Houston, we have yaoi!
What do you know, it worked! This is only an R-rated warm-up, but I believe some NC17 ficcage should follow. This particular yaoi critter was lured out of the woodworks by scribe_protra who played upon my secret 'accidental voyeur' fetish. Prompt was to have a crewmember - I chose Usopp from the list - secretly watching some Kaku/Zoro smexoring. This fic was written QUICKLY, it's very much not refined, but nonetheless some characterisation and plottage did creep in. I only wanted to write some down-and-dirty drabbles for this challenge and my first work is 4000 words *le sigh* Typical.

Title: What The Sniper Saw [Hey, this is just an excuse to write some slash, okay, so I don't feel the need to be original in my titles, or to spare the cheese]
Pairing: ZoroxKaku, UsoppxKaya, mentions of NamixRobin
Rating: R, baby! It might even be said to rise to NC17, but if you're that sensitive to the smex0r, you shouldn't be reading this.






AN: This is in the 'Up on the peak' continuity, but you don't need to read those fics to get this. It's after the series, Luffy got the One Piece, Zoro's Ze Best, the World Government fell, Kaku tried to kill Zoro and found himself shanghaied as a pirate instead in a series of events that he still doesn't quite get. Since this series originally pre-dated the end of Enies Lobby, Franky is not on board and Kaku is now the Straw Hat shipwright.


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Super Spy Usopp hunkered down in the closet until his eyes were level with the knothole in the wood. His target walked into the workshop right on cue.

Kaku had been part of the Straw Hats for a month now and had done nothing suspicious, but Usopp didn't trust him for all that. Let the one-time infiltrator beguile the rest of the crew with his manners and his efficiency and his occasional sweet smile; the Brilliant Captain Usopp was not fooled! He knew this ex-CP9 agent was up to no good. Why else would he stick around aboard the Thousand Sunny when he could have gotten off ages ago?

The one-time assassin - who had only recently and by his own admission tried to kill Zoro - went to the workbench. A jar full of screws and nails rattled as Kaku sorted through its contents in a distracted way. Usopp's inner narration of his own adventures paused. That was odd. He'd tried numerous times to spy on Kaku and catch him in the act of doing something dastardly, and so far Kaku had always gone straight to Usopp's hiding places and said something along the lines of "Oh hi, Usopp, looking for something?" or "Aren't you cramped in there?" or "You know, I used to do this sort of thing for a living, do you want some pointers...?"

But today Kaku didn't even look in the closet's direction. He seemed preoccupied. More than that; when the ship creaked on a particularly pitched roll and something outside the door shifted with a faint thud, Kaku glanced quickly over his shoulder with an air of unease. The man looked almost...guilty. Usopp swallowed. Of course he didn't trust Kaku. He certainly didn't like him. No, he did not, even if the guy was easy enough to get along with, and stood up for Usopp when the latter expounded on caution rather than crazy charges, and even complimented Usopp's sniping skills and the repairs the latter had done to the Sunny up until now- No, Usopp didn't trust Kaku at all, but that didn't mean he wanted to be right about the guy being up to no good. Not really.

The door opened abruptly. Usopp jumped a mile, upset a mop in the closet and caught it by his fingertips as it tangled in some spare lumber. Kaku definitely would have heard that disturbance, but he'd dropped a wrench when the door opened, and now he and Zoro were concentrating on each other to the exclusion of mops and spars settling in closets with a series of soft bumps.

"Zoro..." Usopp had seen Kaku hold that stance before, when he was en garde and waiting for the world's best swordsman to hammer into him when they sparred. "I don't think this is-"

Zoro didn't say a word, didn't lose that expression of single-minded concentration as he bridged the distance between them in five sure strides, boxed Kaku against the workbench and kissed him fiercely. The jar of screws fell over with a clink and Usopp's jaw hit the closet floor with a thunk.

"Zoro-hm! Stop, we shouldn't be- this-" Kaku kept moving his head to break the kiss and finish his sentence only to find Zoro's mouth locking his words in again.

Finally - in Usopp's stunned brain, there registered some surprise Kaku hadn't done this a little quicker - Kaku got his hands on Zoro's shoulders and shoved him off. "No, look, it's the middle of the afternoon, everybody's on deck, they'll come looking for us-"

"Let them. It's not like we can do this in bed at night, what with all the others-"

"We shouldn't be doing this at all."

"That's what you said the last four times we did it."

"Luffy almost stumbled onto us last time!"

