Zoro did not allow himself to peek in on Sanji's dreams. It wasn't an easy process when he'd gotten used to the constant stream of sexual energy. Not after tasting it with his own tongue.
Their tiff didn't go unnoticed. One of Robin's ears had eavesdropped on the yelling and Usopp had been watching from the crows nest. Robin seemed to be the more understanding of the situation and didn't mind Zoro siphoning off her sexual energy. On the other hand, Usopp had a moment where he used his holy relics to keep Zoro at bay; Zoro thought a knock to the sharpshooter's head was a polite way to say he was still the same Zoro and that holy relics did not affect him. It got around the ship pretty fast so there was no use trying to keep it a secret. He explained it the best he could to the crew: what he was, what he needed, and what it meant. Nami didn't seem very comfortable with it at first but eventually came to the conclusion that she didn't mind if he'd been doing it anyway. It gave her more focus for other things, such as map making and accounting the ship's funds. Luffy didn't get it; no surprises there. The intricacies of dream jumping were beyond him so he dubbed Zoro with having mysterious dream powers. Chopper thought it was cool, especially as Zoro told him it was much like the fluffy clouds in Skypiea and reminded Chopper that his dreams were full of being a super-doctor.
The one that never commented on it further was Sanji. He went back to swooning over the ladies and being a crass asshole to him. Zoro was tempted to dip into Sanji's dreams after a week, sure that Sanji would be over the anger; but considering he had made that damn promise and he was not a very good liar, he only wished that they would find the next damn island as soon as possible. At least there he could get his fill without draining his nakama until they got sick. It was kind that they allowed him to reap their dreams, knowing what he was, but even combined they couldn't satisfy what he needed on a day to day basis. The hunger just grew steadily; a mental obsession rather than pain in the belly.
Being around Sanji on a small ship didn't make it any easier. Sanji had recovered what Zoro had drained at Bazooka Island within days and the vibrancy was thicker than normal because Zoro wasn't skimming from it. Zoro took to meditating near the bow of the ship or the crows nest; as far away from the galley as possible. He could only 'ration' everyone's energy so much. They made back energy much slower than Sanji and it was never enough to satisfy him completely, leaving him restless and snappy. Especially at meal time, where the cook just radiated sexuality like a god damn furnace.
Funny enough, two weeks after the promise, he was awoken in the wee hours of the morning by being kicked out of his hammock before they reached an island.
"Oi!" Zoro glared up at Sanji, who equally looked livid. Zoro rubbed his head and got a mouth watering waft of lust from the blonde. "What the fuck was that for?" He stood and checked out the port hole, finding the sea was only lit by the moon and the sun had not even begun to touch the horizon. Luffy was still snoring and Chopper shifted a bit in his own hammock. Usopp was out in the crows nest on watch.
"I told you to stay out of my dreams, stupid marimo," Sanji hissed dangerously.
"I wasn't in your dreams." Zoro matched Sanji's dangerous tone. "I was in Robin's." Zoro caught the kick Sanji had aimed for his head. Predictably since Sanji didn't like the fact that he got to be in the women's dreams.
"Don't lie to me." Sanji stepped back and dislodged his foot from Zoro's grasp. Zoro wouldn't have let go otherwise. It was hard to see much in the shadows of the sleeping quarters, but Zoro could clearly sense the energy rolling off of Sanji; he guessed from a very sexually heated dream. It was so potent that it lingered on his ruffled sleep shirt and pants. Zoro scratched under his lip with his thumb and wet his dry lips.
"I'm not lying," Zoro muttered. "If I'd been in your dream I wouldn't be so god damn hungry. I promised I wouldn't, so I haven't." Sanji actually mellowed and didn't come back with an argument. Zoro stepped close to him, able to see one curled brow in the limited light. "Why do you think I was in your dreams?" He couldn't see Sanji's full expression, even while so close in the dark, but an inkling came to mind when he felt a spike in lust. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Seeing me in your dreams, cook?"
