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Zoro has never quite known what gentleness felt like.
He spent his childhood as a lone wolf, and became an even more solitary swordsman, far away from any touch. Even today, as he sails the seas with the crew he considers his family, none of them necessarily handle him with care - because he’s strong and unbreakable, a swordsman and a pirate. He doesn’t need softness.
He doesn’t miss it per se, but that’s mostly because it’s hard to miss something you’ve never known. Yet somewhere, deep in his gut, hidden away behind his gruff exterior, he feels some kind of aching for something he can’t quite name.
The Strawhats do touch each other, but they’re always a little too rough with him, a little too clumsy, their hands as soft as they are burning hot. So even when they all fall asleep on top of each other after one of Luffy’s famous parties, Zoro doesn’t go much further than a few pets on Chopper’s head. Like he’s a little afraid the others will do it wrong — and they probably will, because he doesn’t do soft: he’s a fighter, a killer, a demon.
But Nico Robin is a demon, too. Maybe that’s why she’s so different.
A mindless brush of her fingers against his as she hands him something. A palm briefly laying on his shoulder as she walks past him to get into the library. Knees knocking together under the dinner table.
Soft. Light. Airy. Always brief, but just long enough that it makes him want to lean in, shamefully, irresistibly.
But every time, she’s already gone.
⁂
Gentleness has always felt like a far away concept for Robin, too.
As a child, the adults around her had never given her enough love to even think about softness, and though the archeologists had been kind to her, they’d always made a point of treating her as an adult. Robin enjoyed it back then, though she didn’t quite understand the aching hole in her chest when they congratulated her for her studies without even a pat on the back or a playful tussle of her hair.
The day she had understood what she had been missing had been the day she’d found her mother again. The day Ohara burnt.
She’d escaped but became a demon, a Devil, if her wanted poster was to be trusted. No one would be gentle to a Devil.
She would have preferred to keep not being touched at all, as agonizing as it was, over the following twenty years of violence and roughness.
So to escape the hurtful hands, Robin had cheated, betrayed, and murdered until she had truly become a Devil. If no one would offer softness, then no one would be able to approach her.
Then, she’d found the Straw Hats.
They were a surprising group of people, but from the beginning it’d been hard not to notice the love emanating from them, the genuine care and respect they all had for each other. Robin had felt a little jealous during her first few days on the ship.
But just like that, she’d been dragged into it too.
It had started with Nami, gently snuggling next to her as she’d fall asleep, or throwing her arms around her when she’d needed comforting. Then Luffy’s head on her shoulders as she’d read him a story, his hair tickling her ear.
She thinks Luffy has never thought of anyone as a monster, so instead he saw her as what she was: a human being who had been terribly alone. And he and the crew handled her with care, and every day she feels their love enveloping her more and more.
The salted wind is warm on her face and the sand is soft against her feet. If she concentrates hard enough, she can hear her crew playing back on the boat, anchored a few feet away. She still has a bandage on from her fight in Enies Lobby, but the wound is almost healed.
It’s nice, being there with them, and she’s so happy she barely has the words, but it almost just feels like coming back home, to where she fits just right, and with that comes a familiarity that she welcomes with open arms.
“What are you doing here?” Zoro’s voice interrupts her thoughts.
She turns and he’s standing right there, hovering over her.
Robin smiles.
“Just thinking. Care to sit?”
Zoro only nods before he obeys. For a few minutes, the atmosphere grows quiet. There’s something about his presence that makes her breathing a little steadier, and makes her muscles relax completely.
“This place is nice,” she suddenly breaks the silence to say.
His eyes turn to her with a piercing gaze, as if he was looking for the meaning of her words somewhere deep in her soul. Of whether she’s talking about this beach, or the Sunny.
“Yeah,” he finally decides. “We’ll make sure it stays that way.”
Zoro lays his back down against the sand and closes his eyes. Once again, Robin realizes that he, too, is a monster, and that the Strawhats are his only family. That perhaps no one understands her like he does.
He almost looks fragile, laying there. Vulnerable.
