Chapter Text
“Evil tag!” Luffy announces into the dining hall, slamming his palms onto the table.
Sanji yells from the kitchen, “Not it!”
Robin raises a hand. “Not it,” she smiles.
Confused, Law turns to Nami, who quickly scribbles something in her pocketbook. “Not it.”
“That makes three,” Zoro says, collecting his swords as he kicks back from the table. “Not it!” he yells, and before Law can ask what the hell they’re talking about, Zoro is sprinting out the door. The others scramble out of their seats to follow, whooping and cheering, until only Jinbe and Robin remain.
“Sanji, would you be so kind as to pack up our lunches? Our time is nearly up,” Robin says, and Law would probably be concerned if such an ominous phrase came from literally anyone else. He’s been around the crew long enough to know, however, that her delighted expression is the real cause for concern; it's the face she makes as Luffy leads them straight into disaster, which does not pair well with the screaming he just heard outside. “Traffy, could you please watch over our plates until Sanji is done in the kitchen? I’m sure he’ll only take a moment, but I’m afraid a moment is all it takes for Luffy to make food disappear,” she says.
Law doubts anything could get between Luffy and food, but he tells Robin he’ll try anyway, because Sanji’s leg is on fire (menacingly) as he observes the interaction from the kitchen (and Law has the right to be a little scared, as a doctor, because he knows that legs should not spontaneously ignite).
“Wonderful, we’ll be right back.” Robin pats Jinbe on the shoulder and they take their leave, laughing about something or other as they stroll into the sounds of battle.
Law watches Sanji pack up each of the lunches, wash the dishes, and prep the ingredients for dinner while he waits for them to return. There are crashing noises all over the ship, and he swears he heard Usopp screaming about the grim reaper, but Sanji seems unconcerned so they’re likely all still alive. They are taking longer than he expected, though; the enemy must be difficult. He starts to reach for Kikoku, but Sanji strolls over to his side.
“They tell you what's going on?” he says, balancing a cigarette between his teeth.
“No. Do you know?” Law asks.
Sanji snorts. “Eh, you’ll find out soon enough.” He clasps Law’s shoulder in a way that was probably supposed to be placating, but actually just hurts a little bit. "You should stay here though!” he says, and then jogs out of the dining hall. Not even thirty seconds later, Law hears a yell echo through the ship; “Traffy’s it!”
He is going to cut off all of their hands and throw them into the sea.
⭘⭘⭘
Law is hiding in a crawl space under the floorboards, huddled uncomfortably close to Usopp as they plan their next move.
“I love the little man, but Chopper’s always ‘it’ the longest. I say we’ve got at least twenty minutes before he remembers he has enhanced hearing and turns into a real threat. Maybe less, if he learned from last time,” Usopp says. He’s whispering behind his hand like there’s anything around them but complete darkness.
“What happened last time?”
“Ah, you weren’t there. Zoro went completely missing and didn’t show up for lunch break. We figured he fell asleep somewhere, but the game was back on when we started to search for him, so we couldn’t use observation haki and Robin’s devil fruit was turning up empty. Chopper was too panicked to remember he’s a reindeer.” Yeah, that checks out. “Turns out Zoro just fell asleep inside the furnace, all curled up like some sort of suicidal cat. We’re not really sure how he managed to crawl in there, or how he wasn’t prematurely cremated when Franky was working that morning. Talk about an embarrassing way to go out.”
“Also incredibly painful,” Law adds.
Usopp hums in agreement. “We tried to ban him from the weapon’s development room so it wouldn’t happen again, but he kept wandering in anyway. That's why I put a string in the doorway.” He looks entirely too proud of such a childish solution.
“And that works?” Compared to Usopp, Law can’t say he’s familiarized with the weapons development room, but he’s pretty sure they could have put a lock on the handle. Unless Zoro frequently enters rooms by breaking doors down; which, given his irrational strength and equally irrational mentality, is entirely possible. “He doesn’t get down there anymore?”
“Well, he does, but he trips on the string and tumbles down the steps first. At least one person is alerted by the sound of him falling on his ass every time, and they lug him back before he can nap his way into a fiery casket.”
It's so ridiculous, Law can’t help but snort. “The infamous pirate hunter, defeated by a ball of yarn. Like an oversized cat.”
