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Sanji pointed to himself and the man in the penguin-looking hat sighed.
"I guess there's nowhere else for you to go," he said. "Except that room, and his highness will be pissed if he wakes up and finds out we put you in there."
Sanji nodded. Even the maze of Law's personal rooms was better than that door-less circular room.
'I can help watch him,' he writes. 'Let you guys get some sleep or do what you have to do.' He means the rebels of course but he's not stupid enough to put that on paper. Not even here, in Law's rooms.
Penguin chewed his lip.
"We are shorthanded," he admitted. He looks at Sanji under the brim of his hat and seems to make a decision.
"Alright," Penguin says, frowning. "Alright. Can't think of anything else. You watch him. I'll write down some instructions for you, but listen well."
Sanji nods and prepares to take notes.
"He's already had all the medicine he can have," Penguin recites. "It might mess him up a bit. Just go along with whatever he says, even if it doesn't make sense. And— "
He points a finger at Sanji's face.
"—if anything happens to our prince," he says very seriously. "The Germa will be the least of your worries. Got it?"
===/\===
...
Sanji has never seen Law sleeping. In all the time he's stayed in Law's rooms and even his bed, he's somehow never caught the man in a moment of rest. Law always feels like he's in motion, somehow. Even when he stands still, you can almost see his mind or magic spinning.
Sanji doesn't know if that's a dimension mage-thing, or a Law-thing. Law is the only dimension mage he knows.
Even as badly injured as he is, Law sleeps fitfully, the tiny crease between his brows ever-present. Sanji kind of wants to poke at it, smooth it out with his fingers, just to see what would happen. Would Law look younger then, if he were to let up the perpetual anger for a moment and rest? Or was it a permanent wrinkle by now.
Law scowls harder in his sleep. Sanji holds back the urge to laugh.
His hands itch to mess with Law's face, so he rolls another cigarette instead. The one between his teeth is about half done anyway, and after the day they've had, it helps keep him awake. Law never minded him smoking in the rooms anyway, as long as he didn't set anything on fire.
Law turned further towards Sanji, and muttered something in his sleep. It looked like whatever medicine they had given him really knocked him out. The blanket slips off his shoulder, exposing his bandaged shoulder.
Reflexively, Sanji reaches over to pull the blanket back over Law's shoulder. The man always complained about the cold, so Sanji doesn't really think about it, but Law sighs and a stray lock of hair falls into his face.
Sanji brushes that away too, and his hand is right over the little crease between Law's brows.
… No one would know right?
Quickly and lightly, like smoothing over a small unevenness in cake frosting, he smooths out the crease with his thumb. For a moment Law looks younger, more innocent and maybe a little surprised, then the crease comes back.
This is unreasonably amusing and maybe a little sweet, so Sanji does it again, smoothing away the furrowed brow and brushing Law's hair out of his face.
A hand catches Sanji's fingers and he freezes.
Law is looking at him blearily, with all the confused vulnerability of someone who has just woken up.
Unable to speak, Sanji grins widely in apology.
Law's expression shatters .
He stares at Sanji, through Sanji, stricken. His face is wracked with pain and something more. It's more emotion than all the other times Sanji has seen him put together. It takes Sanji a moment to place the look.
Grief.
Overwhelming, heart-wrenching grief.
Law's too-warm hand on Sanji's hand guides him back to rest his hand on Law's head. Law's other hand reaches out to twist in Sanji's shirt.
He whispers something in rosal, and bows his head, touching his fevered brow to Sanji's side. Sanji's recent injuries protest a bit, but just as he's about to gently pry himself away, hot tears bloom and spread through the fine cambric where Law's face is pressed against it.
Sanji freezes, and the guilt intensifies tenfold. What did he do? What should he do now? What was happening?
"I miss you, I love you, I'm sorry," Law was saying over and over, words that Sanji only knew from the love songs that had been played in the street shows he'd seen walking hand-in-hand with Law only a few days before. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Words for someone else, Sanji realises. In his fever and half-sleep, Law had mistaken him for someone.
Sanji is not meant to hear this, but he can't say anything, can't bring himself to push Law away, can't do anything but stay where he is held and wonder who Law was pouring his heart out to.