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It was no longer just Luffy and Zoro on their little boat, it was now Luffy, Zoro and Nami.
Zoro still wasn't sure how he felt about it.
Luffy didn't seem to care in the slightest, more than happy to have someone else on the team. He also hadn't changed his behaviour with Zoro in the slightest.
When it was just Luffy and Zoro, Luffy often would curl up close to him at night, throwing an arm over Zoro's chest and his leg over Zoro's own. It had never failed to make Zoro's face burn and his stomach flip.
Still, Zoro found himself tangling closer with Luffy regardless, his own arms wrapping around his Captain eagerly.
But now, they had Nami with them, and Zoro still would wake up in the mornings to Luffy's stretchy limbs wrapped around his body.
Nami had poked fun at him for it a couple times when her and Zoro would wake up before Luffy and he would see just how tangled Luffy and Zoro were.
Zoro would always just flush deeply and tell her to fuck off, slowly worming his way out of Luffy's surprisingly strong grip, albeit very reluctantly. Luffy was just so warm.
But, ever since they helped Nami escape from Buggy in Orange Town, Luffy had been wrapping himself a lot tighter around Zoro. This also meant that, when Luffy would wake up from his increasingly common nightmares, Zoro was usually forced bolt upright with him.
Luffy would usually just pant heavily for a moment before slipping back to sleep and falling against the base of the boat with a small thud. Zoro would take a moment to process his very sudden awakening before laying back down as well, falling back asleep instantly.
This time, however, it was different.
Zoro woke suddenly as Luffy sits bolt upright next to him with what could almost be called a scream if it wasn't so choked, the sound lodging in his throat.
When Zoro looks over, he could swear that for a moment, the iris' of Luffy's eyes were...pink? He quickly blinks and they're back to normal, but Luffy isn't.
Instead of falling back asleep like he usually does, Luffy was practically hyperventilating, clutching at his chest with one hand and the other tight in his hair like he's trying to pull it out.
Zoro decides to move very quickly once he sees the tears streaming down Luffy's face, hand hovering in front of him like he's not quite sure he should be touching Luffy when he's like this.
Zoro looks over to Nami, who had also been woken by the scream, and she tilts her head towards Luffy in a 'he needs you' movement. Zoro nods back and shifts closer to his Captain, hand just barely touching Luffy's upper arm.
Luffy's gaze flickers to his almost instantly, eyes wide with fear and wet with tears. Luffy stutters in a breath before it escapes him in a sob as he falls into Zoro's arms.
Zoro accepts the extra weight of his Captain with ease, quickly wrapping his arms around Luffy's upper back. Luffy just sobs against his shoulder, hands tangling in the material of Zoro's shirt.
Zoro can't help but notice how much Luffy is shaking.
"Hey, Luff'. What's wrong?" Zoro asks gently, hand rubbing up and down soothingly over Luffy's back. Luffy stutters in a breath before speaking through sobs.
"I- I just can't st-stop thinking about being st-stuck in that cage." Luffy stutters out when he manages to get a moment between his tears, only for them to immediately start up again as Luffy presses his face harder against Zoro's shoulder.
Zoro blinks, thinking back to Orange Town where Luffy had been trapped by Buggy in that little metal cage.
Luffy had barely had enough space to move in there, forced to sit and hunch over to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling of it.
Luffy hadn't been behaving any differently, but Zoro had seen the fear in his Captains eyes, hidden behind a mask of confidence.
"Hey, it's okay. You're okay. I promise." Zoro reassures, the words muffled from where he's resting his face in Luffy's hair. Zoro, without thinking, presses a small kiss to the crown of Luffy's head.
Luffy breath stutters in a shaky inhale, but his tears seem to slow slightly. Zoro looks over to Nami who's glaring at him with a face that screams 'I know'.
To be fair, Zoro's been finding it harder and harder to hide the small crush he may or may not have developed on his Captain.
Most of the time, he shoves the feeling deep down inside him where it'll never see the light of day. However, in moments like this, his tight grip on those feelings loosens just a little. Loosens enough for him to do stupid things like kiss the top of Luffy's head.
Zoro pushes past his thoughts, this isn't the time to be worrying about himself. Not when Luffy is shaking and sobbing in his arms.
"Nami, where's the nearest island?" Zoro asks and Nami startles slightly like she hadn't been expecting to be addressed. She blinks before reaching into her bag for a map, pulling it out and looking over it.
"There's one maybe an hour from here." She says and Zoro nods.
"Tell me about it. Size, population, what's it like?" He says and Nami just looks at him very confused for a moment.
"C'mon, details." Zoro insists and Nami looks back to the map. She studies it for a moment training her finger over the lines of the landmass.
"Um... it's kinda medium sized, unpopulated, very woodsy with a lot of fields." She explains and Zoro nods more eagerly this time.
"Yeah, yeah that's perfect. We need to go there." He says as he looks down at Luffy in his arms. "You can sail, right?"
Nami nods and Zoro exhales a small sigh of relief. Normally he would do it, but Luffy is sobbing agaisnt his shoulder and he can't just let go of him when he's like this.
