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Zoro, you have come to realise, is kind of a weird guy.
You tell him this one morning, apropos of nothing, lying side by side underneath the only shaded area of the boat and trying not to melt away into nothing despite being squished together. The heat crawls across your skin where you accidentally kick your leg out too far from cover, spider reflexes playing tag with the blistering sun and only just coming out on top.
At least your hat is safely secured in your room.
(Nami had warned of the rising temperatures a few days ago, which sent a flutter of motion through the crew as everyone tried to find ways of keeping cool.
You, with some rather delicate insight, announced that you would help out by not helping out; after all, the last time you tried you almost broke the mast, and even now the memory of Nami’s wrath makes you want to hide.
With all the others hiding out below deck away from the full force of the sun, it leaves only Zoro and you out on watch duty—you on actual watch duty through luck of the draw and Zoro on you-watching duty because no one, especially Sanji, could trust that you wouldn’t raid the fridge on your own.
Which—fair enough, that had been one of your awesome thought-out plans. And you’re pretty sure you could convince Zoro to help out anyways, if not for the fact that your ability to be the most annoying person on this planet when you don’t get your way is outmatched—a fact that Zoro has expressed vocally many times—then because you can always pull rank.)
Zoro snorts. “Coming from you that’s not a compliment.”
“Why not?” you ask, curious.
Without opening his eyes, Zoro reaches out to give you a flick right between the brows. “‘Cause you’re the weirdest one out there.”
It makes you want to laugh because that does sound like a compliment, a special title just like the King of Pirates.
“Even though Zoro uses three swords?”
“Hey, what’s that got to do with anything,” he replies affronted, head turning to glare at you. You can’t help but giggle harder when he pulls on your cheek. “Says the guy that can stretch every single part of his body.”
“Because I’m made out of rubber!” you declare proudly.
The effort is slightly ruined by how your words slur together from the pinched cheek, but you keep your chest puffed. It doesn’t really hurt, more of a nuisance than anything else, so you start counting to five before you decide this is about the right time to get annoyed about it because you still got stuff to say—
Which is when Zoro reaches over for your other cheek, wearing his mean-looking face—grin a bit too monstrous, teeth a bit too sharp even when he’s just smiling, all in that quintessential Zoro way that you can’t help but admire. It’s a promise, you hope, of something exciting.
“Yeah, and that’s totally not weird or anything.”
Then he’s pulling on both cheeks at the same time—tugging, really, and decidedly more pain than fun at this point—and your feel your limbs bouncing back with renewed strength to match the attack, kicking and punching up a storm even as Zoro manages to dodge every single stray first and leg without letting go. You’re sitting almost upright at this point so you resort to throwing your entire weight into every move.
A tussle isn’t the most ideal choice of activity when the sun is out for vengeance but you’ve never really been a creature ruled by infallible logics of the world, have you?
It’s not that you can forget where you grew up and who you grew up with, living day-to-day with only on the whimsies of youth and an entire arsenal of tricks, but you haven’t had to rely on those in a good while. You’re tempted because you know Zoro can fight just as dirty as you do when it comes to roughhousing, but he will always let you win—just like you know this is just him trying to curb your restlessness the only way he thinks he can.
Sometimes Zoro really can be an idiot, you think affectionately.
So you keep thrashing, teeth armed and ready as you try and chomp on Zoro’s fingers. Then you make a mad grab for Zoro’s face, fingers digging in wherever you can find purchase—stuck up both nostrils, flicked in both ears. Crooked in sweat-dried hair, nails scraping across his scalp hard enough for him to hiss, “Fuck.”
(Nami had once said to you, after Zoro had stomped away in a fit with his sword safely tucked away, if you keep bugging him like this, he’s going to actually get mad one day.
And you, who had exhausted yourself from laughing and gorging your appetite on the sound of Zoro yelling after you, could only peel one eye open to look at her. In the face of her disapproval you could only smile, the vision of exuberance. Nah, he won't.
She raised an eyebrow, clearly sceptical, and made a gesture as if asking for an explanation.
And you try, you really do—but there aren’t any words for this feeling that sits sticky in your stomach, sweet as syrup but infinitely better, whenever you whine at Zoro and he grumbles back. You can’t explain how it’s not his attention that you demand, but yours that he craves. How could you put into words what you simply know as fact?
So you shrugged. It’s for Zoro, you told her, simple as that. It’s our thing.)
Cramped together as you are, you’re more than close enough to feel the shiver that rushes down Zoro’s back. It makes you want to do it again so you do, this time with more force for it to hurt just that bit extra, manic grin plastered on your still-stretched face—mirror for mirror. You’ve always been a greedy one and Zoro reacts so well.