Tentatively, Robin reaches out for his hand. Their fingers brush against each other. Zoro shivers, but he doesn’t open his eyes.
He’s letting her in. Barely, almost imperceptibly. He trusts her. He sees her.
“Thank you,” she whispers, and maybe it’s so quiet that it gets lost in the wind.
⁂
The men’s quarters are dark and silent, for once, but with the early hours of the afternoon has come a soft light that pulls Zoro out of his slumber. His eyelids feel heavy but he still leaves his bed, up on his feet before he’s even done yawning. He catches his reflection in the mirror before he steps out of the room. His hair’s gotten longer, and he supposes with all the mayhem of the New World he really hasn’t had time to think about his appearance. But he can see green streaks in his field of view and this shit is getting impractical, especially given he already only has the one eye.
With a sigh, Zoro steps onto the deck. It’s bright out, and the air of the island they just docked at is nice and fresh. On the shore, he can see majestic trees and their luscious green leaves flowing with the wind like a gentle stream.
“Usopp!” Zoro calls. “I need a haircut.”
It’s not the sniper that appears before him but a cloud of pink petals – and then, Robin, or at least her clone, anyway.
“Everyone went out shopping while you slept. I’m the only one here.”
“Oh,” Zoro shrugs, already walking past the clone. “Okay, then. I’ll wait.”
“I can cut your hair, though.”
Zoro stops in his tracks, somewhat taken aback. A wave of something he doesn’t recognize crawls up his neck. It almost tickles.
“Yeah, sure.”
Robin – the real one — leads him to the baths and sits him down on a wooden stool. The air is heavy and humid and she smells like soap. She must’ve taken a shower not too long ago.
“You should take off your shirt,” she advises. “Or there’ll be hair everywhere.”
Zoro does as he’s told, and she sits down behind him. She’s so close that if he leaned back, he could touch her. He suddenly feels very exposed, even though he’s never been shy about undressing near anyone. But there’s a comfort in her presence, a familiarity that he can’t quite voice yet.
Her fingers ghost against the back of his neck as she starts working her scissors on the longest part of his hair. For a while, the only sound he hears is the snip of the blades cutting through the overgrown hair. He catches her reflection in the mirror in front of them, eyes deeply focused on her task, raven hair cascading freely down her shoulders, cheeks slightly flushed from the warmth and humidity. It feels intimate, seeing her like this.
Once she’s happy with her work, she sets down the scissors and grabs a razor blade instead.
“Tilt your head down slightly, if you please?”
He looks down. For someone who doesn’t take orders from anyone, he’s certainly been obedient to her today. He doesn’t have the heart to mind the change in attitude much.
Slender fingers wrap around the side of his neck as she lightly passes the razorblade through the overgrown hair. Barely the whisper of a touch, and yet Zoro can’t feel anything else beside her pinky lazily sliding against his jaw.
She gets closer in an effort to be precise, because of course she’s not going to do a half assed job. Her eyes are deeply focused, and Zoro can feel her hot breath on his skin. Her chest is practically on his back.
He shakes imperceptibly but Robin notices, she always notices, and suddenly looks up to him in the mirror. Their eyes meet. He’s out of breath.
She puts the razorblade down and passes her hand through the freshly cut hair on his neck, and maybe her fingers linger a little bit too long and Zoro leans in like the fucking idiot he is, like he can’t help himself. She hasn’t stopped staring at his reflection.
“We’re all done,” she finally says, her voice low and rich like honey.
His hair is short like he likes it, but he can’t see.
“Thank you,” he responds, and maybe he means it more than he’d like.
For a second she holds his gaze and he wonders if she’s going to kiss him, but she slowly lets her hand slide down his shoulder and gets up.
“Happy to help,” she nods. Without another word, she leaves the room and Zoro is left shirtless, warm and confused.
⁂
Zoro woke up for the first time three days ago. Since then, he’s been drifting in and out of sleep, usually just long enough to eat some food and drink some water. For the most part, the crew’s been sitting in the sick bay with him, usually a few people at a time so as not to overwhelm him. Chopper looks tired, but he says there’s not much else for Zoro to do apart from resting. They’re all trying not to worry too much: he’s Zoro, for God’s sake. No matter how many times or how badly he gets hit, he always gets up.