"He was looking for something to eat. Even if he'd opened the pantry door, he'd have only snagged the lamb chops and closed it again."

"You don't- hm!"

Zoro kissed him with slow, unstoppable force that bent Kaku back until his shoulderblades ground into the workbench, upsetting a wedge. When Zoro lifted his mouth away, there was only the sound of panting in the room (and a mental 'ohshitohshitIcan'tbelievethisshitohshit' from the closet).

Kaku licked his lips. "This is not discreet."

Zoro smirked, forcing eye contact. "Yeah, and I'm thinking that's why you like it like this, Mr Secret Agent. Otherwise you'd not have come down here."

"I came down here to fix something," Kaku shot back, round eyes flashing in offence.

"Oh yeah? What?"

"The cap on the topgallant is showing signs of, of stress and wear. I was gathering my tools."

"Uh-huh. Is the ship gonna sink in the next twenty minutes?"

"Well no-"

"We got time for a quick one, then, and don't tell me that's not why you came down here, not after what you did when we were sparring earlier."

The large knothole was angled regrettably well; Usopp had wanted to make sure he could spy on what Kaku was doing at the workbench so he'd artfully widened the flaw in the wood. He now had a very good view of Kaku's face and the expressions that passed there fleetingly, some that belonged to the good-natured giraffe Zoan who'd recently come on board and joined the crew, some that belonged to the other, darker person living in Kaku's skin. And opposite was Zoro, just Zoro, one hundred percent Zoro staring down in that in-your-face way of his which never bothered with feints and pretences...

Oddly enough, it was only at this moment Usopp's mind caught up to the fact that he was, well, really sort of intruding here.

Kaku's breath fled through his lips in a muted hiss. "At least lock the door," he whispered. "I don't want any of the others barging in on us. Especially Chopper. He's still just a kid."

Zoro's smirk was undiluted triumph as he turned and marched towards the door. Usopp's mouth went as dry as a cuttlefish bone as he saw Zoro's hand reach for the latch. Agh! Oh no! But then again, Usopp was stuck in the closet, feet braced against the floor, shoulder wedged in the corner, eyes glued to the hole, one hand still gripping the broom so it wouldn't tumble further and the other hand firmly clamped over his mouth. He couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to. He certainly couldn't have gotten out of there discreetly and he was already in deep shit - oh shit he was in so much deep shit. He was totally accidentally spying on two of the most dangerous killers of his generation making out, and the reality of this would have made his knees quake like castanets if he'd had the room.

Only one thing for the Great Captain Usopp to do to remedy the situation! As Zoro turned back to the workbench, Usopp screwed his eyes tightly shut. There. Even if they looked in the closet, he could pretend he'd been faaaast asleep the whole time, and this way he wouldn't see two of his friends doing what he had the bad feeling they were going to be doing in a minute.

There was a creak of wood garnering the weight of an extra body. Clothes rustled. Then the moist sound a mouth made when it was opened to bite or kiss or both.

...Usopp realized there was a flaw to his clever plan...He needed both his hands right now, one to stop the mop from falling, the other to stop him from whimpering - and that left him nothing with which to bung up his ears.

Someone - Kaku? - gasped, a small noise that sounded as loud as a cry of ecstasy in the darkness behind Usopp's eyelids. The workbench creaked again, and again, something went clatter-clatter-clatter-clunk! Hungry, wet sounds, the crack of a seam giving way under stress and Usopp's eyes popped open because it really couldn't get any worse.

Kaku's jacket was all but off, clinging on by only one arm, and Zoro's hand was up the black t-shirt and exploring. They were back on the workbench, almost lounging on its narrow breadth, mouths locked. Usopp swallowed (as silently as possible, though it still sounded like a tsunami in the confines of his head) and registered some surprise that he wasn't more surprised. Shocked, yes. Bowled over, most certainly. Mortified? Excruciatingly so. But his biggest surprise wasn't that Zoro and Kaku had a thing going on, but that they'd apparently done this four times already in the closed environment of the ship and nobody the wiser. Usopp hadn't noticed anything odd about the way the two behaved on the surface, but somehow, no, he wasn't all that surprised. Just really, really embarrassed.

He tried to look elsewhere, but who was he kidding...Chopper might be a kid, but Usopp wasn't, and, well, even though it was embarrassing and he wasn't into guys, it had been a long time since he'd last seen Kaya...What was she doing right this minute? And was she wearing that little pink thing she had on last time? - ugh! Bad thought! Bad thought!

