to find a home - Chapter 8 - funkypublicscam (2024)

Chapter Text

As the two of them discover, some days are better than others.

Some days, Lon can’t pull themselves out of a tight curl in the corner, hands laced over the back of their neck and head tucked into their knees, and it’s all they can do to keep their breathing even.

Trafalgar tries to help - he drags a blanket over their shoulders, sets food at their hip, reminds them to drink - and he’ll sit next to them and do his work there, on the floor, instead of at his desk, to keep them company until they’re ready to bicker again.

Other days, it’s Trafalgar who wakes up shouting or spends the day staring listlessly at the wall (it makes Lon wonder just how awful it is for the both of them to be cramped in such a small room, so far underground for so long). Often, he’ll hardly speak, mourn for things unknown to them.

Lon’s figured out a system for it, actually.

If he’s woken up from memories that he doesn’t want to talk about and refuses to budge, they ramble on about Dressrosa-related work or evidence they’ve picked up in the facility. Lon hadn’t realized how big being in control was for him until they watched it steady his hands.

If he comes back in a daze, they hip-check him on his way to his desk and trip him into his bed. Then, they perch at the end of it and tell him about the constellations and their stories until he’s either asking questions or asleep.

And, for the last one, they pester him with sign. Tap Morse on the cabinets until he throws a journal at their head or admits defeat and slumps down next to them. He doesn’t have to speak; they just have to keep him busy.

In the end, Lon doesn’t know why they bother.

It must be a survival instinct: keep your glorified captor from breaking down, and life is easier.

The ugliest days, however, are the ones where one of them is frustrated to the point of antsy: then it’s all hell breaking loose in nearly 60 square meters and blood on the walls; threats about the Marines and their experiments, and Lon shouting, “strange you want to kill a man so like you;” and it ends with bitter, spat apologies in the middle of the night and wrapped wounds.

They don’t get along, still. It’s always a toss-up, a drop of the hat, flip of a coin on whether or not they clash.

But they don’t think either of them expect to get along, and maybe the lashing out is better than the waiting.

Somehow, though, it’s been improving.

In the sense that Lon isn’t afraid to put hands on him and doesn’t mind a split lip or two anymore - listen, they never claimed it was a healthy coping mechanism, just that it worked.

So, Lon and Trafalgar settled grievances with aggressive bouts of fisticuffs. Like normal people.

However, the most stubborn adversary the two of them faced was the most devious one of all: Lon’s near-incessant boredom.

With their legs propped up against the wall and back pressed into the floor, their eyes are on the chain whip jingling between their fingers – they’d dragged Nin out of her confinement in the drawer to play, and, carefully, Lon winds her up into a flashing spin, watching the blade blur in its constrained orbit with the tip of it hissing a hair’s breadth away from their stomach.

I could throw it. It makes a quiet whistle in the still air.I should throw it.

Lon releases the bundled metal tail in their grip as soon as the dagger end hits a vertical. Nin goes sailing into the ceiling, clanging as she meets it, arcs down - "Shhit-" they roll out of the way of the lashing chains, hands over their head as Nin clatters back down to the floor at their shoulder.

At his desk, Trafalgar slams his quill down with an aggravated sigh. They innocently peer at him and pretend they are not the source of his frustration. "Can you sit quietly?" He snaps.

"I've been - I’ve been sitting quietly for most of the day." Lon retorts, sprawled back out on the floor.

He gets up, making them scramble into a proper sitting position, Lon maybe aching for a fight more than they’d like to admit, and crouches down next to them. Trafalgar sticks his hand out, and Armament flashes across his skin for them to examine.

They don’t think they’ll ever get tired of inspecting it: it’s just so strange, and they can’t do it yet.

"I’ve been thinking about how you’ve been using Haki.” Nodding, Lon turns his hand over and sticks theirs out next to his, trying to mimic the same shine across his knuckles to no avail. Maybe I’m not frustrated enough. “For Haki to really respond, you have to focus on putting faithinto it. It's not a reaction to flash around - it's a part of you, and you'll have to force it to move with you until it's like breathing. A good starting point is to imagine turning your hopes or goals into a shield over whatever body part you're trying to protect."

Their lips thin. “That’s – that’s a lot more complicated than emotional intent, Trafalgar.” They imagine holding all their dreams for the future in the palm of their hand and think of how it would coat their skin like liquid.

Nothing.

Holding their breath doesn't do anything, either.

A sheepish smile is flashed their way. “We’ve been focusing on offensive Armament, not defensive - and I thought keeping it simple was the best way to explain it, but I don’t think it’s working for you. Otherwise you’d have more than weak flashes of Armament when we practice.”

Now Lon’s the embarrassed one, dragging a knee up to their chest and ducking their head. “I’m trying.” [someone will take the fall for this failure, and it’s a matter of who takes the punishment lying down first. (they don’t know why they bother wondering. It’s always them)]

Trafalgar waves them off. "The most important part is your will. The difference between someone who uses Haki and someone who doesn't is that one of them wields their purpose and intent like a weapon. It has to be something that can overcome everything else put in front of you. That’s why emotion is so important. It’s like the sea – you can only direct its power.”

He stands, their neck craning after him, and digs around for something in a drawer. "Put your weapon up. We're giving you incentive." As they get to their feet, Lon grabs Nin and sets her on the desk against their better judgement.

In the corner of their eye, a flash slips into his sleeve like a warning sign.

They turn to him, finally checked back into what's going on around them, when he swings a fist into their stomach.

“Thef*ck?" They snarl through a gasp, eyes sharp on his smug smile so at odds with their starving sneer. All Trafalgar does is roll his wrists as he pulls away. “A war-warning?”

"Incentive, remember?" He barks as Lon ducks under the next swing, darting out of his reach and throwing themselves out of the way of the kick sent hurtling towards their side as he chases after them.

No Observation on their tongue yet. Must be from their heart going too fast, the adrenaline razorblades in their veins, the electrical shocks running through their clammy palms.

If I can get into a rhythm, I’ll try - "Are you only going to evade?" Trafalgar snarls, interrupting their thoughts as nails swipe within centimeters of their neck when they jerk backwards to avoid his grab at their throat.

And the fun they’re having halts at those words, shoulders stiffening at the memory of his devil fruit molding theirs into something he wanted.

A wince flashes through his face, startling the two of them, Lon’s step stuttering and his shoulder uneven with discomfort - but he doesn’t stop moving, just an insistent murmur of, “Fight back, Lon,” and they’re gritting their teeth, brows furrowed in defiance (against who, they don’t know) as they knock his next punch off course, wrapping their hand around his elbow and yanking him into their knee.

Trafalgar's unfazed (but he wears a grim, satisfied smile), despite the whoosh of breath that leaves him on impact, and flips their grip against them, grabbing their upper arm with his nails digging into their skin. Using his forward momentum to slam them against the wall with nothing but body weight, his forearm bites into their neck.

It sends their head cracking against the wall, the rampant ache of in their throat turning into crushing wildfire, and – oh, that would’ve been a really nice time to have used Armament -

While they're busy seeing stars and gasping nebulas, Trafalgar hefts them up over his shoulder and throws them into the floor behind him. He doesn't even do them the honor of breathing hard - no, they're just asack of potatoesto fling around - and he pivots to squat down next to them, holding up a finger and dragging it from side to side in front of their face.

Their eyes track it fine. "Where was Armament in any of that? Or Observation?" Lon groans at him and his bullsh*t intervention, the back of their neck throbbing. His words come out in a drawling sneer that tastes like disappointment and speaks of stern mockery.

"You're a, a sh*t teacher," they spit.

He takes time to consider the thought. How unlike him - he must have hit his head somewhere when they weren’t looking. "No,” the liar determines, "Get up."