He’s lying on the infirmary bed, eyes closed, covered in so many bandages that his tan skin is barely visible. There’s something ghostly about him, his face paler than usual and his brows slightly furrowed.
He looks very fragile, too much so for how unbreakable he is.
It’s dark outside and Robin is alone with him, an abandoned book open on her lap as she details the swordsman's face.
He could’ve lost, this time. He almost had, torn and broken by Kuma’s power.
A sacrifice to save them all.
She’s sitting close enough that she can reach for his arm if she wants to. She can’t help but follow the rhythm of his deep and heavy breathing. His lips are slightly parted, and Robin has to fight off the urge to brush her fingertips against them.
Sometimes, she wishes none of them would ever have to know pain.
A silly thought, really, in a world that has been trying to hold them down and shut them up for all of their lives, a world in which they have chosen to become fighters. Especially Zoro.
His eyelids tremble ever so slightly, a sign that at least some part of him is awake.
She doesn’t have to move her body for her hand to reach his face. She quivers almost imperceptibly at the feather light contact of their skin, but then she feels him leaning in and the gesture gives her some confidence. Softly, she follows the line of his cheekbone with her finger. Zoro stays still.
He’s still mostly asleep, but she can still hear the low sound of protest coming out of his throat when she moves her hand away from him.
If he was fully conscious, he’d probably be ashamed of it.
But he’s broken, tired, and he looks like he’s in so much pain that it almost makes Robin want to cry. So she reaches out for him again. Touches the few unscathed patches of skin on his upper body with a gentleness neither of them has ever quite known.
He still doesn’t open his eyes, but there’s something close to relief plastered on his face.
⁂
It’s still dark on the infinite seas, and Brook just stopped playing his violin. Most of the booze is gone and the rest of the crew is fast asleep in the kitchen, too drunk and exhausted from the party to walk to their bed. Robin’s missing, and Zoro’s the only one still awake, so he leaves the galley as silently as he can and drunkenly looks for her.
He quickly spots her on the deck, holding onto the ship’s railing, looking out at the ocean. Her hair is flying away with the wind, and she’s looking over the horizon, with something dreamy in her eyes. Her shoulders are perfectly relaxed and she’s smiling a soft, mysterious smile. There’s a cloud of smoke coming out her lips and it almost looks like a scene from a painting. He walks up to her before he even has time to register his own movements, like she’s a magnet and he can’t help his feet.
“Everything okay?” he asks, and she barely turns around to look at him but their gazes meet and he reads a blissful intoxication in her eyes.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she holds her cigarette up, “I just needed a break.”
“I know what you mean,” Zoro responds, leaning onto the railing next to her. “They can be a lot, sometimes.”
Robin chuckles in that soft, sincere way he sometimes thinks is just for him.
“I do love how loud they get,” she explains. “I’m just… not completely used to it, still.”
Zoro only hums back in response but he hopes she knows how much he understands. How, as much as he's glad to have finally filled the silence, that happiness of theirs can sometimes feel overwhelming when you've always been used to such misery.
He looks over to her from the corner of his eyes and details her profile, her slender nose and her heavy-lashed eyes. Under the moonlight, she seems both unbreakable and ever so fragile. He notes, for the hundredth time, that the two of them are carved out of the same stone.
In his drunken haze, he almost reaches over and touches her. And he wants to, so, so badly but the truth is he’s not sure how to be gentle because he was never told. So instead, he grabs the smoke she’s holding out for him and brings it to his lips, a rarity he barely ever indulges in, but his heart is beating fast and he can’t quite think.
Zoro takes a drag out of the cigarette. It tastes like the red wine she’s been drinking. It tastes like her.
The fire in his chest burns so bright he’s afraid she’ll feel it.
⁂
“Stop fidgeting, O-Robi.”
Robin hurriedly sits back straight, shaken away from her thoughts by Yoshino’s scolding.
“I’m sorry, Okaasan.”
