Luffy gave him a part of his old sash. Zoro traded his old bandanna for it.
Neither of them were really into rings. Zoro thought it felt weird on his finger when he held a sword, and Luffy would’ve just lost his after toying around with it too much. But to be completely honest, it wasn’t really a marriage. Not in the standard meaning of the word.
On the back of an old grocery list somewhere was the legal paperwork labeling them both, “husbands”, which Nami had officiated and signed (along with the rest of the crew, for good measure). Luffy never liked that word. He associated it with old sailors complaining about their wives, as though they’d lost their free will. The old “ball and chain” or something.
Being with Zoro certainly wasn’t prison. If anything, he felt more free by his side than he’d ever been before.
People ask him on occasion if anything’s changed. He never knew what to say, really. Things were the same as ever, legal stuff or not. Whether it was two years or twenty, stuff between him and Zoro didn’t change. Side-by-side, back-to-back, in each other’s arms at night. That’s how he wanted it. That’s how it stayed.
–Well, some stuff does change.
Zoro’s cheekbones stick out way more. He loses an arm and some of his bulky Zoro-ness. Luffy’s face gets less squishy and somewhere down the road he takes a liking to Zoro’s unshaven morning look. He also grows a little. Maybe.
(He really should’ve kept track of that somewhere.)
Still, right now isn’t a whole lot different from back then. The future doesn’t change a whole lot. Not really. His feelings don’t go away after Zoro’s hair turns completely white and he starts relying on a slew of meds to keep his health steady. Zoro’s lap is no less comfortable even when he gets all bony.
“My head feels empty, though,” Luffy comments, scratching at his hair with a frown. “It’s weird not wearing a hat.” He hums. “But I can’t just replace that hat with any ol’ hat, y’know?”
He feels Zoro press up against his back, his arm and elbow nub wrapping around him. His chin rests in his hair and makes him feel a little less hat-less.
“Do you regret handing it over?”
“No,” Luffy says immediately. “Doesn’t mean I don’t miss it.”
It was the previous wearer of that hat, after all, that made him set out. It was that hat that motivated him to keep going. It was the thing he’d clung to for so, so long as a comfort object. He sighed contentedly and relaxed in Zoro’s hold. That hat let him meet Zoro, too.
“You think there’s another hat like that out there, Zoro?” Luffy speaks up again, looking up at him. “Some cool adventure hat waiting for me to find?”
“Hard to say.” Zoro grins down at him. “We could try looking for it.”
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