Title: Almost Easy
Author: kikokus (AoiTsukikage)
Rating: NC-17 overall
Characters/Pairing: Zoro/Sanji, Law/Sanji, Law/Zoro/Sanji
Chapter: 15/?
Word Count: 3576
Summary: Sequel to 'So Good So Far.' Everything was supposed to get easier after Dressrosa – at least, that's what Sanji had assumed. He was wrong. .
Spoilers: Up to chapter 773.
Chapter Fifteen
In the end, they all went. Sanji had taken a look at the map that morning before they'd pulled the ship around to the adjacent island, and from that it seemed as if almost all of the tunnels intersected at some point and the quickest way to explore would be to send a team down each of them.
That meant four teams for the four tunnels, and Law had brought some of his crew along as well after promising Nami yet again that he wasn't interested in keeping any of the treasure for himself.
So his men were one crew, Robin had taken Franky and Brook down another tunnel, and Sanji and Law had already promised to keep Zoro in check. Nami looked a little disgruntled at being stuck not only with Luffy, who was probably the most likely to get into trouble, but also with Usopp and Chopper, who were the two most likely to turn tail and run at the slightest odd noise.
The thought of impending treasure must have made up her mind for her, though, because she grabbed Usopp by his overalls and hauled him off after Luffy, who was already halfway down the tunnel and exclaiming his wonder at the caves every few seconds in a voice loud enough that Sanji was sure everybody back on Zou would have heard it.
"Well, I guess we should go, too," Sanji glanced down at the baby Den Den Mushi in his hand, something Robin had passed out to each team before they'd split up with instructions to call either if they ran into trouble of if they found the treasure cache. Zoro was already wandering off toward the tunnel Robin's group had gone down so Sanji snagged him by his haramaki and set him on the correct path.
Law hoisted the lantern up, eyes constantly scanning both the ground and the walls as they walked. From what Sanji could see, the tunnels looked identical to the one they had first entered into: wide enough for several people to walk abreast, tall enough that the ceiling disappeared into the darkness above the reach of the lantern's glow, the floor uneven covered with small rocks and sand and more of the lead powder.
The walk was uneventful for the most part, the tunnel snaking forward slowly but surely and without any side branches it was impossible even for Zoro to get lost.
They'd just rounded a bend, heading back toward where all of the tunnels would intersect again and lead toward the treasure room, when Law stopped short and held the lantern up a little higher.
"What?" Sanji looked around, unable to see anything different, but Law had his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Nothing. Thought I heard something," Law shook his head and lowered the lantern. "Well, come on. It shouldn't take too much long-"
His words were cut off by a loud rumbling from above, but in the darkness it was impossible to tell where it was coming from and Sanji's Haki was useless at sensing things that weren't living. Law raised a hand, but before he could even set up a Room to warp them out of there Sanji felt somebody grab him around the waist and literally fling him aside, a horrific crunch sounding behind him as a large chunk of rock landed right where he'd been standing.
The rumbling got louder then, rocks raining down around him, and he curled up into a ball against the wall of the tunnel, trying to wedge himself into a natural hollow in the mountain and hoping that Law and Zoro had found their own places to hide.
It felt like forever until the deafening crashing of rocks faded into silence so absolute Sanji could hear his own frantic breaths. He uncurled his body and stood with shaky legs, trying to sense where Law and Zoro were since either the lantern had gone out or it was too far away for him to see. Eventually, he picked up signs of life from behind him and carefully made his way there through the darkness, hand sliding along the rough wall of the cave as a guide.
A hand grabbing his wrist made him yelp, his nerves already on-edge, but he knew there was no logical way it would be an enemy and that relaxed him a little. He reached out with his mind again, running into a wall of darkness and letting it slip away because there was only one person whose aura was that intense all the time.
"Law?"
"Are you alright?" Law's voice was calm but his hands were rather frantically running down the front of Sanji's suit, checking for injuries. "That cave-in knocked the lantern out, I think…"
"Here," Sanji fumbled in the inner pocket of his suit jacket, pulling out his lighter and passing it over, and there was a clink and a hiss before the lantern flared back to life. "See? Who says my bad habits don't come in handy," he laughed nervously, a part of him freaking out a little because so far he hadn't been able to feel any sign of Zoro.
