All For You, Captain
Summary: Zoro had promised to spill blood for his captain. He imagined the extent of that was battlefields, sword wounds, and dying at Luffy's side against impossible enemies. He never expected that promise would mean sitting quietly beneath moonlight while his captain drank directly from his veins.
The sweltering heat of the day had settled into a comfortably warm evening. The occasional breeze carried with it the scent of salt and sun-soaked wood as the Sunny drifted drowsily, swaying with the idle grace of a calm night.
She was quiet in a way she never was during the day. Most of the crew had long since gone to sleep. The aquarium bar lights were dimmed, the kitchen cold, the galley quiet, and even the usual nighttime chatter from the men's quarters had died hours ago.
Zoro sat in the crow's nest, caught between sleep and vigilance. His swords rested beside him, ready to be drawn in a moment’s notice. The swordsman's blades were sharpened to precision, honed to cut down any adversary daring enough to board the ship that belonged to the future King of the Pirates.
Alas, the sea tonight was undisturbed in all directions; not another ship in sight atop the gentle waters.
An absence of enemies lulled Zoro with a sense of safety, and he allowed himself to rest his eyes.
The maneuver was textbook reckless, falling asleep while on watch was a sure way to wake up with a blade against your throat while enemy pirates ransacked the ship. However, Zoro's discipline was undeniably a cut above the rest of the crew's, refined enough to keep him aware of his surroundings even as he dozed off. Traveling the perilous seas and declaring war on the World Government had primed him to jump into battle at the drop of a hat.
So the soft ascending creak of someone using the ladder didn't go under his radar.
It was Luffy who emerged, rubbing one eye, raven hair sticking out in every direction.
The captain's stomach twisted painfully, hunger clawing at him, aching deeper than his ordinary appetite, which was insatiable enough as it was.
No, this hunger was so much more demanding.
"Zoro," Luffy spoke, his voice husky from sleep.
Zoro cracked his good eye open and met the drowsy expression on the captain's face. The skin beneath Luffy's eyes was dark with fatigue that he still needed to sleep off.
Which begged the question of what he was doing up in the first place.
Zoro closed his eye again and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's late." The swordsman gruffly scolded, but there was no real bite to his words. He roughly surmised it was somewhere between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning. "What're you doing awake?"
"I'm hungry," Luffy stated quietly, having been roused from his sleep prematurely because his fangs had come out on their own.
Zoro scoffed slightly. Of course he was. Although why he was bothering to announce it to him at all was beyond him.
It's not as though this was the first time Luffy woke up hungry at ridiculous hours of the night. He didn't normally wait for permission to walk into the kitchen to help himself, bypassing Sanji's comically large mousetraps, which their cook was constantly having to upgrade since Luffy kept finding ways around them. The lock and chain on the fridge were unsuccessful on their front as well.
Sanji recently talked about resorting to sea prism chains, or even a security alarm, but no one else was on board with the idea of being routinely pulled from sleep by a blaring alarm simply because their captain had tripped the security to grab a midnight snack. Sanji argued that Luffy wolfing down their food was a very serious matter-- their cook constantly stressed the importance of rationing food while at sea.
Alas, for the sake of sleep, his suggestion was vetoed.
"Do I look like that stupid cook?" Zoro mumbled, closing his eye. "Ask Sanji in the morning."
Luffy frowned.
That silence was Zoro's cue to grasp what his captain was hinting at. They all knew how much Luffy hated asking.
But of course the directionally challenged swordsman missed it.
"Zoro," Luffy repeated, "I'm hungry."
The shy, almost embarrassed tone in Luffy's voice managed to cut through Zoro's sleep-fog.
The swordsman opened his eye and looked over the situation he had failed to properly assess.
The moonlight seeping through the parted window illuminated Luffy standing there, with pale skin, which only ever lost its sun-kissed melanin when he hadn't fed in a few days, and half-lidded eyes that glowed a faint crimson gleam. Luffy’s supernatural eyes were always visible when his instincts kicked in, and his normally black irises were tinged with a splash of ruby red.
