#i AM SO PROUD OF THIS alksjdfhalsdf

[swordsmans]

ocean theology

“Zoro—”

“Did you know?” he repeats, desperate, and Luffy just looks at him. And he wonders, then, how much of this has been preordained—how much of this is real, how much of this is him. How much of what he’s felt since they were wedged side-to-side in a shitty wooden boat on the East Blue has actually mattered, and how much has been the universe pressing him down into the mold of someone else's heart.

And then Luffy is gripping his horns, bringing his forehead down to meet his, repeating, “Zoro? Zoro?” like his name is a mantra, like he’s gone somewhere far away and gotten lost on his way back.

And Zoro blinks at him, then, and sees both of them at once—both of them—and he grips Luffy’s face in his own hands (claws) and presses his lips (violent, full of teeth) against his. Because this is who he has been waiting a thousand years for, the brightest and most beautiful of them all, the one thing he could never have—could never see, not if (Luffy, Joyboy, Nika) had made different (worse) choices—the thing that could never thrive in the darkness, just like he could never (has been unable to for centuries) survive without it—

pairing: roronoa zoro/monkey d. luffy

word count: 40,565

ao3 tags: canon-compliant reincarnation; melodrama (affectionate); spoilers through the end of wano; mild body horror (horns teeth claws); it's about the Yearning and the Devotion; graphic depictions of violence; archive warnings are for violence inflicted BY the crew not ON the crew; hurt/comfort/comedy at a 30/60/10 ratio; 40k words and i forgot to write "Asura" even once