Zoro's day starts strangely with having to untangle the tail of a sleeping demon from around his thigh. From there it continues to get stranger with antiseptic, bandages and breakfast. In that order.
"What would you normally be eating for breakfast? You know, in hell." Zoro asks, ignoring the way that Sanji keeps looking at his burnt arm and scowling.
"Uh…" Sanji says, snapping to attention. "It varies, I live above a restaurant, so I'm spoilt for choice."
"Okay but, is there anything that you can't eat?" Zoro asks as he shoves bread in the toaster.
"Not really, I could eat the plate you serve me food on and it wouldn't do me any harm. So unless you make my coffee with holy water, I'll be fine." Sanji says easily as he leans against the kitchen counter.
"Hey Zoro, do you know how to make holy water?" Sanji asks with a smile.
Zoro frowns and tries to recall.
"I didn't elect for the levels of catholic study that'd grant me the clearance to make it but I know roughly. Besides every religion has its equivalent, my parents were Buddhists and I looked up something similar years ago but I can't remember it now. Shit, what was it?" Zoro groans in frustration, he knows that it's going to bug him all day and he's going to have to look it up in school.
"Zoro, you're ruining my joke. You make holy water by boiling the hell out of it." Sanji says flatly.
The toaster pops and Zoro's eye twitches.
"The only reason I'm not throwing this toast in your face for that awful joke is that it'd be a shame to waste food." Zoro says firmly and stabs his knife into the butter as Sanji tries and fails not to snigger too obviously at his own joke.
When Sanji has gone back to hell and Zoro has gone to school his day starts to go a bit more normally. He has magical history class and a debate on the manticore war. He predictably bumps into Robin outside of class, the history part of his school is her home territory after all.
"Goodness me Zoro, did you have a reaction to Usopp's little prank test?" Robin asks suddenly, making Zoro jump at her voice.
"You could say that." He sighs, looking down at his still-bandaged arm. He's got skin on it now, but it's skill all sore and raw, and he doesn't want to let other things touch it if he can help it.
"What happened?" Robin asks.
"Turned out he made something way stronger than he meant to, it got worse the longer I left it." he tells her. Robin's eyes widen in alarm.
"But you're okay now, yes? Did Chopper fix it for you?" She says with a worried pinch to her brow.
Zoro hesitates, on the edge of speech and thinks. With Usopp having met Sanji under far worse circumstances than he had wanted he's going to have to speed up the process of introducing them all. He had caught parts of Sanji's deal with Usopp, but it's somewhat fuzzy. All he knows is that no deal is foolproof and Usopp can be a damn good fool when he wants. He will worm some way around it, or something else will go wrong. So he needs to start talking about Sanji more, start letting people know how serious they are so he can introduce them. So it starts now.
"Chopper tried but no, my… my boyfriend was the one who fixed me up." He says with a nod.
Robin's smile becomes a little catlike, and her eyes are shining with curiosity.
"I had heard tell that you were seeing someone again. Anyone that I know?" She asks silkily, tucking a feather behind her ear.
"No one you know. But I- he's… nice. I should introduce you all sometime. He's already met Kuina, though it was an accident. She likes him, only somewhat threatened him with grievous bodily harm." Zoro snorts.
"Oh-hoh, must be serious if you're introducing him to family and us. I'm sure that won't be a problem at all. How about this weekend at the slaughtered lamb? It'd be a nice place to show him." Robin suggests.
"It might take a little longer than that." Zoro says uneasily, glancing around. Most of the students have dispersed for their next classes, but there are a few distantly around.
"He's not full human, and he's worried about people taking it badly." Zoro answers. Not technically a lie.
"Zoro, you know us better than that. Besides you and your sister are the only pure humans that I know. Most people are half or less of one thing or another or like Luffy who is such a mix that no one can get a read on just what he is." Robin says with a frown.
"He's less human than you, and noticeably so. And he's not like Chopper or Usopp where he's something that people regard favourably." Zoro tells her.
"Oh, more than half. Well, I can't relate to that part, but I can relate to being a species that people don't like, as can Brook and Nami I'm sure." She says with a frown.
She's right too. When Robin was Zoro's age and studying at this school, it was less accepting than it is now. She's half siren, and people used to try to pull her feathers out or filled her locker with water balloons. Robin's never drowned anyone in her life and sure if she sings or hums she does entrance people enough to make them do what she wants, but she rarely uses that power and never cruelly. As for Brook, it wasn't so long ago that people used to hunt down lich like him and even now people treat him badly or fear him. And Nami, well… the fact that people still use 'harpy' as an insult should say all that needs to be said.
"He's just not dated many people before, and he's big on the whole milestones thing, meeting all of you is a big thing for him. He's just scared is all, but I'll work on it." Zoro promises. He neglects to mention that Sanji is scared because of the likelihood of Zoro's friends trying to kill him.
Zoro's phone buzzes in his pocket and out of habit he looks at it. It's a message from Usopp.
"Is he trying to apologise?" Robin asks, peering over at his phone. Zoro lifts it up so she can't see it and opens the message.
'Zoro come to room 101 we need to talk about my pathetic shortcomings as a man and my tiny dick.'
Zoro squints at it. That… that has to be his deal with Sanji warping what he wrote, right?
"I think so? I'll see you later Robin." Zoro says and waves goodbye.
"I'll think of somewhere quiet to meet him. Bye Zoro, I hope your arm feels better and doesn't fall off!" Robin says cheerfully and leaves, sending a shudder up Zoro's spine. He wishes she wouldn't say things like that.
His phone pings again, it's Usopp.
'I SAID my hideous face!'
Zoro bites his lip to stop laughing and heads to the right room. He's not too sure of where it is so he's following the arrow on his good hand. On the way there he gets two more equally ridiculous and self-insulting texts from Usopp.
When he enters room 101, he sees Usopp standing in the middle and as the door clicks shut he is suddenly unable to hear the noise outside. For a moment he wonders if his ears have popped and he's gone deaf. He turns to look at the door and sees a silencing sigil there, one which was completed when the door closed.
"Clever… and without a wand too." Zoro muses as he looks at it.
"Yeah, well I have you to thank for that." Usopp grumbles.
"Sorry, but I couldn't let you hurt him." Zoro says quietly, and Usopp scowls.
"So you can talk about him then, whatever he's done to you doesn't extend to your silence on him." Usopp says thoughtfully.
"Done to me?" Zoro asks, raising an eyebrow.
"You know he's a demon, right? An incubus." Usopp says slowly.
"Of course I know that. Look, that wasn't how I wanted you to meet. He just gets… protective I guess. You nearly killed me, and I guess it didn't put him in the most sociable mood." Zoro says regretfully.
"I'm sorry about your arm, you know I never meant to hurt you." Usopp apologises, his eyes grazing over Zoro's still bandaged limb.
"I know that. It was an accident, it's fine." he tells the other man who looks genuinely guilty.
"He tried to kill me, Zoro; he" Usopp says softly, and Zoro winces. His knee-jerk instinct is to insist that Sanji hadn't done that, couldn't have. But he remembers pulling Sanji away from Usopp, a Sanji who had looked disturbingly like Kaya. Of course, Sanji was an incubus and as far as he knows he doesn't try to seduce people for any other reason than to take their souls.
"And you tried to attack him to defend me. Neither of you were at your best. I know it doesn't seem like it Usopp, but he's a good person. I'm sure if you'd met under better circumstances you'd like him." Zoro insists.
Usopp shakes his head and presses his palms to his forehead. He breathes in deep for a few seconds and then exhales long and slow. He takes his hands down and looks at Zoro calmly.
"Tell me what you think you know about him. I need to work out what he's done to your head and seeing where the blank spots are will help." Usopp says.
"He hasn't done anything to my head." Zoro protests.
"That's what someone who had got their brain fucked with would say." Usopp reasons and though he's wrong, Zoro can't fault his logic.
"He's an incubus. I know his name, but I'm not telling it to you. I know that he'd never eaten chocolate before he met me and loved it, I know that he likes sports movies where the underdogs win in the end, and he's obsessed with fashion and cooking shows. He's got a stupid sense of humour, and he was excited to meet all of you. I know him Usopp, he's not changed how I think through magic." Zoro insists but Usopp is clearly not convinced.
"I know you think that you're right about all of that, but you wouldn't know if he'd messed with your mind. If he'd changed your memories or how you view him." Usopp tells him.
Zoro runs his hands over his face with a groan and tries to think of how to get out of this circular conversation.
