Chapter Text
Not even wooden shutters with rags stuffed in the slats to keep the draft out, charmingly framed by yellowed lace curtains, keep the noise out.
Curiosity piques with the patter of running footsteps past the musty old house, but you keep your eyes on your, hopefully, customer. The old lady picked up and put down every dish you’d brought over the course of the last half-hour. With a courtesy cup of tea you’d poured yourself at her command long gone, with only the chipped old cup left in your hand with the dregs of tea leaves, the blasting horn of a ship shakes the house on its timbers.
The old lady doesn’t hear. She hears very little.
“This does remind me of my wedding crockery,” she says, picking up a painted blue teacup again, holding it to a lamp. That’s all the light she allows in her house. The windows are stuck shut to prevent her from catching a cold. Yes, even in late summer, when you’re on the verge of heatstroke if you don’t feel a cool breeze soon.
“And this one—” a pink, flowery design “—is so like my late mother’s . . .”
The horn blasts again. A shiver goes up your spine, curiosity gone fevered. It sounds like his horn, doesn’t it? Could he have arrived? Could he be there? Used to hearing the horn from your cottage in the hills, hearing it from town right by the harbor makes it a deeper bray, nearer and more thrumming. There’s no way to know for sure if it’s him . . . besides going to the harbor to see.
“But I just don’t know which to buy,” the little lady frets. Her hands shake, the cup thankfully soon nestled again amongst the straw in the crate.
“Take your time,” you’d told her upon arriving, but that had been hours ago, and Law could be there. There would be no repeat of the reassurance.
Through the blocked window, people pass. Your ear tilts toward their conversation, hoping for a clue that it might be him, it could be him.
“—crane from the mill—”
“— mumblemumble new rope—”
What could that mean? What could that mean?
Scooting to the edge of the overdressed chair, you set the teacup on its saucer on the table holding your crate. Of all the days to be asked to bring samples to the house-ridden! She’s a dear old lady, truly, but her tug on your heart is nothing like Law’s. Even the thought of Law holds a firmer sway than anything else. That it could be him. It could, it could.
“Oh! I forgot that I made sandwiches for you.” The old lady primly brushes her skirt, gray curls bobbing around her face. “Would you fetch them from the kitchen? That’s a sweet girl, you are . . .”
It isn’t until the afternoon is nearly gone, with the crate under one arm where a receipt is tucked for the old lady’s long-awaited order, and a sandwich quarter in your mouth and two more in your hand, that you’re released from the stuffy prison. It could be days until the scent of patchouli leaves your nostrils, but that’s quickly forgotten as you dash down the dirt road toward the harbor.
No ships. Not a single one. Not even a dingy or a buoy, bobbing in the waves that drift into the natural harbor from the sea. Skitting to a stop, you swallow a bite of sandwich thickly, misery pricking your eyelids. Well, it isn’t the first time you’ve been disappointed, but it won’t be the last . . .
The bay is flanked on both sides by hills, reaching into the soft blue sky devoid of clouds. The summer greens the slopes like a painter’s brush, only the briefest tint of gold in the very tops of the highest trees hinting at change. It’s always been lovely, but then and there, it hurts like a weight in your belly. The horn could have been any passing ship . . . it could have resupplied and moved on twice over in the time you’d been delayed making a sale. If it had been Law, he would have stayed longer. So it hadn’t been him at all. Only a wish and a dream and now, it’ll be a lonely night on the bluffs with supper for one.
Well, it’s nothing new.
Turning from the barren harbor, you sigh, taking another bite of sandwich. It tastes of ash. And then your feet stop moving, stuck in place at the scene unfolding in front of your eyes.
The lemon-yellow globe of the Polar Tang: not in the harbor at all, but lifted by a crane and secured on the earth with wooden stakes and numerous cords of rope. The reason it was hoisted from the sea is immediately obvious. The outer shell bears a deep scrape, the long shape reminiscent of a cat’s claw defending itself. White-suited crewmen dot around the ship; some around the scrape and some using brooms to clean algae from the belly of the Polar Tang. But among them, you don’t see Law. Was he—could he have been hurt? Or killed? Was the scrape deep enough to have flooded the ship with seawater? Or had the gushing pressure pulled him out?
Sand drags at your feet, slowing your path to the Polar Tang until firm dirt and flattened grass replace it. Crockery clatters in your crate, which you set down beneath a tree for safekeeping, stuffing the last bit of sandwich into your mouth.
“Shachi!”
Shachi, mid-scrubbing a patch of darkened algae, stops, head turning until he sees you. He smiles, waving. “Did you hear the horn? Captain said you’d come and help clean up the ship.”
“Oh, did he?” Irritation—a fluttery, aching version of it—makes saying something clever or useful difficult. So he wasn’t hurt, or drowned. Relief overtakes the irritation. “Where’s Penguin?”
