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sherrymarie and I made a deal to actually post for February's theme at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
zosopp, where, incidentally, this is cross-posted. Of course, I'm like the world's biggest procrastinator so this is late. On top of that it's kind of lame and full of misdirected verb tenses.
Title: Canvas
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Zoro/Usopp
Word Count: 2331
“Cook…”
Zoro’s long, low growl of his preferred form of Sanji reference promised pain. Pain and quite possibly even death. It was threat and promise and resignation somehow perfectly captured in a single drawn out syllable. People used to quake in their boots, turn tail and flee from the sight and sound of the Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro using that voice. But times had changed and his throaty transformation of job description into epithet garnered him only a scrap of a smoky wave, a wink of a sea blue eye directed over his shoulder, and poorly muffled laughter from the young man the asshole chef’s jaunty gestures had been intended for.
As soon as the door to the galley was closed, Zoro was at the knob and turning the admittedly flimsy lock, taking limited comfort in its existence anyway in spite of knowing even the least of them could have broken it with a good kick or two. If he’d had his way none of this would be happening. But it appeared there was quite the conspiracy against him and against all haters of the flimsy, tissue-paper heart with its decidedly feminine day of romance known as Valentine’s Day. Now Zoro was not entirely against Valentine’s Day. After all, its origin was fairly bloody and carnal and he could certainly get behind that. But the evolution of the day had slowly changed, become mushy and sappy and lacey and frilly and just sickeningly sweet enough to make his teeth hurt (although that could have just been too much indulgence in the chocolate he secretly loved).
He’d been prepared to offer up, privately of course, a card. Simple and plain, just white paper with black calligraphy and a sentiment that he personally didn’t think needed repeating but was willing to do anyway in the name of harmony and the likely embrace it would net him. And he’d gone further into hock with the witch and purchased two very expensive chocolates with cherries in the center. Temptation removed precisely by those nasty cherries that would be decadently and perhaps even indecently appreciated by their intended. But that was it. Nothing more. Roronoa Zoro didn’t believe in making more concessions unless they were going to be of the bloody or carnal variety.
Unfortunately for the swordsman, he wasn’t given much of a choice. It seemed as if all the world – that world being a small caravel skimming as if it had wings instead of sails over the wide ocean – was ranged against him. Of the cook this was expected. The blond calf-eyed fool would never let an excuse to heap even more extravagant praise and creations upon the ship’s two females. And of course the women would lap it up, the witch likely even expecting it and charging if she were disappointed. But from the captain? And the doctor? Zoro had forgotten, or perhaps merely given himself a handy mental block, just how easily those two could be convinced to partake in alleged festivities. Indeed, as it turned out, Luffy had been looking forward to the holiday as a chance to – and the swordsman leaned against the door for strength as he shivered at the memory – prance around in heart-covered undershorts. Mysteriously there had been enough for every male crew member, along with a suspicious amount of clicking and snapping coming from the direction of the girls’ room that morning, and Zoro had only escaped the indignity by reminding all and sundry, especially that blasted cook, that he didn’t bother with underwear and as such could not be expected to wear the pair for him. Of course he had in the end, albeit on his head, but in principal he was claiming victory.
There was no way to chalk up another win, though. Not now when he had turned the galley lock himself. With a huff of a sigh, Zoro decided he had little choice but to suck it up and be a man. Maybe that was the true meaning of the current reality of Valentine’s Day, a test of a man’s ability to endure. Across the few feet of decking, sitting in those ridiculous heart-print boxers and a t-shirt, the last of his tests finally stopped snickering and beckoned.
“Oi,” Zoro said slowly, acquiescent but still trying to delay the inevitable. “How much did this cost you anyway?”
“Only a drawing or two, no trouble at all for me and making this even more worth it.”
