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Zoro throws his arm around Law while they’re celebrating Dressrosa’s liberation. Years from now, hindsight will pinpoint this moment as the start of Something. 

They do not name it. Names imply discovery and discovery follows exploration and Zoro is a swordsman, not a pirate chasing flighty secrets marked in red. Law's the pirate. He’s the greedy one placing his wants above honor on the long voyage towards his dreams. But when Zoro looks over and sees Law nursing a tankard with secretive satisfaction, he thinks: no man carrying such a stately blade should drink on his own. It's Camaraderie that makes him pull the doctor over and steal licks from the booze that sloshes out of his tankard, and Instinct is what holds the captain firm when he tries to struggle away. The crowd knots them together like pilled balls of shearling and they find it easier to stay tangled in place until Bartolomeo is ready to set sail. 

Law informs Zoro of this news in a gentle voice that won't startle. Alcohol slows his thanks.

.

– 

(14) : From a restored kingdom, to a country on the back of an elephant, to a submarine hundreds of meters under the sea.

.

They all watched Luffy dive after their cook a few hours before. Zoro told his captain to look forward to how he will unite all the samurai under his blade, and his captain fell with his face alight with joy. Like it was all for fun, and that's why he took their navigator, musician, and doctor along instead.

Zoro strains to hear Luffy's laughter for as long as he can. It echoes in his ears long after they return to the mink village to prepare for their own departure, the moment before his smile disappeared underneath the clouds stretched infinite until Zoro sees him again. 

. 

The freshly dubbed Captain Usopp Pirates stand on the Polar Tang 's deck waiting for instructions while the Heart Pirates load supplies into her depths: barrels of fresh water, crates of dried fruits and jerky, bags of rice. Law stands to the right of the open door, supervising the proceedings while scribbling in a notebook. Every person sans him wears a boiler suit, even the polar bear, who lumbers to his side and traces a shaky line onto a stained, crudely gridded sheet of paper, probably to give the illusion of uniformity to the carefree crew before Zoro’s eyes. 

"It will take about two weeks, maybe, give or take," The Bear announces with the gravity of one who has committed a humiliating mistake. Two of his crewmates coo and pat his back in condolences.

Law looks his notes over. “We’ll have to stop somewhere for more supplies.”

“There’s an island with a good trading port on the way.” A massive paw points at a stain, and Zoro realizes with a jolt that they’re supposed to represent islands. “Right here. Not government affiliated.”

“So it's a den of villains?” Law stops a tall, spiky-haired man with bundles of pink and yellow fabric spilling from his arms.  "Go over there and roll that up," he says, gesturing with the bear mascot atop his pen.

“Or it could be a quaint and generous community!” The Bear whines.

"Or an ex-kingdom filled with pretty girls!" Spiky Man interjects as he scampers past.

“Either way, it will be good for our guests.” Law turns his attention to them for the first time, frowning like they're unwanted stowaways rather than allies.

“I agree,” Robin replies, sprouting a long arm out of Spiky’s elbow to tuck an errant bolt out of the way before he can trip. “None of us have travelled in a submarine before. We might have gone mad and started eating each other.”

"And I am also concerned about whether this contraption will survive the climb up the falls," Kin'emon continues.

Law's expression turns withering. "Shall I summon another ship to take you, then, if mine is so unsatisfactory?" 

"Well I appreciate your generosity! And I would appreciate it if my crew would stop provoking the guy who could cut us into pieces and leave us stranded!" Usopp bellows from behind Zoro's robe.

“He wouldn’t be able to cut me,” Zoro counters. “I’d block it.”

“What about the rest of us!”

Law closes his eyes and takes four deep breaths before turning to his navigator. “Get Hakugan to set a course, then gather a group to convert part of the mess hall into a space for the Straw Hats to sleep.”

The Bear salutes, “Aye-aye, captain!” and disappears inside.

Law shuts his book with a snap and glares at each of them in turn. “At this point, I’m familiar enough with how you all operate to know that trying to establish strict ground rules will be pointless, even in the absence of your troublemaking captain."

"So all I ask is for you to not interfere with the normal operations of my ship. If you want to eat, you do it when we do. If you want to use our facilities, don’t mess anything up. If there's danger, you support my crew instead of engaging in your usual ad hoc chaos. Let’s get through this without incident, because if there is one, the submarine will crumple in on itself like a tin can and we will die meaningless deaths at the bottom of the ocean. Do you understand?”

The Straw Hats and samurai look around at each other and murmur agreement. Usopp steps from behind Zoro and offers Law his hand to shake. “Fair enough. We accept your conditions.”

“And Zoro,” Law says, using his sword's handle to push Usopp’s head to the side and get an unobstructed view, “You’re going to be under my watch.”

May as well have spat in Zoro’s face. “Why?” he demands. “And not Franky? He’ll probably redo your entire engine.”

“This ship was assembled by an old man who went mad in a shack by the woods. As long as the Robo doesn’t convert it into one of his cola engines, I welcome his expertise.” Franky grins and flexes. “You, however, couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag. I don’t need you cutting my ship in half because you can’t locate the gym.”

“You have a gym? Then I’ll just stay there, problem solved.”

"I'm not arguing. It's my ship and you're a liability." He waves his hand at everyone else. "The rest of you are free to go. Zoro, you will help me with inventory."

Zoro pulls over a passing Heart Pirate to whisper: "Your captain's gonna follow me into the bathrooms and shit." The man claps a hand over his mouth, scandalized.

.

Zoro never feared the ocean and he’s not going to start now. He’s the rock standing defiant against the shores his captain beats into submission. He earned his sea legs at 18 and has been meditating his anxieties away since he was a kid. Law’s Polar Tang is a safer ride underwater than coating a ship in tree resin and floating to the bottom of the sea, he knows this, and the combination of Straw Hats, samurai, and Heart Pirates makes a formidable opponent to any threat the group could face on their way to Wano, that is obvious. It's all fine. 

"One hundred ninety six potatoes," Zoro counts. An okay number: a square (good) that factors into sevens (bad) and twos (good). One potato is sprouting eyes already, its misaligned moue staring up at him from between two of its brothers. A scratch arcs underneath its left bud.

Law writes in his notebook. It doesn't sound like he ever lifts his pencil from the page. "Thought there was more in here. We might not even last a week." 

Zoro looks over his shoulder. "It's not like we feast every day, and the samurai have some kind of hunger strike thing they do whenever they feel like they're intruding too much."

"Good to know. We'll starve in six days rather than five." A bear head points at the box to Zoro's left, housing one hundred twenty one onions (another square — good; a square of eleven — good because 1 1 1 1 pleases his mind's eye) in various stages of sprouting, leftover from before Law's months on Punk Hazard. "Put those close to the door." 

Zoro feels like a pack animal and he doesn't like it. "Why doesn't your crew help out?"

"They have jobs to do."

"And this isn't one of them?"

"A captain who participates in the ship’s mundanities builds greater rapport and trust,” Law recites by rote.

“Are you an encyclopedia?” Zoro arranges things in 2 x 2 blocks and surveys what they’ve done so far. Taking stock of the food went by faster than he expected, as limited submarine space demanded a stricter diet than he was used to on the Thousand Sunny , one that held no space for show-off chefs and fresh ingredients. Long-storage vegetables, rice, and a surprising amount of booze took up the left half of the room, and on the right sat a massive cooler into which Zoro loaded one hundred seventy seven (bad-adjacent, the doubled number is nice, though) fish that Law yanked from the ocean with teeth bared and his hands curled into claws around a massive Room.

He has a similar expression on his face now. “It’s good advice,” he stresses. He kicks a box stuffed with fabric over. “Grab that and follow me.”

Law leads him out of the storage room and into the hallway. Everything on the Polar Tang is larger than the outside advertises, but there’s still not enough room for Zoro to peek his head around his load and see where he’s going. He says as much, so Law hangs his sword low over his shoulder to let Zoro grab hold of a tassel. Energy thrums through the braided cord and Zoro's blades respond with a shiver. 

They walk down the halls and into a library, or so Zoro assumed at first; when he looks around he sees walls covered in bookshelves, but also a floor strewn with thick files and notebooks, a chair stacked with half-constructed garments, and a table draped in pink cotton. The box is taken away and set next to an open sketchbook. Zoro recognizes the shape drawn inside.

“Who’s making yukata in here?”

“It’s not like it’s standard attire outside of Wano.”

"Kin'emon has an ability that can make clothes for us, you don't have to do that."

"It dissipates in one hit, I asked him." Law shuts the cover and yanks Zoro out and away from further questions.

Together, they confirm fuel levels, top off the water supply, check all the filters, and restock the med bay. The last was equal parts impressive and tedious, as Zoro's curiosity about the operating room that had saved his captain’s life turned into a quick lesson about the rigor required to perform such a miracle. Everything, from gowns to staples, is counted, weighed, and slotted into labelled place, and Zoro notices how Law assigns him rerolling bandages and filling IV bags instead of sorting needles and replenishing scalpels. 

In one corner sits a metal table surrounded by dormant machines. Zoro passes by on his way to refill the glove dispenser and slows to a stop, taking it in. Some kind of pump sits near the head of the bed, and there's face masks and tubing, and consoles full of switches and gauges with wires leading to other consoles. Zoro imagines laying there while the screens on the wall beep his vitals back to him. He'd be asleep, right? He wouldn't see masked faces peering down into his insides or feel them cut things out. Zoro tries to imagine Law as the one to do it and fails — he can't square the cruel Surgeon of Death, the stiff weirdo he's familiar with, and the savior who knit Luffy back together with an X over his heart. 

Law watches Zoro stare at the operating equipment, then he walks over, takes the box of glove refills, and replaces them himself. When he reached for the box, Zoro caught a glimpse of the tattoos across his fingers. "DEATH". Some kind of surgeon — maybe the machinery are torture devices and people almost die on his operating table all the time. 

But his captain lived. The gloves cover the letters. 

The two work through the lunch bell. Once finished, Law leads them outside and locks the door with a heavy key. “That it?” Zoro asks.

The other man pulls out his notebook from his hoodie and flips through the pages. “Looks like it.”

“Great. I’m going to nap.” Zoro plops to the ground with his arms and legs crossed. 

Law clicks his tongue above him, and then— Zoro finds himself atop a simple mat, blanket, and pillow in the corner of the mess hall. Several Heart Pirates are seated at a clump of tables pushed to the right side, next to the window looking into the kitchen. They spook at his appearance, but the speaker in the center quickly recaptures their attention with a thunderous voice. It retells a story about the time its owner swallowed two thousand shadows to defeat Gecko Moira’s army of Oars zombies — his sniper's creativity never fails to impress. 

Zoro listens to Usopp embellish their time at Thriller Bark and slips unconscious around the feast at the end, where Luffy perched atop a piano and hummed along with Brook's songs about the sea.

.

Dreams of cold liquor and shining smiles shatter when a siren rips through the air. The lights turn red and the present Heart Pirates spring to their feet like the alarms blink an activation sequence in binary. Usopp screams and Zoro throws his haki out on reflex, securing his swords while he feels for threats. None register. A bushy-haired woman rushes past him and he grabs her arm, ignoring the way she sucks her teeth. 

