Work Text:
He won’t feel it. The fall is far enough and in one more centering inhale she will be there. She will give Zoro a new memory, one not of her body shrouded in the dojo.
He has one more moment to think, one more— panicked breath as his stomach caves around rock and his face slams to the cliff’s floor.
“Talk to me, Zoro!”
The words break through Zoro’s ears, muffle in a searing ring. He’s cold, shivering in sweat. He can’t remember what— a shape is approaching. The weight of the steps rattle through his core. If he could just reach— his eye blinks erratically, his grip desperate and still.
“Hey, hey, don’t move.”
He can’t move, can’t brace himself for the impact.
“I got you, bro.”
Franky.
“I got you.”
-
Zoro hasn’t woken up. Sanji sits next to him on the floor, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He knows he shouldn't, he can feel Miyagi's eyes on his back as he tends to a patient but the moment he stops, he will shake.
It has been days. Sanji is too aware of how few pallets surround him as the injured heal and Zoro, still, is barely recognizable.
He keeps thinking of the first night. Zoro’s mess of a body, Chopper telling him he needed to let go of him. Somehow, bloodied as he was, Luffy was already snoring. Sanji held on to that as Franky gently broke his grip and, again, in the hallway when Nami steadied his hands around his lighter. It was bad, on the heels of splinting his entire body and they all knew. Now, the sun dappling through the window only pales Zoro’s skin more. It is morning, he made it through another night and Sanji hasn’t slept.
-
Sanji flinches at the touch to his shoulder.
“Sanji,” Chopper says quietly, “we need to adjust him.”
“R— right.” Every three hours, the reminder of how still he is. Sanji picks himself up and stands back from Miyagi and Chopper as they reposition Zoro’s legs.
-
The corridor is near empty. There’s no moon through the windows, just the flickering flame of lanterns at each entrance.
Sanji extends his haki just slightly at the sound of footsteps, not the click of hooves.
“I thought I said to keep him conscious, Black Leg-ya.”
He looks up at Law, brow raised, “Not very good at the whole bedside manner thing, are you?”
Law sits down on the other side of Zoro, surveying the state of his body, “You’re not my patient.” His face barely shows a reaction and it does not go unnoticed.
Sanji scoffs but keeps his voice low, “For some reason, I don’t think that would make a difference.”
Law shrugs.
“I thought your crew left.”
“We are in the morning. Decided the extra rest will move us faster and Bepo wanted to chart with your navigator.”
Sanji nods, fidgeting with his lighter, “We’ll have to move him. We need to leave in two days.” The thought racks him with worry. Despite it all, the corridor has become a place of safety. Here, Zoro won’t be jostled by the sea, no other ships can chase their wake. It is suffocating. “Isn’t this what you take care of?” Sanji tries to stuff the helplessness out of his voice, “Cast a Room? Wash this away.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Law says flatly. “Replacement, rearranging, retraction. Can’t speed up anything.”
Of course he can't. He knows this and Sanji can’t help the flare of resentment. Of all the power he possesses, their lives saved times over and his limit lies between them, too broken so neither speak.
Sanji doesn't trust anything he’s thinking, his thoughts are scrambled, distant and giving way to too many directions. Hopeless worry snapping to anger, falling to an early grief. He is exhausted and can’t parse the state of his emotions while Zoro is like this and he is fine, while Law sits here next to them.
Still, the question passes through his head, of what Law could retract from him. His bones snapped back into place as he stood before Queen but not till he lay still that first night, curled near Zoro, did he feel the tendons and sinews lace together. It was intricate lattice work, a remnant of science, of his name. It is vile but he dares not give space for whatever Law’s boyhood comic fantasy has become and he dares not think of losing—
A rasping inhale snaps the strange air and Sanji’s palm falls instantly, lightly to Zoro’s chest as if his own hand could steady his heart.
Law catches the gesture. He shouldn’t watch, the intimacy of it feels so private between them, and he can't look away from the answer to his instinct to drop Zoro into Sanji’s arms so many days ago.
When he starts to stand, Sanji starts to speak, “Was he conscious with you? On the rooftop.”
Law frowns before nodding, cautious of where this is going.
“Did he say anything?”
Law feels like it's breaking a confidence, sharing the vulnerability of one nearing death. He has heard such words so many times and carries them, unspoken, but he looks at the hand on Zoro’s chest and sees the tremble of Sanji’s fingertips. “He said there was a woman— no, he said a girl. She was sitting with him.”
Sanji flicks his lighter open and closed, forcing himself not to light another cigarette, “Franky said something similar but it was— he described something else.” Sanji glances at him, an understanding crossing his face that Law can only resign to.
“Is he always so reckless?” Law asks, quieting his voice.
Sanji's breath hitches into a dry chuckle, “You mean an idiot?”
-
On the rooftop of Onigashima, Law was sure Zoro was done. His ribs shaped around his shoulder, the sound grating as he teleported. He didn't think even Zoro’s resolve could endure more— choose to and win. Twice, he touched death and Law needs to confirm for himself that he will survive it, “Can I?”
Sanji hesitates, considering him, “You’re the doctor.”
Tentatively, Sanji moves his hand as Law’s takes its place. He really can’t make sense of him. He trusts Law, maybe completely, and is not really sure why though it feels they have a kind of through line, an ardor that Sanji wears on the surface and Law reserves.
His fingers spread across Zoro’s chest. After a moment, he shuts his eyes and slides his hand to Zoro’s abdomen, over the deepest wound.
Healing such as he has, Luffy bursting awake mornings ago, the odd gentleness to Law’s examination— it all just seems to be a cruel illusion of something peaceful, like Sanji hadn’t feared losing the estimation of his captain, that he hasn’t sat here night after night assuring himself that Zoro breathes. You’re right here— Sanji reminds himself, that this is emotion and a need for the steadiness of Law’s hand, of the rise and fall of the stomach beneath it.