“Getting kerosene for Ikkaku to start welding this shut.” Shachi jerks a thumb at the giant scrape.
“What happened?”
“Sea monster.” He says it in a grim voice. “We were lucky to escape. Thought we were goners.”
“You must have been close to this island,” you say. “You couldn’t have gotten far in that condition.”
“Nope. We were headed here anyway. Captain had something he . . .” Shachi’s face goes visibly blank beneath his hat, as if thinking very hard, and apparently comes up short.
“He what?” you prompt.
“I’m not sure.”
With that helpful tidbit of information, you grimace. Shachi whistles too loudly and too obviously as he dips his broom again into a bucket of suds to resume scrubbing the algae.
“Where is the Captain, Shachi?” you ask in a drone.
“No idea.”
“Did he go into town?”
“Could’ve.”
“Is he on the ship?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Did you see him walking away?” Frustration makes your question shorter than intended. Shachi is likeable, as is everyone on the crew, but the vagueness of his answers while he was obviously hiding something tickles your temper.
“No,” Shachi says, and you can’t tell if it’s a lie or not.
You make it three stomps away, ready to start screaming for Law if he doesn’t magically appear, before Bepo appears, black eyes shining from his tufts of white fur.
“Help us!” he pleads, clasping his paws together in front of him. “Pretty please, oh, please!”
“How much will you pay me?”
“Anything, anything!”
Of course, Bepo wouldn’t pay anything. Pay was decided by a ship’s captain. And this Captain was nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be bargained with. Besides, flirting about payment was reserved for Law and Law alone. A burst of laughter broke out between crew members (one of which soaked the other and then got a bash on the head from a broom in return.) With a sigh, you unbutton your jacket.
“It looks like fun,” you tell Bepo. And sooner or later, Law will come back, and I want to see him.
Without the skill to repair the tear in the ship’s hull, you’re regulated to a broom and soapy bucket. Boots stick out from beneath the ship, where it’s lifted by the wooden supports. Algae must be growing there, too. But you find a place far from Shachi to start scrubbing, wondering what exactly is directly inside the ship from where you are . . .
Autumn might kiss the hilltops but the sun still beats the valley. Heat radiates from the metal ship, worsening the sweat that comes from hard work. The algae is stubborn, too, or the soap is weak. Other crew members work nearby, uniforms stripped to the waist in the heat; easy to talk to and easy to laugh with. Very few ask questions about you, and on the occasion that your eyes move from the ship to your companions, odd glints or curious tilts are visible in their visages.
They know who I am. Or, they suspect something.
But why be embarrassed? It’s Law that should be embarrassed.
With each portion of the Polar Tang back to shining yellow, you pick up your bucket and move to the next section. And the next. And the next. The blue of the sky darkens, the sun finally dipping beneath the hills to give some relief to your baked skin.
“Has anyone got a ladder? A ladder?” But all the ladders are in use. You puff out tired breath, staring at the patch of algae higher up on the hull. The broom won’t reach it.
He owes me for this. Big time.
It’s different from Law helping with Fire Night. You aren’t sure how, yet, but it must be.
“No ladder,” Bepo says regretfully, arms full of metal sheets meant for the welders. “But I can lift you up.”
“May as well,” you say, preparing in your mind a speech to ask for gold bars or chests of jewels or something else a merchant captain wouldn’t be able to afford, just so he can think he wins when you settle for something simple.
Bepo is a soft seat, mounds of warm fur around your legs where you sit on his shoulder. He holds your ankles in place, yawning loudly as you scrub, scrub, scrub the blasted algae.
For no other reason, I will never own a ship.
“It had giant yellow eyes,” Bepo says, a contented storyteller while he has the excuse of ‘helping’ in the basest sense of the word. “And I counted the fins on its belly—not two, or four, or six. Eight! Eight fins!”
“Did it bite the ship, then? Is that what happened?
“Oh, no, it had terrible long arms and legs with claws longer than spears. Sharp, too. Fastest bugger I’ve ever seen. Couldn’t outrun it. Captain set a tricky little trap for it, but it barely worked, and if it hadn’t, we’d be halfway through the monster’s intestines by now.”
Bepo describes the trap; a sizable room that the monster had unwittingly swam into and consequently had its head severed from its body with its jaws wide open to bite the Polar Tang in half. It’s a gruesome scene, playing around in my mind, but with each close call fervently described, your stomach turns from what could have happened.
“—only a few injuries, too,” Bepo says. He categorizes each one, the injured crew members taken to the doctor in town as soon as they’d docked.
“Couldn’t your captain have healed them?” you ask.
“Usually, but this time he was injured, too.”
Injured?
Injured?