He did in fact get a kick in the face for that comment and he really should have known that kick was coming. He rubbed his face and Sanji scoffed, agitation in his voice now instead of a tempest's fury as he lit up a fresh cigarette. "I wouldn't dream of a green fuzz ball like you." Sanji turned and started to ascend the ladder to the deck.
"Fuzz ball," Zoro grumbled after him, eyes following the cook's lower half out of the room. The injustice of it all just pissed Zoro off because if he was going to get accused for dream diving he might as well have been fed for it.
Sanji leaned down into the hole after a moment. "Oi, you coming or not?"
Zoro stood there, dumbfounded for a moment. "Eh?"
"Just get up here," Sanji ordered.
Zoro reluctantly followed up the ladder and followed Sanji halfway across the deck. It was lit only by the waxing quarter moon on a cloudless night. Zoro just followed the scents of smoke and pent up lust attentively.
"What do you mean you're hungry?" Sanji finally asked, halfway to the galley, Zoro realized. Which explained why Sanji didn't say anything by Luffy. "You ate all of dinner."
Zoro rolled his eyes and stopped following. "Not for actual food, stupid cook." Sanji stopped as well, looking back at Zoro.
"What do you mean?" Sanji asked and Zoro rubbed a hand down his face. Was it really a hard thing to guess?
"You know what I mean." Zoro said.
Sanji frowned. "No, I don't. You're the one dream diving in Robin and Nami's perfect dreams." Zoro scoffed at that. "Why they allow you to is beyond me."
"Moron," Zoro muttered.
"Well why don't you explain it to me, marimo," Sanji said. "When you're hungry you're supposed to tell the cook. There are other people on his ship. Not feeding on one person's energy should change that."
Oh how wrong Sanji was.
They went to the galley and Sanji lit a lamp to illuminate the room. Tea was set to steep and Zoro sat on the bench at the table, mulling over the ways to explain the situation to the cook. The lust he'd tasted in the air was slowly dissipating with more time being spent awake. Since Zoro had not been skimming energy from the cook on a regular basis, there was still a line of sexual tension that could never fully be shook and Sanji looked ruffled and restless as Zoro felt. The tension called to Zoro, like a fountain to a parched man.
"People have different types of energy," Zoro started as the hot tea was poured into cups. "It all functions and builds differently. Usually it depends on what the person is focusing on."
"And you feed on the sex energy," Sanji concluded as he passed a cup to Zoro and one for himself. He also set a bowl of carrot chips to snack on that Zoro was sure was going into soup the next day if they weren't eaten soon. Zoro took one and munched on it to distract himself from Sanji's close proximity as the cook joined him on the bench.
"I can feed on the energy of the body, but it makes people sick. I don't want to make anyone here sick," Zoro said. "Chopper wouldn't appreciate that."
Sanji also munched on the carrot slices between smoking. He was taking everything in better stride this time. "Okay, so you take energy and don't bother anyone. How much do you need a night?"
"Energy isn't something I can measure in calories."
"Fine, explain what you're not getting. I don't know. Rate use if you must, but explain it, damn it."
Zoro glanced at the bowl of carrots in the bowl and took out a handful, making Sanji frown. He placed 5 carrot slices on the surface of the table. "I need 5 carrots a night. More or less depending on my needs. On average, a fresh person I meet will have 5 carrots worth of energy."
"There's 6 of us. Well, 5 you can feed from," Sanji said, not including himself.
"4," Zoro corrected. "Luffy doesn't count. He doesn't have anything."
Sanji looked bewildered and disbelieving. "What? But how…"
"I don't know," Zoro grumbled. "I thought I was going to starve after I first joined his crew." He put down 5 more carrot pieces as Sanji was desperately trying to figure out how Luffy had no sexual energy. And really, it was a mystery to Zoro as well.
