"Wow," was the first thing Nami said when she took in the sight of the monstrosity currently perched atop Zoro's head. Her eyebrows arched somewhere near her hairline, and she opened her mouth briefly, before closing it again. "Wow," she finally decided on, seemingly unable to find another word with how best to capture her astonishment.

"Shut the fuck up," Zoro growled, voice barely above a highly embarrassed mumble, and he knew his cheeks were turning the same shade of bright red as the wool of the beanie on his head.

"So…," Nami said, still looking rather bewildered but slowly gaining a grin of Cheshire like amusement. "Is that what Luffy's been working on?"

Zoro gave a low grunt, that almost sounded something like a pained sigh, and quickly stalked away, looking almost like a disgruntled cat.

Nami had to practically glue her lips together to keep from giggling.

When Luffy had first started acting slightly secretive around Zoro, he was at first a little hurt. He was used to being privy to pretty much anything their captain decided to talk about, even if he didn't reply that often.

So when he started to go to Robin instead, and the two of them secreted away in the library, Zoro had to force himself to put it out of his mind. If it were important, than Luffy would come to him eventually.

And he did; eventually. A month and a half later, when Zoro had almost entirely succeeded in adjusting to Luffy's slight change of seating whenever there was a spare moment, Luffy cornered him while training and shoved a fuzzy red and yellow thing into Zoro's face.

Zoro blinked.

The lumpy monstrosity did not change.

"Do you like it?" Luffy asked excitedly, hands carefully holding the – was it a hat? – like he'd hold his own straw hat, and Zoro couldn't speak for a moment. "I made it for you! Robin helped, but I did most of it."

Zoro was still struck absolutely speechless at the sight of the – okay, he was ninety percent sure it was a hat – knitted creation. Still, as Luffy blathered, he managed to regain his tongue.

And then he opened his mouth, and for some reason 'It's wonderful,' came out instead of oh my God it's so fucking bright. "I love it," he added, hoping he didn't sound as strained as he thought he did.

Luffy obviously didn't seem to notice, beaming in even more pride as he bounced closer, balancing on his tip toes to plonk the red and yellow beanie – with Luffy's name on it, – right onto Zoro's head. His grin stretched almost past normal limits, bright and overjoyed, and Zoro stood there hopelessly, completely unable to tell his captain ugly he thought the beanie was.

It was-

It was just so fucking bright!

It had Luffy's fucking name on it! And obviously he'd gone to Robin or someone to help him stitch it out, because it was actually neat.

Which meant he'd put care and effort into it, and there was no way that Zoro was going to be the one to tell the captain that he didn't like it.

Even if Sanji did have to slap his hand over his mouth to hide a loud, uncontrolled snigger, and Nami's camera went off more than few times when Zoro was in the vicinity and wearing Luffy's handmade beanie.

Zoro resigned himself to at least a week of brightly-coloured hair hell (for fuck's sake, Sanji had taken to calling him Christmas tree, and he couldn't even argue it).

…even if he did kind of like the hat, and the gesture of care behind it.

Just a little.

AN: My early Christmas present to you guys, for I'll be away during Christmas! I have all my Christmas stories queued on my tumblr so that they post on Christmas day (authenticaussie, same as my name here,) but then there's also some personal stuff for all of you guys who I can't personally write stories for.

It's been a great year, and I want to say thank you to everyone who's clicked the follow button and/or left me a review. I really appreciate it and treasure every word! ^/u\^

(Beta'd by Beyond Kailani)