"Why would he do that? I don't even think he could; incubi aren't able to override what I think. Especially not as I'm entirely human. He can't take my soul because I'm not attracted to him like that, his seduction stuff just doesn't work. What possible reason would he have for keeping me alive and dating me if he had sinister intentions?" Zoro asks. If Usopp is the one who has to answer then maybe he'll think more rationally.
"I don't know, maybe he wants to study you so he can work out how to be even more deadly!" the other man insists sharply.
"That doesn't make any sense." Zoro points out, and Usopp paces back and forth for a little while.
"His motives don't matter." Usopp says with a shake of his head.
"They seemed to matter a lot when you thought you could prove how evil he was with them." Zoro says, perhaps in a somewhat petty manner.
"What matters is that he's evil, Zoro. You do know that, right?" Usopp asks him.
"He's not evil." Zoro insists.
"HE KILLS PEOPLE!" Usopp shouts in exasperation. Zoro winces. Yes, there is that...
"That doesn't make him evil he's just... complicated. It's just what he's made to do; he can't help it." Zoro says earnestly.
Usopp's eye twitches and his mouth is hanging open. Zoro gets the creeping sense that this is not going well. He expected Usopp to be unhappy with this whole thing, but he had hoped that would be able to talk him around soon enough. Apparently not. Perhaps a metaphor might help.
"It's like... sharks aren't evil, they're part of the ecosystem. Incubi were made to hunt us, if they don't do it they die. I'm sure that if cows had the brains, they would think we were evil too." He says.
Usopp stares at him for a few seconds of shock.
"Are you CRAZY?! I think you just managed to offend both demons and all flavours of humanity! He's not a mindless animal, Zoro. He's a serial killer. Do you even know how many people he's killed?" Usopp presses him.
Zoro shifts uneasily under his friend's stare. He's been doing a lot of mental gymnastics to not think about just that. He could probably work it out, though, he knows roughly how much time Sanji spends working each week. He could work out how long each seduction and subsequent... acts would take. He could divide the number of hours Sanji works by that amount of time to get how many people Sanji goes through in a week. Then times that by fifty-two for a yearly figure, or maybe fifty weeks if Sanji got holiday. He could take a guess at how many years that Sanji has been doing this for and then arrive at how many people Sanji has literally jerked off of the mortal coil.
It must be thousands, hundreds of thousands even.
"If you knew him like I did you wouldn't think badly of him." Zoro says softly.
"This should bother you and the fact that it doesn't tells me all I need to know about what he's done to your head. I don't care if he did it with demon magic, cursed items, hypnotism or what. This isn't like you, and I'm going to stop it." Usopp says with uncharacteristic bravery.
"How are you going to do that?" Zoro asks uneasily.
"I'm going to find a way around this cursed deal that I was forced to make and tell the others. Then we'll hunt him down and kill him." Usopp says waspishly and yanks the door open.
As the silencing spell breaks background noise floods into the room, it's almost alarmingly loud having been muted just before. The selkie stalks out into the flood of students rushing to their next classes and Zoro is left alone.
He sits down on a desk and looks at the floor.
Sanji can't use magic on him without his permission; he knows that. He knows that he's never made a deal with Sanji and if he had he would have had to agree to a clause making him forget it, he'd never do that unless someone's life was in danger and Sanji has never met anyone else on Earth with Zoro there except for Usopp. He knows that Sanji can stir up sexual attraction in people who aren't asexual, but can he stir up emotional attraction? He can't remember any one moment when his feelings for Sanji changed or even the telltale 'it's always been this way' perceptions of memory tampering. He cared for Sanji more and trusted him more over time, like in real relationships. It'd be hard to fake that memory if Sanji even could.
There's a lot of implausible assumptions to the view that Sanji manipulated him into feeling like he does for him. It's far easier and far more logical that his feelings are genuine.
But then there's that bit about how many people Sanji has killed. Usopp is right, that should bother him.
He tries to make it bother him.
The problem is that most people who summon Sanji do it themselves of their own free will, one could argue that Sanji manipulates them into consent somewhat afterwards, but he can't do that before he's there. Anyone who summons a sex demon and expects that to not go badly for them is dumb as fuck and probably deserve all that they got. But there will be some people like him, people who had Sanji sicced on them as a means of assassination. He could argue that anyone who pisses someone off enough to make them that desperate to kill them deserves it, but then he would be including himself.
Sure a large part of Sanji's victims brought their fate on themselves and were probably going to hell on their own anyway, but there's no way that Sanji never got an innocent person.
That doesn't sit too well with him.
Those people had families and friends who lost them suddenly. Just as Zoro's parents were taken from him leaving a gaping wound in his and his sister's lives Sanji has probably done the same. There are likely people out there angry and hurt like Zoro was only because of what Sanji has done.
He feels... bad for them. He does. He knows that Sanji is powerful and dangerous, but he also knows the way that Sanji's tail swishes in delight when he eats chocolate. He knows the way he gasps softly in the dim light of the tv when a surprising twist happens on the screen. He knows about Sanji's insecurities and how he trusts Zoro. It's hard to reconcile the two sides of him together.
Usopp's right, he is acting hypocritical and contradictory. He doesn't think that Sanji has been altering his mind, though. He thinks he's just... human. Hypocrisy is almost a defining trait of Zoro's species.
The boat has probably sailed on getting Usopp to see Sanji in the same way but maybe if he can get the others to like Sanji first, then Usopp will have to tolerate him. Eventually, he might come around. After all, Zoro doesn't see how anyone could see the other side of Sanji and not love him.
With that concluded he heads to alchemy, then weapon training, lunch, comparative physics, and finally his day ends with his yearly panel test for supernatural abilities such as precognition, telekinesis and so on.
Zoro is thoroughly exhausted when he gets home, and he drops his bag onto the floor and crawls into bed. His brain has been chewing on Usopp's threat all day and what he can do about it.
He rolls onto his side and pulls his phone free from his pocket and texts Sanji.
are you busy?
It takes about ten minutes for Sanji to text back, startling Zoro back from the edge of sleep.
Not now. I'm all done for the day, how about you?
Can we talk?
There's a long pause before Sanji replies.
Sure. Summon me?
Zoro does so, and Sanji appears in a burst of flame at the other side of Zoro's bedroom. The demon stands there awkwardly, and Zoro sleepily reaches out a hand and pulls him down onto the bed. Zoro curls forward and presses his head into Sanji's shoulder and tries to fight the pull of sleep.
"You said you wanted to talk." Sanji says tightly, and Zoro realises that he may have alarmed the other man with those words.
He goes to kiss Sanji's jaw to soothe his nerves, if today has proved anything it's that he's not as clever with his words as he'd like. He wouldn't want to say the wrong thing and upset Sanji. Only he doesn't get as far as kissing him before he spots a smeared lipstick mark on Sanji's neck just over his pulse point.
"You have lipstick on your neck." He says in numb shock.
Sanji sits bolt upright and goes scarlet almost comically fast. He snags a mirror out of thin air and peers at his neck in it. Zoro watches him scrub at his skin and his glamour slam down in anxious panic. His hair is smooth and silky gold, skin perfect and everything polished to perfection.
"I'm- fuck... I'm so sorry. I usually shower but I got your message, and I didn't want to fuck up by not coming over soon enough but-. Shit, I'm-" Sanji whimpers pathetically as he turns to look down at Zoro.
"It's not like I don't know what you do at work, it's ok. I was just surprised." Zoro says softly and sits up.
Sanji is beautiful, especially with his specially crafted glamour and though he prefers him as he really looks, he can see why people fall at his feet. That sense of dissonance rings inside of him again. The Sanji that kills and the Sanji who was worried about them needing to talk.
"How many people have you killed?" Zoro asks.
Sanji stiffens and stares at him wide eyed. His mouth opens and shuts a few times before he can force out any strangled words.
"Why do you want to know?" Sanji asks in a tight voice.
"Why don't you want to tell me?" Zoro says back.
"Because I'm afraid that you'll hate me, moron. Why do you think I don't want to tell you?" Sanji says.
"Well if it was the kind of thing that'd make me hate you don't you think that you'd rather know sooner than later?" Zoro reasons.
"I'd rather we both lived in ignorance thank you." Sanji says primly and throws himself down on the bed face down.
Zoro watches him entirely unimpressed for a few moments and then Sanji sighs into the mattress.
"It's not like I keep count, but I can check. Are you sure you wanna know?" Sanji asks, not looking at Zoro at all.
Zoro is not entirely sure that he does want to know, but maybe that is all the more reason that he should.
"Yeah, tell me." He says with a nod.
"I've only been doing this since I was twenty, I had a late start." Sanji explains as he sits up again and starts casting some kind of spell in his hands. It looks red and firey, and when Zoro tries to look at it too hard, his feels his eyes start to cross.
