I Know He Looks Old, But I Can't Help But See It. If Shanks And Mihawk Had A Son (which Is Impossible

I know he looks old, but i can't help but see it. If shanks and mihawk had a son (which is impossible since they are the same gender but if it is possible) they would have looked like this man if they reached a certain age.

Chaos in Their Bones Ch. 9

Ongoing Series

Synopsis: All your life you’d listened to your friend, Usopp spin wild tales about pirates and adventure. Pirates weren’t a thing that came often to Syrup Village, but one straw hat pirate and his crew changed all that the day they arrived. Now, you aren’t so sure if your sleepy little village was always pirate-free or if no one had been paying attention.  

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Fem!Reader

Genre: friends to lovers, frenemies to lovers, idiots to lovers, slow burn (I hope y’all like aching) eventual smut

Words: 22.8k

A/N:  Man. This chapter has been a long time coming. It feels bittersweet to be posting it. While I know it is not truly the end of Zoro and Doc’s story (there are still chapter 10 & 11 to write and a one-shot. Not to mention season 2) it still feels like this has some finality to it. It was unexpected how much I grew to love OPLA even more through writing these characters and introducing Doc. This chapter is incredibly dark at times, so please be warned, but I promise chapter 10 is the tiddy chapter and will not be so heavy. And as always: Thank You. To every single one of you who continues to wait. Who loves this story and these characters as much as I do. For always being so kind and loving my story the way you all do. I hope you all continue to enjoy it. Here’s to many more adventures together 🖤 Much Love, Jenn

Warnings: mentions of torture, intense violence, blood, use of OPLA dialogue, swearing 

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He felt sick. 

The sickness festered and rotted under his skin until it threatened to take hold of him and send him in a blind rage searching for any trace of you. Every minute Zoro knew you weren’t next to him meant you were somewhere you shouldn’t be - somewhere you never should have been. 

He’d been outside meditating in the spot you’d found him in when you’d first come thrashing through the tangerine grove. This time, at the sound of feet slamming frantically into the dirt, it wasn’t you who Luffy found on their knees crying out with hatred. Screaming the name of a fishman who’d held you captive, tried to break your spirit, and failed. 

It was bad enough imagining the things he’d done to you. Seeing what Arlong had done. After you shared what you’d learned from Nami…Zoro wanted to gut the fucking fish himself. His hands shook with the desire to cut him from throat to navel. To claim his bounty in pieces. 

If Nami was here that meant she couldn’t be meeting you. It meant the information you’d told him as you’d cleaned his stitches and put on a clean dressing was pointless. 

Fucking pointless. 

Nami was here and you weren’t, which meant you could only be in one other place.

The muffled sound of voices rose up in a chorus around the table. The high pitch that signified Nami had resumed talking; her octave rising higher to signify she thought no one was listening. It would be true for him. Ever since his eyes caught sight of the explosion of flames that licked up towards the night a weightless panic gripped him. 

For the first time in his life, Zoro knew what it meant to be infected with the sickness of fear. He’d witness it drain the color from the faces of the pirates he hunted. The way it flashed across their eyes the same way the cool steel of his swords drew across their vision. 

Fear was a concept Zoro wasn’t accustomed to. Even when he lost repeatedly in the dojo to Kuina, it wasn’t fear that drove him, but anger. Determination to prove himself. 

“You really don’t fear death, do you?”

“No. I just don’t fear you.”

Zoro didn’t fear death or, at least, he hadn’t before. It wasn’t until he saw you standing at the edge of the ramp to the Merry that he felt uncertainty creep in his chest. Zoro didn’t fear death, but he feared not knowing what living with you by his side felt like; wrapped up in every moment. Laying on that dock, he’d been overcome with emotions. Zoro had failed not only for himself but also for Kuina. The knowledge of that failure sparked a determination so vicious to do better -be better - that he needed Luffy to hear the vow that he wouldn’t fail. 

Not again. Not ever. 

Silently, Zoro made another promise. He wouldn’t fail again - couldn’t fail again. Not when he could lose you, because the last memory Zoro held of you before his vision was swept up into darkness was your collapsed body on the dock. The fire in your eyes that he loves so much was replaced with something broken. Something he gave you. 

Zoro didn’t know fear until the day he went to sleep without ever knowing if he’d wake up to see you again. He didn’t know fear until he woke up to find you were gone from the Merry, and Zoro didn’t know that paralyzing type of fear until he watched you disappear behind a grove of tangerines. 

His body was sick with fear and the only way Zoro knew how to combat it was to turn it into unrestrained violence. 

His muscles - his very heart - filled with a tumultuous rage that felt like a borderline sickness. Zoro’s hand was clenched tightly around the Wado Ichimonji in hopes it would keep him grounded. That it would somehow be enough to keep him from running out of Nojiko’s front door to Coco Village and getting his hands on the first fishman he could find. 

A fishman’s skin was known to be tougher than bullets. Zoro was tougher than lead and stronger than a trigger releasing on a gun. He’d honed his body - hell his teeth - to withstand hundreds of pounds and keep the Wado held tightly in his jaws. 

The skin of a fishman didn’t stand a chance against the wrath of a demon.  

The sounds of an active slaughter rose up around them. The screams from the villagers were deafening, but all Zoro could hear was the turbulent thoughts that thrashed around in his head. 

He should’ve forced you to stay. He should’ve grabbed you and thrown you over his shoulder and taken you back to the Merry or tied you up to wait inside the hut. He should’ve tried to coax you into staying with his mouth reclaiming yours to remind you who you belonged to. 

The world was made up of so many should haves and yet, in the end, none of them mattered. In the end, Zoro was back inside Nojiko’s hut, his hands splayed out against the table they’d just had their dinner served on, while Nami drew out a plan. 

Zoro was fucking sick of plans.

He wasn’t aware that he’d grabbed the Wado Ichimonji off the table. He didn’t know he was moving towards the entrance of Nojiko’s home until he felt a light hand on his shoulder to stop him. Zoro didn’t need to look to know whose hand was stopping him - keeping him from moving forward. His body did it on reflex, as his jaw ground his teeth so tightly together, he was sure they were going to crack.  

Zoro wasn’t surprised to find Luffy there. His own eyes darkened with fury, but it wasn’t real. Not like the brimstone that gnashed its hellish teeth from the rage that broiled under his skin. It grew until the flames consumed him as they rose up higher inside him. Zoro could see under all that stoic optimism Luffy fought to keep that he was terrified of what they would find. 

“It’s almost dawn,” Luffy’s words were laced with caution. The kind used to defuse bombs or attempt to neutralize wild animals just before they attacked. “The minute the sun breaches over that sky, I swear to you, we will go get her.”

Zoro knew Luffy meant it and, in this moment, Zoro never appreciated Luffy more. Luffy could see that he was drowning - struggling to stay sane - and he tried to give Zoro a raft of hope to grasp. 

The only thing that would make him feel better was your body tucked safely against his. 

While he may have been filled with trepidation, Luffy wasn’t going to let it stop him from pressing forward. You were a part of his crew. Luffy wouldn’t abandon you, but Zoro knew the longer that you were left alone inside that compound the chances of them finding you alive, and not a body, was narrowing down closer to zero than he’d like to think about. 

“She doesn’t have that long.”

He hated how his voice broke at the end. What he hated more? All that unadulterated rage that was brewing inside him was leaking out. It made his body shake and eyes blur and he knew that if he walked into Arlong Park and found you more bruised, more…more broken than when you left him - not even the gods themselves would survive. 

“Arlong won’t kill her,” Nami spoke up. Her voice was a whisper that carried like a scream in the quiet of the hut. “She’s meant to be a warning…and a punishment.” 

“A punishment for who?”

“For me.”

Zoro knew his gaze wasn’t the friendliest. He knew that looking at Nami - all that hatred he felt for the fishmen was displayed on his face and directed solely at her. She didn’t waiver from his gaze, but accepted it, and Zoro wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. He got his answer when those two words collided in his chest and tore through. 

Nami was broken. 

She blamed herself for the predicament you were in. While Zoro wanted to agree and to let all the fury out on her but, realistically, it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Luffy’s or anyone’s. You came here to save Luffy - to save Nami - in your own way. 

Maybe it was his fault. Only a few hours ago you’d been here with him inside Nojiko’s hut. His body stood in the exact place he’d finally silenced all his doubts, every racing thought, by chasing the calm of your lips. 

He could still feel your touch on his chest like a vengeful ghost. Your eyes staring up at him and lost to the current of your own thoughts. It reminded him of his own and all it took was for one moment - one second - to decide to place his lips against yours for everything to make sense. 

All the thoughts, dreams, and promises had all been stripped away. The only thing left in that moment was him and you and the feeling of calm that washed over him. A new wave he’d never experienced rolled through him and it was one he’d only heard of. Never did he dream he would experience it - want to - and yet he knew what it was once the calmness ceased and a fire burned hot in his belly. 

Passion. 

He’d heard how it consumed men and women and made them slaves to their most carnal desires. It slithered inside until it constricted all reason until the only thing left was to answer. There was no more denying that you were his desire. The consuming flame that slithered and constricted his veins until the only call he heard - the only one he wanted to answer - was you. 

The minute he’d claimed your lips as his, Zoro knew he wanted nothing else - no one else - for the rest of his life. You were just as much a part of his purpose as his life-long dream to be the greatest swordsman who ever lived. 

How could it be that he’d experienced his first real kiss only for the possibility of it being his last? Zoro would be damned if that would happen. He should’ve kissed you again. He should’ve thrown that fucking clown outside and resumed where he’d interrupted but this time picking you up to seat you on the table. Zoro wanted to feel your legs wrapped around him, pulling him in closer, while his hand worked its way back into your hair and your hip.

Maybe if he’d done that, you’d be inside the hut. You’d be here after Luffy found Nami colliding into the dirt. 

“He’s not hurting her, is he?”

Zoro’s gaze flew to look in the corner where Usopp had taken up residence. His arms rested on his legs as he stared down into the floorboards. It’s where he’d shut down and refused to look up from the hole his eyes were digging into the floor. No one was willing to comment on the silent tears that dotted the old wood. 

“That can’t be a serious question, mate.”

Even though the waiter’s tone was gentle it wasn’t hard to miss the disbelief.

“And what if it is?” Usopp challenged. “We all saw how she looked the last time we saw her and now she’s back there. Alone. It isn’t too much to hope that they’re just holding here there. Maybe tied up somewhere-“

“That isn’t how Arlong does things,” Nami cut in.

“You don’t know that!”

“Oh, I don’t?” Nami shot back. Her body now removed and standing from where she’d been sitting. “I know Arlong better than any of you. I know exactly what he is capable of, and I can promise you he doesn’t do simple.”

“Then why aren’t we going now?” Usopp practically shouted, his eyes wide with bewilderment. 

“That’s what I’ve been wondering this whole time,” Zoro mumbled. 

“I’ve told you both already, it is too risky for the villagers. All it takes is for one of his men to get back to him that we interrupted them, and they are all as good as dead. And so is she.” 

Zoro’s hand flexed around the Wado as the last of Nami’s words sunk in. The silence hung heavy and draped the room once more with the unmistakable feeling of dread. The unknown in these next final hours was too much to bear. 

“I think it’s a risk we have to take.”

“Usopp,” Nami started with a groan. 

Her arms dropped from where she’d held them crossed against her chest.

“No!” 

Zoro never heard Usopp shout. At least, not when it wasn’t out of fear but this…was raw emotion. It’d launched him out of his corner and back into the room completing the small circle of bodies. No longer did he try to hide the tears he’d shed or the desperation in his voice. 

“Doc is my best friend-“

“She’s our friend too, Usopp,” Luffy attempted to defuse him, but it only seemed to make it worse.

“No. You’ve known her for a few weeks. I’ve known her all my life. She was there for me while my mom was sick - helped Naan care for her. Doc looked after me when she passed and didn’t make me feel bad for ringing that stupid bell every damn day expecting my dad to come back.” Zoro looked away when fresh tears broke free. “Doc has been through enough shit since she was little. I should be there to protect her right now.”

The words were barely audible as they began to break and as his words broke, so did Usopp. A hand ran across his face to either mask a sob or cleanse him of whatever guilt that gripped him. 

“It was a mistake to have her come. When we get her back, we should take her back to Syrup village.”

“No.”

That one word fell like a stone inside a well. It directed all eyes back to him, but Zoro didn’t care. A fresh wave of rage hit him at the idea of sending you back to your village because it was safe. You were safer with him than alone in some village. 

“You don’t get to decide that. Especially you,” came Usopp’s curt reply. 

“Last time I checked you don’t get to decide that for her, either.”

Zoro didn’t think the waiter should have an overall say in this either, but he knew Sanji wasn’t wrong. It was ultimately Doc’s decision on if you stayed or went back to the village. If you wanted to stay with him. 

“You guys know nothing about her and suddenly you’re acting like she’s a vital part of the crew!”

“She is a vital part of this crew,” Luffy snapped. He regarded Usopp with a softness that hardened as he spoke. “Doc has dreams of her own. Dreams that outgrew Syrup village a long time ago. Our crew - my crew - wouldn’t be complete without her. She’s family.”

“We are her family, Usopp,” Nami began, “and she’s proven that she believes that too. I may not have had her my whole life, but Doc is the best friend I never thought I’d get to have. You aren’t the only one hurting.”

If any of them turned to look in his direction, Zoro was going to bolt. The last time he’d had a drink felt like ages ago back on the Going Merry, which meant he wasn’t drunk enough to be having this heart-to-heart with everyone. 

“Right. I’ll be outside.”

“Zoro-“

He was tempted to keep walking and pretend he hadn’t heard her say his name. It was the best plan to keep his sanity. So, when he turned around to look at her he breathed a quiet, ”fuck,” into the air. 

The minute Zoro locked eyes with Nami he already knew without her speaking what she was silently pleading with him not to do. She was terrified he would go off on his own to find you. He knew the score and knew from talking to Nami that it wasn’t just your life at stake. An entire village that had been terrorized for a decade was threatened with the possibility of death if they fucked this up. 

Zoro was a lot of things but heartless wasn’t one of them. 

His jaw ticked as he considered telling her she didn’t have to worry. He would be right outside waiting - watching - for the first signs of dawn to peak across the sky. Instead, he gave her a small nod of understanding before he turned to finish his descent out of the hut and to the safety of outside. 

While he did want to go rushing to your rescue, Zoro knew if you found out villagers died because of his actions, because he wanted to save you, you would never forgive him. So, Zoro would meditate and wait for the break of dawn to crest over the trees before he allowed the drums of war to march him forward. 

The sound of the screams from the village was something you knew would forever carve itself into your memory. Every rising shout, a cry for mercy, would haunt the halls of your mind like an old house. Every creak, groan, and slam promised to remind you of this very moment. The fury behind every agonizing wail of someone losing their home, a loved one - a child - of watching their lives go up in blood and smoke hammered curses so deafening you thought your eardrums might shatter. 

You imagined if they could see you tied up and paying your penance, you were sure the villagers would spit on you the same way they did Nami. Nami, who only wanted to help the only way she knew how. 

And you. 

If they could curse you, you knew they would. Fear did that to people. Just like the villagers in your own village viewed you. 

Syrup Village had never been your home. The only reason you’d considered it a place to think of that way was only because Naan was there. And Usopp. You’d known for years that none of the villagers trusted you. You could still hear the first trace of whispers, the judgemental eyes as your tiny hand grasped onto Naan’s tighter. Afraid the current of their hatred would flush you back down into the very sea they claimed you belonged.  

The way Mr. Cawes left Naan’s order of fresh baked bread and flour outside the store. Linens from Miss Sotaw’s shop was placed in a basket in the alley by her back door. Every time they knew it was you who came to gather Naan’s goods, you were never allowed inside. 

A bad omen. A Filthy curse. 

“You did this to us!” 

“I knew you were a blight - a stain that should’ve been removed.”

“You came and ruined us! Now we’re all dead. Dead! DEAD!”

“Murderer!”

“Doom bringer,” the tiny voice inside your head called you.

Those same people who treated you like a plague in their existence were the same ones who showed up begging for your help. Who came in the middle of the night pleading for you to follow them home. 

“Please my wife- “

“My children- “

“My grandfather hasn’t been able to eat.”

Each time they came to the small hut at the edge of town placed on the cliff by the ocean, buried behind the trees, you expected kindness. That you would walk into town and not find harsh glances and turned backs in greeting. You’d thought after everything you’d at least get acceptance. You helped them and they repaid you by treating you the same. 