"How is that even possible?" Sanji asked. "He's human, right? I mean, he's just as susceptible to biological urges as the rest of us. He's hungry all the damn time." Sanji looked so confused. "Never?"
"Never," Zoro confirmed and directed his attention back to the carrots. "Nami and Usopp are average so I guess they could be rated as fives."
"That's twice as much as you need." Sanji frowned at him, attention back since they were talking about Nami to a degree.
"But lust replenishes depending on the person." Zoro explained. "They only get one carrot back a day, if I'm lucky." He swept away all but one of the slices back into his hand and spoke solemnly. "That's all that's on the ship right now. Except for you. It's Usopp's since he's on watch tonight." Sanji frowned, concern on his face for a moment before he waved his hand and blew out a plume of smoke.
"What about the others?" he asked.
Zoro laid it out on the table with the carrots. Luffy had zero and made just as much. Chopper had an average of 2 and made ½ a carrot a day. Robin had a 4 rating and made 1 back a day like Nami and Usopp.
"And what about me?" Sanji seemed to have trouble asking but he did after studying the information. Zoro swept up the rest of the carrots back into the handful he had and plopped them into a pile before the cook, who sat next to him on the bench. There may have been 15 to 20 slices there and Sanji gave him a look of disbelief. "No way."
"I can smell you from here, cook." Zoro took a few of the slices from the pile and popped them into his mouth for emphasis. "What ever I take from you, you always make it back just as quick."
"You make it sound like I'm some sort of sex crazed maniac," Sanji said angrily. "I'm a gentleman of love. A white knight to beautiful women everywhere."
"Whatever it is," Zoro stressed, annoyed by it, "it's connected to your libido. It's been my main source of subsidence since you joined the crew." Zoro scoffed, agitated. "It's like setting a plate of your food in front of me and telling me I can't eat it." It was cruel and Zoro didn't know how many more days he could go without giving into his hunger and sapping Sanji's dreams.
Sanji frowned at ate several carrot slices from the table before putting the rest back into the bowl. "What happens if you don't get enough?"
Zoro had gone without anything before while traveling on his own; food, water, and energy. He'd rather go without food than energy. At the marine base Luffy had found him at, he'd still been able to sleep and feed on the energy of the surrounding homes and marines. But alone with days of being lost in the wilderness, he'd experienced some unpleasant side effects. "I lose focus. I start to lose myself and control." Zoro hated losing control of his own body. He trained his body to obey his will. Honed it to be stronger and faster, not dissolve into a mindless beast that only fed for the sensation of fullness. Zoro didn't fear much, but he did fear losing himself to that. "I become more demon than human." Literally, as the case was.
"… Is that why your face looks weird?" Sanji asked.
"My-" Zoro frowned, "Shut up, curly brow."
"You shut up. It's a legitimate question, " Sanji snapped and pointed to Zoro's mouth. "You teeth just look sharper than normal. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or not."
Zoro ran his thumb over his upper row of teeth, finding his front and canines were sharper than he remembered a few days ago. One would think his tongue would have found the difference before the cook but he'd been thinking too much on other matters rather than the sharpness of his teeth. No wonder eating meat had been easier than normal. "Shit." He checked the shell of his ear and felt the small ridges that if given time would become wider for better hearing and would take on a strange bat wing shape. It was nothing obvious yet, but to him, he knew what they'd become.
"Is that a bad sign?" Sanji asked with concern.
"It's just… I'm hungrier than I thought." Sitting next to Sanji didn't exactly curb the hunger so the extra appendages could be growing as they spoke. He shoved down the urge to take what he needed. He was in control, damn it. Zoro shook his head and frowned as he noticed the more than casual concern on Sanji's face. "When we get to the next island, I can get my fill."
"You mean, if we find one that's inhabited by people," Sanji said. After all, what if they came across another island only full of dinosaurs like Little Garden?