"How old are you anyway? I never asked." Zoro asks curiously.
"You know we live way longer than humans and don't view our age in the same way that you do, right? When our kids are less than ten, we view them the same way humans do, after that we age far faster than humans and then we're just adults. You just get more powerful as you age from then on. I don't think of someone double my age the same way you think of someone who's double yours; we're basically the same." Sanji warns, opening one eye as he talks.
"Yes, thank you. I took my first demonology class years ago; I do know all of that. How old are you?" Zoro repeats.
"I'm one hundred and ninety. I had my birthday not too long before we met the first time." Sanji says, and the spell in his hands seems to finish, a demonic character swirling above Sanji's palms.
"You are ten times older than me." Zoro says in wonder, staring up at his ceiling. He wonders at the history Sanji must have seen, or perhaps he didn't see much from other people's bedrooms.
"Is that going to be a problem?" Sanji asks, his voice tense.
"No, it was just weird that I didn't know." Zoro answers, shaking his head. It also gives him is years to plug into his mental equation to work out Sanji's likely body count. If he only started work when he was twenty, then he's been doing this for one hundred and seventy years.
"Do you still want to know how many people I've…" Sanji hesitates to complete that sentence.
"Tell me." Zoro says firmly.
"Ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and sixty. As of just now." Sanji tells him and rubs at the spot where the lipstick had been once more.
Zoro frowns, his math must be off.
"That's less than I thought, I'd tried to work it out myself earlier but without knowing how old you were." Zoro explains.
"We get more holiday than you might think. We have unions and everything, and there are lots of regulations, so it eats into the time." Sanji explains.
"Oh yeah, I forgot. Hell and bureaucracy, right?" Zoro laughs, leaning back.
"Pretty much." the demon agrees softly. He's still nervous about how Zoro is going to take that answer. How is he taking that answer? Ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and sixty people. It's too big of a number to wrap his mind around. He needs a comparison. How many is fully filled sports stadiums that? How many towns? He opens up the internet on his phone and tries to search.
"What are you doing?" Sanji asks after a little bit.
"Trying to put your number into scale so I can understand it." Zoro answers as he keeps searching, Google is so unhelpful.
"I've never actually tried to visualise it all at once." Sanji admits. Zoro supposes that he couldn't imagine what it would look like to see all of the food that he's ever eaten over his life all stacked up in one place.
"Apparently, you could have fucked the entire population of Edmond, Oklahoma off of the face of the earth." Zoro announces and looks at Sanji whose nose is wrinkling.
"I am pretty sure that I have never fucked anyone in Edmond, Oklahoma at all. I can't say I feel bad about that, am I supposed to feel bad about that?" Sanji asks, and Zoro drops his phone on the bed by him.
"I don't know, man. That's a pretty personal judgement you're asking me to make about an entire town in Oklahoma that I've never visited or heard of before now. This wasn't as helpful as I was hoping." Zoro admits.
"What were you hoping for?" Sanji asks, sliding down on the bedspread, so he's settled against Zoro's side.
Zoro frowns at the ceiling. What was he looking for? Surely he wasn't hoping that Sanji was going to be the Batman of fucking people to death. He only goes after the really bad guys, and he's the hero we all deserve.
"Okay, laughing to yourself is both fucking rude and worrying, cut it out or explain!" Sanji snarls as Zoro covers his face to stifle the snorts of laughter that had bubbled up within him.
"Sorry, sorry. I was just… I was talking to Usopp today about you. He's convinced that you have me mind controlled because otherwise I'd hate you for all of the people that you kill and I'd have tried to kill you myself." Zoro explains.
"I would never! I could never, and I mean that literally I- that's not a thing I can even do to you." Sanji protests.
"I know, I know. I said that to him too. I think he just thinks too highly of me. I… choose not to think about what you do, how many lives you take. Whenever I kiss you or watch a movie with you, I don't wonder how many lives you've ended since the last time I did either of those things with you. I probably should, but I don't." Zoro confesses to Sanji in the dim light.
"I guess I could ask you if they were all bad people or not. Can you tell that? You get to see their souls don't you?" Zoro asks, looking over at him.
"Sorry, but unless you're either a saint or a serial killer, it's all just the same muddy in between grey to me. Judging you isn't my job and even if it was, isn't redemption supposed to be humanity's thing?" Sanji points out.
"I guess." Zoro sighs. There are no answers for this. He's got no proof that Sanji only kills bad people, but no proof that he doesn't. He could argue that Sanji can't help what he's made for, but if he does that, then he can hardly claim that Sanji isn't some monster. He knows that Sanji isn't manipulating him, but he could be wrong on that too. He has no proof of anything.
The demon's expression looks tortured and he shuffles closer and presses their foreheads together. When Sanji tilts his head slightly, Zoro can feel the way his skull is slightly different to accommodate his horns.
"So what now? I'd understand if you didn't want… not after knowing for sure what I've done." Sanji mumbles.
Zoro reaches out to touch Sanji's face. The movement makes his arm sting. The arm that Sanji saved. Actually, Sanji saved all of him, saved his life. He has proof of that. And he… oh! He turns and reaches behind him for his bedside table, grabbing for the small metal heart there and then holding it in his hand. He grabs one of Sanji's and presses it so that it is between their clasped hands.
"Maybe I'm stupid for this, but I still want to be with you." He tells Sanji in the dark, and the heart gets warm.
"I want my friends to like you." He adds, and the warmth seeps further.
"I want to spend more time with you on our planet and explore the whole place." Zoro says, his whole hand feels beautifully warm now like a warm shower after a cold outdoor run.
"I want you." He tells Sanji firmly.
Both the metal heart in his hand and the beating one in his chest are warm.
"I want you too." Sanji whispers and Zoro shivers happily.
He leans in and kisses him, drawing the same kind of soft, needy noise from Sanji that he's done several times before. They kiss more, and Sanji's claws prickle through Zoro's shirt and into his skin, he doesn't care, though. It's kind of nice to see Sanji lose this sort of control around him. He pulls back for a moment and looks at Sanji's blonde-ish hair haloed around him on the bed, his pretty little horns, blue eyes blown wide and thoroughly kissed mouth. How could Sanji ever need glamour when he can look like this?
I love him. He thinks, very loudly to himself.
Inside Zoro's closed palm, the small metal heart becomes startlingly warm all of a sudden. So, it does thoughts too if they're focused enough.
Sanji's expression becomes startled, and he sits up a little and looks around and then back at Zoro.
"What did you just do?" Sanji asks him a little breathlessly.
"Kissed you?" Zoro replies in confusion.
"No, not that. I felt… magic. I think?" Sanji frowns.
Zoro lifts his hand up and holds up the glowing heart by way of explanation.
"Sorry, I still had this in my hand. Apparently, it works with thoughts too. It surprised me as well." Zoro explains and drops the thing on his bedside table. Sanji sighs and drops his head back down.
"That explains it; I guess I could feel it too because I was touching you or something." Sanji agrees, and Zoro fees Sanji's tail sneaking around Zoro's upper thigh and wrapping tight.
"It was a Franky invention, who knows how it works." Zoro agrees with a laugh and leans back down over Sanji. He kisses the side of Sanji's neck that didn't have lipstick smeared on it and then goes for Sanji's pointed ears. He almost laughs when he remembers that terrible Lord of the Rings movie that the two of them had watched together. Sanji had gone on a big diatribe about how ears don't WORK LIKE THAT. Ever since he'll occasionally ask Sanji 'what can your demon ears hear?' and usually get a Coke can rising at his head for his troubles.
Sanji reaches up and kneads his fingers into an aching spot between Zoro's shoulder blades, making him groan. He really does spend far too much time behind desks studying. He drops his head onto Sanji's shoulder and all but melts, Sanji is excellent at this.
"You know I can feel how good that feels? You should take better care of yourself." Sanji tuts at him, his hand slowing as he speaks.
"Can you lecture me and fix my back? Don't just lecture me." Zoro complains, and Sanji laughs.
"And they say I'm a hedonist." The incubus laughs brightly.
"Mhn, you are." Zoro agrees, but Sanji is making his back feel good again, so he doesn't really care.
A massive burst of fire above them is enough to jar them both out of their relaxed state, especially when a notepad lands right on Sanji's face. Sanji snarls and pulls it back to read. After a moment his eyes go wide, and with some force he shoves Zoro clean off of the bed and then falls upwards into the fire, taking half of Zoro's blanket with him before the portal disappears.
Zoro stares dumbstruck awe for a few moments before lunging for his phone and texting Sanji.
WTF was that?!