His red eyes were an uncanny sight, but one that the crew had gotten accustomed to. The same deal with his teeth.
Now that Zoro was paying better attention, he could see Luffy's lips were pulled apart in a visible strain.
And present enough—fangs.
Oh.
He wasn't hungry for food.
He wanted blood.
The fact that Luffy wasn’t entirely human had become another rhythm aboard the Sunny. Their captain had always been unusual. Admittedly, the revelation was like having the rug pulled from under their feet at first, but eventually ordinary. He wasn't the sorybook monster Usopp feared he'd turn out to be, but still, there was something ancient and hungry beneath all the warmth and effervescence that made Luffy.
Regardless, at the end of the day, to them, Luffy was still Luffy. Their captain. Their idiot. Their friend.
He was still the boy who gave them freedom.
The crew had settled into a routine around Luffy’s appetite for blood. Everyone, sans Brook, Franky, and Chopper, was eligible to give him their blood.
Chopper, naturally, handled medical concerns. He kept meticulous notes clipped to their health charts and constantly monitored their stats, especially iron levels. He strictly implemented the rotation-between-members rule, which ensured Luffy was being properly well fed without making anyone else sick.
Nami got into the habit of recording who donated blood recently and whose turn was up, and Sanji barked at everyone about eating better for the captain's sake. Their cook happily added iron-rich meals to their diets, which paired well with Chopper's tonics, to supplement blood loss.
Luffy managed just fine under Chopper’s regime. He mostly fed in port towns when he could, feeding off other pirates whenever they docked because criminals weighed the least on his conscience.
But out at sea, there were stretches where no islands appeared for days at a time.
If Luffy didn’t feed, he could become very ill. As in, hooked to an IV drip and heart rate monitor sick. His crew openly recognized the need to step in and do their part to avoid any medical emergencies.
Ironically, however, it was Luffy’s refusal to ask that posed an obstacle.
His crew had to familiarize themselves with how often their captain needed to feed before he became pale and started experiencing complications in his cognitive functions.
It was very rare that Luffy asked, most of the time, Nami would quietly remind whoever was up that it was their turn, and they'd seek Luffy somewhere on the ship and take it from there.
The captain who’d made a habit out of recklessly throwing himself into impossible battles without hesitation, who’d willingly spilled blood for every single one of them, could not sit in front of those he loved as their pulse beat against his tongue.
He would rather starve than feed off his friends.
Luffy was a lot more perceptive than what people gave him credit for. He noticed the unintentional bruising against their skin, or the bandages Chopper applied when the bleeding persisted. Mostly, it was the lingering exhaustion in their faces that reminded him no matter how gentle he was, he was still hurting them. It didn't matter how much they insisted they were fine.
Luffy could never stop seeing evidence that he had taken something vital from them.
They never hesitated around him. Not even Usopp and Nami, who'd been the most skittish initially, and rightfully so.
Frankly, it alarmed Luffy how easily his crew surrendered themselves to him. How easily they exposed their throats or carelessly stuck their wrist out for someone capable of bleeding them dry like pigs to the slaughter. Their trust, now their trust meant more than gold to him, but he didn't think his friends understood just how vicious vampire instincts truly were.
Hunger easily distorted thoughts, and the scent of fresh blood could become overwhelmingly irresistible, frighteningly fast.
Luffy’s greatest fear was that one day he might not be able to stop in time, or at all.
However, time and time again, his crew stepped in regardless. No one was going to let their captain starve.
Especially not Zoro.
The swordsman understood that Luffy needed him, and he understood that he needed him now.
He pushed himself upright to receive his hungry captain. "'C'mere then," he muttered, "dramatic little parasite."
Despite calling him that, seeing Luffy like this always stirred something protective in the Vice-Captain.
For Zoro, loyalty had never been complicated. If someone mattered to him, he protected them. If they needed him, he gave what he could. Luffy was his captain, and his devotion for him came easily.