The older geisha only sighs in response, already back to working on the intricacies of her new recruit’s hair. She’s a good woman, Robin thinks, sometimes a little harsh and cold but in a way that hardly hides the profound love she carries for her younger geishas and her maikos.
Robin looks back at her reflection in the mirror and has trouble recognising herself, with her complicated hairdo and her heavy makeup.
It’s almost laughable, for a pirate to look so soft. The more days are passing, the more it makes her want to crawl out of her skin.
“We’re done here,” Yoshino finally announces. “And we’re a little ahead of schedule. Mr. Ishida should be here in an hour with your kimono.”
Robin lightly bows her head down.
“If I am going to be waiting, Okaasan,” she begins tentatively, “may I take a walk around the tea house? I do not know this part of the capital very well.”
Yoshino frowns.
“Unaccompanied? At this time of day? That doesn’t seem prudent, O-Robi.”
Robin only bows a little lower.
“I promise I will be careful.”
The matriarch doesn’t respond for a second, as if she’s weighing all her options carefully.
“Well, you do seem a little out of it, perhaps a walk would do you some good… Very well, you can go,” she finally agrees with a sigh, “but do stay on your guard. And I want you back in an hour. Do not be late.”
Robin is already up.
“Thank you,” she says with a final bow.
It’s already dark out, but the streets are illuminated by a soft, orange light and still well alive with food vendors and running children. Even with her extravagant makeup, there’s enough of a crowd for Robin to relatively blend in.
The Flower Capital is a remarkable piece of living History, with all the buildings looking the exact way they did a few hundred years ago: the advantage, she supposes, of having the Wano Borders closed up for so long. Robin could sit here and look at the city for hours without getting bored. But she only has an hour.
It takes her almost forty minutes of walking around before she hears Zoro’s voice, a quiet call from a rarely used, dark alley.
“Hey, Robin! To your right.”
He’s on her left, but she still takes the turn to meet him. She doesn’t stop walking until she’s sure to be out of view from passer bys.
She looks at him and it feels like a wave of relief is washing over her, like she’s suddenly infinitely sure that she’ll be back on the Sunny and out of these ridiculous clothes in no time.
He’s wearing a gray kimono that beautifully compliments the color of his eye, and with his three swords hanging at his waist he looks like he fits right in with the decor.
He’s looking at her in a way he never has. She can’t quite put her finger on what's changed, but she can’t miss it.
“How long do you have?” he suddenly breaks the silence.
“Only ten more minutes, I’m afraid.” She takes a look around. “I’m dancing in a teahouse not too far from here tonight.”
He nods in acknowledgement, trying to ignore the feeling of disappointment in his chest. “Are you doing okay?” he asks instead.
“I’m fine. I’ve made good progress. You?”
“‘M’ okay. Still no signs of Luffy, though. Have you seen the others at all?”
Robin shakes her head. “I’ve been stuck in the okiya for the past few weeks. The head-geisha keeps us under close surveillance. Have you?”
“Yeah. Usopp’s okay. Franky’s busting his ass off working as a carpenter.”
She chuckles lightly. Zoro’s chest lights up.
“I suppose he’d enjoy that.”
He lets the silence settle for a few seconds. Robin sighs. She’s beautiful, dressed as a geisha, with her hair up and her eyes lined with makeup. She looks like a goddess, like someone any of the men in the teahouse she’s working in tonight should never have the right to lay their eyes on. But Zoro can’t help but think back of a different Robin, one that was reading on the deck of the Sunny just a few weeks ago, with her hair free and cascading down her shoulders and a laughter stuck in her throat from one of Luffy’s jokes. The memory is almost a sad one when he looks at her now, well dressed, proper and trapped.
He wants to say something. Tell her he can help her.
“You look…” he begins, searching for the right words. “...different,” is all he manages to spit out.
Robin only laughs in response.
“Don’t you like the geisha attire? It seems pretty popular amongst the gentlemen here…”
“You look good, I mean…” he catches himself in the middle of his sentence, suddenly flustered. “You’re… it’s... nice. It’s just not… you.”