And yet, you still helped. Believing if you did enough - were enough - they would finally see you the way Naan always claimed she saw you. 

“We can’t allow the ugly in others to diminish the good in us.”

Good. That’s what Naan called it. Goodness of the soul. The character of a person. She so firmly believed your soul was good…but even you noticed on days when you told her about the voices - shared in your imaginary friends - the cold dread that rid her face of warmth. 

No matter how much you wanted to believe her, you knew there was something about you that was different. Whatever it was, you knew it caused problems and those problems, like now, what happened in Coco Village, were all your fault. 

Because it was your fault, wasn’t it? If only you listened to Nami when she’d warned you. If only you’d listened to Zoro when he didn’t feel right and told you going back wasn’t safe. You barreled forward, not questioning why they gave that warning. You were too focused on finding normalcy in helping to take a step back. Now, the only reward you received for your kindness - your stubbornness- was pain. 

Pain for yourself. Pain, you brought down on others. 

The deafening echoes of black powder being released in explosions of sparks and deadly quicksilver jerked you out of your thoughts. You wondered how many of those bullets found homes inside fleeing backs. 

Arlong had his men string you up facing the entrance into Arlong Park just a few feet in front of Arlong’s makeshift throne. The tips of your boots barely reached the wooden walkway underneath you to try and keep your arms from completely tearing at the muscles. Your view of the pool and carnival games felt ridiculous now; a matching gross joke to match the body of the clown they’d pinned up with knives inside the milk toss game. 

Arlong was slowly creating a carnival of bodies. 

You were meant to be a sickening ornament to his crew when they returned from destroying Coco Village and any unsuspecting visitors who might try and show up. And one you were dreading to see. You were a reminder of the fishmen superiority Arlong so boldly claimed. One that proved humans were the weaker species, and showed just how beneath them you truly were. 

The first few hours the pull of the metal chain cutting into the skin of your wrists was unbearable. You’d tried to remain stoic, because you refused to give Arlong the satisfaction of seeing you whimper and cower. You didn’t want him to take what ounce of fight was left inside you, but slowly as the hours passed, and the cries from the villagers rose higher with the flames, you felt the first crack begin. 

Your fingers attempted to curl into your palms, but you were swiftly reminded of the pinching steel that engraved itself violently into your wrists. For the hundredth time, you tried pulling your arms back in towards your sides and believed that you would magically have the strength to rip the pillars apart like the Greek gods you’d read about in Naan’s old library. She told you that the book, like many others you found over the years, were silly stories not meant to be read. You wanted to ask her why she kept them then.

If you could suddenly have strength like Hercules, you could’ve torn this place apart. The pillars would fold in like torn butterfly wings and once they were gone, the chains that held your arms open and left you exposed would be no more. You’d be free, leaving you to run to the village and do what? 

What could you possibly do to help them? 

You did this. All you wanted was to help. Instead, you’d sent a whole village to its damnation. And what was your penance? All night the tides of your guilt grew higher with each sound of tearing and breaking of homes being ripped apart frame by frame.

Gods, their screams were endless. Their terror was ruthlessly carried on the wind; each breeze making your stomach curl and bile to rise in your throat. You knew there were pleas in those cries. Someone begging for their loved one to be spared only to be met with violence. Horrors that, if it didn’t kill them, would hollow out their souls until the only thing left was a shell. 

You did this to them. 

Nami warned you. Told you countless times that it wasn’t safe, but you didn’t want to listen. You’d been arrogant in thinking you wouldn’t get caught. She’d warned you. 

“People will do anything when they are starving.”

You’d wanted to help Nazifa and her family and now you’d doomed them. You’d doomed the whole damn village because you couldn’t stop yourself from trying to show kindness. To prove you weren't a monster. To hope that they wouldn’t see you the way your own village had. 

Another wail broke through the gunfire and rose up with blackening smoke into the midnight blue of the sky. A canvas of flame licked across that darkness, and you knew they’d finally set the whole village to burn. 

“Do you hear that,” Arlong asked from behind you, your name tinged like the shit end of a bad joke. “All that death and dying? Make sure you get a good listen and mark it to memory: you caused this. You and Nami.” 

“Fuck off,” you seethed, bloody spittle dripping from your bottom lip. 

Your sharp tongue was rewarded with him grabbing the stick he’d started using hours ago and slammed it home against your ribs. The way the pain blossomed into every nerve was immediate. The air in your lungs twisted, trapped inside, until it released in a scream of your own. The expansion of your diaphragm and the sharp electric burst of agony that came with trying to breath told you Arlong broke something. 

You tried to take shallow breaths. Your mind struggled to work around assessing your own wounds - how many ribs and where the possible break was - over the sound of Arlong’s incoming rant. 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve talking to me that way.”

“Don’t like the tone of my voice?” Your question was loaded. The both of you knew it. “Stop talking to me like I give a shit.”

You knew the next hit was coming. It was obvious in the way his hand tightened and released on the wood. The way his eyes exploded with a spark of sheer hatred. The smirk that bared teeth before his body lurched forward. You braced your body for the next blow, but Arlong changed course last minute. The wood slammed into the left side of your face with such force you heard the wood splinter. A piece of the board flew over your head in pieces. It almost felt like you were trying to follow it, the way your neck snapped to your right. 

The blood leaking from between your lips was immediate. It rushed like a river and if you were able to move anything past the shockwave that resonated inside your skull you would’ve looked to see if a tooth was knocked loose. If the day-old cut in your cheek was ripped open to mingle with fresh wounds. 

The blood was immediate and so was the swelling. Already your left eyes and cheek were bruising - swelling to try and stem the tide of any further internal damage Arlong no doubt caused. 

The radius positioned under the thumb. Ulna to the little finger. Eight carpal bones make up the wrist…

Over the last few hours, whenever Arlong, Chew, or your new bodyguard, Murtogh, came into view your mind hardened itself to prepare for what was to come. You’d learned Chew preferred fire and Murtogh liked blades. Chew specifically enjoyed heating up objects and pressing them into the tender flesh that was your stomach. His laughter sent you into sensory overload as your skin sizzled and melted under the heat of the lastest objects - cigars. 

You wish you were stronger. A part of you wished you didn’t cry out or feel your body struggle uselessly against the chains to get away. You wanted to have more rage in your thrashing - threatening to break free and break their bones the way they broke yours. Maim them the way they so lovingly maimed you. The only safety you could find from the torture was going over the bones of the body. The steps to suture wounds. The items necessary to make herbal remedies and antidotes for poisons and illness. 

Grind it down in the mortar to make it more potent. Add lycan moss until it forms a paste…

It didn’t matter if it was to cure fungal infections, gangrene, or headaches. You named off the components inside certain mushrooms and the specifics of what made them deadly. You went back to memorizing the hand bones that lead down back to the wrist. The bones that felt like they were breaking with each tug and pull your body involuntarily made in a useless effort to flee when one of them came grinning towards you. You couldn’t fling yourself back anymore. Not since Murtogh carved into the meat at the back of your caves, just below the knees.

So when Arlong rose up from his makeshift throne and came towards your broken body, now hanging limp and broken, your brain immediately began to say the name of every plant that could be found at Irkhaven. You tried to focus, but soon you found yourself counting the number of steps it took Arlong to reach you before his finned hands grabbed ahold of your hair and pulled your gaze up. It took you a moment to look past the blood that had dripped inside the swollen lids. 

“Ah, can you hear that, Doc?” He used his hand to amplify the sound you couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it made his stomach-churning smile ever wider. “The boys are almost here with our newest guest.”

Oh, gods. How could you have forgotten? 

It’d felt like an eternity inside these walls - your personal hell. Your mind shifted somewhere else to keep you from completely breaking, but at his words everything slammed back to reality. 

Nazifa. 

As if remembering her was enough to conjure her, the sound of a screaming child grew closer behind the wall. It was all you needed to renew the struggle to break free. You couldn’t let them harm her; hurt her in any way. Your heart slammed with such force against your ribs your legs gave out from underneath you. The tips of your toes struggling to find ground as the cuts Murtogh had given you expanded every time you attempted to straighten your legs. 

“Let me gooo! Please. Let me go!”

Every choked word that screamed around a sob felt like it held you underwater. Suffocating you in your own growing panic as you thrashed helplessly in your chains. Arlong’s laugh was guttural and made your body grow still as he came up beside you.

“So, there is still a little fight left in you after all.”

“You have me, Arlong. You don’t need the girl. She’s innocent!”

You didn’t care how raw your voice was with desperation. The way unspoken words settled like still water in your lungs - calm, waiting to rush free at the slightest ripple. You were willing to give blood - sell your soul - whatever it would take to keep the devil away from her. 

“Now, where would be the fun in that? Nah, the way I see it-“he moved to stand in front of you. His face the only thing that took up residence in front of you - smiling as Nazifa screamed. “She owes me the same amount of blood as you do.”

All your life you’d heard about hatred that burrowed inside the hearts of every man - every creature - on earth. How the flames their rage stoked rose higher and higher until it consumed villages and the people within. How their hatred was used like righteous fire to burn out the existence of anyone in their way. You’d heard stories about hatred that changed lives. Ruined them. Changed them. Naan had always been so careful with you in keeping those thoughts at bay - fighting them with every fiber of your being. 

“Hatred is a baptism in pain, child. One I pray you never experience. One that changes a good heart to something else. Something deadly - not even love can cure.”

What did Naan know? She never knew the torture you went through with the children in the village. The many ways they reminded you of how unwelcomed the sight of you being alive was to their vision. The way the adults sneered at you: an unholy omen of misfortune dropped on their island built on the fortune of others. There were many times when your own pain could’ve created a seven-layer inferno of hatred all on its own. 

But while the horrors of the world still persisted, so did the goodness that lived inside of you. 

The drive to heal. To save those like yourself. Those who felt unworthy of being saved. For the first time in your life, you felt the rage of your own hatred rise like a phoenix in your chest and did nothing to stop it from consuming you. 

         let us in 

                         we can’t help

 if you deny us 

                   we only 

                                  want to help 

                                                       free us

                                 free yourself

All your life Naan told you not to listen. When the darkness came, she begged you to ignore it. 

“Shove it down. Keep it away. Don’t let it corrupt the good in you.”

But you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, you wanted to tell her. The words of disdain that dipped your tongue with poison and threatened to kill dynasties if your lips ever parted. You haven’t witnessed what these men have done. 

“All hatred is born out of fear.”

You could hear the ghost of a reply in the back of your mind. The same one she’d told you many times when you’d come inside crying as a child. A child’s mind was unable to understand how anyone could put their prejudice on a child. You could practically feel the warmth of her arms enveloping you - inviting - to give the comfort you craved. 

The darkness that crept in quickly pushed back against your attempt to satiate it once more with calmness and warmth. It was done being suppressed, and you were tired of pretending that the darkness inside you wasn’t a part of who you are. 

Arlong must have noticed a change. The way animals sense an impending threat. A predator they weren’t aware of closing in before they could prepare. A small piece of you rejoiced as the uncertainty began to steal the sadistic gleam that had been in his eyes. The brightness dimmed just enough for you to see yourself - bloodied and swollen - inside the obsidian of his eyes. You were met with a reflection of yourself; a mirror that saw the white of your good eye completely consumed with a darkness that bled like spilled black ink on paper. It continued to branch out around your eyes, stopping shy at the tops of your cheeks. 

You didn’t have enough time to think about what you saw. If brain damage was another issue to add to the ever-growing list of things to worry about. The sound of the gates of Arlong Park opening careened your neck to try and look around Arlong’s shoulder. 

Kuroobi held Nazifa tightly by the back of the neck and used it to direct her where he wanted. Her small hands didn’t stop their weak attempt to scratch at him - to cause him some sort of discomfort that would make him release her. Tiny rivers had created shapes in the dirt on face, matching the sobbing pleas that eclipsed her lips in tight shrieks. You thought maybe she’d fallen in mud or Kuroobi had thrown her in some. It wasn’t until she got closer you realized it wasn’t grime that dirtied up her face and streaked her clothes, but ash. 

Nazifa was covered in the destruction of her home. 

Arlong clicked his tongue and Kuroobi and Nazifa’s journey ended at the edge of the pool. A fresh wave of dread clawed itself inside your belly. Sharp and brutal and felt with every breath. Every breath that thundered your racing pulse in your ears. You didn’t need to watch to know what would come next, but your body reacted all the same as Kuroobi’s hand wrapped violently on the nap of Nazifa’s neck and hoisted her over the edge of the pool. 

Her scream housed more than just a simple room of fear. It was built around halls of terror that led to rooms that fueled the nightmares of imagination and ate away at hope. The ‘what if’s’ of unending questions that centered solely on what the last thing she said to her father was, or if she’d die for Arlong’s amusement inside his joyless circus. Nazifa’s voice raised higher and higher until it started to break. The sounds of her tiny feet pounding and sliding against Kuroobi’s solid form as they swung out wildly, as if it would be enough for him to release her. 

It was instinct that craned your neck in her direction. Instinct that brewed a fresh wave of adrenaline that forced you back onto the pads of your knees with your legs struggling to help you stand. The closer Kuroobi brought her to the edge of the pool, the more her scream turned into panicked shrieks. It sent your heart pounding against your chest, wild and raw. 

Let her go! Your mind raged. Your own thoughts turned to the sickening idea they were already hurting her. 

“Leave…leave-her…leave her alone.”

Each word struggled to work its way up your throat - passed bloody and swollen lips. The chains at your wrists bit into your skin as you fought against your chains to see them coming up on your right side. The minute Nazifa’s eyes found you her screams became inconsolable. 

One look at you sent her backpedaling into Kuroobi’s arms, as if she could ask him for safety. You considered it had to be how you looked. Broken. Bloodied with swollen wounds and open cuts. Fresh burns along your back that had married skin to cloth. 

But that wasn’t it. You remembered the way your one good eye blossomed obsidian in the iris of Arlong’s. A simple glance down your arms and to the hands that gripped your chains let you watch as your fingers, and part of your hand, ripen like rotted fruit. The chains sizzled against your skin with smoke noticeably rising from where they touched. Your own scream barreled like a pulled trigger from a musket up from your chest and blasted with violence into the encroaching darkness. The sound steeped in madness that changed to manic laughter. 

This can’t be real. 

Every hushed whisper you’d heard since you were a child. All the looks of hatred that painted over their fear as they looked at you. Every beating and fight that Usopp and you had been in. Every rock you counted as it was thrown - the saltwater that was forced down your throat - all of it no longer seemed warranted, when Naan told you their fear wasn’t. 

“Fear of the unknown makes folks foolish. Blind to the truth in front of them.” 

And what was that truth now? You wanted to scream. What truth was looking at you now as you listened to the rising panic of Nazifa’s screams. The murmurs and uneasy glances of the fishmen looking between them and their leader for answers. 

Leader. Make believe king. Another man who wished to play God.

Your head whipped with a snarl towards the self-proclaimed King of Nothing. His own teeth bared at another predator he didn’t see coming. You wanted to tear Arlong apart. Ask what he’d done to you, but you knew, deep down, this wasn’t the cause of anyone else. This has been inside of you all your life. This darkness. This…madness. The same darkness Naan begged you to discard and ignore all your life; your childish mind thinking she meant hatred. 

But there was more than hatred that boiled beneath your skin, and you’d let it in like a fool. 

The chains were beginning too lax. It would only take one hard pull and, you were positive, they would completely fall. You would be free. Arlong must have realized this possibility too. Underneath all the rage and loathing was something you knew he would refuse to name. Something that grew from the corpse of fear and blossomed into something more devastating: terror. 

The thought of Arlong cowering was enough for a smile to crack through the laughter. The hysterics of it rose around the both of you, sealing him in and forcing him to focus on the madness in the obsidian of your eye as you took the melting metal in your hand and pulled. The snapping of the first chain was enough to bring Arlong out of wherever his thoughts had taken him. 

“Let Nazifa go. Now!”

“Monster!” Arlong snapped, spittle flying from his lips. “You think you can make demands of me?” 

Arlong made a few clicks with his tongue and Kuroobi’s body responded to whatever code he’d given him. You watched in horror over his shoulder as Kuroobi lifted Nazifa back up by her neck and dunked her down inside the pool. 

“Noooooooo!”

The word came from deep in your belly - a scream of your own terror - that rattled your bones. The chains screamed as you found your footing, legs no longer weak, as you tried to push forward. The sound of wood beginning to bend, and crack floated in the background as another scream rolled through you. 