Pain didn't matter if it served a purpose.
Even before he learned the truth about his inhuman appetite for blood, he had decided to ensure the boy who freed him would achieve his dream of becoming King of the Pirates. Even if that meant he had to become a stepping stone for Luffy to ascend to the throne he had his heart set on.
Even if it meant giving his life for his, like he was ready to on Thriller Bark island.
The vampire revelation changed nothing.
Luffy approached Zoro and carefully lowered himself onto him, straddling the swordsman's lap without hesitation.
The first few times Luffy drank from him had been awkward and uncertain, but with routine, it had settled into something familiar between them, something delicate despite the lethal danger in Luffy's smile.
Luffy’s fingers slid beneath the green Kimono, and he pushed the fabric aside with deliberate intent. Zoro adjusted his grip around Luffy’s waist and tilted his head to the side to give better access to his neck.
Luffy carried his hunger like shame, and Zoro hated having to see him lose against himself, so he never treated feeding like something ugly. This was just another way he could protect his captain. To him, it wasn't much different from every scar carved across his body in Luffy's name.
Whether it was standing between Luffy and danger with his swords drawn, or directly feeding him his blood, he’d do it with the same certainty as drawing in his next breath.
Luffy pressed his face into the crook of Zoro's neck and nuzzled the warm skin.
For someone who seldom turned his nose up at meals, their captain had a preference in blood.
Factors such as blood type, a person's gender, age, diet, and even ethnicity affected taste.
And apparently, their Vice-Captain tasted the best to him.
Sanji recovered blood volume faster than the rest, so he could technically give more blood without feeling faint afterward.
However, in this case, more didn't necessarily mean better.
Their captain always chose Zoro whenever he could. The cook always made a dramatic production out of it, too, grumbling about having more blood than that stupid marimo.
Luffy continued to nose Zoro's exposed throat, breathing him in slowly, drawing in deeply with his nose and exhaling shakily through his parted lips.
Anticipation curled low in the swordman's stomach. Luffy's behavior was strangely tender, his nuzzling affectionate enough to make Zoro forget what came next.
Luffy bit down, and his vampiric fangs pierced flesh in two precise points.
Zoro hissed softly through his teeth as pain flared—quick and hot.
One of Luffy's bites barely registered compared to the injuries he endured regularly. The initial sting rapidly dulled to mere pressure in seconds.
Still, Zoro's hands momentarily tightened around Luffy's waist to ground himself.
"Fuck."
Luffy made a soft, pleased sound at the first taste of blood, and damn him for it, because it always affected Zoro more than it should.
He had to manually focus on not bucking his hips up.
Luffy pulled back, just enough to grin against his neck. "You taste good," he said, eyes half-shut. A faint smear of red stained the corner of his mouth, his fangs visible as he smiled.
Zoro huffed and tipped his head back against the wall behind him.
"Yeah, yeah."
Whereas the bite itself was sharp and immediate, the sensation that followed tapered into his senses slowly, like an IV drip.
Whenever Luffy bit them, spurts of venom slipped into their bloodstream in traces too small to damage but impossible to ignore.
The venom put them in a state of intoxication, a tipsy and buzzy feel-good kind.
Chopper wasn't thrilled about it when the crew reported that it relaxed them significantly, because an absence of pain didn't mean an absence of repercussions.
The toxin Luffy released was essentially lethal. It attacked a person's nervous system and weakened resistance. The "fuzzy feeling" was intended to soften struggling bodies and slow reaction time, not give them a good time.
The only reason it hadn't killed them yet was that Luffy put on restraints when feeding on them.
He couldn't stop the venom from happening; it was an automatic release whenever he sank his fangs into something, but he could control quantity. His crew was spared from a typical dose, which had most definitely killed fully grown men five times Luffy's size.
Chopper helped by administering vaccines to the blood donors of their crew once a month to prevent long-term damage to their nervous system down the line from the small doses of venom they continuously received.