Usopp smiled smugly and purposely neglected to mention the week’s worth of both Luffy-duty and potato peeling he’d also agreed to pay. It was a small price after all and he had been guaranteed not only the use of Sanji’s galley but also his chefly skills and a measure of privacy. A small fondue pot sat behind him on the table, melted chocolate ready and waiting next to his other chosen tools. It wasn’t very often that he had an excuse like the holiday to make Zoro agree to some of his more…outré…ideas. He loved the big, green-haired lunk but the older pirate wasn’t exactly known for moving out of his comfort zone unless fighting and improving his sword skills were involved. While Usopp, on the other hand, was quite adventurous within safe confines. Safe confines like Merry’s warm, well-lit galley, which was currently full of fragrant chocolate scents and one wary Roronoa Zoro.
“Now get over here,” the long-nosed teen added, patting the tabletop and completely failing in his attempt at a disarming grin.
“What am I supposed to do again?”
With heavy footsteps Zoro crossed the deck, dread hanging heavy over him, as the sniper’s grin grew impossibly wider.
“It’s easy. All you have to do is be my canvas. Which means you just get to lie here.”
A simple task indeed. Except that Usopp intended to use warm, melted chocolate in place of his usual watercolors or oils. And Zoro hadn’t exactly been used as artwork before beyond the usual prank mustache or circles drawn on his face with marker while he slept. The swordsman came to a halt in front of Usopp, looked down into his bright brown eyes dubiously. Being a canvas sounded suspiciously froo froo. But he’d already agreed and he’d already been a sculpture and that had led to a certain amount of toughening up. Maybe this experience wouldn’t be all that much different.
Something in his posture or his eyes must have given his acceptance of his fate away for Usopp’s decidedly wolfish expression softened and his clever fingers gently slipped beneath haramaki and shirt to skim over Zoro’s lower ribs, press against the small of his back. Those skilled hands tugged at the fabric, a clear command, and Zoro sighed and the clothing eventually ended up on the floor behind him. For an instant fingertips danced over the swordsman’s abdomen, tripped over the end of his scar. And then Usopp jerked his hands away like Nami was there charging him for every second of contact.
“If you could just lie back on the table please,” he said, the words coming out low and a little thick.
Zoro, feeling a little foolish and just a little bit turned on in spite of himself, stepped around a bare brown knee and perched himself on the edge of the table. The galley ceiling was, he noticed as he leaned back and down, sadly not that interesting. Wouldn’t serve as much of a distraction if he got bored of being painted. He ended up with his knees dangling over the side and, if he’d had a pillow, the position would actually have been rather comfortable. Maybe he could nap instead. But just as his eyelids began to sink, something soft and dry touched him, tickled at the tip of his chin. Usopp’s smiling face inserted itself into his field of vision and a paintbrush appeared as well, twirled between two fingers before dipping down to brush over his nose.
“All you have to do is hold still and I’ll turn you into a masterpiece, okay?”
The swordsman managed a grunt of agreement and then, almost as soon as the sound had left his lips, the paintbrush was back. Still dry, it flitted over the line of his jaw and traced the curve of his ear, disappeared only to resurface as it drew a circle around his navel. The sensation of the brush made his skin tingle, the touch too light to be satisfying but more than enough to catch his interest. Without thinking, Zoro shifted up onto his elbows, wanting to see where the brush would land next as if sight would substitute for the faint feathery pressure. Usopp clucked his tongue in mock exasperation, the flat of his palm hot against the swordsman’s bare chest as he nudged him back down.
“Don’t move,” he scolded, waggling the paintbrush. “If you can’t hold still, you’ll mess up my work.”
Before Zoro could utter any sort of snappy comeback, the brush once more painted over his skin. But this time the line it left behind wasn’t invisible. Warm melted milk chocolate lay in a simple streak of a curve over Zoro’s heart, a letter perhaps or maybe just a random shape. It was enough to freeze the swordsman where he rested, his whole body going stiff before his muscles apparently decided to uncoil and relax one by one. There was a dry chuckle and Zoro opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, focused on the paintbrush with its payload of chocolate hovering above him.
