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Pain.
Whenever he tried to catch a breath, his ribs clenched him harder, red-hot needles piercing his muscles and lungs. He didn’t dare to open eyes, not yet, but he felt weight and tightness. And warmth. Did someone wrap him in bandages and blankets? He couldn’t move much, even past the pain limits; whatever it was around him, it kept him well secured—or trapped—and forced him to stay. As if the person behind all of this, whoever it was, knew he was going to jump out at the first opportunity.
Was it an enemy?
He didn’t remember much. A storm. Chaos. Waves crushing the vessel in half. Tashigi screaming. Cold water filling his mouth, nose, eyes. A broken barrel—or a box maybe. Lack of air. Darkness. More screaming. And distant explosions.
Ah, yes. They got a vague report about a pirate ship docking nearby. And wrangled with the sheer monstrous power of Grandline chaos. A wave must had washed him off when—or shortly after—the ship broke.
And he, somehow, survived.
“You’re awake, White Chase.”
A female voice, somewhat familiar. Smoker rarely lost faces and names, but this didn’t click immediately. Must be exhaustion and ache of…everything. He tried to turn face and open eyes; he needed answers and confirmations. His body only yelped, and his voice would follow suit, if not for steel-hard discipline. Keep it steady, keep it sharp. Keep it shoved down—until you learn what you face.
“Don’t squirm. You might have broken ribs.”
Slowly, struggling against sandy glue between lids, Smoker opened eyes. He expected a gun aimed at him. The person holding it—not as much. Now he knew and remembered, last puzzles of enigmatic jigsaw clicked with terrifying realization. He expected worse, much worse. And frankly, had no idea if he could meet a luckier fate. But facing ghosts was never a good thing, and especially for the shipwrecked. Hell, now he wasn’t as sure if he was alive. If not for the pain—
Maybe this is what hell looks like. I’m finally in for it, huh?
Nico Robin, the Devil of Ohara. How suitable.
“How are you alive? Or… Did I die?” The voice that got out of his strained throat almost spooked him. It didn’t sound close to human speech yet—to his.
“You better don’t.” With the way Robin’s lips lined and clenched, her face indeed resembled a demon mask. She had him at gunpoint, her hand adamant yet, weirdly nonchalant. Shooting him down would come to her as easily as putting her lipstick on, he was sure and, even more weirdly, calm about it.
Professional assassins don’t act impulsive. If she truly wanted him dead, he would not lie here, in warmth.
“We’re sentenced to each other for some time.” She continued, distant and disinterested. “There are no ships. My snail died and yours can’t connect with my people. There’s a storm raging outside, we have some food, water and firewood. If one of us dies, the other dies too. Together we…might not die as soon.”
“Thriving conditions.” Smoker tried to adjust position, to at least not lie in front of her gun like a lamb left for a slaughter. Sharp pain and exertion let him only as much as to budge with a groan. He accepted that. “I guess my part of the deal is not dying before we call for help. ‘Cause my snail has a blockade you can't break.”
Devil of Ohara? Demon Child? She should have been called a stone face, not a single flick interrupting her perfectly stoic expression. Smoker thought he’s good at being unreadable, but he would understand more from a piece of blank paper than from living and breathing Robin right in front of him.
“Call for help. And I will keep you alive until then.”
“Deal.” The last word came out like a cough. Smoker’s face twisted in excruciating pain, his ribs burnt like fire as he fought for air and against dry throat. The fit threw him against pillows, spat out exhausted, and barely conscious.
It was bad. Really, really bad.
A chain of arms adjusted pillows, not so gently dragged him up until he sat, his breathing shallow but stable. Another one bloomed on his side, bringing a glass of cold water to his parched lips.
He had no idea how thirsty he was until he went at it, only by luck not choking.
“Thanks.”
After a long, motionless silence she nodded.
They were alone in a little house, isolated from everything that wasn’t closed within the four miserable walls, barely holding against the wind. Smoker was sleeping, the rare moments of consciousness were filled with pain, distrust, and uncomfortable silence. Robin kept her distance, occupying the same and only chair moved to the most far corner of the room she could find. If she ever changed location, she had to do it when he was asleep. But how did she manage to keep the same position whenever he opened eyes? Suffering had dulled his perception, details blurry in his memory and vision. Even a demon of a woman had to move: food, restroom, simply muscles needing a good stretch…
After a few rounds of doubtful consciousness and uneasy dreams he realized she put the gun away. Was he deemed harmless or rather too weak? He didn’t care enough to ask.
From time to time a chain of arms repparead. They wrapped him tighter, if he slipped out of the blanket, adjusted the pillows. He accepted water from them but refused to eat. He felt something—nuts or a granola bar—brushing against his lips, but he wasn’t hungry.
