title from Storm by Victor Crone, bc eurovision will never not be an obsession. welcome to my one piece brainrot.
warnings include: ptsd, panic attacks, dissociation, references to canonical genocide and terminal illness
There's nothing suspicious about some commotion aboard the Polar Tang, which is why Law doesn't pay attention to it, at first. He's busy planning the journey ahead, specifically what happens once they reach the Red Line that's inevitably drawing closer, so he gladly lets his crew fuss over the treasure they stole from some no-name pirate crew that decided to attack them while they were on the surface earlier today. The fact that his crew is crowding around the treasure is nothing new, so Law ignores it in favor of getting some much-needed coffee. He doesn't particularly care about the contents of the chest, as long as it has monetary value.
His curiosity is piqued when he hears several gasps and somebody breathing, "What is that?" in an awed tone. He can make out Ikkaku's distinct voice, "It's jewelry, you idiot," and an annoyed reply of "Yeah but what's it made of?", and he turns back from the doorway.
"Maybe it's painted?"
"Yeah, right, and hasn't chipped in a treasure chest handled by pirates?"
"How much do you think we can get for this stuff?"
"It's so pretty!"
"Oh, Captain!" The rest of the crew present turns to him at Shachi's exclamation, faces excited, and now Law is really curious. He just hopes it's valuable, because he needs to restock on medical supplies and pirate or not, the doctor in him balks at the idea of stealing those even from the Marines or other pirates. They can generally get at least something for almost any kind of jewelry, and if it's made of some rare substance, well, he's hopeful.
Until he actually sees what his crew is admiring.
Suddenly he feels like his heart has been plucked out of his chest and stabbed a dozen times over while somebody squeezes it. A wave of something washes over him, burning and freezing on its way and it leaves him numb like seawater does. He sees flames and hears screams and the full coffee mug falls from his suddenly numb hands to the floor, shattering into a million pieces before any of his crewmates can catch it, but he can barely hear it.
He hasn't seen that exact shiny white since Flevance burned fourteen years ago.
Why the hell is there Amber Lead on the Grand fucking Line.
Later he will come to the logical conclusion that Amber Lead was once upon a time a luxury, rare and beautiful and thus highly valuable and sought-after, that it makes perfect sense for something like that to be among gold and jewels. That it's actually kind of miraculous he hasn't come across any before now. But right now he's not thinking logically, isn't capable of drawing that conclusion, because Amber Lead is slow, torturous death veiled in treacherous white shine and his sister is dead and his crew is touching it and being poisoned and he needs to get it away from them before they– and that's not even how it works and he knows that but–
The Room expands with half a thought, as big as he can make it with fuck-all concentration and he desperately tries to find fucking something to swap it with, everything will be fine once he Shambles it away and the poison is off his ship and–
– and the next thing he knows he's retching into a toilet and feeling like he's taken an unprotected trip to the bottom of the ocean. He can't breathe. His skin is too tight. He's freezing but that's not right that's not right and someone is talking, a steady stream of words washing over him, giving him something he can use to pull himself back to reality. The voice is familiar, solid and low and calm and soothing and Law clings to it like a sinking man to a rope.
Penguin, his mind finally supplies, connecting the voice to a name and a face, to a decade of trust and the feeling of home. It's not enough. It's not enough and his hold slips because everything hurts and he can't fucking breathe and for all his nightmares it somehow never occurred to him that Amber Lead still existed. It should have been obvious, of course, but Law has spent the last fourteen years thinking he'd never come across a single thing from home again bar his own face staring back at him from the mirror. To find anything would have been a shock, probably; for that thing to be Amber Lead makes it exponentially worse. Underneath it all is a sick sort of nostalgia, something that feels a lot like relief over not being the lone thing that still remains of Flevance. It's buried somewhere under his sternum, nested in his ribcage, crushing his lungs and fuck fuck fuck–
He has the presence of mind to wonder if he's maybe tipped over to the side of hysteria. Probably. He doesn't feel in control and he doesn't feel like himself. He should probably do something about that.
It takes a completely ridiculous amount of effort and another round of throwing up before he's finally able to zone back in enough to grasp that rope again. Penguin is still talking, currently in the process of recounting a years-old story from Swallow Island about a tragedy of a birthday cake, while he draws circles on Law's back. More effort still goes into turning his head so Law can actually see his friend. Something slides off the back of his neck with the motion.
"Hey," Penguin says immediately, cutting his story off mid-word the moment they make eye contact. "You back with me?"
"What–" is all Law manages to croak out. Oh, his vocal cords are really unhappy with him. More importantly, though, he has no idea how he got from point A, the galley, to point B, here. He's acutely aware of the fact that he's lost time, something he hasn't experienced in– years, maybe? It's more than a little disconcerting. Law will freely admit to having some control freak-ish tendencies, at least to himself in the safety of his own head (even if the inside of his own head feels anything but safe right now), and missing a chunk of time of an unknown length, a complete black hole in his memory, is downright threatening whatever remains of his sanity.