“What’s going on?” he asks. Kitetsu vibrates in its scabbard, sensing the urgency in the air and wanting to convert it to terror, the pest

“Drills,” she answers, yanking her arm.

“Really? Right now?” She pulls twice, puts her foot on Zoro’s thigh to pull again, and then tries once more with a full-body fling. “Do we have to join?”

“I don’t know! Ask the captain or go to hell, but let me go! ”

Zoro lets her go. She hops over the mats and wrenches open a compartment bolted to the wall to pull out a thick donut of rope and follow her crew. Zoro chases after them, grabbing Usopp on the way.

“What’s going on!” he wails.

“Drills, apparently.” Zoro loses sight of the pirates and takes a turn straight into a wall of muscle. Massive fingers scruff his neck and hoist the two into the air for inspection. “Can I get a ride?” Zoro asks.

The giant shrugs and adjusts his grip so Zoro can swing into a perch on his forearm and deposit Usopp next to him. Raizo drops down when they pass his hiding place in the ceiling.  Franky, Robin, Kanjuro, and Kin'emon trickle in, following them through turn after turn to arrive at the entrance to the deck with the rest of the crew. Law stands in front of the door, his sword and a newspaper cradled in the crook of his right elbow, a mug held in his left hand. He’s changed into a simple t-shirt and shorts and he pushes his hat back to do a headcount. He stops on Zoro and Usopp, still held aloft.

"Good call, Jean Bart.” Law finishes his count and turns on his heel. "Heart Pirates! I want five laps around the Polar Tang by the time I finish my tea and a sea king on the deck before I get through the paper!"

"Aye-aye!" They salute. Their captain pushes open the door and his crew runs past. Jean Bart drops Zoro and Usopp in the middle of the deck and takes a mighty leap over the side, drenching the two in seawater. Sputtering, Zoro shucks his robe off to wring it out as best he can while Law comes to stand beside him.

"Oi," Zoro says, peeling off his haramaki. Law tilts his head in acknowledgement. "Do we need to do that?"

"I said Heart Pirates , did I not?" He cuts his eyes over. "But if you want, I can't stop you. You can be the bait."

Usopp shivers, lily pad-style hat plastered to his face and covering his eyes. "Hey, Traffy, when you said you wanted a sea king on the deck, did you mean the giant man-eating sea monsters, or is there another kind of fish that I don’t know about that has the same name but is, I don’t know, smaller? Or less hungry for human flesh?"

Law blows gently at the cup in his hand. "The sea monster.” He takes a prolonged gulp right as an orca launches itself onto the deck and startles Usopp backwards through the still-open door.

"Captain!" it says, rolling to its feet and snapping to attention to reveal itself as a spiky-haired ginger in an orca hat. He jogs past the group to grab a spear from the wall above where Usopp landed and dives back into the water as two more crewmembers pop up.

“Are stupid hats part of the dress code?” Usopp grumbles. Law’s slurp deepens his frown.

"They're already done?" Kin'emon asks from the door.

"You're surprised?" Law swallows his mouthful and swirls the dregs at the bottom. Five more pirates jump out the sea and cross the deck for equipment while the rest complete their laps and fan out in the water, passing rope between them and diving down. "Good. I never understood the purpose of broadcasting your crew's strength to the world, outside of the usual pirate dick measuring, anyways."

"How big is this thing?" Franky asks.

"Length 300 meters, beam 60." Law swallows the remaining leaves and sends the mug away with a faint pop . "Give or take."

Zoro does a quick calculation and whistles, "Almost four kilometers, not bad."

"Normally they'd do ten." Law shakes out his newspaper and flips through the pages, tearing out parts at random and tossing the rest behind him as he finishes.

He works his way to the classifieds and uses an ad for ship swabbing services to fold his cuttings up. The wind picks up and carries scraps of newsprint into Franky's face and over the ocean where his crew circles a spot before diving all at once. Law tucks his bundle in his shorts and taps his foot impatiently. The sun meanders higher in the sky, buoyed by the heat coming off the water, beating down on the deck with unintentional force. Most of the guests watch the proceedings protected by shade from just inside the doorway, but the salt on Zoro's skin crystallizes him into place besides Law, and the pair are the first to notice the way the water starts churning around where the pirates disappeared. A projectile breaks away from the froth and a penguin-hatted man hops onto the railing before them with a salute. 

"Captain!" A feathered head the size of the Sunny ’s figurehead bursts out the water to drape over the space beside him. He grins. “Found one!”

Law unsheathes his sword. “Good work. Room. ”

A bubble blooms around the ship and lifts the beast into the sky. Pirates hop out the sea and form a loose semicircle around their captain, shaking off their blades and harpoons. The sea king coils above them, blood and water rolling off its feathers in fat drops to cling to the filmy air. Law aims his sword directly between its eyes.

He jabs into the film almost faster than Zoro can see. Space shatters, and a needle pulse shoots from the sword tip into the sea beast's brain in a near-instant. Its body stiffens into a rigid, vibrating rod. Law takes advantage to sever its head and upper body, then flings the rest into the far distance with a dismissive flick of his wrist. 

(The Straw Hats cringe at the waste, though they understand its necessity.)

The head drops into the water next to the Polar Tang . Zoro leans over to get a look at it and notices that it's still alive. To be honest, he'd rather Law have killed it: its eyes are rolled back, twitching in their sockets, and its tongue lolls out as the water bubbles with wet gurgles. A seizure, and a bad one. Like the man had taken an ice pick to its brain.

Grunts sound from around him. Law has cut the massive upper body into serving size portions and lets them fall one-by-one into people's arms. Robin's hands bloom everywhere and get a conveyor belt going into the ship, presumably to the kitchen to be processed. The head convulses with every cut. When everything's done, Law sends them all back in except for, once again, Zoro.

"You don't have to watch me all the time," he complains.

Law hops onto the sea king's head and Zoro nearly yanks him back on reflex. But he looks comfortable up there, his heels digging into its flesh. Zoro has to crane his neck a bit to look him in the eye. "You're the one watching me," he says, "You don't have a devil fruit."

Zoro leans against the railing. "This is your crew's job, let me go back with the others."

Law raises his sword high, then drives it into the sea king's brain. The vibrating intensifies, and there's a moment when Law's footing slips and Zoro throws himself at the railing to place a steadying hand on his hip, then it stops. 

Law pulls his sword down like a lever and the head splits clean in half. "I spent a long night on Zou listening to my crew's worries about tripping over you in the middle of the night and getting cut in half. Don't know why Straw Hat didn't take you along, nor do I care, but you're not about to scare my pirates useless when we're so close to the end."

"Your crew's the liability, not me," Zoro insists. Law groans and hops back onto the deck. His hand flicks through the air a couple of times, and the head separates into soft tissue, bone, and skin. One more flick and it disappears. 

"The end result is the same." He summons his scabbard and sheathes his blade, silencing the whispers Zoro tuned out on instinct and piquing his interest. 

"What kind of cursed blade is that?" he asks.

"Nothing as famous as yours." Law looks down at where Kitetsu chatters. "Or as loud."

"Is there even a point to having one, with your power?" The two duck back inside and shut the door against the sun. 

"Of course. Stupid pirates see me with a big cursed sword sticking my nose into things, they make up all kinds of stories about me, and everyone leaves me alone."

Zoro looks at him with grave seriousness. "So that story about you taking all those hearts was fake?"

Law laughs. "No, not that one."

.

–

(13): 

This could be like yesterday — 

Yesterday was such an easy game for you to play — 

Won’t you tell me?

.

Travelling in a submarine is both more and less active than Zoro expected. After the first day, the Heart Pirates settle into a rhythm that requires little upkeep or direct supervision. Everyone on his crew are scrappy by nature and assigned to one part of the ship; the first part they attribute to the North Blue, the second to the depth (ha) of the submarine's mechanisms. A third motivation, unspoken but undercutting all their actions, lies in Law's praise: they do their jobs well to show off during his rounds. Zoro doesn't think Law notices it, but he sympathizes with the craving. 

Their captain doesn't have to, but he takes an hour of the morning to inspect the ship from top to bottom, and he greets all of his crew members at their stations when he arrives, then thanks them in earnest for their work when he leaves. They're all rusty (how could they not be after months away from their duties) but Law makes minimal corrections while listening to their reports. When the Polar Bear nuzzles him through their course analysis, Law scratches behind his ears while he theorizes ways to shave down their arrival time.

The captain leads Zoro to the med bay after the check-ins are all complete, where soft tissue sits all over the floor in transparent cubes. Law pulls open the freezer on the wall across from the operating table and next to the desk, revealing shelves stuffed with flesh wrapped in devil fruit powers. Law motions Zoro inside so they can pack the sea king into the scant bits of available space and fill buckets with ice for what doesn't fit. Law takes notes on everything. 

Minutes or hours pass like that. Time feels very different underwater, with no way to validate the numbers on the clocks or gauge how fast they're going when the portholes reveal nothing but flat blue, and Zoro is going a bit stir crazy over it. He didn’t expect it would happen so fast, convinced that he would handle the distance from his natural habitat the same way he handled everything: taking things as they come, going with the flow. Law drafted him as a spotter yesterday because Zoro could touch the sea without drowning, but he suspects that Law found a way to cure the curse his powers gave him long ago. Choosing to travel in the manner most defiant of the sea's hatred of his kind must have impressed her, so she grants him shelter under her surface, safe from the clouds he kept watch for on the Sunny .

Zoro, however, has weighed his experiences so far, and places the Polar Tang 's constant threat of pressurized destruction in between chasing a sea train and almost dying in the desert.

His body is too keyed up for his usual time killers (napping, training, bothering stupid, stupid cooks), so he’s taken up pacing the fluorescent-lit hall after they finished stocking the freezer and Law complained about his haki ruining his concentration. He walks by two lights, turns 180, walks four, turns, walks six, then another six, four, then two, repeat. If he tries to go for eight, Law teleports him back by his side, because the eighth light in most halls is at an intersection, and Zoro once went eight lights, turned left, and walked four lights to the mess hall before Law noticed the lack of boots outside his door.

6  

He isn’t worried about whether the cook will return to the crew. Nor anybody’s chance of survival, least of all his captain’s. But. The omnipresent, maddening but . The natural uncertainty that threatens futures and forks paths. There's a real chance that they arrive on Wano’s shores and Luffy never joins them and it makes Zoro want to tear open the walls.

6  

He knows it’s irrational. Luffy’s existence defies logic and turns the most impossible outcomes into reality. He has fought gods, survived hell, and faced everything in between, and still he regards his future with the same wonder he shared with Zoro when it was just the two of them floating aimless in the East Blue. At this point, Zoro thinks if Luffy wanted it bad enough, he could grab lightning from the sky and bowl the moon down the Grand Line. There's nothing at all his captain couldn't survive. It’s absurd, actually, that Zoro entertains thoughts of never sailing with him again. 

4  

Kitetsu’s handle creaks where Zoro’s fist grips it. He spent two years in a dark, cobwebby castle getting beat up by his own self-loathing so he could always be by Luffy's side. His miserable determination was because he knew what would be there when he kept his promise and returned exactly two years later. But he can't monopolize his captain's attention.

