A/N: The Underground Zosan Society Secret Santa 2013 is here, ho-ho-gardening tool! This 'ere was carefully brainfar- uh, constructed for the one and only Armando Mermando, aka turtlefriedrice! Love you lots, darlin', and I hope yu enjoy! *smoooches* And also, I'm so fucking sorry... :'D

.o:O:o.

Now There's a Catch

.o:O:o.

A frosty morning. The kind that makes one go right back to bed after just looking out the window and fail the ultimate test of getting out on the streets. But even without the cold dawn breeze, it was hardly likely anyone would be around on the otherwise popular beach in winter, the surrounding trees sparkling white, and the coast hiding beneath a thin crust of snow where the water of the Golfe de Gascogne hadn't washed it clean.

Thus, Zoro could stand there in peaceful solitude, unnoticed. His feet bare on crunchy ice, nothing but a pair of swim trunks covering his skin, he could admit it was a bit chilly out. The long drop of snot hanging from his blueish nose agreed.

He might have just as well viewed it as morning meditation, actually. Putting on his winter coat would have had no use whatsoever, seeing as how the occasion he had been waiting on would involve him being drenched in cold water, anyway.

He could have stripped just beforehand, though. Nah. Too easy.

Oh, there is was – a soft little splish, a little father in. Trying to hide, huh, the swordsman thought with a small smirk. He would have none of that crap.

Slowly, the green haired man began walking forward, along frozen blades of grass, then moist, frigid sand. He halted when his toes were dipping into the bay-water, but after a deep intake of breath, his feet broke the ruffled, ice cold surface, one careful tread after another. He kept looking for those slight, uneven patches among the waves in front. Something he had gotten quite skilled at, if he may say so himself. He wouldn't for his life have admitted to it, however, or else he might have just earned the very creative title of a fisherman. Of the stone age.

His 'prey' was very well aware of his arrival, Zoro knew that. And yet, against better judgement, he kept approaching the tell-tale splashes and whirls deeper in the bay with utmost caution.

After all, it was part of the game. Their little greeting.

Chest-deep in the freezing cold water and growing a little unsteady on his feet, the swordsman needed to be especially alert; he had just breached enemy territory. There was the smallest of brushes to his shin, and he didn't want to acknowledge how hard he had flinched. It was just a string of seaweed.

Damn. He probably saw that.

A second later, though, the green-head almost fell back into the bay screaming when there was a strong tug to his swimwear that bared his ass to the icy moisture. That was no goddamn seaweed.

Zoro, noting the water-pressure against his back, spun around as best as he could to try and follow where his opponent has gone to, but he was barely facing the shore again when a cold shower came down on his back and head like a mallet. Growling, he twisted his body and stomped his foot to the right, only to snap his head back painfully fast to tickles to his left side. That bastard was luring him into his trap. He needed to concentrate.

Taking the control back over his shivering breathing, he blinked droplets out if his eyes and observed his surroundings with a stern gaze. Waves stroked all around his numbing skin, alarmingly leisurely, but a bit more forceful with each complete circle. The stronger the shoves, the better. The more he could map out the small breaks taken in between, for paddling.

The swordsman flashed a clattering grin. That's it. Just a little closer...

"OW you fuckin–!"

His aching muscles instantly pulled him into a cramping knot, however, when he received a crushing pinch to his nipple. That was a too close, dammit.

Zoro just about had enough wits about him to slam his arms down into the bay-water, as low as he could. Skin or fin. Let it be skin or fin. It was only for a mere second that his left lower arm collided with something soft and scaly, before a wide tail-fin emerged for a moment's glance to feed him a startled splash.

Gotcha.

He still coughed from the water when there was a current at his back. Zoro sucked his breath in, and with all the strength in his legs he could muster, he lunged back and to his right, aiming all of his weight to where he predicted his target to be. He caught a very slippery tail in his arms' grip just barely. That damn water resistance. Always giving him trouble calculating...

To his darn luck, his opponent's strength lay in his lower body. That fact came to him again by around the third powerful slap to his everything, knocking the air out of his lungs, as well as flinging him out, then smashing him back into the water in fierce attempts to shake him off.

