Chapter Text
Zoro knew he had fallen in love with a madman. But, of course, that was the only kind of man he could ever have fallen in love with. He cleaned the Wado Ichimonji with a careful hand, slipping in and out of thoughts of Lufffy, as had become custom for him since the day he had met the alpha. Luffy’s wild laugh in the face of his marine grandfather, as if death did not in the least scare him, was seared so deep into mind he knew he would never forget it.
The party had died down by now, with most of the villagers turning in once the marines had left - some of the crew along with them. Zoro sat alone beside a dying fire, the beer he had been enjoying warming him up from the inside.
He felt good, being here, in the village Nami had grown up in and worked so hard to protect. He smiled to himself, as he lovingly cleaned his sword, he never would have thought that this would be his life - that he would be following some unruly alpha to the ends of the earth - but he didn’t regret it. And something told him that he would never come to regret it.
As if summoned, Luffy dropped down next to Zoro. "That girl. Was she your alpha?" he asked, as easy as if he was asking Zoro what he wanted to eat.
What girl? he almost asked, before he caught how Luffy's gaze fixed on the sword he held in his lap.
“No,” Zoro answered, his voice soft as he glided a finger along the length. "We were kids." And then, after a beat, as if needing to clarify, "She was my rival."
In their rush to leave, one of the villagers had left behind a bowl full of roasted meat. It was barely touched, but Zoro doubted it would have mattered much to Luffy even if some of the pieces were half chewed. Zoro watched him stuff his face, surprised that he had not dug into it as soon as he sat down.
"So?" Luffy asked, mouth full.
Zoro stilled.
It was his captain’s earnestness that had drawn Zoro in. The pirate world was built on lying, cheating and double-crossing, no one said what they meant - except for Luffy. He was honest, almost to a fault, and spoke his mind without fear or regret. But his honesty was a double-edged sword, in this moment knocking the wind from Zoro’s lungs.
You think you know a guy. The thought tinged with a sudden empty bitterness.
"Spoken like someone with an omega back home," Zoro said, faking a nonchalance he did not feel.
He was not used to jealousy and did not know how to hide it well, but he hoped that his voice was flat enough it wouldn't give away the deep pit that had suddenly opened in his stomach. He could have laughed - as if Luffy would even notice.
Zoro knew what he was. Omegas were beautiful and soft. Even the most sea-hardened omega still looked like an omega, smelled like an omega. But not him. Even as a child, he stood out as too rough, and, therefore, much too ugly. With giggled questions of, "Are you sure you're even an omega, Zoro?" and whispered remarks of, "That Zoro again… He'll be just like my cousin Ichigo, I tell you. He'll never find a good alpha," following him for as long as he could remember.
He was brutish. He was a bloodied sword when what any distinguished alpha wanted was a gentle hand. This had come to suit him fine, in time, for he had learned – as all omegas sooner or later came to learn – that alphas were more trouble than they were worth.
They were a dime a dozen, each one hornier and more entitled than the last. He knew many an omega who went into heat with a nice enough alpha, whether acquaintance or trusted friend, and woke up afterwards with a fresh marking – and an alpha long gone. Zoro never needed an alpha to help him through his heats, or to protect him, or to give him a cushy and comfortable life. He never needed an alpha at all. Nor – and this was most important to him – did he want one.
But Zoro was an omega after all - and despite it all. He could run away from his true nature but it would always be there. Waiting to trip him up when he least expected. And who would have expected it to find him tied to a cross in a Marine yard? In the form of a scruffy boy with deep dark eyes and a crooked smile? Not him.
Omegas talked. He had heard of omegas who knew right away when an alpha was meant to be their alpha. And, of course, he had always dismissed it as romantic fantasy. As little more than a story told by bored omegas who had nothing better to do with their time than wait for a good alpha to swoop in and take them away from their nothing lives.
But Zoro, possibly more than anyone, knew that he couldn't dismiss it any longer. Not when something had shifted in him from the very first moment he and Luffy’s eyes had met. Not when Luffy had asked him to join his crew and all he wanted to do was tilt his head back, reveal the length of his neck, and say, "Bite me and make me yours." Not when it took everything in him to remain level-headed and say, "Who says I want to play pirates with you?" instead.