2  

A crew is made up of individuals at the end of the day. They're entitled to their choices, and Luffy is entitled to follow them to the ends of the earth to ask why. 

2  

Zoro's loyalty is rock solid. Luffy doesn't need to follow him.

Zoro opens the door to the med bay. A twisted column of flesh spills off the desk where Law sits.

“You're done pacing?" He cuts off a portion and places it onto the tray before him.

“Where's your gym?”

"I lied, sorry. We don't have one."

Zoro gestures at his swords, hoping to communicate his immediate need for space. The other man doesn’t see it, busy as he is. “What about the mess hall?”

"No.” Law pinches a bit of membrane between a pair of forceps and slides his scalpel underneath, “You’re going to have to wait until we land.”

“When?” Zoro watches Law expose a line of gray matter. Pools of bright red blood shine from the folds.

“Tomorrow."

"How long are we staying?"

"Under a day, we don't want the log to reset."

"That's not too bad. I can find a beach to train on."

Law hums. "The invitation to join our drills is still open, in the meantime.”

Zoro walks into the room and flops backwards onto the operating table. The light above him looks like an eye staring down. "I'll pass."

"Suit yourself."

The soft clink of Law's work rings around for several minutes. “What are you up to over there?”

Law sighs. “Making slides.”

“Huh?" Images of Law parading his crew in a single-file line through a jungle gym invade his mind. 

“Of the sea king’s brain. It’s not what I expected.” He angles the tray into Zoro's sight. "Many aquatic brains are smooth and tubular, but this is complex like a mammal's. I want to get a closer look."

“You do this often?”

“Only with things that interest me.” Law peers backwards from under his hat. His eyes drift down to the scar across Zoro’s chest. 

Zoro flexes a bit, unable to resist teasing. "Like this?" He grins at the other's scowl.

"The healing must have been painful."

Zoro shrugs. "Comes with the territory. I had to protect my captain, I'm sure your crew feels the same." Law raises a brow, but Zoro continues before he can object. “And my doctor is a reindeer, not a brainiac with a miracle devil fruit.”

Law keeps staring. A beat passes, then two, three, four —

(—Once, Usopp spotted an osprey in the sky, its golden gaze fixed on their lunch. 

They had just escaped the government's stronghold, rescued Robin, and gained a proper shipwright to care for their glorious new Thousand Sunny . The weight of their actions had yet to settle on most of their shoulders; they saw the articles declaring them part of a once-in-a-lifetime wave of criminals, but that was one more thing in a series of once-in-a-lifetime things they experienced since joining Luffy. Usopp, however, took the stance of the layperson and stressed over the implications, groaning facedown on the grassy deck under the weight of infamy. He needed some good news. When he rolled over and saw the bird circling above, he pointed at the heavens and told them it was a sign of smooth sailing to the One Piece. 

Who knows how true that was. Luffy wouldn't care either way. He needed no other reason to fling himself off the crow's nest to try and catch the bird, and paid for his trust by falling into the sea.

They’re humans, despite what the papers say. Zoro dove in amidst the panic without even untying his swords first, kicking past the sinking anchor toward the red vest beneath him. Luffy’s hat floated into Zoro's right hand. He grabbed Luffy's ankle with the other, and because they didn't know what haki was back then, the leg stretched as Zoro pulled himself along to gather his captain in his arms. Luffy aimed such an indignant frown at the bird flying above that Zoro almost lost his breath laughing at how ridiculous he looked: cheeks puffed out, hair curling around his ears, skin smooth and warm. 

Back on the Sunny 's deck, Luffy spat water into his swordsman’s face and giggled as his hat was shoved onto his head. Salt stung Zoro’s tear ducts and everything was too bright in the midday heat. 

The osprey circled above, cawing.)

—"I think you’re just a bad patient." Zoro blinks. "Stop giving Tony such a hard time.”

Zoro tucks his arms behind his head and forces his mind back on track. "Are all doctors this pushy?"

"Some are nice, like your reindeer. Plenty are very mean."

"He told me there's supposed to be an oath you take when you get your license." Chopper was upset over the fact no medical school worth its name would allow a reindeer in the room, and it fell to Zoro to clean his tears and snot. "'I shall do no harm', or something."

"A bad attitude is hardly a violation, for one, and second, do you see a license on my wall?"

Fair point. Zoro makes a mental note for later. "You call yourself a doctor, though. I could be one by the time we get to Wano if that's all it takes."

Law returns to his monster brain and separates the cerebellum from the bulbous front half, then divides the midbrain with another terse cut. "I'd like to see that."

“You gonna teach me?”

"Not enough time." His hands pluck a saw from the rolling cart to his left and a pair of metal plates from the stack in front. With practiced movements, he cuts a thin slice, dices an area in the middle into smaller pieces, then arranges everything in a semicircle on one plate before stacking another on top.

A pile of offcuts grows on a tray to his right. The light above Zoro reflects his face back at him as he remembers the way his captain sank into the depths his swordsman travels through now, powerless without help.

"You saved Luffy's life," Zoro says to the bulb. "I haven't thanked you for it yet."

The other man stiffens. "Please don't."

"I'm serious." He heard the broad strokes from Mihawk, then trained until his hands bled and his brain stopped trying to fill in the details. "You didn't have to, and I don’t know how, but you did. Thank you."

Law's hand twitches in agitation, then he hisses when the scalpel slips and nicks the very tip of his left index finger. "Stop, seriously. I don't know why I did it, but we're even now. If we pull this raid off it will have been worth it. Just move on."

Zoro's not satisfied, but he changes the subject. “You could use the leftover brains as fishing bait.”

“I don’t fish, but they could be tasty.” Law pulls the glove off and inspects the split in the pad. No blood comes to the surface when he presses.

“You're joking.”

“We’ll draw lots, I think.”

Zoro thinks back to Law peeling his sandwich apart, ignoring the cook’s fury. “You’ll consider eating brains, but bread is out of the question?"

“I have an allergy.”

“And you're picky," Zoro adds, remembering again how Law fought the cook over finding pickled plums in his rice balls. 

"I like what I like."

"I can guess a few: funny hats, pointy boots, overcompensating swords—"

Law’s head falls back as he groans. “You're so annoying." He extends his hand to teleport the cackling swordsman back outside, but his power bubbles out from his cut to cover — and silence — Zoro.

They freeze.

Law looks like he's seen a ghost. He stands and approaches the wobbling, strange Room with careful steps. Zoro sees his mouth move but hears none of the words — or anything at all of the world around him. The air feels less like a film and more of a constant pressure. His eardrums pound. Each step of Law's boots vibrates in the metal against his back.

Law ducks his face past the boundary. “Do you hear me now?” His eyes get rounder as he speaks.

“Yeah." Zoro swings his legs around and sits up. "Is that new?"

“I don’t… actually know.” The Room vanishes. He returns to his seat, fingers steepled in front of his face. "I've heard that new powers can appear the more you train your fruit, but I assumed they were different applications of its mechanisms, not a mutation, or..."

He trails off, lost in thought. His knee bounces.

"What's a quiet bubble supposed to do?" Zoro prods.

The breakfast bell goes off, startling them both. They lost track of time; they were supposed to head to the kitchen storage 30 minutes ago to update inventory numbers for the cook.

Law grabs the tray of cuttings and scoops a handful of tongue depressors from a cup next to his notebook. "Who knows?"

.

"Kaido tries killing himself, sometimes," A depressor with its top third snapped off sits next to a tray laden with pale, chewy scraps.

"That's stupid."

"You have a goal that drives you to the end of this ocean, right? But what if you had already proven yourself and everyone called you the strongest creature in the world? What would you do then?"

"Everything, I guess. Nothing could stop me."

"Right, and he did. He defeated everyone in his way, built an empire, and dined with kings. Spent decades on top of the world like that. But then he remembered that there is something that can stop him. It just didn't matter until he had it all." 

.

– 

(12): It doesn't matter until you have it all

.

The trading port is a den of villains as predicted, patrons and sellers with faces gnarlier than the scars criss-crossing their skin exchanging money and favors in the early morning light. The animal-hatted duo bicker with a surly dockhand for space while the Polar Bear waits to guide the ship in with a rope between its teeth. 

Law stands on the deck with his sword on his shoulder and a set of lists in hand. "My crew, break into groups and grab a guest. Buy only what is on here and return to the ship once you are done. If I catch you with extras, because I will be checking, you're throwing it overboard yourself."

Zoro dozes against the railing while Law speaks. They had pushed their schedule a couple hours early to account for what Law called "potential docking complications". The captain woke Zoro by poking his sword into his stomach and dragged him out of the mess hall by the ankle when he failed to leap to his feet. The commotion woke Usopp, who watched Zoro reach out a hand for mercy and only waved.

The complications resolve themselves with a hefty stack of bills and The Bear pulls the submarine into place at a dock covered in droppings. Crew and passengers bustle around and dissipate into the crowd, leaving Law and Zoro on their own. The captain walks over and raps Zoro on the forehead with his knuckle. 

"I felt around and found a field outside the town. You can swing your swords there."

"Thanks," Zoro rubs the forming bruise. "Lead the way."

Law teleports them outside the port town, in the middle of the remains of some battle that nature reclaimed. Whatever was here seems to have reformed down the road as a shanty town that blurs the port's margins. They walk down the old main street covered in sweet clovers and waving grass and pass thick vines that twist around the remaining foundations. A half-rusted sign hanging in a hollowed out building reads "Cr  n St  ".

"Crown Store," Zoro suggests.

Law follows his gaze. "That makes no sense."

"Then you try."

"No." They stop at a sandy depression ringed by weeds and shrubbery rustling in the breeze. Less a field, and more an old crater. "Is this enough space?"

Zoro shrugs off his robe to dangle around his waist and unsheathes Kitetsu and Shusui. The two sigh in happiness, filling his stance with power he lassoes into obedience, then unleashes with a wide swing. The shockwave blows a third of the brush into powder, but it's not good enough. He tries again, spreads his legs shoulder width apart, tenses his core, adjusts his grip. His eye fixes on a tower beyond the area he cleared. He imagines skimming the tile off the roof like fish scales as he cuts and they fly off in every direction. Much better.

.

“When’s the last time you sparred with someone?” Law sits beside a patch of false nettles. Handfuls of leaves sit beside him, their fibrous stems stripped and twisted into cord with knots dotting the length.

Zoro removes Wado from his teeth and shields his eye when he turns. He's worked up a good sweat; yellow eyes follow the paths they take down into his haramaki. “A few months ago, with Mihawk.”

“Ah.” Law makes a square knot. “I've heard of those baboons of his.” 

“Humandrills,” Zoro corrects.

“They’re tough opponents normally, I can’t imagine what they're like after living under his blade."

A line of moisture trickles from Zoro's hairline to his scar. A few months ago, Mihawk demanded a pound of flesh for the honor of facing Yoru. 

“You may have your eye back,” he said, rolling it around in his palm, “When you take my head.”

He beat Zoro, again and again, over and over, humiliating him until one truth became all he knew: he is not good enough to serve anyone, much less the king of the seas. Mihawk had high expectations thinking Zoro could land one blow, any blow, before transplant was impossible. It's probably still sitting in Perona's homebrew preservative, or worse, adorning a stuffed animal.