A reply is not immediately forthcoming and when it does come it's just the word 'fine' in all lower case and a random space in the middle, so it actually reads 'fin e'.
It is five minutes before a proper message comes through from Sanji, and when it does it is not very reassuring.
I need you to grab all the food in your house that you can eat right away. Cookies, soda, milkshakes, that kind of thing. Grab all of it and put it in a bag right now.
What? Why?
DO IT
Zoro scowls, but he figures if Sanji is willing to yell at him by text for that then the least he can do is humour him. What's the worst that'll happen? He'll have to put it back later, big deal.
He goes to the kitchen and grabs a grocery bag; it's one his sister bought him that's entirely black and says 'emotional baggage' on it because his sister is under the terrible delusion that she is funny. He opens the fridge and throws in what little soda he has; it's not much. He has a protein shake or two which is usually his go to after working out with Kuina, that goes in the bag. He's got a sealed tub of olives and a bar of chocolate that he was going to give to Sanji, that all goes in the bag. In his cupboard he has some pretzel things, Pringles and some bananas that are starting to get a little too ripe. That's about it for food he can eat right away with no prep work. It's not like he's going to eat the raw meat and uncooked head of broccoli in his fridge followed by some dry noodles.
His phone buzzes in his pocket and Zoro looks at it.
Summon me
Zoro rolls his eyes. Sanji had better have a good excuse for this. Nonetheless he mutters Sanji's incantation, and the stressed looking demon appears in a flash of fire.
"Explain." Zoro says flatly.
"First, did you get what I told you?" Sanji asks, his expression is wide-eyed and worried.
"Yeah, but-" Zoro begins to protest.
"Great, start eating something now, and I'll explain as quick as I can." Sanji orders him. Zoro scowls but stabs a straw into his protein shake and starts to drink, raising his eyebrows expectantly at Sanji.
"Ok, okay so… ah… you know my parents are dead? A demon hunter killed them, left me for dead topside because we can starve. Especially when we're children we can starve." Sanji explains hurriedly, and Zoro winces with guilt for his species and the profession he was formerly training for. He nods and keeps drinking.
"Well, my old man found me and adopted me and took me back to hell with him. He ah… he runs a restaurant down there. Demons can eat all kind of stuff, and it's stuff that'll keep incubi alive, I mean we have to eat something when we're young and still in training, right?" Sanji babbles. Zoro didn't know that, but he'd never really thought of it. It does make sense though given that Sanji has told him that there's training.
"The thing is that he wants to meet you, which is totally reasonable. Your sister wanted to meet me and make sure that I wasn't terrible for you. But the problem is that he's not… he's not actually a demon like me." Sanji says, pacing back and forth. Zoro finishes his drink and throws it in the trash.
"What kind of demon is he then? And why are you forcing me to drink this stuff?" Zoro asks exasperatedly. Sanji reaches into the bag with a frown and hands him the bag of pretzels and opens them.
"Eat. I mean that he's not a demon at all. He's only down there with us because he should not be on Earth. But he is determined to meet you, and I can't take you down there, and he can't come here." Sanji babbles in panic.
"What happens if he comes here?" Zoro asks through a mouthful of pretzels.
"Well, everyone in your building will probably be dead in minutes and if he gets mad everyone in this city will be dead in ten. So, not here. The food is to try to delay him having an effect on you. We need to go somewhere else, and I thought your planet was good, can I take you both there?" Sanji pleads.
Zoro swallows around the thick mush of chewed pretzels; he needs a drink with this. Like his mouth hasn't already gone dry just from hearing what Sanji is describing.
"If I don't say yes, he'll come here?" Zoro asks warily.
"Yeah, unlike everyone else he can come and go wherever he likes. No magic can stop him. He wants to see you, and he's going to one way or another. I tried to talk him out of it, but this was the best I could do." Sanji says sorrowfully. Zoro frowns, what the hell is this guy? Nothing should be that powerful.
"Okay then." Zoro agrees, and relief breaks out on Sanji's face.
Sanji grabs him carefully, wrapping one arm around his side and the ground falls out below them. Zoro sees the smeared red fire of hell before he pops out on the other side to the fresh air of his planet. It's the same place Sanji took him at first, with the red fields and weird flying lobster butterflies and the black and red trees in the distance.
"Okay, this is perfect. You need to sit down on this rock, try not to touch any plants or anything organic. And don't… don't move. Keep eating and drinking." Sanji tells him and rips out a few straggling plants that were growing near Zoro on the rock.
"What's his name?" Zoro asks, catching Sanji's sleeve.
"He… prefers the name Zeff. He doesn't like his true name, not that knowing it would give you any power over him. He's not a demon, remember?" Sanji reminds him.
"I'll be right back. I'm so sorry about this." Sanji apologises and poofs away in a puff of fire. Zoro cracks open the soda and at a long sip. Sanji seems genuinely concerned here. Should Zoro be worried about this? He's sure that Sanji would never hurt him, but his adoptive father could kill him without Sanji being able to stop him, the trust he extends to Sanji shouldn't extend to everyone Sanji likes.
There's nothing he can do about this now, Sanji is his only way home, and he's gone right now. So all Zoro can do is think. He's a student of magic, he can treat this as an exam question.
Food can slow the progression of whatever magic Zeff is putting out, which suggests that it's perhaps a passive effect. Sanji phrased it passively too, the people in his building and city will be dead in X amount of time. He didn't say 'Zeff will take this long to kill people this close to him'. That also suggests proximity is a factor, which it often isn't with active curses.
He knows that he's not a demon and naming magic doesn't affect him. That rules a lot of things out. Sanji also said that no magic could stop him, though that's not the same as saying it doesn't work, rather that it won't be able to defeat him.
So… Zoro is either looking at something exceedingly powerful but more likely something very old. Newer magic is often not as powerful as older magic and sometimes doesn't work on old things. Exceedingly old liches were sometimes immune to new hybrid magic types. With them, you sometimes just had to dismember them the old fashioned way and slowly pick their magic apart, not that it was done to sentient ones like Brook anymore but still. And Zoro is… without his sword or his wand. Some witch he is, all he has is junk food.
In the distance, a fireball materialises and then dissipates. Sanji is there but so is something else. The creature that Zoro is looking at is tall and looks like a centaur. Sanji's head doesn't even reach the man's equine back. The more humanoid upper body is of a pale skinned blond man. If it wasn't for the fact that the guy is half horse he'd even say that he and Sanji were biologically related. Zoro chugs his drink and thinks, he tries to work out what he is. He can't just be a regular centaur; they're not super magical at all.
"Can you just calm your fuckin' tits already and stay over there? Don't kill him or anything!" Sanji snarls, his tail lashing angrily.
"You don't tell me what to do. So this is him, huh?" Zeff remarks, shoving Sanji in the head and looking at Zoro.
Zoro's stomach rumbles, and he compulsively stuffs another handful of pretzels in his mouth without thinking about it. Zoro eyes the man's feet, or… hooves rather. He notices suddenly that one of his legs is fake, a prosthetic is made of gold and affixed to the upper part of his leg with a series of complicated runes. Around the four of his hooves, both real and golden, the plants are starting to wither, and the dirt is beginning to crack. Zoro swallows thickly.
"It's good to meet you." Zoro says, his throat dry from the salt. He drinks some more.
"Shows what you know. Roronoa Zoro, hn. Do you know who I am? Do you know what I am?" Zeff asks challengingly.
"I know… I know you adopted Sanji, that you're sort of his father now. I know you call yourself Zeff." Zoro says, his eyes flicking between the horse bodied man and the ground. The small flying lobster like creatures that live in the fields are dropping to the parched floor.
"And?" Zeff prompts.
"I know… I know…" Zoro trails off; he needs to work out what he is. That's the question.
"I know you're old." Zoro says, watching one of them twitch on the floor.
"Old as balls." Sanji snorts inelegantly.
"Older, before either of your species had external reproductive organs." Zeff corrects.
"It's just an expression." Sanji sighs. Another little lobster creature twitches closer to the first; its body is weak. Zoro was right; this is a passive power.
"This thing that you're doing is passive but… but I bet you can do it on command too. More focused." Zoro amends.
"Correct." Zeff agrees.
Zoro grips his stomach, he is… he's hungry. One of the fallen lobster creatures attacks the other and from the blood flying Zoro can guess that it's eating the other one, cannibalising it. Zoro opens and drinks his second protein drink but it's not making him feel any less hungry. He needs to figure out what Zeff is.