He wasn’t letting her up. Kuroobi wasn’t bringing her back to the surface to get air. To let her breathe. You watched helplessly as her small hands barely broke the surface. The way they struggled to hit at his arm - yanking, swatting - in hopes he would let her go. Let her breathe. 

“Nazifa!”

You screamed her name and took another step. You would pull your arms from your sockets if it meant you could save her. If you could just get to her and hold her up and clear the water that was smothering her lungs and stealing her breath. You took another step forward, but your bare feet slipped in blood that hadn’t yet dried. You weren’t prepared for the loss of traction and found yourself scurrying to try and stay on your feet. You had to keep pushing. Keep moving. It didn’t matter that it felt like you were tearing yourself apart. Those wounds were opening, and you repeatedly kept slamming your knees into the cement as you fell. 

Nothing mattered except saving Nazifa. 

Another scream came from you but this time it came from somewhere deep within. Somewhere fractured and desperate that shook the very core of who you were, and as it rose like a sickening chorus from your lips you swore you felt the very foundation of Arlong Park begin to break with you. 

You weren’t imagining it when the ground waved unevenly under their feet. Under yours. Whatever trance he’d been in was shattered, and it was enough to spring Arlong into action. Quickly, he closed the distance between him and the closest fishman in three large strides. His hand reached out to take the dagger from the fishman’s belt.

You weren’t surprised with what followed after. How fast he returned to stand over you in his one last chance to dominate you before he lost all control. When Arlong made his way back to you - teeth bared and arm thrusting forward - the dagger found a home in your side long before Arlong himself ever reached you. 

You’d treated plenty of cuts and knicks inside the safety of Naan’s home. Burns from stoves and road rash on the arms and backs of farmers whose horses had decided they’d had enough. It was the pirates who came to Naan’s door that carried the more lethal wounds with them. Deep cuts on thighs that required hundreds of stitches. Gangrene in wounds that ended with you having to help hold down the patient as Naan amputated feet, legs, or arms. You’d dug bullets from shoulders and mended broken bones. The few stab wounds you’d helped Naan with rarely ended well. 

You could remember the first time you saw the wounds pressed into the gut of the captain of The Hellbound. The howls of pain that filled the cabin as his hands scrambled to grab ahold of anyone - anything - as his body spasmed in pain. The way the blood flowed in a steady stream onto the basement table. He made such a fuss, you thought he must have been exaggerating. 

You knew now as the blade slid through your skin and into meat and sinew, that captain should’ve screamed louder. 

You watched as Arlong didn’t stop pushing until the blade disappeared completely inside your body. If you could’ve, you were sure he would’ve buried the handle inside with the blade and pushed it through to the other side. The adrenaline in your body kept you from feeling most of it - the shock. It couldn’t keep the blood from filling your throat forcing you to cough it up with strings of it falling to your chin. 

It sliced something important. 

The last thing you wanted to do was show your surprise. To show anything. But after the shock wore off, and the adrenaline and whatever it was that overtook you, the only thing left was the disbelief. 

Your eyes glanced up from his hand to his face and found his smile waiting to greet you. He leaned in as another soft cough brought up more blood and inhaled. 

“Monster,” Arlong whispered in your ear. “I’ll go down in history not only as King of the Pirates, but also as a monster slayer. I’ll preserve your head to decorate the front of my ship.”

Monster. It’s what he’d called you. It was all you could focus on. You couldn’t even be grateful he didn’t remove the dagger. Arlong leaving it in was the best thing he could’ve done for you to prolong your life just a little longer. Long enough for you to try again to save Nazifa. Long enough for you to regain what strength you could to make sure you got the chance.

Somewhere between your attempted escape and Arlong embedding the blade in your gut, Kuroobi took Nazifa out of the pool. He’d set her small body down beside a carnival game where they locked a chain around her ankle. Not that she could move. Not that she could try. She was barely taking small breaths as she vomited up water. 

Another cough. Another fresh taste of chopper against your tongue. 

Monster is what Arlong called you. Freak. Sea Witch. Monster. You’d heard it all your life and, for once, maybe they were right. You were willing to be the monster one last time if it meant you could save Nazifa. You were willing to be the monster one last time if it meant you got to tell him goodbye. 

Dawn arrived. 

Zoro watched as the rays of cherry blossom pink and fire orange chased the last blanket of night away. He thought watching the sunrise seated where he was on the roof would be enough to raise hope in his chest. Instead, apprehension dug into the marrow of his bones until his muscles grew stiff. Until every member of the crew had descended from inside Nojiko’s hut to start the long trek back towards the village. 

Zoro didn’t want to see - to know - what had been done there. It was easier to imagine - to not have to bear witness - to travesties that happened to others. It’s how he liked it. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Zoro could recall a time when it was just him murdering and maiming his way through the East Blue bounties. 

It’d been so simple.  

Garner information on his next kill. Locate said kill. Kill said kill. Retrieve the bounty for the head in the sack and move on to the next. Keep his head down. Keep moving. Be oblivious to the world around him. It had all been so simple. But it hadn’t been living. 

Zoro realized that now as he walked with the small ragtag group Luffy collected. Zoro had been alone for so long, he forgot what looking up - noticing - the world around him was like. What it was like to have friends. To have dreams. To admit to wanting more than a life of solitude and blood. To see the world in an explosion of color and possibilities the minute you’d exploded into his world with a hand on his chest and a boot to his bedroom door. 

With each step closing in to the smoke that still rose from charred homes it felt like he was walking towards a nightmare of his own making. A knowledge that could no longer be ignored. The people here were held violently under the boot of someone who enjoyed having that power over the villagers. A fishman who stripped them of their dignity, their home, and hope. 

Arlong had destroyed countless lives for his enjoyment and as their small group came around the once whole fence into the grove of the village, Zoro realized he would do whatever it took to free these people. 

The huts - no matter how dilapidated they’d been before - that had housed families with their thatched roofs were gone. The violence of the night before was on perfect display in the charred remains of memories of the villagers' homes. He watched as families ran in a flurry of circles trying to find water to douse out what flames were left. Dozens of bodies covered in dried blood that caked itself in long streaks to match the mud and soot that tracked on open skin. A few bodies scattered around the area showcasing what happened to those who tried to fight - who attempted to save their homes. Zoro felt his hand tighten on the Wado Ichimonji as his teeth ground down tight together. 

“Arlong did this? Why?”

Sanji’s voice cut through the panic and, for once, Zoro didn’t find his voice grating. He didn’t have to look at the man to see the disbelief that painted his words. The heartbreak. The rage. He felt it too. 

Usopp dashed from his right to grab a bucket and attempt to help put out whatever fires were left. He did more than the rest of them. They were all too stunned to move. None of that could compare, however, to how Nami was feeling. 

Zoro risked a glance in her direction and immediately looked away. Not that the burned huts were giving him a different source of joy. 

Nami looked broken. Nami looked guilty, as if all of this was specifically her fault. As if Arlong had ever meant to let Nami go - let her village go - when she gave Arlong the money. Arlong was never going to let Nami go free. Maybe you’d realized that before the rest of them. Zoro knew you were smarter than him, at least. Smarter than his anger that blinded him from seeing the truth, especially about Nami. 

Zoro had wanted someone to blame for how you looked when he saw you. He needed someone to break with the fire that boiled his blood and made his vision crest in black. Like a fool he’d chosen Nami. The one person who suffered the most - had been suffering in silence for a long time. 

Until you saw her suffering and wanted to remind her she wasn’t alone. 

Zoro was glad you couldn’t see how defeated Nami looked. The way Nami’s haunted eyes roamed over every last destroyed hut, every lifeless body, and beat herself with one singular thought. 

It’s all my fault. 

“To punish the villagers. And to punish me.”

Usopp was too busy to notice the rush of villagers who were stampeding towards them. His back turned towards them while he put out the last of a fire of what Zoro could only assume used to be a porch. The group was coming up fast and it wasn’t hard to see that Nojiko was leading the pack. 

“What’s going on?”

“Nojiko told us about your sacrifice,” Genzo began. His voice edged with a sad determination as he asked, “We didn’t know. Can you ever forgive us?”

Disbelief coiled on Nami’s face and echoed in her voice as she replied, “There’s nothing to forgive. Coco Village is my home.”

“Then it’s our turn to sacrifice. We're done living in fear. We’re gonna march on Arlong Park. If those fishmen want a fight -“

“That’s not a fight. That’s a massacre! You will all be killed.”

“If there’s no hope for us to buy our freedom, then I say we die trying to fight for it!”

Genzo yelled the last few words to raise up a chorus of voices. All of them in a resounding agreement that they’d rather die than continue to live the same way for another minute. Zoro had to give it to them: it was impressive. Even if it meant they’d be slaughtered in less than a minute. 

“No, everyone, please!”

Nami struggled to calm down the rising mob and their anger. Zoro knew that, while anger could fuel the adrenaline in your veins, it would never be enough to make up for skill. These were farmers. Homemakers. They gave their bodies to the land to help raise it to its full potential. They didn’t spend hours swinging swords until their arms threatened to collapse. Practice in rings with bruises of their failures scattered across their bodies like road maps. While their size was impressive, Zoro looked out amongst the villagers and only saw another empty grave waiting to meet them. 

“No, I…I won’t let you do that.” Finally, the mob grew quiet enough for Nami to finish. “This is my fight.”

“No.” Luffy’s voice carried across the gap between their small group and the villagers. Loud enough they all snapped their heads in his direction. “This is our fight. Right, guys?”

Well, as first mates go…

“Finally, I get to cut something.”

Zoro never meant those words more. Seeing the village - the villagers - the dead and ruined among them didn't spur him into action. It only added to the aching restraint he’d been showing to draw out his blade and nurture the tangerine groves with fishmen blood. 

“But how are we gonna beat Arlong? We saw what he did at Baratie.”

“Every creature has a weakness,” Zoro cut in, but Usopp wasn’t having it. 

“Even bulletproof ones?”

“I’ll know it when I see it,” Luffy muttered. 

Zoro sparred a glance in his direction to find his captain deep in thought. He wanted to ask him what, if anything, did he think of before Luffy continued. 

“And when I do, I won’t hesitate.”

It felt good to know that this was happening. That they were finally going to stop chatting and start putting all those useless words to action. Zoro was about ready to turn on his heel and head out, when a man came shouting from behind the mob of villagers. A woman struggled to help hold him under his arms, his own arms noticeably wobbled as he tried to apply weight with his arms to help. 

“Wait, please! My daughter-“

“Oh my god-“

Zoro’s eyes flicked to Nami. The way her eyes glistened with fresh tears. A hand clamped over her mouth while she tried to calm her thoughts about whatever it was, she knew. 

“What is he saying?” Sanji asked. 

“I’m pretty sure he yelled something about his daughter,” Usopp offered, his hands wringing tighter on the strap of his satchel. 

When the man was close enough, he believed he could be heard, and he tried again. Now leaning more on the woman for support as his cane dragged in the dirt. 

“Please, please my daughter, Nazifa, they took her.”

“Arlong took her?” 

“No. One of his men-“

“You’re the father of the little girl,” Nami sobbed. “The one that asked Doc for help.” 

Nami’s words collided into Zoro’s chest and stole the breath from his lungs. This time, it wasn’t his eyes that roamed to where she stood, but his whole body. He wanted to grab her - shake her and ask what she meant. It was strange to go from feeling grounded to free falling in a blink of an eye. 

The man shook his head weakly as another villager came up to wrap his arm around their shoulder. The support helped the woman who began to struggle to hold the man up on her own. 

“Thank you, my friend. Yes. Nazifa, my daughter. She told me she found a doctor. A nice woman who went by the name of-“ 

This man. This father spoke your name and Zoro felt crippled. There was never any doubt left in his mind that you were there - Arlong Park. What none of them had expected was for Arlong to send his men to take an innocent child, as well. But Zoro knew, it wasn’t meant to be a punishment on anyone else but you. 

“Doc,” Usopp whispered. 

His wringing hands stopped as he took a step forward. Usopp’s mouth hung open in worry, as if he wanted to ask a thousand questions, but every single one of them abandoned him. 

“Yes. She said that was a nickname. My daughter asked for her help and Kuroobi came and took her. Please! I am begging you - please bring Nazifa back to us.”

In an instant, it went from a need to rescue you to something bigger. Zoro couldn’t name it, but it landed on his tongue with a warning and scraped down his throat until he swore, he tasted blood. The girl was meant to hurt the village, Zoro knew, but it was also meant to hurt you. If there was one thing Zoro knew for certain, it was that you would sacrifice yourself to save that little girl. He had no doubt that was Arlong’s plan all along. 

Without looking to see if anyone else would follow, Zoro turned on his heel and headed back out of the village. He didn’t care if Luffy or Nami or that waiter was behind him. He was done waiting to save you - to now save a little girl. Zoro was going to save you both and burn Arlong Park to the ground in the process. 

You were in and out of consciousness as night grew into day. One minute you were blinking past a wave of nausea that bloomed into pain. The darkness noticeable in the illuminated light of the torches. The next, you were startled back into consciousness by a shriek from Nazifa. Your eyes blinked around a sunrise as they struggled to focus - to locate her in a mess of bodies.

The fishmen were no longer drinking and laughing. Their party was now abandoned for what looked like packing up items that would be useful on a voyage instead of a home base. Somewhere in the course of the night, the small group Arlong sent out to burn the village had returned. Their laughter and mimics of the villagers screams a joke they roared about all night as they were met with waiting bottles of beer. Some of them came to gawk at you; poke at you and laugh. The shock of the dagger still housed in your side a reality you were reminded of by the growing garnet puddle that was aging with the flakes of brown at the edges. 

Your eyes zoomed in and out of focus. It felt like someone had tied you to a merry-go-round and spun you relentlessly until you weren’t sure if the sky was up or down, left or right. The harder you tried to stay awake the more it seemed your body was ready to greet unconsciousness. You couldn’t allow yourself to sleep. Not when Nazifa screamed for help. For them to stop. 

While your eyes couldn’t focus, your ears seemed able to follow the high-pitched pleas until you located her where Kuroobi had chained her. The body of the clown twitched behind her making her scream anew as a fishman threatened to poke her with the very sharp end of a harpoon. 

“Hey! Fish sticks!” You called almost choking as you coughed. A fresh hint of blood salted your tongue. “Hey!”  

Finally, he looked up and glowered in your direction. 

“What did you call me?” 

You were willing to bet his ancestors descended from a barracuda the way his teeth gnashed. 

“You heard me. Fish. Stick. Pick on someone your own size before you end up on a pirate's menu.” 

It wasn’t the smartest idea you’ve had. Well, to be fair, so far none of your ideas were coming up as real winners. Winners or not, you weren’t going to leave Nazifa to the mercy of some jackass. Even if said jackass possibly came from a long line of razor-sharp flesh-eating fishes. 

His reply came in him throwing the stick up and catching it mid-air to launch in your direction. You tried to prepare yourself for the blow. The impact. You could see it aimed directly for your chest and might go clean through…if he wasn’t apparently cock-eyed. A rush of air signaled the harpoon had whizzed past and landed with a splintering crack into the wood of one of the carnival games. 

If this was a different time where you weren’t helplessly strung up like a turchicken on All Feasts Day, you might have made a joke. For once in your life, you could recognize now was not a good time to wound someone’s pride. Instead, you waited for him to puff up his chest and walk away from Nazifa before you called her over. 

You didn’t think she would come. Her eyes reflected the haunting image of what she had seen - the monster you’d allowed yourself to be. Plus, you were pretty confident you looked about as welcoming as you felt. You considered smiling in her direction, but decided against it when you considered how it might look. 

Try to look friendly and end up looking terrifying. 

“It’s okay. I won’t let them hurt you.”

Again, she didn’t move. She just stared and watched for any signs of…what? For you to change? For the inky blackness to spread around your eyes and coat your fingertips. You didn’t know what else to do to prove to her you were still you. So, you settled on patiently waiting. It wasn’t until another wave of pain rendered you unconscious, that you woke up to find her closer to you, or as close as the chain would allow Nazifa to get. 

Once you knew she was close, you allowed another fit of unconsciousness to overcome you. You hoped if anyone tried to do anything to Nazifa, you would wake up in time to try and do something. Anything to make sure she was safe, because you knew once morning came, Luffy would come for you with Zoro beside him. 

