AN: This is a prologue-ish fic to Quatrina Raberba's 'The Lion and the Lamb'. Thanks so much to her for letting me write this (and for beta-ing)! Go read hers after, if you haven't already. I promise you, it's one hundred billion times better than this.

Heh, I hope I haven't scared anyone away. ;

Disclaimer: I don't own any One Piece characters.

Pairing: ZoroLuffy...This was for a request from QR for more ZL fluff.



Into the Lion's Den
"Luffy, get back here NOW!" Nami's irate voice rang from the kitchen and echoed into the clear night sky. From up top the deck, Zoro cracked open one eye from his nap, just to see his captain's face up-close. The younger boy had sauce around the corners of his trade-mark grin.

"Oi, Zoro, do me a favour."

Before he knew it, something syrupy was deposited on his lap. A strange aroma wafted to his nose, and upon further inspection, Zoro discovered that it was one of Nami's experimental dishes. The green-haired man would sooner starve than ingest anything made by Nami, even if it looked like it was edible, granted that he could pay the hefty price for the food. Luffy, on the other hand, didn't mind the taste, texture, or the fact that it may be poison, at all. He was like a vacuum when it came to meat.

"No, no, that won't do!"

The swordsman's green waistband was stretched, and the meat was scooped from the front of his pants and shoved into hiding. Completely dumbfounded, Zoro stared at the rubber boy's face sleepily as the sauce from the food soaked into his shirt. Puzzled by something, Luffy stood and pondered hard for a split second, before he reached up and took off his hat.

"There, perfect."

Now the infamous straw hat was placed over the first mate's stomach and Luffy's grin grew wider. The door to the kitchen flew open with a bang as Nami stood in all her glory. She branded her weapon with a murderous glint in her eye.

"Uh-oh." Luffy's eyes darted from Zoro, to the dangerous woman, and then to his hat. "Take care of it for me, Zoro!" With that, he, who had just defeated the man with a 14 million Beli bounty on his head, Captain Kuro, fled from Zoro's view with a laugh. The navigator of their ship whirred by, screaming something about paying before eating, but Zoro paid her no notice. The only thing on his mind was the warm and wet feeling on his abdomen as he closed his eyes to finish his nap. He frowned slightly.

'...and I just got these washed two days ago.'

Zoro retired to the men's sleeping area and took off his soiled articles of clothing. He soaked his shirt and waistband in a bucket of water, but since his pants weren't as dirty, he merely wiped them off. When he had woken up completely from his nap earlier, he was shocked and surprised to feel a gross stickiness all over his midsection. He judged from the unidentifiable pieces of something tucked into his waistband, and the tell-tale straw hat placed over the hiding spot, that Luffy was responsible for his predicament.

Unfortunately, the always energetic captain of the ship was no where to be found, and from the look of promised death on Nami's face as he passed her on the way to bed, he knew it'd be a while before he'd see the other boy again. Of course, if he wanted to, he could find and confront Luffy; but, quite frankly, he just wasn't up to it. Those two cat brothers had been pretty tough. Not that he'd ever admit it.

As the chronic napper waited for the stains in his clothes to diffuse themselves (he wasn't one for doing laundry twice in one week) he eyed his three swords. Two of them were just ones he had picked up with bounty money during his days as a pirate hunter. The other one, though...

-- No, he stopped himself. Reminiscing about the past always left him in a foul mood, so instead, he let his mind wander onto the topic of their newest shipmate, the self-proclaimed Captain. The lying boy, Zoro thought, would be a good addition, if simply to distract Luffy from deciding that it would be fun to harass his first mate. But then again, that wasn't quite right. Despite all his terror, Usopp had stalled Kuro's crew long enough for the eternally lost pirates to find their way to the fight. A commendable act indeed. Now all that was left was for the swordsman to get used to the fourth presence on the ship. With that in mind, Zoro called it a night. He would hang his clothes to dry in the morning. Just as he settled into his hammock, someone bounded into the room. He didn't need to see to know who it was.

"Ahh, thank you, Zoro!" There was a pause as the sound of Luffy putting his hat back on rustled through the quiet room, and then he continued, "Why aren't you wearing a shirt? Zoro, aren't you cold?" The addressed man snorted, but Luffy kept going, "You're going to get sick, you know." An 'are you kidding me?' look was thrown in the general vicinity of the younger teenager, but it missed its purpose.

"A little cold isn't going to kill me, Luffy." That which was meant to reassure the boy and shut him up, only managed to do the opposite.

"...Ah!! You're going to die? That's bad, Zoro!"

A hand, one calloused from years of sword training, reached out and turned off the oil lamp hanging next to its owner's hammock. "Luffy, I'm not going to die."

The silence that filled the cabin led Zoro to believe that he had actually managed to convince Luffy to leave him alone. Drifting off in his half sleep daze, however, he failed to sense the soft footsteps that padded their way over towards him.

"--?! What the hell?!" He could feel the grin widen against his chest.

"Don't worry, Zoro, now you won't die!" Luffy said, shifting a bit and wrapping his arm around the other man's waist so that he wouldn't fall out of the hammock meant for one. "I'm warm, aren't you happy?"

Knowing that he couldn't persuade his stubborn-like-a-mule captain even if he was fully awake, Zoro sighed.

"...I'm delighted."

End

AN: Ahaha, this is the third one-shot that I've posted. ; Pretty short, but whatever. The fic itself if 1000 words long, according to MS Word. sigh I had originally put Sanji in, but then I had to slap myself when I remembered that this was supposed to be just after the Kuro arc. Yeah, I'm pretty pathetic.

I heard before that if you keep saying a person's name a lot when you're just casually talking, it means you like him/her. Notice how many times Luffy says 'Zoro'? XP

Anyway, I hope you liked it. Please leave a review for a review-addict like me. Preferably positive. I absolutely crave them.