He didn’t hear nor see her eating, either.
The hand treatment had the rhythm he started to recognize and count. If she adjusted his position every three or four hours, then the second day of their forced isolation was nearing its evening time. Or so he assumed, the storm raging outside turned everything equally dark.
He asked, half-heartedly, whether she had a watch on her. He didn’t mean to joke, but she smiled, chuckled even silently into fist and averted eyes.
It was a pretty sight, he had to admit. So elegant. Absolutely not what he would suspect from a pirate and assassin trapped with an enemy in the middle of snowy nowhere.
“Thanks,” he said, absent-mindedly.
The smile disappeared as fast as it appeared.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one in pain.
Robin was growing pale. Each time he opened eyes, the facade of her stoic face was breaking more, until she couldn’t care less, not only grimacing, but eventually also scrunching in her chair. The chain of arms faltered when adjusting him, he leaned on the more aching side, barely able to tame a groan. But he withstood. About the time to get less dependent on her.
“Hey, are you—”
She waved him off, but curled further, the right arms wrapped around her abdomen. Smoker wasn’t an expert in female anatomy, but he knew enough to guess what was going on.
“My coat, left bottom pocket.” He tried to sound casual. No mercy for a pirate, just adding a bit more to his part of a deal. If he couldn’t take care of him, he’d be screwed, right? “I have antispasmodics in the cigarette case.”
“I got poisoned one goddammit time too much,” he added at her distrustful face. Did she think he wanted to harm her? Well, she was trapped alone with a man, if he was a woman in such a situation…
But he was depending on her. If he harmed her, his chances for survival lowered drastically. Who knows when the storm would finally end.
Robin understood his logic, followed his instructions, and weighed the little package on her palm. Meds must have passed the examination: she took three at once.
“Thanks.” She said after a longer moment, when he was on the verge of passing out again. With a corner of eye Smoker saw her slumping against the back of the chair, her face eased with immense relief.
“Sure.”
The next day Robin discovered canned goods.
It only confirmed Smoker’s suspicion that they found themselves in an emergency den of fishers or smugglers. The house was stocked enough to keep them more or less comfortable within harsh conditions outside. With their belts tightened, they could survive far longer than Smoker initially expected.
A soup was bubbling in a small pot. The smell lacked the aroma of spices, but Smoker’s stomach reacted as enthusiastically as if Robin put in front of him a meal worthy of a five-star restaurant. She kept trying to feed him with dry snacks, but he was stubbornly refusing. He had eaten for the last time a few days earlier.
This time she didn’t depend on her Devil Fruit. Maybe she was too exhausted to do it anymore, maybe she didn’t find him worthy of wary treatment anymore. Smoker didn’t care, just tensed as he always did when someone interrupted his personal space.
She sat nearby, their legs almost touched as she scrunched closer, holding the pot in her lap. He had been observing her a lot for the want of looking at anything else than empty walls or ceiling, but never before had stolen such a close look. A little sarcastic voice in his head snarked that he wished to look as good as her. A few days in spartan conditions, in her worst time of month and sleeping on the chair or on the floor, almost didn’t leave any mark on her. Her hair needed some good combing—and that’s all he could tell.
She didn’t even smell bad. But maybe his stupid bodily instincts were messing with his brain. He suddenly realized how long it had been since he had been so close to a woman…
“Can you—” She handed him a spoon—the only spoon they had—and he eagerly reached for it, just to immediately drop it on blankets. She snatched it right on time before it fell, mercifully averting her eyes away from his embarrassment.
“No.” Smoker chuckled dryly. “Shit. I’m useless.”
Too tired to feel ashamed, he just opened mouth and let her feed him. Soup was too thin to be tasty (“and she’s not a good cook at all, holy crap, this sucks”), but he devoured everything given, so ravenous he burnt his tongue.
(He…didn’t feel ashamed at all. Why? He should have, accepting help from a pirate so easily… What happened to his dignity?)
He expected Robin’s moves to be automatic, soulless even, but something…clicked different. Maybe because she used her real hands instead of Devil Fruit replacement? She carried each spoon carefully, scooping the other hand under it and wiping his chin if his impatience worked against her. Three portions for him, one for her, licked clean with the same gluttony. If it disgusted her to share a spoon with a stranger she barely could name, she didn’t show it at all, too focused on sucking the taste out of the spoon.
“Almost like an indirect kiss.” His brain pushed his thoughts into the weirdest direction. If he focused enough, maybe he could taste her from the next spoon?