Usopp giggles. He tries to hide his laughter behind his hand, but the sound still echoes lightly in the confined area. “Guess what. We used to have him catch the mice that got onto the ship back in the East Blue, when it was just the five of us on the Going Merry, and Nami would say that he was our house cat.” He freezes, his eyes so wide they gleam in the darkness. “Wait. He’s a big, scary cat with three swords. So don’t tell him I said that. He’ll kill me.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’m being serious!” Usopp whisper-yells, reflexively jumping up from where he’s crouched on the floor and hitting his head on the planks above them. “Ouch. He’ll slaughter me! Traffy—dammit, that hurt really bad—not one word of this conversation leaves this super secret base, or I swear, I’ll-”
“Super secret base?” Light floods the crawl space and sends a sharp pain through Law’s eyes, blinding him. When his vision adjusts, he sees Chopper peeking through a lifted floorboard. “Usopp, why didn’t you tell me we had a secret base?”
Usopp screeches. Law takes advantage of the distraction to punch out the loose floorboards, and sprints across the deck as Usopp pleads Chopper for mercy behind him. He leaps over the railing from the upper deck to the lawn, dropping into a roll to shift his momentum, and quickly dives behind the slide.
Over the adrenaline-induced heartbeat pounding in his ears, Law hears a dramatic wail come from the upper deck. Immediately after, Chopper sounds positively delighted as he exclaims, “Usopp's it!”
⭘⭘⭘
“You’re taking this surprisingly seriously.”
Zoro grunts. “And you’re not?”
They’re hidden in the weapons development room, wedged into the corner between the base of the steps and the wall. The sliver of space they’ve squeezed into is so small that Law’s ribs scrape with each inhale and his neck is turned awkwardly to the side. He keeps locking his knees on accident, and he isn’t sure if the recurrent vertigo is from the lack of circulation or his shallow breathing. If the space is this uncomfortable for Law’s scrawny ass, he has no idea how Zoro is still alive.
There’s no way they're getting out of here without his devil fruit power. That was the agreement, of course, but he feels no less ridiculous having willingly crawled into a death trap.
“...Whatever.”
At the moment, Luffy is running frantic circles around the Thousand Sunny, evident by the rapid crescendo of his sandals pounding into the deck each time he grows near, and the subsequent decrescendo as he flip-flops right past them—over and over and over.
Bless his freakishly strong heart; the idiot is never going to find them.
“It's good training,” Zoro finally supplies. There’s an obvious reluctance to share woven into his tone, but he seems sure enough of his words in a way that tells Law he’s not joking. “Awareness, coordination. Haki’s important, but it's really an enhancement. I got lucky that by the time Hawky slashed my eye out, I had the basics of observation down; it was like learning to move my arms all over again. You know how hard it is to suddenly have your perspective shifted when you’ve got one of your swords in your fucking mouth? It’s not like I could see much of it to begin with, but still. If anyone should know what I’m talking about, it's you, I guess.”
The way Zoro seems to scan over everything a little more intently than everyone else, as though he’s taking everything in with one eye to tell the other. The way his reach gets a little too uncoordinated when drunk, for someone so athletically disciplined. They’re slight and well-hidden—more quirks, than anything else—but easy to recognize if you know what to look for.
“Chopper’s a doctor too. I’m sure he could help you, if you asked.” Law is well aware of the Straw-Hats strange aversion to the infirmary—odd, considering that their doctor is a talking reindeer in a fluffy hat, but alas.
“Yeah, Chopper was on my case as soon as I stepped on the Sunny. And I was talking more about the whole amputation-and-mutilation thing you got going on, but yeah. Being a doctor works too.”
Law can’t help but laugh. It catches him a little off guard, spilling from his lungs before he can stop himself. When did he get so comfortable he could laugh, just like that? When was the last time he laughed? Is it okay, for him to be this comfortable? His crew is dead, and it's his fault, and he’s-
Zoro snorts. He starts talking right over Law’s thoughts, as though they’re not even there. And they aren’t, Law realizes. His thoughts shouldn’t be so loud. There are no ghosts in the room, no voices whispering in his ears. Not right now.
If Zoro’s as startled as Law, he doesn’t show it; instead, he barrels over it the same way Luffy would—unapologetically. “I was knocking shit over in the kitchen for weeks, and they were so bitchy about it,” he grumbles. “One time, I knocked Perona’s wine off the counter and it spilled all over her. The whole thing. We fought about it, and I threw a fork at her, and I fucking missed. I’ve never been so humiliated.”
