Chapter Text
Luffy’s hands were a warm glass of sake, the type ideal to embrace at the end of a long day’s work. A guilty pleasure, stolen only in the quietest moments, unburdened by intrusive eyes. His fingers, dexterous yet so very clumsy, could individually scale mountains if only to find purchase on someone they loved. That person often happened to be Zoro.
Naps were always interrupted by a familiar laugh and a basketful of gangly limbs clambering all over him to find a comfy place to rest. Usually, that was Zoro’s chest - one hand worn like a scarf around him, while the other brushed against his cheek or messed with grassy strands of his hair. In other places, they’d draw judgmental looks and whispered assumptions, but to the crew, to Luffy’s crew, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Frequent touches such as hugs, roughhousing, poking and prodding; that was just Luffy’s way of caring.
When Zoro disappeared that fateful day, it was Luffy’s hands which first reached out. It was Luffy’s fingers which first plucked the empty air where his heartstrings were moments ago. And it was Luffy’s palms which first met the ground at the vision of his crew torn to pieces.
Those horrified screams thrummed in Zoro’s ears for days as he tore through the clouds towards a faraway land.
And now, he is here, surrounded by apes, sweat on his brow, a stagger in his step, and a million wishful words on his tongue. Across from him, his goal stands, eyes as sharp as knives, boring into his own. When Zoro’s blade pivots his way, he eases his sword from its scabbard, and wages it against him.
Mihawk’s blade isn’t black anymore. While its wielder is spotless from head to toe, dried, browning blood crusts around the usually onyx steel of his sword. Strange. Zoro wouldn’t take Mihawk as a man to be neglectful of his weapon.
Then Mihawk speaks, voice crisp and without hesitation, and Zoro’s lost the duel before it even begins.
“If you intend to fight, you may prefer that your captain’s blood does not muddy your blade.”
Zoro’s mind fails to carry the weight of the words unceremoniously dumped upon him. He scrabbles for composure, still wielding a blade out toward his opponent, but the tremble to his arms allows the grimy dirt to swallow Wado up. The sword hits the ground with a thunk .
“What have you done?” He breathes, a barely viable response that surely goes unheard.
Despite that, Mihawk’s response doesn’t miss a beat, “War does not pick favourites. Sacrifices must be made. The boy knew that when he chose to face me.”
Shock gives way to unbridled fury. Dust kicks up around Zoro as he shoots forward, Wado now inches from Mihawk’s open chest. It doesn’t even elicit a flinch.
Impassive as ever, Mihawk’s eyes narrow, and an almost bored sigh escapes his mouth. “I will give you word of mouth alone. I did not leave him a dead man. Dying, most certainly, and gravely injured, but still screaming.”
Bile nestles on Zoro’s strangled tongue. Last week’s sorrows still have yet to relent their ruthless clutches and now
this?
Merely a spectator to his own body, he slumps down on one knee, mouth hung open, a strangled sort of sound burrowing through his throat. Something is tossed in the mud before him - an article of rolled up parchment tied in flawless lace, with only a few specks of water damage.
“Perhaps the papers will give you more insight.”
All Zoro hears of Mihawk after that is an intermittent tap of heel against brick, and then his presence is choked in fog. Nothing remains to cling to. Silent chains snake over his wrists and ankles, binding his body in place. Only his fingers can pathetically inch toward the paper, brittle nails struggling with the lace until in one fell swoop, the paper unfurls, and a devastating headline lashes out at him. Except… Its damning, bold letters are little more than feinted punches compared to that.
Beside a few lines of fine print, a monochrome picture shreds every nerve in Zoro’s body at once.
Luffy’s hands are-
In pieces, half buried in the ground.
Luffy is nowhere to be seen.
And neither is Zoro.
***
Elsewhere, between the walls of metal, far beneath the ocean waves…
A man slumps over a mess of machine and skin. Behind him, someone enters the room, blithering about bedrest and irresponsible movements, but it’s mere background noise, filtered out by the blood pumping through his ears. It isn’t that he has no care for himself: his own burns are brutal enough - upon his back, a fistchaped crush where he’d been nearly driven through, but… it is a scratch.
Just a scratch compared to his brother.
Deprived of a hand to hold, Ace squeezes the empty air and prays.
“Luffy… please pull through…”