"Are you a demigod? Or… I mean all of the gods are missing, unless that's what you are?" Zoro asks hesitantly. He tries to look at Zeff with his best magic penetrating stare. It's enough to make what little glamour Sanji has on warp slightly, going blue at the edges. Zeff doesn't change, though, it's like he's far too real. He's a lead ball on the rubber fabric of reality, weighing it down. Zeff is laughing loudly.
"Phah, gods. I was here before them, and they died like everything else has." Zeff laughs derisively.
Zoro is famished, he can hardly think straight. He looks blearily at Zeff the weird… man… horse… horse man. Wait.
"You're a horseman." Zoro blurts out. Zeff raises one eyebrow at him but says nothing.
"As in, of the apocalypse. That's why you're destroying everything around you, that's what you're for. You're…" Zoro feels the clawing empty feeling inside of him and looks at the little creatures eating each other alive.
"You're famine." Zoro breathes.
"Hm. Smarter than he looks." Zeff laughs.
"Augh, Zoro! Keep drinking. Zeff can you just back off already?" Sanji snaps and shoves at the actual fucking horseman of the apocalypse; unsurprisingly he doesn't manage to make him move.
"This needs to stop, this thing between you." Zeff says firmly.
Sanji pauses, he was halfway onto the rock that Zoro is sat on and instead of climbing on he just turns around to face the horseman. It's funny, Zoro never thought the name was that literal. He'd always seen it as a man on a horse, not a man who is also a horse.
"Stop interfering in my life! I'm happy, isn't that the point?!" Sanji shouts angrily, and Zoro watches his horns grow larger, and his eyes go darker. He's getting closer to his true demon form.
"This could kill you." Zeff responds. Zoro tries eating more but it's not working anymore, it's not helping. He's never going to not be hungry.
"This is gonna kill him if you keep it up!" Sanji hisses, his voice pitching in a way that sounds far more serpentine than Zoro is used to.
"Fine, see for yourself." Zeff snarls and reaches to the centre of his own chest. He jerks his hand forward, and Zoro can see a thick silver chain running from Zeff to Sanji.
"Yeah, it's our bond. So what? You're my old man; I do actually care about you, even when you pull shit like this. Now I'm taking him home before you starve him to death!" Sanji says sharply and turns away, the chain phasing through his body harmlessly and coming out of his back instead.
"It's not your only one." Zeff says sharply.
Sanji was already reaching out to Zoro who is beginning to feel lightheaded and woozy. It's like that time he trained all evening with Kuina, forgot to eat and then ran out the house the next morning without breakfast. He almost fainted in the library when he got up that day. He feels far worse now.
"What is… what is this?" Sanji murmurs, reaching down between them.
Zoro leans against Sanji's shoulder and looks down. His mouth feels so dry. He looks down and sees a small chain between his chest and Sanji's. A fine golden thread, only about as wide as a strand of spider silk but it's there.
"Is this love?" Sanji asks, reaching out to touch it. The moment that he does Zoro finds the feeling of starvation overridden by his feelings for Sanji. The need to protect him from people who would do him harm, the need he has for everyone to see how great he is, the trust that he has in him and the peace and comfort that he brings Zoro. It fades the moment that Sanji lets go. He stares at Zoro with wide black eyes, his eyelids are a bright red like hot coals, and they glow just the same.
"You love me?" Sanji asks in stunned awe.
Zoro can't bring himself to reply in more than a groan. He's pretty sure that he's going to die here. But at least if he does then he won't be alone.
"Human love. Enduring, irrational, dangerous and crazy powerful stuff. If this bond between you is allowed to continue or worse still allowed to grow, then it could kill you. Incubi can die of a broken heart and him dying when that bond is stronger will break your heart, and you'll die too. He's a pure human and a witch no less; they don't live long Sanji. He's got thirty years left in him if you're lucky." Zeff insists, walking closer.
"If you cut it now, you'll be safe." Zeff insists, and Zoro sees the horseman try to reach for him. He means to kill him.
"No!" Sanji shouts.
It's the last thing Zoro hears. Or at least for what feels like a very long time.
When he wakes up it's dark, and he's in his room on his bed. He groans in pain; his stomach feels like it's caved in from hunger so much that it touches his spine. Sanji's head snaps around, his horns are long and curled around his head. Pitch black eyes lined with burning blink at him quickly before going back to normal.
"Drink this right now!" Sanji blurts out and shoves a jug of something in Zoro's face.
Zoro has no complaints; he is unbelievably thirsty. He tips the jug back and gulps the thick almost honey like liquid down. Eventually, Sanji pulls it out of his hands and takes it away.
"Okay, that's enough of that. Don't want you going the other way. Even if it might fix this problem. Have water instead, here you go." Sanji says nervously and presses a bottle of room temperature water into Zoro's hand. Zoro doesn't complain and drinks rapidly and with enthusiasm.
He sits up a little woozily, and Sanji reaches out to steady him. He does feel somewhat better though.
"What was that stuff? What happened?" Zoro asks, pointing at the jug in Sanji's hand.
"Well, like my old man said. He's been around longer than any god ever was, so ah… our home is full of all sorts of things throughout history. This is… nectar." Sanji mumbles, his thumb running along the ridge of the jug.
Zoro blinks stupidly at Sanji for a moment.
"As in 'of the gods'? The stuff that grants mortals immortality?!" Zoro shouts, his voice rising in volume and pitch as he goes on.
"It's not really immortality! It's more like… extended not dying. Which in practice is very different. You were dying; I needed to put that off until you could recover from starving to death. It's life giving too so you should be feeling better. Don't worry I didn't curse you with immortality." Sanji assures him and Zoro relaxes a little.
"One of the actual four horsemen of the apocalypse tried to kill me." Zoro says as it all sinks in.
"He thinks of it as stopping something else from killing me. He sees it as making your kid take antibiotics when they've got an infection. He's lived so long, and you've lived so little that you mean about that much to him, at least when you're threatening me anyway. He quite likes humanity generally, that's why he almost never comes up here." Sanji says uneasily.
Zoro wants to argue that he's not some virus that's infected Sanji, he's a person who can make his own choices just as Sanji can. He decides not to though, Sanji clearly already knows that and may even have been trying to argue that very point to his own guardian already. He knows that Kuina can be irrational about protecting him, so goodness knows what she would be like given that kind of power.
He slumps tiredly against Sanji's shoulder. He's been doing a lot of almost dying recently and it's exhausting. He looks sideways at Sanji's partially bare chest. The shirt that he's wearing is one of those floaty affairs that's open halfway down. He recalls that there was something between them, a gold chain.
"What was that thing?" Zoro asks weakly and drinks some more water.
"What thing?" Sanji asks, turning his head and nearly clocking Zoro with his now much larger horns.
"That chain." Zoro clarifies, and Sanji winces.
"You remember that then." Sanji mumbles and looks down into the jug uneasily.
"Yeah, so explain." Zoro urges him.
Sanji seems to hesitate as if trying to work out the best way to put this.
"You know how we're different species to each other?" Sanji starts off calmly.
"Yeah, I noticed." Zoro says flatly.
"Don't be a smartass. Different species often feel the same things but differently. I mean, consciousness is all the same basic stuff, same as emotions. We're made up of the same metaphysical table of elements, but we have different makeups. Even your awful Selkie friend will have a different kind of mind to you. The pair of you both experience happiness for example, but it'll feel different to him than it does to you because of how you're each put together." Sanji explains.
"He's not awful, but go on." Zoro corrects, but Sanji flat out ignores him. He still needs to work on them liking each other eventually.
"If we're going to be super simplistic about this, humans are primarily made up of love and anger. That's the whole reason why demons work on you so well. You make deals with us to fuck other people over, or yourselves depending on the demon." Sanji laughs.
"When any species capable of love falls in love with someone else it makes a bond. I have a strong bond with Zeff because he's basically my parent, it goes both ways. We'd kill to protect each other, as you are obviously aware." Sanji mutters that last part guiltily.
"Well, Kuina wouldn't be any different in the same position so I guess it's reasonable." Zoro agrees with a sigh.
"Exactly. But it seems that you and I…" Sanji trails off. He raises his hand to his chest, just over his heart and with a little shimmer of displaced air Zoro can see that thin gold chain again. Zoro glances back to the heart that he left on the bed and remembers the last thing it had told him was true.
"I love you." Zoro murmurs and before his eyes the chain grows a little thicker and Sanji's breath hitches.
"This is… apparently a problem." Sanji says tensely, and Zoro looks at him in surprise. That wasn't the response he had been expecting, and if anything Sanji looks regretful.
"So. After I had got you back here to safety I had some time to talk to Zeff, he explained some things. He said that human love is stronger than everyone else's and kind of different. I mean you kill each other over it all of the time. It's how it affects other species is the problem. The gods weren't the most level headed of people when they were still around, but human love to them was like…" Sanji hesitates, trying to think of a comparison.