"Come on then, we need to go." Zoro prompts and Nami gets to work, changing their course and heading for the island. She keeps looking over at him and Luffy every now and again with a very confused expression but doesn't make any arguments.
By the time they reach the island, Luffy's breathing has calmed significantly, even if there are still tears making their way down his face. The sun has also begun to show itself over the horizon.
"Luff'. We found you an island." Zoro says, moving his hand to cup Luffy's face and bring it away from his shoulder. The movement is just enough that Zoro can look into his Captains eyes, red from crying.
Luffy's eyes go wide and the tiniest smile makes it way onto his face. Before Zoro even knows what's happened, Luffy's already scrambling for the island, pushing off of the boat before they're even property docked and rushing into the woods.
"Wait! Luffy!" Nami calls but Zoro stops her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Let him go for a while." Zoro says and Nami just looks at him incredulously.
"There could be all kinds of deadly animals and plants on this island! We know nothing about it!" Nami yells at him, looking back to the woods for a moment. "Shouldn't we be going after him?"
"Luffy's strong, he can handle himself. He needs this." Zoro says calmly, prompting Nami to calm down as well. She takes a deep breath and let's it out in a sigh.
"We can go and keep an eye on him if you want, but he'll be fine by himself." Zoro suggests and Nami nods, clearly slightly nervous about their Captain running off into unknown dangers.
"Okay, let's go then."
Luffy races through the trees, oh it feels like it's been ages since he's been able to do this properly. His heart is thumping with that weird drumbeat again and his chest is all tingly and warm.
However, Luffy can't find it within himself to care at that moment. This place was so far gone from the cage that Buggy trapped him in that it's not even a thought in his head anymore. He wants to go higher.
Luffy digs his feet into the ground and pushes off.
As he expected, the ground warps under his feet as he launches up and above the treetops. He's come to start expecting these weird things that happen when that strange drumbeat picks up in his ears.
Luffy breaks through the leaf barrier at the top of the trees and the cool air of the early morning hits his skin. Instead of the rush of falling that Luffy expected after a moment, he seems to kind of just...stay, hovering in the air above the trees.
Okay, this is new. Luffy pauses, turning himself around so he can look at the treetops below him. He's still not falling but he feels weightless like he is. Just as he begins to properly question it, he starts to drop.
Luffy can't help but bark out a laugh that turns into a cackling fit as he breaks back down through the trees bouncing off the ground and landing on his feet.
He's clutching his stomach as he laughs, falling to his his knees and slamming his fist into the ground as tears of joy escape his eyes this time. His laughter eventually calms down to a few odd chuckles.
Luffy suddenly startles when he hears a twig break behind him.
How did this even happen? Zoro was with Nami one minute and the next thing he knew she was gone. He'd probably gotten lost again. Zoro flushes in embarrassment, he was literally following her, how did he get lost?
He's quickly shaken out of his thoughts when he sees a glowing light coming from one of the clearings. Curious, he starts heading towards it carefully. As the trees make way to open field, Zoro stops, jaw dropping open at the sight before him.
There's a man in the clearing, although he looks so... almost godly... in the morning light that Zoro momentarily doubts if this is even a human at all.
The man's hair is bright white and glowing in the early morning light, floating up like clouds trying to return to the sky. His clothes are white as well. Zoro can't help but feel a pang of almost familiarity as he looks at them.
There's also a band of steam-like clouds around the man's neck, floating behind his head and down over his shoulders like a sash. The man is on the floor, cackling with laughter and that pang of familiarity hits Zoro again.
Zoro steps forward, he can't help it, it's like he physically being drawn to the man in front of him. A loud crack sounds through the clearing and Zoro looks below his feet to see a broken twig.
All of a sudden, there's a hand in the front of his shirt and he's being hauled into the clearing. Zoro will deny the yelp that escapes his lips at that till the day he dies.
Zoro still when he's suddenly wrapped up in the man's arms, looping around his waist multiple times and pulling him into a hug.
"Zoro!" That's Luffy's voice, there's no mistaking it, and it was coming from the man. Zoro's eyes drift over the man's face, eyebrows furrowed in confusion until his gaze lands on an all too familiar scar over the man's cheek.
"...Luffy?" Zoro asks carefully and the man, Luffy, giggles. Yeah, Zoro would recognise that laugh anywhere.
"Luffy... what-?" He begins to ask but Luffy is squeezing him tighter in the hug. Where Zoro expects there to be pain from such a tight hold on him, there isn't, his body just kind of gives way under Luffy's arms like Zoro's also make of rubber.
Luffy eventually pulls back after a moment, unwrapping his arms from Zoro's waist and standing in front of him.
"I wanted to thank you, by the way. For helping me calm down earlier." Luffy says, white hair swaying in the air as he tilts his head a little.
"Yeah, no problem." Zoro mumbles, eyeing the now pink of Luffy's iris'. Zoro swallows around a lump in his throat before speaking again.