You held onto that thought as the fishmen scurried around you - heavy booted feet louder than usual informed you their arms were bared down with extra weight. They weren’t just packing up a few supplies on the ship to go away for a few weeks. Arlong and his men planned to run, and either they intended to take Nazifa with them or leave her behind. 

Neither option sounded like a winner.

If they did try and take her, what could you do? Realistically, you weren’t in any shape to try and defend yourself, let alone another person. It also wasn’t helping you couldn’t stay conscious for long periods of time or the very real fact you were dying. There was no point in denying it. Not when your body was numb and even the pain wasn’t sharp enough to keep you awake. 

Chew was pacing back and forth. His webbed hand wrapped tightly around a brand-new bottle of whiskey - his liver must be screaming for mercy - as he watched the fishmen continue to shuffle and stack crates. Some packing what preserves were left from the celebratory party from last night in their own crate.

“Let’s pick up the pace! You know Arlong hates to wait.” 

Chew walked by you and waited until you lifted your head, your neck craning to the right, to get a good look at him. He was trying to be intimidating as he raised the lip of the bottom to his lips and took a long sip. Chew tried to convey hunger - either for your guts or something else - and all you felt was a giggle growing in your chest. You waited until Chew was satisfied with his attempt at being scary before you checked on Nazifa to make sure she was still beside you curled up as she watched the fishmen work. 

As soon as you knew Nazifa was still safe - still beside you - you let your chin fall back to your chest when clouds of smoke bombs exploded around you. Each explosion caused a small yelp of terror from Nazifa and you felt one of her hands reach out and grab at your calf. Your wrists strained against the chains. Your fingers desperate to reach out and stroke her hair and whisper that she was okay. It would all be okay. 

A few more stray smoke bombs went off and you found your voice, cracked and tired, still trying to comfort her. 

“Who the hell is this? Who would be stupid enough to attack us?” 

Chew’s rhetorical question was answered when you heard the violent collapse of the gate. The sound of wood and metal cracking apart with a few stray pieces no doubt landing in the unsuspecting flesh of a few fishmen. This was a guess, but the sudden shrieks of pain made it feel like a spot-on assumption. 

Nazifa’s tiny fingers dug in harder into your calf, but you were barely aware of the touch. No one was paying attention to you, and, in their panic, you began to try and pull at the chains that kept your arms extended. It wasn’t until the smoke cleared that you turned your head just enough to watch Luffy, Nami, Usopp, and Sanji enter with Zoro bringing up the rear. 

It was almost comical the way they looked around the compound. The determination that creased their brow and the way it fell apart as one-by-one their eyes fell to Arlong’s cabanas and his makeshift throne. 

You were on full display in the middle for them to see. Just the way Arlong had planned for you to be.

“Nooooo!”

Not like this. Don’t see me like this.

It felt silly. It should be ridiculous that this was your one thought. Your one worry. Not the dagger violently embedded into your side like an unholy symbol of strength begging to be removed. Or the very, very real fact you knew you were slowly dying. 

No. You didn’t want their - your friends, your family’s - lasting memory of you to be arms spread violently wide, the fight in your body long gone, and covered in blood and gore. 

You could only imagine what you must have looked like. What it was exactly that they were all seeing. Your imagination wouldn’t do justice to the horrors that Arlong and his men had inflicted on you. And yet, the sound of Nami’s broken sobs were enough to awaken your dying heart only to absolutely shatter it all over again. 

There were a thousand and one reasons why you shouldn’t look up. What good would it do you to see the hurt - the pain - of seeing you sacrificially stretched out to glorify Arlong’s purpose of hatred? Each one of them hammered its growing demand to look at them. To allow yourself at least a glimpse of relief at seeing them one last time before…before it was too late.

You should’ve listened to the chimes of warning that resonated through your skull, because when you looked up it wasn’t joy and happy smiles that greeted you. 

Nami was the first one you noticed. Her body collapsed to her knees, hand over her mouth, as she sobbed. You wanted to call out to her and remind her none of this was her fault. You chose to come here. You came here for her. To save her. And now she was where she belonged - back beside Luffy and crew. 

The sight of Luffy’s hat on her head made you want to smile. You knew the importance the straw hat held to Luffy, and he showed Nami her friendship was something he treasured - valued - above all. You wish you could tell her, “Told you so,” but would have to take a rain check. 

It was the shout of your name that tilted your head towards Usopp. Out of everyone there, Usopp is what shattered your heart the instant your eyes landed on him. Everyone deserves a friend like Usopp. Who loved them recklessly and gave support blindly. 

“The Great Captain Usopp,” you smiled around the whisper. 

You knew he couldn’t hear you. The distance was too far and his body trembled as he looked at you. You wanted to tell him it was okay. It was all going to be okay, but you were never good at lying. Usopp was always good at creating stories of adventure to comfort others and bring smiles to their faces. It was never your talent, but his. 

You were so focused on him that when movement on your left and a glint of steel eclipsed your vision you knew already who it was. The hand Luffy placed on his chest was almost not enough to keep Zoro from taking another step. 

“Zoro.”

This time your voice was no whisper. It held no plea or cry for salvation. For a split second, you were alone with him inside Nojiko’s home. His hand cradling your face, possessing your hair between his fingers, as his lips parted yours and he devoured every sound he coaxed from between your ribs. 

You wanted to tell him…needed to tell him…that you lov-

“Here she is: your monster.”

Chew stepped in front of you and obscured your vision from him. They could blind fold you and your body would still know where Zoro was. In a crowded room, on a busy street, with miles of sea between you, your soul would always find him. 

Chew moved aside to give you a flourish that sent an uneasy ripple of laughter through the men. 

“What did you do!” Nami screamed, as she rose to her feet. 

“What did we do? Nami, what did you do? You betrayed us for these sad sacks of meat! Don’t forget we made you family, girl.”

“You were never my family,” she fumed. “You were my captor. You kept me in chains. You murdered my mother. Family doesn’t do that.”

“Where’s Arlong?” 

Luffy sounded determined. While his brow was furrowed in anger, angrier than you’d ever seen him, his voice remained calm. His mind no doubt went over what he planned to do once he came face-to-face with Arlong again. No matter how determined he looked it couldn’t squash the growing fear that flared to life in your gut as the memory of their last fight came to mind.

“Luffy - don’t,” you pleaded. 

A violent cough racked through your body that strained your arms against the chains and left spittle of amber to dribble down your chin. 

“Jesus, Doc-“Sanji huffed, taking a step forward. 

The minute they moved you caught a flash of movement to your right. The side Nazifa laid curled beside you. You heard a scream cut through the air and your body violently thrashed in your chains, body erupting in shockwaves of pain, as you struggled to see the fishman who held her at her throat. The tip of a knife pressed to the skin of her jugular until a fresh dot of blood appeared. 

“Nazifa!”

She was crying hard. Her little body trembling violently in the big fishman’s grasp as he looked from Luffy and crew and back to the men around him. 

“Tavar,” Chew hissed, “What the hell are you doing?” 

“I’m bargaining,” the man growled as he held her up higher. The chain at her ankle pulled at the joint until she let out a tiny whimper. “Stand down or I spray the floor with her blood.”

Everything came to a halt. 

No one moved. You weren’t sure anyone was breathing as a hush rolled through the compound. The only sound that echoed with horrifying clarity was Nazifa’s sobs. 

“Put the girl down. She isn’t a part of this.”

Luffy had both of his hands up to placate the man. While he seemed to come off meek, you knew he was calculating if he could reach her in time before the fishman hurt her. Before the knife could permanently take her from this world. You knew the answer to that sickening question. 

He wouldn’t. 

“Bullshit. She’s our ticket out of here. All five of you are going to sit your asses down and play nice or you’ll be digging two separate graves.”

You couldn’t allow them to give up coming this far. Nami’s freedom was certain but the villagers - Nazifa’s future - wasn’t. They would take her to make the villagers suffer one last time. Arlong and his men would make Nazifa suffer and break the way they tried to break Nami. You would not allow another childhood to be stolen. You would not allow another village to fall prey to men - fishmen or not - like Arlong. 

The fury had died at the surprise of the blade in your side. The shock of knowing you were going to die sent the darkness back and at bay. You didn’t know much about it or what it was, but all you could do was offer your body - what was left of your life - to coax it back out. 

You pleaded - begged - as Tavar stepped back with Nazifa. The chain caught and pulled on her ankle but he didn’t stop. He kept moving. Her screams filtered the air and the fury Arlong tried to kill erupted with a vengeance inside of your gut. 

You didn’t understand what this was or what you were. You understood nothing except that whatever it was lived inside you, gave you the strength you needed, one last time to try and save her. This darkness may be born of hatred, of rage, but that was not who you were, and it would not be the last thing you allowed Arlong or his men to make you. 

“Let. Her. Go!” You bellowed.

You didn’t need to see inside the iris of Arlong, or anyone, to know what you looked like. You felt the change slide through you the way oil pours over objects; it infects the sea like a disease. The rush of strength that corded through your muscles and the sizzling sound of burning metal. 

Realistically, you knew you weren’t going to be afforded all the time in the world. While you may have felt a surge of strength, it was limited. It did nothing to cure the slow death that was overtaking your body. The spurt of power only filled tired, fading muscles. Whatever strength you were able to gain needed to go to this one moment. 

While you pulled against the restraint on your left wrist, you maneuvered your fingers to press into the metal. You pressed deeper and deeper, tugging with every fiber of your being, until you heard the wood groan in defiance just before it snapped. 

The sudden loss of suspension sent you stumbling to the ground. The sound of the canopy creaking and slowly crashing behind you swallowed up the surprised shouts of some of the fishmen. 

You only had eyes for the one. 

Nazifa watched as you tried to get your legs to work. Your ankles and knees felt unstable as you applied weight back onto the joints; the muscles screaming in protest as they weakly helped move you forward. It was a slow, chunky movement, but you didn’t need to be fast. You just needed to get him. 

Tavar was transfixed on your descent. He wasn’t paying enough attention to the fact your legs, no matter how wobbly, were moving you forward. The chain dragged behind you while your right arm remained suspended. You didn’t have time to try and pry that one free. You only had a matter of seconds to launch forward, your hand outstretched, to grab the hand that held the blade. 

Fishmen’s skin is said to be bulletproof. There was the rumor that even blades sharpened to the point it could slice through hair were unable to slice through the weakest fishmen skin. You second guessed that last one, because the minute your fingers touched down on Tavar’s hand you felt your fingertips slip into the meat underneath. 

He bellowed out a scream of shock as he dropped the knife - dropped the girl. He was backpedaling away from you, his hand held high with the skin bubbling and melting. If this was under different circumstances, you would’ve wretched. 

This was no time for a weak stomach. 

Nazifa was back on the ground and crying. Her tiny hands scurrying her back away from you as far as the chain would let her. You reached out and grabbed the chain and wrapped it tightly in your hand. She let out a scream of her own, afraid you would hurt her, before the chain sizzled in your grip just enough for you to give it a good jank and snap it in two. 

In one last attempt to get her to understand she was free, you threw the broken chain gently towards her and waited for her eyes to meet yours. 

“Run.”

You didn’t have much time left. All this commotion - the strength you didn’t have to move - it was catching up to you quick. You made sure to watch Nazifa scramble up to her feet, her tiny hands grabbing the broken chain, and run towards the front of the compound towards safety. 

Towards Luffy. 

It wasn’t long before you felt someone tug on your broken chain. It jerked you back towards them - Chew and another fishman. Chew waited until he knew your hand was safely held far enough away for him to close the distance. To wrap his hand around the hilt of the dagger Arlong gifted you and twist it in deeper. 

You could gasp. No sound came out as your mouth fell open in shock as agony spread like a shockwave through your gut. He made sure to give you one last smile before he twisted again for good measure and pulled the blade free. 

That’ll do it, you thought. Nothing in there to stop the bleeding…

You heard the roar of your name crack against the sky. You didn’t need to look to know it was Zoro who called out to you. Zoro who would never admit your name held both ferocity and anguish all in one word. You couldn’t do much else but feel your body fall weightless, swimming through nothing, as it collided with a thud against the concrete. 

You only had enough strength to turn your head to face him. Your eyes doubled in vision as you watched him rush forward, more demon than man. Your demon hunter, Roronoa Zoro. The future greatest swordsman who ever lived. 

“You’re dead.” 

The words left him like an avalanche; his voice steeped in hatred dripping with malice. His body felt like it was being boiled in his rage while his eyes focused solely on you. For a split second, Zoro felt the ground tremble under his feet. He considered maybe this was the way the earth chose to answer him. Could it feel hell stirring in the depths of its guts? The damned and demons writhing frantically beneath the soil at the thought of receiving new souls to torment? 

It took Zoro only a moment to realize it wasn’t an earthquake or hell under his feet that shook. 

It was him. 

The world faded inside his vision and narrowed in on your body protecting the girl - hilt of the blade still protruding from your side - Zoro felt like his body would implode if he didn’t move. He could deal with the anger - the sheer unmovable hatred - that promised them only their deaths. 

Fucking idiots. They didn’t seem to realize death had walked inside their compound. Zoro was more than happy to shepherd them across to hell. 

“Where’s Arlong?”

“He’d be in the map room- Zoro!”

Zoro was done talking. Done listening to plans of actions. He only needed one. 

Cut. Kill. 

He rushed forward and made contact with the first fishman in his path. His arms swiftly blocked the oncoming blade on a sloppy downward thrust that ended with Zoro’s blade slicing through his gut. His feet moved on their own accord away from the dying fishman towards the next one that rushed him. 

Zoro was vaguely aware his arms were carrying out slashes before his mind could catch up. It was years of relentless training and meditating that made him fight with ease. On any given day, Zoro would tell you it was the thrill of testing his metal and having a good sword fight that spurred him forward. He wouldn’t deny the excitement - the euphoric feeling - of beating someone supposedly better than him. Breaking foes more than twice his size into pint sized pieces. 

A fight like this - surrounded by dozens and dozens of fishmen - would tick all of his boxes. He would’ve relished in the fight. 

Not now. 

Not with you broken and bleeding so many feet away from him. 

She’s dying. 

Shut up! 

Another rush of fishmen and Zoro easily parried a blow and followed it up by rolling his shoulders to the side and bringing the Wado along with him. It sliced clean through the flesh of the fishman just in time for him to lunge forward, knocking back a blow that would’ve landed at his collarbone and embedding the Wado Ichimonji deep into the chest of his would-be attacker. 

A fishman jumped from the pool to land in front of Luffy, stopping him dead in his tracks from following Nami. Zoro tore off at a sprint, slicing the neck of a fishman on the way, and rode the momentum sideways up the rock wall. When he was close enough, he sliced just below the inside of his knees sending the fishman screaming backwards into the pool. 

Zoro landed crouched on a rock and tried to ignore the growing sting of flesh tearing. All your hard work at stitching him back together again with the help of Zeff would be for nothing if he wasn’t careful. 

Careful. What a crazy fucking concept when the rage in his gut was giving way to something more terrifying than open wounds. 

He was spending too much time on the rock. He wasn’t playing it smart. It would only take a matter of seconds for one of these assholes to get the drop on him and wound him. Zoro was aware someone was trying just that. 

A fishman landed just behind him and as Zoro swung sideways, body following at an angle, he stopped midway as Sanji power kicked the fishman off the rock. 

“I had that one,” Zoro commented dryly. 

What he received in return was a smug smile with Sanji’s hands annoyingly tucked in his pockets. 

“If you had’em I wouldn’t have got’em.” 

A flash of annoyance ran through him that was quickly followed by a thrill. It’d been a long time since someone kept him on his toes and forced him to fight faster to prove who was better. It was a feeling he could’ve got lost in if it wasn’t for the painful reminder of your lifeless body yards away. 

Lifeless. 

You weren’t even moving anymore. Your eyes were still open, but Zoro didn’t sense any movement. No light ticks as they registered the battlefield they’d created or a steady rise and fall of your chest. 

He felt himself barreling forward through the next fight. A clash of steel on steel or his blade slicing through flesh to sever bone. Zoro worked his way through wave after wave of men to make his way to you. 

Zoro’s eyes never left you. 

His eyes always flickered back after one fishman went down to make sure you were still where he’d last seen you. That no one was coming to hurt you anymore. 

Zoro wasn’t a fool. He’d seen what you’d become in the blink of an eye. The way the air itself seemed to shift as what he could only describe as black ink spilled its way along your skin. It darkened your one good eye and bled out even further. The tips of your fingers and hands slowly becoming ominous like the void while they all watched you reach out and melt your way through skin. 

Here she is: your monster. 

