Robin is really intimidating to people
And you should be scared of her
Everyone should
I'm not scared. I'm sure that she's a lovely delicate flower that you're slandering.
Believe that if you want, it's your funeral
Sanji grins and is just composing his reply when his tail smacks into Zeff's leg as he trots past. Sanji looks up to see the old man glaring down at him.
"I'm happy that you're happy and not miserable again kid, but you're supposed to be helping and not getting your skinny butt in the way." Zeff says, sounding very unimpressed indeed.
"But he's only got ten minutes before his class and then I can't talk to him for hours." Sanji says reasonably, though Zeff is nowhere near as convinced and just gives Sanji that stern but disapproving look. He had been a lot more tolerant of this during the first week that he and Zoro got back together but now that it's been two more months it's worn off for the old man.
"I'm sure you'll both live, unless you keep texting of course." Zeff says and marches away.
My old man's being an asshole and making me work in the restaurant. I'll talk to you later?
Sure. I should get to class.
I think Usopp's gonna get failed. He never managed to spring that trap on me.
Didn't you do that to him ages ago? And he had to get you back?
Is this an actual assignment and not a prank war?
I guess the teachers know students well. But yeah, he never got me back.
It doesn't affect my grade but maybe i can help him next term if he repeats the test.
Well aren't you sweet. Ok I gotta go otherwise my old man will kick my ass.
Later
Sanji pointedly shoves his phone in his pocket and gets on with helping Zeff. He only has half an hour before he's on the clock himself but that's more than enough time to help the others plate some food and take it out to their guests.
When the time for his actual paid work rolls around he's still not heard a peep from Zoro but that's not surprising at all. He and Zoro agreed that he'd never use his phone in class, he doesn't want some highly powered witch taking it and realising just what they're holding. And Sanji has his phone off and in a little pocket dimension when he's working. Sure his marks are going to die immediately after fucking him but Sanji still has some professionalism and dignity in his work. If some poor bastard is selling their soul to bed him the least that he can do is not to be texting someone during it, that's just bad manners for anyone.
Sanji's on his knees blowing a guy when he feels a sudden jerk on the back of his head, he'd think that it was the crime lord if it wasn't for the fact that Sanji can clearly see the guy's hands clenched onto the arms of the chair that he's in.
Another jerk pulls at him again and this time it feels like it's his shoulders. Sanji closes his eyes and tries to concentrate, it can't be this guy he's got no magic. But it feels familiar nonetheless. A third time he feels a ghostly hand trail down Sanji's bare back, ignoring the straps of the dress he'd shimmied his fake form into. He knows that hand though, the size of the palm and the calloused finger tips. That's Zoro.
Zoro is trying to summon him and he's getting the supernatural equivalent of a dial tone because Sanji is working. Once Sanji would write off as Zoro forgetting when Sanji would be off work, but twice and three times is far more worrying. Zoro could be in danger and calling him for backup.
He needs to finish this and fast.
Thankfully as well as being already fabulously skilled he has more than a few tricks up his sleeves for getting people where they need to go speedily. Sanji takes a mouthful of the guy's life energy and… other bodily fluids before standing up and pulling his phone free.
I'm working, are you ok?
Heeesslop
Sanji frowns. That… was gibberish but it was gibberish with far too many letters in common with 'help' for his liking. He settles back into his own skin and drops back into hell.
Zoro, summon me again.
After a moment or two Sanji feels the pull of the spell but it's so weak that he has to boost it with his own magic to even be able to get in. He lands unsteadily in Zoro's apartment but can't see Zoro anywhere.
"Zoro?" Sanji calls out, worry building up inside him.
The front door is ajar and Zoro's bag is dropped just a few paces inside with its contents spilling out, including Zoro's sword. Zoro never treats his stuff like that, least of all his sword. Something is very wrong.
