Chapter Text
The bedroom in Mihawk’s castle was always remarkably cold with just him in it. On the bright side, it lent itself to great sleep - especially since it came combined with Mihawk’s merciless training regimen, and the otherworldly exhaustion that followed. Most nights Zoro’s face would barely touch the pillow before he was already off to a deep, dreamless sleep.
Most days he would focus well and think only of the goal at hand. He was desperate to get stronger. Desperate to be there for his captain, and for his crew. But sometimes, in that cold, eerily quiet bedroom - nobody snoring, nobody releasing putrid farts, nobody talking in their sleep about becoming the pirate king - he would resist sleep, and he would pray for a dream, because he could feel something inside of him faltering.
Luffy’s ambition would not change; neither would his, or his place in the strawhats. When two years were up, he would get to go home to his friends, and they would sail on to the next big adventure, and they would never lose to anybody again.
But so many things could change in two years. He wondered anxiously about where they all were and what they were doing while he was sleeping. Were they getting stronger, too? Were they making new friendships? Finding out new things, discovering new perspectives?
… forgetting some old ones?
… what if he was the only one carrying these downy feelings, and Sanji came back a whole lot lighter?
He sighed against the cold pillow. Two years was a long time, and his dreams were so empty now. As empty as this room where he didn't belong. If he could just have one bright and vivid dream… just one dream where he could reach out and touch… it would fix everything.
He tossed and turned.
What’s he doing right now?
Who is he with?
Did he think about me today?
When he finally drifted to sleep, he would always be disappointed to find his dreams little more than sheets of billowing smoke. At the gossamer edges, someone was calling, but it was hopelessly out of reach - distant and shapeless.
He would wake up with a sigh, unable to stop himself from wondering if the end of their bizarre, shared dreams already held the dreadful answer in itself.
But every time he was about to lose hope after a particularly miserable night of fretting stupidly, he would hear it for certain. A voice in the distance, somewhere right beyond the edge of his airy dreams, but now startlingly clear. Right before he woke up, it would echo in the distance.
“Zooo-ro. ”
And though the bedroom would be just as empty as before, the persistent dimness of the Muggy Kingdom would transform from gloom into a promise, and he would put on a grin befitting a strawhat pirate.
Only 86 weeks left until tomorrow.
Somewhere on the Grand Line, a wrinkly old fortune-teller was closing up shop. She locked the chest containing most of her merchandise, then fumbled with her pockets as she began slowly trudging towards home. Pausing at a street corner, she blinked and aimed her gentle old face at the sky, just in time to catch a shooting star. After studying the constellations for a moment, she broke into deep, reverberating laughter. Wiping her eyes, she mumbled to herself.
“Gosh, that has to be the silliest story I ever heard.”