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He follows the smell of cigarettes. The sounds of revelry fade and he catches glimpses of blonde hair and a suit jacket slung over a shoulder; wisps and plumes of familiar poison like a blood trail from prey wounded and bleeding and tempting in too many ways. He follows, Kikoku over his shoulder and hat left behind with Bepo as he dozes near a bonfire. His overcoat draped over Penguin who laughs and entertains with wild tales and whole body motion with a shadow reaching into infinity and Law follows the smell of cigarettes.
The lights fade and fade further behind him like the sunset had done hours before to let the moon sit high like a polished coin- like the buttons on a double breasted suit, like tears freezing on the snow.
He follows the smoke and hopes to find the burning blaze at the end.
["We aren't meant for softness, are we?", asks the cook in a bid to ignore the looming threat of Dressrosa on the horizon; he passes his cigarette to the shirtless and content captain, watching the glimmer of inked skin in low light as Law breathes.
"I couldn't tell you.", is the answer, soft and unsure.]
The path is winding and elflike- passing by gardens and celebration and serenity in equal measures one by two by four in exponents. The air smells sweet aside from the stripe of toxicity leaking through it like a warning of things to come, of fates yet to pass. And Law follows; like the shadow of a broken oath, like sworn fealty in the raw. He feels something within him weakening as memories trickle past behind his eyelids with every blink and breath he takes. With every tap of his boots against the ground like a dead man's march.
To the gallows he goes; to hang like the lockets left on headstones by forlorn lovers doomed by a mourning dove's curse.
["You don't want softness, do you.", purrs Law- his hand around Sanji's neck and applying slow pressure to a pulse that flutters like deep sea fronds in a storm current; holding back a hurricane with nothing but will and want and all the ways those two things intersect.
"I wouldn't know what it feels like.", is the answer, breathless and hungry as blue eyes reflect arctic clouds they haven't seen since the world was gentle.]
Sanji stands alone- framed in heavy greenery and impermanence that smells of cherry blossoms and tall grass and cool water. Smoke trails from him like wedding vows and eulogies long forgotten as his suit jacket lays in a heap on the ground like a mourner's gown. A hand in his pocket and a tilt to his hip and three taps of his shoe muffled by nature's careful veil and goldenrod hair that Law knows smells of blood and cologne like he always does. Bergamot and death. Citrus and the sin of zealotry.
Orange blossoms that died burning against hot iron.
He stands like an offering at an altar they've both bled onto, marble and onyx they've both stained with torn veins and tears.
"I felt you following me."
"How did you know it was me."
"I always know you.", says Sanji, his smoker's rasp dulling the words, "I've always known you, Trafalgar."
["Why are you so terrified of softness, Law?!", snaps the cook angrily, glaring heat at the frigid captain turned haunting, and he searches amber-speckled grey for an answer as Law simply sips coffee and stays silent. Stays ever silent- quiet as a mother's grave, quiet as a savior's heartbeat.
"Because I have no... need for it. Or for anyone to give it to me.", is the answer; words hard and cold and violent as a gunshot through the snow. Law almost wishes the cook had bled from the delivery; but he didn't, he wouldn't. He presses his lips thin, and nods, and turns away.]
Law's steps are crisp; sharp sounds that cut through the silence and cauterize the tension left divided. The rattle of his weapon landing on Sanji's coat is sudden and shockingly loud and Law hooks thumbs through belt loops.. and looks down.
"...I almost had to find a permanent solution. This time.", Sanji says, his voice rough like bourbon but smooth as honey, "...Told the mosshead the parameters for my... extermination."
Law breathes in sharply, softly- narrowing eyes that are more brass than stormcloud anymore as he tilts his head and watches Sanji flick ash before the leatherclad hand pulls the cigarette back to take another drag. The captain inches closer, swallowing the ashes he swears are in his throat before he opens his mouth to speak-
"..Why."
"If I lost myself.", is the answer, "If I lost who.. I am. Who I've become, who I... maybe was always meant to be.", is the admittance of something not quite weakness, maybe closer to grief, "...Just in case I became a Vinsmoke. I asked the mosshead to kill me if I lost my mind."