The swordsman was sipping off and out of breath. He needed to get a better grip. Fast.

His enemy seemed to give him a hand, though. Quite literally, as Zoro soon felt fingers trying to pull his head away from the struggling body by his hair. To pry his face off a butt-crack just above the first layer of scales, where he had fallen nose-first because of that damn bastard in the first place, bucking beneath him like a mutant seahorse with rabies. And yank that hand was all the green haired man needed to do to get the bastard off-balance.

What a fucking idiot.

The two fighters would have probably wrestled more in the mud and seaweed if they hadn't run out of air – Zoro due to having moved too much, and the sore loser due to swimming too little and having to switch to nasal inhales. The green-head guessed so, at least. He would never really comprehend how the breathing of a merman worked...

From beneath the shallow bay-water, a huge clump of kelp arose. It flew right back in, though, among harsh panting, revealing some shorter greens from the swordsman's side, and a dishevelled blond head in front of him, strands sticking onto cheeks warm from the struggle, and eyes carrying heat, from something else entirely. Zoro's favourite part in their sparring, most definitely. Holding that flushed mess in his arms.

"Hello Chopper," the merman, Sanji, gasped a laugh, putting his arms around tanned shoulders.

"Haaah? Chopper? What the hell?"

"Your nose is blue," the blond reasoned, "so you must be Chopper The Blue-Nosed Reindeer himself."

"Oh, shut up, snail-brows," the swordsman grumbled and pressed his palm against the wet locks of hair covering said spirally eyebrows. Just before he began ruffling.

"What did you just caAOOowowowow, fucking hey! Stop that, you shitty green as–" The blond complained, shaking his head to get rid of the other man's hand, but instead just making things worse for himself, while slapping the Marimo-head's knees with his tail.

However, he didn't count on the guy's foolproof method to quiet him down. Namely swallowing his words to the back of his throat – and replacing them with his tongue.

Wet hands returned into green hair, but tender, stroking this time. Coaxing, angling the swordsman's head closer, trapping heated moans between their eagerly brushing lips. Zoro's chest heaved heavily against the merman's; already breathless, but craving for more. He held on tighter to the slender waist warming so pleasantly beneath his touch, to keep on kissing Sanji, to have his taste flood his mouth a bit longer. Why would he break away now, when the water had just begun boiling around him...?

Sadly, though, his lungs were no match to that of a creature of the sea. Okay, Mermaid Princess won round two. So what.

"So... What did you say my name was?"

Zoro gasped against the other man's parted lips, and slowly opened his eyes to the blond's scorching ones, almost drawing a groan out of him. He bit it back with a smirk, however.

"Heh, fat chance, asswipe." Which Sanji requited. The swordsman could still catch a glimpse of that tiny bite to his lower lip when the merman leaned to his ear. "I don't even know what my shitty name is right now..."

The swordsman gulped. Damn. It had been far too long since he saw the scaly-assed pervert last. For him to wrap him around his finger so easily...

Sanji pressed a kiss to his jaw, and when the green haired man attempted to do similarly near the blond's left neck-gill, he received a moist slap of hair to smooch on, from the zest with which the merman propelled himself deeper into the water, pulling him along by his arms with a stupid grin on his face. His first reaction to losing his footing was to yelp vaporous curses to the winter chill. Then his instincts told him he had better take a deep breath. If Sanji took him 'home', he would damn well need it.

He wasn't sure how, but the water had completely surrounded Zoro in no time at all, and all he could do was awkwardly paddle his feet to keep up with his sea-born lover's speed. The depth of the bay grew darker with every dizzy heartbeat drumming in his ears. But the blond didn't stop swimming...

When the green haired man showed signs of struggle, Sanji leapt close to him for a moment, to shove his visage up against Zoro's, and:

"Fartface."

The myriad of the most profane of bubbles against the swordsman's face was even worse than cigarette smoke. The green-head, in response, guffawed his remaining air out, and with water immediately barging in to take its place, he made a few panicked strokes in an attempt to get out. However, Sanji was unwilling to release his arms.