Luffy was his captain and his alpha. Even with nothing between them and with no marking on Zoro's neck, Luffy was his. He was the only alpha Zoro had ever wanted. And he was the only alpha Zoro knew he would ever want. And he was sitting beside Zoro, now, asking about other alphas as if he didn't care who Zoro belonged to. As cavalier as if he had a string of omegas behind him.
"What? Why would I have an omega back home?" Luffy asked, his brow furrowed and his mouth paused mid-chew.
Zoro couldn't help but roll his eyes; mostly at himself and his own spiral. Luffy's earnestness once again pulling him out of the depths of his thoughts as quickly as he had fallen into them. He pushed lightly at the alpha’s shoulder.
"Forget it," Zoro said, meaning it.
The night had long since died down and the exhaustion he had not even noticed now hit Zolo like a brick. He stood up and stretched, letting out a big yawn as he did so.
He felt Luffy's gaze on him. "I'll wake you when we're ready to leave," Luffy said. He hit his fist into the middle of his palm, sounding determined.
Zoro couldn't help but laugh. "With the way you sleep I'll be carrying you out of here over my shoulder," he said, mouth lifting into a gentle half smile. His gaze softened, and he fixed his attention on settling the Wado Ichimonji in place if only to stop himself from saying how much he wouldn’t mind.
They set sail early the next morning, ship packed to the brim with all that they needed and arms filled with parcels the Cocoyasi villagers had all but forced upon them. Each of them were spurred on by an excitement that bubbled up deep within. An excitement that bubbled up in Zoro, too; this feeling that they were on the cusp of something too new and too wonderful to put into words.
“Let’s celebrate!” Usopp exclaimed.
Zoro looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Celebrate what?” he asked, before anyone else could. They had just spent all of last night celebrating.
“Our first official voyage as the Straw Hat Pirates, of course!” the other omega replied with a wide smile.
Zoro huffed out a breath that could almost be a laugh. He couldn’t help but feel entertained by Usopp, even at his most over-excited and annoying.
“He’s right, a big celebratory meal is exactly what we need,” Sanji said. He must have planned to make something special for Nami anway, Zoro presumed, from the small basket of tangerines he had just picked. “ What about it lads - and my dear lady? A big meal to commemorate setting sail?” he continued, looking around with a smile and a shine in his eyes.
“With lots of meat!” Luffy stretched out from who-knows-where to say, his mouth a wide smile that took up half his face and curved his eyes.
“No. Not ‘with lots of meat’,” Nami cut in, aggravation clear in the tightness of her voice. “We have to be careful with our food, Luffy. I don’t think you need me to remind you how bad it would be to be stuck out here with nothing to eat!”
Zoro didn’t really care what would be served for dinner, or how much, as long as there was alcohol. He had spied several bottles of tangerine liquor amongst the Cocoyasi Village parcels and had been dying for a sip ever since. And, if Zoro was being honest with himself, he was still unnerved enough by the recent surge of his feelings that he needed distance between him and Luffy. As much distance as he could get on a pirate ship in the middle of the sea.
Deciding to leave the rest of the crew to their bickering, he took his chance to slip away for a nap on the deck, only waking up once the smell of freshly cooked food finally reached him.
“What are we eating?” he drawled, stretching as he walked into the kitchen where the Nami, Sanji and Luffy were already gathered.
Usopp came in close behind him. Pumping an arm in excitement, he glanced at the table and said, “Sweet, seafood rice!”
“And meat!” Luffy added on, casting his wide smile on Zoro. Of course, Zoro smiled back. Luffy’s smile was so contagious, how could he stop himself?
Shifting along the bench, the alpha kept his eyes locked on Zoro’s as he patted the seat beside him - silently telling Zoro to come and sit. It was the sort of thing that, if they weren’t captain and first mate, would make Zoro feel like Luffy was an alpha commanding his omega. The kind of thing that, even still, made Zoro’s heart stutter and his throat run dry.
He broke Luffy’s gaze to look around the kitchen. No one had brought the tangerine liquor out, yet, so Zoro took it upon himself to do so. While doing so, he made sure to grab a bottle for Nami, too, milk for Luffy and sake for the table.
“What, no water?” Sanji said, eyeing Zoro as he placed the armful of drinks on the table.
“What, you can’t get it yourself?” he retorted, already dropped into the seat Luffy had saved for him.
“You think a guy could be shown some gratitude -” Sanji grumbled.