"Well if someone would just let me feed, then we wouldn't have this problem." Zoro cast a glare at Sanji.
"Shut up. It's your fault for screwing with my dreams." Sanji sent him a glare right back.
"I didn't mess with your dream last night so don't blame anything on me," Zoro said firmly. Sanji smoked furiously on his cigarette, looking stubbornly at the wall. His face warmed to a blush and his lust spiked for a painful moment. It wasn't exactly hard to guess what Sanji had dreamed on his own. Something extremely uncomfortable and arousing; more so than when Zoro had messed with his dreams himself. He wanted details but he could tell Sanji would never tell them to him. "Look, just because you dream about sex with man doesn't mean you're gay." Sanji eyed him with suspicion.
"Good, cause I'm not!" He snapped.
"I believe you," Zoro assured him, and he meant it. The sky was blue, the Grand Line was dangerous, and Sanji had an affection for women that Zoro honestly didn't believe could be carried over to the other sex. This didn't calm Sanji down however.
"How can you say that so calmly," Sanji asked, as though doubting it himself more than Zoro did. "You've… seen my dreams."
He had. He'd seen Sanji's dreams with women and men. He'd seen countless dreams run though hundreds or thousands of people's heads. He'd seen weirder from more normal looking people. He'd seen more disgusting dreams than he'd wanted to from the most innocent women and some of the most boring from ruthless men. Nightmares could be full of unwanted sexual energy and there could be scenes that made his stomach churn. But they were dreams.
"It doesn't mean anything," Zoro said firmly. "Dreams aren't fact. They're screwed up in the best of dreams. I can't read your mind through your dreams, cook. They're for you to interpret and it's your choice to engage in that sort of activity. And it's not like I sit in your head all night. Most of the time I just take what I need and leave you to your fantasy world." The less he spent in other peoples' dreams the better for his own sanity. "You dream far too much about women for my tastes." Sanji watched him a moment as he snuffed out the butt in an ash tray and spun the next one between his fingers.
"You… really haven't been in my dreams lately?" He finally asked.
"No, I haven't." Zoro frowned. He wondered what put the cook on edge so much as of late. Sanji took a long drag on his new cigarette and blew it out the corner of his mouth.
"I can't let you get hungry in good conscience, but I don't want you in my head," Sanji said firmly.
"Well we're both shit out of luck because that's how I feed," Zoro said grumpily.
"What about when you…" Sanji gestured with a hand, "back on Bazooka Island?" Zoro blinked, remembering Sanji's tight, surprised mouth against his.
"That was an emergency situation," Zoro said.
"So you can take it from dreams or physically." Sanji was taking his time with his words carefully. Zoro decided to do the same because he assumed since he wasn't allowed in Sanji's dreams, Sanji wouldn't be up for the other option. Though it could have been Sanji's perverse sense of curiosity again, he supposed.
"I normally don't take energy that way. Too complicated," Zoro said.
"Then explain it."
There wasn't too much to explain. The dream world he could slip in and out often without anyone being the wiser. Physical touch involved a lot more thinking and assumptions on the other person's part. Like Sanji reading too much into the 'kiss' at Bazooka Island. It wasn't even a good kiss, damn it.
"It makes things complicated, usually," Zoro clarified. He raised a brow at Sanji. "I need intimate contact physically. Mouth to mouth. And there needs to be lust present."
"That explains the mention of Nami in her amazing bikini," Sanji said, ending in a wistful tone.
"It isn't exactly hard to bring out your lust." Zoro sensed Sanji's lust spike, followed by the quick mellow back by annoyance from the jab; that took the edge off the hunger pain in his head. It was starting to become something like a pressure headache and Sanji's frequent lust spikes were just making it worse.
"So, what about sex?" Sanji asked after several moments, with a neutral face but with the conversation turned to sex of course Sanji's energy was going to spike like a damn jumping bean.
"What about it?" Zoro asked. He knew what Sanji was asking but really, at some point he got tired of playing 20 questions.