From a clinical perspective, he knows what's going on. He knows he suffers from post-traumatic stress, yeah, remembers being seventeen and thinking oh, that's what it is when he first read about it, and he knows he just encountered what must be one of his worst triggers and he knows he's having a hell of a reaction to it and none of it fucking helps. Knowing facts is fucking useless when all he can do is ride it out and accept the offered help until he learns to breathe again.
Though if this goes on for much longer Penguin will probably resort to sedatives, and in all honesty Law can't say he's entirely opposed to that. He may not enjoy the artificial, forced sort of tranquility, but it beats this.
"Law?" That's Penguin's voice again, quiet and gentle and oh Law must look like shit if Penguin is using his name and that tone. He sure feels like shit so at least that's consistent. "Law, hey," Penguin repeats. "Are you listening?"
Even nodding is difficult. "Trying to," he then adds, something that sounds suspiciously like his own voice in the back of his mind telling him to always be truthful with his doctor (which Penguin technically isn't, seeing as Law is the doctor of this crew, but he's made damn sure that everyone in his crew knows at least basic field medicine and can act as a half-competent doctor should the need arise). His voice comes out as a hoarse whisper that grates at his throat. The fuck has he been doing, screaming his throat raw? Swallowing broken glass? "What happened?"
Penguin makes a face, something like a grimace, sympathy, and grief rolled into one and tied up with a ribbon of plain worry. It makes Law feel ten, thirteen and twenty-four all at once; Flevance is burning, he's dying, Cora-san is dead and apparently he's just having a meltdown about his entire life. That's not the correct term. He never gave much of a shit about psych anyway.
(His mother did, he thinks; thought that healing the mind was just as important as healing the body. Talked about it. But Law, at the time, did not understand that the mind could be sick or hurt in the first place, and idolized his father besides, for all that he loved his mother dearly.
He was in for one hell of a lesson later.)
"Where does it cut off?" His memory, right. Penguin gives him a moment, standing up and disappearing from Law's sight. Law doesn't track him; doesn't feel the need to. Penguin, Shachi and Bepo are safe. Constant. Familiar. Instead he directs his attention inwards and tries to organize the information he has.
It doesn't amount to much – he saw that white shine, reacted, then a blank, then he was here. He created a Room, that much he remembers, but… what did he swap? He must have found something, he knows he must have, but his memory cuts off before he did that. He must have gotten it off his ship, he needs to have gotten it off his ship and away from his crew and himself but–
"Penguin." His voice doesn't sound like his. Penguin reappears almost instantly, open concern in his expression, so that's probably not just in Law's head. Before Penguin can even ask, urgency is pushing the words out of Law's mouth. "What did I swap it with?"
To Law's eternal relief, because he doesn't think he could even begin to explain right now, Penguin gets what he means on his own. The concern on his face is joined by a brief flash of amusement when he answers, "Seawater."
Law blinks.
"Yeah, imagine how confused we were," Penguin says, with a little twitch at the corner of his mouth. Then all traces of amusement fade and he's back to business and worry. "That's where your memory blanks? Between Room and Shambles?"
That sounds right. Law nods this time, certain that whatever would come out of his mouth if he were to open it would be either a gravelly barely-there whisper or a broken squeak.
"Okay, so good news is you've only lost about a half-hour." And Law hates that, both the fact that he's lost thirty damn minutes as well as the fact that this has happened enough times that they can consider that good news. Sure it's better than losing about eleven fucking hours, never again thank you, but he would prefer the point of reference to be zero and not that. "And you've spent most of it here so you didn't miss much anyway."
It's not much of a comfort. Penguin knows this just as well as Law does, yet he still tries; Law finds more comfort in the fact that Penguin gives enough of a shit to bother. Accepting that care still doesn't come easily to Law, even after all these years, but it's comforting nonetheless.
He means to lift his hand to make some gesture for Penguin to continue. And he does lift his hand – almost starts to make the motion, even. Before he manages that, though, he freezes, because his hand–
A patch of white blooms under his tattoos, spreads over the back of his hand to his knuckles.
He can't breathe.
A strangled noise escapes his abused throat and then a pair of warm hands envelopes the shaking one he's still staring at, covering the discoloration.
"Law? Law. Law, hey, look at me." The urgency in Penguin's voice is new. "Law, dammit, eyes on me. I need you to listen to me. Law."
Right, that must be why everything hurts. Amber Lead Syndrome feels like his bone marrow is burning, like muscle tissue is slowly but steadily eating itself, like– he remembers this, yes. The perpetual exhaustion deep in his bones, always feeling short of breath because his lungs were collapsing in on themselves and his blood was too full of poison to effectively carry oxygen, the constant cold that no layers could keep away.
"Law!"
It's not contagious, he wants to say, needs to explain, has to convince, but– but no, no one's even said anything about that and Penguin is touching him, right? Hands right on that white patch of skin.
"Law!"
Law looks up.
