Chapter Text
A few months later.
Long enough that the nightmare wasn't the first thing Sanji thought about every morning, but not long enough that it was gone.
The Polar Tang cut silently through deep water, engines humming beneath the floor. Most of the crew was asleep. The submarine's internal clock insisted it was sometime after midnight, though down here that meant very little.
Sanji couldn't sleep.
Which was annoying, because he was tired. Very tired.
But every time he closed his eyes, his brain decided now would be an excellent opportunity to remember every embarrassing thing he had ever done in his entire life.
Including burning rice. Twice.
Including that time he'd fallen face-first into a crate of potatoes. And definitely including the time Law had caught him trying to practice cooking tricks with a burning pan and nearly set his own sleeve on fire.
Tragic.
Humiliating.
Unforgivable.
Sanji groaned into his pillow. The pillow remained unsympathetic.
After another fifteen minutes of suffering, he finally kicked his blanket off and slid out of his bunk. The corridor outside was dim and quiet. Nobody awake. Nobody asking questions on why he couldn't sleep.
Nobody-
The mess hall light was on.
Sanji stopped.
"...Of course."
Because apparently he wasn't the only insomniac on this submarine.
He padded down the corridor and nudged the door open. Law was sitting on the sofa. Reading. Naturally. The surgeon glanced up briefly, neither of them really looked surprised.
"You too?" Sanji asked.
"You too?" Law replied.
"Fair."
Sanji wandered further into the room. The table was covered in maps, navigation charts, notes, several books and a half-finished mug of coffee that looked old enough to qualify as an archaeological artifact.
Sanji pointed at it.
"That'll kill you."
Law looked at the mug.
Then at Sanji.
Then back at the mug.
"I think it's already dead."
Sanji snorted and flopped onto the opposite end of the sofa. Silence settled comfortably between them. Not awkward , just deeply familiar. The kind that happened when you'd lived in a metal tube together for years. Eventually Sanji's gaze drifted toward the book in Law's hands.
"...Comic?"
Law immediately closed it.
Too late.
Sanji could only grinn.
"Aha."
"Don't."
"You're reading Stealth Black again."
"Don't."
"Captain's got a favorite."
Law looked seconds away from committing murder. Which only made it funnier. Sanji stretched out further across the sofa.
"Should I tell the others?"
"Should I tell them about the poetry?"
Sanji froze."...The what?"
Law's expression turned smug. A dangerous development for Sanjis social integrity in this crew.
"The notebook."
Sanji sat bolt upright. "There is no notebook."
"There is."
"There isn't."
"There is."
"You're bluffing."Law calmly opened a drawer in the table beside him.
Sanji immediately lunged. While Law yanked the drawer shut in response. Sanji nearly face-planted into the sofa.
"YOU ACTUALLY FOUND IT?"
"Maybe."
"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO READ IT."
"I didn't."
Sanji narrowed his eyes.
"...You're lying."
"Probably."
Sanji grabbed a cushion and threw it directly at Law's head. Law caught it without looking.It was infuriating. And the grin threatened at the corner of the surgeon's mouth didn't help that either. So Sanji stared. Then he pointed dramatically.
"There."
Law blinked.
"There what?"
"That."
"What?"
"That thing."Law looked genuinely confused.
Sanji pointed harder.
"The smiling."
"I'm not smiling."
"You were."
"I wasn't."
"You absolutely were."
Law shut the comic. "Go to sleep."
Sanji gasped. "You admit it!"
"I admit nothing."
"Captain smiled."
"I hate you."
"There it is."
For a second, just a second, Law actually laughed. Short and quiet. Barely more than an exhale. But it was a real laugh. Sanji blinked. Because somehow that felt rarer than a Sea King in a bathtub.
Law seemed to realize what he'd done immediately and his expression flattened.
But it was too late.
Sanji was already grinning from ear to ear.
"Oh, I'm never letting that go."Law sighed heavily.
The sigh of a man who had made a terrible mistake. The sigh of a captain realizing he had raised this problem himself.
The submarine groaned around them, a deep metallic sigh as currents pushed against the hull. Sanji stretched his legs across the sofa, toes brushing Law’s thigh just to be obnoxious. Law didn’t react, which was disappointing, so Sanji nudged harder.
"Stop." Law flipped a page without looking up.
Sanji's toes dug into Law's thigh again, more insistent this time, just as the submarine lurched sharply to port. The sudden tilt sent Law's coffee mug sliding across the table and both of them froze.