"Come on," Law reached for his hand and Sanji let him grab it as he tugged him back down the tunnel. The amount of rocks on the ground increased as they rounded the curve, and Sanji couldn't hold back a gasp at seeing the entire tunnel had been filled in the area they'd come from. "This was about where I started hearing things…"
"Zoro?" Sanji called, as loudly as he dared, but the last thing he needed was for some sort of weird echo vibrations to cause more rocks to shift. "Oi, Marimo, where are you?"
"Shut up and get over here, Cook, since it's your scrawny ass's fault I can't move my leg!"
Sanji sprang forward, seeing a flash of green under the ash-colored dust and reaching to grasp the hand that extended toward him through a gap in the rocks.
Luckily the rubble covering Zoro was mostly just dust and tiny pieces of shale, but he winced when Sanji tried to pull him out fully and shook his head.
"My foot. It's jammed in between two boulders, I dunno…" he grimaced, and Sanji knew if he was even allowing himself to show any pain on his face it must have been bad. "I can't move it."
"Here," Law knelt down, staring at the boulders still covering Zoro's lower half and eventually nodding. "Zoro. Do you trust me?"
"I mean, even if you cut me in half, you can put me together again, right?" Zoro grinned weakly, sweat beading on his brow, and Law smiled softly in return.
"I'll try to do this without cutting at all if I can help it. All we need to do is move the rocks," he stood up and brushed off his jeans. Sanji moved out of the way, not wanting to get caught in the middle if Law was going to be flinging rocks around, and watched as the surgeon created a Room and raised the boulders as if they weighed nothing, letting them drop a safe distance away and leaving Zoro uncovered.
Sanji felt his stomach twist when he saw Zoro's leg, because it already looked painful. His pant leg was shredded at the ankle, streaks of blood visible through the ripped fabric, and his ankle was turned at an awkward angle that was hard to look at.
"Stay still," Law dropped to his knees, the fingers of his real hand already prodding around the injury and pressing gently against the skin.
Zoro hissed, tipping his head back, and Sanji saw the tightness at the corners of his eyes as he tried to ignore the pain it was causing him.
"These are quite the scars you have here," Law mentioned idly, running his thumb along the ridge of one of the scars circling Zoro's ankles.
"Yeah," Zoro shrugged. "We were being turned into wax statues and I figured if I cut my feet off at Least I could get away."
"By how? Crawling along the ground while you bled out?" Law's voice was so dry that Sanji couldn't hold back a laugh, but it was something he'd teased Zoro about several times because, for as resourceful as Zoro could be when it came to thinking up split-second plans in the heat of battle, sometimes his ideas were just horrible.
"Yeah, yeah, very funny," Zoro muttered, the sound cutting off in a gasp when Law applied pressure to his leg again. "Fuck!"
"Well, the good news is, it's not broken," Law nodded to himself, pulling his hands away as Zoro breathed a sigh of relief that the poking and prodding had ended. "The bad news is that you've got a rather nasty sprain and you'll need to keep your weight off of it for a couple of days…"
Zoro opened his mouth to protest but Law kept speaking over him.
"And you should be thankful you heal quickly because otherwise it would be a lot longer. Now, we should inform the others of our situation," he looked pointedly at Sanji, who realized he still had the baby Den Den Mushi in his pocket.
"Oh. Yeah, I'll give Robin-chan a call," he fumbled with it, hearing Zoro mumble something about Law having awful beside manner and Law squatting back down to reply, his hand gripping Zoro's chin and pulling him into a chaste kiss that startled Sanji so much he almost forgot to reply when Robin answered his call.
"Sanji?" Robin asked, probably for the second time although Sanji couldn't remember hearing the first.
"Yeah, it's me, Robin-chan," he realized how useless that statement was since Robin knew it was him, but luckily she didn't comment on his momentary lack of awareness.
"Are you alright? We heard what sounded like a rockslide," her voice was evenly measured but Sanji had known her long enough by now to realize that when she outright asked about somebody's well-being, that meant she was worried.
"We're okay. The Marimo got his foot caught and Law thinks he's got a sprained ankle, but otherwise we're fine," he assured her, hearing a sigh from the other end of the line. "Is everybody else okay?" he figured that they were, since all of them would have been in different tunnels, but it would ease his mind to know for sure.
"Yes, we're all fine and here in the treasure chamber," Robin replied. "So far there's no sign of any actual treasure, but I'm quite sure Nami will have us searching until we find it."