"They're not too bad," Zoro says, "I beat them all on my way to meet him."

Law passes the end of the cord over and under and tightens it into a cross hitch. "Good." His sword sits beside him, humming and content.

"You should fight me." 

"I know my limits." He unties the knot. He makes an 8, wraps the loops, tucks the tail, slides it home over the D on his thumb. Hangman.

Zoro faces Law full-on. "So I missed my chance when we first ran into you?"

"No point in speculating on that." Law unwinds the nettle cord again and tosses the end at Shusui. It falls short between his thighs. "No one was supposed to find me there in the first place. Fate is strange."

"Always with the plans and 'supposed to's. I think fate wanted to speed things up a bit," Zoro tests, rolling his neck.

"Don't appoint yourselves its ambassadors." Law snaps. He stands at his full height and grabs his sword to seem more threatening. "You all messed up a lot of things for me. So much more can go wrong now."

"It's been fine so far."

"Only because you're all anomalies," Law insists.

"You wanna experiment on me?" Zoro twists his swords so their edges smile. " Doctor? "

Law huffs his power around the area and vanishes. Zoro hears a whistle, then turns to meet the oncoming hit from— a cord. Fingers jab underneath his left shoulder blade. 

"Mes," Law hisses.

Zoro crumples to the ground, reaching for his chest and feeling a square hole where flesh should be. His veins pulse under his fingers, rushing fills his ears, and his vision darkens, and it doesn't feel like he can breathe and none of his limbs work and he drops his swords avoids cutting his hand open on the— or he doesn— he grabs at the dirt he chokes on nothinghis mouth gapes around rust and ozone

and Law plucks his racing heart from the dust 

the noose on the ground blurs in and out of focus

"Tachycardia. Cardiomyopathy, but mild. There should be more swelling based on how much you drink." 

cool fingers test the give with a light squeeze 

Zoro chokes

"Freakish. You Straw Hats are all strange."

when Nami was sick she described the worst parts of it like someone scooped her insides out and pumped it with hot air

it sounded impossible that she could feel hot in Drum Island's frozen peaks but he's learned since then that human bodies don't follow human logic 

he's so lightheaded he doesn't think Law has to bow far to reach his ear

"Play your role." Law slides the organ into place and watches Zoro gasp. "We'll fight as enemies soon enough."

His lungs hurt with every breath.

.

The sun dips below the horizon. What remains of the old town has been carved into halves and thirds and fifths, Zoro at its center, robe abandoned to Law's side hours ago. Blood drips from his right palm and leaves black stains in the fading light.

A transponder snail rings. Law pulls the gastropod from his coat and clicks it awake.

"Captain!" A tiny penguin sprouts from the top of its head. "Where are you?"

"Supervising the wayward swordsman." 

The swordsman in question leaps off the ground and cleaves the area before Law in two. Bits of nettles drift in the breeze and sting Zoro's eye. 

"Oh?" comes the voice after a pause. "Is that so?"

"Are you done?"

"All prepped and ready for you," the snail leers.

Law hangs up. "We're heading back."

Zoro pulls off his bandana to wipe his face, notices the cut in his palm, and decides to wrap it around his hand instead. His body has long recovered from losing his heart, but he still counts the beats as they slow: 113, 97, 61, 43. Law hands him his robe and they walk back to the dock together. 

A sour port breeze crawls its way through the town's open bars to flavor the brine with cheap beer. A barkeep recognizes Zoro and tries tempting him away to a corner of bounty hunters with an armful of foaming tankards. Law cuts them in half and tugs him onto a detour through the shanty town. Here, the air smells like mud and piss and whistles through shotgun shacks. Starved pets blink from behind folding chairs while mothers gossip and bounce babies on their knees. Sellers stuff their tents and leftover wares into their front doors, then collapse to the ground and bum cigarettes from their neighbors. The pair walk by where a man carries a rack of fine vases painted with swirling florals inside while complaining to a similarly grouchy helper about how he used to make plates for the queen. His assistant retrieves a stack of bills from his pocket and offers to buy his boss a couple of rounds, which is accepted with surprise and gratitude. 

A group of kids kick a ball in a rectangle of broomsticks. Zoro can’t determine teams out of the constant movement; it looks like there’s a set of kids to guard the boundary, and the rest work as attackers trying to kick it outside. Most of the action is concentrated along the long sides, eliciting peals of laughter as defenders dive for the ball in outlandish ways. The complexity of each dive seems to factor into the amount of points one scorekeeper scratches into the dirt, a style element that incentivises the attackers to kick the ball as far as possible to see how their opponents return it to center. The kids manage to maintain a happy back and forth of this until the pair pass by. Then, an attacker spots a break in the defenses and takes merciless advantage, kicking the ball through the gap and sending it flying into the back of Zoro’s head. 

The smack! of the ball making contact sounds worse than it is, but everyone, including the adults, freeze like prey. The ball rolls underneath a leaning tower of wooden pallets. 

Law notices their stricken faces because he notices that Zoro isn't walking with him. He turns to urge the swordsman forward and sees his body has taken on the shape of a scruffed cat. Law does a brisk about-face and hurries off, his shoulders shaking and hat pulled over his face. The spell breaks all at once. Some of the kids start mimicking the pose to different degrees of success and Zoro’s ego erodes as he rushes to catch up. 

A pair of kids run to the pallets to fish the ball out. A supervising woman yells at them to be careful, but she’s wrangling three toddlers at the same time and can’t help steady the teetering. Law swipes a rock from the ground and tosses it behind him. One flip of his wrist, and the ball sails into the center of the rectangle to cheers. 

“Thank you mister!” A kid calls after him. He strikes Zoro’s pose, spins on his toe, and kicks the ball to the far corner.

.

The Polar Tang ’s fish shape looks surreal in the blue hour. Its lanterns illuminate the crew throwing shuriken at the seagulls perched along the dock according to Raizo's instructions. Jean Bart comes out onto the deck with a mug of coffee. While stirring sugar cubes into the tar, he spots his captain and Zoro heading down the street. To his credit, he only gawks for a second before downing his cup and yelling for the crew to start departing procedures. 

The sea breeze brings gooseflesh to Zoro's skin. Robin looks between the two with a curious spark in her eye and he realizes what they must look like: Zoro half-naked and flustered, Law smug. It's too cumbersome to pull on his robe over his swords, though, so he endures the whistles that follow him aboard.

.

Back underwater, Law gathers everyone in the mess hall.

"I hope you all enjoyed our detour,” he says, hip cocked and sword planted at his side. The crowd murmurs agreement.

“It will be the last one.” An Usopp-sounding boo sounds from behind Franky’s massive shoulder. “The only time we will surface from now on is for my crew’s drills, which you may join if you’re feeling restless. If not, do your best to endure until we arrive." 

Law stares right at Zoro. "Dismissed."

.

–

—In a dream

he walks eight lights

then he stops

and takes a—

.

–

If you were to separate a group of organisms from their original environment, you would find they try very hard to continue on as usual. Communities within communities tend to reflect their contexts, which is why prisons can still have kings despite the prisoners' ostensible equality in misery. Routine breeds complexity, systems balance their sprawl upon a needle point because their keepers follow their scripts to the letter. Several things must occur in succession for it to topple:

1. Disruption – An external force must compromise the system's defenses.
2. Invasion – A foreign body must enter the compromised system.
3. Response – The system activates its tools and contingencies to adapt, fight, or synergize with its new conditions. 
4. Aftermath – If successful, the original system will achieve equilibrium in a new routine; if not, everything will die.

(10): Puffins or plagues or prisons

.

Zoro wakes with the breakfast bell. His right hand throbs. He holds his palm in front of his face and examines the wound Shusui left behind. Kitetsu, while annoying, avoids its master’s blood out of loyalty, but Shusui belonged to someone else, some place else, before him. It stings when he flexes his hand in an attempt to break up some of the crust. The worst of it gets rehidden under his bandana.

The cook sees Zoro and loads a heavy portion of potatoes onto his tray with a baffling wink. Zoro grabs the first half of his beer ration (during dinner on their first day, Robin insisted Law allow Zoro to get seconds, and the captain agreed without pushback) and sits with Usopp near the door. Law and the Polar Bear sit at a map-covered table in the corner farthest from them. News from the bridge of a course complication ended morning rounds early, similar to yesterday where an investigation into suspicious noises in the engine room revealed Franky trying to tack on hybrid diesel/cola functionality. Zoro hustled out of the vicinity to escape the blast zone, sense of direction be damned. His first few attempts at returning to his sleeping pad landed him at the door to the deck, but twenty four turns later, he was treated to the sight of the cyborg hunched over a table while Usopp, Robin, and Kin'emon tried to remove the arms attached to his back. Law spent all day with his engineer to reverse Franky’s handiwork. Today might be similar. 

Usopp notices his hand when he sets his tray down. "Why do you get so many potatoes, huh?"

Zoro tucks it under the table. "Because this cook actually knows what he’s doing.”

"I think there's a little bit of favoritism going on." Usopp jerks his nose at the corner. "Captain's privileges and all that."

Zoro stabs a wedge. "Don't."

"I'm just saying, we're all adults here and I don't care, none of us do, actually—"

"None of us ?"

"But it's weird, you know? Shacking up with a scary man and his scarier power, plus there's also the thing you have going on with…" he trails off at Zoro's blank face. "Really?"

"Traffy and I haven't done anything."

"Zoro, seriously, you can tell me. I don't care."

"I'm being serious."

Usopp leans in, incredulous. "Not even a little? What about the other day?"

"He was fixing the engine all day yesterday, you know that."

"Not yesterday, the other day, when we landed on that island. We finished shopping pretty quick so we went back to the ship to wait for you guys, but then it got to mid-afternoon. We thought something had happened, so we went around town to check if you guys had gotten into trouble, but nobody saw anything! So we searched that area around town, and then checked outside that area—”

“The place was not that big,” Zoro reminds him. "You all getting distracted and goofing off has nothing to do with me."

“I know how you are, so I expected you to be gone for a while and I told them that, but Zoro…" He looks around, then covers his mouth. “When we were back on the ship, it looked like Traffy wanted to eat you alive."

Zoro pulls a piece of potato skin out of his teeth. “So?”

“Oh brother.” Usopp crosses himself and claps his hands together. 

Polar Bear shuffles past with his arms full of maps. “You should have called us sooner if you were that worried,” Zoro says, watching Law walk to the exit with an exaggerated slowness out of the corner of his eye.

“Er, his crew suggested we give you two privacy, y'know?”

“No, I don't know.”

“Neither do I,” Law adds when he nears their table. “I hope you’re not taking all of their jokes seriously. They haven't gotten to test new material in a while.”

Zoro waves. “No harm done in playing along.”

Law’s eyes fixate first on the bandana tied around his palm, then on the lack thereof around his upper left arm. “That’s new.”

“Yeah, wanted to switch it up, see if I like it.” Zoro turns his hand this way and that, showing off the wrapping pattern that doesn't cover the raw wound peeking from the top and bottom.

The captain’s mouth twists. “The material is wrong. It could chafe, or be a detriment to your sword fighting.”

Usopp’s eyes dart between the two. “I was just saying that he should get real wraps instead of being lazy.”

“There might be something in the scrap pile. Come.”