"Good, that's really good," Penguin says, still in that same tone he used to use when Law would scream himself awake every time he stayed asleep long enough to start dreaming and Law feels like he should hate it but he doesn't. "Listen to me. I'm going to let go of your hand, and it's going to look the exact same it looked yesterday, okay? No, hey, I promise. You're not sick. It's gonna be the same faded splotch it's been for ten years."
No, it was white, he saw it, and he recognizes the pain he lived with for years. Does having had it before affect how many years he has? That could be an interesting area of research, how a terminal illness behaves if you somehow survive it and then manage to contract it again, though for obvious reasons lacking in research subjects. Law isn't afraid to use himself, of course, but he alone wouldn't be enough.
"Law, I'm looking at your face right now and I promise you it's not back."
As Law does his best to keep his eyes on Penguin instead of letting them fall back to obsessively staring at his hand like he desperately wants to, a thought worms its way to the forefront of his mind.
Penguin wouldn't lie. Not about this. Never about this.
It's that thought that he clings to as he holds his breath and forces a nod. Penguin wouldn't lie. Penguin wouldn't lie, and his judgement is currently considerably less impaired than Law's is. Penguin wouldn't lie, and Law didn't even touch the treasure, wasn't even near it for more than a handful of moments. Penguin wouldn't lie.
But what if–
"Okay," Penguin says, interrupting Law's next spiral. "Letting go now." The hand covering Law's slips off, and with it Law's self-restraint. His gaze falls immediately, eyes zeroing in on where he knows the patch in question is. Penguin wouldn't lie. Penguin wouldn't lie, Penguin wouldn't lie Penguin wouldn't lie Penguin wouldn't lie Penguinwouldn'tlie–
Penguin didn't lie.
Law traces the edges of one of his numerous spots with his eyes, compares the pale skin inside to the darker shade framing it to the black ink over it. He knows where it is (knows where all of them are), and the longer he stares at it, the longer he analyzes the difference, the surer he is that that's the only reason it caught his attention at all. Constant awareness, combined with a major trigger. Nothing more.
The relief that crashes through him steals his breath anew.
"Law." Penguin's hands are back, one giving Law something concrete to ground himself with and the other slowly curling around his wrist. Taking his pulse, Law notes absently. "Law," Penguin repeats, frowning now as Law lets his eyes wander, "hey, what am I touching right now? List the bones."
Bones. Hand. Right.
"Start at the wrist, Law, come on."
Start at the wrist. Work his way towards the fingertips. Right. He can do that. "Radius," he whispers, trying to take a deeper breath. "Ulna." Another breath. "Scaphoid." He squeezes Penguin's hand and forces another breath. "Lunate."
By the time he makes it to the distal phalanges, he no longer feels like he's dying; not from the panic choking him and not from Amber Lead. He still feels like shit in more ways than he cares to count, but that… all of that is explainable, easily and logically. Of course he feels like death warmed over if he's just spent half an hour having the worst panic attack he's had since well before leaving the North Blue. The pounding headache is the crying and puking and hyperventilating. The difficulty breathing is the suffocating panic. The cold is, again, the panic, not a fever. The pain everywhere exists only in his head.
He's so tired. Four fucking Blues, he's so fucking tired.
It occurs to him he can't remember when he last slept. That's… not the reason, he won't pretend, but it certainly doesn't help either. Maybe if he wasn't a perpetual insomniac with a raging caffeine addiction, all of this wouldn't be hitting him quite so hard.
(And maybe if the World Government hadn't decided that an entire country could be sacrificed to their greed, he wouldn't have trouble sleeping. Maybe if he hadn't had to escape his burning home under a pile of corpses there wouldn't be anything hitting him in the first place.)
"Hey, you good if I let go for a moment?" comes Penguin's voice again. Law is about to give an affirmative, reasonably sure that he's made it through the worst of this seeing as he can breathe now and seems to have gotten over the whole thinking his cured terminal illness is back with zero evidence thing, but then Penguin continues with, "I want to get some water into you at least, do you think you could eat something?" and suddenly he's not okay after all, not when the question holds the implication of being left alone. It shouldn't matter, shouldn't, because Law is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, of being alone, always is and always has to be and has always had to be and that's not true, first he had his parents and Lami and his classmates and the sisters and then he had Cora-san and what a horrible thing it is, to insult their memory like this as if–
"Oookay, okay, yeah, let's revisit that once Shachi or Bepo gets here. C'mere."
"Where?" Law croaks while Penguin maneuvers and manhandles him until Law's head is resting on Penguin's shoulder and Penguin's arms are warm around him. It's supremely awkward, in the sense that Law is taller and very well aware that he's pointy, but it's also… yeah, it's good.
"Where they are?" Penguin asks, and Law mutters a yes. "Shachi stayed to do damage control in the galley, y'know, make sure everyone and everything that touched the stuff gets properly cleaned." Law appreciates that. Strictly speaking it's unnecessary; the Amber Lead exposure from that little contact isn't even barely harmful because it doesn't work like that, meaning it's just for Law's peace of mind. And fuck, he'll take it. He has enough trouble eating already, he really doesn't need his subconscious labeling the galley as unsafe.
