Someone gave me fan art and I'm too happy not to post a new chapter
Sanji did not expect to fall asleep, but he woke up a little before the sun, his internal clock telling him to make breakfast for the crew. It was very cozy in his hammock that morning though. Warm and wrapped around him like a large blanket. A little too warm, actually. Sanji squirmed a bit and blinked his eyes open, halfway between digging into his pocket for his first morning cigarette and rolling over to get out of his hammock.
He realized in split second of consciousness that he was not on the Merry, or in his hammock. Zoro being a tiger-bat demon was not a dream as he'd hoped it would be. Said tiger-bat was still sleeping and his arms were loosely around Sanji's middle. Sanji's legs were encased between the two feline ones and he was facing Zoro, so he must have turned in the night. A familiar rumbling snore came from Zoro's exhales, which was a vague comfort from a time when Zoro took naps on the deck of the ship.
Sanji stared at his face for a long moment before he slowly reached up a hand and brushed two fingers down the length of Zoro's feline nose, from the bridge between his eyes to the tip. Zoro snuffled and jerked a little, but refused to awaken. Sanji knew it hadn't been quite that feline the day before. Nor had his mane looked so bushy. Sanji idly ran his fingers through the black and green hair under his jaw and tried not to be amused when Zoro's head leaned back in a content feline groan. This was a serious matter and Zoro was not supposed to be making cute cat noises. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, but Zoro also looked… thicker, or bigger. More tiger sized, he guessed.
"Shit," Sanji muttered and pulled his hand back before sitting up, one of Zoro's arms sliding into his lap. The hand looked more paw like that day and Sanji again muttered, "Shit," several more times as he got up. Zoro was more cat than the night before, so he wasn't getting any closer to being human. Zoro lazily rolled up, looking half dazed with sleep and a large tiger yawn showed an oddness to his jaw, where it was widening more for sharp teeth and bigger bites. "Shit. Would you stop turning into a demon? I already fed you. You should be turning back, damn it. That's how this works, isn't it?" Zoro's ear wing twitched as he was spoken to and Sanji was given a mild head tilt for his frustration. "Stupid, tiger-bat. If you'd at least have turned into a marimo, I would just carry you back to the ship." Zoro got up and stretched his arms out along the ground with his butt up in the air. Both sets of wings also stretched and they looked larger as well to match the body.
Sanji determined that he had to get Zoro back to the ship. He had to at least let the others know what was going on. Sanji sighed and snapped his fingers, gaining Zoro's half interested attention. "Come on, Zoro." He took a few steps backwards towards west, using a tone that he might for a stray cat. "Let's go back to the ship. Chopper will be there. Usopp, Nami, and Robin too. And hopefully Luffy." Zoro sat on his haunches, watching him for a minute before he looked around. His one ear wing opened as a rather large bird sang in a tree and a tongue darted out to lick his lips. "No, no, not that way. This way." He snapped his fingers again but it had no effect on Zoro that time. Zoro looked more interested in catching that bird than he did Sanji. "Figures," Sanji huffed, figuring Zoro was hungry for real food. Sanji was also a bit hungry. He could pick a few things from the forest that he'd seen on the journey there. He also had to feed the rest of the crew when he got back but they could eat in town if they absolutely had to. "I can feed you when we get back to the ship, but you have to follow me, or you'll get lost again and we'll never find you." Zoro stood then, on his legs, and he was definitely taller than Sanji then, but he started walking in the opposite direction. "Oi, oi!" Sanji held his face in his hands for a brief moment before he quickly followed Zoro.
"Damn cat." Sanji dug into his pocket for his cigarettes. If he had to keep an eye on Zoro, he was at least going to have a smoke.
Before finding his pack of cigarettes, he found the bottle of pills that Chopper had given him. Sanji stared at it a moment and as he lit up a fresh cigarette. He thought about taking another one. At least then Zoro had had interest in following him. But… Sanji certainly didn't want a full blown tiger-bat trying to seduce him. It edged far too close to the realm of bestiality, even if it really was Zoro. He didn't feel particularly lustful after what happened yesterday. He felt like he did the morning after being drained. Perhaps from the events of the day before or maybe the demon hadn't heeded his oath to stay out of his dreams. Sanji didn't remember any sexual dreams though. Maybe the pills were good for one orgasm?