"Zoro?" Sanji calls out a little more warily. He can hear water running distantly from another room and something that sounds worryingly like choking. Sanji follows the noise into Zoro's bathroom and finds that the shower is running with Zoro in it. Only it's not as pleasing a sight as that deserves to be. Zoro is still clothed except for his shirt which is ripped apart on the floor. He's slumped against the shower wall breathing fast and unevenly, sounding like he's choking on air or shower water every so often. What Sanji notices most of all though is Zoro's arm.
Zoro's right arm from fingertips to shoulder joint is bright red and every so often, fire bursts out from the surface of his skin and remains unquenched by the torrent of water raining down on Zoro. Sanji knows that fire like he knows the back of his own hand, that's hellfire.
Sanji grabs Zoro's shirt from the floor and rushes into the shower with him, kneeling on the floor by his side. This close up he can see that Zoro is crying from the pain, it's not just water from the shower running down his face.
"Sanji." Zoro grunts out, though he's speaking Sanji's true name almost as if he's trying to summon him again.
"I'm here, I'm here Zoro. I'm going to fix this for you but you need to put this in your mouth first, I don't want you biting off your tongue." Sanji says and stuffs Zoro's shirt in his mouth. Zoro thankfully doesn't fight him and so Sanji is free to turn his attention to Zoro's arm.
Hellfire is particularly nasty shit. As a demon, he's thankfully immune to it but it's designed to torture mortals until they break and then keep doing it. Some demon must have found out about Sanji and Zoro being together and done this to him to punish both of them. It's all his fault and Zoro doesn't deserve this.
"This is really going to hurt, but I need to get this off of you." Sanji says soothingly and places his hand on Zoro's shoulder.
As he has established with Zoro before, undo spells are particularly tricky but this one is even more so. He essentially has to summon, at a molecular level, the antithesis of hellfire. Unfortunately, anything that gets caught in the crossfire is destroyed as well, like a good deal of Zoro's skin. It can only have been on his arm at most a few hours and he suspects less than that so it'll just be a few layers, like a very, VERY bad graze. On… his whole arm.
Sanji grew up in hell, tortured screams are basically background noise to him but it's amazing how different it is when it's Zoro making that noise. Sanji isn't sure if he's ever going to be able to forget that sound. He can't stop once he's started, though. If he doesn't get all of the hellfire off it'll spread and skin is, in fact, some defence against it, it's a thousand times worse in an open wound.
When he's done and Zoro's arm is dripping blood into the draining shower water Sanji reaches over and pulls his makeshift gag out of Zoro's mouth.
"I'm so sorry Zoro, I'm so sorry." Sanji apologises desperately, pressing his forehead to Zoro's.
"No, it's… it really fucking hurts but not as… not as bad." Zoro pants weakly.
"Tell me what happened, tell me who did this to you." Sanji urges as he strokes the side of Zoro's face in an attempt to make him feel in any way better. Zoro looks up at him blearily for a few moments before he starts to talk.
"It was an accident. Didn't feel so bad right away but it got worse, so I came home. Thought I could sleep it off." Zoro says weakly.
"Hellfire gets worse with each half hour it's on you, twice as bad each time. You can't have a nap and make it go away." Sanji says and Zoro's mouth twitches into something that could be called a smile.
"I noticed." He croaks and tries to smack the controls for the shower with his good hand but misses. Sanji helps him out and it suddenly stops feeling like it's raining indoors.
"What actually happened, though? How did you get hellfire on you?" Sanji asks again and Zoro grimaces.
"Like I said, it was an accident. None of us knew what it was." Zoro says firmly.
"It's not fine, you get hellfire from hell. The clue is in the name. If some demon knows about us and is putting hellfire in your way then I need to know about it." He says reasonably but Zoro just shakes his head.
"Dumbass, don't-" Sanji pauses as the sound of a door opening catches his attention. He's already jumpy from Zoro being so hurt but the sound of someone coming into Zoro's home is lighting up all of the protective instincts that he barely uses.
"Zoro?" A voice calls out from the main room and Sanji hisses, pushing himself out of the shower and onto his feet.