"Why him?", and Law flinches at the petulance in the words, at the bitterness lacing them like cyanide and the green tint of jealousy leaking from its punctuation and Sanji finally turns to face him.
"...Because he'd make it quick. Painless. My last memory would be. Softness. Soft. Gentle. Like falling asleep- a sting and then silence."
Law feels his chest begin to ache, and oh what a cruel ache it is as it blossoms like kudzu winding around his ribs only to constrict too tight; tight enough to crack bone and tear out tissue, dividing muscle and ink into ribbons to lay over a closed casket. Sanji pinches the cherry of the dead cigarette between his fingers in a quick motion and a twitch of the corner of his mouth; dropping it only to fish the pack out of his pocket along with a bright gold lighter. Law watches him light another, pull the smoke in and fill the gaps in his lungs and armor with the taste of burnt coffee and poison and bitters and exhale snowstorm clouds.
[He doesn't let himself remember the cook. No matter how many times he lays with blonde hair or blue eyes or steel-strong legs that shake when he bites into the meat of a thigh. He refuses to remember the chef no matter how many times he lets his crooked smile lure in the face of the night or the hour, no matter how many times his contrarian streak makes him silence their voices with a tattooed hand to keep whatever this illusion is alive. He doesn't let himself remember Sanji's name-
Except he does. He always has. But he'd rather lie to himself than admit he's lost his control.]
"I could have been soft.", he says, unprompted- feeling heat flicker at the tips of his ears for a moment before he clears his throat and tries not to look at those arctic shard eyes.
"Could you?", asks Sanji, and Law looks down and away to steady his heartbeat; the thought occurs to pull out the offending muscle and cast it away once again to get him through this but he decides against it.
Part of him cherishes the way his pulse has begun to race under his skin.
When he exhales slow and looks back up, Sanji is almost too close. Close enough for the smoke to crash against the inked heart on Law's partially exposed chest with no force and yet it feels like a fist colliding with a fragile sternum, he swears he can feel the edges of the pale patches left by chemical violence and illness. And Sanji is standing so damn close it burns. The silence is heavy with something, promise or regret neither can be sure and Sanji flexes gloved hands.
"Law- could you have been?", asks Sanji, his voice a low murmur between them.
"...Yes. For you, yes."
Law almost whines when he feels smooth leather touch over the lines engraved in his chest like a headstone, unable to erode or crack and break but now he can't be so sure of that judgement or any judgement for that matter- he realizes, acknowledges that the tearing feeling in his chest is the last shreds of his control being pulled down like the burnt remnants of a church's siding; falling glass shards in a long broken window.
['Could you, oh could you want me to be soft- I've learned how to be I think please let me try.']
Sanji exhales smoke as his eyes meet Law's- arctic seaglass meeting carnelian and pyrite. Fool's gold and salted ice. The smoke is sweet when Law breathes in and he wonders if it's the sugar clinging desperately to last traces of the kindness Sanji always holds in his eyes, those impossibly bright eyes that almost glow when his smile stretches wide and happy around a cigarette and he smells of spices and simmer pots and dark coffee with full cream-
['Ask me and I'll say yes. Ask me anything and I swear I'll say yes.']
"Hm; not to be a sap but... you've always had the most fascinating eyes.", murmurs Sanji, a playful tilt of his head as his cigarette stays between his lips, "...Like they burn from the inside out. It wasn't as obvious back then but..."
Law's smile is rueful, but honest, "Change is often inevitable, as is evolution Bla-...Sanji."
Sanji pulls back just a little, and Law worries he's overstepped his boundaries but the full note of a laugh that rings from the churchbells the cook has in place of vocal chords soothes any worries the surgeon feels beginning to whisper to life before they can overtake him. The cook's tie is missing, the first two buttons of his shirt undone. A dust of dandelion peeks out. Law pulls his thumbs free of belt loops and slowly reaches out with one hand; reaches out to place it against the tuck of Sanji's hardened waist; all raw muscle and lithe grace; flexible but with enough give to dig fingertips into.
Law would know; he remembers leaving his fingerprints in the flesh like a signature on a death warrant.