Zoro stopped paying attention, already much more preoccupied with the bottle of liquor sweating in his hand. He popped the tab at the same time Nami did, and they clinked their bottles together before each taking a large swig. Its sweetness evened out by its zestier notes, the liquor was well worth the wait. It slid down his throat with ease and warmed his stomach from the inside.
“Hey, this is pretty good. You’re not saving the other bottles for anything, are you, Nami?”
“Nope,” Nami answered with a short shake of her head. “Besides, with the trees, Sanji could make another batch when these finish. Though… It probably won’t taste as good.”
Zoro shrugged. He guessed that Sanji could get it pretty close. Whatever his many faults, even Zoro had to admit that the cook was somewhat of a master in the kitchen.
He tilted the bottle towards Luffy. “Want a sip?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” Luffy shook his head and said around a mouthful of food.
“It tastes like juice.”
But he shook his head again, and Zoro wasn’t one to insist.
He finished his bottle and went back for two more. If not for wanting to leave some for Nami to enjoy, he would probably have finished all seven of the bottles by himself without much thought. It was a refreshing drink that went straight to his head and paired well with the spread of food that Sanji had prepared.
And, in that moment, sipping on his second bottle, listening to Luffy talk about what Zoro had missed while he slept and to Usopp speak about the meal from his childhood that this dish reminded him of, Zoro felt at home. He had been so on-edge since the night in Cocoyasi, that it felt good to be able to sit beside his captain without a care in the world or for what they were to each other. Or, rather, for what Zoro was to Luffy.
He found himself leaning into Luffy. Relaxed. Breathing in his scent without thinking. He felt himself heating up and the room grow soft and hazy around him. He hadn’t been drunk in a long time, but he remembered it feeling something like this.
This tangerine liquor hit harder than expected, he thought, almost giddy.
“It’s really hot in here,” he said, suddenly, paying neither the sudden warmth nor his words much mind.
Luffy turned to him. With something like alarm in his voice, he said, “It’s not, but… You’re burning up -”
Burning up?
He pressed a hand to his forehead. He was hot to the touch, and covered in sweat on top of that. So much so, his shirt was sticking to his back - as if he had just trained until exhaustion under the midday sun… Or as if he was in heat.
Despite how much his body screamed at him to do the opposite, he pushed away from Luffy with force. “I’m going to my room,” he grunted, not caring if anyone actually heard him.
He just needed to get out of there.
He stumbled through the ship, not letting his guard down until he was behind his bedroom’s firmly shut door. How stupid could he be? Of course, he wasn’t drunk or anything like it - especially not from something as sweet and light as that tangerine liquor.
He pulled his shirt off and crumpled to the floor, gasping for air. This was definitely his heat. But even someone like him, who didn’t care about tracking or never paid much attention to when it came and when it ended, knew that it was early. Unnaturally so. His heats came every two months or so, and if he had to guess he still had about a month before his next one was due.
A knock came on the door. Before Zoro could ask who it was or yell at them to leave him alone, he heard Nami’s voice. “It’s me and Usopp. We’re coming in,” she said, and, because it was her, she didn’t care to wait for a response before walking in - of course, making sure Usopp closed the door behind them.
Usopp who had no mind for tact and yelled, “Man, you stink!” as soon as he walked in, exaggeratedly pinching his nose with his one free hand. In his other, he held onto the handle of a small bucket. “You’re lucky you got out of there when you did.”
“Don’t you take heat blockers or anything?” Nami asked, a hint of accusation in her question.
Zoro didn’t like the sound of it, but he also wasn’t strong enough to argue back with her, so all he could do was grunt in response.
Of course, he didn’t take heat blockers. He had never seen the importance in them in his time as a bounty hunter, and even less now as part of Luffy’s crew. They were all aware of each other’s secondary genders, none of the crew seeing much point in hiding something they all considered so arbitrary. And, to Zoro, who was so used to being overlooked or undermined simply because of and from the moment people found out he was an omega, it made him feel welcomed. It made him feel as if he could simply be himself, not needing to go above and beyond to prove himself as an omega in an alpha’s world.
It also helped that someone like Luffy was the only alpha amongst them - someone who would never take advantage of Zoro in such a vulnerable moment, even though that was all his heat-riddled body wanted.