"Hey, are you trying to drown me?!" Zoro was sure he had only shouted in thought, because, well, how else? But the bubbles leaving his mouth in a stream proved him wrong. He was so startled by the blond's behaviour that he had forgotten that he shouldn't be able to breathe down here, and his head also seemed to stop spinning, and... No fucking way...! "What the–" There was a kind of cutting, sharp pain on both sides of his throat, but before he could raise his hands to reach for the source, the merman swung his tail and set them into motion once more. "The hell is going on?!"

"Relax, Marimo. Just breathe," Sanji flashed his goofy, big smile that had the power to simply wash the deepest of frowns from the green haired man's face. "You belong with me now..."

In the next moment – against all odds, one might add – they reached the bottom of the bay, among sandstone rocks and tall sprouts of seaweed. Zoro's gaze was drawn to something bright inside of a crack in the rocks that illuminated the premises.

"I see you found it."

The merman next to him chuckled, then lead him closer, to a small cave about half his size full to the brim with yellow-green light. What awaited a crouching Zoro in there were tiny pebbles, hundreds of them, glowing like fireflies. Solid as rock they were not, though. The closer the swordsman leaned, the more he thought them looking like... jelly drops.

"What the hell are these?" The green-head straightened back up outside the cave-opening to give the blond a frown.

"These?" Sanji's smile almost seemed sheepish. "These are ours. Well, almost, at least."

"Wha–"

Zoro was promptly notified that inquiry time was over. A very horny Sanji all but body-slamming him against a rock and sucking his tongue into the heat of his mouth gave him a pretty good hint.

First, the tanned man's fingers only tangled into floating blond strands to caress them. Though, his pleasure admitted defeat to his shock soon enough, after which the merman's hair served as a means for the green-head to pull him off himself.

"Hey, the fuck!" Sanji grimaced.

"That's my line! The fuck are you doing, and what the fucking hell are those things?!" He nodded towards the cave full of weird glowing jelly.

The blond sprang off him in an instant, scowling.

"Are you a moron or something?!" Pointing sharply towards the light source, he continued, at least ten bubbles louder: "Those are your damn fault, that's what they are! Those are my roes, and you made me fucking lay them, so they're your shitty damn responsibility!" And back he swished, threateningly close, to point his stern finger at the man's face this time:

"Better start wanking, motherfucker."

All of a sudden, whatever foul magic it had been that kept him from suffocating underwater had lifted, and Zoro gasped harshly for air. Soaking wet, wheezing and fumbling his throat, he came to his senses upon realizing that he wasn't at the frozen shores of the bay with that weird French-y name anymore. 'Gulf does Gasoline'? No, that couldn't be right. 'Gulp the Cologne', was it? 'Golf and...' Oh, whatever.

Now, he was sitting on something much smoother and warmer... The swordsman's fingers twitched at his sides, to find a thick, fluffy blanket stroking against his fingertips. Feeling much drier than the T-shirt he was wearing, clinging to his back, sticky with sweat. The snow-laden trees were now hiding behind the ice-flowers on the windows in front of him, as well as walls too thin to keep the warmth of the electric heater in their keep. A severely underfurnished room seemed to stare down in mock silence on the mattress he was trying to catch his breath on, covered in at least three more blankets to make up for the lack of heating inside. They also came with an extra snoozing blond wrapped up in them tightly, facing his way by his side.

Sanji's uncle's seaside vacation house, on the shores of Pornic.

Zoro didn't believe in God, but he thanked him a few times, anyway. He couldn't help but wonder what had been in that eggnog he had had before going to bed, though. In all three bottles of it.

His skin a little itchy beneath his nightmare-ridden clothes, the green-hair took his shirt off, wiped his face in it, then threw it onto his travelling bag in the corner. That's right. Instead of getting him anything, Sanji had invited him to France as a Christmas present, to visit his uncle between the two holidays. Strangely enough, old man Zeff had to leave on urgent business matters soon after picking them up at the airport, so it was just the two of them left, with a few days' worth of free time and a set of keys to the summer house. Zoro would need to thank the elder chef later.

Shivering, he promptly slipped under the blankets again. Sanji groaned quietly in his sleep at the small breeze that motion invited, but didn't open his eyes. Nor did he kick him in the gut, like he sometimes would. Out of genuine love, of course.