"Bepo's been stuck in navigation since mid-morning so I can't say anything for sure about him, but Shachi probably won't be long now."
Now admittedly Law is currently not entirely caught up with things like the passage of time, but he's pretty sure morning, mid or otherwise, was a good while ago. "'s there something I should know?"
Penguin shrugs minutely, the shoulder Law is using as a pillow rising and falling without much disturbance. "Probably not, you'd've heard by now if there was. I think we just hit some trickier currents."
He should probably care more. Prod more. Demand more information. But he's so fucking tired, well beyond the crushing pressure of physical fatigue, and giving a shit in the face of the nonchalant assurance that there's no need to is more than what he can muster energy for.
"I was serious about the eating thing, by the way," Penguin says a moment or two later. "I get it if you can't stomach anything right now, but the only thing you've been puking is coffee. Think you're done doing that now?"
Law takes a moment to reflect on that, to take stock of himself. He still feels like shit, for lack of a more accurate medical term, but no, he's no longer nauseous with blind panic and suffocating anxiety. The thought of putting something in his mouth isn't entirely revolting either, meaning that he probably is done. "Yeah," he sighs once he comes to that conclusion. He guarantees nothing if another piece of his history gets brought up, though. If the next newspaper he sees features Doflamingo or the World Government's newest genocide du jour on the front page he'll probably end up right back here.
He doesn't particularly enjoy having panic attacks in the first place, but this, this mental fragility that clings to him afterwards until sleep frees him from it, is its own level of hell altogether.
"How's moving sound, then?"
Moving sounds great. Moving sounds awful. He wants to get off this damn floor and he absolutely does not want to get up. He doesn't feel steady enough to stand up and he knows that the longer he stays like this the worse getting up will eventually feel. Twenty-four is too old to fall asleep on the floor limbs all bent up in weird angles. In theory he could teleport himself straight to bed without actually having to get up; in practice even trying to use his powers when he's both physically and mentally drained to this extent is probably an abysmally bad idea even without factoring in things like in motion or underwater.
Up it is, then.
Up is just as awful as he thought it would be. The change in altitude is dizzying, so much so that for a moment Law isn't sure whether he's going to pass out or be sick. The black spots invading his vision support the former; the new wave of nausea, the latter.
"Easy now, easy," Penguin murmurs, barely audible over the roar of blood in Law's ears. Law is vaguely aware of the hands on him, Penguin's support the only thing holding him upright. Not having to concern himself with that, Law channels his focus into determinedly not fainting or vomiting. Eyes screwed shut to escape from the darkness closing in, he forces himself to swallow down the nausea. Takes a few slow, measured breaths.
Solid ground would be so good right now.
Eventually, the world stops spinning, and somehow Law is still standing when it does. He opens his eyes a fraction, just enough to see, and then all the way when his vision stays steady. "'m okay," he breathes.
From the corner of his eye Law sees Penguin give him a long, assessing look. Then he nods, as if determining that maybe Law isn't completely bullshitting (so maybe he's not exactly okay, but he does feel steadier, better), and eases his hold so that Law can stand on his own. At least mostly; one hand keeps a light grip just above Law's elbow, and the other doesn't hover far away either. Ready to catch Law, should he fall.
Law doesn't intend to fall, not until he reaches his damn bed whereupon he in turn very much does intend to fall, intends to fall so that his fucking face hits the pillow and then think about nothing for the following what's hopefully at least six hours. It'll likely be something closer to three, if that.
It's better than nothing.
Despite his vision having stabilized, his legs feel anything but steady, once they get moving. Penguin says nothing about the slow pace or the staggering, just keeps shooting Law unconcealed looks of concerned disapproval that make his opinion about Law's general reluctance to accept help very clear. Which makes him a fucking hypocrite, because Penguin is just as stubborn and bullheaded and prideful and has never once in his life accepted help voluntarily. Law is every bit that same hypocrite. So is Shachi.
Well. Law supposes they wouldn't have ended up as pirates if they didn't all have a few issues.
"You think you'll be able to sleep?" Penguin asks. Without help, he doesn't say, but he might as well with how clear the implication is. Law both resents it and doesn't; can't, in light of established history. It's not just once or twice he's resorted to medically knocking himself out – chronic insomnia is a bitch at the best of times, and sometimes the options are to either continue to feel like he's actually dying from being so tired because he's going on sixty-something hours awake and he's used his powers and thoroughly exhausted himself and sleep still won't come, or use force.
Right now he's still got a long way to go until that sixty-something hours – he thinks, at least, just based on how he recalls feeling before walking into the galley earlier – but the past maybe forty-five minutes have efficiently drained him enough that it's all the same. His earlier panic-fueled, badly controlled power use took its toll on him too, and all in all he feels pretty fucking dead on his feet.
Sleep, though? Sleep is a definite maybe.