A somber veil suddenly covers her face, her eyes carefully avoiding his.
“I must say,” she admits in a quiet tone, “that I don’t quite recognize myself either.”
Yes, Robin looks beautiful in her disguise, under the warm orange light of the night street. But she’s not a geisha.
She’s a pirate.
Perhaps that’s why she’s so sad. Maybe that’s why seeing someone from her crew makes her want to cry.
“We’ll be out of here soon,” he says like he believes it, because he has to believe it. “Back with the crew. You’re gonna get out of that okiya.”
Robin only nods because she’s afraid her voice will betray her if she speaks. She can’t look him in the eyes, but she hopes he knows how grateful she is for him.
She takes a shaky breath to settle herself, swallows the knot in her throat in the process.
Trapped or not, she has a job to do. She opens her mouth to say her goodbyes to Zoro, but suddenly there’s something warm on her wrist. She looks down.
Long, rough fingers are holding her arm ever so gently, tentative and almost shy in a way she’s never seen Zoro be before.
Without thinking, she leans into his touch and then into his chest, letting her head rest on his shoulders while he slowly puts his arms around her, like he’s afraid he’ll break her, like he’s never been soft before. Maybe he never has.
His fingertips brush against the baby hair on her neck and the contact makes her shiver. She buries her face deeper into his neck and his grip around her shoulders becomes a little more insistent, as if he’d just found the hang of it.
She breathes him in. He smells earthy, almost like a wet forest ground. There’s also something there, something that’s so undeniably him that it makes Robin’s body relax for the first time since she’s got here. The skin of his neck is soft against her nose, and she feels like if she could just crawl into him, into the warmth that he surrounds her with, then, she could be okay.
But time’s up.
Robin pulls away and she swears he almost whines at the sudden lack of contact. She details his face for a few seconds. The bags under his eyes are more pronounced than usual, and his mouth is stretched in a line that she’s only even seen him wear at the dawn of an important battle.
She holds onto his hand for a second longer, hoping she can offer enough comfort for him to know they’ll both be okay.
He’s so close that she can feel his breath on her lips. If she bent forward just a little bit, she could kiss him.
“I have to go back, now,” is all she says. “Thank you for visiting me, Zoro.”
“Happy to.”
Robin turns around and walks away before she can even think of running off with him and never going back to that tea house.
“Be careful. Keep yourself safe,” his voice still resonates from behind her.
“I will. You too, okay?”
“I promise.”
They both walk away quickly, trying to ignore the pounding of their hearts against their chests.
⁂
The sky is gray and the air is too warm and humid. There’s noise everywhere, metal clinging against metal, shouts of pain and grunts of effort, stones falling and buildings collapsing. The whole thing’s a mess: the crew is scattered all around the town square that has become their battlefield, and there’s enemies everywhere. It smells like blood, sweat and gunpowder.
Zoro stops a hit from his opponent long before it has time to reach him. He’s already jumping. In a series of precise and agile movements, he grips onto his swords, raises them up in the air, falls onto his feet and lowers his blades on his enemies head. The man falls dead without even a scream. Three more are coming his way.
It’s a grim enough battle but nothing really seems like much when you’ve fought Kaido. He has all the faith in the world that his crew is doing just fine, and that he will come out of this fight victorious.
The three men are trying to hit him at the same time. Zoro smirks.
He’s in the mood for some fun.
He strengthens the grip around his swords and imbues all three blades with haki. Then, he opens his arms, lowers his shoulders.
The murderous dance begins.
It’s only when he’s made sure that the three men are definitely dead that Zoro finally looks around him.
There are a few bodies lying on the ground, but a lot of enemies are still up. Sanji’s kicking some guy with blue hair and a cape. Usopp’s trying – and managing — to shoot down parts of the big building behind him. So that the stones will hit the enemies, he assumes. Luffy’s fighting the big guy, a huge man with a low voice who reminds him a little bit of Crocodile.
Zoro can barely see them. All his attention is focused on the west side of the town square, like he’s been hypnotized.