He teleports Zoro to the med bay and starts bustling around with his wheeled cart in tow. Alcohol, cotton buds, sutures, needle holder, scissors, and forceps assemble on its surface in a neat line. 

“Some scrap pile,” Zoro says.

“Indeed,” Law replies. He pulls on a pair of gloves and pushes Zoro onto the operating table. He kicks a trash can between his legs and sits to unwind the oozing cut. 

“Did this happen when we were on that island?” A wet cotton bud dabs the crust away for a better look.

Zoro winces at how the next words will sound. “When you took my heart, I think.”

The doctor snickers, as expected. “You should have called me sooner," he mocks.

“Not with bedside manners like this.”

Law spreads Zoro's fingers, examining how the skin pulls. A holder grasps a suture and he holds his hand over the point. Bubbles leak from his palm and form a thin layer of film over the steel. 

"May I try something?" he asks.

Zoro gives a wary "Okay."

The point presses into his skin. “What does that feel like?” 

“You power users," he marvels, "Nothing." 

Law ties a surgeon knot and snips the thread. Another suture pierces the skin a little further up. "And this?"

Zoro shakes his head, watching the needle go in and out without sensation. A line of knots grows. Law looks excited when he sets his tools down.

"Localizing the effects of my Rooms has a lot of potential." He reaches for his notebook and starts writing.

"A nice trick in between fights," Zoro comments, flexing his hand to test the tension. Law is quick to grab it and hold it still.

"I could stab you without you feeling it, and then… maybe I could expand the circumference of my blade to the size of a pipe. Or I could charge it to shock you from the inside." 

His grip slides upwards over Zoro’s wrist, then over a scar cupping his forearm. Zoro watches its path, then Law, hunched over and muttering along with his feverish chicken scratch. 

"It's funny," Law says, "doctors in the past used my devil fruit to perform miracles, but all I do is think about new ways to hurt people with it." 

Zoro scoffs. "Some doctor."

Fingers slide over another scar. "Some swordsman. How many of these do you have?"

Zoro straightens his spine, "None on my back, that's all that matters."

A Room whistles into existence. White lines arc over his arms, his chest, his hip—

"See?" Zoro says.

The bubble disappears and the bear atop his pen resumes its thrashing. "How honorable, facing your battles without retreating. The picture of stoicism."

Zoro shrugs. "It’s gotten me this far, not gonna change now."

A smile creeps across Law's face when he looks up. "Not even while I'm experimenting on you?"

"Nope, but you should really reconsider your style of hospitality towards guests."

"It’s a rare opportunity. Hard to find better test subjects than a bunch of wanted pirates."

"Fair, but this is an alliance, not a hostage situation. You need us in good shape."

"I can’t subject my crew to my diabolical curiosities."

Zoro sits back on his uninjured hand and one side of his robe falls open. He considers Law's face, shadowed by his hat but eyes still vibrant and yellow. "Hot meals and a couple of stitches can’t be your worst."

"I have other ideas." He pushes Zoro's sleeve up to his shoulder and draws a line from the crook of his elbow to the wrist with the bear's muzzle. "I could cut your arm open and reconnect your nerves and tendons wrong so you could never use your hands again."

A vision of Law’s hand pulling a scalpel through his skin flashes through Zoro's mind before he can stop it. He whistles, "That's specific."

Law shrugs. "Just an example."

Zoro tilts his head away from where fingers curl around his collarbone. "I guess if things go wrong, you can use that fruit of yours and fix everything up."

"No need, I'd be very careful." Law sits back and rests his pen on his bottom lip. "I promise."

Zoro registers, somewhere, that he's drifting close to a line. As an authority for his crew, there is a balance of power he has a responsibility to maintain, and the wrong move will affect what happens after the alliance ends. But, to be fair to Zoro's internal compass, there's no way to know its precise location without a point of comparison. 

"Well," he decides. "When you put it like that."

Slowly, Law opens his mouth. Then, while maintaining deliberate eye contact, he closes his teeth around a tiny bear ear.

.

(On the Grand Line,)

(Within the "New World",)

(In a submarine three hundred meters under the sea:)

(Robin enters the mess hall with a book tucked under her arm. Franky tinkers with a device in the corner housing the men's accommodations. She accepts a cup of tea from the cook and finds a spot under the cyborg's arm.)

(Kin'emon sits at a table nearby and watches Usopp organize his seeds. There's smoking fungi, parasitic bean pods, ultra-flammable blooms, and more niche varieties the samurai couldn't begin to describe. Uncomfortable in the silence, he asks the sniper if he wants to hear a story about a warrior he once knew.)

(Heart Pirates mill about, finishing up chores before the next shift takes over. The navigation crew makes adjustments to the course in between rounds of rock-paper-scissors. The last snack cake sits in a box between them while a mug steams with fresh brew.)

(In the med bay sits a rolling cart carrying a bottle of alcohol, used cotton buds, sutures, a needle holder, scissors, forceps, a notebook, and a pen. Nobody is there.) 

(Finally, in the far corner of the submarine, within an office covered floor-to-ceiling in papers and books, lies Trafalgar Law, nestled in a pile of pillows and cushions with his head buried between a green-haired swordsman’s thighs.)

(The intensity is fine, normal, even, but the obsession is different. This isn't part of a plan to unseat an emperor, there's no calculating outcomes and hiding motives underneath layers of decoys and subversions and lies – this is the full weight of Law's attention made physical, an all-consuming force that is stark against the stillness of the deep.)

(Law listens for Zoro's sighs, then rewards him with deep laps of his tongue. His power dials the sensations up by a thousand. Hands tighten around bruises and draw out ugly noises.)

(A single lamp burns to the left of the pair, projecting their shadows onto the wall around the door. Scraps reveal themselves between their bodies; here, under where Law hooks Zoro's legs over his shoulders, a photograph scribbled with several dense paragraphs — there, over where Zoro arches his back, a letter stamped with the Navy's seal. A handful of newspaper pages flutter when Law moves to swallow the other's breath. Next to his head sits a shipping receipt dating back to a year and a half ago, signed with a grinning sigil. Notes and arrows and lines of ink, pencil, and marker trace paths across ephemera and create noise-making feedback that obscures their actions, devours them, deep within its web.)

.

–

(9): Yes, you need some bringing down—

.

Zoro awakes to a captain lying on him, spiky hair sticking up from the forearms crossed over his chest. 

The lamp sits dark atop the desk. Blue water reflects all over Law's face when he notices Zoro stir. "It's early," he says in lieu of good morning. "We don't have to get up for a while."

Zoro shakes away the remains of sleep and winds his arms around Law's shoulders. He strokes the heart curving around the muscle; his cut twinges. "Are you propositioning me properly this time?"

Law watches Zoro’s hand move. "How does it feel?"

"I think you have a fetish. What kind of weirdo flirts in the form of checkups?" Zoro pulls and the doctor shimmies upwards, ducking down low to scrape teeth against the skin along the way.

"No pain?" Law frames his hands around Zoro’s head and tangles fingers in his earrings. "Or tugging?" One ghosts down his neck, over his collarbones, over his chest.

Zoro uses his injured hand to hurry Law's along its path. The stitches rub against the target on the back. "Feel that? Not even moving. You’re so good at your job."

"Don't deflect with flattery," Law mumbles against his lips.

"You started it." Zoro kisses him once, urges him lower. "It's fine, shut up."

Fingers curl past the way Zoro's thighs tighten together and a hand claps over his moan before it echoes too far down the pipes. It’s not enough. The alarm does a better job of muffling things an hour later. 

Law pulls away from the marks lingering on Zoro’s body and blinks away to wash up. He returns to sort through their clothes around where the other still lies prone. The smile on Law's back flexes with his movements, laughing at how the swordsman returns to himself in stages while Law hops into his jeans.

He pulls his tank top over his head and kicks at Zoro's foot. "Get dressed, we need to go."

"Teleport me into the mess hall so I can get some actual sleep instead of being shown off to your crew, pervert."

Law makes a pitying noise. "You'll have to put your clothes on regardless of where I park you, idiot."

"Worrying about my dignity, how nice." Zoro rolls face first into an overstuffed tiger shaped like a basketball. “Nothing my crew hasn’t seen before.”

Law throws a boot at Zoro's ass, careful to aim it above the handprint clawing over his left cheek. "I'm not nice, and I’m sure they don’t want to see what you let me do to you." 

Zoro lets out a loud snore. Law snatches his ankle to drag him away from warmth, threatening towards the door. In retaliation, Zoro grabs onto a handful of leaflets tacked to the wall, drawing a scandalized Hey! from their owner. "Don't wanna," he says, slipping his foot away.

The air whistles and a burning sensation develops in the back of Zoro’s nose, a freezing hit that mellows into a warm drip down his sinuses. He sniffs. Clean-feeling in the back of his throat, earthy from a ferment, meaning—

He sits up to see a bottle of frosty sake be held aloft by a captain whose scowl grows more sour at how easily that worked. Law bites the top open and downs its contents with five heavy gulps. Another appears in his hand when he wipes away the liquid dripping down his chin.

"Give me one," Zoro whines, reaching out.

Law blinks away. Zoro dashes out the door with his robe halfway on and pants barely buttoned and finds the captain at the far end of the hall, tapping his foot. The range in Law’s displeasure is astonishing; this time he manages to insult Zoro quite effectively through a vein that pops out of his clenched jaw. Zoro sticks his tongue out and gets an emphatic middle finger in response. The sweet smell of honey wine fills the air when Law pulls open the bottle. 

Zoro runs down and swats at it. He receives an answer in the form of a cork spat into his face. 

Fed up, the swordsman turns back where he came from, then turns away from the wall to face down the hallway. "Forget it, I'm not about to follow you around like a dog chasing treats."

"You're not? Days of doing just that and you're putting your foot down now? What's changed, puppy?"

Zoro whips his head around. "I don't get some slack?"

"For what? Oh." Law’s tone turns scathing. "Was your big idea to get me to stick my tongue in your cunt so you can nap for two weeks? I left you alone for ten minutes on day two and you went nuts. Be smarter than that. Whatever you think of me, I'm not punishing you. Distractions have helped you vent excess energy."

That explains Law’s evasiveness. Zoro burns hot. “Distractions, right.” 

At the anger in his tone, Law tries again, gentler. “It’s been a while since I could forget being a captain, but I still have responsibilities when the sun comes up.” He doesn’t look at Zoro’s face, but rather the bruise blooming low on his neck. "I don’t expect you to adapt perfectly to underwater travel in two weeks."

The submarine creaks around them. A Heart Pirate, the Penguin-Hat, looks around the corner to check if they’ve moved. The water filter should have been inspected and the recapture mechanism emptied by now, but Zoro still wants to argue and prove he's not so much of a danger that he needs to be babysat, that the chasm opening under his feet will only be big enough for him. 

The penguin ducks back out of sight when Zoro pulls the bottle out of Law’s hand. His crew has good taste; this one coats his tongue well and goes down smooth when he drains the leftovers.

“I’m not doing this anymore." Zoro shrugs his robe fully onto his shoulders and gestures around. "Leave me somewhere and I’ll stay until you get back.”