Telling Penguin that just gets him another one of those looks. "You wanna try, or should we just get the sleeping pills and sedatives from the get-go?"
"Try." With some luck, nightmares will leave him alone, but Law is rarely that lucky after a day like this. He needs to be able to wake up, and that will be that much more of a struggle if he's got something that's forcing him to sleep in his system. A few hours of sleep is not worth the hell that is being stuck in a nightmare unable to wake up when at the end he's just as exhausted as he was prior to falling asleep, if not more so; it defeats the whole purpose.
Actually, maybe he shouldn't sleep. But… no. That's an even worse idea. That's a terrible, terrible idea with precisely zero benefits. Every rational part of him recognizes this, no medical knowledge needed. And Law has both theoretical knowledge and an abundance of practical experience here, knows perfectly well that if he now goes for coffee instead of rest he's well and truly fucked for the next week or so. No, he needs to sleep. He can't afford not to, not anymore. Not on the Grand Line. He has a goal, a crew to take care of as both captain and doctor, and he can't keep doing this, he just–
"Law?"
Oh, great. Now there's two of them. Law blinks back to reality and comes face to face with Shachi, who is giving him the same worried look Penguin has been this whole time, perfectly conveyed even through the ever-present sunglasses. A glance to the side reveals that, yup, Penguin's still doing it too.
Seeing as Law has no recollection of Shachi joining them, those looks are probably warranted.
"Heeey, cap'n," comes Shachi's voice again, accompanied by a soft tap to Law's cheek. Law forces his eyes open and wonders when he closed them. He doesn't remember doing that. "I know you feel like shit, but try to work with us a little, yeah?"
"Hn," is what comes out of Law's throat.
"Let's start with something simple." Penguin, now. "Sit down."
Instead of doing that, Law takes a look around only to realize that they're in his quarters. That's not great. Or more specifically, the fact that he doesn't know when they got here is not great.
A familiar hand lands on his shoulder, pressing gently. Law's knees give in without conscious thought and he finds himself sitting on his bed. Penguin and Shachi sit down next to him, all the while talking to each other. Law lets their voices wash over him without paying attention to what they're talking about.
Just as he's about to close his eyes, there's suddenly a mug in front of his face.
"Water," Penguin says from Law's left.
"Drink," instructs Shachi from Law's right.
Law takes the mug with both hands, not shaking anymore but sort of feeling like they should still be, wraps his fingers securely around it, and drinks. While he does that, Penguin and Shachi restart their conversation. What little Law hears when he focuses for a bit is something about mermaids. This time he notices when his eyes slip shut. He stares at his eyelids and tries to find some semblance of inner peace as the water washes the residual taste of bile from his mouth; the faint tang of ash at the back of his throat that hasn't actually been there since he made it outside of Flevance's borders goes as well.
It will be back, Law is under no illusions. He wakes up with that hint of his world burning on his tongue once in a while, often the only clue to tell him what he's dreamt of. For now it's gone, though, retreated back to his subconscious where it belongs. It's easier to breathe like this.
Now if he could also stop seeing the flash of white shine. But no, he just… just keeps seeing his crew split to make way for him, keeps seeing the excited curiosity on their faces, keeps seeing them touching the deceptively pretty pile of jewelry and useless decorative items as if it was harmless and–
"Did none of you realize it was Amber Lead?" Law asks, chokes the words out from his rapidly constricting throat. Oh yeah, fuck breathing easier. Penguin and Shachi stop talking and Law attempts to swallow the feeling back down. Someone should have made the connection. Most of the crew is from the North Blue, and most of them are older than Law is, and therefore most of them know what Amber Lead is. Everyone should have at least heard of it – Law's been through enough of his home sea that he knows people still talk about it, descriptively –, some even seen, and someone should have realized.
"I'm sorry," Penguin then offers quietly. "Not until your reaction. I've only ever heard of it, never seen before today." Shachi echoes his words and Law forces his eyes open.
"It was just some rich people shit you'd hear about once in a while. Dunno if any ever even made it to Swallow, the whole island's a shithole," Shachi continues. "Then all the panic about it started spreading, y'know, and suddenly nobody would even talk about it out loud, just whisper– hey, you okay?"
No. No, he's not, because talking about this, fucking Amber Lead and its history – a topic Law himself stupidly brought up, fuck–, is a recipe for disaster right now. The aftershocks from earlier aren't quite done with him yet, won't be until he gets some sleep and not even then if all he manages is a half-hour nap. This one is… severe, he thinks, evident in how unmoored he feels, shaky and unsure. Unsteady. Fuck, shit, fuck, his head is killing him.
If he could just cut into his brain and fix it, fix the relentless headache and fix the time lapses and fix the constant fucking insomnia and fix this fucking thing that has him breaking like this. But neither the mind nor his power work like that, or if they do he has yet to figure out how exactly, not to mention that self-surgery on the brain is, to put it mildly, risky even with his fruit. His crew would have him in seastone cuffs if he even thought about it.