But he couldn't help it. Zoro's hand caressed the body beneath his, dropped to Kaku's thigh...He leaned back only when Kaku had undone the Harimaki and was tugging at the white shirt. Zoro was built like Usopp was in his fondest dreams. Kaku's fingers brushed the diagonal scar...Zoro leaned forward again for another sure, long kiss. Usopp's imagination had no problem substituting himself into the picture. He'd lean over Kaya like Zoro was doing, his hand would cup her chin in that way, thumb brushing her mouth open, lips parting just like that, for a deeper kiss-

Which Kaku broke with a wickedly sudden twist and heave that sent various tools cascading to the floor. Zoro was the one flat on his back on the workbench with Kaku holding him pinned, looking down at him with heavy intent.

"Okay, we'll do this if you want, but it's my turn on top, remember?" he said, finishing off the job of sending Usopp's fluffy mental image spinning out of control and off into very strange territory indeed.

"You didn't even want to do this," Zoro countered and heaved up his legs. Kaku had to bend at the waist to avoid getting kneed. Zoro used the momentum to roll to one side and spin, gripped Kaku in passing and shoved him forward face first against the bench. Zoro was against him immediately, weight slamming against Kaku's back-

Kaku seemed to turn to smoke in his arms and though Usopp didn't miss a beat - his blink reflex was fried by now anyway - he could not figure out how it was suddenly Kaku who was cramming into Zoro's back and bending him over the workbench. Zoro growled and struggled against what looked like an easy hold on his elbow.

"Give it up," said Kaku affectionately. "You can beat me with swords - for now - but when it comes to fighting dirty and in close quarters-"

He grunted with surprise as Zoro did something that made both their joints creak and the solid and reinforced workbench jolt and thud against its moorings. Usopp may not have been a swordsman himself but he hadn't been surprised at all. He'd seen that gleam in Zoro's eyes a number of times and something insane and violent usually followed.

When the dust settled, Zoro had somehow gone from being bent over the workbench to sitting on it, his hands were fisted in Kaku's shirt and his legs had captured Kaku and hauled their two bodies together at the groin, apparently with some force.

Kaku breathed out. "Okay, that caught me off guard," he murmured, punctuating the admission with a small kiss feathered onto Zoro's hard smirk. "Though it shouldn't have. If there's a risky and painful manoeuvre you can use...hmmm....then you'll use it. What do you call that style, by the way....Suicide Stance School?"

Zoro's grin showed a lot of teeth. "No, but I like that. Catchy. You got a way with names."

"Ha ha. What now?"

"Now it's your turn on top."

"Well thank you."

Zoro snorted and used a grip in Kaku's hair to drag him into a kiss that sent them sprawling against part of the bench's length; then with no subtlety whatsoever he stuffed his hands down the back of Kaku's tracksuit and hauled him forward until they rubbed against each other in a way that baked Usopp's brain like the Alabastan noon sun.

The two men broke apart just long enough to tear off their remaining clothes. The electric light above the workbench shone on skin and muscles and scars like crazy patchworking.

"Did you remember to bring the lube before you came down to ambush me?" Kaku asked archly, settling once again between Zoro's legs as the latter sat on the bench.

"You're the one who wanted me to come down here," Zoro answered, with a slap to Kaku's buttock that seemed to echo around the inside of a nearby closet, "and it's in my pants."

Kaku leaned down to fetch it with nothing more than a good-natured swat at Zoro's thigh.

"Left pocket."

"Hm."

...Usopp stared at the scene, mortification momentarily forgotten. Kaku knelt, arm outstretched, every muscle defined, his other hand still resting on Zoro's knee, and Zoro sat on the bench looking down at him with absolutely zero self-consciousness in his pose. The two of them together in that yellow light against the tools and the wooden workbench...it was an artist's dream, a composition already drawing itself in Usopp's mind and itching in his fingers; 'Two Male Nudes, Connected' or something...It was an odd moment of beauty in this whole horrible affair and it allowed Usopp to forget his embarrassment, his dread of discovery, and the tent in his pants. A totally impersonal and non-directed tent, of course, since Usopp was almost entirely certain he was entirely straight and very much in love with Kaya, but with all this going on outside his closet, even a statue would be subject to embarrassment-

Kaku stood up, giving Usopp a full frontal view of an irreproachable boner, and Usopp, who'd just remembered he had to eat breakfast every morning sitting opposite this man, stifled a groan with his hand and contemplated the numerous attractions of suicide.