"Alcohol?" Zoro suggests. Strong and often a precursor to poor decisions, it sounds about right.
"More like heroin and crack at the same time, they did all sorts of dumb shit because of it. And, well, it turns out it's not so great for me either. There's this whole ironic punishment thing, a lot of demons have our weaknesses as ironic punishments because deities are cruel like that. I'm a sex demon and the one thing that can for sure kill me is love." Sanji says miserably.
"I'm killing you?!" Zoro shouts in alarm.
"Well, no, not right now. Just… when you die, it may well kill me too. Dying of a broken heart and all that. I didn't know about it until now; apparently it doesn't come up a lot. I have a lot of contact with humans but not long enough for this to be a problem. Except for in this case. No one ever told me until now!" Sanji shouts, clearly angry at everyone else.
Zoro considers everything that Sanji has said and considers that he passed out because Zeff made a good attempt at trying to end his life. He always figured that starving to death was long and painful, but that was quick and relatively painless. Zoro has been putting Sanji's life at risk but not maliciously. Perhaps that was a mercy on Zeff's part. But if everything that Sanji has said is true then killing him should be the last thing Zeff wanted.
"Zeff was trying to kill me before it was too late. He figured he could fix you up again like… amputating a dying limb." Zoro concludes for himself.
"I couldn't let him. I couldn't see you die; you mean too much to me." Sanji says with a shake of his head.
Anger flares bright in Zoro, isn't that one of the two things humans like him are made of? Well good, because he's fucking pissed.
"Well, you should have! You can live forever, but I'm going to die for sure in no time. This is the second time I've nearly died in a week!" Zoro shouts at him.
"You sound just like him! I don't care about the math, I care about you, you thick-headed idiot!" Sanji argues back.
"I'm probably not going to even live to be old, Sanji. You can't do this." Zoro protests.
"It's too late, Zoro. It's already made, look." Sanji says, tapping on the gold chain. As he does Zoro feels the same stir of affection for Sanji that he's been building on for ages. Damnit, it is too late.
"What if it's my heart that gets broken, not yours? What if you break up with me?" Zoro asks after a moment, his heart aches at the thought, but if it'd save Sanji's life, then it's worth it. He'd do anything to keep Sanji alive. He watches as the chain between them warps and looks a little sturdier, committing to keep Sanji safe is strengthening it, not weakening it.
"Does that answer your question?" Sanji sighs.
Zoro flops down onto the bed and covers his face with his hands. Great, he's now Sanji's death sentence of indeterminate length. The thought of being the cause of that physically hurts him. Maybe Sanji is right about humans; maybe they have too much of this in them.
"I'm sorry." Sanji whispers and Zoro looks up at him.
"This isn't exactly fair to you Zoro. To tell you that if our relationship ends, it'll kill me. I'm just forcing you to be with me, it's not right, and it's not fair. If you wanted to be with another human now then you can't, and it's all because of me." Sanji says weakly. His form is warping back to his put together glamoured one, a sure sign that he's on guard or uncomfortable.
"You didn't know this was going to happen, you can't blame yourself." Zoro reassures him, but Sanji doesn't look convinced.
Zoro pauses. He's going to have to be with Sanji forever. The thought is terrifying but not bad. It's the same vertigo like feeling when he has to make huge decisions about school, the idea of his future changing permanently and not knowing if he's making the best choice. Not bad but definitely terrifying. The thought of still getting to spend time with Sanji in twenty years is nice; they may have explored huge areas of Zoro's planet or even new planets beyond it. They could have a nice place, and Sanji can eat all of the chocolate that he likes. That doesn't feel bad or scary; it feels nice.
"You're the only boyfriend I've had where getting told this wouldn't feel like a death sentence for me. If I had to be with any of them for the rest of my life or risk killing them I'd be horrified. This feels okay." Zoro says thoughtfully.
"I thought you'd be upset. I'd understand. You don't have to lie about it if you are, it's not that fragile." Sanji says sceptically; he clearly doesn't buy that Zoro doesn't mind. Perhaps he thinks that Zoro is in shock.
"No, I'm good. But we need to get you properly introduced to my friends and tell my sister just what you are. I'm a bad liar Sanji; I can't lie forever. It's better that we choose when rather than them finding out suddenly. Anyway, you being friends with my friends is good for…" Zoro trails off into embarrassed mumbling. What he means is that it's good for the long term health of their relationship. He dreads to think what would happen if he fell out of love with Sanji, it's a lot of pressure to get it right.
"I guess that means that I really can't hurt your selkie friend, huh?" Sanji says regretfully and sits on the bed next to Zoro.
"Well, that's the thing with my friends. You're always going to want to strangle at least one of them at any one time. You just learn to live with it. Besides, look, my arm is almost done healing." Zoro says cheerfully and holds his arm out as proof. Sanji doesn't look pleased, but he's evidently not arguing.
"I'd better go, Zeff's probably throwing a shitfit back home and destroying all the food. When he finds out that he's done that he'll just get angrier. I should try to calm him down." Sanji sighs and grabs the jug of nectar off of the side. Zoro would be fascinated to study that stuff but he's pretty sure that Sanji wouldn't let him, goodness knows how many rules he broke just letting Zoro drink any.
"I'm sorry." Zoro apologises again. Sanji smiles at him fondly and reaches out to stroke Zoro's jaw.
"I don't regret anything. I just hope you never come to regret it." The blond says gently.
"Text me?" Zoro asks hopefully, and Sanji's face brightens.
"Of course. I'll see you soon." He replies and leans down to kiss Zoro. He's not sure that he's ever going to get tired of that, which is a good thing he supposes.
Sanji backs off a little way, his usual procedure for popping back away into hell. Zoro hesitates, but he may as well say it.
"I love you." He calls after Sanji. The blond goes scarlet across his cheeks at Zoro's words and covers his face with his hands.
"I… I love you too!" Sanji blurts out and vanishes in a burst of fire.
Zoro grins and gets out of his bed. Half of his blanket is still missing, probably at Sanji's home if it was Zeff who summoned him back. The room spins a little, but he makes his way unsteadily to the kitchen. He still feels famished, so he calls up his local pizza place and orders two large pizzas just for him. When they arrive, he demolishes them both without even really noticing their flavours and falls asleep on his bed still clothed.
Despite all of that he finds when he wakes the next morning that he's lost a good deal of weight. He steps onto the bathroom scales to discover that he lost a little over fifteen pounds and that's AFTER eating two large pizzas to himself last night. His face looks thinner, and Zoro can see that what little body fat he had is more or less gone. On the one hand he now looks like a guy on the cover of a fitness magazine when he's naked but on the other hand, this is super unhealthy and unless he gains this back real quick he's going to lose years worth of physical training. He'll never beat Kuina if that happens.
The only trousers that he can put on and have stay up are his really old jeans from when he was sixteen and that's only with his belt on super tight. He throws a hoodie on over it and hopes that the bagginess of it will disguise how much he's shrunk.
He has breakfast at home and then again at school, stuffing a cold toaster pastry in his face as he waits for his alchemy class with Luffy to let in. To his glee, he's able to defend his food from Luffy and eat it in time. Alchemy goes by pretty calmly. They don't turn lead into gold but that's way more advanced than the level they're at, plus the banks and the royal society of scientists get upset when witches do that. It's not exactly against the law because that would mean admitting that it's possible, in return for it not being illegal, witches aren't taught how to do it and agree not to if they work it out. It's very much a gentleman's agreement. All he and Luffy manage to do is to accidentally melt iron without heat; then it's just study in the library while the laws of thermodynamics stop crying.
Their little group has a tradition of meeting up in the library. They always get one big corner to themselves, mainly because the library always warps to fit their needs. Loud students appear further from those needing quiet, sound travels oddly and books reshelve themselves. It's a strange place but Zoro likes it, even if it makes him feel somewhat unsettled at times. It's like the books watch him.
"Hello Zoro, hello Luffy." Robin calls from down the hallway. The pair jog to catch up with her and they all keep walking in the right direction.
"So Luffy, I've got a boyfriend. This one's really great and I want you all to meet him. Sooner rather than later I think. Are you guys doing anything this weekend? I'll ask him if he's free just to be sure but he's pretty flexible I think." Zoro says, trying not to think too hard about the other implications of his words.
"Oh, wow. I didn't know. Yeah sure, I'm good, can we go eat somewhere or have a party?" Luffy asks excitedly.
"If he's as self-conscious as you've led me to believe Zoro then perhaps an evening in would be best. Franky and I would be happy to host; we have the largest home." Robin offers kindly.
