Chapter Text
Dinnertime on Thousand Sunny. It was as loud and obnoxious on Law’s ship, but it wasn’t his crew making the noise, and that made all the difference, so Law slipped outside while Luffy took everyone else’s attention away as he started a game of tug-o-war over food with Usopp. In the silence and security of the night, Law allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment, tilting his head back towards the night sky and breathing in the crisp air. The sounds of the kitchen faded to a dull roar behind him as he listened to the sounds of the ocean while he waited for peace to settle over him.
“Torao-kun…” Robin’s voice behind him, soft and amused. Did she find it funny that he’d had enough of her crew’s chaos and had had to step outside like this?
Law’s eyes snapped open. He leveled his chin, speaking before he had time to think about what he was saying: “Why don’t you call me by my name?” He turned around to face her.
She fixed her lips in a smile, blue eyes gleaming mischievously as she studied him. “Does it bother you when I call you that?”
“No,” he said. She quirked an eyebrow skeptically. He sighed, his grip tightening on his sword. “It’s just that I’d like to hear you say it,” he said, surprising himself. Robin, of course, seemed unfazed by his admission. And he hated her for that, hated seeing that haughty smile of hers, the look of someone who knew something that he didn’t and wasn’t keen on sharing. And yet he wanted to hear his name pass her lips. Law found his gaze fall to her mouth, only catching himself and forcing himself to look into her eyes when he heard her speak again.
“Very well then,” Robin said. She turned and began to ascend the steps, looking at him over her shoulder, crooking one of her slim fingers towards her in a beckoning motion. Come hither. “Law.”
Law felt a heat rush down his face to his neck upon hearing Robin speak his given name, and he resented that anyone could have that kind of effect on him, never mind someone he barely even knew. A strangled noise sounded in his throat as he watched Robin make her way up the stairs, her invitation clear. He weighed his options while she continued to make her ascent, not looking back at him to see if he followed.
Law didn’t hate Robin, but he wasn’t sure that he liked her. She was haughty and more than a little arrogant, with the way she looked at people like a spider stared at its next meal. She was too complacent when it came to Luffy. She was very much one of the Straw Hats.
But he thought about how it would feel to press his face into the bend of her neck. He thought of the curve of her hips and how it would feel to grip them. He thought of her long black hair fanning out behind her, running his fingers through it. He thought of how it felt to hear her say his name and he wondered if he could get her to say it again. So Law went up the stairs and followed her into the women’s quarters.
Law couldn’t sleep. That wasn’t new. What was new, however, was his current surroundings: he was on a ship he didn’t know, with a crew that had its own set of dynamics and unspoken rules that Law didn’t want to learn but had to out of necessity. Luckily Law was a quick learner. It was his second night on Thousand Sunny and already he had learned that the kitchen was not always a safe bet when he couldn’t sleep. Just the other night he’d wandered into the kitchen to see about making himself coffee to keep himself company in the hours before breakfast, when he found the ship’s cook and swordsman on the kitchen floor, tucked nicely into a small futon just barely big enough for the both of them. Zoro, arm around Sanji, either unable to sleep like Law or simply roused by the sound of the door, lifted his head and glared at him. The two locked eyes for a couple tense moments before Law set his jaw and nodded at Zoro and closed the door, deciding that the caffeine was not worth the trouble of dealing with a cranky swordsman who didn’t want his lover to be disturbed.
Law asked Usopp about it later. Usopp had laughed and said Sanji and Zoro liked to sleep in the kitchen sometimes when neither of them had night watch, like that was the most natural explanation in the world. Law supposed you had to work with what you had on a ship that offered as little privacy as the Sunny, but it still irked him all the same. The kitchen was one of his favorite places to go on a ship when he couldn’t sleep. Something about it always felt perfectly still to him in the late hours, which he preferred in the moments when he was alone with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.
Tonight he stared up at the ceiling in the men’s quarters, listening to the snoring and mumbling of the men around him, feeling his irritation simmer within him and grow hotter and hotter until it threatened to boil over. Checking that Zoro and Sanji were in their bunks, Law moved as quietly as he could through the men’s quarters, stepping carefully through a room that was unfamiliar to him, and he silently slipped out the door into the night.
Once outside Law stared across the ship, watching the way the night breeze rippled through the grass on Sunny’s lawn, and he found his irritation cooling. Exhaling, he looked up at the sky and located the moon, which peered through a part in the clouds and down at him. One of the advantages a ship had over a submarine, Law thought, was the view at night.
As he made his way to the stairs, Law spared a glance back at the door to the women’s quarters, and his thoughts drifted to Robin. Robin, laid out on her stomach, cheek resting on her crossed arms. Her blue eye watching him as he sat up in bed. They’d said nothing to each other while Law stirred. He looked at her, feeling relaxed in a way he had not experienced since he’d first stepped foot on Punk Hazard, and he pushed aside her curtain of dark hair so his fingers could gently trace the skin on her back. Robin’s eyes closed, the picture of contentment as she hummed. “Do you want to stay the night?” she asked.
Law hesitated. There were still some hours left before everyone turned in for the night. Surely everyone had noticed by now, even in the chaos that was mealtime with the Straw Hats, that they were missing. Law didn’t care and neither did Robin, he assumed. Why else would she have invited him into her bed when she had? But there was a familiarity in coming back to Robin’s bed later in the night that Law wasn’t comfortable exploring. And Robin didn’t sleep alone, Law thought, his thoughts turning to the ship’s navigator. Maybe things would have been different if Robin didn’t share a room, he thought to himself later that night as he was greeted by the sounds of male snoring when he retired to the men’s quarters. At least things were quiet in Robin’s room.