Kaku turned towards Zoro - now Usopp had a good three-quarter view of the man's ass and that wasn't any better - tossing the lube up in down in his palm. Zoro hoisted himself forward on the bench a few inches and caught Kaku around the ribs with his legs, drawing him nearer. Kaku, totally unperturbed, flipped the lube up one last time, unscrewed it and poured some in his palm. His hand went down to where Zoro's ass met the workbench while he leaned forward and bit the soft skin just above the jut of the Zoro's hipbone. Usopp - eyes as wide, round and dried as over-fried eggs - could distinctly see the bite mark when Kaku lifted his head to attack Zoro's side higher up, but Zoro only snickered. Maybe that was the insane-swordsman version of tickling. Or maybe it was what Kaku was doing with his fingers that was making Zoro smile in that wolfish way. Usopp couldn't see very well since Kaku's arm and body were in the way, but he unfortunately had enough hearsay education to know what was probably going on at that end, and he managed to concentrate on the way Kaku was licking his way up Zoro's chest and playing cat's cradle with the scar because that was a lot safer. Ahhh, to live once more in an innocent world where this was not the safest thing to look at...

After what felt like several hours for Usopp but was only a couple of minutes for the more active participants, Zoro shifted his weight on the bench and pushed at Kaku's shoulder.

"M'not finished yet," Kaku said against the soft underside of Zoro's jaw. His arm muscles flexed and his fingers must have done something because Zoro jumped. Actually jumped. Usopp hadn't known he had it in him.

"Uh..." Zoro looked like he was fishing for his latest thoughts on the matter, then he shook his head sharply and thrust Kaku away. "Quickie, remember?" he said, sliding off the bench and turning around. "The cook was making noises like he might want someone's help with the vegetables any moment."

"And you tell me this now," Kaku commented, the hand covered in lube dipping out of Usopp's sight and doing something near the front of his body requiring several up and down motions which Usopp, despite his valiant attempts not to, could only imagine too well.

"You'd have run out if I'd told you earlier," said Zoro with a smirk addressed to the tool shelf before his face. "But I don't think you want to go peel spuds right this minute."

Kaku looked up and the flash in his eyes was familiar, he was clearly contemplating leaving Zoro there and walking out to make a point - he and Zoro could have been separated at birth, yeesh, even Usopp was aching for all this to be done and finished properly and he wasn't even involved, much. But then Kaku stepped forward, front to Zoro's back, wrapped one arm around the other swordsman's waist and jerked Zoro back while he screwed his hips forward. Zoro laughed, the low murderous sound that made Usopp's hair uncurl and stand on end.

Kaku moved, lips parted and eyes closed with an expression on his face - oh boy, oh dear, thought Usopp - then his front was pressed inch for inch against Zoro's back, mouth near Zoro's ear...Whispers, sounded like taunts but too low for Usopp to make out, and they were both grinning as Kaku flexed out and in again. Zoro braced his hands against the bench and shoved back and that was it, away they went at it...A tiny, despicable part of Usopp's mind was remembering all that foreplay he'd had to go through - pleasant in itself, sure, but well, kind of agonizing too - before he and Kaya had gotten to this part. Well damn, being gay seemed to have some advantages. Or...maybe not. Maybe they'd had the lengthy foreplay alright and he'd just missed it. Usopp was ready to bet the foreplay had started this afternoon out on deck during their daily sword training and had continued all the way down to the workshop with that tussle before. Usopp didn't know this for a fact, but he knew Zoro, and he was starting to know Kaku too (for instance, he now knew Kaku had a very interesting scar pattern on his butt-)

The rhythm was fast and hard right out of the gate. The bench creaked in time, the noise conglomerating with the creaks and rolls of the ship, the thud of footsteps on the deck above and the panicked thudding of Usopp's heart. He was...really in dire straights right now. And it was upsetting; these were two friends. Spying on them - accidentally! - while they were boinking was one thing, such mishaps could occur on a busy ship, Usopp had walked in on Nami and Robin and, apart from a week of nosebleeds, had not felt all that bad about it. But actually getting off on it at the same time was beyond the pale (the nights that Nami and Robin had come and kept Usopp company in his imagination didn't count as anywhere the same level of transgression, because that was normal, he was nineteen, and a guy, there were things that were beyond the power of man to control). This shouldn't be so, um, stimulating considering the terrible circumstances, but there was something so...Usopp fished for a word that could explain his distress and for some reason the only one that came up was badass, which was hugely inappropriate. Yet there truly was something badass in the way these two deadly men screwed each other with the same self-assurance with which they fought. Usopp's first time with Kaya had consisted essentially of elbows and apologies, with only one glorious cuddly moment right at the end- oooooh, he shouldn’t have thought of that, now he was even worse off.