No… that his body needed... He needed Luffy to walk through that door and send Nami and Usopp away. He was strong enough that he could lift them up and throw them out with ease, and Zoro was weak enough that he would neither be able to fight him off nor protest. Nor would he want to. He needed Luffy to lock the door and take him, the sounds of Nami and Usopp’s outrage drowned out by the sounds of their moans and their bodies moving in tandem.
Zoro buried his face into the floor and groaned. “Water,” he said to no one in particular, his throat dry.
He downed the bottle that Usopp handed him, but he already needed another.
“Here,” Nami side, rolling him onto his back and placing a cool towel on his forehead. It was a temporary relief, that all-in-all did nothing, but calmed him in the moment nonetheless.
“Thanks.”
“You owe me.”
“And me,” Usopp chimed in. “You really should start tracking your heat. Once-”
“It’s early,” Zoro cut him off to say.
“What?”
“Something must have triggered it during dinner - probably the tangerine liquor. It’s happened before. Once.” A long time ago, but then he had been poisoned during a mission, and he doubted that he had been poisoned tonight.
Omega’s bodies were sensitive in nature, they all silently reasoned, unfortunately what they were fine with ingesting one day could leave them in a writhing mess the other.
It wasn’t worth too much thought, and as long as he had an idea of what triggered his heat, he could wait for his heat to pass and avoid it from this night onwards. And while it may not have any affect on Usopp, Zoro imagined he was making a note to not touch the tangerine liquor unless he end up in the same embarrassing situation.
“Ugh,” Zoro muttered.
He was uncomfortable, his body on fire with no source of relief. It made him impatient. He could barely get his thoughts into order, let alone explain any of this to the beta and omega sitting beside him. So rather than answer the questions asked by their gazes, he threw his arm over his eyes with a groan.
Right now, he just wanted them out of his room.
“I’ll be fine by tomorrow.” He just needed to sleep it off.
Nami replaced the towel on his forehead with a new one. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re so lucky,” Usopp sighed. “Mine always lasts for a week. At least.”
Responding just to respond, Zoro grunted.
He waited for the sound of their departing footsteps, the door closing softly behind, before he rolled over onto his side and curled into a tight ball.
Zoro could not remember the last time a heat had left him so uncomfortable. It was definitely something in that tangerine liquor that had not agreed with him - it’s the only thing he could think of that could have led to this. Sanji was careful with his cooking and nothing he made had ever disagreed with Zoro in such an extreme way.
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath in, held it, and let it out. He had slept through his heat before, Zoro reminded himself, through most (if not all) of them, in fact, and he could do it today.
By this time tomorrow he knew he would be fine.
Except that by the time the sun rose and Sanji came knocking on his door with breakfast, Zoro felt worse than ever.
And from Sanji’s burst of laughter as he took one look at him and said, “Oh, you poor, pathetic little thing!” he knew he looked it to.
“Shut up.” But even he knew that, in this moment, his words held no power.
Some time during the night he had pulled every piece of soft material he could find in his hole of a room into a giant nest - item of clothing or a blanket, it did not matter to him, as long as he could bury himself in the middle of it. However… While a comfort, it did little to help.
Sanji crouched beside him. He placed the bowl of what smelled like porridge on the floor, and ran a hand through Zoro’s sweat-drenched hair.
“Seeing you like this, I can’t help but feel the tiniest bit better than you.”
Zoro swatted his hand away. He wanted to argue, but he thought of how he looked in this moment and figured he had nothing to lose. He seemed like a pathetic omega, so for once should he not allow himself to be a pathetic omega? Even as the thought ran through his mind and he opened his mouth, he knew this was his heat talking. He knew he would regret this as soon as his heat passed.
“You-” he started through gritted teeth. “I need you to do me a favour.”
Sanji cocked an eyebrow. “Oh. And what do I get out of this?”
He stank of cigarette smoke. It was starting to make Zoro nauseous.
You get to see me at my most desperate and pathetic, he thought. “Get me something of Luffy’s. A shirt. A towel. Anything.” He hated how much he sounded like he was begging, even as he was aware that that was exactly what he was doing.
A long moment passed, as Sanji did nothing but stare. His eyes wide. Then, and as Zoro expected, he fell onto his butt from the force of his laughter.
Asshole.
“Why should I do that?”
“You bastard! You think I’d ask you something like this if I had a choice?” he yelled.