Robin is fighting off three armored men. Their weapons are as big as her, but they have no problem holding them up and running. The three of them are incredibly fast, and yet right now they’re all running around in a disorganized manner, looking desperate, like they’ve lost all control of the situation. Robin is covered in blood, smiling at the face of their terror. He can see her inhumanly sharp teeth, when she smiles like that.
She’s also three meters tall. Her skin has turned red and there’s a set of wings growing from her back.
She’s a demon.
Zoro takes a labored breath and swallows heavily, stuck into place. Robin reaches for the three men and holds them in her fist, as if they were just little toys she’d found on the ground. Then, she crushes them. Just like that. Without even a second thought. Zoro can feel his heart beating in his ears.
There’s something frantic in her yellow eyes.
He keeps on watching her as she throws the lifeless bodies to the ground, as she takes a few deep breaths before turning back into her human form.
She shrinks in size, but it feels like she hasn’t gotten any smaller. Wild strands of hair are framing her blood stained face and her forest green dress is definitely ruined, but Zoro has never quite found her so beautiful.
Across the battlefield, Robin looks over to him.
Her chest rises up and down with heavy breaths. She smirks at him, and he swears she licks her lips, tasting the blood and thirsty for more.
Zoro shivers. He wonders if her lips would taste metallic against his.
There’s a black hole growing deep within his guts.
Hunger.
There’s two more men coming his way. He tears his eyes off Robin and gets into position.
As he cuts through the flesh, Zoro thinks of a Devil woman, and how happily he would let himself be devoured by her.
⁂
“Will you hand me the red book, please?”
“This one?” Zoro asks, pointing at the leather covered tome on the table.
“Precisely, yes,” Robin nods, standing on her ladder.
The library is a mess, books and maps opened everywhere, the shelves all organized in a random order, and Robin woke up this morning with an itch to clean it up. Zoro just happened not to have anything else to do, or at least that’s what he said, she thinks with a small, secretive smile. He’s been passing her books for the better part of the last hour without a complaint, a rarity for him. The comfortable silence that has wrapped around them has the familiarity of a home-cooked meal.
Robin places the last book from this section next to the others carefully, without forgetting to gently line the golden letters of the title with her fingertips. The library smells like candle wax, dust and old paper. Right where she fits.
With a deep, satisfied breath, she goes down the ladder and faces Zoro again. Their eyes meet and she offers him a sincere smile, and she thinks that his hands tremble a little, but then he smiles too, and it’s softer, something he doesn’t let out for anyone else but his crew.
From here, she can see the birth of his latest scar on his neck. The rest of it, running down his shoulder under his shirt, is left to the imagination.
Robin almost bites her tongue, but instead she looks away and leads him to a new section of the library. Gets on working.
He’d gotten the scar just a few months ago, on Raftel (she still can’t quite believe it.) She can’t believe that he got it fighting alongside her, either, right when she’d found the Rio Poneglyph. Discovered the True History.
Triggered the Great Revolution that saved everyone from the World Government.
Robin sighs, puts away another book that Zoro is passing her.
Lately, she’s been feeling peaceful, like there's a soft cloud growing in her stomach and taking over her body.
She’s been feeling okay.
“What’s this one?” Zoro suddenly asks, pointing at the green book he’s holding. There are two swords drawn on the cover. Robin smiles to herself.
“It’s about the supreme grade blades. It goes into great detail about their origins, their specificity… you can take it if you want.”
He only hums in response and puts the book aside. The morning light is coming right through the window behind them, and the gentle whisper of the ocean tickles her ears. Zoro passes her a new tome, her fingers brush against the cover and she turns to him.
Their eyes meet. Her heart misses just one beat.
They’re both holding onto the book and suddenly time slows down. His jaw clenches slightly, and his pupils are trembling like he’s not too sure where to look. In this light, she can perfectly detail the sharp line of his cheekbone, and the two freckles, right under his good eye. His chest is rising up and down with heavier and heavier breaths.
She looks down to his lips, just for a second, and he swallows with difficulty. His eyelid quivers, ever so slightly, like he’s afraid, afraid to want so much.