“Remember, you can’t move.”
Usopp dabbed once at the tip of his victim’s nose, darted the brush away before Zoro could so much as draw in breath to protest to leave a new line connecting the hard knobs of collarbones, a thicker dot in the hollow between them. He had had no concrete vision at the start but already he could see the picture forming. And if it wasn’t much of a picture to anyone but him, well, they weren’t there to see and he frankly didn’t care. What he wanted was to trace every single curve and contour, every patch of skin where sweat or water or blood had gathered, glistening and tempting, tugging at his self-control. Maybe just a bit of teasing too, for good measure, because Zoro wasn’t always quite as dense, as unaware of his audience, as he liked to pretend he was.
The contact, the contrast, it was going to drive him crazy. Soft and slippery and warm against the cooler temperature of his skin, the sweet paint ever so slowly hardened, tightening against his flesh even as new lines were added. And finally, as the very tip of the chocolate-dipped paintbrush circled around a nipple, drawing close but never close enough, Zoro couldn’t hold still. He shuddered, a full-body shake that sent the brush skidding up towards his shoulder and along the path of his scar.
“Awww, Zoro.” A careless smack, playful, at his hip and then warm breath against his neck. “Now I’m gonna have to erase all this and start over.”
Before the swordsman could even begin to formulate just what “erasing” would entail, heat and moisture, the hot damp flat of Usopp’s tongue, swiped over the errant line of chocolate. And it seemed that once the sniper started erasing, he kept finding more and more errors. Not that Zoro could complain too much. Not when that quick, clever mouth was sucking and lapping and he was free to squirm into the sensation or away as needed. If only Usopp wasn’t hogging all the chocolate for himself…
But it seemed that as soon as that thought popped into his head (or maybe he’d spoken. It was hard to tell, he seemed to be making a hell of a lot more noise than usual but everything just felt so ticklish and damn GOOD), there was an answer. A finger, covered in the rich, sweet liquid, traced the curve of his lower lip, and Zoro grinned against it before he pulled it into his mouth, more than a hint of his teeth against the pad of it making Usopp hiss against the flat plain of his stomach. And then, in what seemed to be an awfully short time later, the sniper straightened up, licking his lips and tugging his finger free.
“Well, you’re blank, clean again, now. Except for…here.” A swift stoop and he carefully swirled the very first dot of chocolate off of the tip of Zoro’s nose. “And here.”
This time when Zoro moved, arms coming up to wrap around Usopp’s shoulders, holding him in place as the swordsman returned the favor of cleaning chocolate from the corner of his mouth, taking the heady taste from his tongue, the younger pirate didn’t stop him or scold him. Until finally they had to break apart for air and the spark of deviltry gleamed once more in Usopp’s eyes.
“Now then, we’re free to start again. And I think I know what went wrong last time. The canvas, there just wasn’t enough of it.”
That was a leer on Usopp’s face, no mistake, and Zoro felt his whole body flush with anticipation at the expression and at the hand that had reached down to curl around the length of him before it busied itself with the task of removing his pants. If painting down there was anything at all like the rest of this experience had been, then Roronoa Zoro was certainly in for not just a trial of endurance but pure carnality. Maybe the holiday hadn’t been given over entirely to the girly, softer side of love, that bane of men’s existence called romance, after all. But, he decided before his very own valentine proceeded to drive all rational thought - and indeed any thoughts that didn’t focus on the slender, dark-haired youth who made him crazy - out of his mind, that didn’t mean the damn chef was off the hook.
sherrymarie and I made a deal to actually post for February's theme at zosopp, where, incidentally, this is cross-posted. Of course, I'm like the world's biggest procrastinator so this is late. On top of that it's kind of lame and full of misdirected verb tenses.Title: Canvas
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Zoro/Usopp
Word Count: 2331
“Cook…”
Zoro’s long, low growl of his preferred form of Sanji reference promised pain. Pain and quite possibly even death. It was threat and promise and resignation somehow perfectly captured in a single drawn out syllable. People used to quake in their boots, turn tail and flee from the sight and sound of the Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro using that voice. But times had changed and his throaty transformation of job description into epithet garnered him only a scrap of a smoky wave, a wink of a sea blue eye directed over his shoulder, and poorly muffled laughter from the young man the asshole chef’s jaunty gestures had been intended for.
