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Finding out that Law’s ship is a submarine had been a bit of a surprise, but when Zoro stops to think about it, it makes sense. Like a poem he has to read a few times over to start to understand, in retrospect it shouldn’t have been apparent but it’s not un-apparent either. It’s a practical way of keeping out of sight and not showing one’s hand, not something Zoro usually wants or needs to take advantage of (and not something Luffy would ever want; it’s terribly suited for their crew as a whole) but it comes in handy when they’re trying to sneak around or avoid people. It’s not conventional, nor is it wholly what it seems from a glance; it can easily sail as a normal boat, and Law himself is many things, still unfolding like a carefully-rolled banner packed away in an attic, and Zoro knows he hasn’t gotten to see all of it yet. He’s seen Law at his limit, very nearly; he’s seen him badly hurt at least, but he’s seen him fit and confident, turning the situation on its side and rolling, calculating and recalculating plans, saving all those children and trusting the Marines with them. To say he’s something is understating it, and it’s what people say when they’re too lazy to figure out what they mean, and Zoro’s not that; he’s just not there yet.
Zoro can’t not be clear with himself, though; he’s fascinated. Law is fascinating. He gets that look on his face when he’s trying to seem annoyed, and that different look when he really is annoyed (and both of them often, both of them his brows creasing and his lips pursing); he rarely smiles, and the few times Zoro’s seen him do it since Punk Hazard he’s felt--not that he was intruding, but that it had been evident this was a rare thing, and he should take notice. Or maybe he’d take notice because he’s doing that anyway, because he continues to look, because he continues to want.
Were he an outside observer, he’d say he was being pathetic, though he’s not hiding behind excuses for his inaction like some kind of higher purpose of balance to the alliance, or even fear and worry of messing up what’s between him and Law. They’re not really quite friends, though allies or acquaintances doesn’t cover their relationship fully (it’s more like a garment they had quickly stretched and then outgrown so much it had begun to rip, first along the seam and then across the front). Zoro isn’t an outside observer, though. And it’s not bad to be where he is, along this glass ledge with everything spread out below him, hilts in his hands but the swords still in their sheaths, not least because Law, just like the submarine he lives in, is much more conspicuous than he thinks he is.
He looks at Zoro when he thinks Zoro isn’t looking back, a flick of the eyes like a casual flip of the cuff of his jacket, a glance that sweeps around and stops on him, and still less subtle, over the top of a chart or a book or a manual, his fingers playing absently with a corner of the paper. It’s just like the disguises and excuses he picks that are not quite ridiculous enough that they bend back around to work, but in which he has the utmost confidence. He can be sneaky sometimes; he can pry information out of people and work wonders with delicate knives (Zoro’s heart belongs to swords, but he can’t not appreciate the incisions Law makes with a scalpel and the way he stitches them up afterwards, in contrast to the hacking and sweeping he does with his sword, contradictory as the submarine made for a man who can’t float).
Zoro is not always patient; he does not want to live with regret. If this passes them by--well, they’ll have fucked it up, or perhaps it wouldn’t have been worth pursuing. But he’d have liked it, and the opportunity is there; all tides rise and fall, and all things fade. All things leave. Having, holding, controlling time is almost always an illusion (perhaps not in the depths of a fight against an opponent so firmly matched, but even that one fight against Ryuuma had been far more truncated than it would have been if things were different). So Zoro may not be pathetic, but he’s being at least a little foolish, a little wasteful.
Their footsteps bounce off the riveted interior of the narrow corridor of the submarine. He’s not used to brushing against metal walls and doors and door frames; it’s shockingly cool on his skin. It’s not wide enough for them to walk side by side, but when Zoro grabs Law’s wrist, Law doesn’t have to turn the full way to look at him. Law opens his mouth, very slightly, perhaps to speak. A door opens at the far end of the corridor, and Law turns his head.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” says Robin, and shuts the door again.
Law brings his arm back as if to withdraw it, but then hesitates.
“She said don’t mind her,” says Zoro.
Law nods. Whatever he’d meant to say has either been forgotten or deemed unimportant, but he’s looking at Zoro blatantly, and he knows he is this time, and that’s a step they maybe should have reached before now. Fuck it. They haven’t lost any time (Zoro still doesn’t feel bad; he’s enjoyed it) but they can’t do a half-shift, a cicada only cracking its shell and dragging the thing around with it. And they’ll reach Wano soon, though time has seemed almost suspended when everything around them is ocean water and fish and coral and caverns, the same every day.
“You can keep looking,” Zoro says. “But later.”
Law gives him the fake-annoyed look, which really shouldn’t be as attractive as it is, and Law tugs his arm, but instead of grabbing it away slips his hand into Zoro’s.
“Give me something better to do,” he says.
Zoro grins. Just the words he’d wanted.