That’s what they’d called you as they had you on full display. Zoro was willing to bet he wasn’t the only one of them that was confused, but that confusion paled in comparison to the way you looked hung up - bloodied and exposed - like some fucked up toy. Zoro thought he knew what grief was like - the pain of loss and its familiar ache of rage when Kuina died. 

Seeing you like that almost brought Zoro to his knees. 

Your body was broken. The dagger in your side was not hard to miss along with the cuts and burns that were littered across your body. 

These men tried calling you a monster. The only monsters he saw were the dozens of fishmen around him who tried tearing you apart for their own amusement. Who dissected you, spat at you, all while he knew damn well you fought to protect that little girl long before they ever arrived. 

Zoro noticed the way that one word - monster - speared itself into your heart and caused you to flinch. He wanted nothing more than to take you in his arms and help you see the only monsters here were the ones now dead at your feet. An offering Zoro would give you, if it meant it would save you. 

The next time his eyes glanced over his shoulder, as the force of his sword knocked his opponent back a few feet, he saw something different. A glimmer of hope washed over him as he realized you’d brought a hand to rest where the dagger had been. Your body was still unmoving, but it was enough for Zoro to know you were still fighting - he could still save you. 

He launched himself down the path, taking out two fishmen as he went until, on the last swing, he had to kneel down to do an upwards slash from naval to chin. The cut was successful, but it required him to overextend his arms and the sharp tug on Zoro’s still healing wound left him down on one knee. His hand hovering over the stitches and feeling fresh blood begin to bleed on the fresh bandage you’d given him. 

“You look tired. Maybe you should take a break.”

Fucking waiter. 

Zoro glanced in his direction and watched as he landed a debilitating spin kick that left Sanji at eye level. Zoro could feel a fishman rushing up behind him, but he didn’t rush to stand. He wanted to show the waiter he was more than capable of fighting - more attuned to attacks - without even having to look. 

He deflected the blow easily and stabbed the man over his shoulder. Zoro’s words grounding out as he spoke, “Maybe you outta get back in the kitchen.”

Sanji rose up just in time to duck under a downward swing. He stood to his full height to land a hard blow into the gut of his would-be attacker. 

“Quit screwing around. Doc needs us!”

Zoro didn’t care to watch as Sanji dispatched two fishmen at once. His vision had turned crimson and the adrenaline at your name leaving the waiters’ lips sent his blood roaring. The waiter should be lucky a fishman just conveniently happened to be in front of Zoro. For it was him that felt Zoro slowly press the sharp edge of the Wado against his throat just before Zoro sliced it clean through. 

“You just got here. Don’t you dare stand there and try to tell me you know what Doc needs.”

“I know she’ll need my cooking once I save her,” Sanji shot back as he went head on with another fishman. 

“Putting two slices of bread together doesn’t amount to cooking,” Zoro grumbled. 

“Ooooooh, is someone feeling threatened?”

“Shut up,” they both snapped to the very annoying, and somehow forgotten, bag strapped to Sanji’s side. 

“Then get me back to my body! We’re close. I can feel my toes. Trust me! I can help you guys win this thing and save Doc. Something tells me she is very much still bleeding on the floor.”

Zoro didn’t want to admit they could use the help. The only reason he hadn’t run to your side was the bodies that planted themselves in the way. Every fishman ended up sacrificing themselves just to make sure you’d suffer a little longer, bled longer, waiting for help that may never come. 

At this point, Zoro would take any extra help, whatever or whoever it was, if it meant he could get to you sooner. 

“I swear clown,” he growled, “if you screw us over…”

He watched as Sanji tipped the bag over and let Buggy’s head fall free from inside. It landed with an annoying thud and an even more annoying, “Ow!” Of pain. Within seconds Buggy’s head flew over towards his body and reconnected. The clown practically jumped for joy out of his restraints. His hands touched a pattern of desperation across his arms and chest as he spun around in circles. 

“Oh! It’s so much better than I even remembered.” Zoro and Sanji waited until he spun around one last time before he faced them. “Hey, so, um…I’m gonna get out of here.”

Zoro was more annoyed than surprised when Buggy flipped them off and made a run for it. 

“Hey!”

“Sorry, kiddos. I’d love to make thing right, see to it that Doc was, ya know, still alive, but it’s time I exit stage left.”

“Fucking clown,” Zoro whispered as they watched him depart. 

“Eh, we don’t need him mate. Everyone's either gone or dead-“

“How dare you strike down my fishmen brothers! That’s fine. You’re no match for my fishman karate.”

“You have a habit of speaking to soon,” Zoro snapped in the waiter’s direction, which he dismissed with a grunt. 

The large fishman ran forward and barreled like a torpedo inside of the water. Zoro tried to watch as he picked up speed inside the pool, but barely caught on at the last minute when he rose out of the water. Zoro sidestepped just in time as he grabbed a hold of Sanji and took him down. 

Zoro rushed forward and tried to cut at his back, but the fishman easily blocked it and swatted him back. The forearm that smashed into his chest sent his next breath smashed against his lungs. A fresh wave of pain took hold of his chest as he moved to stand, feeling the stitches become looser. 

He got to his feet just in time as the fishman took a challenging step toward him. Zoro was up to block the oncoming blow and spin to his feet. He swung tight curves with his blade to keep his midsection protected from any unexpected kidney shots, but it wasn’t enough. This fishman’s skin was proving to have been toughened by years of battle and experience. The Wado was sliding right off each blow that the fishman countered. 

In one swift move, he landed a crushed punch to his chest that sent Zoro flying back a few feet. When he landed, he didn’t try to get up right away. He couldn’t. Not when he felt like a split coconut. 

Zoro was vaguely aware that Sanji was up and fighting, giving him time to collect himself. It didn’t last long, however, until he was knocked back just a few inches away from Zoro’s feet. 

“You’re no match for me. My kicks can break a ship’s keel.”

“That’s nothing,” Sanji grunted, as he tried to rise to his feet. “You should have seen Zeff’s kicks when he found an eggshell in the crème brûlée.”

“I get it. Zeff was mean to you. Boo-boo.”

Once they were both on their feet, the fishman rushed forward and double kicked into Sanji’s chest, sending him flying back. Zoro easily sidestepped the waiter’s flying body and rushed forward swinging a quick succession of blows with the sword. Each one the fishman dodged, eventually knocking Zoro out of the way and back to where he started next to Sanji. 

“Nami is a fool to have her faith in such weak compatriots. First, this doctor who is weaker than a shell, and then you two. Not worth your salt to be called fighters.”

Zoro felt his brow raise in question as Sanji began to remove his suit jacket, until he saw the look on the man’s face of tight rage. 

“You don’t ever badmouth Nami. You don’t ever badmouth Doc.”

“Now you’ve done it.”

Zoro watched as Sanji landed impressive blow after blow against the fishman. Each one reverberating off the fishman’s ribs with an impactful echo. Zoro knew, without having to continue watching, that once Sanji was done calling out his last shot, the fishman wouldn’t be getting back up. 

This was his chance. 

He should’ve dared one last glance behind him just to make sure the waiter had it under control. That he wouldn’t be bringing danger back to you. It was a sensible thing to think of. But Zoro was tired of being sensible; of waiting and before he knew it, his body carried him over to you with his knees crash landing down beside you. 

His hands hovered over your body as his eyes tried to take in the stock of your injuries but - fuck - there were so many. Zoro didn’t know what to do or where to begin to look. This was your expertise. Sure, he’d closed up a few small wounds of his own. Small scars for small fuck ups. 

It was you who mended him back together after one of the biggest battles of his life. It was you who kept him alive after everything he’d said, after struggling to push you away. 

So afraid. 

Zoro had been so afraid to tell you how he felt; what you made him feel for the first time in his life. Last night in Nojiko’s hut hadn’t been enough to tell you - show you - just what your sheer presence meant to him. What your forgiveness felt like wrapped and pressed against his lips. 

A frantic sob shook itself free from his throat and brought him back from his thoughts. Tears he hadn’t known escaped past his lashes and were now sliding down his face. He needed to act. 

He needed to bring you back to him. 

Zoro could hear your voice of reason in his head, prompting him to look for the most life-threatening wound. It was easy to see. The blood that covered your hand was slowly beginning to run less and less, warning him that he was almost out of time. 

Quickly, Zoro tore his bandana off his head and removed your hand, immediately applying the cloth with pressure against the wound. The sudden press of his hand was enough to bring you back to consciousness. Your body jolted from the shock of his hand - the pain - pressing roughly against the wound and throat greedily sucking in a sharp breath that forced you to cough. 

You cried out from the pressure the cough caused and Zoro felt his body finally move into action. His free arm scooped you up close to his chest while he made sure his hand stayed pressed tightly against your wound. 

Zoro watched as your eyes tried to focus on him. It was at that moment when he felt the first stirring of fear coming back to life with a vengeance. You were so weak. The light in your eyes noticeably fading as he held your life pressed between the soaked cloth in his palm. 

He tried to smile as your eyes stopped on his face and, instead, it came out cracked. A sob shuttered through him as he fought the urge to press you tightly to his chest. 

A soft smile split across your bloodied lips. A hand that seemed weighed down by gravity itself struggled to lift up from your side. He figured after too many failures you would stop trying, but you didn’t. Of course you wouldn’t. You were determined to bring it to his cheek until you held it gently in the palm of your hand. You couldn’t keep it there; Zoro knew from the unsteady sway your arm gave it would drop. 

Without thinking, he wrapped you closer to his body, his left hand taking over giving pressure to your wound to allow his right to hold your hand tightly to his cheek. 

“Ther-there you are…”

Zoro smiled back his tears as he whispered back, “Been waiting for me?”

“All my life.”

You’d smiled around each soft-spoken syllable like it was an everyday thing. Like it was simple, as easy as breathing. As if the both of you were in some other reality where you were waking up from a dream and he’d been there to greet you. 

As if your words didn’t shatter what little reserve Zoro was holding onto before he broke. 

You gently took your hand away and brought it down to the hilt of the Wado Ichimonji. You gave it a light tap before you said, “We have to find you two more swords,” you gasped. “You don’t look right with just one.” 

Zoro couldn’t just let your hand go. He gently pulled it away from the hilt and placed it against his chest. His eyes staying connected with yours. 

“You gotta stay with me so we can find them. Together.”

He knew, from the way your smile wilted at the edges, he might have been asking a lot. The blood in the corner of her mouth seemed to be fresh. What was he doing waiting here with you? Why wasn’t he moving? 

Do something!

“Where’s the girl?” You coughed. “Where is Nazifa?”

Suddenly, Zoro couldn’t talk. Hand flexing - release - squeeze - release…

“The girl is good, Doc. She’s safe...because of you.”

It was the waiter who replied for him, but he didn’t care. For the first time he was grateful to hear Sanji’s voice, because Zoro couldn’t trust his own. 

“Never fear - The Great Captain Usopp is here.”

One by one they all filled in. Usopp from outside the compound and Nami from inside Arlong Park. Zoro didn’t look at them or care to see them. He should’ve asked where Luffy was (he was sure he heard Usopp ask and Nami answer) but he couldn’t pry his eyes away from you. 

Zoro knew there were questions being thrown around him. The rising of heated voices and bodies crowding around him to try and get to you. Anytime he felt someone try to move in, he pulled you closer to him. 

I won’t let anything happen to you. 

Never again. 

He was lucky he’d brought you closer or else he wouldn’t have caught the barely audible whisper of your next words. 

“You were right, you know.” He felt his brow knit together and it only seemed to amuse you more. Your smile was unable to show it as it began to fade. “I should’ve stayed - with you last night. In Nojiko’s hut.”

Zoro felt himself laughing back tears. 

“That’s the first smart thing I’ve heard you say.”

“Don’t get used t - don’t get used to it, Mosshead.”

“Hey, Doc, eyes on me!”

He could feel you going limp in his arms. Zoro shook you, praying that maybe pain or annoyance would keep you with him. Zoro needed to get up - to move. You couldn’t wait any longer for Luffy to finish with Arlong. 

“Nami! Coco Village - does it have a doctor?”

“What? No, no” Nami stammered out. “The only doctor that’s been here is Doc. The village has a midwife and that’s it.” 

“It’ll have to do,” Zoro grunted. 

He placed all his weight on his legs to steady himself as he pushed back onto his heels. His arms held you close to his chest as he started sprinting towards the compound entrance and back out into the sea of trees. 

Zoro was never much for directions. It’d been a running joke since he was young that if you told him to head North, he’d somehow end up North-West or even all the way South. It didn’t bother him before, his poor sense of direction, but for once in his life he hoped, as he ran through the trees, that he was heading in the right direction to the village. 

Please. Please. 

“Zoro,” your meek voice called out for him. It called again, attempting to demand his attention, as he stopped for a brief second. His eyes roamed around the trees looking for the first sign of the tangerine groves through the clearing. With a, “Fuck,” flung loosely from his lips, he started forward again. 

He was worried you were going to tell him that he was going the wrong way. Just like you had when you’d helped him out of Kaya’s well. Zoro wouldn’t allow you to die. Not when he could save you. He wouldn’t let you die. Not because of him and his shit lack of directions. 

“Zoro-“

“Shhh, save your strength.”

“No,” you shot back. It was strong enough to make him believe you were okay. That your blood wasn’t leaking through his headband and between his fingers. “I need you to know…the flower. I think I started to fall for - for you, when you placed the flower…in my…hair.”

There! Just a few more feet Zoro could see the opening he’d been searching for. The tangerine grove just in front of him and another mile back to the village. 

“I’ll get you all the flowers you want, Snowdrop. I’ll bring you some everywhere we land. You just got to stay with me. Okay? Stay with me, Doc. You can’t leave me. You can’t - not when I’ve just found you.”

He waited for your reply. His leg muscles working in overdrive to keep himself from collapsing; keep pushing forward. He couldn’t deny his arms were beginning to shake under the strain to keep holding you, but Zoro would let his body collapse first before he ever let you go. 

He was so consumed with getting you there - if he could just get you there - it would all be okay. He didn’t notice that you’d gone limp. Your fingers were no longer digging between the buttons of his shirt to hold on. It wasn’t until he was at the edge of the village that the realization hit him and his whole body disintegrated in the center of the village. 

“Help! I need a doctor - somebody, help!”

Zoro always wondered what sound a broken man made when he felt like he lost everything. He wished he never had to find out. 

The days bled into week and that week became another. Garp and his Marines came within that time, interrupting an okay party. Sanji had - unsuccessfully - flirted with every girl in Coco Village and received the cold shoulder each time. 

It was the little amusement Zoro found throughout the whole thing. He felt bad he hadn’t actually been outside, listening to Usopp’s grand tales of adventure and defeating Arlong and his men, or seeing for himself the women blowing off Sanji’s flirtations one eye roll at a time. He wasn’t out there when Garp and his Marines first arrived, either. 

He’d been where he’s been the last few weeks stationed at your side, waiting, for the moment you woke up. The minute he’d heard the commotion outside, he’d quickly exchanged the book he’d been reading you for the Wado Ichimonji that rested beside the bed. 

It was only a false alarm. Or as false of an alarm they could all hope to get. Luffy’s grandpa wanted to hear from him that Luffy wanted to be a pirate - that he believed he was a pirate. Zoro still found it strange. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just send a postcard or something. Beating the shit out of your grandson just to make sure you heard right what career choice your grandson wanted to make seemed like an odd choice. 

Or maybe that’s just what families did. 

Zoro wasn’t all too sure on that last part. He’d never really had a family of his own. Not until now, that is. 

The villagers in Coco Village were kind in setting up a hut for you to stay. The midwife came to change your dressings until she’d asked him if he’d wanted to learn. In the beginning, Zoro couldn’t do it. As the layers of your clothes were removed, more horrors of what Arlong and his crew did to you came to light. 

It enraged him and made him feel sick. He wanted to resurrect them just so he could kill them again. Other than that, it filled him with a deep sense of regret. No matter what anyone said to him it would never be enough. There were no time machines. No wizards or potions that allowed anyone to go back in time to change the past. 

Didn’t mean he didn’t wish there was. 

So, after the initial shock of taking in every cut, every bruise and burn, Zoro finally let Lydia, the midwife, teach him how to care for you. 

Zoro was certain it was the gentlest he’d ever been - caring for your mending body. He cleaned and dressed your wounds every eight hours. His fingers gently placing salves Lydia mentioned were for soothing and others for fighting infections. 