"That'd be really great, thanks." Zoro thanks her gratefully.
"Self-conscious of what?" Luffy asks as they enter the library. Someone shushes him but Zoro doesn't see who. No one ever sees who shushes them.
"He's not human, like… at all. He's worried you're all going to think he's a monster." Zoro fudges his answer, man he's bad at this. He can't wait to not have to lie anymore.
"If you like him then I'm sure he's fine." Luffy assures Zoro, as if he was the one worried.
"I really like him." Zoro says with some feeling. He doesn't want to confess that he loves the man yet, not to them. But they can at least know that his feelings are strong.
"Oh ho ho ho!" Robin laughs deviously.
"Always a worrying sound." Franky's voice calls from around the corner. They walk around a final bookshelf and see their friends already sat around the table, except for Usopp who is looking for a book in the stacks a little further down.
"Zoro was just telling us how enamoured he is with his boyfriend. He wants us all to meet him." Robin says slyly.
"Hey, it worked out then!" Franky says delightedly.
"That explains why you're all red." Nami giggles.
Usopp rushes up to their table and loudly slams his book down on the stack that he's already amassed, he's staring piercingly at Zoro with one eye twitching from stress. A disembodied 'shhh' scolds him.
"Usopp, what are you getting all of those books for anyway? 'Demonology vol.2 Incubi and Succubi', 'Demonic contracts and you', 'A treatise on exploiting demonic contracts', 'The big book of mind control'? What are you researching?" Chopper asks in bafflement as he reads Usopp's selected texts.
Zoro freezes as Usopp stares at him for an uncomfortably long time.
"I wish I could tell you." Usopp says with some feeling.
"Anyway, Nami are you free this weekend? I was hoping to introduce everyone. Luffy and Robin say that they're free so I'm assuming that Franky is." Zoro presses on, trying to ignore the weirdness that Usopp is deliberately trying to infuse into this conversation.
"Hey, sometimes I do things on my own you know. Robin doesn't literally have me by the balls!" Franky protests.
"Well sometimes…" Robin says slyly, turning Franky scarlet and making Luffy guffaw loudly in amusement.
"I would be delighted." Nami confirms.
"I'm not free Sunday but I can do Saturday." Chopper volunteers.
"I think the same goes for me, Saturday would be best." Brook agrees with a nod.
Usopp is tapping loudly and angrily on the book on mind control when people look at him. There is a long expectant silence during which Usopp just stares pointedly at Zoro.
"Are you coming then Usopp? You wanna meet Zoro's boyfriend right?" Luffy finally prompts him.
"I-" Usopp's face changes with surprise and Zoro doesn't realise why until he starts talking again.
"I already have." Usopp says slyly. Zoro's blood runs cold. Sanji must have phrased their deal in a way that means that Usopp can only talk about Zoro dating Sanji to people who know about it, but now everyone else does.
"You never said!" Nami gasps in outrage, because how dare anyone have the hottest gossip before her?
"Yeah, that's super weird and questionable of me isn't it?" Usopp says with a good amount of venom.
Everyone is looking puzzled and if Zoro doesn't do something, then Usopp is going to blab before his friends have a chance to meet Sanji and get to know him before finding out what he is.
"It's not a big deal. Usopp came around on the day that he burnt my arm, just to check how I was doing. The injury was worse than he thought and my boyfriend was there already because I called him when the pain got too bad. He fixed me up, they talked a little and then Usopp left." Zoro explains quickly.
"What's his name anyway? Isn't it really weird that Zoro's not brought that up yet?" Usopp asks meanly.
"Usopp, cut it out!" Zoro hisses at him but Usopp clearly isn't having any of it. Oh, the lengths his friends will go to when they think that he's in danger. It would be touching if Zoro were actually in any danger.
"That is weird. Zoro, what is his name?" Robin asks suspiciously.
"Oh! Oh! Ask me that!" Usopp says loudly, the air shushes him but he ignores it.
"Okay, Usopp, what is his name?" Robin asks, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
Usopp doesn't say anything, but he rather pointedly doesn't say anything. Zoro can see that his teeth are gritted with some force.
"You make her ask you the question and then don't answer it?" Nami huffs in irritation.
"Unless… you can't answer it. And you can't tell me that you can't answer it. Usopp what books do you have there again?" Robin says slowly, leaning forward to look at them.
This is going badly, Zoro needs to get out of here now. He's got to warn Sanji that his spell is compromised and things might be changing. He just needs to get out of the library to use his phone; the whole place is enchanted so they don't work here. Zoro backs quietly out of the stacks and turns to leave, only to run face first into an invisible wall.
"Where are you going Zoro?" Brook asks calmly and Zoro turns to see him levelling his sharpened bone wand at Zoro. It's him making the invisible wall that Zoro can't get past.
"Out?" Zoro tries. Brook does not look convinced, Zoro isn't surprised, that excuse never worked on his sister either.
"So urgently? Whatever for?" Brook asks calmly. The rest of Zoro's friends are looking at him suspiciously now and Zoro doesn't like that.
"I just… I need to send a text. The library doesn't let you so I was just going to duck out for a moment." Zoro answers honestly.
"Who to?" Nami questions slowly.
"My boyfriend, just about meeting up is all." Zoro says warily. He reaches his hand behind his own back. His wand is always easy to reach from his bag. He can probably dispel Brook's wall and make a run for it. Then he can hide and send his message and deal with the consequences after.
No sooner has his wand fallen out of his bag and into his hand than it is flying across the room away from him and into Nami's hand. A chair whips out from under the table and scoops Zoro into it, banging into his now significantly bonier knee as it does so. The wooden arms of it warp up and wrap around Zoro's torso and arms, holding him fast.
"Hey! Let me go!" Zoro shouts, the air shushes him again.
"You were trying to use your wand to escape!" Nami says accusingly.
"Or attack Brook." Usopp chips in.
"Why are you all being so weird?" Luffy shouts, throwing his arms up in the air.
"I believe what Usopp is implying is that there are contracts and mind control in play here. Zoro, are you under any form of mind control or demonic deal?" Robin asks him smoothly. Zoro glares at her in sullen silence, sometimes with Robin, it's best not to say anything. She has a way of pinning other people's words down and making them squirm into interesting patterns.
"Zor-o answer my quest-ion~" Robin singsongs and gently hums afterwards. Zoro tries not to look at her but she's… captivating and she sounds…
He can feel his brain turning to pudding.
"No." He slurs out
"No, what?" Chopper says with a frown.
"You're right Chopper; I should word that better." Robin sighs and her feathers fluff in irritation.
"Boy, I sure would love to answer that question that you asked Zoro." Usopp says pointedly.
"Okay, are you under any form of mind control or demon deal?" Robin asks. Usopp opens his mouth to utter silence and eventually shuts it with a full body shudder.
"He is, and he can't talk about it!" Nami gasps in horror.
"So is it just Usopp then? Zoro said no when you asked him that." Franky points out.
"I can't trick people into telling me things they're not aware of. Remember, you once asked me to make you tell me the answer to the problem in your thesis because you were stuck. You didn't know it so you couldn't." Robin reminds Franky.
"You are all overreacting, let me go!" Zoro snaps and kicks at the table.
"Focus on helping me first, please." Usopp says with a sigh and sits in a chair of his own.
"Could we play twenty questions? Knowing what he can't tell us would help and ruling things out would too." Luffy suggests smartly. It would be exactly what Zoro would already be doing if he weren't the one stuck in this situation.
"Go for it." Usopp agrees.
"So if it's something you can't talk about, just say nothing. Otherwise give us an answer, right?" Brook says, tapping his bone fingers on the bare wood table.
"Does Zoro's boyfriend have something to do with this?" Nami asks, getting right to the meat of the problem. Usopp does not say anything at all; he remains totally motionless.
"That's a yes, I'm writing these down." Franky notes and starts to write frantically.
"Okay, is he silenced like you?" Nami guesses.
"I don't know." Usopp answers, though it's hesitant as though he doesn't expect to be able to say that.
"Is Zoro affected by the same single deal that you are under?" Robin asks urgently.
"No. I don't know what's wrong with Zoro." Usopp answers.
"Nothing is wrong with me! You're making them think badly of him, and he's a good person!" Zoro argues angrily.
"I don't know, Zoro. This is some serious magic to put on someone. Usopp, you got books about incubi out. Is this guy an incubus?" Luffy asks, choosing that moment to be suddenly perceptive. Damnit. Zoro tries to get his arms free, but he's stuck. Maybe if he throws himself backwards he can smash the chair, but then Brook still has that wall up and Nami has his wand. Damnit.
