Edited: 13.03.2018

Trafalgar Law was dragged from his sleep by a sharp tugging at his scalp. It was insistent, shifting left and right, refusing to allow him to slip back into unconsciousness. When he forced his eyes open, he was met with a slightly blurred close-up of the letter T. Weird. As he pushed himself upright, several matters became clear. Firstly, he must have fallen asleep at Straw Hat's beside. His face was shoved against his hand, arms resting atop the mattress in an entirely unprofessional manner. The metal of his stethoscope was digging into his skin, pressed between his chest and the bedframe. Napping in such a position had left him with a terrible crick in his neck. When he moved, the bones clicked and groaned. The second matter was significantly more confusing than his sleeping arrangements.

"What the - Straw Hat?"

The jerking at his scalp turned out to be due to his patient. Luffy's slender, rubbery fingers were tangled in his hair, attempting to force the short locks into a messy imitation of a braid.

"Ay… Ace?"

The final fact to dawn on Doctor Trafalgar Law was that he hadn't slept for long. The hands threaded through his hair were clumsy, pawing at his scalp more often than his hair. Apparently, the sedative was still exerting its influence. The kid seemed drunk, unable to fully control his limbs. The side effect was insignificant; Luffy was no longer screaming, despite being conscious, and was even somewhat verbal. Breathing apparatus muffled Luffy's attempts at speech but, when he listened closely, Law could hear a slurred drone of 'Ace' repeated like a mantra. It didn't matter what 'ace' meant, only that it was a legible word. The medication was working.

Law fished the wandering hands from his hair and caught them in one of his own. Using his free hand, he wrestled the oxygen mask away from Luffy's face. The task was complicated by his patient's squirming and the leather band holding down his forehead. Nevertheless, Law managed to wiggle the mask down so that it hung around Straw Hat's neck. He waited a moment, watching the rise and fall of the kid's chest to ensure that he could still breathe. Once he was certain of his patient's stability, he attempted to instigate conversation.

"How do you even know how to braid hair?"

He didn't receive any verbal response, but that didn't surprise him. The fact that Luffy was producing any speech while weighed down by high doses of sedatives was impressive enough. With the volume that Law had given him, Straw Hat should have been under for half a day. His question, however, was rewarded with a toothy grin that almost reflected the lights overhead. The far superior prize was a quiet laugh. It sounded fake, hollow, but that didn't matter. Even a fake laugh indicated that the kid was aware of social cues. He was tracking the conversation, not just talking to his hallucinations. Laughing seemed to trick Straw Hat into relaxing a little. He stopped straining against the restraints, instead sinking down into the cot. Despite relaxing, his gangling arms continued to grab at his doctor as he giggled. With a hint of a smile, Law caught the kid's fingers, tickling Luffy's fingertips with his own. Dancing his tattooed appendages against Luffy's only caused him to titter more. He tried to catch Law's fingers and squealed out laughter when they darted away just before he could catch them.

Watching his patient babble and stare at his fingers as if they were impossibly elusive, Law couldn't help but feel his heart swell with fondness. The little captain seemed far too young, not even an adult yet, to have had both the adventures and the hardships that he had faced. As long as he kept the kid here, on his ship, he could protect him for a while. He could help him to heal. If Luffy hadn't shrugged off whatever had scared him by now, it would probably take some time. Law wanted to help. Despite there only being a few years between them, he felt almost parental as he watched Straw Hat play. The infirmary felt like its own private world, a great distance from Sabaody and the Grand Line. Out there, his life as a pirate dictated that he be violent and sinister, cold hearted, harsh. In here, in his infirmary, he was only required to be a doctor. He could do some good. He cracked a smile, a rarity in this life, and caught one of Luffy's searching fingers.

"Guess you snuck your arms out, huh kiddo?"

That earned him another giggle. Straw Hat's arms waved in the air as if to prove their defiance, wiggling fingers and reaching arms akin to an infant in a crib. The sedatives had clearly been strong; they had needed to be.