"I mean sex and feeding." Sanji's face grew a few shades redder. "I mean, you do, don't you?"
"Nope." Zoro finally drank from the cup Sanji had set before him.
"What do you mean 'nope'?" Sanji looked confused. "Isn't that what incubi do? Or cambion, what ever you are."
"I don't feed in the middle of sex," Zoro said, amused by Sanji's red cheeks and confused expression. "It's already being spent in the moment and it would kill the mood in an instant. If I'm going to have sex, then it's sex." He didn't feed when in the thrall of lust itself but in a way it was more filling and satisfying when he helped someone to energy that could satisfy him for days on end. The feel of it through someone's skin or even being joined with someone at the cusp of completion was an absolute delicacy. He leaned against his hand and locked eyes with Sanji. "Orgasms taste better than anything." He felt the sharp lust spike as Sanji's eyes widened slightly and Zoro smirked. "Do you want to have sex, cook?"
"What? No," Sanji said quickly, though his lust didn't dissipate, even when he looked away and puffed on his cigarette like a train engine. Zoro just smirked and finished off the carrots and tea. His belly was more than full, but the mental hunger stirred more as they continued to talk. "If." Sanji tapped a long line of ash into the tray. "If we just kiss, then you get fed and I don't have to worry about these damn frustrations."
"Frustrations, cook?" Zoro asked teasingly.
"Shut your trap, marimo." Sanji blew smoke into his face and Zoro coughed, waving the smoke from his face. "After Bazooka Island, I didn't have any dreams about sex. It wasn't on my mind and I wasn't consumed by thoughts of…" He stopped and waved his hand, dropping that line of thought. "I've been thinking about it too much. So if you'd just turn down the heat before the pot boiled over, it would… help."
"I can do that in dreams," Zoro offered. There was no need to kiss if Sanji was truly trying to preserve his heterosexuality.
"And you don't seem to get that I don't want you in my dreams," Sanji said and straightened in his seat, putting out the butt of the cigarette. They matched stares for a good long moment before Zoro leaned on the table and then more into Sanji's personal space. Well, he'd tried to respect Sanji's claim to heterosexuality, but if he was so determined for another kiss, Zoro wasn't going to turn it down.
"Sure you can handle it, love-cook?" Zoro asked. He was pretty sure nerves were making Sanji fidget and tampered the spikes of lust, but he rose to the challenge, leaning in.
"I can handle a kiss, marimo." Sanji said confidently.
Zoro leaned in the rest of the way, feeling the heat of Sanji's skin and nearly brushed his lips, but pulled back at the last second. "Think of the girls, or something."
"Eh?" Sanji sounded confused.
"You're not particularly lustful at the moment," Zoro said. Sanji had to relax and enjoy this, not look like he had to just drudge through it. Zoro didn't have the element of surprise like he had on Bazooka Island.
"Shut up," Sanji told him and his hands gripped Zoro's face and their lips were mashed together jarringly.
On Bazooka Island, Sanji had a clear pool of lust as he had what ever thoughts of Nami in his head, but there in the galley it was annoyingly difficult to find. Mixes of emotion and nerves deluded any way to the energy he needed. Zoro's hand found Sanji's neck and he closed his eyes to better focus and find his way through the proverbial maze. He didn't return Sanji's harsh mouth crush like he was aggressively tempted to. He was too hungry. Instead he ran his thumb up Sanji's throat and jaw, sucking gentle kisses from the lips against his. Sanji shifted and relaxed his tight lips after a few moments, as though relenting that he couldn't just put up with it until Zoro was done. Zoro's hunger drove the kiss forward but Sanji's taste made him slow because he didn't get to enjoy it the first time. Sanji's taste was bitter with tobacco smoke and carrots but warm and mingled with that alluring energy he'd had weeks ago. It was only hinted at first but he drank the fragments down, hunger intervening with exploration. Sanji's fingers buried in his hair and his body slowly relaxed, allowing more lust to trickle from the deep well within him.
