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The chessboard is empty, but Law’s fingers curl around the edge, and a word curls around the edge of Zoro’s mind until it reveals itself. Delicate. It’s the type of word that Zoro might have once used derisively to refer to things that break too easily, glass baubles on a shelf he can’t reach, clothes that tear away from the seams so that it’s impossible to mend them without it being obvious or crooked or both, a sword that cracks when he fights a strong opponent. Law is not so easily-shattered as all that; he will fall apart but he will come together again just as easily, remade but not in an obvious sort of way unless you know where to look and what context to read (the expression on his face, the scar on his upper arm, the faded mark of an incision on his hip that could be something else but isn’t).
“Do you play?” Law says.
“I will,” says Zoro--he doesn’t usually have the patience for chess, but he wouldn’t assume Law does either, that he’ll save his strategy for the real world and real people who don’t rest so neatly with their heads between his (delicate) fingers.
Law shrugs. “We’re missing a few pieces, I think. Bepo has a replacement set.”
He doesn’t look particularly keen on playing himself, though he’s probably got a bunch of odd loose coins in his pocket that could serve as pieces if they remembered which was which. And he doesn’t call for Bepo; they remain alone in the room (what do they call it, storage, den, miscellaneous room? Zoro’s never asked) and Zoro looks back at Law’s hand.
Law’s a different kind of delicate, purposeful in his subtlety, the flick of his wrist when he waves his hand involving--well, a lot of muscles he’d probably be able to rattle off, the names of which Zoro had never learned--every finger twitching in a particular way, suspending the room around him, and that itself taking a significant amount of Law’s concentration. That’s delicate, all of it. Maybe the way he swings his sword isn’t, wounding as if cauterizing the flesh, separating head from limb from torso, a heart still beating pulled from the chest but no blood pouring onto Law’s hand, those fingers (long, tapered, nails cut short) holding the heart like a paperweight. The goal always is to extend his reach, to drive and strike and stab true, but even in that there is a fine-tuned sense of control, a set of limits within Law has managed to work exceptionally well. (Simply as a swordsman--though it’s impossible to separate out that aspect from the rest of him, because what is a swordsman without their body the way it is, without their own sword?--he is in some ways inefficient, blunt, with little formal technique, and that’s not delicate at all.)
Precise, maybe that’s a better word, but it hadn’t been the one Zoro had been thinking of. It’s tangential, just a substitute. And isn’t surgery, well, precise too, but also delicate? Rather than being a fragile thing, it’s filled with so many things that can go wrong in so many ways, like crossing over an icy river on a rusting bridge whose stability can’t be judged until stepping on it with a firm foot. And Law always pays mind to that sort of thing, every snapping sea creature in the water, every ominous cloud in the sky, every dubious joint in the bridge ahead.
Maybe that would mean he’d kick Zoro’s ass at chess, if he takes it seriously enough.
“Zoro-ya.”
Law grabs his wrist, cold hand closing around it. Zoro looks up at his face. There’s an intensity in his expression, like nearly always, his mouth more neutral than its usual tight frown, and the brim of his hat is pushed up a little on his forehead. The pad of his thumb fits neatly into the small dip at the base of Zoro’s hand where it meets his wrist. He tugs, lifting Law’s hand to his mouth and kissing the T tattooed on his index finger. Law’s breath catches and then he exhales slowly, just loud enough to hear over the hum of the submarine’s motor, and then his mouth quirks upward at the corners. It’s like when he almost lands a hit on Zoro when they spar. Fuck, he’s cute; fuck, in just that finger he’s got a hell of a lot of power. Delicate, but it’s not like anyone else’s isn’t (even, especially, Zoro’s own, a web of lessons upon lessons, hours upon hours of training, pushing him up but knocked back every time he gets hurt, less and less all the time but still often enough for him to know the way a setback feels in every inch of his body, the way it makes him tense up and push harder).
“If we’re not going to play,” Law says, and scoots over on his chair.
It’s an armchair whose arms have long been ripped off, whether for aesthetic purposes or so that more people could actually sit on it or because they’d gotten it secondhand and it was already like that, Zoro doesn’t know. There’s almost enough room for them both to fit on it, but it’s a better fit if Zoro sits sideways with his legs over Law’s lap. Law leans against his shoulder. They could play together against someone else like this--that might be fun. They’d probably end up arguing about which piece to move where. Three of Law’s fingers press into Zoro’s side, soft, non-intrusive. His arm is steady against Zoro’s back, steeled muscle and straight bone. The submarine lurches, and even with Zoro’s feet flat on the floor, he feels as if he’s about to fall, but Law’s hold on him keeps him from tumbling over--nothing at all delicate about that, Zoro supposes, but it’s then that all four of their swords, leaning against the wall, fall in a clattering heap.
“They’re fine,” says Law.
“I know,” says Zoro.
He waits a few seconds to get up and prop the swords up again.