Turns out he had a bit of fight in him after all. If he were any stronger he would have punched Sanji hard enough to send him flying.
But… they were both omegas. And, in this moment, at least, they understood each other.
Zoro watched as Sanji’s gaze softened as he looked down at him - in genuine care or in pity, he couldn’t tell, nor could he bring himself to care. He was drenched with sweat. He was curled up on his front to hide the erection he had had since the night before. He needed an alpha’s scent to help him through this. He needed Luffy.
Sanji gave in. “Fine.” He stood up and pointed at the porridge he left behind. “Eat that before it gets too cold. It should help.”
“Thanks,” he forced out. Then, as an afterthought, he added almost urgently, “Don’t let Luffy see you.”
It would be the end of him if Luffy found out the kind of errand Zoro had sent the other omega; he would never recover from the embarrassment and shame.
In typical fashion, Sanji simply dismissed him with a wave over his shoulder as he exited.
The door barely closed behind Sanji’s back before Zoro let out a deep breath. Whatever had triggered his heat had triggered its worst symptoms, too. Sanji’s scent had left him slightly nauseated. So much so that he could not even bring himself to touch the food that had been left behind, not for how Sanji’s scent clung to it.
He burrowed deeper into his nest and comforted himself with the thought that he would be better once he had something of Luffy’s to cling to.
Luffy… Even the thought of him caused Zoro’s blood to run hot.
The alpha had been running through his mind for hours. When Zoro’s body had finally allowed him a few short moments of sleep at sunrise, he found that even in his dreams he could not escape him.
Zoro could not bring himself to touch himself - least of all to the thought of his captain, his friend - adamant that the discomfort would pass naturally, in its own time, as it always did. But he dreamt of Luffy deep inside him, his teeth even deeper in his neck, and he woke up out of breath and sticky from cum.
At the thought, he rubbed his front against his nest; now, too exhausted and too far gone to feel any shame. Or, rather, so exhausted and so far gone that the shame was entirely overshadowed by his need for release.
He heard footsteps coming towards his door. They sounded fast, as if someone was running. Worst of all, they didn’t sound like Sanji’s.
Luffy burst through the door.
“Zoro!” he exclaimed, almost out of breath, at the same time that Zoro yelled, “What the hell are you doing!? Get out of here!”
“What do you mean? I’m here to help.”
“I’m in heat, you idiot! Haven’t you been around an omega in heat before?”
Zoro watched the alpha kick the door shut and walk closer. He shut his eyes, wanting nothing more than Luffy to turn and leave; wanting nothing more than for Luffy to have never walked in in the first place. The last thing he wanted was for Luffy to see him like this, burrowed deep in his nest.
“Hmm…” Luffy hummed. “Can I come in there?”
“I’m serious, Luffy,” he said, through gritted teeth.
“Me too. Sanji told me you weren’t doing so good, so, I came to make you feel better:”
Once his heat passed, Zoro thought, he was going to kill Sanji. “I’m going to kill him,” Zoro said to Luffy, his voice lacking strength but making up for it with conviction.
“I’m not going to do anything, I promise,” Luffy said, catching and keeping Zoro’s gaze. “I just need to look after my first mate. Won’t you let me look after you? Please.”
Zoro needed him. He needed Luffy so badly, it took all his strength to not reach out and cling on to him; to pull him down and kiss him; to make sure he was covered in his alphas scent. But he couldn’t think of anything he liked less than the idea of Luffy looking after him out of a sense of duty.
“You don’t need to do anything besides leave your shirt. I’ll be fine by tonight just with that.”
“Zoro…” Luffy sighed. “I want to help.”
His words washed over Zoro, instantly calming him. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, a heavy scent settling in his stomach. With that, Zoro looked up at Luffy, his eyes wide. He should have known that was the greater reason he felt so calm in his captain’s presence - his alpha had released his pheromones.
Luffy’s scent filled the room. It curled around Zoro like a hug. The nausea that Sanji’s scent had brought upon him was gone like it had never come upon him to begin with. He could only imagine how much better he would feel with Luffy beside him; how much sooner this wretched heat would pass.
And, if he wants to… Zoro reasoned…
He nodded.
The nest Zoro had built was on the smaller side, but still he inched aside to make space for Luffy to squeeze in beside him. His captain kicked off his shoes and, crossing his legs, nestled in near Zoro’s head.