Feeling like a blackguard, Usopp slowly detached his hand from his mouth, one finger at a time, leaving prints on his cheeks that would match those left by an overfriendly squid. Then he dropped his guilty hand to the bump at the front of his pants. There, his course was set, the dice was cast, and that just left two questions. Could he go to hell for this? And could he do this without making any noise, or otherwise he'd be finding out the answer to the first question very shortly.

Zoro was bent forward, muscles in his arms working, face half-turned, eyes narrowed as he got closer...Kaku stood behind him, body flexing and pushing into the resistance - Zoro's body like a pillar of strength - but Kaku's hands were doing things that made his stoic partner's breath hiss between his teeth and his head toss from side to side. Usopp swallowed several whimpers, fingers of his unbusy hand tight as vices on the ever-so-phallic mop handle.

Usopp, Kaku, Zoro and the mop- but Zoro got there first. His face darkened, his eyes were slits, his lips drew back on clenched teeth and he shuddered and bent forward, one hacking gasp the only sign he'd come. Kaku kissed the strong neck bending beneath him and then his rhythm changed, concentrated on climax until it stuttered and held, and he sighed, a contented sound...

They collapsed forward against the bench, Zoro holding them both up with one lazy elbow planted on the wood.

"Whew," was all that Kaku said. Zoro didn't say anything (Usopp knew he was imagining the purr). Usopp was frozen in his closet, hand locked over the painful bulge by alarm at the sudden sated silence that spread through the room, hardly disturbed by the usual background noises of the ship. Oh he was close, he was-...he'd be there already by a mile if he could do more than rub and pray very hard- Slowly his hand started to move again, even fear of discovery unable to stay it...oh nearly, nearly...this wasn't embarrassing anymore, Usopp's mind was playing little snapshots of the action, laying them side by side with the picture of two quieted bodies moving to lounge side by side but keeping that warm contact, skin to skin-

"Shit, Usopp."

The mutter from over by the workbench was faint, but it was as loud as a pistol shot to certain parties.

"What about him?" Zoro grunted.

Kaku didn't say anything for a few seconds, then he stood up and shook his head. "He wanted me to show him how to remove the topgallant to get at the cap. He's interested in my repairs, and more strength to him. I was going to have him help me with it this afternoon, but now Sanji's probably put him on potato duty while we two were fooling around."

"Show him another day."

"This isn't the sort of thing I do every day," Kaku pointed out, picking out his tracksuit from the clothes strewn on the floor. "Damn it- it's a miracle he didn't barge in here, looking for me, or that Sanji didn't charge down the steps to see what the hell we're-"

"The bloody cook knows better," said Zoro with a leer.

"After the pantry thing, I'm sure he does," Kaku muttered disapprovingly, pulling on his clothes. "Come on, get dressed."

"Yeah yeah."

Zoro pulled on his pants, used his shirt to wipe the bench down with two swipes and then threw it over his shoulder. "M'gonna go change."

"Right, I-"

Zoro caught him and kissed him. Unlike the previous display of strength, raw lust and one-upmanship, this moment was one of tenderness...Not the sappy kind; this tenderness had been around the block, it had scars, interesting stories and a rolling gait as it walked up to bars, ordered un-watered rum and used the spittoon, but tenderness all the same.

They broke the kiss in stages, until Kaku leaned back and looked at Zoro and then, after a false start, cleared his throat and muttered, "Can you at least go on ahead so we're not seen coming out of a locked room in a dishevelled state together?"

Zoro cleaned out an ear with his finger and shrugged. "If you want, sure."

"Thank you."

Zoro walked out with the gait of a fed tiger making its lazy way back to its den. Kaku closed the door, rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

"Well, I guess I won't be getting any work done here this afternoon after all," he said to himself. "I'll do the caps tomorrow, and ask Usopp to help. Now, by the sound of it, Sanji had some veg to peel." And he opened the door and walked out.

The closet in the workshop stayed closed for a long, long time.



End

Hahaha, this is probably full of typos and awkward sentences, but if you spotted them on the first read, then I probably failed my pr0n ^___^