['Let me try again, this time I won't leave bruises unless you ask, this time the marks won't burn just ache and we'll have something else in common aside from emptiness and hunger and grief-']
"We... we aren't meant for softness.", Sanji hums, letting his eyes fall lidded- half open like a housecat or a well fed hound. The cook reaches up to pluck his cigarette away and hold it between two fingers wrapped in black leather and lets the smoke trail out as the hand still tracing over Law's chest rests it's suede palm against the center of the inked heart sigil- as if he asks permission from forgotten ones to hold tight to the vassal he tempts without knowing he does.
"Are you sure?"
"I don't know.", answers Sanji with a weak laugh, "...If we aren't, really, then. Then tell me to stop."
Law feels his tension bleed away like snowmelt as the hand on his chest moves, climbing higher and thumbing the lines carved by wiry muscle and vindictive strength but climbing ever higher and higher- It passes over a deep breath, over a heartbeat, over a collarbone as pronounced as a keyloid scar and over snowcap skin from a childhood destroyed once upon a blizzard-year. Higher still it goes, fingertips tracing over the curve where neck meets shoulder and up again to run over gold hoops glinting in the evening light.
"Law. I said tell me to stop."
He remains silent. The glide of gloved fingertips brushes away the lingering wisps of the cobweb he made of control, the filler cotton in the gaping raw wound left behind by abandonment and brutality that they share in equal measure and spiritual equidistance. Law lets himself give in to the craving, the closeness, the hunger they share as they gnaw each other to bone and swallow down the shared emptiness and the hand on Sanji's waist pulls him closer until they are almost chest to chest as the cook's hand finally rests against Law's face- along the smooth skin of his cheek and the line of his jaw.
Law's free hand moves to cover it for only a moment before his little finger hooks under the edge of the glove and pulls; letting it slide off easily and fall to the ground like a suicide note.
['Though I walk through that valley as a shadow of death, I fear no evil, for thou art with me-']
"Law?", Sanji inquires, his voice shivering like a windchime tone.
The chef's eyes are wide and almost vulpine; bright even in the dark and still so achingly kind. The blue of the Northern sea, steel and salt and sky and secrets with little points of light haunting the pupil and Law's hand covers Sanji's, moving it just enough that a turn of the surgeon's head lets him press lips to the palm and those burnt amber eyes with their pyrite scars refuse to free Sanji from their steady gaze.
['I cannot be soft like the silk in your voice, I don't know how, but I can be soft as new snow and warm hearthlight as long as you need, as long as you want I can be the fireside to your hearthstone because you feel like home-']
"Law."
"Sanji."
"You didn't tell me to stop."
"Because I didn't want you to."
"... But in the morning, will you st-"
"Yes."
"And the catch-"
"This isn't a deal, Sanji; not some alliance or agreement; I won't vanish in the morning so long as you don't."
"Not even if I vanish to make breakfast?"
"...That, however, would be acceptable."
Sanji is leaning into him and grinning, chest to chest and pulse to pulse and he's so painfully warm and it bleeds through Law's skin like blood and infection and hunger and home and the hand on the cook's waist turns into an arm around the supple frame and holding him close; the cigarette has long burned itself out and falls from a shaking grip and the kiss is wild and deliciously violent and Law almost growls at the way Sanji bends when he pushes closer; the way Sanji's fingers curl into one side of Law's shirt, into messy dark hair and Sanji nips the surgeon's lower lip in nearly affectionate challenge.
['Loneliness exhausts me, how it exhausts me let me burrow down and live inside of you and I'll let you hide where my heart used to be just please, please let me try; let me give you the softness you swore you didn't deserve even though I knew you did I just didn't fucking know HOW-']
Sanji's eyes roll and fall shut as he holds tight; Law is cool and solid as stone, as the sea that once left them both bereft and lost and when the kiss shatters like a glacier shelf they are both panting for breath and feeling the ghost of liquor and cigarettes haunt their throats and words; Sanji's blush cascades from his cheekbones down past the collar of his shirt and Law's eyes are dark as unpolished jet and acid burnt ruby and they simply just breathe.