They glare at him, stalling. I can be patient.

Trafalgar, on the other hand, is not inclined to be, according to the molasses irritation creeping back into his expression.

And as soon as angry hands flash down to haul them up, Lon shifts, fleeing grasping fingers as he tries to chase after a crow, and shifts again when they make it to his knees, launching themselves to barrel into his chest and knock him over. Armament flashes over the back of his neck and head as he hits the floor.

"Good." He says as he forms a fist and punches into their side, knocking them off him. Trafalgar rolls onto them, too smooth for how the two of them are supposed to be feeling, his right forearm braced back against their throat like it’ll make a home in their whistling trachea. "Now show me your will."

Lon snarls at him, I’m going to show you hell, digs their fingers into his skin and flips him back over. Winding their fist back, they bury it in his solar plexus - only for their knuckles to crack against his Haki and its jolting impact to rattle up their arm.

Now, there's tangible fury in his scowl when he growls. "The only reason I can't read your movements right now is because you're not thinking at all."

Character flaw of mine, really. Panted breaths are concussive against their teeth. How sweet of you to notice.

A small blade flashes into his palm. So that’s what you put in your sleeve earlier - "Youwilldo better,” and that knife is loved in his grip, its vicious point driving up towards their stomach at an angle beautiful for disembowelment, and - Lon shoves off Trafalgar, who only surges after them like the ocean herself, undeterred by distance or obstacle.

A delirious giggle gets caught in their throat as they scramble away from him in some f*cked up game of tag.

Trafalgar doesn’t share their mirth; livid annoyance comes barking out of his mouth, "I already told you what it feels like, nowdoit,” and Lon drops to the floor as the knife swipes towards their neck, adrenaline turning their breathing ragged.

He's f*cking insane. They’re having a hard time banishing the bloodthirsty leer from their face. I’m f*cking insane.

But I’m not bored out of my mind anymore. And they like making him a target.

"I need a, a li-little morepracticewith the con-concept before I apply it," Lon breathlessly snarls, rolling to avoid the vicious stomp aimed at their head.

He snags the back of their shirt – crap - when they twist to knock his feet out from under him. "Thisispractice." Trafalgar retorts as he hauls them high into the air, their legs bunched up into their chest to strike at his abdomen.

Their legs drop to kick. The knife whistles towards their stomach.

f*ck, their eyes tracking it in sluggish motion,nowayin hell am I being put on bedrest so soon.

Desperately, Lon musters what might be feeling as they rasp in a breath, pools all their desire to not getexenterated over their skin in an imaginary sheen of armor, because what good is getting eviscerated when they’ll be chasing the stars? They add a healthy dose of terror like it'll jumpstart their Haki into working.

Then, they brace themselves, eyes squeezed shut and lungs frozen, every muscle tense.

The blade crunches when it lands. Metal shards clink to the floor between them.

"Verygood," Trafalgar all but purrs through his wicked grin.

But there’s no time to bask in their success: an uppercut cracks into their jaw, snapping their head back and sending their teeth painfully clacking together. He drops them to the floor as Lon groans, metal clinking as their knee shifts into its pile and becomes an island for toothed waves to break against.

"But you could've shifted when I grabbed you. And using Observation would've let you avoid that last hit."

He crouches down next to them as he continues. "It was an acceptable first real try."

Lon ignores him and yanks the front of their shirt up instead, pressing their fingers against their stomach.

No blood. Not even a bruise.

Staring at their unbroken skin, mouth parted in astonishment, "I didmagic," they breathe.

Snorting, Trafalgar hands them an orange and corrects them like a stuck-up prick. "It's called Haki."

Lon gleefully accepts the reward, movements slightly off their mark while they're still dazed. "It's bull-bullsh*t,” they insist, “And I did it." Grinning, they sit up, hands jittery as they try to peel the fruit.

They’d go so far as to say they’re elated.

Niklas, I learned something new - I could protect you so long as I keep improving.

Trafalgar smiles beside Lon, a sudden, treacherous kindness to him as he gently takes the orange from them to rip the rind off before handing it back. "And you'll do it again." Pride swells in their chest – they go so far as to beam at him, hesitant animal eating out of his palm – “How’s your breathing? It sounded rough halfway through.”

Lon shrugs as their eyes cut to him. “It’s, it’s fine. It was onl-only bad because you were coming at me with a knife.”

“Do some oxygen therapy just in case. We still have enough.” Nodding, they pass him part of their orange. It’s no longer second nature to share with him, but they’ll buy his goodwill if they can. “Can’t promise I won’t do it again,” Trafalgar tacks on.

Rolling their eyes at him, “big – big, bad, scary pirate, you are,” they press the rest of the fruit into his open hand before they get to their feet and pad over to the oxygen tank left in the corner.

As they fiddle with it, fitting the mask over their face and opening the valve, they try to estimate just how sore they’re going to be.

Today must be one of their better days.

It looks like, Lon sighs, sliding out of the vent and covered in dust, Haki is not a fan of me. Trafalgar’s already made it back – he makes it a point to get back before they do so he can laugh at them: grey smudged across their nose and forehead, disgruntled expression paired with dirty hands and dark clothes a shade lighter than they were before – and it’s the fourth day in a row they haven’t been able to find him in the facility.

If this game has a loser - and it most certainly does - it’s them.

“You’ll get it eventually,” he says, taking a tactically timed sip of his coffee (he drinks the stuff like it’s water and Lon finds it equal parts funny and disappointing that a health professional is such a hypocrite) to hide his amusem*nt.

Lon does him the justice of wiping his smirk off for him: they stride over to wipe off the dust on their hands on his shoulder, and the elbow jostling into their stomach will never be enough incentive to quit. “What am I missing?”

“Manners.” He quips without missing a beat.

Lon blandly stares at him. Kettle, meet pot, no? “I re-reflect my environment.”

Trafalgar nods, another sly smirk curling his mouth. Lon thought he’d already learned his lesson with that, but apparently not; they might have to reintroduce the concept of consequence to him. “Like a toddler,” he adds.

They make the mistake of dragging their hands down their face.

As soon as they realize, they’re pulling their hands away to stare at them in revulsion, and they swear they can feel the new tracks of grime they’ve put on their cheeks; meanwhile, Trafalgar loses it, laughing so hard he starts choking and it’s only thanks to their intervention that he doesn’t get coffee spilled all over his lap, and maybe they thump his back a little harder than necessary to be petty.

“Why’s the toddler burping the full-grown man?” They coo at him, reaching past Trafalgar to snag the journal he’s put on the table.

He says something in retort, but Lon’s not listening to him; they’re too busy flipping through the pages to make sure all their research was just as lovingly smudged and stitched together as it was before it had left the room.

So far, he’s done a good job of keeping the book safe and unmarred each time he takes it out with him. Lon can appreciate that.

“Can you go clean yourself up?” He complains over their inner monologue, planting his boot on their hip and shoving them backwards. “You’re getting dust all over my workspace.”

While they agree with his sentiment, they’re not thrilled by the idea of listening to him without protest -it’d go to his head, and then he’d take a mile where they’d given him an inch – so they make a show of dragging their gaze to the bed. “I, I don’t know,” Lon says slowly, “I’m feeling really tired, actually.”

“Lon, if you climb into that bed, I’m going to scatter your limbs across this institute and make you find them yourself.”

They’ve done their job, striking the fear of filth into his heart; waving him off, Lon opens the bottom drawer reserved for their change of clothes, fingers sinking into the folded fabric.

A thought strikes them.

“When are – when are we going back to Dressrosa?” It comes out in a subdued murmur.

“As soon as I capture Caesar.”

Pulling a fresh shirt and jeans into their lap, Lon looks up at him. “And when will you do that?”

