusion had they not been tied up.
“You were practically begging for me to come up there,”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know what I was gonna say until you did,” Luffy started to sway with the same kind of idle motion that comes when two friends join hands as they walk down the street.
“I know you’re smarter than you let on, shithead,” Luffy felt like he was buzzing in his arms.
“Heh. I think Zoro just wants me to say I’ve been thinking about kissing him all day, ”
“Shut up,” he smacked his shoulder. Luffy shook with laughter.
“I wonder if Zoro would like it if I had?” Zoro’s sober brain probably would have known that he was genuinely asking a question, and not trying to... flirt, but his face flushed all the same.
“Right now, Zoro would like to throw you overboard,”
Luffy snickered, finally letting his idle motion tip them over. He grinned down at him, cheeky. Zoro’s hand curled around his neck.
“Why not?” Luffy grunted.
Zoro didn’t hear him. He was distracted.
“Huh?”
“I thought, “Why not?”
“I guess that shouldn’t surprise me,” Zoro smiled, still staring up at him, immobilized and enamoured.
“I love you, you know,”
Zoro felt his stomach turn itself inside and out so violently that he feared for the safety of his other organs. He wanted to say it back, and his mouth opened as if to do that, but the only thing that left was some sort of garbled animalistic grunt. He felt flames lick up his face again, and his nostrils flared in a scowl, preparing himself for Luffy’s laughter or retribution, but it never came.
“I realized it when we were kissing. What else could it be? This feeling…”
He took Zoro’s palm and placed it on his chest. It was such a strangely intimate gesture, and Luffy did it so casually, that Zoro didn’t know how to react. He just stared at him as he spoke.
“You were right. When I want to do something… I just do it. This time was different.” he swallowed, letting his thumb trace over Zoro’s pulse.
“What you wanted... was for me to want it too,” Zoro finished, sliding his palm up from his chest to caress his face.
“Mhm,” Luffy smiled, and Zoro leaned up to kiss him again, gently. Before he could pull away, Luffy pulled him down again, both of them lying prone on the deck. Within a few seconds, he was out like a light.
He should have shrugged him off, really- it was obscenely hot. And the crew was going to tease them if they found them like this- two alley cats who go from batting each other's eyes out for fun to canoodling in a big heap on the floor. He was drunk enough that the thought was only a blip before the feeling of Luffy’s breath on his neck distracted him, and lulled him to sleep.
He woke up a few hours later, fingers curled around his own, and a few cricks in his back. The sun barely peaked over the horizon. His hangover wasn’t so bad.