"Which-"
"The Tang; more secluded, I'd rather not be interrupted.", hums Sanji and that familiar curl of a smile flickers to life on his face mothwing quick. Law chuckles, the sound rumbling from the bottom of his chest like an earthquake tremor, and nods-
The moon hangs like a saint's medallion on church patron's chest; the wind coos as it blows through and smells so sweet. Where there once was unspoken words there is now the ghost of laughter and the hum of hungry promise- but no figures fill the shadows, nothing left but the hum of strange static like the last gasps of a lightning strike.
====================================
When the morning comes; the world awakens slowly- another night of revelry already being prepared as they distance themselves from the hellscape of Kaido's last desperate stand. The morning is cool and calm and knowing; Law half opens his eye when he feels movement to watch the cook's rosepetal-smeared silhouette creep away to discarded slacks and pull out a flash of red silk- Law rolls onto his side silently to watch as Sanji unfolds the red tie and kneels down by Kikoku and carefully loops the silk once, twice around before tying it off with a careful knot.
Law lets his eye stay carefully slit open as Sanji sneaks back, slinking back down and under the rumbled bedcovers to press back against Law.
The captain grins.
"...You sonuvabitch, you're awake aren't you."
"...Yes."
"...Damn."
"A fitting sentiment from a prince, I'd suppose. I'm nothing close to a knight however- something, something no honor amongst thieves."
Law grunts at the light smack to his hip from Sanji before the chef sits himself up to reach to the sidetable and pull a cigarette from the pack. The hiss of the lighter igniting it is as soothing as a metronome tick and Law lets his eyes halfway before he props his head up on a fist. He watches Sanji take a drag before reaching up to take the cigarette wordless from the cook's fingers and take his own drag; exhaling smoke before reaching up and tucking it between Sanji's lips.
"You could have asked-", grumbles the chef, though the grin pulling at his mouth destroys the veneer of annoyance in his words.
Law hums, rolling the taste of tobacco smoke and the sizzle of nicotine over his tongue a moment.
"We should get dressed.", says the captain, making no move to get up and do so, "..Or attain some level of decency."
The look Sanji gives him is an artistic exercise in disbelief, "...The man who folded me in directions that would make origami sculptures blush is daring to suggest I make myself decent. How absofuckinglutely rich."
And Law laughs, and Sanji smiles with his heart in his still-dozy glance over at the source of the sound.
Sanji makes breakfast; the coffee is rich, and dark... and shared.
============================================
When the time comes to leave Wano, crews have gone their separate ways. If anyone notices an extra length of red hanging from Kikoku- they keep their thoughts to themselves; an impressive show of wisdom.
But what is noticed speaks far more volumes.
"Eh, Cap'n.", grumbles Shachi where he lounges as the sun slowly eases into noontime height, "...Are you missin' an earring."
"Perhaps; I don't exactly have the ability to check my earlobes given the placement of my eyes.", is the tired and half sarcastic reply. Followed quickly by a long suffering sigh of fond friendship when he feels Shachi's fingers flick his ear with the kind of familiarity earned only by surviving adolescence together. Law's permafrost glare slowly moves to do its best to drill a hole through Shachi's skull and wipe that smug grin from his face once he realizes the bastard figured it out in record time.
"...Should I go ask the Strawhat cook to give it back?"
"What makes you think he has it."
"Captain. Law. Trafalgar, c'mon."
"I won't ask you again to elaborate."
"It's easier to give him a pretty gold hoop than admit he's got your balls in a gunner's grip- GGHAGKOIWETMEWO-"
"CAPTAIN DON'T THROW SHACHI OFF THE DOCK THAT'S RUDE-"
"BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA SHACHI WHAT DID YOU FUCKING DO NOW-"
"Penguin, stop giggling fit to fucking piss and fish him the hell out, we have work to do."
...And in a galley a few shiplengths away, a green-haired swordsman snickers into a cup of fresh matcha while the cook levels a filet knife at him in a clear threat.
"Shut every fuck you have up, you petulant strip of moldy kelp."
"I didn't say shit-"
"YOU WERE FUCKING THINKING IT, ASSHOLE!"