He breaks their gaze when they ask, and that’s as much of an answer as they’ll get. “When there’s an opportunity.”

Their fingers sink into the sweater in their lap. “I – as much as I practice Haki and think of al-alter-ternative plans and routes, I’m, I’m getting bored.”

Silence fills the space between them.

Boredom, after all, makes everything go to sh*t – puts knives in his hands, bullets in their mouth, and the blood of misery on the floor.

“I’m not staying here for months on end, Trafalgar. Like I’ve said before, I’ll make an op-opportunity whether you’re ready for one or not,” Lon softly tells the clothing in their hands.

He shifts in his chair, “You can’t do that.”

“Can’t do what?”

There’s anger in the furrow of his brows, a sharp threat in a silent snarl. “I’ve been planning this sh*t for years. You can’t do whatever the f*ck you want just because you get bored after a month of waiting. I’ve been waiting all my damn life for this.”

Fabric crumples in their hands as they draw it tight against their stomach, severe frown lining their face. “You can’t keep me here,” they argue, “You can’t – you can’t keep putting my life on hold and stop and start it as you please. You shouldn’t, shouldn’t have sent me to Dressrosa, and you especially shouldn’t have kept me on your damn ship.”

He says nothing, for a moment. “I don’t regret protecting my crew.”

Lon shoves to their feet. “I know you don’t.” Bitterness is thick in their voice, harsh and sharp where it snaps in their throat. Louder as their words pick up speed, urgency to split in the air like spoiled meat, “I know you don’t because you’re f*cking selfish – f*cking selfish, and you like to pretend that the person you see in the mirror isn’t the monster you’re running from.”

Fury spills like ink in his eyes and they hastily back away from him, voice quieting just how he likes it. “I don’t blame you, but I won’t forgive you for it. What you did was wrong, and I hate how you’ve kept me from my research.”

Their back hits the bathroom door behind them, their hand reaching for the doorknob. Trafalgar stays sitting at his desk wearing an expression of stone. He reminds them of a mausoleum’s gargoyle.

“You don’t feel safe, Trafalgar?” Lon’s bravery melts out of them, their voice nearly fading into a whisper as it does, “Neither do I, and it’s because of you.”

And maybe they shouldn’t have said any of that, but there’s the click of the thick door as it comes between them, and they don’t have to look him in the eyes anymore. All the noxious, burning embers in their throat snuff out into silence, and it’s just them and their hand hanging loose on the door handle and the press of their balled-up clothes into their stomach.

Knuckles find their way between their teeth. They used to watch Yiling gnaw at his knuckles like this, too, as a young child peering around labyrinth lab corners to witness deep thought. I wish – they step back, staring at the floor – I wish I was home. A grimace around skin and bone. I want to go home.

They don’t see him the day after; he’s out the door before they wake up, and despite it being one of their quieter disagreements, it’s left them sad, and Lon spends at least ten minutes debating if it was unwarranted pity for him or the discomfort of being honest about their feelings.

Ultimately, they decide, it’s not unwarranted Stockholm-brand pity because it’s not unreasonable to have become lukewarm acquaintances with the sort-of healthcare provider they’ve been crammed into a room with for the past month. If they hadn’t, one of them would have murdered the other out of frustration by now (and they could still be enticed to, actually).

Mutual survival or something.

Therefore, Lon determines, I feel wrong because I was – they pause in flipping through a journal, suppressing a shudder – rudely vulnerable. They set the book down, fingers lacing together and thumbs rubbing over the sides of their hands. And maybe a little mean. I did agree to stop comparing him to Doflamingo. Sort of.

And while it’s true he’s played a large part in making them unsafe, they just – they just wish they hadn’t said that to him.

Because what if that’s what he wants?

What if everything has been a lie? All the kindness they still shun - a façade - all the moments where he’s calm and his guard is down just an act, and the smiles aimed their way that surprise him – what’s the point in pretending to the point of him replacing them with scowls as soon as he realizes he’s smiling if none of it’s true?

Just how far is he willing to go to trick them?

The problem is Lon doesn’t have an answer.

There’s an ache in their chest. All their problems would be solved if they could just go back home. Back to their telescopes and slow mornings (how beautiful was the sun spilling into the dregs of the night, all that fading navy held up by stars that slipped into the pale fire burning across the horizon) and the roulette of ethnic dishes their family would play, and far away from callous pirates and cruel smirks and vicious tyrants.

Fingers harsh through their hair, Lon groans. I need something to do.

They consider the journals on the table again; hadn’t he wanted them to go through and respond to his comments? They can do that.

And it bothers them - how alike the two of them are.

Lon can’t help but notice how the trembling in their fingers stills, too, when they have something in their hands that they can control.

They're responding to every note Trafalgar's made for himself in their journals with increasing snark (he gets creative with his insults once the eleventh time he’s asked what word they’ve written rolls around) when he walks in.

Walkwould be a compliment for his awkward stumble into the room, all his usual grace deserting him as he slumps against the wall. Lon's out of the chair before they can think, dragging him to the bed.

Bruises bloom across the skin they can see and blood trickles from his temple. A vicious handprint stains his neck.

Aghast, they blurt, "What the – what the f*ck happened to you?" Trafalgar winces when they nudge his chin up to look at it better. Bloody crescents are dug into the back of his carotid artery.

"Vergo's come back," he dismisses, pushing at their chest, "Move. I need to wrap my wrist."

Yet, something in Lon refuses to, lightly smacking his hand when he tries to move them again.

His right hand stays tucked close to his stomach.

"No,you're – you’re,” the air in their lungs is changing forms, stealing their words, and what does it mean when a captor is weak? “You’re sit- you’resitting here and telling me what, what else is wrong with you." A furrowing of his brows before it’s replaced by a scowl for their bedside manners, which - fair.

“I can – I can – let me help,” Lon finishes, their words more forceful than they mean for them to be.

"I don't need to be babied."

Why do they care? "I'm not – I’m not babying you. What else do you need other than compression bandages? Do you have a con-concussion?"

Trafalgar's gaze sours as they pull away from him to go rummaging through his cabinets of supplies. "No. I don't need anything else." Dipping their head in acknowledgement, Lon drops the bandages onto the desk. The white spools of it spill out over their splayed fingers, firm against the wood, and there’s something about the image that sticks. Something about a physicist’s hands pretending to be a doctors on a worn surface bearing the same nicks and marks as their body.

"Stay here, okay? – don’t move, either. I’m going to get you ice.”

Trafalgar waves them off, lying down to turn his back to them. His coat bunches under his side, awkwardly stretched across his shoulder where his arm is tucked into his chest.

Well, Lon chooses to look at the bright side as they move towards the open vent, at least he’s not moving. Not really a bright side. If anything, it makes them more concerned, which is weird and makes them anxious instead, but they’re damn good at ignoring their problems. I know one of the labs had a freezer.

Shifting to clamber inside the winding passageways, just have to remember which one, they go so far as to their crossroads before they begin to stop at each laboratory they come across – these they do not visit nearly as often, and their memory isn’t as clear on the finer details, and they, foolishly, left their map with him.

They firmly avoid the path down to the room filled with children, but every other twisting turn is game: it’s three laboratories of cages and gurneys, two of bubbling bullsh*t, and another two of empty counters and abandoned titrations (bad science, that last one is) they pass before they’re successful.

Scrutiny of the lab below reveals careful lines of specimens and a large freezer pushed against the wall.

Shifting to be cramped in the small space, they firmly hit the vent with the heel of their palm. They keep the fingers of their left hand hooked into its slats when it pops out from the ventilation system's skeleton, and they drag it into the space with them before dropping down to the white floor.

It's painfully bright in here; squinting under the glare, they beeline for the freezer. From what their fledgling Observation Haki – they’re able to call it on command sometimes and only by pulling an utterly ridiculous face - can sense, there's no one within three meters of the room.