There’s something screaming, deep in her stomach. Perhaps she is afraid too.
But she is a monster recognizing one of her kind. And maybe, just for him, she can be soft.
She lets go of the book and brushes her hand along his forearm instead, feels the harshness of his bicep, draws the outline of his shoulder. She takes a small step forward, and lets her fingers find his neck. The skin here is soft and warm.
For the millionth time, Zoro shivers.
She takes another tentative step towards him, passes her palm through his hair, and Zoro leans in, in a way that makes him blush, in a way that feels desperate and hungry.
Robin can’t stop staring. She can’t believe how beautiful he is.
She doesn’t remember getting closer, but suddenly her lips are on his and they’re so soft she thinks her knees might give out. But she holds onto his neck and pushes herself closer, closer, closer, and his hands are on her hips, on her back, and he’s touching her like she’s made of porcelain. Because he’s so unsure – because he’s never been touched so gently either.
She kisses his jaw and his neck with all the softness she can conjure up and Zoro groans lowly.
There are fireworks bursting in her chest.
⁂
He’s not sure if he's dreaming. The moonlight is bright tonight, passing through the bedroom windows, and from here he can perfectly detail Robin’s soft features. Her hair is falling in wild strands around her face, the perfect frame for her flushed lips and her eyelids that fall heavy with desire. Her skin glows in the moonlight and it feels soft against his. She’s kneeling over him, not wearing any clothes, touching him.
It has to be a dream, doesn’t it?
But her lips are warm against his neck and her hands soft against his back, so he touches her anyway, wraps his rough hand around her soft thigh and brings her mouth to his, tries to translate, as well as he can, the pounding of his heart into his fingers.
He can feel her breathing getting heavier against his lips. Her cheeks are slightly flushed. Zoro can’t breathe, because he wants, wants, wants, but doesn’t know how to take, how to give, and his hands still tremble against her skin. But in her dark, heavy lashed eyes he reads a tenderness beyond words and he thinks that maybe, just for her, he could try.
Zoro carefully lowers her onto the mattress and brushes his lips against her neck, her chest, her stomach, her hips…and then his tongue is against her, and she tastes so wonderful, so human that his heart misses a beat. A deep sound of pleasure comes out of Robin’s throat, and her thighs shake around his head, and Zoro feels like he’s going to burst. So he keeps touching, kissing, caressing, ever so careful, ever so tentative, until she’s moaning his name, until she cums against his mouth.
There’s a few seconds, there, where he lies his head against her thighs and watches her, bare in front of him, still shaky from her orgasm, her eyes glassy with pleasure and he stays there, stunned by her beauty.
Her skin is soft against his cheek, but before he even has time to finish the thought she pulls him towards her and crashes her lips against him, hungry, desperate, and so, so, tender.
The rest of it feels like a blurry haze, but suddenly Zoro only feels warmth, the softness of her lips on his jaw, and her hands everywhere, on his back, his stomach, his shoulders, his ass, wrapped around his cock and caressing his chest. At some point he forgets which pair of limbs are hers and which ones have bloomed out of thin air, but everything is so warm and electrifying that he forgets to care.
Robin surrounds him with a gentleness she’s never quite known herself.
Zoro burns.
⁂
The first thing Robin feels when she wakes up is the sensation of skin against her cheek. Then, something brushing through her hair, careful and soft. A weight around her waist.
She takes a deep breath into his chest. Zoro.
The first thing she sees when she opens her eyes are his lips. Naturally, she leans in and leaves a feather light kiss there.
He’s already awake but it hasn’t been long, judging by the glassiness of his eye. At the contact of her mouth, he hums lowly and gives her a small smile.
Robin smiles too. He’s pretty, under the morning light. Naked in her bed.
The Sunny isn’t supposed to set sail until the afternoon, and the rest of the crew has plans for the morning, so they have enough time for her to lay her head back down against his chest, for him to hold her a little closer.
His hands go up her back and leave a trail of warmth behind them. She lets hers brush against his chest and his breathing quickens.
Killers’ hands, Robin thinks. Gentle against each other.