Law snatched the mug mid-slide, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim but not spilling, because of course his reflexes were stupidly precise even at 3 AM. Sanji would’ve been impressed if he wasn’t so busy clinging to the sofa arm to avoid faceplanting into Law’s lap. The submarine groaned again, leveling out with a series of creaks that sounded suspiciously like Penguin "adjusting" the ballast tanks drunk. Again.
Silence.
The coffee mug hovered in Law’s grip, suspended between disaster and dignity. Sanji’s fingers were still tangled in the sofa fabric, his knee digging into Law’s ribs at an angle that would’ve been painful if either of them acknowledged it.
Neither did.
The coffee mug descended back to the table with exaggerated care, Law’s fingers lingering a fraction too long before letting go. Sanji untangled himself from the sofa arm with marginally less grace, elbow accidentally jabbing Law’s ribs in the process.
"Sorry," Sanji muttered, not sorry at all.
The submarine groaned again, another phantom adjustment and Sanji used the moment to shift upright, hands curling against his knees.
The quiet stretched between them, coffee-stale and thick with something neither had named yet. Law turned another page in his comic. Sanji exhaled sharply through his nose.
"...Teach me."
Law didn't look up. "No."
Sanji's fingers twitched. "I wasn't asking."
The comic lowered just enough to reveal Law's raised eyebrow.
"You're underweight. Malnourished. Your muscle recovery is-"
"I know." Sanji's voice cracked.
He swallowed. Tried again. "I know what I am."
The submarine groaned around them, pipes clicking as pressure shifted.
Sanji watched Law's fingers tighten imperceptibly on the comic's spine, that same barely-there tell from the med bay.
"...Teach me," Sanji repeated, quieter now. "Properly. Not just kitchen scraps."
Law exhaled through his nose, deliberate. "Why now?"
The overhead light flickered. Sanji's shadow stretched gaunt across the floor, still too thin, too sharp. He hated how easily the answer came.
"Because I couldn't do anything.... not really"
The admission tasted like rust. Like seawater. Like hunger gnawing through his ribs for eighty-five days, still counting every crumb wasted.
Law closed the comic with a soft snap. "You're not recovered."
Sanji's fingers dug into his own knees. "I'm not useless either."
A pause.
The submarine groaned around them ,metal protesting pressure.
Law's gaze flicked to Sanji's wrists, still too prominent beneath thin skin. "You nearly died."
"And now I'm not." Sanji lifted his chin. "Teach me how to stay that way."
The overhead light buzzed. Shadows pooled in the hollows beneath Sanji's collarbones. Law's fingers twitched toward his own forearm where the ghost of Sanji's fever still lingered in memory.
"...You can't even hold your meals down."
Sanji flinched, just once, before forcing his shoulders straight. "I kept today's dinner down."
"A small bowl."
Still counts."
Law exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate, the way he did when measuring toxins in a syringe. Sanji watched Law's fingers flex against his crossed arms, knuckles whitening briefly before relaxing again.
"I'm not teaching you how to get gutted," Law said finally.
Sanji's jaw tightened. "That's not what I'm asking."
"It's what'll happen." Law's gaze flicked to Sanji's collarbones, still too sharp beneath his shirt. "You can't even- "
"I know what I can't do," Sanji snapped. Then quieter, arms curling around himself: "That's the point."
Law watched Sanji's frame tremble slightly before stilling, the same way he had when he'd first gripped broth bowls too tight to spill.
Law watched him for a long moment. Sanji hated that look.
That stupid surgeon look.
The one where Law wasn't seeing what was in front of him.
He was seeing blood tests.
Recovery charts.
Body weight.
Muscle loss.
It reminded him of past days. Cold stares, rough hands, the blinding light in the exhamination room.
Sanji clenched his jaw.
"I'm not asking to fight Sea Kings."
Law raised an eyebrow.
"That's reassuring."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Silence.
The comic sat abandoned beside Law's leg. For once, neither of them reached for it. Sanji could only stare at the floor. At the scuffed metal beneath his boots and te faint scratches from years of use.
"I hated it."
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Law went still.
Sanji laughed once.
Humorless.
"I hated not being able to do anything."
The overhead light buzzed softly.
"I hated waiting."
His fingers curled tighter.
"Hated hoping."
The words came faster now. Because once they started, they didn't seem interested in stopping.