Zoro understood it was dangerous, and thinking that it was safe because it was Luffy was just as dangerous. This was something meant to make him incapable while Luffy fed.
Yet, every time those fangs pressed into his skin, his body answered with immediate surrender.
Every muscle in Zoro's body loosened against his will as the tingling numbness robbed him of his autonomy. The venom spread outward in ripples, enveloping him until every inch of him felt weighted and loose. The constant tension he carried dissolved, dulling the ache of old scars and the relentless alertness he lived with. It encased his nervous system like velvet, coating every neurological signal until the world felt distant and dreamlike.
The signals in his brain stopped responding properly and his thoughts clouded-- the deck beneath them, the sea beyond the Sunny, the warm summer night breeze entering through the open window--everything faded beneath the singular awareness of Luffy near him, on him.
Zoro's sword hand twitched before slipping and going limp beside him. The other remained loosely on Luffy's waist as he grew sluggish and pliant beneath him.
A normal victim would panic the moment the paralysis began.
But Zoro had never felt that terror.
Even as Luffy's grip involuntarily tightened dangerously close to bruising him. In his captain's hands, the trust twisted this into comfort. He didn't care however misplaced that conclusion might be.
This was Luffy, and Luffy never took more than he was allowed. He never lost control enough to truly hurt them. He tried so hard to be gentle with them.
That made it all the more compulsive, because Zoro's body learned quickly that the paralysis never ended in death, as it had for countless pirates who were unfortunate enough to become Luffy's meal without the same limitations reserved for his friends.
So instead of trepidation, it answered with anticipation. He relaxed beneath Luffy's hold because a traitorous part of him already knew the overwhelming calm that followed.
And it left him drunk on it every single time.
Zoro sank into the disorientation that spread through his head and the heavy drag behind his eyelids. It was so damn addictive, and he was irrevocably hooked. Damn any opposition Chopper might have on the issue, not that Zoro would be so foolish as to expose such a taboo revelation to their doctor. Or anyone else on the ship for that matter.
Addicted to something that was actively damaging his insides? Heck, he'd say he already was. With his drinking record, he would be a lucky bastard if cirrhosis didn't take him out before old age did.
Arguably, liquor was the safer poison, but he didn't care. No sake could ever compare to the high he got from Luffy's venom.
Much like a vice, this could very well lead him to ruin, but he found solace in knowing he wouldn't go there without first reaching nirvana.
For someone so impulsive in every other part of life, feeding wasn't something Luffy got ahead of himself on. His mouth stayed latched against Zoro's neck while he swallowed in slow pulls instead of greedy ones. Zoro could actually feel the rhythm of it—the subtle pull of blood leaving his body every time Luffy swallowed.
"There you go," Zoro encouraged, with a tipsy slur to his words. He moved his leaden hand from Luffy's hip, his movement languid and delayed, and rested it on the back of Luffy's head, fingers sinking into disheveled black hair to keep him there, as if Luffy would ever pull away prematurely. "My captain."
Luffy hummed happily against his neck. His fingers tightened in Zoro's kimono, and he pressed further against him. The shared intimacy wasn't lost on him.
Only Zoro's scent seemed to have its own gravitational pull.
Only Zoro's blood made his fangs ache even when he wasn't hungry.
Only Zoro made him want to touch.
Only Zoro drove him insane in a way he didn't understand. Every second required conscious effort not to lose control, given how badly he wanted more.
Luffy had fed from the others plenty of times now. His crew treated feeding for what it was: a necessity. They understood the importance, but there was always a degree of practical separation to it.
With Zoro, it was different. There was always tension that neither of them knew how to address.
Luffy was drawn to the way Zoro's hands rested on him, sometimes wandering without thinking. He liked the unfiltered expressions Zoro made whenever the venom started softening the edges of his usual gruff attitude.
Zoro never pushed him away, even when things drifted into something more intimate than they should be.
