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The pain is visceral, molten red coursing through his blood like bullets ripping through flesh, like cracked bones, torn muscle, and nerves that burn like fire. He can’t move, can’t breathe. He doesn’t have enough air to scream or sob or beg, no matter how much he wishes he could, desperate to claw and cry and rip his body apart if only it means the pain will stop.
Blood rushes in his ears, deafening everything but the sound of his own heartbeat. His vision is a blur of colour that dances and spins until his stomach swells with nausea. Time stretches, slipping away like sand in an hour glass until nothing exists but an endless haze. Rosinante floats through it, half above himself, more figment than person.
There is a knock. A door slides open; footsteps echo across the metal floor, distant and muffled like he’s underwater. He feels like he is, like he’s drowning, lungs filled with seawater.
“Cora,” a voice says. Law, that’s Law. Rosinante recognizes him immediately, even easier than he would recognize himself. He wants to answer, to beg for help, for Law to end this somehow, but he can’t force his scattered thoughts into words, and doesn't think his body would respond even if he could.
There is a part of Rosinante—the part that remembers Law at thirteen and so terribly sick—that still hates to be seen like this, that wants nothing more than to promise Law that he’s okay, but that part is barely a whisper now. Rosinante left his dignity behind in the long months between being shot and regaining the use of his left side, unable to hide the pain or his own inability.
“I’m going to touch your arm,” Law warns. “This will be cold.”
Something small and damp circles the crook of his arm. It disappears, only to be replaced by Law’s gloved hands and the warning: “I’m putting in an IV now.”
Rosinante wants to cry in relief. Even without begging, Law knows this is too much. Law will make it stop.
He barely feels the pinch that follows. If Law didn’t warn him, he might not have noticed it at all.
Law moves, attaching tubing the the catheter in his arm and swapping things around them with a whispered Shambles—IV fluid, probably, and then, hopefully-
“This should help,” Law says. Rosinante feels him inject something into the line. Seconds later, his arm starts to feel heavy. It spreads, crawling outward until his whole body is weighed down. Slowly, Rosinante starts to relax, his tense muscles loosening as his thoughts slow to a crawl.
Law stays. Rosinante can hear him nearby, probably sitting beside the bed, but even with the pain fading into the background—not gone; never gone, only lessened—Rosinante doesn’t have the energy to look. He isn’t even sure he can. Is he partially paralyzed again, confined to bed with a body full of bullets and bone fragments?
Where are they now?
Is Law alright?
He must make some sort of sound, because Law squeezes his hand.
“It’s alright, Cora,” Law says. His voice is low, not the high-pitched tone of a sickly, dying child.
Rosinante focuses on the feeling of Law’s thumb rubbing across his knuckles, letting it ground him like he might otherwise float away.
He misses Sengoku. It’s an inane thought to have after Rosinante betrayed everything that Sengoku stood for, but just like those early days on Swallow, when everything was a blur of pain and fever, and Rosinante was sure he was going to die, he wants his dad. He wants the comfort of Sengoku’s hands in his hair, the rumble of Sengoku’s voice and the shuffling of pages of a storybook.
Rosinante drifts further, half caught in old memories of Marineford and faded dreams of his parents. He can almost imagine his mother’s hand carding through his hair, a blur of blonde, her face long faded from his dreams.
Law stays even after Cora falls asleep. He could go, he knows. Somebody else would be willing to check in every so often, but he can’t bear to leave when Cora is like this. It’s too similar to those awful months after Minion Island. Cora was in so much pain then. The slightest movement was enough to send it shooting through his damaged nerves, compressed first by inflammation and then scar tissue. Even with the Ope Ope fruit, Law could only do so much. A few millimetres to the right and the bullet would have severed Cora’s spinal cord entirely instead of just fracturing the vertebrae. As it is, it’s practically a miracle that Cora’s hemiparesis was only temporary.
They wouldn’t have survived without Wolf. Law was too small and sick to chop wood for the old fireplace in the crumbling shack they somehow managed to reach on Swallow. He wouldn’t have been able to gather food or bring water up from the nearby well. But Wolf started leaving what they needed outside the door, grumbling about not wanting to deal with two bodies come summer.
Sometimes Law still dreams of it. He wakes in the night to the feeling of ice in his veins and Cors’s blood coating his hands. He remembers the fluttering of Cora’s pulse beneath his fingers, the sound of Cora choking on agony, sobbing through fevers and calling out for a father Law didn’t know he had.
It’s tempting to say that it isn’t fair, that Cora deserves better than a life of pain when his only crime was saving Law, but the world has never been fair. All Law can do is try to ease the worst of it, and so he stays. He double-checks the IV and uses a Scan to keep an eye on the dosage. The cocktail is more than just painkillers. There’s a muscle relaxant and a mild sedative along with a careful balance of fluids and electrolytes.
Pain causes high blood pressure and inhibits proper hormone production. They’re issues Law has seen in Cora for years. Treatments should be a medication protocol, but Cora won’t take them, and it isn’t like they have easy access to specialized medication besides. Reluctant as Law is to let Cora go without, he knows that pain management matters more. Everything gets worse on days like today.
Law sighs and leans back in the chair he pulled up to Cora’s bedside. He picks up the abandoned medical journal he’s been trying to work through since he sat down. There are some promising studies on treating intractable pain, the type that Cora has, which would usually keep Law occupied with notes and additional reading for hours, but he can’t focus. What if he misses something with Cora? What if something goes wrong?