Zoro breathed him in deeply. He smelled of meat and sweat, and Zoro couldn’t get enough of it. He tried to be subtle. His face was all but buried in his nest. But Luffy’s gaze was locked solely on him, so of course he noticed.
“Hey, Zoro.” And Zoro could hear the gentle smile in his voice.
“Hmm.”
Luffy patted his knee. “Come here.”
Zoro sighed, but who was he to resist. He moved closer to the alpha and placed his head in his lap. It took everything in him not to let out a deep breath - one of comfort, and of safety. One of love, too, he supposed. Because in this moment he could not deny that he did feel loved.
This was going to do awful things to his heart.
The more he relished in Luffy’s scent, the easier it was for him to breathe. His fever had also started to subside, he noticed. Yet he was still as hard as ever; even harder now that they were skin to skin, completely enveloped by the alphas pheromones.
Suddenly self-conscious, he twisted a bit more onto his front. Anything to hide his erection. He hoped that Luffy had not noticed the movement; that he had not noticed his erection at all. It was one thing for Luffy to be with him during his heat - to assume that he was hard and that he needed that release - and another for him to see it.
It was so much more intimate that Zoro didn’t think he would ever recover. No, he knew he would never recover.
He buried his face in Luffy’s lap, and said, “You smell good.” Because he did. He loved how his captain smelled; he could breathe him in for hours.
“You smell good too, Zoro,” Luffy said.
He started running a hand through Zoro’s hair, much to Zoro’s pleasant surprise. It felt so good, Zoro forced himself to swallow done a rumbling purr.
“Zoro…?”
“Hmm.”
A long moment passed without Luffy saying anything, so Zoro lifted his head from the alpha’s lap, his eyebrow cocked in question.
“What?” he asked.
For once, Luffy seemed to be at a loss for words. His face was red. Finally, he said, “If you need to… sort yourself out… you can. I won’t look.”
“I’m fine.” The words were forced out through gritted teeth. He could feel his face heating up.
A thousand curses aimed towards Sanji ran through his head. That cook better count his days for this.
“You don’t have to restrain yourself around me, Zoro,” Luffy said, looking and sounding so earnest Zoro’s body almost made the decision for him. “I’m your captain, and you’re my first mate, right?”
“Luffy. This goes beyond being captain and first mate.”
“How?” the alpha asked, seeming to pose the question more for Zoro’s sake than his own. As if he had already thought everything through, for once, and Zoro was the one completely out of the loop and ignorant.
How?
It just did.
How?
It dawned on Zoro, then, that Luffy truly may just be doing his duty as a captain. Nothing more and nothing less. What was a functioning pirate crew without its first mate? Nothing. He needed his first mate to be back in action, that’s why he was here. Not for the first time in the last few days, Zoro felt an disgusting jealousy bubbling up inside him.
Oh.
This meant nothing… Luffy would do the same for Sanji or Usopp if it was ever asked of him…
His anger and his heat clashed in that moment, making the decision for him.
“Look if you want,” he said, voice rough. “I don’t care.”
Zoro freed his cock from his pants. It was hot and throbbing and begging to be touched. A deep moan escaped him as he wrapped his hand around it. He buried his face into Luffy’s lap, his hand unmoving as he allowed himself to adjust to the attention after so many hours of ignoring and burying deep his desire.
Was Luffy looking? Or was he staring at the wall waiting for Zoro to not need him anymore? Suddenly he was so angry, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He wanted to hit Luffy. To fight it out and never speak of this again. But he had no energy, all his blood rushing to the cock he could feel getting harder.
Fingers laced through his hair. And when Luffy spoke, saying, “Move your hand, Zoro,” Zoro almost came from that alone.
He nodded. Ever the obedient omega, if only for Luffy.
His fingers were rough against his member. It was just what he needed. He could count the amount of times he had sex on one hand, but, still, he had never been one to like it baby soft and silky smooth; to like it gentle. It was the same for when it came to pleasuring himself. His body was battle-worn and, thus, he needed battle worn hands and scarred skin. He needed his lover’s body to feel lived in, he needed their movements to be almost thoughtlessly rough.
“Hah…”
He touched himself and imagined that Luffy’s hands would be the right amount of calloused, the right amount of smooth. He imagined Luffy making his hand big enough to cover Zoro’s dick from base to tip, tightening his grip until Zoro was crying from pleasure - until he was clawing at his skin and crying out his name.
