Chapter Text
Usopp has spent most of his life telling stories. Some true, most not, usually to hide his own fears and failings, but occasionally just to entertain. It’s this last way that Usopp actually enjoys telling stories the most, because it doesn’t leave the bitter taste of lies lingering on his tongue; only a happy warmth inside his heart, the satisfaction of a tale well told.
Of course, before he joined up with the Straw Hat Pirates, Usopp didn’t have very many people to tell those kinds of stories to, because lies spill from nervous lips far more easily; and once someone knows you for a liar, they don’t usually want to listen to anything else you might have to say. There was his mother, who always listened with a sweet, patient indulgence, enjoying herself less for the story itself than she was for love of the person telling it. Then his little gang of Usopp’s Pirates, who listened with all the enraptured wonder of children that still believe in things like magic and fairy tales. And finally there was Kaya; old enough to know the lie of the fantastical, but listening because she wanted to believe in it anyway, if only for a little while.
One of the first things that Usopp ever notices about Demon of the East Blue, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro (that has nothing to do with his mean grin or hulking muscles or almost perpetual frown, at least) is this: he listens to Usopp’s stories in exactly the same way Kaya did.
Which is rather surprising, if Usopp is being perfectly honest—because who on earth would have pegged the big, scary, muscleheaded swordsman as the kind of guy who’d like a good story? But Zoro is always up and alert whenever Usopp starts his tales even if he’d been napping only moments before, he makes the same kind of mild yet deeply intrigued expressions Kaya used to when she was really getting invested, and perhaps most surprisingly, he remembers enough about the stories to ask questions about them later. Questions like: what happened to the little girl whose grandmother got eaten by a wolf? Did the halfling who went on his adventure with those gnomes and the witch ever return home? And what about all those runaways from Alwaysland who were following Pietro Panini?
“Well, they’re the Runaway Children,” Usopp says when Zoro asks him this last question, on a lazy afternoon spent shelling fresh fava beans for Sanji out on the Merry’s deck, the warm sun on a slow descent towards the distant horizon. “Obviously they all eventually go home with Wendolyn.”
Zoro’s brow furrows as he runs his thumb through a large bean pod, spilling its contents into the ever growing pile at his feet. “How is it obvious?” he asks, and Usopp blinks.
“Um… Because that’s what happens in Pietro Panini?”
“Who’s Pietro Panini?” Zoro asks, and Usopp can’t help but stare.
“Uh, you know. Pietro Panini. Like, the children’s book?”
“Never heard of it,” Zoro responds with a shrug, and now Usopp is just confused.
“Come on man, everyone’s heard of Pietro Panini,” he says, laughing because he doesn’t know what else to do in the face of uncertainty except lie, and there’s simply no lie to be told at present. “Or were you too busy whacking things with swords as a kid to bother with books?”
Usopp grins at Zoro playfully to let the swordsman know that he’s joking, but Zoro doesn’t smile back, gaze focused intently down on his beans. “I can’t read,” he says instead, with the same kind of banality one uses to comment on the weather. “So no, not really.”
Now Usopp’s really confused. “You… totally can though?” he replies, squinting at Zoro like it might help him see into his mind so Usopp can figure out what the hell he’s talking about. “Remember when you got your first bounty poster and you kept reading all the details out loud for like a week, just to piss Sanji off?”
Zoro’s mouth twitches. “Oh yeah. That was fun,” he chuckles, running his thumb through another large pod, the beans spilling out with a soft plop-plop-plop into the pile below. “I can’t really do books, though. Not unless I want to give myself a massive headache.”
“Uh… huh,” Usopp says, more perplexed than ever. “And reading books gives you a headache because you… have too many muscles…?”
At that, Zoro barks out a laugh. “Because I’m dyslexic,” he says with a sharp, somewhat wolf-ish grin, and at Usopp’s sudden wide-eyed choking opts to add, “Sorry, I keep forgetting to tell you guys because everyone in the village back home knew.”
