Too Warm, Too Bright
One Piece is property of Oda Eiichiro and Shueisha/Jump. I'm just fucking around here.
"He doesn't really turn people away, you know." Zoro turned his head lazily on the pillow.
Paulie's hand found the slick gold of Zoro's earrings. "Oh, I know."
Zoro's ear was starting to flush, warm and strangely delicate under the rigger's fingers. Paulie wanted to put his mouth to that ear, kiss it, breath against it, but to do so would change this moment into something else. Not yet.
He moved his hand to the scar spanning the swordsman's chest. The feel of a deep wound long healed, or at least as much healed as it ever would be, was unnervingly familiar. Chest or back, blade or gun, some texture of scarring felt the same, no matter how differently the shape was twisted.
Kind of like how the end, whether it came amicably or by vicious betrayal, always carried a familiar sting.
Well, things hadn't ended yet. He took the swordsman's hand in his, feeling the strength as Zoro squeezed back, the toughness and wear so similar to the hands of a carpenter, but crucially, distinctly different.
Paulie wanted to run away. To do so could be taken as a failure to live up to certain responsibilities, but he was pretty much failing to live up to them anyway. What would it really cost him? A job anyone could do, a life where so much had been twisted, broken beyond repair.
He wanted to. He wouldn't.
"Nakama" had always meant something to him, if in a vague and all too often abstract way. What it was to the Straw Hats, though, was something all its own. Something Paulie had seen in action, been close enough to feel the warmth of.
There were some things that burned too pure, to look at for long. Some things that he could never bring himself to touch.
"He doesn't really turn people away, you know." Zoro turned his head lazily on the pillow.
Paulie's hand found the slick gold of Zoro's earrings. "Oh, I know."
Zoro's ear was starting to flush, warm and strangely delicate under the rigger's fingers. Paulie wanted to put his mouth to that ear, kiss it, breath against it, but to do so would change this moment into something else. Not yet.
He moved his hand to the scar spanning the swordsman's chest. The feel of a deep wound long healed, or at least as much healed as it ever would be, was unnervingly familiar. Chest or back, blade or gun, some texture of scarring felt the same, no matter how differently the shape was twisted.
Kind of like how the end, whether it came amicably or by vicious betrayal, always carried a familiar sting.
Well, things hadn't ended yet. He took the swordsman's hand in his, feeling the strength as Zoro squeezed back, the toughness and wear so similar to the hands of a carpenter, but crucially, distinctly different.
Paulie wanted to run away. To do so could be taken as a failure to live up to certain responsibilities, but he was pretty much failing to live up to them anyway. What would it really cost him? A job anyone could do, a life where so much had been twisted, broken beyond repair.
He wanted to. He wouldn't.
"Nakama" had always meant something to him, if in a vague and all too often abstract way. What it was to the Straw Hats, though, was something all its own. Something Paulie had seen in action, been close enough to feel the warmth of.
There were some things that burned too pure, to look at for long. Some things that he could never bring himself to touch.