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[Zoro knows your father would never let him date you. That doesn't stop him from climbing through your window in the middle of the night.]
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The night is hot and humid but you feel unbelievably cold. Part of you wants to blame Roronoa Zoro for that state of things, although you know only your lovesick heart is to blame. Ever since you accidentally fell asleep against him while watching the stars, each night without him is a dread. The kingsize bed feels overwhelmingly big and empty, despite being the same bed you've been sleeping in your whole life.
You're sitting at your vanity, blindly staring at your reflection in the mirror, the activities of your nightly routine long forgotten. The nightgown you're wearing is so thin it's almost see-through and yet you still feel sweat running down your back. You've opened the window and unbuttoned half of the garment but it changed nothing. Monsoon season is truly uncomfortable.
"You look nice," a low voice speaks behind you.
Your blood runs cold as your heart halts for a moment. Quick enough to give yourself whiplash, you look over your shoulder at the unforeseen guest.
Zoro is sitting on your windowsill, back comfortably leaning against the window frame. His swords are propped up against the wall. It seems that he has been perched there for a while now, quietly watching you in your natural habitat. Beads of sweat on his forehead are glistening in the twilight of your candle-lit room. His hair, a deep shade of green, looks almost black in the darkness of the night. The intense look in his eyes makes you flustered, almost forcing you to look away. Still, something about his presence is so magnetic, you can't force your head away.
The initial dread of someone being in your room with you subsides but then another terror creeps in - the terror of someone stationed barely two rooms away. The very same man who sees anything pirate-related as problems that require violence as the solution. Even pirate hunters.
Nervously, you clench your hands into tight fists. "Do you have the slightest idea what my dad will do if he finds you here?" you hiss at Zoro, afraid that any sound would awaken your father.
The thought of 'You're worth it' is the first thing that crosses his mind. But no matter how true, Zoro can't find the courage to let such vulnerability be known.
"I don't care," he answers. Zoro gets up from the windowsill and lays in your bed with such casualness as though there is nothing out of the ordinary in his behaviour. Like he's not risking bodily harm to be within the confines of your bedroom.
You watch him in shock, eyes wide open. "He could come in at any moment, Zoro."
But he's just laying there, hands under his head as he's staring at you out of the corner of his eye. "Your old man's sleeping like a log," he states, uninterested.
The short moment of silence between you is filled with your father's muffled snoring. It's still a mystery to you how your mother can sleep with him in the same bed and wake up well-rested in the morning.
"Well, what if he wasn't?" you continue to argue but you already feel the need to do good by your father withdrawing, its place taken by something much more motivating and hard to explain. A calling, one might say.
"Just come here." Zoro motions at you.
Your flowy gown shuffles quietly as you get up from the chair by the vanity and gently lay on top of Zoro on your bed. As the familiar scent of wood, hay and metal hits your nostrils, you can feel all of your muscles immediately relax. All of the tension you carry in your shoulders and back is suddenly gone. In some unconscious reflex, one of his arms circles your waist, keeping you firmly in place. The strength of his hold couldn't be challenged even by a fatherly wrath.
Despite neither of you saying anything for a good moment, your bedroom is not filled with silence. Various sounds of the tropical island are pouring in through the open window: rustling bushes, laughter of late-night drinkers, cicadas, packs of stray dogs barking at each other in the distance. And, above all, the calming hum of the sea as its waves rhythmically wash the shore. The music of life as it follows its mundane, routine path.
"I can't sleep without you," you finally whisper against his firm chest.
"Me too," he admits quietly.
Although Zoro knows how ridiculous of a euphemism this really is, he never lets on. All of his waking hours are accompanied by thinking of you ('Are you safe? Are you alright? Do you miss him? Are you taking care of yourself? Do you ne-'). He's gone from taking multiple naps a day to barely one, only because he feels desperately uncomfortable sleeping alone as though his physiology knows that something important is missing. And when Zoro does finally fall asleep, you appear in his dreams. Sometimes he wakes up with the memory of your scent and touch lingering for a moment until he comes to his senses.
"Will you be here in the morning?" you ask hesitantly. It's selfish to ask Zoro to stick his neck out like that but at the same time, you desperately don't want this moment to end.
"Do you want me to?" he whispers.
As you nod, your cheek rubs against his chest.
You feel his chin resting on top of your head, further encircling you in a tight hold like a child who refuses to let go of their favourite toy. Perhaps Zoro is not the best with words but his actions tell you more than enough - if he could, he'd keep you close just like that until his last day. But knowing this moment ought to end in a few short hours, he wishes to memorize every detail of the way your body fits his.
That night Zoro wasn't sleeping in his own bed but still, he felt he was home.
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