Title: Nami Puts Out a Hit
Theme: Mini Challenge 2, #4: Scorpion
Pairing: Zoro x Nami (You guessed it: light!)
Words: 753
Rating: T/PG-13 (Overly cautious author is overly cautious.)
Warnings: One swear word and some mild violence.
Disclaimers: The scorpion is mine, but that is all. Everybody else belongs to Oda.

Zoro had just sprawled out in the sun for a nap when a shadow fell over him. He cracked one eye to see Nami looking down at him. Her expression was serious and she looked a tad pale.

"Is something wrong?" He didn't remember seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary on his way to his favorite nap spot.

"I need you to take care of something for me."

"Why's it have to be me? Need something heavy moved or something?"

"No..."

"Why don't you get the cook to help you then? He'd love to, I'm sure." He closed the eye again.

"Sanji... He can't help me with this..." Both of Zoro's eyes snapped open at that. Something he could do that Sanji couldn't? Interesting...

"Keep talking." He sat up and gave the navigator his undivided attention. She almost seemed embarrassed for a moment before she took a deep breath.

"There'sthisgiantscorpioninthegirls'room!"

Zoro blinked. "Say what?"

"I said," she spoke unnecessarily slowly this time, in a condescending tone to boot, "there's a giant scorpion in the girl's room and I want you to kill it for me."

"You woke me up for that? Get Usopp to take care of it; he likes that kind of thing." He laid back down.

"Oh, please! You weren't asleep, yet! Besides, Usopp will want to keep it, and I want it dead!" He could clearly see the angry expression on her face in his mind's eye, but he figured that if he ignored her long enough, maybe she'd go away. "I'm not just going to go away..." Sometimes it was like she could read minds...

"What'd it ever do to you? It's probably just as freaked out by you, you know!" She kicked him in the side for that one.

"It's gross and creepy and it's watching me with its little, buggy eyes!"

Any minute now she'd use her tried and true method to get what she wanted from him: blackmail regarding his "debt."

"Please?" He hadn't been expecting that! He opened his eyes to find Nami crouched directly in front of him, lower lip protruding and eyes wide and slightly teary. She must be taking lessons from Chopper... "It'll only take a minute! I won't be able to sleep if I know it's creeping around somewhere..." When she saw him waver slightly she added a lip quiver.

"Fine! Stop with the face!"

Nami's expression immediately morphed to a smug grin, and she grabbed his wrist and dragged him off to the girls' quarters. Zoro scanned the room, but didn't see any creepy-crawlies.

"Well, looks like it's gone!" Zoro spun on his heel. "Guess I'll just-"

"Don't even think about it!" Nami snapped. "I know it's still in here! Lurking..."

Suddenly, something black scuttled out from under Nami's bed. She shrieked and clambered up onto Zoro's back, burrowing her face between his shoulder blades.

"Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!"

Zoro shuffled stiffly over to the scorpion, since Nami had unconsciously placed him in a bit of a full nelson. The "giant" arachnid was about the size of a gold piece.

"Sorry, little guy," Zoro apologized as he lifted his foot. "Sometimes life's a bitch." The scorpion met its demise under Zoro's boot with an exceedingly anticlimactic squelch. "Okay. It's dead."

Nami peeked over his shoulder and wrinkled her nose at the smear on the floor that was formerly a scorpion. After a moment, she realized just where she was and scrambled back down. She looked away and cleared her throat.

"Thank you, Zoro. That will be all."

"Yeah, whatever. You're welcome, I guess." He couldn't keep his mouth from quirking into a smile, even though he tried to maintain his usual gruff indifference.

He headed back out on deck and stretched out again. He was just nodding off when the soothing sunlight was blocked again.

"What?" He refused to admit to himself that he had sounded whiny at all.

Nami actually looked rather sheepish. "Spider?"