"I kept thinking you'd show up."
The admission felt embarrassing. Childish and pathetic. But it was true.
"I kept thinking the Polar Tang would come around the corner."
Law didn't interrupt. Didn't tell him to stop. Didn't look away.
So Sanji kept talking.
"I kept thinking maybe tomorrow."
His voice dropped lower.
"Then maybe next week."
The submarine groaned.
Sanji swallowed. "And then I couldn't remember how long it'd been."
Law's gaze softened. Almost imperceptibly.
But Sanji saw it anyway. Because he'd gotten annoyingly good at reading Law.
The surgeon rubbed a hand over his face.
Slow and tired. Looking older than he had any right to be.
"...We looked."
Sanji blinked.
Law stared at the table. At the coffee. Anywhere but him.
"We never stopped."
Something tightened painfully in Sanji's chest.
Law rarely talked about things that mattered. Especially feelings. Especially his own. Getting words out of him was usually like pulling teeth from a Sea King.
"We searched every island in that sector."
His voice remained calm.
Clinical.
Like facts hurt less that way.
"We followed every lead."
Another pause.
"We thought you were dead twice."
Sanji froze.
Law's fingers tightened around the coffee mug.
Not enough to break it. But close.
"Penguin punched a bounty hunter."
Sanji blinked.
"What?"
"Three of them."
"...Penguin?"
"He lost."
"Obviously."
Law's mouth twitched.
Just slightly.
"Bepo cried."
Sanji's chest hurt. Not in the bad way. Not physically. Just painfully warm.
"Shachi broke two ribs."
"His own?"
"...One of them."
"That sounds right."
The corner of Law's mouth finally moved. Just for a moment and gone immediately after. Somehow that made everything worse. Because now Sanji could hear it. The exhaustion. The fear. The months Law never talked about. The ones he'd hidden behind medical reports and recovery schedules and arguments about soup.
The ones nobody had named.
Sanji looked down.
"...Sorry."
The word came out small.
Law stared at him. Confused. Like he'd just spoken another language.
"For what?"
Sanji gestured vaguely.
Everything. The ship. The searching. The starvation. The worrying. Existing.
Law immediately looked annoyed.
"Don't."
"I'm serious."
"That's the problem."
Sanji opened his mouth.
Law cut him off.
"You got kidnapped."
"Yeah but- "
"You didn't schedule it."
"..."
"You didn't send invitations."
"..."
"You didn't decide to spend three months rotting on a shipwreck."
"...Okay, when you put it like that..."
"It's a stupid thing to apologize for."
Sanji was quiet for a long moment. Then the anger came, sharp and sudden, like a match struck too close to gasoline.
"I hoped you wouldn't come."
The words landed between them like a knife. Law's fingers stilled around the coffee mug. The submarine's engines hummed beneath their feet, distant and steady.
Sanji couldn't stop now.
"When I was there, starving, drowning in that wreck-I kept thinking..."
His fingers dug into his own arms hard enough to bruise. "Don't come. Don't look. Don't risk your crew for some nobody who showed up one day eating your rice and burning your soup."
Law's expression didn't change. Didn't flicker. Just that same infuriating surgeon's mask.
Sanji hated it. Hated him. Hated the way his voice cracked when he hissed, "You should've left me there."
The coffee mug hit the table with a sharp clack. Law's palm slapped against the metal surface beside it, sudden, violent, making Sanji jerk back instinctively.
"Don't."
The word came out jagged. Raw. Not Law's usual dry precision at all.
Sanji blinked.
Law's palm remained pressed flat against the table too hard, too tight, knuckles white under ink. His gaze burned through Sanji like he'd personally offended every medical textbook ever written.
"You don't get to decide that."
Sanji opened his mouth, then shut it. The overhead light buzzed louder, flickering shadows across Law's face like a warning.
Law exhaled sharply through his nose, the same controlled breath he took before removing organs and leaned forward.
"You don't get to decide your worth to this crew."
Sanji flinched. "That's not - "
"You're not a liability." Law's voice dropped dangerously low. "You're not leverage. You're not some- " His fingers flexed against the table. "-some disposable weight we'd cut loose."
The submarine groaned around them, metal protesting the depth. Sanji's reflection wavered in the coffee's dark surface.
"I burned rice," he said weakly.
Law didn't blink. "Twice."
"I fell into potatoes."
"Face first."
"...I am a trouble-maker."
"You are."