"Are you here? I was coming to check on you but… I'm really sorry okay?" The voice says, it's a young male voice but it's not anyone that Sanji knows. Clearly, someone that knows Zoro though. A witness to what happened to Zoro? He'd really love to question them if so, see if he can get more sense out of them than the bleeding green haired witch. He knows that he can't be seen by random humans that show up at Zoro's place, though. But he can't leave Zoro either…
"I didn't mean for it to hurt you that badly, I was just trying to make something that'd work on you and get you back for how you got me." The voice says.
This… this person hurt Zoro. He was the one who put hellfire on him.
Sanji throws open the bathroom door and stares at the newcomer, he doesn't have to worry about witnesses if they're dead. The startled boy is probably Zoro's age, dark skin, black hair and at first glance, he appears human. Until Sanji sees his eyes.
Sanji has seen all kinds of human eyes over the years and even the rare ones become commonplace over enough time. To say that this person who's just walked through Zoro's front door has unusual eyes is somewhat underselling it. It would be more accurate to see those eyes on the cover of a magazine, provided the magazine was national geographic and it was a special edition about SEALS. Half-selkie is more than enough supernatural for Sanji to be a lot looser with just how much maiming he's allowed to do.
"AAAAAAA! DEMON!" The boy yells and reaches for his wand in one of the many pockets in his dungarees but Sanji is faster. There's a reason they teach classes about demons because in less than a second Sanji has pocketed the guy's wand and slipped into a petite pale ash blond lady form that has the idiot's eyes turning heart shaped with desire.
"Was it you who got that terrible stuff on Zoro's arm?" He asks in a saccharine voice.
"Yeah, it was… just a joke, though. His face was kinda… funny." The boy says sluggishly as Sanji really over revs the glamour. When he's not dealing with a pure human like Zoro he's got so much leeway with the shit he can pull.
"Funny?" Sanji repeats, trying not let his anger slip through just yet.
"Yeah, cause… I'm so brilliant see. I made it myself!" He boasts and leans in to kiss Sanji. That is far too easy, he'd be signing his own contract with Sanji and he could take his soul all for himself. But that is too quick and too easy. He catches the boy by the cheeks, his lips still puckered comically.
"Are you a fan of horror movies, baby? Have you ever seen those Saw films?" He asks sweetly. The stupid half-selkie nods.
"Well, that will be a dream compared to what I'm gonna do to you." Sanji hisses and he watches the fear bubble under the sheen of lust on the surface. He should be afraid, very afraid.
"You're not gonna do anything to him." Zoro says and his hand lands on Sanji's shoulder, startling Sanji out of his glamour and back into his normal body. Evidently his mojo with the asshole selkie is broken too because he starts screaming.
"Can it, asshole. I've silenced this place. I could blow up a bomb in here and even his shitty neighbours wouldn't know. The place is locked up, you can't get out and no one can hear you so drop it!" Sanji spits at the boy. This isn't ameteur hour, securing and isolating a mark was incubi and succubi 101. They can't just have people walking in on them when they work, so it was just habit to set off the same spells when he made his move.
"Real reassuring, try not to do that. Usopp, it's fine. He's not going to hurt you." Zoro says calmly. Exceedingly calmly for a man dripping blood on the floor.
"Don't make promise that I won't keep." Sanji growls and glares at this Usopp person. He actually knows of an Usopp, Zoro's selkie friend. But Zoro never mentioned that the guy was trying to kill him.
Zoro turns and stares Sanji down intimidatingly.
"He's my friend and no one hurts my friends, if you want to try you have to go through me first and I know you won't. So yeah, you won't hurt him. You're not allowed and I know you respect it when I say no. So, no." Zoro says pointedly and Sanji can almost physically feel the restraints those words put on him.
"You don't understand, he confessed to exposing you to hellfire. On purpose! Because he thought it was funny!" Sanji snarls. Zoro's been duped!
Zoro shakes his head and then wobbles unsteadily on the spot. Sanji manages to gently lower him to sitting on the floor before he falls down and hurts himself.
"I said it was an accident. We didn't know it'd be that bad. He thought it was just gonna burn like chilli powder or something, he makes his own potions for everything." Zoro says in a breathy voice, he looks really lightheaded. It's no surprise that he is. Honestly Sanji is surprised that Zoro is still conscious and relatively normal, he really is tough for a human.
