Title: Blood in the Water
Universe: One Piece
Theme/Topic: Blood
Rating: PG-15
Character/Pairing/s: ZoroxSanji (mentions of Nami)
Warnings/Spoilers: None I can imagine? LOTS OF OOC THO, YAY!
Word Count: 1,089
Summary: Zoro is a predator.
Dedication: kotszok's request on my holiday request thread! ENJOY, LOVE!
A/N: Because I couldn't think of a plausible way to get Zoro in a kitty costume, you'll just have to settle for this, Kaja. XD And yes, maybe I have been watching a little too much Animal Planet. Leave me alone, cable is amazing.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

---

Sanji's heard of animals that change their demeanors when they smell blood. Like a switch has been flipped, they go from calm to wild at the first scent, become dangerous, mad, ravenous.

The chef knows it's not uncommon— sharks to go into a feeding frenzy at the first taste of it in the water, sometimes injuring one another or themselves in the process. Wolves or tigers can smell the scent of blood across great distances and will pursue it's source with single-minded purpose until they find it, can bury their faces in it and gorge themselves to bursting on the flesh of a kill.

It's instinct. It drives them.

And, he supposes, humans are animals in the long run too.

Predators.

So just like it's not uncommon for sharks or tigers or wolves to go crazy when the smell of blood is in the air around it, it's also not uncommon for Zoro to do the same, whether it's the messy splatter of an opponent's lifeblood staining red on the swordsman's skin or his own running hot and angry from the wounds on his body. Either way, it all drives him a little bit crazy, makes him Zoro and not all at once.

When he's like that it's like he devolves into a creature driven by pure instinct, doing as he pleases because no one stronger is there to challenge his authority, all his enemies have been destroyed. King of the world.

It takes a while for the haze to wear off after he gets like that, because Zoro's got enough adrenaline in him to give an elephant a heart attack by the time the battle's done and all he wants is more, standing like a furious, wounded beast in the middle of the deck. This time, blood is dripping down his arms and face and there's the wreckage of a sinking Marine galleon in the immediate distance, all flames and splinters and eerie silence.

At times like these, when the battle's done but Zoro isn't, Nami very sweetly turns to Sanji and tells the chef, "We leave it to you, Sanji-san!" before ducking into her room with a smile and a wave.

She knows Zoro's not himself yet, that he won't be fit company for humans until the battle lust wears off, the energy dies down.

Just like she knows that one kind of desire can just as easily be quenched with another, and that the second type is much more easily accessible here.

And Sanji can never say no to her, smiles back and waves her off and tells her to not worry about a thing, he'll take care of the big idiotic marimo, make him decent for civilization again. As decent as he's going to get, anyway.

Once his girls are safely tucked away from all the ugly business, the chef's smile falls and he puts out his cigarette, rolls up his sleeves.

Time to go to work.

And he spins into a savage kick aimed right at Zoro's head.

The blow is easily blocked with two swords, and Roronoa grins around the one in his mouth, accepting the challenge—excited for it—as he rotates his neck and forces Sanji back with a swipe of the third blade.

Like an animal smelling blood in the water. Except Sanji's no flailing weak marine when he faces Zoro's katana.

There's no prey here.

Because Sanji's not so different from the swordsman that he can't feel his own heartbeat starting to accelerate too, his breathes coming in sharp pants as he pivots again, ducks and spins and lands a foot square in the center of Zoro's chest, giving as good as he gets, sometimes better. The other man staggers back a step after he's hit, but not before dropping the two swords in his hands and latching onto Sanji's ankle, giving a twist that the cook is forced to spin the rest of his body with or risk torn ligaments. He hits the deck and rolls, rotates his free leg around as he does and catches Zoro in the shoulder, sending him onto the deck beside him, Wadou Ichimonji clattering to the floor.

But Zoro hooks an arm around the foot that hit his shoulder before it can finish its rotation, tucks it between his ribcage and his elbow before leaning forward, forcing the knee to bend upward and then letting go at the last minute in favor of pinning the chef's torso to the floorboards of the deck instead.

He grins down at the blond, panting, excited, hard. "Gotcha."

Sanji smirks and leans upward, licks at a trail of blood trickling down the side of the swordsman's face. "Not yet."

Zoro snarls and kisses him.

And Nami is right— but then again she's always right—one desire is just as easily exchanged for another when the two of them are like this, when they're flushed and panting, muscles tight and heartbeats racing, their bodies pressed flush against one another and thrashing hard. Sanji tastes Zoro's blood on his tongue just as much as Zoro tastes his own there.

It's a frenzy.

Sanji bites Zoro's bottom lip and Zoro butts their heads together, hands scrabbling at the blond's belt buckle, bending it the wrong way in the process, snapping the fastenings, ripping the leather. Sanji digs his fingers into the swordsman's back hard enough to leave marks in retaliation— they both know there will be hand-shaped bruises there come morning—and he cants his hips upwards while he tugs Zoro's shirt over his head. Blow for blow and they're evenly matched.

"I'm winning," Zoro breathes, when he successfully gets Sanji's pants down around his hips.

"You're bleeding," Sanji reminds him, and runs a thumb hard over the gash in the swordsman's forehead, causing it to well up blood all over again. "That means I'm winning."

Zoro laughs, low in the chef's ear before he bites down on the lobe. "We'll see."

The scent of blood is in the air and Sanji's becoming lightheaded, frenzied, ferocious—as hard as Zoro is.

He latches onto Zoro's neck with his lips, right at the pulse point, and sucks hard enough to leave a welt. Zoro slams his wrists to the floor, pinning them above the blond's head.

And that means there's blood in the water now, a sign that the hunt is about to begin. But between the two of them, there's no prey here.

Behind their ship, the flaming, silent wreckage of a proud marine galleon fades into the distance.

END