What ever the case, it was unlikely that Zoro was going to follow him without a good reason. Sanji sighed and popped a second pill down his throat and covered the bad tasted with a grateful inhale of smoke. At that point he just didn't want Zoro to go any further up the mountain.
Maybe 10 minutes of walking went by before Zoro stopped and his nose started working in the wind. Sanji watched him, having grown bored with the walk. He thought for a moment that Zoro had picked up something else's scent. Zoro turned to Sanji and leaned down to press his nose abruptly into the crook of Sanji's neck startling him. He made that strange chuffing sound again, rubbing his cheek against Sanji's shoulder. It wasn't quite like the last time where Zoro was starved –thank god- but it definitely had an effect to the cambion.
Sanji reached up and rubbed behind Zoro's ear, more on a whim more than anything else. "You're much more affectionate as a demon. Maybe we should just keep you as a ship's cat." Sanji couldn't really say Usopp would approve of the idea, especially if Zoro started using the mast as a scratching post, but Zoro certainly had his tame moments as of late. Speaking of tame moments, scratching Zoro behind the ear and then under his chin seemed to be a key rubbing point because Zoro slumped to the forest floor on his back, arms outstretched as though looking for a belly rub.
Sanji couldn't help it, he started laughing because of the terrible humor of the situation. Zoro, Demon of the East Blue, wanted a belly rub. It was something he thought Zoro would kill himself before ever thinking about doing. Said demon made a pitiful cat noise when he laughed for far too long and Sanji took a moment to catch his breath and will away the cramp in his side.
"If you turn human again, I'm never going to let you live this down," Sanji told him and indulged the beast, giving him a vigorous belly rub over his green-striped gray belly. Zoro didn't seem to care, he wriggled around some and his wings were wide-spread on the ground, making content cat noises.
Sanji paused after a moment when Zoro had gotten a satisfying rub down. "When you turn human again," Sanji told him firmly. "You can't stay like this forever." His hands hovered on Zoro's abdomen. It was still human-like but he was slowly starting to loose the chest scar under the lengthening hair. Sanji more or less ran his fingers over the memory of it and just barely found the uprise of flesh where it had mended. Zoro chose then to turn onto his side, as though that was enough rubbing and shook his head to presumably free his mane of dirt. His wings folded neatly and he looked at Sanji attentively.
Sanji stared back at him a moment before the took a few experimental steps back. Zoro got up on his four limbs and copied the steps, his swords dragging on the ground. Sanji nodded, satisfied and he started walking west, towards the ship. Zoro got up on his back legs then and started following him. Sanji let out a relieved breath, glad something was going right.
Sanji thought they were making good progress into the afternoon. Sometimes Zoro trotted beside him or just behind. Sanji was confident that they could make it back before night fall. He could stave off his own empty belly with some wild berries and plants until that night if it meant he could get Zoro back to the ship. He mused shallowly that if Zoro did remain a cat for a bit longer than necessary, Luffy would have a rival for the meat on the ship.
The silence felt pretty deafening and Sanji sort of hated thinking along those sorts of lines. Zoro HAD to change back. Zoro wouldn't be able to swing a sword soon enough if his hands became anymore paw-like.
"Chopper and Robin looked up a bunch of demon information," Sanji mentioned, just to fill the air. "They're bound to have found something that can help get you back to normal. And well… we're already into the second week here, so I guess if we had to, we could see if the next island knows anything." He glanced at Zoro, who didn't seem to be absorbing any of what he was saying. "If we have to take you to another island, I'm making you a collar with a bell on it." Again, Zoro didn't care, but it was such an amusing thought to Sanji. He might as well make light of the situation or else he was sure he'd be freaking out much more. "I wonder what you'd be like on catnip," he mused but then rethought that over. "Well, do cambion react to catnip? Maybe not." He was going to try though.