"That's good," Sanji glanced backwards again, Law still bent close to Zoro and speaking to him in a low voice. "I think we're gonna have to meet you guys there since we can't go back down the tunnel…" he stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder and Law held out his hand, not saying anything else. Sanji sighed and passed the snail over, unable to hear the low conversation Law was having with Robin now.
He walked back over to where Zoro was and knelt down, reaching out to rub his fingers through Zoro's mossy hair. "Hey."
"Hey," Zoro shifted his body to look up, his eyes lingering on his outstretched leg. "You okay?"
"I should be asking you that," Sanji chucked and lit up a cigarette, lowering himself to sit beside Zoro and being careful not to jostle his leg in any way. "You didn't have to save me."
"Che, like I'd hear the end of it if anything happened to you and I didn't try to save you," he snorted, his hand coming to rest heavily on Sanji's knee, and the solid touch more than anything told him that what Zoro really meant is he'd blame himself if anything happened to Sanji when he could prevent it.
"Yeah, whatever," Sanji laced his fingers with Zoro's, letting his thumb run over the back of the swordsman's hand. "Couldn't get yourself out of the way, huh?"
"I knew I wouldn't be able to," Zoro says it so matter-of-factly and Sanji glanced at him curiously.
"How? Haki doesn't work with rocks," he blew some smoke out, waiting for Zoro to explain.
"It does if you believe everything has breath."
Sanji was about to start laughing before he realized Zoro was serious, and while the concept seemed absurd (rocks didn't breathe, after all), it wouldn't hurt to hear him out.
"Okay, go on."
"I figured it out way back in Alabasta, because of something I'd been told as a child. No, things that aren't alive can't actually breathe, but they still exist, and they have a presence, and they take up space and they fall at a certain speed. I dunno if it's all Haki or if it's something I can pick up just by meditating so much, but I can figure out where the rocks are gonna fall…or where they're not gonna fall, I guess," he looked a little confused about it himself but Sanji had to admit it made sense, albeit in a rather convoluted way.
At any rate, since it saved him from being crushed, he wasn't going to question it.
"So you're a rock-whisperer now, huh?" he snickered, causing Zoro to smack his leg.
"Seriously, Cook, is it gonna kill you to just say 'thank you' for once?" he grumbled. Sanji sighed, knowing he was right and that now of all times was the time to put his pride aside. He was probably trying to brush it off because Zoro had gotten hurt because of him, no matter how thankfully minor the injury had turned out to be, but Zoro deserved more than his snark and indifference just because he was trying to subdue his own guilt.
"Thank you," he took the cigarette out of his mouth before leaning over to kiss Zoro, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. "I just hate it when people get hurt because of me."
"Yeah, don't try that," Zoro nudged his nose against Sanji's rather playfully, grinning. "You didn't ask me to save you, so you can't feel bad about my choices," he stared directly at Sanji, waiting until he nodded slowly to kiss him again. Sanji knew Zoro was being a little hypocritical, because if their positions were reversed the other man wouldn't be so cavalier about somebody getting hurt for his sake even if he hadn't asked for it, but he also knew Zoro was doing it to make him feel better and he did appreciate that.
"Look," Zoro whispered against his lips, breath hot and damp, "with the lives we lead, we're always gonna have to save each other, and maybe it's time we stopped keeping score and just started being grateful for all the times it happens and we both come out of it alive," he suggested. Sanji nodded, kissing Zoro once more as if to seal the promise before he pulled away.
"If you two are quite finished, I believe it's time we get Zoro out of here and to an environment more suitable for me to actually do something to help his ankle," Law's voice was utterly dry, although he was sort of smiling, so Sanji figured he wasn't that annoyed.
"Yeah. How do we…"
"I don't want you putting any weight on that ankle," Law replied, walking closer. "Miss Nico seems to think that the treasure chamber should only be a few steps beyond the next corner, so it's probably best if Sanji and I just support you there," he replied.
Zoro's reaction to being told he needed help, and that all of the crew would see him needing help, was predictably surly, but in the end there wasn't much he could do besides lean on them as they awkwardly shuffled into the treasure chamber.
000
"Is he asleep?"
"Yes. For somebody with his muscle mass, it took a surprisingly little amount of sedative to knock him out," Law flopped rather ungracefully onto the couch in his sitting room beside Sanji, and the cook was fast coming to realize that Law in his natural state was far more casual than one would think.