Law tore his gaze from the door to the women’s room and started down the stairs. Why had she offered? Had she noticed just how out of place Law felt on the ship? Surely not, he thought as he pressed his palm against the kitchen door and pushed it open. They hardly knew each other. It was probably as simple as wanting a warm body in her bed. Law didn’t understand Robin. He couldn’t get a read on her. And that was okay. They weren’t going to be around each other long enough for him to need to. And, as far as he knew, tonight had been a one time thing.
Putting thoughts of Robin aside, Law felt around for the light switch, flipping it on and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the change in brightness. Sanji would probably kill him if he found him messing around in his kitchen, but someone making a cup or two of coffee wasn’t going to kill the cook. Law began poking through the kitchen, digging through cabinets until he heard a voice behind him.
“Ah. Law.”
Law froze for a moment before he regained his composure, standing up straight and looking at Robin over his shoulder. She looked at him from the doorway, and he looked at her, in her pajamas, a pink satin dress that hugged her curves and didn’t even make it past her fingertips. Law was not so concerned about being discreet with the way he looked at her after the night they’d had, but he at least had to look her in the eye when he responded. “It’s late,” he said, as if he wasn’t currently foraging for coffee beans in her ship’s kitchen when everyone else was asleep.
“Yes,” Robin said, crossing her arms over her stomach comfortably. One of the tiny straps on her dress slipped down her shoulder. She didn’t move to adjust it. “It is.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. He’d gotten maybe three hours of sleep and then stared at the ceiling for another hour until he couldn’t take it any longer. “I thought I might as well make some coffee before breakfast.”
“Hm.” She smiled, though Law wasn’t sure if it was for him. He never was. She made her way through the kitchen, sounds muffled by slippers the same delicate color as her dress. “I was going to make some tea, myself,” she said, walking past him, her scent lingering as she moved to a cabinet closest to the wall. Law smelled something sweet, some kind of floral scent mixed with vanilla. He normally found such smells cloying, but felt himself being drawn in, turning his head and watching her as she bent at the waist and pulled out two small tin containers, setting one down on the countertop closer to him.
“Can’t sleep either?” he finally asked her as he popped open the tin and inspected the contents inside.
“Not tonight,” Robin said, turning on the faucet and filling a kettle with water. She turned a knob on the stove, watching the small flames spring to life. “On nights like these I like to make myself a cup of tea and finish whatever book I’m reading.”
“Mm.” He watched her as she moved around the kitchen, pulling out two cups and handing one off to Law, their fingers brushing. He looked down at his cup, running the pad of his thumb against the smooth ceramic surface. “What do you do when Blackleg-ya and Zoro-ya hog the kitchen at night?” he asked.
Robin looked at Law over her shoulder, her eyes creasing at the sides in a smile while she thought about her crewmates. She giggled behind her fingers. “I simply make do,” she said brightly. “I wouldn’t want to disturb them.”
They took their turns with the water, making their drinks in comfortable silence. Law appreciated that. He didn’t enjoy the exhaustion that came with not being able to sleep, but something he did enjoy about these few hours at night was the quiet. For a few hours each night, Law could read, could think, could simply exist and not be bothered with the pressing matters of the outside world and the petty concerns that came with a group of people who were vacuum sealed together in a vessel at the bottom of the ocean.
Law held his cup of coffee between his hands, the flesh on his palms drinking in the warmth. He stared into the black depths of his drink, conscious of the ship moving, bringing them closer to the country of Dressrosa. He felt a shadow pass over him, felt the terrible weight of the last thirteen years of his life pressing down on his shoulders. Law said nothing as Robin spoke to him, didn’t even register what it was she was saying. He drank from his cup before the drink had had time to cool, burning the tip of his tongue and scalding the roof of his mouth.
Robin tried again. “Law.”
He looked up into her eyes, trying to swallow the discomfort he felt in his mouth.
“I don’t feel like reading tonight,” she told him. She studied him, holding her mug up to her face and blowing gently. “Would you care to keep me company?”
“Sure,” he said, his response coming to him readily and surprising him somewhat as he said it.
Robin smiled at him, and for once he didn’t feel as if she knew something he didn’t. She beckoned him to follow her, much like she had earlier that evening, and Law followed.
She led him to the ship’s private aquarium. They came to a stop before the large tank. Law stared up at the fish swimming around lazily before he looked at Robin, illuminated by the cool blue glow. “You have a lot on your mind,” she said. She took a seat at the bench located in front of the tank. Law sat down next to her.
“I always have a lot on my mind,” he responded. He thought he saw a glint of red in a dark corner of the aquarium, like light bouncing off the reflective, red surace of mirrored sunglasses. He blinked his eyes a few times until he was convinced that it was nothing more than his imagination.
“Hm…” She leaned against him and Law didn’t recoil like he normally would have with someone who wasn’t a bear Mink named Bepo. Then again, he normally wouldn’t sit close enough for someone to lean their weight against him. So Law allowed it. “Well, thank you for keeping me company.”
Law glanced at her through the corner of his eye, pausing before he took his next sip of coffee. He nodded at her. She didn’t press him to tell him what troubled him and for that he was thankful. They sat there together, sipping on their drinks, waiting for the sun to come up together. And Law, for once, didn’t mind sharing the silence and solitude of the night with someone else.