"I'm so sorry." Usopp whimpers.
"I'll go get some bandages for you, do you have some in the bathroom?" Sanji asks gently and Zoro nods.
Sanji isn't even out of the room before Usopp starts whispering to Zoro in a panic.
"We need to get out of here Zoro, I don't know if you're too hurt to see it or not but he's a demon!" Usopp says urgently and quietly, Sanji has pretty good hearing though.
He looks for bandages and tries to calm down. Zoro is okay, that's the main thing. Zoro called him and he showed up and he's fine and not dead or tortured out of his mind.
"I know he is. I called him here, he's my boyfriend. The one I… vaguely mentioned." Zoro mutters.
"BOYFRIEND?!" Usopp screeches and Sanji winces. This isn't the introduction that he wanted with Zoro's friends. He crouches down and locates a white plastic box with a red cross on it, that's probably the one.
"Yes, stop shouting." Zoro sighs.
"It's ok, no one can hear us because your BOYFRIEND trapped us in a silent murder box!" Usopp shouts.
"He thinks that you did this to me on purpose, which you technically did. You just didn't think it'd be this bad, I don't blame you and when he calms down he probably won't either." Zoro reassures Usopp. Sanji frowns, he's not so sure about that, demons are great at holding grudges and maiming a loved one is definitely grounds for a grudge.
He stares blankly into the box of bandages as he realises that he just thought of Zoro as a loved one. Does he… love Zoro? Oh fuck, that is big. That is huge- oh… what is he supposed to do?!
"He's probably got you under some kind of mind control." Usopp's whispered voice floats into Sanji's awareness like a slap to the face. The idea of him manipulating Zoro like that physically hurts him.
"You wouldn't think that if you'd met him under better circumstances. And don't touch my arm, that's gross." Zoro grumbles.
"He was going to torture and murder me! You can't like someone who was going to torture and murder me!" Usopp protests.
"Really? What do you think Robin would do if someone attacked and tortured Franky? Or any of our group for that matter?" Zoro asks flatly.
"It would- that's different. I mean it'd go horribly for whoever did that but that's different!" The selkie insists.
"It's not. Sa- he doesn't know you, he doesn't know what you're like. All he knows is that you did this to me and he's pissed. You don't know what he's like and he doesn't know you, so you both have to trust me that you're both good people." Zoro insists.
Sanji grips the medical box tightly. He's not sure that he deserves this kind of defence from Zoro. The two of them have touched on the ethics of what Sanji does over the course of their relationship but they've never delved too deep into it. In all honesty, Sanji is scared that if Zoro has to think too hard about what Sanji does… what he really is… then it'll be the end of them. He can't deal with that.
This is a conversation to interrupt.
He walks back into the main room and sees Zoro still slumped on the floor with a puddle of blood pooling around his hand on the floor.
"I'm not really great with healing magic but I can at least clean that and bandage it, numb the pain too if you want." Sanji offers, kneeling down between Zoro's sprawled legs.
"Don't… don't touch him." Usopp says, his voice trembling.
"You're going to have to do more than just ask to stop me." Sanji replies flatly and Zoro holds his arm out to him.
Sanji isn't great at healing spells but he does know one, they use it in the kitchen if the staff get injured and he's needed to use it on himself after that one time when Sadi's lesson on hardcore whip usage went overboard. It hurts like a bitch but it stops infections.
"Ah… this might hurt. Well, it will hurt but not as bad as getting the hellfire off. I don't know how much more pain you can take and most humans can't even deal with what you've done so far. I can make it not hurt, though." Sanji says a little uncomfortably.
"Sure, let's go for not hurting." Zoro says with a sigh, leaning his head back on the nearby wall. Sanji pauses and considers precisely what his spell does and decides that he perhaps should clarify it for the other man.