Hands plastered across the freezer’s pitted surface, they heave it open. Slabs of meat buried under bulky chunks of ice are stacked haphazardly inside.

Lon stares at the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the counters, what the f*ck¸ and takes deep, careful breaths. They steal a hanging lab coat, this is righteous theft, and dump ice into its back, wrapping the hem and sleeves around the pile.

To cover their tracks, they tug out some of the bottommost layers of ice to cover the bared meat. Shutting the freezer door with a quiet click, the damning yellow tag with 'Charlie' written on it in flowery script half-buried under old ice is hidden from them by cold, shiny steel.

They should be used to the things done here on this island, but they're not.

A ninth of the ice ends up melting. Much of the moisture soaked their sleeves and jeans, and when they land with a heavy thump on cold tile, a drop of water flies off their sleeve.

Trafalgar’s thankfully right where they left him, albeit angled to eye the bandages on the desk and his coat left in a pile on the floor. They'll count it a miracle he hasn't gotten up and put them on himself.

As they lug over their lab coat of ice with bandages spooled in their palms, he painstakingly sits up. It looks like it hurts, with how his face contorts in a grimace. "You sure no-nothing's broken?" Maybe his ribs are f*cked.

"Yes, I'm sure," he hisses. "I would know." Lon raises their brows at him, setting the coat of ice on the bed. They hope it makes his blankets damp.

"My apologies for asking." They hold out their hand. “Let me see your wrist.”

He snarls at them, “I don't need yourhelp. I'm not so weak that I need it."

His words sound empty.

Lon puts their hands up in ironic surrender. “Look, Trafalgar,” they hesitate, as their lips curl around the bitter stones in their mouth, “I’m a hypocrite, alright? Right now, I’m telling you to get help when you need it. I get that you could take care of this yourself, but you don’t have to.

“I don’t ask you for help because I can’t trust you. But what do you have to be afraid of me? You have my heart. I can’t even use Haki yet.” Lon crumples the compression bandages in their hand, contemplates the silence between them and the guarded distance in his eyes. “And who says you’re weak?”

He doesn’t answer. Another breath: if anyone knows the futility of their fate, it’s them; but Lon’s still trying to argue in spite of it, and Trafalgar is the last person they’ll accept input from.

He scrutinizes them. For what, they don’t know – but he pulls his head out of his ass and finally offers them his arm.

When they carefully tug his sleeve up, he's still watching them with exhausted eyes.

He looks like a warmed-over corpse with the blood caked on his face. "How, how much does it hurt to move it?"

He flexes his wrist experimentally, moving it in small increments. "It'll heal within a week."

Not what they asked, but okay. And he’s f*cking stupid for it, too, so they reach up and flick him on the forehead.

Trafalgar sputters questions they ignore, free hand coming up to rub at the sore spot – as if they flicked him that hard – and Lon makes quick work of wrapping his wrist while he’s distracted. It’s like tagging a wild animal: hit them with a tranquilizer, swoop in, put a tracking collar on, leave.

Tugging gently at the dressing, "This fine? Not too tight or loose?"

Trafalgar flexes his hand. "It's good."

A quick smile. They got pretty good at this stuff on Dressrosa.

“That wasn’t too hard, was it?” They slyly drawl. “Didn’t threaten you or nothin’. My bedside manners might, might be better than yours.”

“Shut up." He growls. He’s still grumpy, but it's only a 'I would stab you if I didn't have to clean up the mess,’ so they figure they’re still in the clear.

Eyeing his face – he looks a mess - and if they woke up to see him first thing, they’d probably scream. Granted, they’d shriek if they saw him without all the blood, too, but that’s irrelevant.

They ought to do something about that; not the screaming, but the mess he is - and get out of their crouch next to the bed as they decide a few sacrifices will have to be made for reasonably sized ice packs.

They’ll need two, unless - “Trafalgar, other than your wrist, ribs, and neck, do you have any areas that need to be iced?”

“My left knee.”

I’ll need two shirts? - I don’t know anything else that would work - for his knee and ribs. And a sock for his neck - like a scarf! A sock scarf. “Trafalgar, where do you keep your socks?” They’ve seen where his shirts are.

His lip curls. “Why?”

“To stuff it with ice.”

“Right cabinet, third drawer down, next to the pants.”

It’s right where he says it would be, and they take great glee in ruining his careful organization by only taking one sock from a pair. It’ll drive him up the wall, and it find itself lost under the bed as soon as it’s run through its use.

As for the two shirts - Lon snatches his long-sleeves, shoves ice inside them before he can protest, and roughly ties one off as best they can (it looks like a strange lump, and the blue is already darkening with its contents slowly melting), and the other they only tie the hem. It’s one of the most frustrating knots they’ve ever worked with, and, apparently, Trafalgar enjoys himself watching them struggle with rude snorts.

He looks less enthused when they’re tying off his sock and pushing it into his clavicle, though. The remaining ice is graciously allowed to remain in the lab coat.

They set the fully tied shirt ice pack on his left knee, and hand him the second to hold as they tie its sleeves over his opposite shoulder so the bulk of it rests against his ribs, like an ugly satchel several sizes too small for him.

His unimpressed stare, blood still crusted in his hairline and on his cheek, makes it a herculean task to keep from snickering back.

Clearing their throat from all the not-snigg*ring they were doing, Lon gestures at the chair at the desk. "Want me to grab it so I can set the ice for your, your wrist there instead?" Trafalgar hardly takes a moment to consider it. He probably doesn’t want his bed any wetter than necessary.

"That would be appreciated." Rolling the chair over to set the lab coat atop it, he watches them make a careful house of cards with the larger chunks of ice they weasel out of it over his wrist. They’re suddenly struck with the renewed need to get rid of the blood on his face when they glance up at him because, f*ck, is that terrifying.

"So why are you doing this?" Trafalgar interrupts their thought process, and they really wish he could wait. They can’t.

His eyes are sharp on their bland – wrangled into neutrality, more like - expression.

"Would it make you feel better if I gave you a reason?”

He doesn’t look away. Talk about post-murder stares. “Yes.”

Lon pauses, irritation fading into prickling discomfort – are either of them ready for honesty? When are they ever? – but they don’t have a better answer.

“If I have to follow you, then I need to do it by learning how to support you.” Lon pulls their hands into their lap. “That’s really the only way I know how to. I’ll in-invest myself in you and just stick around to make sure it pays off. Maybe I’ll ffi-nally get along better with you that way.”

They shrug, “but I’ll do it at a distance for now. You’re still a piece of sh*t.”

"Thinking like that is going to ruin you."

They rock onto their heels; they should really get a rag to clean his face. “Which part?” A wry smirk ghosts their lips. Was it the piece of sh*t bit?

“Following doesn’t have to be supporting.”

“Are you going to be the one to ruin me, then?” Lon raises their eyes to meet his stare. “I’m only following you.”

They suppose no one’s ever asked him that question before. It’s a heavy thing to do, after all, to destroy someone innocent.

But maybe they stopped being innocent a long time ago.

Trafalgar glances away first. “It’ll make you go places you shouldn’t.”

Guess he doesn’t know the answer, either. "Then at least I'll know I did a good job," they mutter.

He doesn’t say anything as they pad into the bathroom – the door closes behind them, scant privacy – and they meet the stare of their reflection after they rise out of their sink to their haunches and hunched fold over their knees. Lon offers it a weak smile, clean rag from the cupboards crumpled in their grip. “It’ll be okay,” they whisper, reaching out to hesitantly press their hand against the palm waiting for them on the other side.

If only they could lace their fingers together and hold their own hand.

They turn the tap on, dally until it runs warm, and wet the rag under the stream.