Usopp, unfortunately, once walked in on them and found Luffy pinned between the wall of the men's dorm and Zoro's body, both heavily flushed.
Luffy had his face shamefully buried in the swordsman's neck, no longer feeding. There were tears in his eyes, his mouth parted around a string of breathless pants as Zoro mindlessly kept pressing his clothed erection onto him, rutting against him drowsily and hungrily trying, in vain, to bury himself deep inside the captain.
Zoro, grogily moaning, looked seconds away from erupting.
Usopp slammed the door shut and spoke to no one about what he'd seen that day, but that was probably because the poor bastard would rather forget he saw that.
It was occasional moments like that that blurred the lines between what was acceptable between friends, though neither Luffy nor Zoro ever spoke about it directly.
Luffy still didn't fully understand why feeding from Zoro made his chest feel tight and warm, or what compelled him towards Zoro. He didn't know why his stomach felt funny whenever Zoro looked at him with sleepy, venom-heavy eyes. Or why he always wanted more of this nameless thing they shared.
He only knew that he liked it, and that was enough to keep him coming back.
The crow's nest had grown quiet except for the creak of the ship and the audible gulps and heavy breathing, confidential between them and the stillness of the night.
Luffy fed just enough to satisfy the ache without draining too much. Those were the rules.
Eventually, the pulling sensation slowed until it stopped completely.
Luffy pulled away and rested his forehead against Zoro's shoulder as he caught his breath, feeling boneless with relief.
"...Behrrer?" Zoro slurred, half-drunk.
"Mhm. Way better."
"Alrigh. Go m...bagh to bed then, and leh--leh me do my job, dramacic little parasite."
Luffy laughed quietly, warm breath ghosting across Zoro's collarbone. It smelled strongly of iron. The scent reached Zoro's nose, giving him a whiff of the blood Luffy had just consumed.
"You're slurring."
Zoro didn't have the mental coherence to tell him that it was because of his stupid venom--the same venom Zoro so deeply coveted.
When Luffy didn't make an effort to get up, Zoro realized he intended to spend the remainder of the night using him as a mattress.
"No."
"Mmm," Luffy whined, "but I'm sleepy."
"Then go to yer bwunk."
"But Zoro is more comfy," the young captain insisted, pulling back to face him with a pout that would hopefully sway his right-hand man.
Zoro blinked back at him. Luffy looked absolutely wrecked in the softest way possible. The bedhead didn't help. The sight alone sent a jolt of pleasure through his gut and an arrow through his heart simultaneously
He took pride in knowing he had done that. Not Sanji. Not Nami. Not Robin. No Usopp.
Luffy preferred his blood. Luffy desired his blood, perhaps almost as much as Zoro needed his venom.
After a moment, Zoro sighed in defeat and let him stay there. The response that formed in his head was 'aye captain,' but the words that left his lips were a garbled version of that.
Still, Luffy lit up at his "aigh, cahpmim." and enthusiastically got comfortable on the body below him.
Zoro couldn't get him off even if he tried. The venom circulating in his system impeded his ability to shove him off. Its effects would linger for another hour before gradually fading.
His cheek lay pressed against Zoro's shoulder, his body warm and loose in the swordsman’s lap. Within minutes, the exhaustion hit Luffy fully once more.
Zoro felt the exact moment his captain drifted off and his breathing slowed into slumber.
The swordsman looked down at him quietly, smiling softly to himself. The moon bathed them in pale light, catching the smear of red on the corner of Luffy's mouth.
It was ridiculously cute for someone who could easily rip another person’s throat apart.
The venom buzzed pleasantly through Zoro's veins, leaving him relaxed and tipsy. When he regained strength in his arms, he adjusted his grip on Luffy, who had slipped significantly off him.
Luffy made a sound in his sleep but didn't wake.
"Tch," Zoro muttered fondly.
Out in the open sea, beneath the sky as endless as the sea, Zoro settled back to keep watch over the tranquil night with his sleeping captain tucked safely against his chest.