Zoro was meticulous in his work and thought of ways to joke that, while you were sleeping, he’d taken your job. He brought in flowers he found as he walked the Conomi islands and made sure to replace them whenever they began to wilt. 

He saved each one, pressed between the pages of the books he read to you that he’d picked up from your room. 

The reading thing was something he’d picked up. When he wasn’t meditating, going out to practice, or get food from the waiter, he was reading out loud. Nami told him how Zeff told the crew, while he’d been asleep healing from Mihawke’s wounds, the importance of talking to him. It had something to do with following the sound of their voice or knowing they were there or something like that. Zoro wasn’t paying too much attention to what Nami was saying. Zoro just knew it was important he was next to you - talking or reading - to coax you back to the living. 

He considered he must be doing a piss poor job of it. In the last few weeks, you never stirred. When he ran a cool cloth down your arms or did your dressings you gave no sign that you could feel him. When he read books that apparently were by some philosophers or a terrible tale of young love gone wrong, it would elicit nothing. When he chastised the last book out loud Zoro thought, for sure, you would rise up to smack his shoulder. 

“It’s a classic.”

His current reading was making him want to go to sleep. Zoro couldn’t believe there were that many different plants that could kill you. He also didn’t want to consider why you had a book like this stashed in your room. He placed the book down on the cot, allowing his arms and legs to stretch before he crossed them both. 

A little nap wouldn’t hurt. 

It felt like you were stuck in molasses. The more you tried to move - to force your eyes open - you were greeted by infinite darkness. You were vaguely aware, outside of that darkness, there were voices. The shuffling of movement as heavy footsteps moved around the room until they came to a stop. 

There were voices that weaved themselves in and out. Whispers of words that tried to coax you back to the surface. A velvety baritone you knew all too well-read poems from Rumí and Basho; stories of old and new lovers. Of adventures that would keep them apart. 

You followed the path his voice weaved through syllables and vowels. His voice grown raspy as his lips formed the words of poetic confessions written centuries before you were born. 

“From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face.”

The darkness wasn’t heavy enough to keep you under - drowning - forever swimming up and up to find your way out. You followed Zoro’s voice until a crescent of light began to show up above the endless black. All you had to do was reach-

You were jolted awake. You were in your body and no longer trapped in your mind. However, the minute you opened your eyes you were met with all the healing aches your body processed. The sensitive sting as your retinas tried to get used to natural light once again. So many questions filtered through your mind - how much time passed since you were asleep? And one specific major question: how were you not dead? 

You couldn’t recall much. Your memory was fuzzy and came in puzzle pieces; always missing the necessary piece to connect it all together. The last memory you had was Nazifa. The monster you’d been so lovingly called your entire life is what you became if it meant being able to save her life. After that…Chew took out the dagger and everything seemed to fade to black. 

Everything but him. 

Your mouth was drier than desert air, but when you glanced to your left and found Zoro asleep in his chair, Wado buried in the cross of his arms, all desire for water faded. 

There wasn’t any doubt in your mind the main reason you were alive was because of Zoro. 

You took advantage of seeing him like this, softer somehow as he allowed his body to relax in the comfort of your shared hut. Your eyes greedily drank in the angles of his face. The slope of his nose down to the small scars that created imperfect indents into this skin. They were so small, like the one that rested on the inside of his left cheek and on the top of his cupid’s bow. You couldn’t imagine someone - besides Mihawk - ever being able to reach him enough to mark him in any way. It was an unreal concept, and maybe that’s why you suddenly had the uncontrollable urge to touch him. 

“You know, you’re not much of a bodyguard if you get caught sleeping.”

Gods, was that your voice?! You sounded like shit. 

“You sound like shit.”

It was nice to know that even death couldn’t kill your hormones. Zoro’s voice was thick with sleep and somehow only enhanced the richness of his voice. You hated it. You were supposed to catch him by surprise. Not the other way around. 

“Well, do you by chance have any water handy?” 

Zoro reached down beside his chair to grab a bottle that looked very much not like a water bottle. He held it out towards you, bottom first, and gave it a little wave when you made no move to take it. 

“No water. Got booze, though.”

You couldn’t stop the chuckle from leaving you. Your body instantly wincing at the sharp pain it caused your very, very dry throat. 

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Zoro shrugged before bringing the neck up to his lips and took a sip. 

“Suit yourself.”

“You know, you don’t seem incredibly shocked that I’m awake.”

“I knew you were awake before you said anything.”

“How-“

“Your breathing pattern. It changed.”

He made it sound like it was the simplest answer he could give. It didn’t feel simple to you. It meant he hadn’t really slept and that he - that Zoro - tuned himself into your breathing patterns for any sign of trouble or change. 

You weren’t sure what to say as you came to this realization. Zoro had never been one for heavy conversations or saying more than needed to be said, but the way he looked at you now…you could’ve sworn words were collecting on the back of his tongue. The both of you were unsure of how to proceed.

How long have you been here, next to me? 

You were close to asking when the door to the hut flew open and seconds later Luffy walked in, his eyes on a plate of food that had your mouth watering. 

“Hey Zoro, Sanji said you didn’t come for breakfast - OH MY GOD! Doc! You’re awake!”

Luffy had a habit of his hands grasping the top of his straw hat whenever he was excited. As if it would be enough to blow it from his head at any moment. Or maybe it was due to the fact that excitement had him rushing forward. What he was rushing towards was you, and you were not prepared for the way he threw himself on top of you. 

“Zoro - a little help,” you wheezed. 

You ask for help and what do you get? A shrug and a nod so small if you blinked, you’d missed it. 

Luffy pulled up just enough that your faces were mere inches apart. His eyes brightened with unshed tears as they roamed over your face. It took Luffy being magnet close for you to realize that you could once again see out of your right eye. The thought alone lets you breathe a little easier with the comfort you no longer look like a cyclops. 

You were alive. Your body wasn’t fully healed, and you weren’t sure if you could trust your legs but…you were alive. And Luffy was grateful to see you. 

“Oh, Doc, it is so good to see you moving around. We couldn’t get Zoro to leave the hut-“

“Okay, that’s enough,” your grumpy hut companion huffed, as Zoro couldn’t slingshot out of the chair fast enough. 

“Oh, a body crushing hug to the wounded is fine, but if he starts giving out secrets, heaven forbid.” 

You tried to glower over Luffy’s shoulder but found yourself smiling, instead. While Luffy was steadily reminding your body it was a bruised and damaged thing, it felt damn good to be in his arms. To be wrapped in his sunshine one more time. You brought your arms shakily up to embrace him as best as you could before Luffy pulled back to stand by the bed.

He smacked an excited hand across Zoro’s shoulder that earned no reaction from him. Zoro’s eyes protectively transfixed on your frame in the cot. 

“I have to let Nami, and the others know. They’re going to be so excited to know you’re okay!”

In usual Luffy fashion, he didn’t wait for confirmation from you or stopped to see Zoro was already about to protest. You were sure if Zoro was able to say anything, it would’ve been, “See needs more rest,” or something along those lines. It was something you would’ve said, but at least you could’ve added in, “Doctor’s orders.” 

Zoro just looked more broodier than usual, as Luffy crashed back out into the grove arms and voice waving out his excitement. 

The hut swelled with the silence that enveloped an unspoken heaviness between you. You couldn’t remember much, but you could remember Zoro fighting. He fought his way to get to you. Dozens of fishmen wanted him dead, but you could remember, before the blanket of nothingness danced across your vision his eyes as they found you. 

The Demon Pirate Hunter had never looked more broken.

Zoro crossed his arms over his chest - his still very swollen nicely formed chest - stop that! - and you wondered if he’d been tending to his own wounds. His jaw ticked and a heavy swallow followed as he turned his attention back to you. You couldn’t take the silence. You wanted to remind him he’d kissed you, not that long ago, in a place very similar, but you weren’t sure if it was to make him more protective or run screaming from his emotions.

Why did he have to be complicated? Naan said people were like onions - multilayered and required time to peel back everything there was to know. You wondered how many layers of protection for himself Zoro added sitting there beside you, not sure if you were going to make it. 

Or…no. They’d seen what you had become. 

Here she is your monster.

You tried to swallow past the growing dread that suddenly pressed down on your chest. You were never good at reading the room but - Luffy hugged you. They seemed grateful you were alright but…they all had to have seen. And yet…

“Zoro,” it wasn’t hard to notice the way his body tensed before it eased out of his body. “How is your wound? Have you or anyone else been tending to it?”

At least now he looked surprised. It was better than broody. 

“You’re lying in bed - more wounds than I can count - and you’re asking about mine?”

“Well, duh. I am a doctor, remember? You were my patient first.”

There it was. That half-cornered smirk you’d grown to love.

“I’m fine. It opened up a little during the battle, but I’ve been taking care-“

“Your stitches opened!” You sat up too fast and your hand shot to your side. Your own body trying to remind you, with a wince, it was still on the mend. 

Zoro was there kneeling by the bed, his hands furiously tossing back the blankets to get a clear look at your wound. It felt oddly intimate, his deft fingers running over the bandage and lightly prodding for any signs of tear or bright fresh blood. 

“You need to be more careful,” he huffed.

Your sudden outburst had him achingly close. His hand that he’d brought to your side protectively stayed in place over the bandage. You weren’t prepared for how close it’d brought you both together. If you wanted, you could’ve placed your forehead against his. You could lean just a few inches, brush your eyelashes across his cheek or press your lips against his.

But would he still want you? 

Your tongue nervously licked out across dry, cracked, lips and you weren’t a fool. The hungry way Zoro’s eyes followed the motion was the silent answer you needed. 

“Zoro,” you breathed his name like the faithful coming to worship. 

Another jaw tick. Another flick of his gaze was all it took for him to take that next step to move closer. Until the sound of sprinting feet pounding up wooden stairs tore you apart. 

When Usopp crashed through the door, he did so shouting your name. It was hard to be mad when you could see he was already crying. He launched himself at you and you started a debate whether he or Luffy squeezed the hardest when they were overcome with emotions. 

“Hey, hey,” Zoro chastised, “Remember she’s still not at a hundred percent. Be gentle.” 

“You telling anyone to be gentle, Mosshead, is the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Sanji!” 

His name came out in a fit of laughter as he moved towards you with gentle blue eyes and sunshine grin. Zoro grew tense beside you the closer Sanji came, and you thought you were going to have to intervene, but Sanji made it over and wrapped his arms around Usopp and you. 

“It’s so good to see you awake, Doc,” Sanji hummed into your ear. 

“It’s good to see you too, Sanji. How far does that happiness at me being alive and well go? Does this mean I get to order anything off the menu?”

“For you, sweets, I’ll even let you make your own menu,” Sanji replied as he stood up. 

A wink already loaded in the chamber and sent your way the minute he stood to his full height. 

“You’re pushing it, waiter,” Zoro warned. 

Sanji just shoved his hands in his pockets and continued to smile down at you. Slowly, Usopp disconnected himself from you, but made sure to take one of your hands in his. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up…so I can tell you all about how I single-handedly stopped Arlong and saved your life.”

You couldn’t stop your brows from raising up towards your hairline at his words. Of course he was the man of the hour. Who else could’ve performed such a truly amazing feat?

“Did you use your smoke powder special slingshot ammo?”

“Yes!” Usopp breathed out with a smile, “I was able to load multiples at once this time. They rained down on those fishmen and set them all on edge - just where I wanted them.”

You were smiling as you watched Usopp draw his arm back and make noises of the slingshot releasing. The small pops of explosions, the small powdered balls made as they crash landed on the floor inside Arlong Park.  You tried to keep wearing that same engrossed smile as your brain recalled how they really sounded. The smoke created a cloud that made it impossible to see - to breathe. 

Zoro must have noticed the slight change - a crack in the facade you tried to play - because you felt his hand gently place itself on your shoulder. For comfort and to ground you there in the present. 

“But I can tell you all about it when we get ready to leave.”

“For the Grand Line?”

Usopp’s smile wilted just a little before he responded, “Not exactly.”

You looked up at Luffy, Sanji, and lastly Zoro who’d taken back his hand and wasn’t facing you. 

“What’s going on?”

“Doc, we’ve been talking and we think it would be best to take you back.”

“Back?” 

“Back to Syrup Village.”

“I would just like to quickly point out,” Sanji began as he took a step forward, “that the only one who thinks this is a good idea is Usopp.”

“Way to throw me under the bus, man,” Usopp shot back over his shoulder. 

“I’m not going back.”

“Doc, look at what happened to you.”

“What happened to me can happen anywhere, Usopp, even Syrup Village. You of all people should remember how unwelcome I am there. How much they hate me.”

You whispered the last words as you leaned in to him, knowing that he was the only one who understood. How could he think that place was better for you than the Merry? 

“Naan is there-“

“She is the only one there with you gone.” Your voice was beginning to quiver and you hated how your body betrayed how deeply this was hurting you. “What am I supposed to do when she’s gone too?”

“I told you this was a shit idea,” Zoro grumbled.

“Not helping,” Usopp shot back. 

“Doc is a person with dreams and aspirations,” Luffy cut in between them. His body outlined in a halo from the outside light. “None of us have the right to take those away from her or tell her how to live her life. Not even if it’s meant to come with good intentions.”

Footsteps carried up the stairs and made their way to the doorway. A light knock from outside let everyone know, whoever they were, was coming in.  It wasn’t until you saw the bright orange hair that you felt your body try to leap out of the bed. 

“Nami!”

It was easy to see she wanted nothing more than to run over to you, as well. The two of you were owed one of the world’s longest hugs once you were out of this bed. You expected her to do just that, but noticed how she shuffled around Luffy with her hands softly on the shoulder of Nazifa. 

You felt your world tilt. She was safe. She was here and she was safe and okay and alive. But that joy was easily replaced with uncertainty. Flashes of the fear you’d caused her as she looked upon your face. Beyond the blood, bruises, and the place she’d ended up, Nazifa was terrified of you. 

You waited for her to scream. To point and tell you everything that you’d ever heard about yourself from others. You steeled your heart and tried to prepare for those words of fear and hatred to bash against the walls you’d so carefully created. Waited for the villagers to swarm the hut with pitchforks and torches to chase out the entire crew. 

The tension brought to life every wound your body was trying to heal but nothing prepared you for Nazifa barreling straight ahead. Her tiny body colliding into yours with such force your side erupted in pain. You couldn’t care about that as her tiny arms enveloped your waist and buried her face against your chest. 

“I’m happy you made it.”

You barely picked up her words as she mumbled them against your chest. Your arms were still held inches above her tiny body. Unsure of whether you should hug her back, if it was what she wanted. Carefully, you test it one arm at a time until they enveloped around her, bringing her in for a warm hug. 

“Me?” You whispered against her hair. “I’m happy you are safe. It’s all I wanted.”

“And she is - we all are - because of you. Because of your friends.”

The voice of Nazifa’s father jolted your head up to watch as he slowly entered the hut. Nami and Luffy made space for him as he entered and behind him, at the steps of the hut, were villagers who looked on. Each one of them held a look of gratitude.  

“You came to help even when you were told it could cost you your life. You’ve begun to heal me. You’ve given me one of the most precious gifts a father could ask for - time. You saved Nazifa not caring what it could cost. You have given us many gifts to be grateful for, and you, Doc of the Straw Hat crew, we are most grateful for you.” 

With each word every memory that shaped you from your village, all the words of disgust, the glances of mistrust; every single one disintegrated until the only one that was left was this moment. 

You were seen beyond what - who - you were questioned to be. None of them called you witch or devil. There was no hatred in their eyes or pitchforks ready to send you scattering back up to the hut up on the cliff. No one was trying to drag you back out to the ocean to leave you there to drown. 

For the first time in your life, you were met with kindness, and that kindness was enough to shatter every defensive wall you’d built. You felt yourself shatter under their gratitude, under Nazifa’s tighter embrace, and her soft words, “I’m glad it was you who came.”

The villagers had walked the crew back to the Going Merry to send you all off. It felt bittersweet slowly watching as their waving hands began to fade until all that was left on every side was the ocean. 

The walk back to the ship had been a challenge you weren’t expecting. What made it even more of a challenge was that Zoro was hellbent on being the only crew member to help you. You wanted to use a walking stick and, instead, ended up piggybacking on the back of one particularly handsome green-haired swordsman. 

Walking the Merry, you inhaled deeply as you moved down the stairs towards the crew’s quarters. The memory of being aboard Arlong’s ship and his hospitality felt like a nightmare. The Merry was your home and as you walked the familiar halls towards your room, it was a fact there was no denying. 