“Oh, no, that’s—that’s totally fine, man, I just—you know I didn’t—I mean that’s—” The urge to lie sits right upon the tip of Usopp’s tongue, ready to save himself from the awful embarrassment of never having realized Zoro is apparently dyslexic by touting accolades he doesn’t have, even though Usopp knows—he knows—that’s objectively a terrible thing to do. But luckily Zoro must sense an episode of his ‘about to stick my whole ass foot into my mouth’ disease coming on, because he cuts in before Usopp can make a fool of himself.
“But yeah, I never really read any books as a kid. So I’ve never heard of Pietro Panini or the Runaway Children or any of that stuff before.”
Usopp feels his head start to spin as it tries to comprehend this terrible vacuum of knowledge in Zoro’s childhood. “What about The Burlap Bunny?” he asks, his own pile of beans forgotten as Zoro continues shelling. “Surely you’ve heard of that?”
“Nope.”
”The Tiger, the Wizard, and the Pantry?”
“Nuh uh.”
“Caroline and the Caramel Mill? The Merry Mauve Minotaur? The Fabulous Mr. Ferret?”
Zoro squints at him out of the corner of his eye. “Did you just make all of those up?” he asks, and Usopp laughs because he has no idea what else to do.
“Damn,” he says, hardly able to believe it. “Those were like, my favorite books ever when I was a kid. You’ve really never heard of any of them?”
“Not a one,” Zoro confirms with a small shrug, and for once in his life, Usopp is left entirely speechless.
Usopp has spent most of his life telling stories, because stories have always been a refuge for him, a way to spin safety and comfort out of nothing but words and imagination—and if not for all the wonderful books he read as a child, he’d never be able to build his own as well as he does now. Every tale told was a new world, a new chance to explore and find another spot to hide away in, to tuck into his pocket and bring out on for himself when needed. Usopp has been a knight and a wizard and a prince, traveled across lands unknown and seas uncharted, wrestled giants and tamed unicorns and slain dragons—all because he heard of such things in a story once, and now he can take those same well worn threads and weave them into something entirely new. And to think that Zoro has never gotten to explore such incredible and endless possibilities like that simply because he has trouble reading is…
Kind of sad.
“Would you like me to read them to you sometime?” Usopp’s mouth blurts out before his brain can catch up.
Zoro blinks.
“Read them… to me?” he repeats. The slightest touch of disbelief colors his tone, and Usopp’s not sure if it’s because Zoro thinks the idea is stupid or fantastic, but it doesn’t really matter; his tongue is already off and running.
“Y-yeah! I’m great at reading to people. Why, back home I used to read to practically everyone! I won the ‘Top Volunteer Reader’ at the Syrup Village Nursing Home three years in a row, and our local library used to beg me to come read to the children on Fridays—the orphans loved it, they always told me it was the highlight of their week!”
Zoro raises one sharp eyebrow. “Orphans?” he repeats, and Usopp almost kicks himself for such a stupidly transparent falsehood until he sees the slight upward turn at the corner of Zoro’s mouth.
“Uh… yeah! Yeah I mean, they’d all been adopted by the time you guys came, of course. By a… By a rich dowager! Who couldn’t have any children of her own but had such a big heart that she came and gave all the orphans a home in her giant empty mansion. It was very touching.”
The turn stretches into a full on curve, one of those rare Zoro smiles that doesn’t make him look like he’s a shark who just caught the scent of fresh blood. “Of course. Those lucky orphans.”
“Haha, yeah! Yeah, very lucky.” Usopp coughs, clearing his throat awkwardly before he turns back to the bucket of bean pods still sitting between them. He’s just reaching for the next one when Zoro asks—
“Did the orphans have a… favorite?”
Usopp blinks, and then turns slowly to look at Zoro. The swordsman isn’t looking back, gaze fixed downwards as he shells yet another pod, but the smile is still on his face and Usopp thinks he might even be able to see a hint of pink beneath the golden bronze of his cheeks.
Wow. Who would have thought Demon of the East Blue, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro could blush?
“Um, yeah,” Usopp answers after a moment. “Yeah they did. ‘Niles and the Enormous Nectarine’. That one’s a classic.”
Zoro glances at him briefly before going back to the beans. “Then you can read that one to me sometime,” he says, voice quiet, almost shy.
And there’s no lie on Usopp’s tongue when he replies, “Awesome! Can’t wait!”