“It’ll be okay,” Lon repeats, turning away and letting their fingers fall away from the mirror to twine in the rumpled hem of their shirt.

They breathe, step out, cross the room, and reach for his temple. Any work is better than none.

He flinches away, scowl curling his lip – guess he’s unhappy with his answer, too, and expects repercussions they’re not going to hand out. They’re not him.

"You're too close."

"Then come here," Lon retorts, fake fire fueling their words to make their voice bark through the silence.

Lon’ll be loud enough for both of them: if they fan these nothing flames in their chest enough, surely, they’ll turn real and become emotions they feel. These vapors they breathe - it will have to be enough; with these vapors alone, they won’t be so lonely or scared.

"You look like – you look like you faceplanted into a butcher shop and it’s freaking me out. You already have a dead man’s stare, and this adds to the atmo-atmosphere in a bad way." Lon bluntly, loudly, tells him, a wry smirk that doesn’t feel real to them playing at the corners of their mouth.

A surprised snort escapes him, and all Lon’s acting must mean something, because he tilts his head towards them to let them rub the flaking blood on his skin off in careful circles.

There's a long scratch stretching from near the top of his ear to the over the center of his eyebrow. It's not deep, but it's left long smears of red caked across his skin.

It’s alright, though - they’re erasing traces of it from him, and he’ll look untouchable all over again in a few days. A good thing, they guess.

Lon gets to their feet when it’s been cleaned off, brushing off imaginary dust on their thighs. The rag is left next to his hand on the chair.

"Right, if you need anything, be gentle with my heart,” they joke, turning towards the vent. They’d hate for a repeat of the last incident, so they hope he doesn’t squeeze the sh*t out of it if he wants them out the duct system. It’d only make more trouble for the both of them.

He calls after them when they’re stepping back from the wall to launch themselves into a shift. "Thank you, Lon."

They pause and tilt their head at him. "Thank me when you're healed.”

In their little crossroads, old blank papers fluttering in the scant airflow and scattered ink pot and quills and broken feathers making a mess around them, Lon presses their forehead to the metal skin between their knees and hugs themselves tight enough to feel put together again.

If he’s going to ruin me anyways, I should make it my choice, right?

Later, he picks their heart up – Lon waits for him to do more, braces themselves against the duct’s sides for the pain - but nothing comes; he just holds it, like he’s waiting.

Lon thinks it’s been hours (but what do they know? Their sense of time has been f*cked, anyways), and he wants them back. As they shake themselves out of their defensive curl, they wonder what he needs, and begin the trek back.

“Do you need more ice?” Lon asks in a murmur as their boots hit the floor. “I st-still remember where I got it, so it won’t take as long as earlier.”

“No,” he sounds better than when he had first come in, “You brought me enough ice for me to make my own fridge out of it. I don’t think you ate yet today.”

“Oh,” they mumble, finally looking at him. They wish he’d keep his nose out of their business. “I haven’t.” A subtle bite to their tone. “Did you get up and move around when you weren’t supposed to?”

Trafalgar blinks. Back off. You have no right to lecture me. “My knee turned out fine. It was only swollen for a time.”

“Okay, but - but Vergo’s still here, isn’t he?”

“He’ll leave me alone until I’m healed. That’s how it always works,” he waves off, unaware or uncaring of how they’ve frozen in place. “I was careful. And,” he grins wryly, patting the ice still on the chair – with no legs to do it with, that hadn’t moved, at least – “I still have all this.”

Sighing, they decide to leave it be. It’s not worth getting into a useless argument over – not while he’s injured and the two of them can’t resort to throwing punches, at least. “Scoot over,” Lon mutters. If he’s going to do unhealthy, unsafe things that cause more trouble for them, then they’re going to be annoying and eat on his bed. “It’s dinner, right?”

Trafalgar nods. “Your sense of time is getting better.” He passes them a plate, and with a muted flash of surprise, they note it’s chicken.

“That’s ‘cause you come back more regularly,” Lon returns. “How long do you think Vergo will be around for?”

He shrugs, forced to eat more slowly with his right hand out of commission. The fingers twitch tucked against his chest. “f*ck if I know. With any luck, he’ll be gone by the end of the week.”

“What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

Real annoyance flares in them. Lon groans. “Tuesday? So I’m really stuck with you now?”

He shrugs. “Not any more than you usually are. Like I said, he lets me heal between his visits.” He stares ahead at the wall as he takes a bite; their eyes follow the lines of his cheekbone and nose, and maybe there’s a terrible sinking in their stomach that’s growing bigger than they’d like to admit.

They pick at their nailbeds, mull over dread and curiosity. “How do you know him?”

Trafalgar doesn’t reply for a long moment. “Met him - it’d be fourteen years ago now? - when I joined Doflamingo’s crew.”

They blink. “Joined his crew?” That, they didn’t expect.

“Yeah.”

Lon reaches over to hesitantly nudge him in the thigh, gentle - obviously, they’re not so much of an asshole to target anywhere that needed ice – “Not going to explain?”

“I don’t need to.”

Right. They withdraw their hand back to their lap.

After a beat, their mouth parts for tentative words for unstick from their teeth.

“Uh, for what it’s worth,” rubbing at their neck and wondering what type of cruel a younger Doflamingo would have been, “kids deserve happy childhoods.”

Trafalgar’s hand freezes, caught midway between his plate and mouth. “Whatever happened, you didn’t deserve it,” they murmur.

His plate wobbles on his knees as he sets the fork down to wrap both arms around his middle, his thumb brushing his bent elbow in a back and forth. “What was your home like?”

Lon stops eating, too. “I, uh. It was –“ their voice hushes, and they aren’t ready for this, “wonderful. Big forest off the hills, observatories like you wouldn’t believe. Beautiful technology to look at the world and analyze it.”

“Was Niklas your father?”

“Sure. There - there were five of us. Niklas, Yiling, Madoka, Rayveon, and myself. They, uh, they raised me.” Lon moves their plate to set it on the bed. They remember nights under the stars, dinners filled with laughter, celebrations for first-everything’s, hugs and joy for all the moments after, and – just love. So much of it, and they never realized how much until they had to leave it. How much it aches to be away.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” they tell him, their voice small, before the jealousy shifting in his eyes in the dim light can ask them another question.

Trafalgar picks up his fork again, spears a piece of chicken. “Of course.”

It’s difficult to read his tone.

Whether it’s bitterness or accommodation, it has them getting to their feet to take their meal at the desk instead.

He falls asleep for what they believe is the first time in days; Lon takes his plate, sets them on the cabinet atop theirs, and shifts to nap atop the desk still warm from their meal, tucked away under their wing.

It’s all too soon when Lon blinks awake, prickling awareness making the wood against their skin frigid rather than cool, and the incoming draft is not the only thing raising goosebumps along their arms.

It’s odd that they’d shifted in the middle of the night. Worse that their knee is pressed into their chest and arm long since numb under their head. Everything aches.

But it’s so odd that they’ve shifted back. Things like this shouldn’t happen.

They shouldn’t happen at all, and there’s a disturbance in the air.

Lon holds their breath, ears straining, and wishes their eyes would register the outline of the room around them in the pitch dark faster.

For a long moment, there’s nothing. And then there’s a quiet groan, sheets rustling against each other and too-quick inhales.

Hesitantly, Lon slides off the desk, silently padding over to the bed marked by shaky lines swimming in the darkness. Did he get sick?

f*ck, if he’s sick then we’re both in trouble. I can’t do anything for him past the basics and giving him the same medicine he made me.

They can faintly make out his form curled up on his side in a ball, blankets scattered to the mattress’ four corners. The bold ink on his fingers sinks into deeper shadow when they clench into fists, and they’re reaching over to press the back of their hand against his head as he rolls over; there’s no fever-heat against their skin and tension loosens in their chest - but there are deep furrows between his brows, thick frown lines around his mouth, and Lon realizes he must be having a nightmare.

They suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise; what else is the mind to do when an abuser comes back in town?

Exhaling carefully (why do they care?), they settle onto their haunches at his bedside, fingers curling into the mattress’ edge. They don’t know how deep in he is, but they’ll hope for the best, gently patting the blankets at his shoulder three times – maybe if a part of him is lucid, he’ll recognize the signal and won’t startle as bad – and tap his wrist. “Trafalgar,” Lon breathes, how dare they care, “Wake up.”

They can see his eyes darting behind his eyelids, nearly frantic. His lips twitch down, and a warning growl muddled with a fearful groan spills into the frigid air.

Their shoulder raises - they hate that sound - and they’re just human, that’s why they’re doing this; Lon presses the back of their hand to his forehead again.

A flinch, but he doesn’t wake up to hear their whispered apology. “You’re okay,” they murmur. “You- you’re safe.”

No response.

Half-risen from their crouch, palm boldly planted on the bed, they reach for his shoulder, “Trafalgar,” they repeat, a little louder and a frown on their lips, and that’s where they make their mistake.

His eyes snap open, iron closes around their wrist, and they’re yanked onto him – he’s awake, but not present yet, and his breathing breaks in ragged bursts against the bridge of their nose – and their positions are flipped before they can blink, his hands wrapped around their throat and tightening fast.

For a moment, they’re convinced they’re underwater again, drowning alone and watching the surface blot out with their blood and final breaths.

Some feral threat rips out of him, waves crashing upon their ears. Lon gasps in what little he allows them as they’re snapped back into a bed with broken springs, palms pressing high against his chest to avoid his bruises. He’s snarling, teeth brighter than the manic gleam in his eyes, and Lon thinks, one hell of a nightmare, and tries to calm them both.

Breath whistling in the back of their throat, they drop one hand to loosely wrap around his forearm, “Trafalgar, you’re safe.” They tilt their head down to curl their trachea away from his palms, choke down an inhale, tell their heart to slow down or else they’ll puke, “there’s no one else here;” they stop pushing against his chest, squeeze their eyes shut and pretend to be kind, brush curled fingers against his cheek like Rayveon would when they were scared - “You’re okay, it’s - it’s fine,” and they’ve spent all their air, pressure unbearable, feathers rippling across their arms to escape –

He lets go of them as if their skin is scorching.

“Okay?” Lon wheezes, turning on their side to cough into their elbow. His mouth is open, but no sound comes out as they rub at their throat.

It’s nice to not have a splotch to hide on their sleeve when they’re done coughing.

Meanwhile, Trafalgar says nothing. He only stares at them as if they’re too strange to be real – the only person who needs to be looking at them like they’re unrecognizable is themselves, so Lon pushes down the itching bubbling under their skin and hesitantly reaches for him.

Just breathe and go back to normal, Trafalgar. They hook fingers around his wrist to draw his hand to them. Slow, exaggerated breaths drag against their throat like nails as they press his palm against their chest and command, “Breathe with me.” Don’t look at me like I have nowhere to belong.

His inhales sound like they catch on hooks before he’s ripping them through for them to hit home at the bottom of his lungs; he settles into a rhythm to match Lon and, if they’re being entirely honest, his disquieted, “What the f*ck’s wrong with you?” takes them by surprise.

Lon blinks. “What?” His hand flexes against their sternum.

“I was choking you.”

“On, on accident,” Lon appends, sitting up and pulling their legs out from between his into their chest. The distance soothes them. They don’t move away, though; they always found it most comforting when Yiling would come in and sit with them after a bad dream, his body heat like a balm while he stayed close enough to touch if they decided they wanted a hug.

Trafalgar’s hand is still pressed against their chest, strange, familiar dip in their skin under the heel of his palm where their heart should be. They inhale, he exhales, and it’s a back and forth, his shoulders loosening as he goes. “Were you going to use your Zoan to get away if I didn’t let go?”

“Yeah,” they steal one of his blankets and tug it over their shoulders. They’d do the same for him if they thought he could handle it. “I was about to.”

“Okay,” he pauses, sighing, “That’s good.” A stilted, “thank you.”

“Shut the f*ck up,” they automatically reply. They’ll accept his gratitude when it’s for something that actually deserves it – what that is, they don’t know yet.

They just know they don’t want it.

Trafalgar is silent for all of a moment; they watch, nearly enraptured, as amusem*nt paints golden highlights in his face. It starts by creasing the crow’s feet around his eyes, slides along the stern lines around his mouth to curl the corners of his mouth, cracks the thin line of his lips into a lopsided smile.

They’ve never seen that expression on him before.

He’s blinding in the dark.

And then a quiet chuckle turns into stifled cachinnating, his head thrown back and hands withdrawn to wrap around his sides.

A muted smile weasels its way onto their mouth. “Quit it,” Lon taps his right knee as they scold him, “I know that hurts. Laugh when your ribs aren’t f*cked.”

Trafalgar’s laughter is quieted into tiny, gasping wheezes; they’d be concerned if they couldn’t see his teeth shine in an amused crescent. But the shadows under his eyes are deeper still, and they press their shoulders against the wall behind them as they contemplate the pirate next to them.

If there was anything that was a tradition on the Isle, it was collecting tales of the constellations. Like a series of lost and found bedtime stories to share across generations.

With every turn of the season, there was a night where all the citizens would be dusted across the hills and trading stories they picked up – before each story, details about the original teller were shared along with the direction they were headed – and those who told myths their group had never heard before were given a bracelet to wear for a week. It designated them as the winner, and they’d be offered sweets with tales to tell of their own until the bracelet came off.

Lon had been certain they were going to win the upcoming fall season.

“Do you want to hear a, a Shawnee tale about the Corona Borealis?” They blurt, grateful for the dim room blurring shadow across their flushed face.

He considers them; his mouth parts and Lon expects him to deride them for thinking a pirate would need a bedtime story – and why would he care for their home? (why does he deserve to hear of it?) - but instead he asks, “Do you know a lot of stories about the constellations?” Lungs frozen, fingers twisting, they nod and say nothing more, and he accepts it. “Okay. I’ll listen.”

Part of them is relieved - does history disappear when there’s no one to hear it? When the people around the storyteller are foreign to the culture they carry? – Lon doesn’t want to know the answer.

“There was a Shawnee tradesman who stopped by the Isle when Da- when Niklas was young. They gave him whatever they had to offer, and we asked for his stories in return - that’s how we get most of our stories about constellations, uh – from, from travelers and immigrants.” Lon rubs at their neck, trying to rush all the words out – but it’s not right to tell the story without its background and skipping over this minute introduction would be theft. “And he, he was headed towards the Grand Line for seizure medicines.”

“But, he, uh, he told us the tale of the ‘Star Maiden.’”

Trafalgar nods, arm around his middle, wrapped wrist resting gingerly on his knee. He settles in against the wall next to them, and Lon pretends they’re back home in front of their own audience and competing for the desserts awarded to best storyteller like they were supposed to be this time of year.

Imagining stars overhead and cool grass underfoot, their voice slips into a slow lull that always made Madoka smile so softly, Rayveon close his eyes and fold his arms and tilt his head to listen.

“One day, a skilled warrior named Waupee the White Hawk went deeper into the forest than he had ever been before. The trees and paths around him were brand new, with branches that twined together to cast great nets on the skies,” their arms reach up, fingers lacing together to create tiny pinholes that shadow dances in, “That the stars peered through to light his way. He walked for a long time before coming across a large grass plain – but there was only a ring of tracks in its center, as if some great beast had descended down to walk around and around without ever leaving the circle.