At some point he becomes aware of touch again, and fuck, he hadn't even realized he'd tuned it out. He counts the points of contact and ends up with… six? That doesn't make sense. Humans have two hands (and these are all human hands – Law would recognize Bepo's paws), six divided by two is three which makes three people and that makes no sense. But he does the laughably simple math again and ends up with the same result again. And then a third time. Then he counts the individual points of contact, starts with one: left shoulder. Two: head. Three: face. Four: back, moving. Five: right shoulder. Six:
… what's six? There's a sixth point of contact, he knows this, but where's– what– why–
And then, all at once, feeling slams back into his body like a physical impact, and suddenly six makes sense after all, because points two and three are his own damn hands. Point six is Shachi trying to prevent Law from pulling his own hair out, attempting to pry Law's fingers open where they're fisted in his hair and to shift that compulsive grip to clutch Shachi's hand instead. So more accurately point two is his hair rather than head. Semantics. He forces his stiff fingers to comply with Shachi's nudging. Next, the hand on his right shoulder disappears, and soon reappears around Law's wrist.
"C'mon, you're gonna hurt yourself." Shachi gives a gentle tug to pull Law's hand off from where it's pressing hard into his eye socket.
"Talk to us," says Penguin.
Shachi snorts. "That'll be the day." Were it not for the decade's worth of proof of him being utter shit at opening up, Law would be offended. As it stands, though, that decade's worth of proof exists, so he elects to ignore it.
"Law, hey. Say the word and I'll go get the drugs. Or say nothing and I'll go get the drugs."
"The only way Penguin's not getting the drugs is if you explicitly say no and demonstrate you can still make medical decisions. Yeah, you look that bad."
"You're not calming down." Point four is Penguin rubbing his back at a steady rhythm, slower than Law's breathing. "You can't continue like this." There's a part of Law that wants to take that as a challenge, wants to say fucking watch me and don't tell me what I can and can't do, but that part is a fucking brat and a bigger part of Law recognizes that Penguin is right. Shachi has a point too, about Law's capability to make medical decisions at the moment, though Law would argue that that only extends as far as himself – he's still sufficiently functional to treat others, he thinks. Objectivity towards other people he can do; himself, not so much, not when he's like this.
So yeah, he's not calming down, that much is starting to get pretty obvious. He tries to match his breathing to the rhythm of Penguin's hand and fails, and tries again and fails again, repeat, fail, again, again why can't he fucking breathe–
"Yeah," he manages to get out with an utterly pathetic excuse of an exhale. Time to accept that he's well and truly stuck in a loop.
"Okay." The bed shifts as Penguin gets up, the motion accompanied by two heavy pats on Law's shoulder. "I'll be right back." Law doesn't track him after that, wouldn't even if he wasn't focusing on how Shachi's hand replaces Penguin's on his back near instantaneously. With how in sync those two usually are, there's barely a hitch in the rhythm. The smooth relay does nothing to help Law stick to it.
It should be easy; the theory of it certainly is. Inhale. Exhale. Count if you have to. It's two steps. His body has been doing it mostly on its own for twenty-four fucking years without him having to think about it, without him having to do shit to make it happen. And even without taking that into account, he has enough experience panicking that he should be able to force himself into it by now. He has in the past.
Count if you have to, he reminds himself. One, two, three, four; in, out, in, out. Just follow Shachi's rhythm. Just follow Shachi's rhythm. One. Two. Three. Four. Count and breathe. Count and breathe. Count and breathe.
Law counts and breathes.
He loses himself in the simple monotony. Allows himself to get lost, more accurately – he's unwillingly gotten lost several times already, each of them awful, and he's fought against that feeling every step of the way; few things are as terrifying, as paralyzingly panic-inducing, as loss of control, after all. If he just lets himself sink into it, stops fighting it, it's easier.
That is not to say that it's easy; far from it. Everything just has to be a fight of some sort, it seems; if he's not fighting for control of himself, he's fighting himself to stop himself from fighting that. In some ways it's even worse.
Count and breathe. He tries to focus on that, only on that, there's only counting and breathing and nothing else. The thing is, he keeps slipping between what feels like every count, and if he's not slipping then he's stumbling, and he just can't seem to find his balance. Which is ridiculous because he managed it once already today.
… that was today, right? It hasn't even been… what, an hour, maybe? He doesn't know. He tries to piece it together but it's like half the pieces are missing and the rest keep changing places. Did he break the coffee mug before or after he made a Room? During? Wait, no, he didn't break one, did he? Did he? Does that even matter?
Yes. Yes it does because he needs to parse this together lest he go insane, or maybe he's already done that and that's why he can't seem to make anything make sense. This must be what losing your mind feels like, this neverending loop of… this. He doesn't know and he can't remember and doesn't have the words and he can't afford to lose it yet, not this early, can't– can't– can't– can't–
think–
breathe–
move–
feel–
breathe–
Something's wrong, whispers a small – young, awfully young – voice in the back of his head, and Law almost laughs out loud. It's fucking hysterical, how much of an understatement that is. He passed wrong by several nautical miles the moment he saw his crew and Amber Lead in the same frame. A lot is wrong, a lot is a lot more than wrong, and he needs something, needs something to pull him out of his head but he can't recall what that is.