Usopp wanted you to go back to Syrup Village, but dropped the argument. He was outnumbered five to one and, most important of all, you refused to go. The Going Merry was more your home than Syrup Village ever was and the crew inside her walls were your family. 

You were smiling at this revelation when you came across the door to your room ajar. It stopped you dead in your tracks. You knew when you’d left that you had shut the door. Carefully, you took a few cautious steps forward and heard the rustling sound of movement. 

Pushing the door open, you were greeted by Zoro’s back. He was stacking books back on your shelves and continued to do so even after you’d opened the door. 

“I didn’t know you were in the habit of stealing books,” you teased, as you stepped inside your room. 

“I’m not. I used these to read to you while you were…asleep.”

So it had been his voice you’d heard calling to you all those times. While you didn’t always hear the words, you knew the cadence of his voice. The way his tone rasped and grumbled when it’d been out of use. The depth of the baritone when his voice dropped in pitch. It had been Zoro who’d led you back - back to him. 

Zoro still hadn’t turned to look at you and maybe it was for the best. You weren’t exactly sure what your face looked like at the moment. 

“Zoro-“

“Never again.”

You were about to take another step towards him, but the tone of his voice stopped you midstep. He’d finished lining the books back on the shelves and now leaned with his hands pressed against your desk. 

“What?”

“I woke up and you were gone. Not just gone. You were taken.”

“We’ve been over this, Zoro-“

“And we’ll go over it again!” His hand pounded on your desk, causing it to groan before he turned to face you. You were expecting him to be angry, but he didn’t just look angry. He looked broken. A man who had watched someone he cared about be torn to pieces in front of them and wasn’t sure if they would survive. “Well go over this again and again until you get it.”

“Please don’t assault my desk.”

“Doc, I’m being serious. I won’t allow you to do it a second or third time.”

“Allow? And how are you going to keep me from doing it if your thick moss headed self is lying unconscious from an idiotic sword fight, huh?”

This time you did dare to take a step forward. Your index finger jammed into a very hard chest, but you weren’t here to appreciate his chest or the way he towered over you. You wanted to make a point…you just had to remember what that point was when his hand gently reached up and took your wrist to place your hand over his heart. 

“I’m not going down a second time.”

“You don’t know that.”

Gods, why did your voice sound so shaky? Answer: Zoro, with his hand keeping yours pressed to his chest, had taken a step closer. Close enough when you tried to tuck your chin to hide the tears that stung your eyes his finger was there to stop you. He lifted your chin softly up and up until your eyes were locked back on his. 

“I do know that and, because I know that, it also means I’m keeping you close at all times.”

“You can’t make that kind of promise, Zoro.”

You didn’t doubt him. You wouldn’t ever doubt him again, but the memory of watching him go down haunted you even as he stood before you. Whole, but with a few added scars. 

He didn’t answer you right away. His eyes scanned over your face no doubt easily seeing the desperate way you pleaded with him to promise it anyways. 

“I, Roronoa Zoro, vow to stand by your side from now until the end. Through the adventures brought on by our captain or those we make on our own. I’m yours, Doc and you’re mine. I’ll be here for you just like I know you were there for me. I’m not going anywhere.”

If it wasn’t for Zoro’s hand holding yours steadily against his chest you were positive the trembling in your body would’ve spread. With his free hand he brought it up to cup your cheek closing in the last few inches between you. 

His eyes roamed your face - searching - waiting to show him that this was what you wanted. That he was what you wanted. Why couldn’t he see you wanted him without question and with so much urgency. Ever since that day he’d tucked the flower behind your ear looking at you like you’d held his world in the curve of yours lips. 

You’d both been a part of what the other had been searching for and finally found it. 

Zoro must have gotten all the confirmation he needed because he closed the last few inches between you. His kiss started off timid and chaste until he finally let go of your hand and circled his arm around your waist pinning you to him. He was careful to make sure he didn’t press you too harshly against him. His hand firm and careful of all the wounds that still required healing, but a soft gasp you hummed against his lips tested his restraint. 

Just as the kiss began to deepen Luffy’s voice calling for the straw hat’s to assemble for a cast- off ceremony broke you apart. Zoro didn’t completely let you go. His breathing ragged and his eyes still hungrily stared at your lips as he pressed his forehead against yours. 

“We better go,” you huffed. “Before he calls again.”

“This better be important or I’m going to mutiny.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“At this point I’m really tempted.”

Gently Zoro reached down and took your hand and led you back down the hallway; back out towards the main of the ship. Sanji had already rolled out a barrel with Nami and the rest all circled around and waiting for you. Each one of you were stationed around the barrel, and just before you could ask what this was about Sanji silently answered you.

Sanji looked around the circle before he lifted up his leg and said, “I’m going to find the All-Blue,” planting his foot on the barrel.

A smirk lifted Luffy’s lips as he lifted up his foot and dropped it with a thud onto the barrel. 

“I’m going to be King of the Pirates.”

For the first time in a long time, you watched a genuine teeth-baring grin spread over Zoro’s face. His own foot coming down next to Sanji’s. 

“I’m gonna be the world’s greatest swordsman.”

Nami looked at you, her eyes the brightest blue, and placed her foot down next to Luffy’s. 

“I’m gonna draw a map of the world.”

Usopp looked at everyone before landing on you. His eyes filled with uncertainty as he knew it was his turn to express what his dream was. You were sure no one had ever asked to know before, but now, Usopp had friends who genuinely wanted to hear it. 

With a sharp inhale he planted his foot on the barrel and yelled, “I am gonna be a great adventurer of the sea!”

It now fell on you. What was your dream? You’d shared it with Luffy once, inside the kitchen of Kaya’s house. You remembered the way he believed in you - believed in all of you. You looked over at Luffy and felt your own smile spread wide until you placed your foot beside Usopp and Zoro’s. 

“I’m gonna be the greatest doctor the world’s ever seen.” 

You looked around the barrel with your legs flowered out around the top and saw what had to be the world’s greatest misfit family. Luffy looked around at all of you, a proud smile worn on his face as he spoke, “This is it crew. The Grand Line. Nothing’s going to stand in our way! Yaaaahoooo!”

If only Luffy knew there was plenty that would stand in the way. None of it would matter, however, not with a crew, a family, like yours. 

As always, Thank you so much for reading! Comments, likes, and reblogs are always appreciated! <3

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Rewatching kuroko no basket makes me want to write again.

Wishes aren’t real.

Samurai Zoro x Female Maid Reader.

You were saved and swept up and out of poverty by a loyal and thoughtful samurai. Eyes filled with admiration and gratitude for him blinds the things that may need to be seen.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Contains: This entire series contains dark themes. Reader is a lower class woman living in poverty (until Zoro finds her). Zoro is a higher class samurai or swordsman. Zoro taking in Reader and making her his maid. Sweet and harmless Zoro. (Zoro doesn’t show his true nature until the next part.) Reader noticing the odd things from Zoro but brushing it off. This beginning fic is very long and gets you into the story.

You hadn’t done a lot in your life…

You only remember the better times you had when you were a younger child to teenager, back when you saw your mother caring for you and doing as much as she could to help bring food to the table.

You’d finally understood how hard she struggled, how terrible it was and is to still live in poverty. You didn’t even have the heart to walk around and ask for a bowl of rice or even a loaf of bread.

You were embarrassed to walk around town in your tattered kimono and scratched up geta without the feeling of eyes burning into your body.

Living in poverty was a terrible thing.

And now here you are…your back up against a brick wall in a small alley as you felt yourself dying of starvation…

You believed that there was no hope in you being saved…not from starvation and neither not from poverty.

The more your stomach growled, the weaker you grew and the more you began to close your eyes and drift off into a painful rest.

You sigh out and press your hands together, whispering a final prayer to yourself while your body slowly slide down. You lied there against the rough gravel on the ground, knowing that your time was nearly up and that your body was close to finally giving out.

You groaned out and let out another little sigh before slowly closing your eyes, accepting your fate but thanking whatever god it was for bringing you into this dark and cruel world.

…

He took slow and heavy steps while he clung to his three swords at his hip, his left arm within his kimono as he trailed down the path of loose gravel below himself.

He was heading home to rest up and prepare for the next day after working so hard and draining himself out for today. An irritated groan left his lips as he turned into a dark alleyway, his only eyes peering around as he took slow and careful steps down the path.

As he walked, he noticed a light shadow or a figure kneeling down on the path which makes him come to a sudden halt. His eye stared down at what seemed to be a woman who was sleeping on the side of the path. He quirks a brow before crouching down beside her, inspecting her before reaching a hand out to touch her. Hearing her groan out weakily causes him to pull back and he tilts his head before pressing his hand to his chin.

He sighs out before reaching his arms out and sliding them underneath the young woman, picking her up and raising his brows at how light she was.

Judging from her torn kimono and scuffed geta, it was obvious that she was a lower class woman who hadn’t eaten in more than a few days. He sighs out and continues his walk with the young woman held tight in his arms but not too tight that she could be hurt.

Staring down at her features, she wasn’t hard on the eyes. She was beautiful. Her monotone facial expression gave off the sense that she was probably fed up with her life and was accepting her fate once she fell asleep.

He huffs out lowly but gives a little smirk as he thought about what to do.

How would she react once she woke up? How would her nature be? Is she a good person? Is she trustworthy?

So many questions ran through his mind as he went down the path to his estate.

He would just have to wait and see.

…

Your body was warm and cozy as you felt your eyelids slowly opening, the sight of tatami mats and shoji screens made your brows furrow in question.

Must’ve been a dream.

You rubbed your eyes and looked around once again, the scenery still the same as it was when you opened your eyes the first time .

“Mmgh…? W-What…?” You rubbed your head and slowly sat up, your body feeling the soft material of a futon beneath your body. The blankets were warm and soft against your skin, and the sweet smell of freshly washed linen filled your nose. You looked around at the scenery, seemed like you were in someone else’s home…but who’s home to be exact?

You slowly crawled up out of your futon and stood up, mewling as you stretched out your arms and torso. Taking a few steps, you slowly stumbled over to the shoji door and slid it open, peeking through the crack and gathering your surroundings. Sliding the door open fully, you slowly walk out of the room and close the door behind yourself before looking around.

The sound of bare feet hitting the tatami mats catches your attention and you look around to see…a young man with green mossy hair. His eye peers at you and he smiled before walking past you and to the room at the end of hall, your eyes following his large figure. You scratch your head in confusion before turning around and reaching a hand out to him.

“Um- E-Excuse me!” You call out to him which makes him freeze in place before turning around and looking to you with his only eye. “Hm?” He tilts his head and quirks a brow to you, standing tall above you and looking down at you and your smaller frame. Your words immediately went back into your throat as you realize how big this man was.

He was rather handsome too…

“U-Um…Where?- Where is this place? Last time I fell asleep…I was…” You words trail off as your stomach began to growl loudly, cutting your attention away from your question. Zoro smiles and grabs your hand, guiding you down the hallway and into his tea room. “You’ve woken up just in time. I was just about to eat breakfast without you if you slept longer. I’ll explain things after you eat.” He says, his footsteps careful and slow.

You nodded and followed him, standing there as you watched him slide the shoji door to his tea room open. Rice balls were arranged on a tray along with two teacups filled with hot green tea on the low table. The weather was beautiful outside, with the birds chirping and the bamboo of the shishi-odoshi (deer scarer) repeatedly falling and hitting the stone.

The man slowly walks into the room and motions you to come in, to which you do. “Have a seat.” He says, patting the pillow beside him as he sat himself down. You slowly sit yourself down and say a small prayer before grabbing a rice ball, your stomach growling and yearning for food to just enter it.

“I’ll discuss things with you in a moment after you eat. I need you to eat and drink something, alright?” He explains to you firmly, his eye looking down at you while he watches you take a bite out of your rice ball. You mewl out at the taste and nodded to him, stuffing down half of the rice ball within seconds.

“Y-Yes sir…” You say, covering your mouth and excusing yourself as you spoke with your mouth stuffed full of rice and tuna-mayo filling. He chuckles and takes a sip of his tea before getting into his breakfast, turning his head to the side and watching the beautiful scenery outside. After a moment, he turns back over to you and watched you take more rice balls from the tray, your eyes looking over him while he motions you to take more.

“Make sure you drink some tea as well.” He says, wiping the bits of rice grains from his chin and mouth while reaching for another rice ball.

You could say that this was the very first breakfast you’ve had in a while and actually enjoyed. You were thankful that this man had picked you up off the side of that gravel path and took you in. You were rather quick to show gratitude for him. You watched as he chewed and munched on his rice ball and he peeks back over to you, making you quickly turn away from him while he lets out a little giggle.

“It’s okay to stare, many women stare at me and you’re no different. Well- Maybe you’re one of the very few to get a good look at me up close.” He says, reaching over handing you another rice ball. You take the rice ball from his hands and bite down into it while still staring at him.

You were happy that this man wanted to make sure you were nice and full, hell you were more surprised at his kindness more than anything. Not many people would just pick up a low classed woman up off the street or path out of pure kindness. Not unless if it was another low class person…

You could tell by the looks of his home and attire that he was a man of higher class and status, but what did a man like him want to do with a lower class woman such as yourself? It made you think a bit deep on it.

What would this man want with you…?

After breakfast, the young man pours a bit more green tea into your tea cup to which you’d gladly accepted and slowly sipped. “Now I can discuss this with you. My name is Roronoa Zoro and I’m a samurai of a higher class and status than you. I don’t mean to be rude when I say that…” He says, sipping more green tea from his tea cup. You nodded as he continued speaking, his eye peering down at you with slight interest.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your name young woman?” He asked you, setting his tea cup down onto the table as he slowly stood up and pressed his feet against the tatami mats. You watched as he brushed down his kimono, making sure there weren’t any bits of grains of rice or filling on him. Your gazing causes you to fall quiet, the sight of him peering back down at you causing you answer him quickly.

“It’s ________ sir...” You responded, propping yourself up against your hands while you watched him slowly sit back down. He smiles at your manners as he reaches out for the tea pot and pours himself another cup of tea.

You watched him slowly pour more of the tea into his tea cup, the steam spilling out of the kettle alongside with the tea. He sets his kettle down before picking up his tea cup, a soft sigh leaving his lips while he got a good waft of the tea. “A beautiful name you have. It fits you young lady.” He says, blowing at his tea to cool it off.

You blushed at his response.

“T-Thank you.” You responded, staring at the rice balls sitting on the tray as you still yearned for more to fill you up. Zoro catches your eye and chuckles at your gaze. “Please if you want some more they’re free for you to take. I know how hungry you must be after not eating for so long. They’re all for you.” He says, pulling the tray closer to you and urging you to eat more.

“A-Are you sure sir? You’re full enough to where you don’t want more?” You asked with respect, your eyes staring up at him and into his singular eyes. He nods in response and chuckles. “Please. Take them.” He says for the final time, taking the last sip of his tea and pushing his tea cup away before sighing out in fullness.

You took a bite of another rice ball and you both sat there in silence, the sounds of the outside nature breaking most of it. You sat there and chewed hungrily before your eyes slowly trails back up to Zoro. He was looking outside at the scenery once again, inhaling deeply as he watched it all without a thought in his mind.

Your verbal thoughts finally breaks the silence for both you and him.

“M-May I ask, why did you save me sir? Surely someone of higher status such as yourself wouldn’t care about someone like me correct?” You asked out of pure curiosity, wondering why a man of high class like this swordsman save you?

He turns to you and sighs out before sitting up straight.

“No one deserves a fate such as yours. I can tell that you’ve suffered much in your life. Why not be granted a second chance.” He says lightly, his eyes trailing down at the low table while his fingers tapped at it.

Your eyes widens in response but he wasn’t finished speaking yet.

“I don’t see lower class like how people of my status would see them.” He admits, his head resting against his hand.

Your eyes glistened with admiration. “Wow…T-Thank you sir…Thank you so much! Please let me repay you.” You responded happily, bowing down to him while he watched. Your response catches his ear and making him react with a smile. He presses his fingers to his chin before looking and smirking down to you.

“Well ________, I need someone to work things around my estate while I’m away on my trips. Since you’re a lower class woman, do you mind becoming the maid of my estate?” He asked you nonchalantly, watching as your head slowly rises up from the tatami mats.

Your eyes were wide with shock and you cover you mouth at his question. “I…I’d be honored sir! Yes please!“ You say, bowing down to him once again out of gratitude. Slight tears began brewing within your eyes as you tried your best to contain your emotions and excitement from this whole ordeal. He chuckled and presses his hand against your chin, lifting your head and wiping your sudden tears away.

