#char☀️: roronoa zoro

[helioswritings]

Staring at The Sun

Roronoa Zoro x gn! Reader

wc: 1k

warnings: none

Zoro is in love with you. It scares him more than any enemy he’s ever faced.

Zoro is in love with you. It doesn’t come as a shock to him, but it consumes him in a way he didn’t think possible. His love for you becomes as much a part of him as sword fighting. He is as loyal to you as he is Luffy and if you asked he would throw himself upon his own swords.

You’d never ask that of him, naturally. It probably wouldn’t even cross your mind.

He’s scared of his love for you. That, too, isn’t a shock. He’s scared that one day, you’ll get hurt and leave him, just like Kuina. He’s scared that he’d hurt you, too. And he’s scared of you finding out that he’s in love with you. He thinks that scares him the most.

His love for you is locked tight in the center of his chest, buried under his innate need to protect those closest to him. Zoro thinks that’s the perfect place for it, where no one could ever find it.

Right now, you’re asleep on his shoulder, sitting with him in the crow’s nest. You look peaceful like this, the moon bathing you in its light.

Zoro wants to throw up at his own thoughts. He never imagined he’d be this cheesy when he fell in love. He sounds like the fucking cook.

He jostles a little and you wake up, eyes bleary. “Huh? What?”

“Nothing, just moved my shoulder.”

You yawn and he hates how cute he thinks it is. “Sorry for sleeping on you.”

“Eh, I’m not doing anything anyways.”

You smile softly at him, eyes shining. He thinks, not for the first time, that when you were created they put the sun in your smile and the stars in your eyes.

“Is it dinner time yet?”

“Just about.”

You stretch, getting ready to climb down the ladder. “You coming?”

He waves you off. “In a sec, make sure Luffy doesn’t eat it all before I get down there.”

You give him a mock salute that’s followed by a wink. “You can count on me. I’ll defend your food with honor.”

Zoro rolls his eyes but watches you go, heart feeling heavy in his chest and his shoulder still warm from where your head was resting.

***

It's a few days after this that his feelings start getting too hard to ignore. They no longer want to be shoved in a box and stamped with ‘return to sender.’ It seems every spare moment alone with you has Zoro biting his tongue when the I love yous want to spill out.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t alone with you all the time. It’s never annoying, he’d never think that about you, but it makes his brain go haywire.

You’re so….he can’t even begin to describe it, but he knows that every time you smile at him it seems to steal the breath from his lungs. It makes him want to kiss you.

Your fingers are snapping in front of his face. “Did you hear me?”

“Huh?”

The smile on your face is soft, even as you roll your eyes. “I asked if you would go into town with me tomorrow.”

“Oh. Sure. Plan on getting something that needs heavy lifting?” His grin is cocky.

You laugh. “No, but if I did I’d ask Nami for help, not you.”

You both laugh at that, even though you probably mean it. Hell, he would too.

Quieting down, you suddenly looked shy. “No, I wanted to look at the gifts they have.”

“Gifts? Who for?” Did he forget a birthday?

You put a finger to your lips. “Nosy. It’s a secret.”

“Fine, fine. Whatever you say.” Zoro is burning with the desire to pester you more, but he’ll let it go for now. For now.

You yawn and stare at the sky, as if you’re checking the time. “It’s getting late. Goodnight, Zoro.”

And then you kiss his cheek. It’s scalding. His face is burning.

He stammers out a lame goodnight as he watches you walk away.

***

The market you go to the next day is bustling but not crowded enough that he’d lose you in it. Not that he could, with the way you’re holding his hand.

You chat with every shopkeep you stumble across, giving them that blinding smile every time you bid them goodbye, but still, you don’t find the gift you’re looking for.

Each time you walk away from a stall empty handed you seem a little down. He wonders why.

The fifth time this happens, you sigh in defeat as you sit on a bench.

“What’s got you down?” He asks, taking a seat next to you.

“I’m trying to find-“ you turn away, suddenly shy, mumbling the rest to yourself.

“Huh?”

“I wanted to find something for you. For your swords.”

The confession takes him by surprise, his heart feeling like it could burst out of his chest. “Like what?”

“You complained the other day about running out of oil for your swords. I thought it would be a good gift.”

“Well,” he says, “there’s still one more stall.”

You smile and like always, it’s like staring at the sun. “Okay.”

***

When you hand him the oil a few days later, he pretends he had no idea about it, just to make you laugh or smile again. He thinks of you every time he uses it.

Eventually, history repeats, and you’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder in the crows nest again. Like always, Zoro is left staring down at you, looking at you like most would stare at their subject of worship. The love in his chest no longer scares him, he’s no longer scared that your discovery will cause you to leave.

He knows that if he tells you he loves you, that you will say it back. He may not know a lot, but that he does know. Knows it the same way he knows that he will spend his life protecting Luffy, knows it the same way he knows that he will be the world's greatest swordsman.

So when you open your eyes to blink blearily up at him, he leans down to capture your lips with his own. You smell and taste like the sea, and it seems like the two of you stay interlocked like that for eternity, the spell only broken when Sanji calls for dinner.

Grinning, you stand and stretch. “You coming?”

He grins back. “In a sec.”