Shachi had said nothing of injuries! Suddenly Law’s absence makes sense. Suddenly, your annoyance that he hasn’t made an appearance and you’ve been cleaning his ridiculous lemon of a ship isn’t so important. Without realizing, your scrubbing ceases, and it isn’t until Bepo glances up that you startle into the present.
“Uh, are you done?”
“Let her take a break already, Bepo.” A voice drawls from some distance, away, your heart skipping a beat. Bepo turns, taking your wobbly balance with him. Beneath the shady leaves of a tree, Law is stretched out. His hat lays on the grass next to him, fingers laced behind his head. Floppy, black hair hangs in front of his forehead and around his ears. Bandages stick out from his tank top. But he mustn’t be in mortal danger, if he’s snoozing beneath a tree.
“How long have you been there?” you squawk. Bepo lowers you to the ground, rubbing the back of his furry neck once you’re firmly on your feet.
“Long enough,” Law says.
“And you didn’t say anything?” The broom clenches in your fist. Much like a weapon, if you knew how to wield one. But you could wield a broom, and that might be threatening enough. Stalking toward the tree, you scarcely notice the hive of crew around the ship going on with the chores.
His eyes are slits, through which the gleam of his black eyes follows your approach. Something akin to a smile lifts one side of his mouth.
“I was taking a nap,” he says. “Doctor’s orders.”
“You are the doctor!”
“Well, I’d better take my advice, hadn’t I?” Law yawns, covering his mouth with one tattooed hand. He winces when he lowers it. But his injuries are driven from your mind when you see what he’s laying on.
“My pillow!” The shriek in your voice would embarrass you, another time, but fear and annoyance make those sorts of things seem unimportant. “Where did you get that?”
“From your bed, of course.” Law settles back into your pillow, against the tree. “An injured man like me can’t be expected to find bark comfortable, now can he?” He eyes the broom in your hand.
“But my—but my—” Your voice trembles. “Where’s my crate of crockery?” This is the same tree you’d left it beneath. It was nowhere in sight.
“At your cottage.”
“But—”
Now Law smiles, really smiles, but it isn’t the sweet smile that he gives you in private. It’s a wrenching, coy thing. “I thought you’d thank me for lugging that pottery up to your cottage for you.”
You snort. “You haven’t lugged a day in your life.”
“Well, I saved you from lugging it, then.” Law pauses. “I have a gift for you.”
“You owe me two,” you tell him. “I’ve been working for hours scrubbing your dumb ship.”
“Oh, I’ll pay you back for that.” The low tone of his voice skitters across your skin. “But I need you to be patient with me. You can be patient, can’t you? I’m a bit laid-up at the moment.”
“Your attitude seems to be in fine shape,” you say, dropping the broom.
“And yours is unusually snappish. Didn’t you like Bepo’s company?”
“I like Bepo just fine. But I didn’t come looking for him.”
“Oh?” That insinuation is in his voice again. “Well, I’m looking for something myself, too. Doctor’s orders, and all that.”
“Something? Not someone?”
He means to tease, and unfortunately, he succeeds. The smirk makes his features arrogant. “Doctor says I need a real bed to rest in.”
“There’s a hotel in town.” You bend over, reaching for your pillow—it’ll be covered in dirt now, the wretch—but Law pushes all his weight into it, and you try unsuccessfully to pull it free. His smirk is gone, eyes drifting to the neckline of your tank top.
Hmm.
Grabbing the pillowcase with both hands, you pull again, lighter this time to mimic real effort. The action pushes your breasts closer together, bulging over the neckline. Success: Law’s throat bobs, eyes gone half-focused. Some of his weight loosens from the pillow. The tip of his tongue wets his lips. Bingo.
One final yank frees the pillow. Law’s eyes widen when his back hits the trunk of the tree. Smiling, one hand on your waist and the other tossing the pillow over your shoulder, you laugh.
“You’re easier to best than you think,” you tease.
“I let you best me,” Law counters. He’s smiling, too, with a tinge of that secret sweetness.
“If you’re going to crash in my bed, which I assume you mean to, you’ve dirtied your own pillow,” you tell him. “I get the clean one.”
“I can live with that.”
You hold out a hand. Law stares, then reaches for it. With a heavy grunt he gets to his feet, swaying slightly as he clutches his middle.
“Was it the sea monster?” you ask in a low voice. You want to reach out and touch the bandages; to see what damage is beneath, but he grips your hand too tightly.
“No.” Irritation snaps his dark brows together. Then, grudgingly, he says, “A shelf fell on me while I was dealing with the sea monster.”
His obvious mortification turns your amusement into hilarity. Laughing, you wrap his arm around your middle (for support, no other reason.) He leans against you, lips tight in a sign of long-suffering.
“I won’t tell anyone,” you vow.
“Yeah, but you’re gonna laugh about it every day for a week.”
“I like to laugh. Thank you for giving me a reason.”