Smoker’s cheeks reddened. Why did he think about it? He’s not thirteen anymore, goddamn…
“Thank you.” She murmured as soon as they scraped the pot clean, her voice barely audible with the wind raging behind the windows.
“Sorry, what?”
“Thank you for shared meal.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re welcome.”
They managed to grab the signal just on time.
The sky had cleaned for a few hours, enough to connect the snail and call for help. Robin had left him when talking to her people—whoever they were? The other Strawhats?—and hadn’t returned long enough for him to worry. He had fulfilled his part of the deal, she had had no more reason to keep him alive. Once a pirate, always a pirate, once the leash loosens a little, they break free, gone with the slightest wind. But she had returned and had put the snail back into his pocket.
Both of them had pretended they hadn’t noticed his sigh of relief.
“We’re out of firewood.” She had warned him, adding the last pile to the fire. “And another one is coming.”
Within the next hour or so all hell had broken loose.
Smoker at least had blankets; she had wrapped him in everything they had but her own coat. But Robin was stuck in her chair right as she was, scrunched into a little, trembling ball. The fire provided warmth only as it lasted, the whole house growing cold in minutes. And it only went worse, with the storm raging like a furious god dancing right behind the thin walls.
The fact they still stood was alone lucky.
“Come here before you freeze to death.” Smoker grumbled and pulled his covers on side, little to none care for aching ribs.
“I don’t need your mercy,” her eyes spoke on behalf of lips. He always thought brown eyes were warm and loving, but hers cut like steel, right to the core of his soul.
“Don’t be stupid. You know this can kill.” He was more stubborn than her silent qualms and fits. They had been through worse than just cuddling for warmth, without the risk of leaving corpses behind. “If I gross you out, I’ll just turn on the other side.”
He should be the one afraid of her. She could have weapons he had no idea about. She wouldn’t fall apart into molecules if she tried to use her Devil Fruit. She wouldn’t pass out with a single hit in the ribs.
She wouldn’t be torn to shreds if his people were first to discover them. He had faith in his bastards—and especially in Tashigi.
He risked everything—and held the covers open like a stubborn mule he was, not faltering until Nico Robin caved in and crawled under them.
Once she gave up, she wrapped around him fast, like a cat starved of warmth. He has never slept with a person so shameless—and the situation they were in was as far from sex as humanly possible. Yet, something about it—about the way her body molded to press close to him, to steal every ounce of the blessed, saving heat—was so intimate he felt itchy and uncomfortable.
Without thinking, he wrapped around her too, arm awkwardly pulling her closer, guiding her to rest head on his shoulder. She tensed for a moment, but accepted his offering, the warmth of his body too tempting and needed. When scrunched and clinging to him, she seemed so little and fragile. The hands that fed him, carried him, supported him, trembled, ice cold against his as he rubbed them between his. A gesture of mercy, kindness? A sudden thirst for touch, for softness?
Her hair was messy and greasy against his cheek—and still smelled of flowers. He would die to bury his face in it—for more warmth, for more sensation? For anything.
But he didn’t dare to move more than she already claimed him for herself.
When was the last time he shared a bed with a woman he genuinely wanted? When was the last time he wanted someone in the first place? The sudden ping clenching Smoker’s chest tasted like lust—but was nothing but yearning, for everything and nothing, for her and for everyone molded and shaped into a form of hers. A sharp, desperate inhale came out as a sob, so he stopped breathing until he couldn’t hold it anymore, his lungs full for her and forbidden thoughts, and awaiting. For her laughter? For her mercy? For her breath easing into sleep, relieving him of temptations and worries?
“Thanks. For trusting me.” He muttered, dying and rising from the dead all at once, almost trembling himself when she nestled closer, a palpable shape of her breasts pressing to his side through their coats. “And for saving my ass.”
“Thanks. For letting me in.” She breathed out, close to his neck, enticing and dangerous. “And for saving my ass, too.”
Pain.
Because of her clinging to him, Smoker slept in a weird position. His ribs protested with great scream, nearly tearing him apart when he tried to move. He still had her smell on him, felt the shape of her body on his chest, and the tight clench of her hands around his wrist where she held him. But the place by his side was non-existent, the covers pulled and wrapped around him as tight as they had been.
Robin was gone.
And so was the storm, as he realized once he gathered strength to get up, for the first time in days, and limped to the window. The sky was clear and so was the snow, no tracks left.
The chair had been moved close to the bed. He slouched over it and found a little goodbye present: the remains of soup, a piece of stale bread, two last antispasmodics, his snail wrapped warm in a piece of cloth she had torn out of her sleeve.
And a little piece of paper, the back of his own note he kept in the cigarette case. With big, neat letters put in a single word: “Thanks.”
For some reason he really, really wanted to laugh.