As soon as the door to the galley was closed, Zoro was at the knob and turning the admittedly flimsy lock, taking limited comfort in its existence anyway in spite of knowing even the least of them could have broken it with a good kick or two. If he’d had his way none of this would be happening. But it appeared there was quite the conspiracy against him and against all haters of the flimsy, tissue-paper heart with its decidedly feminine day of romance known as Valentine’s Day. Now Zoro was not entirely against Valentine’s Day. After all, its origin was fairly bloody and carnal and he could certainly get behind that. But the evolution of the day had slowly changed, become mushy and sappy and lacey and frilly and just sickeningly sweet enough to make his teeth hurt (although that could have just been too much indulgence in the chocolate he secretly loved).
He’d been prepared to offer up, privately of course, a card. Simple and plain, just white paper with black calligraphy and a sentiment that he personally didn’t think needed repeating but was willing to do anyway in the name of harmony and the likely embrace it would net him. And he’d gone further into hock with the witch and purchased two very expensive chocolates with cherries in the center. Temptation removed precisely by those nasty cherries that would be decadently and perhaps even indecently appreciated by their intended. But that was it. Nothing more. Roronoa Zoro didn’t believe in making more concessions unless they were going to be of the bloody or carnal variety.
Unfortunately for the swordsman, he wasn’t given much of a choice. It seemed as if all the world – that world being a small caravel skimming as if it had wings instead of sails over the wide ocean – was ranged against him. Of the cook this was expected. The blond calf-eyed fool would never let an excuse to heap even more extravagant praise and creations upon the ship’s two females. And of course the women would lap it up, the witch likely even expecting it and charging if she were disappointed. But from the captain? And the doctor? Zoro had forgotten, or perhaps merely given himself a handy mental block, just how easily those two could be convinced to partake in alleged festivities. Indeed, as it turned out, Luffy had been looking forward to the holiday as a chance to – and the swordsman leaned against the door for strength as he shivered at the memory – prance around in heart-covered undershorts. Mysteriously there had been enough for every male crew member, along with a suspicious amount of clicking and snapping coming from the direction of the girls’ room that morning, and Zoro had only escaped the indignity by reminding all and sundry, especially that blasted cook, that he didn’t bother with underwear and as such could not be expected to wear the pair for him. Of course he had in the end, albeit on his head, but in principal he was claiming victory.
There was no way to chalk up another win, though. Not now when he had turned the galley lock himself. With a huff of a sigh, Zoro decided he had little choice but to suck it up and be a man. Maybe that was the true meaning of the current reality of Valentine’s Day, a test of a man’s ability to endure. Across the few feet of decking, sitting in those ridiculous heart-print boxers and a t-shirt, the last of his tests finally stopped snickering and beckoned.
“Oi,” Zoro said slowly, acquiescent but still trying to delay the inevitable. “How much did this cost you anyway?”
“Only a drawing or two, no trouble at all for me and making this even more worth it.”
Usopp smiled smugly and purposely neglected to mention the week’s worth of both Luffy-duty and potato peeling he’d also agreed to pay. It was a small price after all and he had been guaranteed not only the use of Sanji’s galley but also his chefly skills and a measure of privacy. A small fondue pot sat behind him on the table, melted chocolate ready and waiting next to his other chosen tools. It wasn’t very often that he had an excuse like the holiday to make Zoro agree to some of his more…outré…ideas. He loved the big, green-haired lunk but the older pirate wasn’t exactly known for moving out of his comfort zone unless fighting and improving his sword skills were involved. While Usopp, on the other hand, was quite adventurous within safe confines. Safe confines like Merry’s warm, well-lit galley, which was currently full of fragrant chocolate scents and one wary Roronoa Zoro.