“Please, no need to bow young lady. It’s fine as long as you can do your tasks correctly for me. You’ll now live under my roof alongside me as my maid.” He says to you, cupping your face with his roughly-scarred hands.

You sniveled and held on to his hands, biting your lower lip while your brows furrowed. Finally and somehow, a miracle had finally fell upon you. You finally felt needed and wanted by someone and had a job granted to you.

Regardless if you didn’t know how to work as a maid, you were damn sure that a maid was what he needed around his estate and that he’ll provide anything he can to help with your position.

Not that you didn’t know how…it was the point.

“T-Thank you so much sir…T-Thank you…” You thanked him, shedding a bit more tears as you stared up into his eye. He nods and wipes more of your tears away before standing up, leaving his tea set and tray on the table as he walked over to the shoji screen door.

“Stay here for a moment, I need to grab you some fresh clothes.” He says, sliding the screen open and walking out of the room, leaving you alone in the room to shed your hot and happy tears.

You looked outside and smiled to yourself. “Thank you…Thank you so much…” You said to yourself, pressing your hands together and putting them to your temple.

You wipe your tears away and perk up as you hear Zoro walk back into the room with fresh kimono linens and an obi (kimono sash) for you. On top of those linens were charms for your hair, matching hair charms that complimented the kimono linens. “Here’s some fresh clothes and towels for you, you’ll start after you bathe. The bathroom is farther down the estate, if you want I can show you where it is.” He explains to you, holding a hand out to you to help you up.

You grip his hand and he pulls you up easily before handing you the linens and charms. “Please show me where it is…I don’t know your estate very well…” You say sweetly to him to which he nods in response. “Follow me then.” He says with charm before turning around. He slowly began to walk out of the room and you followed behind, looking around and realizing how large the place was.

For the only samurai living here, it was a very big place he had. Though that didn’t bother you, you were excited to be around in a larger home.

You followed him down the estate and into a large bathroom where the water was already ran in the tub for you. The fresh scent of mint and honey filled the bathroom and you hum out in delight at the aromatic scent. Zoro smiles at your reaction, thanking himself in his mind that he picked out the correct scents for you to enjoy.

“If you need anything please don’t hesitate to call out for me. I’ll be right outside.” He says before walking out of the bathroom, shutting the door softly behind himself. You sigh out and smiled as you set down the linens down onto a wooden stool, the fresh scent filling your nose which made you grow eager to jump into the bath.

You began pulling the bow of your obi, loosening it and pulling it off before sliding your tattered and torn kimono off of your body. The dirty linen of the kimono fell onto the stone floor and you slowly begin walking over to the bathtub before staring down at the hot and steaming water.

You slowly dipped your toes into the water, humming at the temperature before fully setting half of your calve down into the water.

You lowered yourself into the bathtub, sighing out happily as the warm water immediately your relaxed your body in alongside the sweet honey and minty fresh scent.

You lied there for a good while and smiled to yourself, thinking about how nicer your life would be working as Zoro’s maid. You were positive that the job wouldn’t be so hard for you. You knew how to cook and clean very well from your mother. Washing clothes and dusting didn’t seem like much of an issue for you so you were sure this opportunity was going to be a piece of cake.

You giggled to yourself before grabbing a fresh washcloth and soap, scrubbing hard at your skin and enjoying the feeling of the suds.

…

As you began to stand up from the water and scrub more, you began to feel…a bit uneasy. You felt as if someone was watching you with their eyes, looking at you scrub at your dirtied skin without your acknowledgment.

You slowly peer around amongst the steam filling the washroom and noticed the shoji door being cracked, opened just a smidge. You quirk a brow and slowly sat back down, the water splashing a bit as you did. You could’ve sworn Zoro closed that door all the way. You saw him do it for sure.

So why was the door cracked open…?

Zoro must’ve forgotten to close it all the way. It has to be your mind playing tricks on you. You shrugged it off and sink farther into the water, a soft sigh leaving your lips as you did. You begin to wash your hair after washing your body, your hair desperately needing a wash after waiting for so long. You kept your eyes on that door as you scrubbed at your scalp, knowing that it was closed when Zoro had walked out.

…

Your fingers were began to prune and the warm water had turned cold by then. It’s been so long since you had a bath that you didn’t want to step out regardless of how cold the water had gotten. Though you had to get out, the water was rather dirty from how much grime that coated your body hours before you got in.

You sighed out and slowly stepped out of the tub before running the faucet again, rinsing off the dirty ring that rounded about the white clean porcelain of the tub. You slowly walk over and reach out for your towels, drying yourself and your hair thoroughly to make sure now a drop of water lingered on your body.

As you dried off your body and reach out for kimono linens you paused at the sudden chill that ran down between your legs which was bare and open.

You look around and then thought about it.

Zoro hadn’t offered you hand undergarments at all.

A blush coated your cheeks as you before to walk over to the shoji door, reaching a hand out without much thought. A sudden look at the state of the sliding door makes you pause and your eyes began to widen.

The door was in fact cracked open which meant that your mind wasn’t playing tricks on you from the beginning. Your hand began to shake as you pressed it to the door and slowly slide it open, peeking your head out and looking around.

No one was there to be seen so you sighed out to yourself and hoped that maybe…it was just your mind and that maybe Zoro didn’t close the door all the way. “Um! Sir? Are you around? I need you for a moment!” You yelled out, looking both left and right of the hallway while you began to hear footsteps come down the left side. “In a moment. I’ll be there.” You hear Zoro’s voice call out firmly, his footsteps sounding like he was taking his time walking towards you.

He slowly walks towards you and stops midway, not wanting to disrespect your privacy. “What is it that you need?” He asked you, his arms crossed as he looks down at your head that poked out past the doors. You giggle nervously to him before sighing out in slight embarrassment.

“You didn’t give me any undergarments. Do you have any women’s underwear or such like that?” You asked him, the embarrassment now written all over your face. Zoro freezes for a moment before scratching his head. “Ah…Now that you mention it to me…I don’t. I just have kimono linens for visitors. I’ll go out and get you some, until then please try and be patient with me alright?” He says, a bit of a nervous smirk spread across his while he watched you slowly pull your head back into the bathroom.

“Is there anything else you may need help with?” You hear him ask you, your arms picking up the linens and sliding them on. As you began to throw your kimono on, you look around for a mirror and realized that there wasn’t one at all in the bathroom.

“Ah- Yes! May you tie my obi and hair up for me please? There’s no mirror in here!” You responded, holding your kimono closed before walking over to the sliding door. You slide the door open and motioned for him to come in, which he does. He slowly walks in and picks up your obi up off of the stool before wrapping it around your midsection.

He pulls it back a bit before tying it into a lovely bow while you stood there and felt his hands mend at your midsection. “Here, turn around for me. Since there’s no mirror I could put your charms along your hair for you too.” He says politely, offering to help with your hair as well. He slowly walks over to bathroom closet and digs around, finding a matching colored ribbon to help tie your hair up with.

He pulls your hair back and ties it up into a nice yet semi-drenched bun before picking up the charms one by one and putting them in your hair. As you watched him put the charms along your temple, your face growing hot the more your stared up at his face.

You couldn’t help but to admire how handsome he was and how helpful he was with women garments. You assumed he might’ve had a wife or a lover before you had showed up, nothing else could explain how skilled he was at tying a bow or fixing up your hair.

You watched as he steps back and smiles, admiring how beautiful you were freshened up and clean. “You look wonderful. Beautiful in fact.” He says, chuckling to himself as he begins to walk out of the bathroom. You smile and blush at his words before gathering the dirty towels and linens on the floor.

You stood there for a second before shrugging and rolling up your sleeves, the thought of cleaning up already running through your mind as you eye the drops of water on the floor and the bit of grime that was still visible in the tub. You cleaned up the bathroom and tried your best to restore it to the way it looked before, scrubbing up at the water and grime in the bathtub and putting a back in the original order it was.

Just to give Zoro a good first impression.

…

You let out a heavy sigh of relief as you wiped your brow and stood up off of your knees and onto your feet. Your sleeves unrolling slowly and your hands were a bit wet and sticky from all the cleaning you’ve just accomplished. You were sure that some amount of time had passed after cleaning up, your stomach already having its new appetite worked up after much of the work you’ve completed.

“________.”

You perk up at the sound of Zoro’s voice, hearing him call out your name down the farther end of the hall. You quickly rushed yourself, picking up the dirty towels and linens once again before rushing out of the bathroom and into the hallway.

“I’m coming sir!” You responded, rushing and practically running down the hallway while you hear him call out for you again.

You stop as you see his tall figure and breathes heavily as you stood there before him. “I-I’m here sir! W-What did you need-“ You began to ask him a question but suddenly froze as you noticed him slipping on his geta shoes and grabbing his three katanas.

You frowned as you watched him fix himself up.

”Y-You’re heading out a-already?” You asked, watching as he slid his katanas into his waist strap that held held them up and kept his kimono together. He froze as he heard the disappointment in your voice and sighs out as well.

“Yes, I need to go out and I won’t be back until nightfall.” He says to you, walking over to you and pressing his hand to your head where your soft strands rested. You give him a bit of a sad look, a bit upset to see him leaving so early already. It hadn’t even been that long since you met him and had breakfast together. He notices your saddened look and gives you a pleasant smile.

He cups your face with one of his hands and moves in close, your noses close to touching each others. Though he hesitates and pulls away, nearly forgetting that you both had only just met each other not too long ago. Part of you wanted to reach out so badly and pull him back towards you.

“I promise you’ll see me again as soon as night falls. I have a few tasks you’ll need to do tonight, okay?” He says to you, making you perk up with slight excitement. You smile and nodded to him before asking him what the tasks would be for you.

“The bedrooms needs a bit of dusting….and when I get home I expect dinner on the table and…a hot bath to be ready as soon as I come back…” He says, rubbing the back of his neck with a groan. You smile and nodded in agreement. “Is it okay if I greet you every time you come back home?” You asked him. He smiles at your question.

“Of course you you can.”

“I’ll make sure to bring back your undergarments as well.” He continues. “Thank you.” You responded, bowing to him and watching as he began to walk away from you.

“Anything specific you’d like for dinner?” You asked him as you lifted your head, making him halt and turn to you. He smirks, a slight chuckle leaving him. “Surprise me.” He says playfully to you. You nodded and waved him goodbye but he halts once more, as if he forgot to say one more thing.

“One last thing you need to follow…”

“Don’t leave my estate unless I say so. Understand?”

His entire tone had shifted and caused you to shudder at his words. You nodded your head but he stood there, still staring at you as if he wanted a certain type of response from you. “I need a worded answer.” He says firmly to you.

You froze for a moment before speaking back out to him. “W-What if I need groceries for our future breakfast and dinner?” You asked him, taking a step forwards to him as you worded your question carefully. “I can take care of all of that. Just obey my wishes and stay here as you’re told to.” He says deeply, his tone dripping with seriousness while his eyes gave it off.

You you kept your mouth closed and bowed in response to him, making him loosen up and smile.

“Y-Yes sir…I understand.”

“Good. I’ll be back. Finish those tasks for me please.” He says, finally walking down and turning the corner. You sigh out heavily as if you were holding your breath within his presence. His tone sounded like he wasn’t going to say what he said a second time, he was genuinely serious.

Not that you didn’t know that, the man was a samurai with morals and a cold hard attitude. Why wouldn’t he be serious about what he had just told you? It made you worry for what would happen if you didn’t complete your tasks or do them correctly as you’re told.

Your heart began to feel heavy at the thought but that wasn’t going to push you away from this offer. You sighed and shook off the feeling, walking down the hallway and back to your assigned room with your dirty linens.

Even though he didn’t provide directions of the bedrooms, you had more than plenty of time to do what he asked for you to do. Living in the home of a serious swordsman made you feel protected, regardless if you didn’t know Zoro that much.

You had a great feeling that you would enjoy this experience more than your previous life that you were close to leaving.

I laughed so hard when i saw this in my pinterest HAHAHAHAHA

a long, long time (zoro x reader)

timeskip reunion fic <3 artist!reader, but as always, can be read as a standalone

ft. making out, heartfelt reunions, soft zoro wc: 899 masterlist

tagging: @eelnoise

A wave of bright, soft sunshine casts across the floor of the bar, spreading like wildfire as the heavy wooden door creaks open.  Bottle of sake in his hand, Zoro turns towards the source of the light illuminating the dim and moody bar.  His heart stutters at the sight of your figure, silhouetted by the light pouring in behind you; radiance, confidence, and strength oozing from your aura, you’re a fallen angel, kissed and smothered by sunbeams in one last blessing before being cast from heaven.  Doe eyes soften at the sight of him, resoluteness replaced with fondness and affection.  

“Had a feeling you’d be here soon.” he says with a lopsided grin, setting his bottle on the table.  Nearly vibrating with anticipation, you rest your bags on the ground and walk towards him; there’s a sense of hesitation hanging in the air as you approach, attempting to partially mask your unadulterated glee, but you can’t help the way your feet start to fly across the floor with increasing velocity.  Dropping all pretenses, you fling yourself into his arms, grinning from ear to ear and burying your face into his neck.  “You look great.” he murmurs, pressing his lips to your forehead before nuzzling his cheek into yours.

“So do you… I missed you.” you mumble, the vibrations of your voice spreading underneath his skin.  Smothering your senses in the familiar scent of sweat and steel, a veil of comfort and security falls over you like a warm, clean blanket straight from the dryer.  Both of your bodies have been molded and changed over the past two years, but your skin still melts into his as if the two of you were never separated—as if no time had passed at all.

“Missed ya’ too.” he says quietly, rubbing his thumb rhythmically across your cheek.  Nestling your face into his palm, head tilted, your eyes stare back at him with dreamy reverence.  During your separation, in his dreariest moments, he had wondered if you would mind his missing eye and the assortment of new, small, white scars across his front; however, the love and adoration brimming in your eyes crushes all hint of fear or apprehension—you were simply ecstatic to be in his presence once more.

Leaning forward, he smirks at your eagerness as you mimic his motions and attempt to brush your lips against his; it’s been over two years too long, and yet he can’t help but tease you for just a moment longer, delaying the kiss you were both yearning for by softly dragging his thumb across your bottom lip.  Seeing the overflowing want pouring from your gaze is worth the seconds lost and then some; cupping your face, he gently pulls you towards him and presses his lips to yours, sealing your reunion.

It’s soft and gentle at first, and a smidgen clumsy as a result of time spent apart, sparks spreading and stomachs fluttering at the intimacy you both had been deprived of for far too long.  Zoro’s hand travels up along your jawline, every movement filled with passion as the kiss deepens, his fingers eventually reaching your hair and tangling into your tresses.  The heated drag of your lips against one another is a long-lost song heard once more, satiating both a feeling of nostalgia and a craving for more.

He pulls away for a moment to admire the pink blush covering your face, the one that he’d imagined creeping across your cheeks for years.  The long, sleepless nights spent pining and waiting dissipated with a blink, flung away like weightless grains of sand; all that mattered was that you were here, with him, again.

Zoro’s lips meet yours once more, both of you smiling into the kiss; thumb running along your jawline, he pours his heart out to you, each swipe of his tongue conveying his yearning.  You reciprocate in turn, and he accepts each silent confession of emotions greedily, drinking them in and committing them to memory.  There was nothing outside of the two of you, as your mouths parted, still wet with the remnants of unspoken words, the only world that mattered was in the warmth of your connected gazes.

He loved you; he loved you so much that he could barely speak, despite spending over two years craving the sound of your voice.  He’s rendered you lovestruck and speechless too, unable to do anything but smother his face in kisses, giggling softly between each press of lips to skin. 

A dark, amused chuckle snaps both of you from your trance—Shakky had returned behind the bar, the click of her heels against wooden floorboards had fallen on deaf ears.  Snapping apart as Zoro nearly drops you, both of your faces turn red with embarrassment, gazes fixed at the floor.  “Aren’t you going to buy her a drink?” she asks Zoro with a smirk and motioning for the two of you to sit at the bar. 

“Got any infused sake?” he asks her as he returns to his bottle, blush fading as he regains his usual confidence.

“I’ve got mango, yuzu, strawberry…” she lists, index finger tracing along her collection of spirits behind the bar.

“Still strawberry?” he asks you with a ghost of a smile on his face as he admires you.

“Still strawberry.” you reply with a soft smile, cheeks still pink and rosy.