“Waupee was curious to see what had made these tracks, so he hid behind the trees to watch.”

“Must’ve been a patient man,” Trafalgar murmurs, eyes closed.

Lon snorts, “That’s pro-probably part of what makes a great warrior, maybe.”

He nudges them, one eye cracking open to glare. “Don’t stop telling the story.”

They duck their head, carefully shoving his shoulder away. “His pa-patience paid off; soon, there –“

“- if it was soon, then maybe he wasn’t so patient after all,” Trafalgar butts in, smug smirk on his lips from where he’s interrupted them. Lon speaks a little louder to talk over him.

“- there was music, sweeter than anything he had ever heard before, and down from the heavens descended a basket woven of shining silver and sparkling stars. From it stepped twelve lovely sisters who danced around it in a circle with so much grace and joy that Waupee could not look away; but it was the youngest sister he only had eyes for, and she was so beautiful that he rushed out from the shadows of the trees to hold her.

“Frightened, the girls jumped back into the basket, and they were much quicker than he, and he could only watch as the basket carried the sisters away back into the heavens.”

“Damn,” Trafalgar turns his head. “Is that it? Even I’m better at charming women.”

Lon wrinkles their nose, plants their hand on his face and lightly shoves. “No, that’s not it. And I bet the most you’re able to charm into your bed is a handful of fleas. Not even a, a full infestation.”

His voice comes muffled under their palm. “Better for me. I enjoy being flea-free.”

Their hand drops from his face. ”Anyways, Waupee was determined to see the girl again –“

“She’s underage?”

Exasperated, “Trafalgar –“

“Here, let me fix it: Waupee was determined to see the woman again.”

“So determined was he to see the woman again, that the following night Waupee assumed the form of an opossum; but the women were leery of him as he waddled across the plain, and he could not get even halfway across to them before they had left.”

Trafalgar huffs a snort, mumbling, “An opossum.”

“But on the third night, his form was that of a field mouse. And when the youngest sister, curious of the tiny creature she saw that bolted in the grass as if it were the wind itself, came close, he sprung up and seized her. Afraid, the other sisters shrieked and fled, leaving her with the hunter.”

He makes a disgruntled sound next to them. “With time, she loved him and bore a son.” Another sour sound.

Ignoring him, Lon grins as they get to their favorite part, their voice falling hushed in adoring awe as they keep their words soft and careful and purposeful, “But she was the daughter of a star, and she could never forget her home among those fiery giants, nor their warm embrace in cold void. So when Waupee left to hunt, she wove a basket, took her son by the hand, and led him to the plain her husband had first seen her.

“There, inside the basket with her son in the center of the circle she had made with her sisters, she began to sing. Waupee, hearing her song, rushed to the clearing – but he was too late, and all he could do was watch as his wife and son were carried up into the heavens.

“Waupee spent years mourning the loss of his wife and son while they lived among her star-sisters and brothers.” Lon pauses to yawn, but there’s still some story left – and he hasn’t complained yet. “Until her father, the chief of the stars above, went to her and told her to ask her husband to bring them a piece of every living thing in the forest if he wished to live with them.”

Trafalgar mumbles something they can’t catch; when he doesn’t repeat himself when they tilt their head to hear him better, they continue. “When she leant down out of the heavens to tell him, Waupee was overjoyed; he brought them wings, paws, feathers, and tails; he offered teeth and flowers, claws and berries, whiskers and fur – but, being an honorable, good man, he only took from each animal and plant once to leave the forest in balance.

“The heavens had never seen such gifts before; they held a great feast to celebrate, and the Star Chief encouraged them to take what they most admired.” Lon sets their forearm in their lap, pushes up the sleeve, and rolls a summoned feather between their fingers as their voice dulls to a murmur.

“When they did, they assumed the forms of those animals, and so they raced across the skies and earth trailing stardust behind them. Waupee chose the feather of a white hawk, his wife and son did the same, and they became a family of white hawks whose strong wings carried them between the countries of star and man as they pleased.”

They think Trafalgar’s fallen asleep beside them, slouched hard enough for his chin to reach his chest. He’s going to have one hell of a neck cramp when he wakes up, but that’s his problem.

Rubbing at their eyes, Lon pulls their stolen blanket a little higher over their shoulders and leans their head against the wall. “That’s the – that’s the end,” they mutter to the room.

They wonder if home would have been alright with becoming a crow like them.

Their only answer is the soft, even breaths of the pirate next to them.

Trafalgar leaves the room on a Friday, taking with him their research and his nodachi, and tells them to come find him. Lon thinks he’s ridiculous, going out when there’s a possibility Vergo’s still around and he has yet to fully heal. Really, they’re just irritated that their research has gone with him.

He reminds them that there are two more days until the end of the week, so he must nearly be recovered – again, Lon thinks he’s full of sh*t, but it’s his life, his delusions – and it’s with a begrudging sigh that they heave themselves into the ventilation system.

They needed to practice Observation, anyways. With some focus, they might be able to use it consistently – add a bit of luck into the matter, and they’ll be able to give him a good spook while they’re at it: pop out of the vents and hope they make him knock over something inconsequential, like a stack of notecards.

It’s been going well; the training, they mean.

Lon’s getting stronger images of bodies within the institute, now, and they can distinguish the colors of emotions more accurately. Granted, it doesn’t last for as long as they need, but it’s certainly better than before. Anything’s better than nonexistent, after all.

A pause as they close their eyes and breathing out slow to recenter themselves – try to reimagine themselves ‘spilling past their edges,’ as Trafalgar had put it – and follow the tug of the nearest body, its confident stroll taking it through empty hallways.

Unfortunately, they’re not good enough to send their Haki across the full institute yet, so they’ve been hoping to find Trafalgar by the off chance that someone they’d been trailing walks past his lab.

But this body feels strange on their Haki, their brows furrowed and mouth curled in distaste, and it sits cloaked in leaden purples. They don’t think its colors mean anything – there’s no reflected impression that their brain usually supplies to mimic the emotion they’re reading.

Rather, it feels as if this body is being guarded, somehow. They’ll have to ask Trafalgar about it later.

There’s a grate coming up ahead – and the body hasn’t changed course, either, footsteps close enough that they can hear it echoing down the halls, snapping up through the grate, bouncing along the duct (there’s something peculiar about the cadence, a click-hshh, click-hshh that makes their chest tighten) – so Lon shifts down, bounding ahead to peer between the slats as curiosity idles in their sternum.

What sort of personnel can hide emotions? I wonder if I can learn to do that too.

There’s no one underneath the grate; belatedly, Lon realizes the footsteps have stopped. That’s strange.

Twisting their head, feathers ruffling as they duck down closer to the vent’s mouth, they spot a long white coat over a blue collar and thin sunglasses.

Their breath freezes in their chest.

Staring up at the ceiling, eyes following the lines of the ducts, a slow turn led by a suspicious gaze - a Marine without his dogs stares at the grate.

Vergo.

A long moment where they do not dare to move, where they hope the pitch of their feathers makes them indistinguishable from the shadows they're hiding in - and he turns back on his heel without a sound.

They don’t shift until he’s long since been out of sight. Their palms are pressed to the biting metal under them, spine curled uncomfortably in the cramped space, and their breathing heavy as if stones still rest in their lungs while they stare at where he had been.

I should really find Trafalgar. It looks like I might’ve distracted him from his original goal, but what if Vergo’s going after him anyways?

Pinching the bridge of their nose as they remember how to breathe without dread, I need to find him, crap. As their mind wanders to failure, Lon flutters their hands to get rid of the jitters building up in their chest. It’s already hard enough to look after myself. I can’t take care of him, too.

I have to do this.