"I don't mean that I can make it just not hurt I mean I can invert your pain responses. Which I'm fine with, but I don't want to force that on you. Plus given that you have… company it could be awkward." Sanji says and from the way Zoro's eyes widen and he awkwardly looks away Sanji thinks that Zoro gets his meaning.
"I'll stick with the pain, I can handle it." Zoro says.
"Well, or I could numb you but that will likely just put you to sleep." Sanji offers and Zoro shakes his head again.
"Not leaving you two alone with each other." Zoro says, probably wisely.
Sanji raises his hands and calls the spell into his mind, muttering it until bright blue light appears between his hands. He pulls it apart, stretching it like a bubble and then slowly starts to run it up Zoro's arm.
Zoro for his part does not flinch, does not cry out or beg Sanji to stop. He bears the pain with no more than gritted teeth and a hissed exhale of breath. The pain is written obviously across his features though and it breaks Sanji's heart to see it.
Sanji feels a tug at his pocket and Usopp rushes past, levelling his recaptured wand at Sanji's face.
"Don't think I don't know how to fight a demon so… so you stop that. Right now. I don't know what spell you have my friend under but it stops n-now." The selkie stammers. Sanji can't stop now, the spell can't be interrupted and clearly this selkie bastard has worked that out. He can't cast any other spells against Usopp as he's doing this so he's stuck.
A green arrow flickers above Zoro's injured palm for a moment and Zoro nods weakly. The witch raises his good hand at Usopp and mutters a spell. Sanji realises that it's Zoro's fucked up freeze spell, the one they talked about ages ago. Except Zoro is structuring it wrong. Instead of stopping Usopp from moving his wand relative to everything else he has just stopped the wand moving, period. It is perfectly stationary on a fast spinning planet that orbits a star which itself is speeding through the universe as it expands. Yet the only thing within that universe which remains unmoved is Usopp's wand. That is a spell so powerful and obscure that Sanji isn't even sure it's a real spell that anyone else has ever invented. Zoro somehow got lost on the way to an easy spell and invented something utterly bizarre. The result of this ridiculous spell is that everything else moves and Usopp's wand does not, or as it appears from their perspective; Usopp's wand violently rockets into the wall and explodes into roughly a thousand pieces as it does so. It's a good thing Zoro checked what direction was what or else someone could have got stabbed with that thing.
"My wand!" Usopp wails.
"I'll buy you a new one. Leave him alone." Zoro groans, his eyes screwing shut and his breathing going shallow. Wandless casting is harder for humans and he's already tired and injured and currently in pain.
Sanji finishes the spell and quickly but silently bandages Zoro, ignoring Usopp trying to throw things at him. Unlike Zoro, Sanji is able to catch things in the air when they're being thrown at him without screwing with the motion of the universe. When he ties off the last bandage in silence Zoro is barely conscious but he's alive.
Sanji closes the lid of the medical box and stands up, looking straight at Usopp and making him squeak and flinch away.
"We have a problem you and me." Sanji says slowly.
"You hurt someone that I care about very much, and normally I'd drag you to hell for that. But Zoro would be very upset if I did that so I'm somewhat limited here." Sanji admits with a sigh.
"You're not strong enough to hurt me and thanks to Zoro's… weird spell you're unarmed too." He continues.
"However, if I let you go you're no doubt going to tell the rest of your friends and make it impossible for me to see my boyfriend or even try to kill me and I can't let that happen. So you see my dilemma." Sanji concludes.
"I… I won't tell anyone. Just don't hurt Zoro and let me go." Usopp insists instantly.
"Now, see. I've heard a lot of humans about to die and you people will say anything to get out of it, the things I've had people promise me. But here's the thing, you humans lie and from what I've heard from Zoro you're a prolific liar anyway." Sanji says with a laugh and Usopp cringes. He's definitely right there.
"I'll let you go, but not until I'm certain that you won't tell a soul about me." Sanji says.
"I already told you I won't tell anyone." Usopp insists, casting a glance at the unmoving Zoro.