He slouched a lot, for one thing, but when they were around other people his posture was nearly always perfect. He sprawled, too, whereas in public he let his aura make him appear bigger instead of physically spreading out to accomplish the same effect. Law was all legs, lanky and uncoordinated and painfully awkward at times, and Sanji found that side of him so much more fascinating than the dark, brooding persona that was all most people got to witness.
"What?" Law glanced at him, narrowing his eyes. "You're staring."
"Nothing," Sanji would never voice that aloud, of course, but he did know that Law didn't even attempt to put up any sort of front around him any longer.
"I don't believe you," Law tucked his legs under himself and turned more fully to face Sanji. "You can tell me anything."
"I know, I was just feeling fucking sappy and I know you don't like that shit," he waved the conversation off, flipping through a random medical tome that was on the end table beside him.
"Try me," Law pressed, shifting closer, and Sanji looked up to meet his eyes.
"Fine," he groaned, setting the book aside. "I like you when you're you."
"Am I often somebody else?" Law raised an eyebrow. Sanji reached over to shove at him for that one and Law smirked, curling himself up next to Sanji. "I know. I know that somewhere deep inside I probably have at least a…tolerable personality," he didn't sound convinced.
"You do," Sanji assured him with a smile. "I told you it was sappy."
"Hmm, perhaps, but it does mean something to me that I can be…fully open with somebody and they still enjoy my company," he decided, finally resting his head on Sanji's shoulder. "Although I suppose I should thank both you and Zoro for that, even if his methods of shoving his way into my life were a lot less subtle."
"Zoro doesn't do subtle. He's like a fucking bull, he just pushes his way in whether you want him to or not," Sanji muttered, since that was pretty much what Zoro had done with him. Objectively speaking, Zoro wasn't the type of guy he normally went for at all, but somehow the bastard had gotten Sanji to fall in love with him anyway.
"Well, you can't say it isn't effective," Law was so pliant at his side, relaxed and content, eyes half-closed.
He didn't even jump when the door opened, merely lifting his head a little (Sanji figured he probably felt safest here, deep within the confines of his submarine where few people would know where to find him).
"Hey, Cap! Sanji!" Penguin and Shachi bustled into the parlor, their normally clean white coveralls streaked with dust and dirt.
"How goes the treasure hunt?" Law asked, dropping his head back to Sanji's shoulder.
"Well, we found a box," Shachi scratched idly at his nose with one finger. "It was buried pretty deep but the floor was sandy so it was easy to get through. It's got a pretty fancy lock on it and the cyborg said he could blast it open but I think your navigator was worried he'd blast whatever was in the box, too."
Sanji laughed, because yeah, Nami got pretty protective whenever treasure was involved.
"She said she was gonna try to pick the lock herself, first, and then let him have at it tomorrow," Penguin added.
"He won't have to," Sanji was sure of that. "Nami-san was a thief long before she joined up with us, and I doubt there's a lock in the world she can't get open as long as she's got time to figure it out," he said with no small amount of pride. Plus, well, since treasure was involved, he knew that would probably give her some extra incentive to get it open.
"Anyway, we thought we'd check in with you and let you know what was up, but we'll leave you alone," Shachi raised his hand in a wave and the two of them hurried out.
"Well, I guess you could term that a successful mission," Law glanced over his shoulder toward the bedroom door. "Should we retire?"
"Yeah, I could use some sleep," Sanji decided, pressing a kiss into Law's hair. "Is it okay if we're on the bed with him?"
"His foot has to stay elevated but as long as we don't jostle him too much it won't be a problem," Law shrugged, catching Sanji's chin in his real hand and kissing him gently. "Shall we?"
Sanji nodded, letting Law pull him to his feet and lead him into the bedroom.
Zoro was fast asleep, flat on his back with his foot propped up under a couple of pillows. Sanji stripped off his shirt and carefully crawled onto the bed, wedging his own foot beside the pillows to hold them steady.
Sanji knew he'd be good as new in a couple of days, and he let the relief of that fill him, forcing himself to let go of any lingering guilt over something he couldn't control.
Zoro wasn't going to be taken down by some measly rockslide, after all.
If nothing else, he was damn sure of that.
Notes:
1. I'm sorry this update took so long! I've had midterms for the past couple of weeks so I had to concentrate on studying and not writing, but I've got a bit of a break from exams now :)
2. Thank you all so much for the wonderful feedback on the last chapter, and I hope everybody continues to enjoy this fic!