"Ace, Ace!"

"I hear you Luffy, I hear you. I have no idea what you mean, but I hear you. These straps don't seem to be doing much, do they? Let's try seeing how you do without them…"

Removing the restraints was significantly harder than applying them had been. Every time he got near to a buckle, Luffy insisted on playing another game of catch-the-fingers. Once all of the straps were unfastened, Law turned to his desk to find something that would distract Luffy. He settled for grabbing a handful of cotton balls and dumping them in his lap. The kid pawed at them, pulling the fibres apart. With Luffy distracted, he could finally carry out an assessment. Before beginning, he grabbed a pair of gloves from his desk and snapped them in place.

"Luffy, I'm just going to listen to your chest. Don't be scared."

It took a lot of effort to manipulate Luffy out of his vest. Now that he was distracted, he was reluctant to let go of the toys. Once his patient was bare chested, Law could set about his exam. His stethoscope was warm from being pressed against him during his nap, so Luffy didn't notice when it was held against his back. There was a slight crackle to the kid's lungs. Some of the blood must have dripped into them. It was nothing to worry about; Straw Hat would probably cough it up within a few days. It did, however, indicate that Luffy had definitely hurt his vocal chords with the screaming. There was no chance that the kid would tolerate an examination of them though. A quick check confirmed that his heart was doing fine, probably helped the sedative.

"Doing good Lu, well done."

His next task was to get at Straw Hat's knees. They were drawn up to his chest, so there was no way for Law to sneakily check them. He caught one of the kid's ankle and pulled at it until his leg was straightened. Unsurprisingly, Luffy objected to this. He screeched and slammed his fists against the doctor's back. Weakened by the sedative, his blows were weak and his attempts to free his leg were unsuccessful, but both was rather irritating for Law. With his free hand, he rolled up the leg of Luffy's shorts. Dried blood coated the knobbly knee, obscuring the injury. Keeping his grip on Straw Hat's ankle, Law reached over to his desk and grabbed antiseptic. He upended the bottle over the cut, soaking the dried blood and causing Luffy to kick and whine. Once the blood was wiped away, he could get a look at the damage. It wasn't particularly bad, but he still took the effort to clean and bind both of the kid's knees. For the sake of an extra five minutes, it wasn't worth taking a gamble.

Throughout his examination, Trafalgar Law had been babbling to Luffy. Being spoken to seemed to help the kid stay lucid. Was it required or merely assisting? When his curiosity took over, he decided to see what would happen if he stopped talking for a while. It would give him a baseline for Luffy's mental stability. After a few seconds of Law's silence, Liffy's slurred attempts at speech stopped. He fell limp against the cot, head lolling back and limbs floppy. He was staring at the ceiling of the infirmary, eyes fixed dead ahead, no pupil movement. Law immediately regretted his decision.

"Shit. Come on kid, come back."

Breaking his own rules, Law hopped over the rail that surrounded the cot. It felt wrong to waste precious seconds fiddling with the mechanisms that allowed them to drop. He hauled Luffy up against his chest. The young captain's head lolled backwards, lacking the muscle co-ordination to resist gravity. Law helped by supporting his head for him, moving it to rest against his chest. He rubbed circles into the kid's back to try to soothe him.

"Can you hear me? I need you to focus, Luffy. Try to hone in on my voice. It's about lunchtime, you don't want to miss it, do you? I'm sure we can find you something nice, but I can't feed you if you're catatonic."

As if there was a sensor in his brain to detect the word 'food', Luffy lifted his head a little so that it rested against Law's shoulder. With his head tilted up, his eyes shifted erratically, searching for Law but unable to see the figure directly in front of them.

"That's it, good boy, that's right. I won you over with food, huh? I should have guessed that would work."

Luffy blinked at him, eyes large and owlish. When the kid spoke, his voice was unnaturally quiet. If Law hadn't been listening for it, he never would have heard it.

"Ace?"