"Luffy, why is your hair white?" He asks and Luffy's eyebrows furrow together in slight confusion before he's giggling and speaking.
"Silly Zoro, my hair's black." Luffy says, flashing Zoro a smile that feels like it's containing all the light in the world.
Zoro inhales sharply with the sudden need to make himself smaller, he doesn't deserve to be standing taller than Luffy when he looks like a God that just descended from the heavens. Zoro can feel his cheeks burning with a furious blush at that thought.
"Yeah, no, my bad." Zoro says on an exhale. Okay so Luffy clearly doesn't know about... whatever this is. But neither does Zoro, he has absolutely no idea why Luffy looks like this. What he does know is that this look is making his stomach fill with butterflies as he stares openly.
Zoro shakes his head slightly, he's got to think of a plan to get Luffy back to normal, Nami's probably looking for them.
However, it's kind of hard to think of a plan when Luffy is smiling at him so brightly, Zoro just feels the need to be close to his Captain.
"C'mere, I'm glad you're feeling better." Zoro says on an exhale with a small smile that Luffy matches easily.
Zoro's actually able to hug back this time, wrapping his arms around Luffy's shoulders and burying his face against Luffy's neck. Luffy just chuckles and settles his own arms back around Zoro's waist, face leaning against Zoro's collarbone as he hums contentedly.
Zoro smiles as well before he pauses. He can feel Luffy's heartbeat against his own chest, quick an erratic, almost as if moving to its own drum-like beat. One that feels so familiar that is has Zoro's own chest aching.
That drumbeat, he remembers hearing it at an island he and Luffy went to once. He remembers it clearly, when he had stumbled through the woodland looking for Luffy and found him in a dance circle with an outfit that had taken Zoro's breath away.
The music that was playing in the background as they danced. It was that same rhythm, now beating steadily in Luffy's chest. Zoro decides not to ask, Luffy probably wouldn't know what is means anyway.
They just stand there for a while, hugging as Luffy's heartbeat thumps loudly enough for Zoro to feel it. Zoro is almost startled when Luffy suddenly slumps against him, like his legs gave out from under him.
Zoro's quick to move, grabbing Luffy in a way that's easier to support him as Luffy's hair starts to shimmer with grey then black before falling back against his head.
The ring of clouds around his shoulders fades away and his clothes drain of white until they're back to their usual colours. The regular black of Luffy's eyes swirl back in amongst the pink before swallowing it completely, returning them to their normal colour as his eyelids slip shut.
Zoro feels Luffy's heartbeat slow before returning to it's usual rhythm and he can't help but breathe a sigh of relief as Luffy falls unconscious. He's just picked Luffy up when Nami breaks through into the clearing.
"Zoro! Where the hell did you go!?" She practically screams at him and Zoro winces.
"Got lost." He says and she just stares at him for a moment before yelling again.
"Got lost!? How did you even get lost, you were literally following me!?" She asks as they begin to walk back, Luffy in Zoro's arms. She doesn't seem to be questioning why Luffy is unconscious, probably just thinking that he wore himself out with all the crying.
They make their way back to the boat and Nami makes sure that she keeps an eye on Zoro as she walks next to him, ensuring he won't get lost again.
When they reach the boat again, Zoro places Luffy gently on the floor, sitting down next to him with his knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them. Nami unties the boat before turning to Zoro and speaking.
"So, why did we stop here anyway?" She asks and Zoro looks over to her.
"Luffy needed to run around, to remember he's not in that cage anymore. I think he has some really issues with being trapped, this kind of thing has happened before." He explains and Nami nods, eyes shifting to Luffy. Zoro sees a glint of sympathy in them.
"So is this something I'm going to have to watch out for?" Nami asks with a chuckle and Zoro finds himself joining in.
"Yeah, I have been." Zoro says, his own gaze shifting to Luffy. His chest tightens at the sight of Luffy peacefully sleeping. Nami watches with a knowing smirk on her face.
"So, you and him? Is there anything going on there?" She asks and Zoro sighs, digging the heel of his hands into his eyes.
"No. I don't think Luffy would even understand my feelings if I told him. He doesn't seem the type." Zoro mumbles, resting his chin on his crossed arms where they rest on his knees.
"So, why stay? You're only gonna hurt yourself." Nami asks and Zoro can't stop the next words from tumbling out of his mouth.
"Because I love him." Zoro confesses, eyes widening as he realises what he just said. He takes a breath and lets it out slowly.
"I'd rather stay, even if it hurts. I don't think I could live without him, as funny as it sounds. We've only known each other about a month but I would go to the ends of the earth for him." Zoro says, keeping his head low to hide the tears welling in his eyes.
Nami decides not to push further, letting Zoro not so subtly wipe at his eyes. Even with that conversation, Zoro can't stop thinking about how Luffy looked back in that clearing, floating white hair and wide pink eyes.
The way the morning light had hit his glowing features had made him look almost divine, like something out of a religious book. One could almost have compared Luffy to the sun itself.
Zoro squeezes his eyes shut and shoves those feelings back deep down inside him.
Where they belong.