Law laughs again, and it feels less like a crime. He tries not to think about what that means. “Sounds like silverware is a common weapon of choice in your household.”
“Now that you mention it, yeah. What the fuck is that about?”
“Mihawk’s influence.”
“Runs in the family. Perona launches her stupid dinner knife over and over again, but she has both eyes and she still has shit aim. You’d think she would start using hand towels, or somethin’.”
“Its a generational curse, I think. It catches you when your midlife crisis has you weak and vulnerable, and then one day you wake with a dinner knife strung around your neck that you can’t take off because it's part of your brand.”
“God. If that ever happens, just cut my fucking head off. I’d rather die.”
“How would your captain feel about that?”
“He’d understand.”
⭘⭘⭘
Robin is the only Straw-Hat Law is willing to play chess against.
At the moment, Chopper is seated in his lap, his little arms holding a medical textbook on the table that Law has to reach over to move his pieces. They played once before, but seeing the reindeers’ overly expressive eyes as they’d shift from focused determination to abject disappointment at each check gutted Law so badly, he had to feign seasickness and forfeit the match. He knows he could not handle the guilt a second time.
The others aren’t particularly interested in the game. On the way to Dressrosa—which seems like forever ago, now—he’d played one singular match with Sanji, and lost miserably. His focus was elsewhere, given the circumstances, and Sanji clearly trusted him as well as they got along—one sharp kick from not at all. He had found it a bit strange that Luffy was watching so intently from his position draped over Sanji’s shoulders, but again; death was waiting for him just over the skyline, perched on a stolen throne and twisting souls around his fingers, and he could hardly entertain much else. He hadn’t realized until the very end that the fucker had been feeding pieces to Luffy while Law was turned away. Of course, the Straw-Hats found this absolutely hilarious, and Law had restrained himself from dismemberment for the sake of his plan. The usual, at the time, though they have not played each other since.
There’s a crash followed by loud, unrepentant laughter, and suddenly a pile of limbs comes tumbling down the slide. Nami has been chasing Luffy around for at least two hours now, determined to tag him and no one else; it seems she finally managed to do so.
They’re wrestling on the deck like siblings. One of Nami’s hands is tugging at Luffy’s hair, and his leg is wrapped around her bicep like a snake. She’s beating him with one of his sandals, while the other is missing—clearly forgotten somewhere about the ship. Her tank top is twisted around and slipping off her shoulder. Given the difference in strength, they’re remarkably evenly matched—each time one manages to slip away, the other tackles them right back to the ground. They’re both laughing so hard that tears are smeared around their eyes.
“Amusing, isn’t it?” Robin says. “I’m surprised they’ve gone this long without scrapping, recently.”
Law looks back over to where they’re rolling across the lawn. Neither are holding back—at the moment, Nami has Luffy in a chokehold, and he’s stretching his legs around to kick her back. They both look like they’re having the time of their lives.
Law stares. “So this is typical for them? Luffy I’d expect, but…” He’s honestly shocked that Sanji hasn’t intervened to defend Nami’s femininity yet.
“Precisely. Luffy is her only opponent, whether he realizes it or not. I believe Zoro was once dragged in against his will, but that was an exception.”
Chopper nods sagely, but doesn’t look up from his medical book. “They knew each other first.”
Nami’s laughter rings across the deck—loud, unrestrained, and weaved into the resounding joy of her crewmates—and Law thinks of a performance floor so quiet you could hear his shoulders stiffen beneath his coat.
He thinks of a king, a beast in more than name, declaring Straw-Hat’s defeat to thousands of desperate warriors. Of how the only voice that dared to speak through the silence and into the face of soul-crushing strength was not a samurai, fighting for the restoration of their country, but a young woman from a foreign land. How she had stared into the eyes of a beast as he taunted her, and with shaking hands and a quivering lip, said he’s lying.
He thinks of how, in the end, she had been right.
There’s a call of ‘time’s up!’ from the kitchen, and Nami throws her arms wide as she flops back onto the grass. “I win!”
Luffy looks positively scandalized; “Hey, no fair! You knew the game was ending!” and Nami merely smiles wider.
Her eyes shine in the afternoon light, ringed with molten gold and forged with undeniable fondness as she looks up at her captain. “Lunch?” she says, and they’re running toward the galley, and all is forgiven.