Usopp doesn't answer the question about Sanji being an incubus.
"Your boyfriend is an incubus?" Robin demands, looking at Zoro.
"You don't understand." Zoro mutters.
"What would an incubus even want with Zoro? He's asexual, right? Wouldn't that make him immune?" Chopper asks with a frown.
"That's probably why he's still alive." Brook sighs, keeping his wand trained on Zoro still.
"He and Usopp just had a… a misunderstanding. I love him." Zoro insists, perhaps that honest of a confession will make them let him go.
"Okay, I guess he's not completely immune. Can they get you through love as well as sex?" Brook asks, looking around their group.
"I'd bet that most people aren't around long enough to find out." Robin says grimly.
"Some demon is trying to kill you and has warped your mind enough that you don't know you should get help. Then Usopp found out, and it silenced him. This needs to stop; I'm gonna kick his ass." Luffy growls.
"No! Don't hurt him!" Zoro protests. The air shushes him once more, and Zoro looks up in irritation, not that he'll ever see the invisible force that makes the noise.
Wait.
It can hear him. That means that other people can hear him, Brook's wall doesn't silence the noise behind it! If you're loud enough in the library, it throws you out! He can escape and let Sanji know what happened. Maybe he can work out a plan of what to do, or Zoro can agree to a deal that minimises what harm he's capable of putting Sanji in.
"HEY! HELP! LET ME OUT!" Zoro bellows at the top of his lungs. His friends all leap to their feet in alarm and try to shush him but the library is already doing it.
"MY FRIENDS HAVE TIED ME UP! HELP! HELP!" Zoro screams.
Chopper leaps the table and smacks him in the face. It's not really painful, just surprising. It certainly surprises Zoro enough to make him stop for a moment. He's about to start screaming again when everything suddenly feels…
Feels really…
it
slow
da r k…
"Chopper what did you do to…"
Zoro becomes blearily aware of gravity dragging him down, but it's ok. He's on something soft. He feels really stupid and tired.
"It should be soon! How was I to know that he'd lost that much weight? Magical anaesthesia is dosed just like the traditional kind. Besides Zoro's got the constitution of an ox, he'll be fine." Chopper says from somewhere leftish.
Zoro manages to open one eye and then the other. He doesn't manage to synchronise it, and when he blinks, it's out of order too. He groans sluggishly and tries to force his eyes to focus.
"Zoro!" Chopper says and appears above Zoro suddenly; he's all fuzzy and out of focus.
"He's awake? Give him here; we need that name." Robin says and then she's above him too.
"Whhhaaaa?" Zoro slurs incoherently. His eyes slide shut, and he feels like falling asleep again.
He can hear Nami talking, reading out a list of symbols and Brook complaining that he's running out of blood for it or something. He can hear the sound of markers squeaking, and it's soothing enough to make him fade away again.
"Zoro, wake up." Robin says, shaking him. Zoro opens his eyes and squints at her.
"We need to know the name of the incubus. We need the spelling too if you can." Robin says insistently. Zoro looks past her and sees circles being drawn on the floor in both blood and marker, layers after layers of them in intricate writing. Usopp, Franky and Brook are all writing in clean, tight script with Nami directing them from atop one of Zoro's sofas. They've rearranged the room to make space. They're trying to summon Sanji here and trap him. Zoro becomes a lot more alert and quickly.
"No! Let me go!" Zoro shouts and shoves at her, trying to get to his feet. He fails, though. Whatever Chopper did to him is screwing with his ability to control his body.
"Zoro, please. We're your friends." Robin says sweetly, her avian eyes focusing on him. Zoro grits his teeth and shakes his head. Robin will start singing as her next resort; she can lull him into doing almost anything like that. He can't let her.
"Robin, no! You can't mix siren song with magical anaesthesia, we don't know how it'll interact, and you could hurt him. I forbid it!" Chopper yells, getting between the two of them.
"Fine then. Franky, did you say you put that invention of yours in the bag?" Robin says, turning around to look at Franky. The engineer looks up until his eyes land on Zoro, his expression goes sad.
"He's not cooperating?" Franky asks sadly rubbing his chin and getting sharpie on his lip.
"No, and Chopper won't let me sing to him." Robin answers and shakes her head.
"You're taking this all wrong." Zoro tells them, his words still sounding drunk even to his own ears.
"Then yeah, it's in the bag. Just recite the incantation and throw them at him." Franky explains.
"Nothing in the bedroom. I'm telling you if he has it written down it's in here, there's nothing in the bathroom or the kitchen or under any of the tables." Luffy says, coming into the room suddenly.
Robin is rummaging in Franky's bag, and Zoro isn't able to even get off of the sofa before she mutters some incantation and throws two gobs of silver coloured stuff at him. The moment they hit his body they bind him, wrapping around his arms and legs. The bond isn't tight, but whenever he tries to move they snap closed and prevent him from doing anything.
"Get this off of me!" Zoro protests but everyone ignores him. Fucking hell, eventually the anaesthesia will wear off enough that Chopper will permit Robin to grope about in his brain for Sanji's name. He needs to come up with a plan before then.
Luffy has started looking around in this room. He's picking everything up off of his shelves and looking on the underside. Looking for Sanji's name written down. Well, he's not going to find it, Zoro burnt the sheet of paper with Sanji's name on it when he'd memorised it. Or… at least he meant to. He is filled with the feeling that he sometimes gets at school, the sneaking suspicion that he forgot to shut the freezer door and is going to come home to defrosted food and a lot of cleaning. Fuck, where did he keep that paper? He… he put it. Shit, he put it inside his demonology 101 textbook because it seemed like the obvious place to keep it.
"This is why I didn't tell any of you what he was; I was afraid you'd react badly!" Zoro shouts at them.
"He's a demon, Zoro. They're all bad. How else could you possibly expect us to react?" Nami says sharply.
"It's not your fault Zoro; you're clearly not yourself. Maybe we'll all laugh about this someday. We'll get you fixed up, I promise." Brook says softly.
"When he came for me for advice he was probably fighting this, and I was too stupid to realise it." Franky hisses to himself angrily.
Luffy is working his way down the bookcase, taking each book and flipping through it before tipping it upside down and shaking it. He's getting closer and closer to Zoro's demonology 101 textbook.
"Luffy!" Zoro calls out in desperation. The other human looks at him in surprise.
"Trust me; I'm not under any mind control. I just can't let you do this because I love the guy, I don't want him to be hurt. Think about it, if you kill him and then find out I wasn't under any control or any deal then you'll all feel terrible." Zoro warns.
Luffy squints suspiciously at him and runs his hands over the books, right over the demonology 101 book. He pauses and then goes back to it, picking it up all while maintaining eye contact with Zoro. Evidently, Zoro is giving something away on his face. Luffy holds the two ends of the cover and shakes the book violently. A sepia-tinted piece of parchment falls slowly out of it and Zoro cringes, he forgot to burn it.
Zoro tries to power through his body's sluggishness and struggles upright, if he can just get to Luffy and destroy that paper before the others get to it then it'll be fine. Someone calls for Chopper and the young healer leaps on Zoro and casts some spell on him that turns his entire body numb. He falls ungracefully from the sofa and lands on the floor face down.
"This is it." Luffy says grimly.
"I'll read it, after Zoro I'm the best at this." Nami says regretfully.
"I think we're done, just show me the spelling to add to this part." Franky says and Zoro hears a few more squeaks of the marker.
"Everyone get clear." Luffy orders and there is a good deal of shuffling. After a long pause Nami reads aloud the incantation that Zoro could do in his sleep now. It's Sanji's true name that makes Zoro's heart ache enough to be able to turn his head and look.
Fire blooms in the centre of the circles like a summer flower and Sanji appears forth in a pinstripe suit without the jacket and with his blue sleeves rolled up. He hasn't even touched the floor before black chains whip out of the the bloody writing on the ground and lash around Sanji, dragging him to the floor with a painful sounding thump.
"What the fuck?!" Sanji yelps in alarm and looks around.
Guilt coils hot in Zoro's stomach as Sanji's pained gaze lands on him. This is all his stupid fault.
"Zoro, Zoro what did they do? Are you okay? Talk to me!" Sanji shouts and struggles against his chains.
Zoro's tongue is numb and it's worse than any trip to the dentists so all he can do is whine sadly and guiltily at the poor demon. Sanji hisses in response and looks at Zoro's assembled friends who are all staring menacingly at him.
"When I get out of here I'm going to kill all of you for this." Sanji vows to them.
Zoro closes his eyes and groans; this isn't how he wanted this to go. This can't be happening.