He touched himself, breathed in Luffy’s scent, felt his hole get wetter and wetter with slick and imagined what would happen if he were shameless enough to ask his captain to enter him.
Zoro moaned just at the thought. Luffy could enter him so easily.
He suffocated on the sudden strength of Luffy’s pheromones. Then, on the sudden strength of the hand in his hair as Luffy’s grip tightened.
“Luffy…” Zoro moaned his name over and over again, ignoring the rational part of his brain that told him to shut up and get it over with. Masturbating in front of your captain was one thing, but moaning his name so desperately seemed like taking it too far.
The hand in his hair curled around the back of his neck. “You’re so good, Zoro,” Luffy said, sounding earnest in a way that Zoro was starting to hate.
But this was his captain, his alpha, and Zoro could not help but feel his body get hot from his praise.
With deep, gasping breaths - as if desperate to swallow down not air but as much of Luffy’s pheromones as possible - he came.
Zoro kept his eyes screwed shut. He felt that if he opened his eyes now - as he lay in a rumpled heap in front of his captain, covered in sweat and reeking of cum and omega pheromones mixing with alpha pheromones - it would come crashing down on him how real this all was.
He had been so desperate for Luffy since he had met him, and his desperation had only grown the more time he spent with him. But this was the last thing he had ever wanted… He felt like he had pushed his captain into a corner and forced him to share something so intimate not out of passion but out of necessity and obligation. He had allowed himself to entertain a thought or two of them mating, imagining it as something romantic and burning with desire, but that was now so out of reach so as to be laughable.
He felt pathetic. It surprised him how much he felt like crying.
More so when he realised that Luffy’s hand had not left him, running through his hair and along his neck. Soothing him with gentle touches and an even gentler release of his scent.
“Hah…”Zoro sighed.
Zoro rubbed his face against Luffy’s stomach and lap, and felt all his anxieties melt away (at least for the time being) as felt the rumble of Luffy’s laugh. “Hey! That tickles!”
Finally, Zoro opened his eyes. In that moment, coming face to face with the span of Luffy’s stomach now covered in wet hickeys and even wetter bite marks, Zoro’s face heated up. He imagined his face must be bright red with a blush. He remembered doing none of that. He realised in that moment, too, that his face was wet with tears. He didn’t remember when he had cried either.
Luffy’s eyes had rarely left him the entire time he had been in the room. Now, Zoro felt a heavy gaze on him and looked up, embarrassed.
Before he could choke out an apology, Luffy said, “You must have needed me more than you thought.” His voice was light, almost teasing.
“Y-yeah. Whatever triggered my heat made it a bad one,” Zoro explained. He dropped his eyes back to the marks he had left all over Luffy’s skin. He couldn’t help but feel proud of them. They were beautiful. Until they faded, he thought, smugly, Luffy was his. “Sorry about that,” he said, eventually, despite how little he meant it.
“Huh? What’s there to be sorry about?”
Zoro hated that Luffy sounded genuinely confused. Already, his pleasure was starting to fade and that old irritation at his captain was starting to creep back in. In a huff, he turned away from Luffy. But, in the end, he was thankful… He felt better than he had in almost a full day, and knew that now he could finally get a good few hours of sleep - and, that, by the time he woke up his heat would have passed.
Stretching, he let out a long yawn. Luffy seemed to take it for what it was, and stood up to leave.
The silence that grew between them was awkward, drawn out. Neither of them were the best conversationalists, and what would they even have to say to each other after what they had just done. That is, until Luffy dropped his shirt in front of Zoro’s face, and bent over him with a wide smile, saying, “I’ll tell Sanji to make you lunch. Meat! Lots of meat! To keep your energy up.”
Once again, a bright blush burned across Zoro’s face. He could not remember the last time he had blushed so much.
“I don’t want meat!” he said, swatting Luffy away. “I want to sleep!”
Zoro closed his eyes, adamant to ignore Luffy until he left. He chattered for a bit more before he finally got the hint and, with a promise to bring Zoro something at dinner, walked out. On edge, Zoro listened carefully to the sound of his footsteps getting further and further away. As soon as he was sure Luffy was gone for good, and that he would not be walked in on, Zoro brought the shirt to his nose and breathed his captain’s scent deeply in.