Logically, he knows it won’t. It isn’t the first time he’s found Cora curled up in bed, nearly incoherent with pain. He’s been treating it for years. The medication and dosage are always the same; he knows exactly how Cora reacts to it, but Law is nothing if not prone to overthinking.
The third time Law checks, an hour after he started the medication, Cora’s muscle tone is finally low enough to untangle the blankets. With a careful Takt, Law manages to rearrange Cora’s position with pillows to support the places that need it. Hopefully it will be more comfortable. He would have liked to do it sooner, but Cora’s muscles are prone to spasticity. It’s better to wait for them to relax before trying to reposition.
Another hour of passive reading passes before Bepo pops his head inside Cora’s room. “How is he?” he asks.
“Better,” Law mutters, but that doesn’t mean much when all they can do is treat the symptoms, not the root cause.
Bepo nods. He’s frowning, looking at Cora with a worried expression. “I brought dinner,” he says, carrying a tray. There’s enough for two. Onigiri for Law, his go-to food when he doesn’t feel like eating, and ochazuke for Cora, which is the same. “I know you’re probably not hungry, but Cora will worry if you don’t eat. Sorry.”
Law sighs and runs a hand down his face. “I know,” he mutters. When Bepo puts the plate down, he reluctantly takes an onigiri to nibble on.
“I can stay, if you’d like,” Bepo says. “He’ll sleep for a while longer, won’t he?”
“A couple more hours at least,” Law says. “But I’m alright. I’d rather stay.”
“If you’re sure…” Bepo says. It’s clear he isn’t happy with the answer, but Law isn’t any more likely to leave Cora’s side now than he was an hour ago.
“I’m sure,” Law says. He makes a point of taking a bite out of his onigiri, hoping to ease Bepo’s concern by eating. It seems to work.
“Alright, sorry. Just call if you need anything,” Bepo tells him. When Law nods, he reluctantly leaves, casting one last glance over Cora and Law.
It’s another couple of hours before Cora finally stirs. His face scrunches, his head lolling to the side. Law glances at him whenever he reaches the bottom of a page and eventually finds the ruddy hue of Cora’s eyes staring back at him, half-lidded.
“Hey, you’re awake,” Law says, softly putting the book down.
Cora coughs. His voice is rough. “Guess so,” he rasps.
Law expects it. Dry mouth is a common side effect of morphine. He pours a glass of fresh water from the pitcher on the bedside table and shoves a straw inside, then brings it to Cora’s lips to sip.
“How are you feeling?” he asks when Cora is finished. He resists the urge to pull up a Room to check.
“Better, I think,” Cora says. His brows furrow. “Everything is sort of fuzzy.”
“That would be the ketamine,” Law says.
“Oh,” Cora says, blinking slowly. Law never knows what he’s thinking at times like these.
“I’ll give you another dose of morphine in a few hours. We’ll reduce it afterwards and see how you’re doing,” Law says. He’ll keep an eye on Cora for at least another day or so, even when Cora is well enough to be back on his feet. Silently, Law wonders how long that will be. Cora has a bad habit of refusing to rest, forcing himself up and about before his body is ready. The best Law can do is keep him on medical leave until things stabilize. “You can go back to sleep if you want,” he adds, knowing from previous experience that Cora won’t be awake for very long. Even without the medication, pain is exhausting.
Cora shakes his head. “Have you slept yet?” he asks.
Law scoffs. “I’m fine. You’re the one on bed rest.”
Cora frowns. Very carefully, he shifts over, creating space on the bed. Part of Law is exasperated, because, really? Will Cora ever stop fussing over him? Another part is relieved to see Cora moving at all.
“I’m fine, Cora,” Law says flatly. “I’ll sleep later.”
“Just lie down at least.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Please?” Cora asks, and damn him, he knows exactly the pleading look to give Law. “It’ll make me feel better.”
“I don’t want to risk hurting you,” Law admits. He chews on his lip. Nothing is worth seeing Cora like that, in so much pain he can’t even speak.
“You can’t do worse than my own body, kid,” Cora says. “Besides, I think the drugs are doing enough that I wouldn’t be able to feel it if you stabbed me again.”
“For fucks sake, that was one time, and you threw me out a window!” Law says. His cheeks burn. It pulls a small grin from Cora.
“Come on, Law,” he says, lifting a trembling arm.
Law grumbles. He pulls at the laces of his shoes and kicks them off with slightly too much force before he crawls into bed beside Cora. He moves slowly, minimizing jostling Cora as much as possible. Cora doesn’t seem to have the same concerns, snaking an arm around Law and pulling him down.
“I’m not fixing your IV if you rip it out,” Law mutters as he’s pulled into the familiar warmth of Cora’s side. The memories of those awful months on Swallow begin to loosen their hold on him. He relaxes, his shoulders dropping. His head hurts, pounding behind his eyes. He didn’t even feel it with everything else happening.
“Sure,” Cora says, sounding like he doesn’t believe Law in the slightest. “Now sleep or I won’t be awake long enough to argue with you about it.”
“Fuck off,” Law mutters, but he closes his eyes anyway.
He feels when Cora drifts off again a few minutes later. If he’s careful enough, he could probably get up without waking Cora. He can certainly Shambles himself free. But even Law has to admit that this is the most comfortable place to be. The sound of Cora’s heartbeat and the rise and fall of Cora’s chest reassure Law more than anything else does.