Sanji stared at the coffee mug, at the warped reflection wavering in its dark surface and something inside him cracked open like an egg.
"I burned rice," he repeated, voice hollow.
Law didn't blink. "You also fixed Shachi's dislocated shoulder when I was off-ship."
"...I dropped a whole crate of spices."
"You reorganized the infirmary supplies better than I did."
Sanji's fingers curled tighter against his knees. "I'm still not- "
"You're ours." The words landed like a verdict. "That's not negotiable."
The submarine groaned beneath them ,a deep metallic protest, as if the Polar Tang itself disagreed with Sanji's assessment.
Sanji stared at Law's palm still pressed flat against the table, at the way his tattoo stretched tight over whitened knuckles.
"...You didn't sleep either," Sanji muttered.
Law exhaled sharply through his nose, the kind of sigh that meant Sanji had just stated something painfully obvious. "Astute observation."
Sanji's fingers twitched against his knees. "How long?"
The coffee mug turned once in Law's grip, a slow rotation that did nothing to disguise the tremor in his fingers. "Irrelevant."
Sanji watched the tremor in Law's fingers, subtle but unmistakable and something cold settled in his stomach. He'd seen Law perform surgery with those hands, steady enough to stitch arteries in a storm. The realization hit harder than it should have: He's exhausted.
Sanji reached across the table slow, deliberate and pried the coffee mug from Law's grip. Their fingers brushed briefly; Law's skin was colder than expected.
"You're shaking," Sanji said flatly.
Law's fingers flexed—once, twice, b—before curling into a loose fist against the table.
"Perceptive."
Sanji slid the mug away with more force than necessary, its contents sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "You're a shitty liar."
Law's gaze flicked to the porthole, where black water pressed thick against the glass.
Sanji stared at the dark circles under Law's eyes purple-brown like old bruises and something in his chest twisted uncomfortably. He'd seen Law exhausted before, but never like this. Never with tremors in his hands.
For a while neither of them was ready to say anything, to move, to break this.
Eventually Law broke the silence.
"...One condition."
Sanji looked up immediately.
"What?"
"If I teach you."
Law leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled beneath his chin. The submarine's dull lighting carved shadows beneath his cheekbones, making him look gaunt. "You follow my recovery plan. Exactly."
Sanji hesitated just long enough for Law’s eyebrow to twitch upward, before exhaling sharply through his nose. "Fine. But I’m not drinking that sludge you call protein shakes."
The overhead light buzzed like an irritated insect. Sanji watched Law’s fingers tap a slow rhythm against his crossed arms, three beats, pause, repeat. A tell he’d picked up during late-night strategy sessions. It meant the surgeon was calculating. Sanji hated it.
"You listen when I say stop."
Sanji rolled his eyes. "I'm not an idiot."
"You tell me if something hurts."
Sanji scoffed. "Everything hurts."
Law's fingers stopped tapping.
Law's fingers stopped tapping.
The silence stretched between them, not the comfortable kind from earlier, but something thicker, heavier. The submarine groaned beneath them, metal protesting the depth, and Sanji could feel the vibration through the soles of his feet.
The silence stretched between them, thick as the pressure outside the hull. Sanji watched Law's fingers twitch just once ,before curling into fists against his knees.
"Everything?" Law repeated, voice dangerously flat.
Sanji’s throat tightened. He hadn’t meant to say that. Not like this. Not when Law’s hands were still trembling from exhaustion, not when the shadows under his eyes looked like they’d been carved there with a knife. But the words were out now, sharp and ugly between them.
"Not... not like that," Sanji muttered, rubbing at his ribs absently. "Just... the usual. Knees. Ankles. Whatever."
Sanji was just hungry. Still hungry.
Not the gnawing, hollow kind that had eaten him alive for so long, the kind that felt less like appetite and more like dying. This was different. Smaller. Persistent. The kind that lingered in the back of his teeth after meals, whispering that more was possible now.
The hunger haunted him like a phantom limb persistent, gnawing, impossible to ignore.
Even after finishing his carefully measured portions, after forcing down every scrap Penguin and Shachi pretended not to notice him eyeing, the emptiness remained.
Not the same ravenous void that had hollowed him out on that wreck, but something sharper, subtler. A hunger that lived in the spaces between his ribs now, whispering that his body no longer trusted fullness to last.
Law groaned, exhausted, his hand sliding over his face.