Sanji heard Zoro make a noise behind him and he stopped to look at the cambion. His face was all scrunched up and for a minute Sanji had no clue what he was doing. At least until a tiger-bat sized sneeze erupted from him and his wings flared up from the force of it. Sanji blinked and chuckled as he caught a whiff of chastity bell in the far distance. "Oh right, your allergies." Zoro rubbed the back of his hand under his nose and turned away, taking several steps back. "Hey." Sanji followed him, making sure to keep Zoro in sight. "We're only a few miles from the boat. Chopper has medication for that." Zoro didn't listen. He walked until the breeze no longer carried the scent and he stopped and looked back at Sanji. Sanji sighed. "You idiot, come on." He took Zoro's hand and tugged but Zoro's back claws dug into the earth and he did not budge one inch towards the town. "Come on, we're almost back to the Merry. Don't you want to see everyone again? Don't you want to come with us? You can't become the greatest swordsman like this." Zoro still didn't budge and Sanji knew in this case he would lose if it came to strength. Zoro's perplexed face only made the situation seem more hopeless.
Sanji sighed, frustration simmering as he tried to figure out how to get Zoro to the Going Merry. Not only the frustration but he was already feeling warmed by the effects of the drug. He'd taken it hours ago and he was starting to feel something from it. He wasn't exactly counting the effects it had on him through out the day, but right then he felt like it had jump started the process. He was tense, warm, and his sense of touch seemed heightened. Zoro hadn't come onto him again, but maybe what he took the day before equated to what he did when he took in a kiss and he wasn't particularly hungry but just following the smell of something tasty.
Zoro's ear wings perked then, opening fully and he looked into the woods where they'd come from. The ears then folded close to the head in an aggressive manner and his nose crinkled as a snarl vibrated from his throat. Sanji stopped to listen and heard the sound of something tromping towards them with heavy set steps. The earth trembled a little with each step and the groan of breaking tree limbs pointed him at what was coming. Sanji stared and what emerged through the trees was a bear that was about the size of an elephant. It made a grunting noise, its nose sniffing the air in Sanji's direction and Sanji's jaw dropped.
"You've got to be kidding me," he said, strained at the thought that this too was a cambion. It was a weird bear. It had bull horns on top of its head and his brown fur was flecked with spots of orange. When Sanji saw more of it he saw its back half was part bovine abd the body bulked up with muscle. Zoro stepped between the bear-bull and Sanji, letting out a threatening warning growl at the new arrival. Zoro may have gotten bigger, but he was maybe the size of the creature's paw. The bear-bull didn't seem to take too kindly to the threat and it rose up on its hind legs, nearly towering over the tree line and showing it's full might before letting out a deafening bellow which Sanji couldn't define as bovine or ursus.
Of course Zoro took it as an invitation to fight and leapt up to latch himself onto the beast's chest to bite the thick hide around the neck. The bear-bull stumbled and Sanji looked for an opening because he was fairly confident that he could use a tree to jump up and knock the creature out. Instead, he witnessed Zoro get batted down with a massive paw and focus was back on him. But the bear-bull didn't act like Zoro had the day before. It's jaws were open, as though to swallow him whole as it dove for him. Sanji was NOT about to be an ACTUAL main course so he met the incoming jaw with a boulder crumbling kick, diverting the beast's head from him. The bear-bull seemed dazed or surprised, but not knocked out like Sanji had hoped. Sanji thought briefly that the bear-bull was just as densely muscled as Zoro and that would present a major problem. His leg felt vaguely numb but he ignored it for the moment.
Sanji ran towards where Zoro was smacked and maybe he wanted to check to see of Zoro wasn't badly injured. Instead, he saw what had delayed Zoro and he couldn't help but stare. Zoro had landed safely on all fours, but he had stripped off his pants and haramaki; which included his swords. Zoro snuffed at the items, as though they were holding him back. His whole body was bare now, covered in the sleek black fur with stripes and Sanji's breath hitched because he looked like any other wild beast. The only glimmer of anything human was the earrings still dangling from one ear wing.
"What are you doing you idiot!" Sanji snapped at him. "Use your swords." Zoro ignored him and pounced on the bear-bull's face as it lumbered over towards them. The bear was more than three times Zoro's height and girth but it was clear that Zoro was still monstrously strong, even for a demon.