Pressing his tongue passed Sanji's lips seemed to turn that trickle into a stream and a small noise Zoro hadn't heard before except in dreams resounded in Sanji's throat. Lust rolled over Zoro's tongue as Sanji moved himself closer and breathing increased between them. The lust was a fountain, flowing easily then; rich and bold like the cook himself. He lifted Sanji into his lap by his hip and thigh. Sanji moved as though to rebuff the movement and pull back but Zoro kept him in place with a hand in his hair and a tight arm around his thigh to keep him against him. His hunger overrode any care about Sanji's comfort level. He just kissed him deeper and tolerated the painful grip in his hair but Sanji fell back into the kiss with renewed fervor, determined to match Zoro.
Zoro siphoned the energy, past the normal amount he usually skimmed from dreams. There was no physical belly for Zoro to fill and they weren't in the heat of battle, so he took Sanji down to the cusp where sexual met physical energy. His hunger was more than sedated but the kiss itself thrived to continue. He broke it off suddenly with Sanji's mouth or he really would keep consuming. They were both breathing hard and Sanji looked disheveled and startled from the sudden halt.
"What?" Sanji asked. His skin was flushed and his lips were swollen and tender. He looked ravishing and Zoro ached to continue, but not for feeding.
"No more lust left," Zoro said in a heavy voice. "Unless, you want me to keep going-" Sanji shoved his hand against Zoro's face and pulled out of his lap, face still a deep and attractive red color.
"Don't over eat, shit head." Sanji stood and dug out a new cigarette. He got out a match and muttered to himself as he lit up, "Algae has an unpleasant aftertaste." Zoro grumbled about the sudden freak out and ran his thumb across his teeth. They were starting to smooth into normal human ones already and the pang of hunger was long gone from his mind. In fact, he was brimming with access. The buzz of it left tingling on his skin that he'd missed from Bazooka Island. He would have to train it off before he thought of getting any more sleep that night.
Sanji stood very still in one spot for one moment, quietly smoking and looking like he'd forgotten or lost something.
"What's with the sour face?" Zoro asked mildly.
"Eh? Nothing." Sanji blew a plume of smoke, brow still furrowed. "I… it feels strange." Zoro wasn't surprised. He had after all, taken all of that delicious energy. He guessed it would feel strange to go from painfully frustrated to post sex mellow without the thrill of an orgasm in between. People tended to become completely disinterested in sex after he drained it all. It was normal, but people were used to a heated make out session to rev them up, not ground them.
"I guess it would be weird for a pervert to lose all interest in sex," Zoro said. Though he wished they had continued, his hunger had been the most important thing to satisfy.
"Shut up." Sanji threw the spent match at him, but it was only half-hearted anger as Sanji still looked dazed from it. Zoro stood and stretched. His limbs buzzed for a good workout before attempting doing anything else. "Oi," Sanji said before Zoro could open the galley door. "You took all of it?"
"Yeah." Zoro nodded. "I'm going to tell Usopp to go to bed. I don't think I'll be sleeping the rest of the night." When Sanji still gave him a weird look, he added. "Not even a huge letch like you can regenerate any more energy for at least a few hours. Go back to sleep for a while." Sanji made a non-committal noise and Zoro let the door shut behind him.
Zoro found a drowsy eyed sharpshooter and got him to go to bed. He retrieved his weights and started working off his access energy. The lights in the galley stayed on for longer than expected. He wasn't sure why Sanji had asked if he'd taken it all. Perhaps it was because Sanji was unfamiliar with the feeling, or maybe he was coping with kissing him still. As far as he could tell, Sanji had enjoyed it. Zoro wouldn't be against Sanji feeding him that way. Kissing the cook had many more benefits to him than dream feeding. Not to mention it was far more enjoyable.