The cook didn't wake even when Zoro lay onto his side, to wrap his arm around his waist and lean his face near his blond locks sprawled on the pillow. He heaved a relaxed sigh. Much better.

However, before the occasional soft clicks of the heater could lull him back to sleep, the swordsman started to grow restless again. What if...? He reached up from beneath the covers to pinch his cheek. It hurt. Good, but not good enough. This was daddy panic, for fuck's sake, he needed more than a little pain.

Wait, he didn't really think that, did he?

He pinched himself on the cheek again, harder. Nope, supposedly still awake. Shit.

Holding his breath, Zoro curled his fingers around the edge of the lowest blanket-sheet, raised it up as gingerly as a guy lifting weights bigger than himself only could, and rigidly bent his neck to peek below. To his relief, everything about the shitty cook seemed normal, as far as the reassuring lack of fish-scales and gills on his body were concerned. Except for maybe those obnoxious seahorse-patterned underpants he was wearing...

"Looking for something, shithead?"

The green haired man knew from his mere tone what kind of expression Sanji was showing. Still, slowly lowering the covers and turning to look at the reality of that highly unamused face awoke an ache in his shin even before the impact of the cook's kick had met it.

"You shitty lech. The hell do you want down there this early in the morning?"

The blond seemed rested. They would have long been wrestling all over the floor if not. At least one of them hadn't dreamed of becoming the father to a couple hundred deep-sea fish babies through external fertilization...

"Nothing," Zoro admitted, backing away a bit into sitting. "Just had a weird dream..."

"Awww, little Marimo had a naughty dream, huh?" The pervert-cook smirked at him condescendingly, his damn swirly eyebrow riding high on his brow in a ridiculous, crooked shape.

"Fuck no!"

Oh how the swordsman wished it had actually been that kind of wet...

"Well then," Sanji lifted his knee from under his blankets, "what, pray fucking tell, is that?" His big toe gave the bulge in the green-hair's pants a small poke.

"Uh, that's... I mean, that's not– Well, first it could have, but then it, um..." There was no way in hell Zoro would tell the cook what really had gone down in his nightmare – that would have been playing into his hands, in every way possible. Not as if the damn bastard wasn't giggling himself teary-eyed at him already."S-shut up! You know fucking well what that is, you goddamn pervert-brow!"

"Oh yeah?" Sanji sneered. "I'm the pervert now, you shitty mosshead?"

"Yours is up, too, you know!" The swordsman blatantly pointed at the blond's morning erection. "So what, you had a wet dream, too?"

"Well..." Sanji let his foot slide along the green-head's thigh ever so slowly before retracting it. Crawling over him on all fours, he had startled Zoro so much that the man's supporting hand almost gave in behind his back. "Maybe...?" That word, that hushed sigh had the swordsman's stomach in a knot.

The heat of the blond's body poured over his bare skin, and the man's lips were hovering just a breath, a lick away from his own. But just as Zoro had parted his lips expectantly, Sanji spoke again:

"You've just admitted to it, though, stupid Marimo. And your breath stinks like zombie balls."

In the next instant, the cook was up on his feet and walking – no, dancing – towards the kitchen. Humming what could have been a small victory song.

"I'm gonna make coffee~" If it wasn't the suckiest he had ever heard.

What an idiot, Zoro fumed to himself. Turning his back on the enemy.

The blond had arrived in the kitchen with a dash, with a pissed-off swordsman at his heels. Making some rounds of the most destructive season's greetings in the vacation home – whilst ground coffee beans found their way into the coffee machine, one spoonful at a time and most of it spilled out onto the floor –, the chase ended with Sanji's back slammed to the side of the fridge. The sparring, though, picked up right from there. With Zoro ending up sprawled out on the messy kitchen floor, a broken chair-leg in hand. And the cook moving over him like fluid. Melting onto him, sweaty, panting and grasping, over and over again, the brewer's whistling casually ignored...

Zeff didn't say a word. He just asked the two of them to replace all of the broken furniture in the summer house the next time around – preferably with ones without legs.