Stop fighting.
Except that that's not the difficult part. He's succeeded at that part already, a couple of times in fact. The difficult part is remaining down, staying not fighting, and that brings him back to the whole fighting himself thing and he needs to figure out a way to–
Something is shoved into his mouth.
Startled, Law is not immune to the human instinct to immediately try to get whatever it is out of his mouth. What immediately follows, though, is a hand covering his mouth to prevent that. It doesn't cover his nose, allowing him to keep breathing and not forcing him to swallow, and oh yeah, he's being talked to again.
Law blinks a few times to clear his vision and manages to focus his eyes on the mug of water being presented to him.
Right. A pill. That's what's in his mouth.
"Are you gonna spit that out if I remove my hand?"
Unable to give a verbal response or shake his head with Penguin's hand on his face, Law instead blinks twice; an easy no they decided on years ago, paired with an equally easy one for yes. It's enough for Penguin to retract his hand and place the mug in Law's hands. Law wastes no time washing the chalk of the dissolving pill down.
Now he just has to wait for it to kick in.
Penguin retakes his place at Law's left, and his hands find their way back to their earlier places. This time Law is aware of the physical contact, at least, and he resolves to stay aware of it. He can feel his hands too. He'd very much like to keep it that way.
Law would like to say it doesn't take long, but his perception of time is so shot that it would be a lie. Sure he knows on a factual basis that his damn drugs work and work fast because he's made sure of that, but for all he feels it could be ten seconds and it could be a fucking hour. Five hours. He can't tell.
But however long it takes, it does eventually happen. His surroundings grow hazy, his head grows heavy, his thoughts grow slow. Hazier. Heavier. Slower. And hazier. And heavier. And slower.
And hazier.
And heavier.
And
slower.
He wakes up resting on something soft and fluffy, and he wakes up with a hand in his hair. He wakes up with no memory of falling asleep. It's disorienting at first, even with the familiarity that is Bepo as his pillow, but after a couple more moments awake prior events start trickling back in.
In light of what's now coming back to him, Law finds it more than a little surprising that he's waking up from what feels like peaceful slumber. A fucking miracle, in fact. He actually feels somewhat refreshed. Still exhausted, though; he hasn't been awake a full minute or opened his eyes yet and already he's down to take another nap. He doesn't have a full picture of what happened, doubts he will even if he gets Penguin and Shachi to supply the pieces he's missing and knows he won't if all he's got to rely on is his own recollection, but he doesn't need one to acknowledge that time to recover from it is very much necessary.
He must give some indication about his return to the waking world, some shift or groan, because while he's still contemplating the series of events and coming to the conclusion that his mouth tastes like cotton balls soaked in undiluted death and air-dried in an unventilated back-alley morgue that's older than Noland's lies and last cleaned never, his pillow rumbles under his head.
"Captain?"
The hand combing through his hair comes to a pause. "Oh, he's awake?"
"He's awake," Law confirms, the words grating at his throat and coming out muffled against Bepo's suit.
"How're you feeling? The hand in his hair resumes movement – Shachi's hand, presumably, now that Law places the voice.
Like he wants to go back to sleep. Like he wants the ocean to swallow him. Like something died in his mouth and has started to rot. His dignity, probably.
He also feels considerably more like a person than he did before he blacked out.
Trying to condense that into a coherent response isn't something he has the brain capacity for, though, so for now he settles for a vague handwave somewhere in Shachi's direction and a muffled groan into orange fabric.
"Eloquent, Doc. Where do I find that in the dictionary?" Sassy bastard. Law makes the effort to raise his hand again, enough to flip Shachi off, and decides that Bepo really is his only friend. Except that Shachi's nails are still scratching against his scalp in an obnoxiously pleasant manner, so he can stay too. For now. Even though his only response is to laugh at Law.
"Better than the last time you were awake, I'm assuming?" Shachi then asks, answering his own question when it becomes evident no verbal response is coming from Law. The grin in his voice is practically audible.
Posed like that, as a yes-or-no question, Law finds answering much more manageable. "Yeah, a lot." He still has no intention of moving, though. Maybe he should be a responsible captain, but Bepo is the world's most comfortable pillow, and right now like this he feels better than he remembers feeling in days. That likely has a lot to do with sleep. "How long have I been out?"
This time the answer comes from Bepo. "About seven hours," he says, which… huh, that's more than Law's slept in the past week combined. He rarely gets that even with drugs, but maybe the combination of exhaustion, chemicals, and the feeling of safety he only ever experiences inside the Tang, way below the surface, surrounded by his crew, managed to produce a miracle this time. Not that Law believes in those, not really – if he ever harbored any faith in a higher power underneath his understanding of medicine and science, that died with his sister and parents.
Seven hours of uninterrupted sleep is as close to a miracle as it gets, though, in the mundane.