Law is here. The bubbling joy of it makes laughter easy. Matching steps so that Law isn’t jostled too much is a tricky dance, but by the time the main road through town comes into sight, the pair of you are making better time.
“Where will your crew stay?” you ask. “Or can they still bunk on the ship?”
“They can bunk on the ship,” he says. “Or beneath the stars—the weather is fair enough.”
“And the other injured?”
“At the hospital in town.”
“You didn’t want to stay at the hospital?”
“I don’t like watching other doctors work.” Law tries to shrug, but mostly he bumps you. “Telling them what they’re doing wrong makes them angry and angry doctors don’t take care.”
He pants in your ear, walking clearly an effort. His face is pale, paler as night spreads across the sky.
“Kinda glad that monster got us,” he grunts. The road grows rockier out of town, the path winding up the hills. “I was expecting to have to leave in the morning, but since the ship’s got to have her maintenance until she’ll sail smooth again, we’re stuck here a while.”
“Oh, no,” you say sympathetically. “I am so sorry. What a disappointment for your plans to fall apart like that . . .”
Law growls. You laugh.
“What’s my gift?” you ask.
“At your house.” A few more heavy steps up the hill. “I thought you’d be home. That’s why I went straight there. I wasn’t avoiding you.” The lack of harshness in his voice makes it more real—his sincerity. He’s trying to explain himself. Why you had to wait so long to see him. Why he wasn’t there when you were. Away from town, away from his crew—all that honesty comes easier out of him.
And that heals a lot of wounds.
“You don’t have to bring me presents, you know,” you tell him. “I only tease you about it because—because I only want to know that you think about me when you’re not here.”
“Of course I think about you.” Law says it like it’s obvious. He sees it differently. He’s not the one that stays in one place, reliant on the other to come back, time and time again. He doesn’t know the fear of not knowing if there will be an again.
But sweet words and tender assurances don’t flower. It’s not his way. But when his body presses against yours and his breath tickles your ear and his fingertips press into your waist—words aren’t needed. Not really. But words remain longer than touches, and he only visits a few times a year . . .
The cottage is dark. You hadn’t lit a fire before going into town early that morning, expecting to return long ago. Law sinks onto the edge of the bed with a soft groan. Starlight comes through the open window, making the angles of his face harsh. His eyes are closed.
“I have tea for pain,” you say. Sure that he won’t topple over, you go to the fireplace first, to strike a flint against tinder. Golden light fills the cottage, driving out the night.
“I’m fine.”
Rather than argue, you prepare the tea: carrying the kettle outside to fill at the water pump, then hang on the iron crane bracketed into the brick around the fireplace. Dinner will be needed, too. Law stretches out on your bed, punching the dirty pillow into place beneath his head before slinging an arm over his eyes.
“If you were in that much pain, you could have transported us here with that silly power of yours,” you tell him, crumbling willow bark into a mortar to grind into tea.
“Wasn’t in pain then. Walk did me in.”
“What kind of shelf was this, anyway?”
“Heavy one.”
“When I imagine you in my bed, I don’t daydream nursing you back to health.”
“Lucky you.” His head tilts, favoring you with a smile across the cottage. Weak as he was, his smile is as potent as ever, and you nearly grind your thumb into the tea leaves. “But don’t worry. I’ve already thought about how we can get around this.”
“Oh?”
“You can sit on my face.”
“Oh, I see,” you say. Steam rises from the kettle, flames licking the bottom of it. “You’re expecting me to do all the work because—am I getting this right?—a little shelf just grazed your ribs.”
Law’s laugh is hoarse. You dump the tea into a mug.
“I miss you when you’re not around,” he says.
Silence.
“You don’t have to leave every time,” you say.
More silence.
With a rag wrapped around your hand, you lift the kettle to pour a stream of water into the mug. Woodsy willow-scent fills your nose. Law doesn’t reply, not even when you carry the mug to the bed. His eyes are hooded, but they meet yours fearlessly. Stubborn man, but not so stubborn he refuses you. He sits up, face contorting in discomfort.
“Let it cool for a little while,” you say, and that’s that.
He’s out cold before the soup is done. Pity makes your stomach a heavy stone, watching firelight flicker on his pale face. One arm is draped over his middle, blankets pulled to his waist. His neck is kinked. What has he gone through, since the sea monster attack? Could this be his first prospect of uninterrupted sleep?
Yes, that’s most likely. A ship damaged as the shredded Polar Tang would need the captain to get it safely into harbor, not to mention his injured crew. Poor thing.
He doesn’t move, while you prepare dinner and eat. He doesn’t move when you close the shutters and curtains and bank the fire. And he doesn’t move when you crawl into bed beside him, taking advantage of his silence to lay close to him. Not so close to bother any part of his body that might be hurting, but close enough to feel his warmth and presence, soothing the ache in your bones; the yearning for him .