"I'm talking more specific and binding than a promise. I'm talking a deal." He tells the selkie and smiles wide, showing more teeth than he should. He can feel the whites of his eyes going ink black and his horns growing longer and wickedly curved. He holds a clawed hand up and a stretch of parchment appears which fills itself with words as he starts to speak.
"You will agree to not discuss me or this contract through any medium of communication, be it verbal, through gestures, writing, recorded messages of any kind, or even interpretive dance with anyone who does not already know of my existence and relationship with Zoro. You will also not communicate in any of the previously listed ways with anyone who knows of my existence and relationship with Zoro where anyone who does not could possibly perceive that communication. Attempts to do so will be nullified, including but not limited to becoming temporarily mute when attempting to talk in a way that violates this agreement, writing becoming unreadable when violating this agreement and so on. This spell is binding for as long as I hold you in it and attempts to break this spell will be informed to me. If you agree to these conditions then all you have to do is shake my hand." Sanji says, rattling off the agreement in one long go. The temptation to include painful punishments was high but it would be an obvious move for Usopp to try to void the contract with others around and then it would be all too easy for them to find out the details of it and jeopardise his relationship with Zoro. This is not the time for grand gestures and revenge.
"Wh- I'm not making a deal with a demon!" Usopp balks, jerking away from Sanji as if just being near that contract was dangerous to his health.
"But was this not already what you were agreeing to? What you were promising me?" Sanji asks slyly, his now longer spade-tipped tail swishing back and forth.
"I don't…" Usopp says, shaking his head and backing away.
"Yeah, somehow I knew you were lying. So your choice is this. Agree to my bargain or I change back into that pretty little form I had before and end your life and send you to hell. Your call." Sanji offers sweetly.
Usopp is sweating as he looks from Sanji to Zoro and back again. The poor idiot is clearly weighing up his chances which are frankly zero right now. He could try to get Zoro to be awake again but he seems to believe that Zoro is under some kind of mind control so he'd be no help at all. Usopp's chance to fight him is also really damn low, his wand is sawdust and it's not as if Sanji is especially vulnerable to men who can turn into seals.
Usopp seems to wilt somewhat and finally holds his hand out to Sanji.
"He's my friend, I'll step up to protect him when he can't protect himself. He'd… he'd do the same for me." Usopp says weakly.
Sanji smiles and shakes Usopp's hand. The contract in his own hand dissipates into the blue light of Sanji's magic and snaps around the selkie's throat before spreading to the rest of his body and then vanishing. Usopp is bound by his agreement now. Sanji sighs and settles back into his more normal form, his eyes a human white and blue, horns to their more diminutive incubus size and his fingernails more neatly clipped instead of talon like. He sighs happily and with a wave of his hand he releases the spell around Zoro's place.
"You're free to go now. Now I'm going to keep looking after Zoro and you're going to beat it." Sanji says flatly and shoves the selkie towards the door and then out of it. He does not feel at all bad slamming it shut behind the bastard, or that would be the case except for the fact that the noise jars Zoro back into painful alertness.
Sanji flits to Zoro's side and winces at how pained and tired the man looks.
"Ugh… I need to sleep this off." Zoro groans as if what he has is a hangover and not a major injury.
"Come on, I'll get you in bed." Sanji says, leaning down and pulling Zoro to his feet and ducking under his good arm to support him. Zoro chuckles in a slightly delirious way and Sanji wonders if he'd tickled him or something.
"Bet you say that to all the guys." Zoro laughs.
"Har, har." Sanji replies devoid of any humour.
"Wait, where's Usopp?" Zoro asks, blearily looking around.
"I sent him home. He's fine, before you ask. He won't tell anyone about us either if you're worried." Sanji says and pushes Zoro's bedroom door open with his foot.
"Wasn't worried." Zoro mumbles and Sanji isn't sure if he means that he didn't think Usopp would tell or if he didn't think Sanji would actually hurt the guy. He's naive in both cases.
Sanji gently lowers Zoro onto the bed, being careful to not let Zoro put any weight on his bandaged arm. He's trying really hard not to think about what would have happened if Zoro hadn't summoned him.