“Now get over here,” the long-nosed teen added, patting the tabletop and completely failing in his attempt at a disarming grin.
“What am I supposed to do again?”
With heavy footsteps Zoro crossed the deck, dread hanging heavy over him, as the sniper’s grin grew impossibly wider.
“It’s easy. All you have to do is be my canvas. Which means you just get to lie here.”
A simple task indeed. Except that Usopp intended to use warm, melted chocolate in place of his usual watercolors or oils. And Zoro hadn’t exactly been used as artwork before beyond the usual prank mustache or circles drawn on his face with marker while he slept. The swordsman came to a halt in front of Usopp, looked down into his bright brown eyes dubiously. Being a canvas sounded suspiciously froo froo. But he’d already agreed and he’d already been a sculpture and that had led to a certain amount of toughening up. Maybe this experience wouldn’t be all that much different.
Something in his posture or his eyes must have given his acceptance of his fate away for Usopp’s decidedly wolfish expression softened and his clever fingers gently slipped beneath haramaki and shirt to skim over Zoro’s lower ribs, press against the small of his back. Those skilled hands tugged at the fabric, a clear command, and Zoro sighed and the clothing eventually ended up on the floor behind him. For an instant fingertips danced over the swordsman’s abdomen, tripped over the end of his scar. And then Usopp jerked his hands away like Nami was there charging him for every second of contact.
“If you could just lie back on the table please,” he said, the words coming out low and a little thick.
Zoro, feeling a little foolish and just a little bit turned on in spite of himself, stepped around a bare brown knee and perched himself on the edge of the table. The galley ceiling was, he noticed as he leaned back and down, sadly not that interesting. Wouldn’t serve as much of a distraction if he got bored of being painted. He ended up with his knees dangling over the side and, if he’d had a pillow, the position would actually have been rather comfortable. Maybe he could nap instead. But just as his eyelids began to sink, something soft and dry touched him, tickled at the tip of his chin. Usopp’s smiling face inserted itself into his field of vision and a paintbrush appeared as well, twirled between two fingers before dipping down to brush over his nose.
“All you have to do is hold still and I’ll turn you into a masterpiece, okay?”
The swordsman managed a grunt of agreement and then, almost as soon as the sound had left his lips, the paintbrush was back. Still dry, it flitted over the line of his jaw and traced the curve of his ear, disappeared only to resurface as it drew a circle around his navel. The sensation of the brush made his skin tingle, the touch too light to be satisfying but more than enough to catch his interest. Without thinking, Zoro shifted up onto his elbows, wanting to see where the brush would land next as if sight would substitute for the faint feathery pressure. Usopp clucked his tongue in mock exasperation, the flat of his palm hot against the swordsman’s bare chest as he nudged him back down.
“Don’t move,” he scolded, waggling the paintbrush. “If you can’t hold still, you’ll mess up my work.”
Before Zoro could utter any sort of snappy comeback, the brush once more painted over his skin. But this time the line it left behind wasn’t invisible. Warm melted milk chocolate lay in a simple streak of a curve over Zoro’s heart, a letter perhaps or maybe just a random shape. It was enough to freeze the swordsman where he rested, his whole body going stiff before his muscles apparently decided to uncoil and relax one by one. There was a dry chuckle and Zoro opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, focused on the paintbrush with its payload of chocolate hovering above him.
“Remember, you can’t move.”
Usopp dabbed once at the tip of his victim’s nose, darted the brush away before Zoro could so much as draw in breath to protest to leave a new line connecting the hard knobs of collarbones, a thicker dot in the hollow between them. He had had no concrete vision at the start but already he could see the picture forming. And if it wasn’t much of a picture to anyone but him, well, they weren’t there to see and he frankly didn’t care. What he wanted was to trace every single curve and contour, every patch of skin where sweat or water or blood had gathered, glistening and tempting, tugging at his self-control. Maybe just a bit of teasing too, for good measure, because Zoro wasn’t always quite as dense, as unaware of his audience, as he liked to pretend he was.