Sanji was going to jump in to make it go faster but he back peddled several steps as he was suddenly faced with another feline, taking close and intimate whiffs of him. Sanji took several more steps away to put distance between them. It was a cougar with great big hawk wings on its back. It was sleeker than Zoro but still taller than Sanji. The front arms were bird talons and the back half was the rest of the cougar. It's fur and feathers were sandy brown and streaks of yellow patterned it's fur. It reached out with its talon, maybe to touch him but Sanji was not okay with being everyone's meal. He kicked the cougar-hawk into the nearest tree and it reared around to hiss at him, which turned into a guttural yowl.
"Come and get it," Sanji told it. "I'm in the mood to kick some feline ass."
The cougar-hawk was swift and more solid than it looked, but Sanji brought it down, crippling one of it's wings. It probably hadn't been expecting Sanji to be such a tough dinner. Not to mention, after Sanji had turned down the 'polite' come on, the cougar-hawk had tried to take a bite out of one of his anckles. Nearly breaking its leg seemed to be the limit and it limped off at a jog to prevent further injury.
Zoro brought down the bear-bull about 3 seconds later with a tree shaking thud. Zoro looked pretty proud of himself and Sanji couldn't tell then if the bear-bull was knocked out or actually dead. At that moment he didn't care because he still had too much anger to vent.
"You," he said venomously. Zoro hopped off the bear-bull and his ear wings perked at Sanji's tone, looking confused. "What the hell are you doing?!" He gestured to the swords that lay haphazardly on the ground. Zoro glanced in the general direction but he still didn't seem to understand what Sanji was talking about. "You're a swordsman. What the fuck good is a swordsman without swords, you stupid demon! Are you so fucking gone that you don't even remember what your goals are?!" Zoro blinked at him blankly, ears folded mostly because of Sanji's yelling, but he looked pretty lost on what Sanji was talking about. Sanji marched over to the spot where Zoro had been thrown and he picked up one of the swords, holding it up. Zoro followed him the few feet to the pile and watched him.
The white hilted katana was the one he held up, holding it out in front of him. That was the one Sanji remembered from way back on the Baratie. Back then he just thought Zoro was an ego bloated -and suicidal- maniac the way he went up against Dracule Mihawk. He remembered the scar on his chest when it was a fresh and fatal wound. He remembered the vow Zoro swore to the sky and his captain that he would become the best swordsman in the world. "You can't tell me this isn't important to you," Sanji said firmly. "You can't tell me you've forgotten your promises and you can't tell me you've forgotten about being a shitty swordsman." At least Zoro seemed to focus on what Sanji was holding for the moment. "You were the one..." Sanji's breath caught in his throat and he struggled with it. "Damn it. You were the first one that made me realize it was worth dying to find the All Blue. That's when I started caring for a stupid idiot like you!" Sanji's voice hitched a sudden realization hitting him. "That's when I..." That's when he had really fallen for Zoro. "Oh, God..." Zoro leaned in, as though to see what he could do to calm Sanji down but Sanji, shoved his face away, anger being a much more favorable response than dwelling on when he had started the whole perilous affair of the heart. "At least get pissed off when I yell at you, god damn it!"
His hand jerked back in that moment, the katana jarred against a nearby tree, making it rattle and startling Sanji. Zoro too reacted because his ear wings flared out to their full extent and he stared at Sanji with a look of complete and utter offense.
Sanji stared at Zoro a moment and then glanced at the sword. Testing a hair-brained theory, he tapped the sword against the tree with the same amount of force and the ears narrowed in anger and Zoro shot him a glare, his teeth showing beneath his lips. Sanji felt, with a sudden smile, triumphant.
"What are you getting all worked up for?" Sanji asked and took a couple steps back but found another tree and tapped the handle against the trunk, earning a growl from Zoro. "A couple minutes ago these were probably just as good as wooden sticks to you, you grass headed demon." One more tap had Zoro following him, around one tree and then a stale mate with a thick tree between them. Sanji handled the sword, not unlike a club, and held it horizontal to the tree that was between them. "Fine, you don't have to remember me, or the crew, but you do have to remember yourself and your own dreams, shitty marimo."
He put a lot more force into the swing this time, determined to really make it rattle, but it was halted by a hand on the hilt and a low voice sounded just as threatening as the tiger-bat counterpart, "Don't you dare, cook."