"You have to tell me things like that." His voice was rough, the kind of tired that came from months of tension finally snapping.
Sanji rolled his shoulders, feigning nonchalance, but his fingers dug into his knees just a little too hard. "It's not a big deal."
The Polar Tang’s engines hummed beneath them, a steady thrum that usually soothed Sanji’s nerves.
Law’s fingers twitched again, Sanji counted three beats, pause, repeat, before the surgeon finally exhaled, long and slow, like he was deflating.
"You’re a terrible patient," Law muttered.
The Polar Tang's engines hummed low and steady, a vibration that usually settled Sanji’s nerves. Now it just made his teeth ache.
"You’re a terrible patient," Law muttered again, quieter this time, like he was admitting defeat.
The overhead light flickered again, casting jagged shadows across Law’s face , sharpening the exhaustion etched into his features. Sanji watched the surgeon’s fingers tap arrhythmically against his knee, the tremor more pronounced now that neither of them was pretending otherwise.
"...You look like shit," Sanji said finally.
Law didn't dignify that with a response, just leaned back against the sofa with a sigh that sounded like it came from the bottom of the ocean. His fingers twitched once more before going still deliberately, pointedly still, as if he could will the exhaustion out of his bones through sheer stubbornness alone.
The overhead light buzzed again before flickering out entirely. Darkness swallowed them whole for a breathless second before the emergency lamps clicked on, painting the mess hall in dull red.
Law's face looked carved from shadow, exhaustion etched so deep it might as well have been tattooed there.
Law took a breath so slow it barely qualified as breathing at all. Then he nodded. Just once. Sharp. Final.
"...Fine."
Sanji blinked. "What?"
"Fine.'ll teach you."
Sanji's pulse jumped traitorously in his throat. He swallowed it down.
"Just like that?"
"Yes."
"...Why?"
Law rubbed his temple. "Because you won't stop asking."
Sanji bristled. "That's not-"
"And because," Law continued, voice dropping to a murmur that barely carried over the submarine's ambient hum, "you're right."
The admission landed between them like a scalpel dropped on tile, sharp, startling, final. Sanji's fingers twitched against his knees. Law exhaled through his nose, long and slow like he was preparing for surgery.
"We start slow," Law said, ticking points off on ink-dark fingers.
"No weapons until your grip stabilizes. No sparring until you can take a hit without fracturing. And if I say stop-" He pinned Sanji with a glare that had made seasoned pirates faint.
"-we stop."
Sanji opened his mouth. Law's finger jabbed the air between them.
Sanji watched Law’s finger hover in the air between them, still trembling slightly despite the surgeon’s ironclad control and grinned.
Not the sharp, defensive thing he usually wore, but something looser. Wilder. The kind that made Law’s eyebrow twitch in warning.
"Deal," Sanji said, and kicked Law’s shin under the table for good measure.
Law didn’t flinch. Of course he didn’t. The bastard probably had nerves of fucking steel. But his coffee mug slid an inch across the table when Sanji’s foot connected, and that was victory enough.
"You're really doing this," Law muttered, more to himself than Sanji.
Sanji stretched his legs across the sofa again, this time careful not to jab Law's ribs. "Took you long enough."
The submarine groaned again and Sanji used the momentum to roll off the sofa, landing lightly despite the twinge in his knees. Law didn’t react beyond a slow blink, the kind that meant he was calculating exactly how much he’d regret this later.
"Starting now?" Sanji grinned, already rolling up his sleeves.
"No."
Law's fingers curled around the abandoned coffee mug again, knuckles whitening as he stood in one fluid motion. "You're going to sleep."
Sanji scoffed, rolling his sleeves higher just to be contrary. "You first."
The coffee mug hit the table with a dull thunk, half its contents sloshing over the rim. Law's fingers finally betraying exhaustion. Sanji watched the dark liquid seep into the wood grain, spreading slow as blood.
"Sleep," Law repeated, voice flat.
Sanji opened his mouth to argue, but Law was already turning away, shoulders tight beneath his spotted hoodie, steps deliberately measured to hide the exhaustion dragging at his heels.
The emergency lamps painted his retreating back in bloody hues, making the dark circles under his eyes look like bruises.
Sanji watched him go, fingers flexing against his own thighs.
The Polar Tang groaned around him, pipes shuddering as pressure shifted in the hull. It was a soothing sound after all this time.
So he followed Laws example.
Not that he needed to know that.
And finally headed to sleep.