Law flicks his wrist and a dark bottle drops into his hand, wet with condensation. “Okay, and the moment I receive reports of my crew tripping over you because you’ve wandered away, you’re done.”

“Fine.”

He tips the neck towards the swordsman, then angles his head at the corner. “Penguin! I hope you’re doing your job and not waiting for me!”

The pirate scampers out from his hiding place and salutes with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Of course, captain! And I have a bunch of reports to deliver!”

“Good looking out, I can make up some time that way.” He screws the bottle open and notes of sugarcane fill the air. “As for you, I’m drinking your ration. Don’t disobey me again.” 

He flicks the cap at Zoro’s forehead and vanishes. The swordsman catches it midair and licks at the scant droplets clinging to the top. He starts off in the opposite direction, turns, then turns one more time back towards the office. 

(On the way to the deck for drills, a line of Heart Pirates trip over a leg sticking out from an alcove and domino-fall down the hallway. They contort it out of sight before their captain peers around the corner.)

.

–

So, Something is going on. But it's not A Thing. More like individual Things following each other in sequence, an algorithm with specific triggers. 

In the absence of guidance, it appears spontaneous. A niche develops. Variables mutate established parameters; paths spring up in idle moments and they skip analysis to follow them to a conclusion. As long as the basic structure is in place — a captain, a first mate, and long hours at sea — its permutations can enjoy less rigor.

Just not always less importance.

.

–

(7): 3.

.

Heart Pirates swim their laps under a gray sky. Zoro sits cross-legged on the deck, eye closed and hair rustling in the breeze, Law’s nodachi resting before him. The captain placed it there just after his crew leapt into the sea with an imperious demand to “Watch Kikoku”, bending low so Zoro could see down the plain black V-neck he wore. He's now perched atop his polar bear, getting paddled around the ship to make sure no one is skipping laps.

Once Law’s spotted hat was out of sight, Zoro took his chance to inspect the sword from handle to tip. The wraps are well-maintained, the fur covering the hilt clean and fluffy, the scabbard soft and well-oiled. Drawing the blade hardly made a sound. The soft black temper looks velvet in the early morning.

Zoro flicked his thumbnail against the edge and found no burrs. The profile is fine, too, sharpened to a wicked degree. With his stitches gone (courtesy of Law using their removal as an excuse to mouth over his palm, then the rest of his body), he considered letting his hand slip along its length so the doctor could stitch another cut back together again, but it’s not a good idea to feed blood to strange blades, no matter how passive. And Kikoku is very calm — it could be mistaken for a normal sword by a less perceptive swordsman, so restrained that Zoro doubts it contributes much to Law’s cutting power, not like how Zoro’s swords beckon demons to his side. 

Its presence, as with most things on the Polar Tang , justifies itself through its owner’s nature. Thirteen years of captaincy has left Law with a special fondness for things he can order around.

Ten laps, a half hour of battle formations, and a quick inspection of the submarine’s body later, Heart Pirates pull themselves back onto the deck and stream around where Zoro sits towards the door. Law debriefs his crew with his hair pushed back, seawater and sweat painting his neckline onto his skin. He doesn’t take Kikoku back after they return inside. Zoro carries it all the way back to the hideout they’ve made of his office and holds onto it when he sits on the ground. 

Law shakes out the paper at his desk. Zoro appreciates how the ashen light from the porthole drips off the other's hair and pools in his collarbones.

“Anything good?” Zoro asks. 

Law shows him a picture of cake debris and Big Mom rampaging through the streets. The headline mourns her disaster of a tea party and the byline speculates on what it means for the New World. Next to a lengthy block quote sits Luffy’s wanted poster.

The entire world narrows to that point. 

Law turns the paper back around to read its contents aloud. Zoro forgot how hollow things sound without Luffy’s voice resonating in his bones. His heart rate skyrockets.

Once again, his captain has done the impossible. 

“They should land a week or two after us.” Law rips the article out once he finishes, unaware. “Things will go to shit right after, but we’ll have some lead time.” 

Which is it? What about the days in between?

What might Luffy do when they see each other again? Will he call his name? Will he launch himself at his swordsman and wind his limbs around him? Will he get to see Luffy coming, or will he be allowed to enjoy the surprise? 

“How long?” Zoro asks, throat dry, face burning with the restraint it takes to keep still, “until we land?”

Is there a chance that the winds will have mercy and push them ahead of schedule? 

Law looks up. “Seven days.”

Contingency rushes ahead of his relief (who could be pursuing Luffy right now) and forces him (he weather could interfere with Nami’s prodigious skill) to examine (the cook could betray their efforts at the last minute) the possibilities (Big Mom managed to sink the Sunny and he’d never see Luffy again after all—

“Oi.”

Law sits forward in his chair, paper abandoned on the desk. 

Kikoku’s scabbard creaks in Zoro’s hands. He drops it when he gets to his feet. “Gotta take a walk.”

“No you’re not.”

Zoro tries the door and finds it locked. He looks around for the bolt and discovers there is none, meaning Law’s power triggers the locking mechanism. His body shifts a gear higher. “I just need ten minutes.”

“Remember what I said about liability?”

“Do you have a death wish?”

“You promised me not to cause me trouble. I can accommodate you as best as I can, but you have to do your part.” Law keeps his voice soft, but his natural drawl makes his words sound insincere enough to flip the switch in Zoro’s feverish head.

He throws himself against the door. The metal buckles. “I’m fine!” He slams the heel of his boot against the spot and the wall starts bowing outwards.

Law hops to his feet in panic. "Zoro, sit ."

“If you don’t shut the— huh?”

Law’s face takes on a mortified pallor. His mouth puckers, then he squares his jaw and turns his nose up. The sky outside the window disappears as the submarine starts submerging.

“I cannot have you storming around my halls out of control,” he says through gritted teeth. “We can take a walk together afterwards, but you must cool off first.” He clicks his fingers and stabs his finger at the corner. “ Sit .”

It’s a bit of an absurd moment. Zoro’s being talked to like a pet, and Law, despite doubling down, looks like he’ll die if Zoro doesn’t do something soon. Interesting. He pulls Law’s chair to the corner and sits.

Nervousness rattles out of the other's chest. "Good.” Law grabs his cuttings and starts searching the walls for space.

The chair is a piece of shit; Zoro toes a cushion over and settles onto his knees to meditate back into balance. Law’s movements pause for the briefest moment.

Zoro waits until his breathing has stabilized before he asks: "How did you do it?"

"Do what?" Law sounds wary. Zoro chooses mercy.

"Send your crew away for months."

There’s no answer. Zoro opens his eye and watches the other man’s shoulders round under the weight of memory. The engine pulses in waves as they sink further underwater. 

Law wipes his hand down his face. “There’s a wave coming that I’ve been waiting for since I was a kid, a wave of the strong and mighty who can change the world. My crew are good, hardy people, stronger than you would ever believe, but I think they would be happier away from where it breaks." 

Their actions say otherwise. No crew glad to leave their captain behind would wear his mark upon his return. “You’re doing them a disservice, they’d follow you everywhere.”

“Maybe so.” Law returns to his desk and pulls a bowl of thumbtacks out of the drawer. “It still doesn’t make them mighty.”

He starts pinning his clippings to the wall with minute flashes of power while Zoro tries to pinpoint where the difference between "strong" and "mighty" lies:

Claim : The Heart Pirates are "strong" because they've made it farther than almost everyone seeking fame on the Grand Line. Their captain is a doctor who sees them as "patients" as well as "crew”. When they go against fate, he’s the one piecing them back together. His choices will always leave blood on his hands.

Reason : Somewhere, in between living as "Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro" and "Straw Hat Luffy’s Right Hand Man", he realized becoming the "Greatest" required a legend to support it. Not any legend, but the one being spun by a man who would make an enemy out of the entire world for the sake of people he barely knew. Defying centuries of legacy requires ignoring strength, even if that choice might destroy you.

Evidence : The scar circling Law’s right arm is the only one Zoro has seen on the submarine. Everyone else sports ink.

Response : "You planned to die back then, in Dressrosa.”

Law pins the article about Big Mom's party next to one about another incident in her territory and steps back to check its placement. “I hope you’re not surprised I’d consider it a possibility?”

“No, that’s different. We gave you more time than you expected. You made this alliance with us because we’re strangers and we’re strong, but if Luffy was smart enough to keep us safe, I wouldn't be on my way to fight the strongest creature in the world.”

The light darkens as the submarine passes through a thicket of seaweed. Law turns on the lamp and a table keeping track of a cargo ship’s six-month journey catches his attention. Three years from when he made the last entry, he’s at the same desk, on a path he overlooked because he assumed its length was another lie.

“A lot of things would be different,” is all he says.

Pins and needles start pricking Zoro's feet. He swings his legs in front and a picture over the desk catches his eye. Five pirates in frills, sporting different animal hats. He reads the hand-drawn banner behind them.

“‘Halfway Night’?”

Law follows his gaze and snorts. “It’s an old Navy tradition. Marines on their submarines are encouraged to celebrate the halfway point of their deployment with games and such.”

It's the seventh day out of two weeks. “You got plans for tonight?”

Law thinks. “Normally we drink and do karaoke, but my crew are rather tight-lipped this time around.”

“Or, you weren’t paying attention because you were busy drooling over me.”

Law glances backwards, then reaches out. Zoro stands and rests his chin on the captain's shoulder to get a better look at the photo. His crew looks years younger, fresh-faced and pimply, sweating in crude prototypes of their current suits with layers of ruffles circling their waists and necks. Streamers and confetti hang off their heads and a cake shaped like a seal’s face sits on the table in front. The Bushy Haired one aims a lopsided smile at a point above the camera snail.

“I always thought the amount of booze you had onboard was suspicious.” Zoro noses into the hair sticking out from Law's hat.

Law scratches Zoro’s scalp. “It’s only suspicious if you assume you’re the only alcoholic here.”

“It’s the first Halfway Night since you’ve reunited and you have guests aboard. They’re probably planning something special.” 

Law turns around to look at Zoro, really looks at him with an attempt to memorize, not analyze: his unkempt hair and browned skin, how dark his eye looks underneath the peak of his brow. The way the scar over his eye follows the sharp planes of his face. The natural downturn of his mouth.

The snail on the desk starts ringing. Law looks torn between the swordsman and his duties, but responsibility wins out. The snail's head grows spikes when he answers. 

“Captain," it says. "We need you to check the fit on something.”

Law replaces the receiver and pushes Zoro off. “Behave,” he warns, and he and Kikoku disappear.

A clattering starts above and behind where Zoro stands. He looks towards its source and comes face-to-face with his sniper, dangling by a rope from the grate in the ceiling. “What the hell?”

"You and Traffy are absolutely fucking and I'm being gaslit by my best friend." Usopp unclips the rope from his belt and yanks Zoro cheek-first into his nose.

"Now," Zoro clarifies, "We're absolutely fucking now . We weren't when you asked the first time." 

"The whole ship was betting on this! How could you not tell me?"

"With actual money?"

Usopp shakes him with tears in his eyes. "I trusted you! I took you at your word! You've made a fool out of me!"

"I bet Robin won." Zoro's mood sours at the continued prodding. "Ugh, she probably watched."

“This is serious! We’re supposed to trust each other!”