The contact, the contrast, it was going to drive him crazy. Soft and slippery and warm against the cooler temperature of his skin, the sweet paint ever so slowly hardened, tightening against his flesh even as new lines were added. And finally, as the very tip of the chocolate-dipped paintbrush circled around a nipple, drawing close but never close enough, Zoro couldn’t hold still. He shuddered, a full-body shake that sent the brush skidding up towards his shoulder and along the path of his scar.
“Awww, Zoro.” A careless smack, playful, at his hip and then warm breath against his neck. “Now I’m gonna have to erase all this and start over.”
Before the swordsman could even begin to formulate just what “erasing” would entail, heat and moisture, the hot damp flat of Usopp’s tongue, swiped over the errant line of chocolate. And it seemed that once the sniper started erasing, he kept finding more and more errors. Not that Zoro could complain too much. Not when that quick, clever mouth was sucking and lapping and he was free to squirm into the sensation or away as needed. If only Usopp wasn’t hogging all the chocolate for himself…
But it seemed that as soon as that thought popped into his head (or maybe he’d spoken. It was hard to tell, he seemed to be making a hell of a lot more noise than usual but everything just felt so ticklish and damn GOOD), there was an answer. A finger, covered in the rich, sweet liquid, traced the curve of his lower lip, and Zoro grinned against it before he pulled it into his mouth, more than a hint of his teeth against the pad of it making Usopp hiss against the flat plain of his stomach. And then, in what seemed to be an awfully short time later, the sniper straightened up, licking his lips and tugging his finger free.
“Well, you’re blank, clean again, now. Except for…here.” A swift stoop and he carefully swirled the very first dot of chocolate off of the tip of Zoro’s nose. “And here.”
This time when Zoro moved, arms coming up to wrap around Usopp’s shoulders, holding him in place as the swordsman returned the favor of cleaning chocolate from the corner of his mouth, taking the heady taste from his tongue, the younger pirate didn’t stop him or scold him. Until finally they had to break apart for air and the spark of deviltry gleamed once more in Usopp’s eyes.
“Now then, we’re free to start again. And I think I know what went wrong last time. The canvas, there just wasn’t enough of it.”
That was a leer on Usopp’s face, no mistake, and Zoro felt his whole body flush with anticipation at the expression and at the hand that had reached down to curl around the length of him before it busied itself with the task of removing his pants. If painting down there was anything at all like the rest of this experience had been, then Roronoa Zoro was certainly in for not just a trial of endurance but pure carnality. Maybe the holiday hadn’t been given over entirely to the girly, softer side of love, that bane of men’s existence called romance, after all. But, he decided before his very own valentine proceeded to drive all rational thought - and indeed any thoughts that didn’t focus on the slender, dark-haired youth who made him crazy - out of his mind, that didn’t mean the damn chef was off the hook.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-03 05:25 am (UTC)with chocolate-coated meatstick...
@__@ uh.....wow.
*makes no effort to mop up drool*
no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-03 05:59 am (UTC)Zoro’s long, low growl of his preferred form of Sanji reference promised pain.
See that? If you were any other writer, I would be convinced that I was in store for a healthy does of Zosan. ^_^ Nevertheless, I could practically hear that tone of voice. Nice.
The way you have captured Zoro in this is completely perfect. I love what a simple brutish...brute he is, but a big marshmallow under all of that. And now a chocolate covered marshmallow at that! Usopp is a smexy sneaky bastard. I love that man.
This was wonderful. I have quite a bit to live up to on my end of our deal.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 06:06 am (UTC)And thanks for your kind words even though this thing is a grammatical mess. I had fun torturing Zoro with the horror that is Valentine's Day.