As you press your advantage forward, a stray knee to your stomach makes you squawk and loosen your grip. Another scramble of limbs results in Zoro successfully clamping both your wrists hostage in his iron hold, and you know there’s no chance of escaping because you’ve tried before and failed. You wiggle about a bit anyways.
It’s an unspoken rule that you aren’t allowed to use your rubbery powers when it comes to these tussles, mostly as harmless as they are exerting, but you’ve got something just as strong. With a small windup, using the weight of Zoro as an anchor and pushing your sandals against the thick of his thigh, you throw your head forward and smash your foreheads together.
To be fair, usually when Nami says to use your thick head for once she probably doesn’t mean it in a literal sense; but you like literal and you like winning even more, so you power through the muddled pain and use your newly freed hands to grab Zoro’s shoulders and push.
Momentum carries you through with the next move, hooking your legs over his waist and cinching them tight as you flip yourself on top. Zoro hits the floor with a soft thud and you immediately lean into his space, crowing, “My win—”
His hand pushes firmly against the side of your face, and you push right back, unwilling to let go of your position. A stray finger gets stuck between your teeth and instinctually you sweep your tongue across the tip before biting down. (He yelps, pulls back, and you mourn.)
Zoro has long and calloused fingers, a by-product of all that vigorous training he does, and you’ve always paid a lot of attention to them.
Well, you always pay attention to Zoro, that’s the whole thing, but even you know that there’s something slightly different at work here.
Like how you’re feeling right now, throat suddenly full, looking down at the carved curves and edges that make up your favourite swordsman as if you were only seeing him for the first time.
(Maybe it’s not just for him, you think.)
You ask, “Do you give?”
And from beneath you, perched back on bent arms, he freezes.
You know Zoro’s strong enough to throw you off if he really wants to, but he doesn’t. There’s a growing flushness that is crawling down his neck, disappearing behind the deep-cut collars just like that bead of sweat did before. From where your hands are pressed to his torso, a burning heat, you can hear the unsteady dun-dum dun-dum of Zoro’s heart, and you wonder what it would feel like to reach in and hold it.
“Finishing move,” you exclaim instead, chasing the tail of a half-formed thought as you duck your head and attach your teeth to the soft flesh of Zoro’s left cheek.
It’s not a hard bite, something closer to a chew—you’ve bitten him for a lot worse and a lot harder, too, the kind that draws blood and leaves a pretty bruise for you to press afterwards—but there’s still force enough behind it that you can see the clear imprints of your teeth.
(If you ever have to explain what this thing is, you might know what to tell them now. This is the common language you share together, captain to first mate: reverence in violence—because it’s not just Zoro who can get a bit mean.)
Something in you wants to bite him again—and again, and again, all the time—so you aim for the right side this time to even it out. Then, lightning quick, Zoro jerks his face slightly off-center at the last moment and you catch the stray softness of something else. Surprised, you sit back.
“You—” Zoro splutters, eyes blown wide open, and says no more.
Me, you think, as you scour his face. There, in the corner of his lips, another half-ring of teeth marks has dug themselves into his skin. A mark. Your mark. The rush of something euphoric licks along your spine, and you shiver. Your heartbeat is a living rhythm in your chest, singing notes that you can’t even begin to decipher, and you ponder on this.
Zoro looks up at you and you grin down at Zoro, on the cusp of delirium and giddy with—something. “I win.”
Eminently satisfied with your claimed victory and the tingly, funny feeling that has spread all the way to your toes, you drop unceremoniously onto him with a soft giggle and press your ear against his chest. Ba-dump ba-dump rings in your ear, short irregular beats that seem to increase the longer you listen, but you can’t tell whose heart it belongs to.
“Zoro?”
No response.
“Zoro,” you say again, almost a whine, almost an invocation.
You’ve always liked the way his name feels on your tongue, how your mouth fills with the heavy syllables. You want to savour it, the last bite of a drumstick—you want to devour it, swallowed whole and all-consuming. The thought comes to you unbridled: maybe I can make a habit of this.
Tilting your chin up, you see Zoro covering his face with both hands, palm pressed down on his eyes and chanting to himself to take deep breaths. There’s no holding back your curiosity so you nudge yourself up a bit to try and peek underneath.
“Are you crying?” you ask.
“No,” he immediately snaps back.
“Okay,” you reply. “Are you embarrassed because we almost kissed?”
You hear Zoro choke, followed by a long string of swear words, some of which you haven’t even heard of before, and you patiently wait it out.
“What’s there to be embarrassed about?” you laugh. “See! Zoro is weird.”
Somewhere above your head comes a grumbled, shut up.
“Even if Zoro’s still pretty weird,” you start to say. You can feel him begin to bristle, mouth probably poised with rebuttal despite the mortification that still clings to him—typical Zoro, you think, and can’t help but smile. “I think it’d be nice to kiss for real next time.”