“You told me before that you didn’t care, but now I learn that you’ve been gambling with Traffy’s crew on when I'd put out.” His blood runs cold at the thought of Usopp hearing how Law ordered him into a seat. “And how long were you in that ceiling?”

Usopp looks ready to faint. “Oh gods, you’re avoiding my questions. Traffy has entered you into psychosexual bondage and I’m too late.”

Zoro smushes his sniper's cheeks between his palms. “Do you know what Halfway Night is?”

“Halfway Night?” Usopp counts the days. “Is something supposed to happen tonight?”

A sigh of relief. “I think so,” Zoro says. “We did inventory three times a day, and there's enough booze in there to last months, not a couple of weeks. Real good stuff, not the piss they serve at meals.”

“And that’s why you started sleeping with him? To get first pick?”

“I didn’t even know what it was until a few minutes ago, and I don’t think Traffy would give it to me anyways.”

Usopp looks him up and down. He won’t find much evidence of Law’s touch in the open front of his robe, but there are tells, like the purpling hickeys dotting his sternum. 

“Looks like he’s been giving it to you plenty,” he deadpans. “At least it looks like all your body parts are in the right place. I don’t want this to make anything…” 

He waves his hands, trying to grab the right words out of the air, but gives up. They drop to his hips and he shakes his head. “Just make sure it’s wrapped up by the time we land. We would not hear the end of it if our cover was blown because you two wanted to bone in a bath house.”

Zoro salutes him with a smile. “Aye, Captain.”

Usopp punches him on the shoulder and Zoro fake stumbles onto a nearby pillow. “This could be good for you,” Usopp says. “I’ll ask Law if he’s dislodged the stick from your ass yet.”

“Go ahead, he’ll be thorough.”

“Gross.” He sits next to Zoro and pulls his knees to his chest. He looks around at the stuff on the walls. It’s roughly divided into regions that bleed from subject to subject. Any attempt to untangle the specifics are thwarted by Law’s unbelievably awful handwriting. “Didn’t know obsessive and creepy was your type, but it kind of tracks.”

“He’s not my type. It’s just a thing that happens sometimes.” Usopp doesn’t look convinced. Zoro waves him off. “Look at this room. This guy has spent years on one plan to take down Doflamingo. He’s not gonna date me after a week.”

There’s more photos next to the Halfway Night one. One depicts the Penguin and Orca shivering in the snow while Polar Bear rolls around in delight. Above it sits a picture of Bushy Hair, Spiky, Animal Hats, and another Swirly-Hatted crewmember lined up in a row on the beach, shiny with sunblock. The more they look, the more the Heart Pirates’ journey into infamy unfolds through their silliest moments pinned at eye level. Only one photo sits on the desk, faded inside a plain frame. There’s four figures in it: Law, Penguin, Orca, and the Bear. The Polar Tang floats behind them, frosted from cold with the “DEATH” and Jolly Roger on its side shiny with fresh paint. Law starts the next decade of his life looking like a child at a bad roadside attraction. There’s no indication of the pirate he’d become aside from the flat yellow eyes glowering out from under his hat, shadowed worse than they are now.

Usopp shakes his head. “He doesn't have to date you to like you, but if there was ever a good time to figure stuff out, it’s before we defeat the crazy dictator of a closed country.”

“And that’s another thing," Zoro interrupts before Usopp looks too far down where he and Law have wandered. "He came to us with the idea to take down Kaido, but I don’t think he knows what he’ll do afterwards. Is that what it's gonna be like to defeat Mihawk?”

“Beating Mihawk isn't the point for you. Being the greatest swordsman means you've got to beat him and everyone else who wants the title.”

Zoro yawns. “I wonder what I'll do with the rest of the time.”

Usopp gives this real thought, as it’s a question relevant to him now that he’s been canonized as a god over a bounty of hundreds of millions. By popular account, he’s the brave warrior he dreamed of when he first set out to sea. 

The submarine reaches cruising depth and turns the corners of the office dark blue. Engine sounds take over as landmarks. 

“I don’t know,” he concludes. “Wait to die, I guess.”

.

..

… 

… ing…

… ring… ring, ring…. 

Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring—

Zoro sits up from the wall. Streaks of orange and red across the sky blend with the lamp and bathe the office in an amber glow. In the hours since he nodded off, the submarine has surfaced. Usopp didn't bother closing the grate when he left, and the metal reflects light onto the snail's spotted shell.

Zoro picks up the receiver. “Hello?”

Law’s goatee sprouts under its mouth. “Head to the deck for me, please. I’m busy, so you’re going to have to find your way there on your own.”

The snail goes back to sleep. The sudden faith in Zoro finding his way confuses him right up until he opens the door and is confronted with a giant arrow taped to the wall and pointing to the left. Looking down that way, he sees another pointing right. Every hallway he walks sports obnoxious arrows pasted and painted on the walls to lead him outside — even the wrong turns he takes contain infographics guiding him back to the main path. It’s a ridiculous level of accommodation. Zoro reaches the deck in record time.

He pushes through a curtain of pink blossoms to find the deck, somehow, has grown a thicket of cherry trees. The railings are covered in fabric flowers and chains of them drape over the sails and between the masts. The first stars of the night peek through the fluttering petals. One folding table covered in embroidered tablecloth bows under all the bottles Zoro saw before, and another carries trays of sea king steaks, whole fish, rice balls, and sushi. Orca Hat and Penguin stretch a banner reading “HALFWAY NIGHT” over the door, struggling to hold it in position as the flowers dripping from each letter weigh the front down. 

Pirates finish preparations wearing yukata in pastel colors. Law passes by with an armful of paper masks shaped like arctic animals and the two nod at each other. His yukata is yellow, embroidered with spots and his Jolly Roger down the front.

Franky shoulders out the door and strikes his signature pose. “Let’s get this party started! I’ve always wanted to celebrate a Halfway Night!” Pink and white confetti bursts from his arms.

Robin, never far behind, comes to stand at Zoro’s side. “We should start celebrating Halfway Night on the Sunny ,” he says.

“It would be tricky. We can’t predict travel times that well above the waves thanks to the weather, so it would be hard to determine what day it falls on." Her eyes twinkle with mirth. "Some things are best experienced in their proper contexts.” 

More guests arrive. The samurai pounce on the alcohol and gather a circle of pirates to woop and dance with. Bushy Hair grabs a camera snail and takes a picture of the poses Kin’emon strikes. The bulb attached to the shell goes off with a bright flash . “How long has this betting pool been going on?”

“When you two did inventory for the first time. Their cook discovered he was off the schedule and told us his captain was ravishing you in there. I said it would take more than that.”

Zoro groans — that was minutes after they boarded. 

“Don’t worry, I managed to recoup Usopp’s losses.” An arm unfurls from his back and taps him on the cheek. “His crew is fun. I like talking with Traffy, too. We’ve trusted each other with a lot.”

The Polar Bear presents the party with a cake shaped like a very generous interpretation of Kaido. He uses a nearby bottle to recreate the emperor’s famous Thunder Bagua and teeters off balance, mouth slack and cheeks red. Law rights him with a hand on his back, beaming. Flash .

“You gonna stay in touch?” Zoro asks.

A karaoke machine chimes to life with the first stirrings of an idol song. Orca Hat and Penguin gaze into each other’s eyes, link hands, and whirl around before performing a dance routine with practiced coordination. The camera bulb pops, flash, flash, flash. Penguin reaches his mic out to Law at the chorus and his captain bats it away. Flash. Usopp catches Penguin's wrist and launches into the second verse with gusto. Flash.

It’s too easy to imagine Luffy’s arm looped around all their shoulders, singing off-key and louder than everyone else. What a wonderful king he'll be, abandoning the throne for his subjects every chance he could. Never settling, always moving towards the next exciting thing. It's a cruel irony that he’ll never touch the waters he'll rule. Zoro would tear the curse out of every cell of his captain’s body with his bare hands if he could, he’s tried.

Robin goes to join the festivities. “I can't say. It’s going to be hard to find the time, no?”

Flash. 

The party rages long into the night. People get tossed overboard by their arms and legs and at least three pirates have climbed the mast so far. Bottles roll across the deck as the ship bobs with the waves, trailing cherry blossoms in its wake.

Flash.

With the moon and stars in the sky, they forget they’re headed towards a battle that will alter the course of history. Now, they’re pleasure-seekers, drifting with the wind inside a bubble of their joy.

Flash.

A spotted hat falls to the ground within the shadows along the side of the ship. 

Flash.

Law’s mouth tastes like honey and oak. Zoro pulls the man's obi loose and sticks hands into the open front of his yukata . He’s not wearing underwear. 

Law pulls away. “Nuh-uh.”

Annoyance stabs Zoro’s cottoned senses. “Why not?”

Law bites his lip. “M’too drunk, 'n I gotta be responsible, so you gotta wait.” He frees himself from his sleeves and drags his hand over the heart curving around his chest. 

Zoro kisses him back against the side of the ship. Law’s arms drape over his shoulders and around his neck.

“Did’ja hear me? I said you gotta wait.”

“M’gonna, m’gonna." Zoro kisses his jaw. "Whatever you say." Clutches him tight to his hips. "As long as you want.”

"Oh,” Law presses their foreheads together and pants into his waiting mouth. “Don’t say that, don't be mean." He holds Zoro still and kisses him over and over, licking over his lips and chasing the sake behind his teeth. "I might take you seriously.”

Flash.

.

–

(6)

.

–

(5:37)

.

The skies turn gray with the sunrise. Law leads Zoro by the hand down past his office and into the little-used captain’s quarters within the center of the submarine. 

Zoro's haramaki and shirt vanish to who-knows-where as Law sits him on the bed. Such a convenient power, but Law using it for this surprises him. The way he picks at Zoro’s shoelaces and runs his hands over every inch of newly exposed skin is what's normal.

He pushes Zoro down and throws the covers over them both, hiding them away. Their breaths even, slow, then synchronize. Law’s heart beats an accompaniment to Zoro’s and counts them asleep.

.

–

(7:30)

.

Zoro awakes in the dark. A thumb strokes his cheekbone. 

“Good morning,” Law says.

They're the only two people in the world. Sounds of the engine and crew don’t reach this far inside.

Law speaks up again. “How are you feeling?”

Zoro draws close. “Sober and clear-headed.”

“It hasn't been that long, freak.” He rolls on top and straddles Zoro's torso.

Zoro links his hands around the other's waist. "Still too drunk?"

Law whispers in his ear: "I pulled the alcohol out with my power ages ago."

As Zoro puts the pieces together, Law smooths down his arms and grabs his wrists. His thumbs rub across bone.

"I'm sorry for tricking you." 

Zoro tries moving and Law tightens his grip. Chilly air blows over the two as he pecks the corners of Zoro's mouth.

"But I like how much you trust me, puppy." 

“Freak,” Zoro breathes. "So you did mean how that sounded yesterday."

Law hums. “I also promised you something. Stand up." He pins Zoro down contrary to his order with a long, languid kiss.

Zoro rolls on top and off the bed to stand with the backs of his thighs against the mattress, toes curling into the cushion on the floor. Cool fingertips touch the small of his back and walk up the knobs of his spine, one-by-one. 

"Sit."