"'ve you guys been here the whole time?"
"Weren't gonna leave you to sleep alone, seas know what would've happened."
Okay, Law destroyed a wall in the throes of a nightmare, like, once. When he was fifteen. But the half-hearted protest dies in his throat as Shachi, damn him, moves his hand in Law's hair and scratches that spot at the base of his skull that makes Law go boneless.
"We've been here in shifts," Bepo says, as per usual providing the actual answer where Penguin and Shachi pretend to be funny. Shifts make sense, at least, and Law likes that version of events much better than taking three crew members out of their duties for seven hours just for him. It also explains Penguin's absence; he's off-shift. And hopefully on-shift at some other part of the ship, unless it's some ungodly hour when people who aren't Law usually sleep. He tries to mentally calculate the time if he's been asleep for seven hours, but quickly finds the effort futile since he doesn't know what the time was seven hours ago even approximately.
Shachi's hand stops traveling again, comes to a pause somewhere left from the crown of Law's head and keeps scratching. "Hey, you think you could handle some food now? Penguin's been pretty adamant about getting you to eat something once you wake up and I can't say I disagree."
"Have you been forgetting again, Captain?"
Motherhens, all of them.
"You know he has, Bepo, come on."
It's not like he does it on purpose. It's just that the closer they get to the Red Line, the more he has on his mind, and though he removed the last traces of Amber Lead from his system eleven years ago, he's never been able to undo all the damage the poison had already done. He doesn't get hungry. His body is obnoxiously bad at staying warm. The spots faded but never disappeared. For a long time he thought it had permanently stunted his growth. Whenever he gets sick he gets sick, and every time it without fail goes to his lungs. Both his immune system and metabolism are fucked in a way he doesn't recall them being Before.
He just… forgets. When other things steal his attention and occupy his thoughts, eating doesn't even cross his mind.
"I'm not blaming you, dummy," Shachi sighs, exasperated. "We're just worried about you. So, how about that food?"
"I could eat." He should eat. Every part of him knows that.
"Great!" Shachi retracts his hand, stands up, and claps. "Let's go!"
Law can pick apart the forced cheer in Shachi's tone, pinpoint the underlying concern and admit that it's not completely unwarranted – apparently the plan is to just rip off the bandaid and get him to the galley, and while Law is sure he'll be fine once he actually gets there, the mounting anxiety of anticipation stemming from the last time he was there might just do him in on the way. It's a good plan, though, not giving him the choice to stay here. Because he'd take that, and then he'd be avoiding his own damn galley. No, Shachi has the right idea, even if the thought of it makes Law's chest constrict.
He rolls off Bepo and gets on his feet, waits through the headrush eyes closed. When he opens them, both Shachi and Bepo are hovering close enough to catch him if needed but far enough to allow him his personal space, as much as they can in his cramped quarters at least. He supposes there's nothing to be done about the observing looks they're giving him, besides giving it time. They'll stop, Penguin included, once they've determined Law's alright.
Shachi walks ahead while Bepo trails behind Law like he usually does, and it seems he's still on edge because he has to remind himself that that's where Bepo usually walks, that it's not to force or trap him. The closer they get to the galley, the more he has to remind himself. The more the anxiety in his chest expands. He knew to expect that. It's fine. It'll be fine.
Based on the small number of crew members they come across, Law deduces the time must be closer to midnight. That would mean he's been asleep since sometime around… mid-afternoon. It's a good thing his circadian rhythm was already non-existent.
Trying to track the time proves an effective distraction; before he knows it, Shachi is stepping through the doorway into the galley. Law isn't prone to using medically inaccurate proverbs, but for a moment he certainly feels like his heart leaps into his throat. He doesn't even notice he's stopped walking until Bepo gives him a gentle push and starts uttering apologies.
Left with little choice, Law stumbles in after Shachi. He doesn't know what he expected, but he's immediately looking for… something.
"Captain, hey." Shachi's voice snaps Law out of his unblinking surveillance. "Yeah? You got rid of it. We cleaned. Eat." He holds out an onigiri for Law to take, and then Bepo steers him to the table while he absently takes a bite. Shachi is right; the galley has obviously been cleaned, and Law has no doubt his crew has been as meticulous about it as they are about his operating room. The thought makes something warm bloom in his chest.
A plate of onigiri and a steaming mug are set in front of him, and Law looks up to see Shachi push them towards him and sit down on the other side of the table. "You're eating at least three of those," Shachi nods at the plate, "and that's tea, not coffee."
Penguin and Shachi are going to be watching his coffee consumption for the foreseeable future, Law knows. He knew that already, because that's happened before, but the stern look Shachi gives him cements it. And not just coffee – they're going to be hovering, and Law is going to hate it, and he won't be able to fault them for it because it's not like he doesn't hover when he worries.
At least they'll be at sea while his idiots get that out of their systems, as it should still be a week or so until they reach the next island. Law finishes his first onigiri and hides a small, fond smile into his tea.
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