Law laughed with relief at the whispering. He had no idea what 'ace' meant but it was all that Luffy had said since waking up. The return of 'ace' meant that he had avoided taking a turn for the worse.

"Well done. I better get you that food I promised, huh? Wait, I can't leave you here alone if you'll react like that every time you're not stimulated… I guess you get a trip to the galley!"

Before setting out for the galley, Law grabbed a spare hoody from his desk to shove onto Luffy. He looked goddamn cute, drowning in the hoody that was far too large for him. Only his fingertips poked out of the sleeves, and it fell half way down his thighs. With the kid struggling to move his head, never-mind support his weight, Law wasn't even going to try to get him to walk upstairs. He shifted Luffy a little so that he could hook his free arm underneath his bandaged knees, leaving his other on the kid's back to calm him.

It was tricky to manoeuvre from there. The cot railings were still up but this time he had to hop over them while carrying 140 pounds of deadweight. He lifted Luffy to be higher up on his chest and then shuffled over the rail. Straw Hat whined a little at the movement. Trying to reassure the kid, Law cooed to him. He made soft noises, no real words, just shushes and humming, bouncing Luffy in his arms as he walked around his infirmary.

Balancing Luffy precariously on one arm, he grabbed a syringe and the vial of lorazepam. Without Luffy seeing, he dropped them into his pocket. He didn't want to dose the kid again, but it was better to be prepared when leaving the infirmary with an unpredictable patient. With Straw Hat struggling to verbalise, Law had very little insight into his mental state. He kept Luffy balanced as he stepped out into the corridor. Once the door slammed shut, he looked down to adjust Luffy and was ever-so-slightly heartbroken by the sight. Straw Hat was staring at Law but it didn't seem as if he could really see him. His eyes were darting back and forth as if following movement, yet the corridor was motionless. Luffy's hand was still gripping at Law's leg, trying to hold onto reality as he drifted further away from it. His legs were limp, heavy across Law's arm. The doctor made sure to keep talking to his patient as he strode towards the galley.

"Hey, don't go wandering off. We need to get you fed! It's almost past lunchtime. A routine will do you good. Once you're more aware, it'll help you work out what's real, since reality will be predictable… What do you want to eat?"

"Ace."

"I thought you might say that. Hey, for all I know, ace is a kind of food. Though, I don't think we have it if it is. Think you can manage chewing? We could probably find you some meat if you can."

"Ace."

"Of course."

Law wrenched open the door to the galley, precariously cradling Luffy against his chest so that he had a free hand. He was shocked to find Penguin and Shachi leaning against the kitchen counters, snacking on strips of dried meat. Shouldn't they still be at the park? Their eyes bulged when they saw him stride in, arms full of another crew's captain. It was hard for them not to smirk at the sight. Luffy was sucking at the strings of Law's hoody, saturating them with saliva. He laughed when Law bopped him on the nose in a mockery of punishment.

"Hey captain, who's your bride?"

"Oh shush. Hey, give me one of those."

Law strode over to his friends, grabbing a strip of meat from Penguin's outstretched hand. He sank into the closest chair and tried to reposition Luffy in a way that he would be able to safely eat. The catatonia and sedation combined to weaken the kid's muscles, so there was a high risk of choking. Eventually, he settled for wedging Luffy between his torso and the table, forcing him to stay upright. He grabbed the kid's jaw with one hand, holding his head upright so that he wouldn't choke. Luffy whined at being held in place and made little, futile movements in an attempt to escape. Law held his patient still until he gave up, relaxing into the older man's grasp.

"Right, think you can manage eating?"

The doctor had to hold the snack for him but Luffy managed to rip at the meat. It was slow, messy, progress. Drool was smeared across his face. Shachi stared over his captain's shoulder at their guest.

"What happened to him?"

"I found him hallucinating in the park. He'll be staying with us for a while."

"That bad?"

Law nodded, distracted by wiping drool from Luffy's chin. Since he was facing away from Shachi and Penguin, he didn't see the way they grinned as he wiped away the slobber with his sleeve.

"Well then, how can we help?"