Work Text:
There is plenty worth celebrating, with Doflamingo captive and Dressrosa free, but it doesn’t feel like Law’s to celebrate. In the end, he hasn’t been able to deal the decisive blow himself--and in the end, Doflamingo’s still alive, and so is he, and--now what? There’s too much to think about, like the alliance he’s signed his crewmates up for, and what the hell they’re going to do to take down Kaido, and how it’s his impulsiveness that shoulders a good part of the blame for them being in this mess.
A mug is pressed into his hand anyway, and then another mug tapped against it, and Zoro drops an arm around Law’s shoulders, close enough for Law to smell the inside of that house they’d all been staying in and the booze already on his breath. And then Zoro takes his arm away and leans over to get a refill, and part of Law wants him to have stayed there, the kind of casual physical contact that he hasn’t had in a while and certainly doesn’t need, but--it had felt good, all the same. Law sips his drink, and Zoro’s still close enough for Law to touch if he wanted to.
His arm aches; he takes a larger sip; he tries to think again about Kaido but everyone here is too loud, and there are too many voices, too many thoughts in his mind anyway. Maybe it’s okay not to think about them for a little while longer and instead think about Zoro’s smile, turned to Law as he finishes his first drink. Zoro gets refills for them both, and Law thinks about the sound of his laugh and how close Zoro’s hand had been to his when he’d given back the mug.
They should make the submarine bigger, Law thinks, but it’s far from the spare thought it usually is when he adds a new crew member or they buy a new piece of medical equipment. The Straw Hats are all loud, all accustomed to taking up far more space on a larger boat with fewer people. Not that his crew is full of shrinking, quiet people, but they don’t quite have this same dynamic, and they don’t make the submarine feel small and cramped, and they’ve never embarked on him with a plan quite as dangerous as this one, and it’s all setting Law more on edge than he’d like to be even without having to worry about his still-healing injuries.
Zoro seems to carve out quiet corners that Law can’t find on his own, as if cutting something into the air with one of his swords, a refuge even with the pipes banging and someone running or stomping upstairs. Law wonders if he’s intruding the first time he sits down near him, but Zoro sleeps through the whole thing, his head against the wall and his knees to his chest. Law finds himself admiring the line of Zoro’s neck, the delicate shell of his ear, his forearm draped over his knees, all muscle (and then he thinks back to the Sunny and the very large weight Zoro had lifted with just one arm and some effort, but so little that Law had wondered very briefly if it were an optical illusion, and tries not to think of that, or of the weight of Zoro’s arm on his shoulders back near Dressrosa).
Law wonders less about intrusiveness the next time, and Zoro wakes up ten minutes after he arrives. Zoro’s gaze slides over to him, registers him, and then he closes his eye again, shifting his position against the wall. So Law stays, and comes back. Zoro naps or drinks or cleans his swords; Law thinks or reads or spaces out, or cleans his own sword. And he looks, but sometimes Zoro looks, too, so Law keeps his sleeves rolled up and his sword clean and his stash of books well-read and his thoughts spinning around in his mind like proteins in a centrifuge. Is this the time or the place, in the middle of a plan sewn delicately together, held up in large part by an alliance between their crews? Why now? But if not now, when?
They leave the temporary hideout discreetly, one or two at a time, to walk along the path or lie out in the sun, and they don't get caught. The area is deserted, and if things in Wano are as grim as they appear to be, there’s no real reason for anyone to come out here in the middle of nowhere. Still, though, when Zoro’s not back after an hour, Law slips out in the direction he thinks he’d seen him go--he’s probably just gotten lost, but if he gets too lost, too far off the path, there’s no telling where he might end up or who he might run into, and they’re too close to pushing the plan off into the open water to allow the wrong chance to interfere right now.
(And if he happens to be worried for nothing, and Zoro is just down the road, it’ll be nice to see him.)
Twenty minutes down the path, just as Law’s beginning to consider turning around and heading the other way, he finds Zoro crouched in front of a patch of tall sunflowers, as if deep in thought. He turns to see Law approach, though he says nothing.
“You shouldn’t stray far from the hideout.”
“No one’s going to see me,” Zoro says, standing up straight.
He looks back to the flowers, and Law’s line of sight follows his. The flowers are turned toward them, a captive audience for what Zoro says next.
“They remind me of you.”
He dips his head toward the flowers, and Law swallows. Zoro looks back at him, and Law refuses to look away. He can’t, won’t--if not now, when? Perhaps the question isn’t why now, but why not now? Zoro reaches out, his shorter, thicker fingers hooking around Law’s, Law’s own fingers curling back around to keep his hand there. It’s warm, Law thinks, exactly as he hadn’t known he’d been expecting.
And then he’s kissing Zoro, too fast and not fast enough--why not now, but why not sooner?
Law wakes early, abrupt in the dark and the stillness, his heart pummeling the inside of his chest. There is no sound, and he almost doesn’t want to move until the rustle of hooves through grass sounds outside, and as if replying, the house creaks. Law feels his body relax, but he’s too awake already to go immediately back to sleep. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, breathes in and out. Beside him, Zoro stirs--he sleeps heavily enough that unless this is a delayed reaction to whatever woke Law, there doesn’t seem to be a reason. Fuck, they both need their sleep, and fuck, the plan; they’d decided as a group that tomorrow--probably already today--they’re really going to begin to play their parts and lie in wait in the open.
“Hey.” Zoro nudges Law’s shoulder with his, his voice hoarse and half-full of sleep. “You’re worrying again.”
He rolls over, halfway on top of Law, a misshapen weighted blanket.
“Aren’t you?”
Zoro makes a sound like an emphatic sigh. “Those guys can take care of themselves. Your crew can handle things. Worrying won’t prevent things we couldn’t foresee.”
The things they can’t foresee, as avoidable as they are, are the problem, though. There are too many unknowns, too many gears turning at too many rates, a delicate operation that needs unblinking eyes and steady hands and precise tools, and he’s afraid they’re extracting a tooth with a broadsword here. How is it so easy for Zoro to trust in more than just the plan itself?
“I mean, a lot could go wrong, but we’re taking reasonable precautions. We’ll figure it out.”
Law really wants to believe him. So, for the moment, he does. The tree outside the window rustles in the breeze, and Law cups Zoro’s cheek, his thumb swiping over the closest of Zoro’s earrings. Zoro turns his head slowly to kiss Law’s palm, his mouth soft, his eye bright like a sword catching moonlight in its blade.