Zoro— He wants to be contrary. He has his pride and the only person that can precede it is not in the room.

Law holds the side of his neck. “Just so we're clear, if I'm doing something you don't want me to do, you can say stop, and I will.”

He pushes Zoro's shoulder and meets solid resistance. The next, more forceful try is equally unsuccessful. 

"Sure." Zoro rolls his neck and pitches his voice low at the end, slathers on nonchalance as thick as possible to see what happens.

Law's grip loses mercy. Fingers dig into Zoro's pulse until he starts getting dizzy.

" Sit ."

Silence for a beat, two— then Zoro sinks to the ground. Loud breaths muffle the sounds of Law getting off the bed. His footsteps pad around the room, drifting left, then right. A drawer opens and closes. Something soft drops to the floor.

“I forgot the time," Law's voice comes somewhere in front of Zoro. A hand tilts his head upwards, then starts pulling away. "Wait here.”

Zoro stops him by the wrist. "You promised me."

"I have a ship to run, you know the drill." He tries leaving again, but Zoro yanks him down to straddle his lap.

"You promised," Zoro repeats, quieter. Breaths puff over his lips.

"I'm trying to fulfill it." Their noses brush as Law speaks. "Just wait for me, then I will give you all the time I have left."

Law's still wearing his yukata . Zoro pushes it off his shoulders and crushes their naked bodies together. Blunt nails scrape at Zoro’s flesh, either trying to rip him in two, or pull him into the cage of Law's ribs. They sway with the force of their embrace, teetering back and forth atop an invisible fulcrum before tumbling over. Zoro rolls on top and takes a knee to the side as punishment. He doesn't acquiesce, but feels for Law's throat and mouths an apology just underneath. 

Not good enough. A foot plants itself on Zoro's chest and heaves him away. He rolls on instinct and gets pinned to the tile with a knee in the center of his spine. Law grabs him by the back of the neck, grinding vertebrae together as he pulls Zoro into an arch. Too tricky of a hold to break, and his point has been made, anyways. Zoro goes liquid, panting and smiling. 

Law drops him and repositions to sit with legs on either side of his face. His heel digs into Zoro's shoulder blade. "Come here," he calls. 

Zoro strains forward and bites at the inside of Law's calf, drawing a soft noise. He worries the skin between his teeth until it's tender and warm, then moves onwards, knocking limbs akimbo as he does. Law is so pointy on the outside, corners for joints with a sharp tongue to match, but inside he's velvet, melting between Zoro's fingers. 

Legs wind around his head to lock him there. He stays. 

Law pets over his face, neck, cheeks, anywhere he can reach, really, but he likes scratching through Zoro's hair the most. He likes rolling his hips down with his fingers tangled in the back of Zoro's head. When Zoro twists his wrist how Law really likes, Law's hand will slip over his scar and make it ache. The lack of sound is suspicious, however. Zoro leaves one more sucking kiss, then trails up and over Law's body until he's dragged back underneath rolling, slick waves. Past the boundary of the Room, gathered into the side of Law’s neck, he hears nothing but chuffs and long sighs that end in -o . As Law comes, the man’s sub-audible groan drips into his veins. 

It’s a shame Zoro can’t see the job he's done. Later, maybe.

.

–

(2:22)

.

Zoro exits the captain’s quarters to Robin’s smiling face.

“Join me?” She offers him a bottle of rum.

.

–

(2:31)

.

The crew quarters are at the top of the ship. With everyone occupied with their duties, Robin and Zoro settle down against the bunk closest to the window, alone.

Zoro cracks open the bottle and chugs it down. “Is this where you’ve been hiding?”

“Sometimes. There’s not always something to see, but what is there can be spectacular.”

Koi swim amongst the schools of fish; they must be getting close to Wano.

“Can’t wait to land.” Zoro tries to shake out the last few drops. “It’s so cramped in here.” 

“We’re going to have secret identities when we get there.” Robin giggles. “Kin’emon will tell us details once we’re settled.”

“I wanna be a samurai,” Zoro says.

“Of course. He’ll probably make me a geisha and Franky a carpenter, but I wonder what Usopp will be.” Her fingers tap her cheek. “I think it’ll be fun, all of it, not just the dressing up. The culture, the history, and the raid all sound like a good time.” 

She looks genuinely happy. “We’ve gotten to experience a lot, haven’t we?”

“And we’ll experience more,” Zoro says, firm.

Robin beams. “See, I love that, that faith you have. It’s what makes things the most fun.”

.

–

(3:33)

.

The door opens and reveals Penguin and the Orca. “Oh look, Shachi, it’s the captain’s favorite Straw Hats,” Penguin says.

“Conspiring on more ways to steal him away from us, no doubt,” Shachi follows.

Robin holds her hands up in mock surrender. Zoro rouses from where he dozed off on her shoulder. 

“Sorry, I was under the impression it was okay to watch the ocean in here.” Arms bloom from the grate and pass down two more bottles of liquor. “Care to join us?”

The Animal Hats look at each other and shrug. “Don’t see why not.”

Zoro and Robin shuffle aside to make room. They pass bottles back and forth in companionable quiet.

“You’re not too bad,” Shachi says. “I’m glad the captain ran into you guys.”

“Cause how was he even supposed to get back to us?” Penguin grouches. “Other pirates hated him for being a Warlord, and the Navy wasn’t gonna give him a ride if there was nothing they could get out of it.”

“It was a suicide mission.” Zoro yawns.

Robin’s mouth flattens into a line. Shachi swirls the dregs of his bottle around and Penguin burps. There’s that uncanny loneliness again — the one that turns everything but the present into a dream. 

“He told us that he was going to meet up with us again, so we waited for him,” Shachi says with finality.

“And he came back, just like he said he would!” Penguin slaps the floor. “It’s good to be back on the seas.”

Zoro passes the empty bottle to Robin, who spirits it away on a flush of hands. A koi bumps into the ship and sends the Animal Hats rolling with laughter. Absurdity after absurdity, stranger than how their memories will recall.

.

–

(4): Aftermath

.

Zoro and Law sit together as the sun struggles to peek through the darkening clouds. Their swords sit on opposite sides of their bodies, caging them in. A harsh wind chops the water the Heart Pirates swim against and Law pulls his coat tighter around his shoulders. 

“It’ll get worse the closer we approach,” he says. “I think this will be the last day for drills. The raid is on land, anyways.”

A pirate gets pulled underwater. Zoro watches people dive after him while the Bear tries to keep the exercise together, barking encouragement and apologies in equal measure. “Then we’ll be enemies again.”

The feathers on Law’s collar whip around his frown. “Right.” 

A pirate pulls himself up the side, curly hair dripping in a curtain over his face. “Captain, can we call it for the day?”

Law casts a Room and jabs his fingers upwards. From out of the sea floats Spiky Hair and a confused looking fish. Kikoku flashes through the air and the fish scatters in cubes. “All aboard! We’re submerging.”

As the rest of his crew files inside, Polar Bear hangs back with Law and Zoro in the doorway.

“I think we’re ahead of schedule, the water shouldn’t be this rough yet.” He shakes off and drenches his captain in salt water. Law sways and Zoro holds him steady. “I’m sorry for miscalculating!”

“So what would you estimate is our new arrival time?” 

The Bear hangs his head and pokes his fingers together. “Um, tomorrow, I think.”

Law huffs. “I see.”

“I’ll have to run some calculations again but the wind and currents feel like we’re approaching land,” the Bear rushes out, “I could be wrong! We might still have a couple of days, or another week! We could even push landing back another couple of weeks if we wait for the Straw Hats to get here first—”

Law holds up his hand. “This is what I wanted anyways, there's things we need to organize once we arrive. Good job, Bepo.”

Bepo bows deep and joins the rest of his crew inside. The wind blows harder, whipping Law's coat around. Zoro starts heading in as well, following the arrows on the walls. The door closes behind him, silencing the gale.

.

(1)

.

They stop at the med bay first. Spiky Hair receives a customary check-up, which he finds quite funny. He makes Zoro bandage the slight imprint the fish’s teeth left behind and read out the numbers on Law’s machines. Nothing’s wrong, of course, but now he gets to brag about how the Pirate Hunter waited on him hand and foot. 

.

Next, Law meets Bepo in his office. The bear was right: they’d be reaching Wano early in the morning. He apologizes profusely for getting the initial estimate wrong, looking at his captain with tears pricking the corner of his black button eyes. 

The ship rocks from a blunt collision. A record of a weapons deal the Heart Pirates infiltrated detaches from the wall and drifts to the floor. It happened two years ago, a little after they met the Straw Hats at Sabaody. 

.

Now that they’re arriving early, the cook goes wild with the surplus inventory for a grand feast to celebrate. Law describes the dishes to Zoro as they walk to the corner of the mess hall: pies with fish heads sticking out, rolls of meat and vegetables roasted in wine, pickled cabbages, sausages with more names than Zoro thought possible. More koi fish swim past the windows and hit the glass. Franky whispers something to the Masked Man (Hakugan, Zoro recalls from the very beginning of their trip) and the tiny pirate nods frantically. The cyborg takes out a remote and slams the button, and a few moments later, a giant, cartoonish fist launches out from underneath the ship to punch one of the nosy fish away. The pastry in Law’s hand crumbles under the urge to reassemble Franky into a toaster.

Zoro pries the remains away and takes a bite from the mushrooms spilling out. “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone.”

Law wipes his fingers and tosses the napkin at Zoro’s forehead. Behind them, Usopp, Bepo, Penguin, and Shachi strike poses with Franky. The remaining koi fish swim alongside the Polar Tang , escorting it through the purpling water.

.

In the captain’s quarters, Law pulls Zoro into an embrace. It’s funny, for someone as prickly as Law is, he’s clingier than Zoro expected. 

“You excited?” Zoro asks. 

Law doesn’t answer, just buries his head in the other’s hair. 

“I should be able to get my hands on a cool sword, since I’ve gotta return Shusui. Maybe I’ll get rid of Kitetsu at the same time.”

The blade rattles at the provocation, but it makes Law shake with laughter, at least. “We’ll worry about it when we get there."

As their eyes adjust to the dark, he tightens his hold.

.

–

.

–

(Zoro lays on his back in the grass, legs crossed and chewing on a piece of hay. It’s hot.)

(Cherry blossoms float above him and fill the air with sweetness. He hoped infiltrating the capital would have more action involved, not like the whirlwind few hours they had in Dressrosa, but more than days of low-level bodyguard work and bumming drinks off gangsters.)

(He licks his lips — he could do with a bottle right now.)

(Right before they surfaced, he and Law hid in the freezer and downed the rest of the alcohol together. Law’s coat clinked when he wrapped it around Zoro’s shivering body, and it weighed them down when Zoro leaned in to catch the droplets falling from his chin. Law warmed his hands on Zoro’s cheeks, and time stood still.)

(When they arrived, Kin’emon led them to the ruins of a castle and assigned them roles: Zoro samurai, Robin geisha, Franky carpenter, and Usopp salesman. Law rejected the idea of playing town doctor for people he didn’t care about and left with his crew. Zoro hasn’t seen him since. If it weren’t for the sun’s regular path across the sky, Zoro could convince himself anticipation makes time stand still here, too.)

(Yet, it continues onwards.)