"I should stay to keep an eye on you, unless you want to call your sister or one of your friends around and I'll go before they get here. You just shouldn't be alone." Sanji says quietly, looking down at Zoro spread out on the bed.
Instead of actually answering Zoro squirms sideways a little on his bed and then reaches out with his good hand and pulls Sanji down onto the bed with him.
"Stay then." Zoro mumbles into Sanji's hair. Sanji's whole body is held taut as Zoro curls his good arm around Sanji's back.
This is… he's in bed with Zoro. He's in bed with Zoro and he doesn't want to have sex with him. Well, he does but he's an incubus, there's a baseline level of wanting to have sex with everyone besides Zeff. That in itself is a gross thing to even have to think. The important point though is that he's in bed with Zoro, invited in no less, and he's just… close to him. He's there to make sure that Zoro is going to be okay and he's doing that with just who he is as a person and not what he is.
He melts against Zoro and presses his face against Zoro's chest. He's going to try not to sleep and instead watch Zoro's breathing and keep an eye on his arm. He has a lot to think about anyway. He needs to think about whether his reaction of considering Zoro a loved one means that he, by definition, loves him. And if he does what does that mean for their relationship? If he does feel that way is it then weird for it to be this soon? What's he supposed to do? He's also got to worry about if he did the right thing with Usopp. Killing him would have almost certainly destroyed his relationship with Zoro and broken the man's heart so that wasn't really ever an option, he could hardly have kidnapped the selkie either because Zoro wouldn't have let him. Does this mean that he can still be introduced to the rest of Zoro's friends and then he'll release the selkie from the agreement or is all of that off of the table?
His mind is spinning over all of those questions and more when Zoro's voice makes him jump.
"Did I see you right earlier? Your eyes were black and you were all…" Zoro makes a vague claw motion with his good hand.
"I thought you were asleep." Sanji says quietly.
"Was. Woke up. Is that what you really look like?" Zoro asks, peering down at Sanji who rolls onto his front so that he can look Zoro in the face a little better.
"It wasn't glamour if that's what you mean, that isn't how I look when I first wake up or anything. It's my more demonic form, or the start of it anyway. Doing full on deal making outside of sex tends to bring it out. Plus I was trying to scare him so… it seemed like a good idea." Sanji answers with a small shrug.
"Can I see?" Zoro asks sleepily.
Sanji kind of wants to say no. He's worried enough about not looking good enough for Zoro and it's not as if humans find normal demon form attractive. Incubi and succubi were made to look different specifically to appeal to humans, so why would Zoro even want to see his other form?
Because he's Zoro.
"I have a hard time saying no to you, you know that right?" Sanji grumbles.
"Oh, good." the irritating human chuckles and Sanji takes pleasure in smacking him in the leg with his tail.
"Shut your eyes and I'll do it." Sanji tells him and Zoro does so.
Sanji lets his form change again, his eyes darkening, tail and horns growing, fingernails becoming clawlike, he even lets parts of his skin start to darken and become somewhat chitinous. He spares Zoro the fire that comes with his full demonic form, he doesn't want to set Zoro's bed on fire or hurt the man more.
"You can open your eyes now." He tells him and Zoro does so. His eyes widen immediately and he leans up a little to get a better look at the rest of Sanji. He seems especially fascinated by Sanji's hands and claws and spends a good deal of time touching them with his good hand and looking at them closely.
"You're kind of… majestic. I should probably be terrified but I'm not. Like ah… a tornado, or a thunderstorm, or a tsunami." Zoro says thoughtfully.
"Did you just compare my appearance to an act of god?" Sanji asks in slow, stunned shock.
"Yeah, I guess. It's cool. Thanks for showing me, I'm glad I didn't just hallucinate it." Zoro says and lets his head fall back.
Sanji is exceedingly glad that Zoro can't see how red his face is right now because that was some compliment. He falls back into his normal form and shoves his burning face against Zoro's chest.
"Just… shut up and go to sleep." Sanji mumbles against Zoro's chest.
Sanji has a lot to think about but at least Zoro is okay and he's bought them some time. It'll be okay.