Just need to focus and keep it consistent across a wider area. Easy. They press their forehead to the metal skin under their knees, palms against temples, do what you’ve been doing and maintain it, inhale to push Vergo out of their sternum, exhale out the imagined lines of their body. All their nerves are left pooled somewhere at their knees, soaking into their jeans and turning their skin clammy.

Observation is an odd experience: the first time they got it to be stable enough to show them multiple people, it had been like taking a needle to a water balloon and spilling across the floor in the moments after. Shocked them enough to make them lose concentration and snap straight out of it.

Once they expect it, though, it’s not too bad - and they’re spilled blood rushing across metal skin to drain out the grate and splatter on the floor, spreading to flood along the floors of the institute in long, measured breaths.

Lon can hardly squint their eyes open while they hold their breath, feeling through the vents blind as they search through labs for familiar hues. So far, they see Vergo’s opaque violet pausing again a few turns behind them, and, ahead of it, the muddled mix of color Caesar’s employees seem to be made of.

(They pity the employees, sometimes. They look like they never know how to feel. Makes Lon a little nauseous trying to figure it out for them.)

But there’s no swirling of silver and gold yet, so they chance a glance over their shoulder to stare at the Marine’s rotten purples before moving deeper into the facility.

Time for a physicist’s first manhunt.

It’s getting to be difficult to maintain their Observation; it saps at their energy, but they haven’t found Trafalgar yet - so they kindly tell their brain to shut the f*ck up and let them do their job because they will not handle the inevitable medical emergency that is Trafalgar and Vergo meeting well.

A part of them wonders why they bother. Wouldn’t it be in their best interest if he died?

But I don’t know where he’s hidden my heart, they tell themselves. If someone finds it before I do, it’ll end the same way.

Their thoughts scatter at Vergo changing his direction; Lon is pretty sure he’s tailing them – oh, Lon, what’s the uncertainty in that? Oh, no reason, it might just be from all his bullsh*t purple flickering in and out on their senses as it draws closer, like a warning blip on a ship’s radar – and they see a flash of gold and silver in ahead of them, far off to the right (they know where that is, second crossroads, a right, continue until the third turn, two lefts) and they shift down to chase after familiar color.

At least they’ll have disappeared on Vergo’s radar, too, hopping around on the grate above Trafalgar’s current lab to be obnoxious – they’re not risking the Marine seeing whatever the f*ck colors they’re made of next to Trafalgar, that’d be a right mess for both of them – and when all their clacking fails to make him look up, Lon loses their patience and caws at him.

He startles, and they do it again when he only stares up at them like an idiot instead of doing something.

“What? Lon,” a room they’ve yet to get used to, and they’re shambled onto the floor. “Do you want your research?” Trafalgar’s voice hovers between lilting up in the pride he thinks they expect (they do, just not right now, so he should stuff it and save it for later) and blank confusion.

Fluttering up onto the countertop, they snatch up his quill, sloppily dip it in ink, and scratch out ‘home’ across his open notebook. Not quite illegible – in fact, they’d consider it borderline doctor’s script. Perfect for him.

Lon bows their head to it, looks back up at him, and impatiently waits for him to be reasonable. “Right now?”

He knows no sense of urgency. They fling the quill at him; he jumps back to avoid getting the ink at its tip splattered across his shirt, yes, right now, “f*ck, okay, we’re going.”

Lon is pleasantly surprised to be included.

Unpleasant is how he grabs them – before they can twist to bite his wrist, he’s snatching his notebook, tugging his pocket open to show them their own research is there, and setting them atop the work as if they’re the peak of some nerd pyramid. They’re graciously shambled back into the room whose four walls they somehow have yet to get sick at the sight of, and Lon hops off his notebook to shift to their feet.

“What issue was so pressing you had to throw my quill at me?” There’s a sour note in his voice, and, in their professional opinion, he’s being dramatic. Trafalgar didn’t even give them the luxury of allowing the ink to hit his shirt.

Dismissively waving at him, “Ver-Vergo was wandering around. Didn’t know if he was going towards you but decided it would be best to get you to leave just in case. He doesn’t know – doesn’t know which room you stay in, right?”

He peers at them strangely, head tilted and a small, curious squint to his eyes.

They tell their twitching fingers it would be wrong of them to leave someone to their abuser. “I’m not trained to handle medical emergencies.” Lon murmurs to the floor, tone low and warning. “If the two of you encounter each other again, it’ll be troublesome for me.”

Trafalgar’s blink comes out slow and evaluating, and they stare at him with an expression they hope is as blank as his – but they can feel the hard steel in the flat line of their mouth and the blade across their tense shoulders.

Setting his notebook down on the desk and reaching into his pocket for their research, he answers without glancing their way. “To answer your question, no, he does not.” Their work is pressed into their open hands where they’d stepped after him, his coat discarded on the chair between them as he turns to them and pushes his sleeves up. “We’re in an emptier part of the institute. It’s a pain in the ass to get to the labs if you’re not going through the ventilation system, and this area is mostly reserved for storage. Only Caesar’s employees come around to do grunt work.”

“Does Caesar know where you are?”

“Yes and no.” His satisfied smirk, all wild, vicious freedom they can’t have, curdles something in their stomach. “I move as I please. He probably has a guess of where I might be, but most of our interactions are limited to him coming across my business and planned meetings.”

Nonetheless, it’s useful to know.

“I can make a warning system of different calls for you to re-reco- to, to,” their fingers curl, mouth twists, “To reco-recognize so time doesn’t get wasted if this happens again.” Lon offers, muted hiss of frustration underlying their words.

They’re slid fresh paper as he heavily settles into his chair with a cool appreciation in his tone that smarts on their pride (like he thinks he’s better, like he knows something they don’t, like they’re the dog he’s beaten to heel and they’ve finally done it of their own volition). “A warning system would be useful.”

“What do you need?” They force the question past their teeth while drafting a list of patterns and types of calls for them to choose from. “And crows already have warning calls.” Lon mutters as they draw arrows from each listed sound to empty space where they’ll put a translation – like a bird Rosetta Stone, they joke to soothe themselves.

“So those can keep their meaning. Two sharp calls will be ‘leave im-immediately,’ and I can make a vocal signature so you know it’s not a random crow; I wi- I’ll,” Lon pauses, shoulders slowly loosening. They need something fast but not commonly used, “I guess, I guess a croak – you know what that sounds like, right?”

“Yes, I’ve heard birds before,” Trafalgar comments drily, reading through the list.

“- just checking, smartass. Some islands don’t have crows. I can do a, a rattle and a series of clicks before anything else.”

He brushes them off. “Direction would be helpful for the future. And something for scale of injury so I know how urgent it is; minor, moderate, and severe would be fine.”

“I can change pitch for direction. Run coun-counterclockw-wise around the cardinal directions swapped out for forward, right, backwards, and left for high to low pitch. I’ll show that, too.” A few quick notes as they ignore his look of confusion at their description, and they’ve added it to their bird translator. Vetoing his request isn’t even a question. “Scale of injury isn’t nec-necessary. If I’m seriously injured, I can’t shift anyways. If it’s minor, it can wait until I have time, and moderate - I’ll just take care of myself.”

He side-eyes them. “Knowing would let me adjust the tasks I give you.”

They have to stifle rolling their eyes. What a waste of f*cking time.

“Then there would need to be a separate category for how - for how much it interferes with my ability to complete objectives,” Lon argues, “I can get more done in ten minutes with blood loss than I can with a broken arm.”

His brows furrow, subtle irritation sparking in his eyes as the line of their mouth flattens. “If blood loss is involved, then that’s all the more reason for the scale. If specification for interference is needed, then we can agree on one.”

His words come off as urging, not stating, and it reminds them of being nagged over being careless with themselves - of a hand iron around their wrist and hot breath on their nose and the baleful steel eyes of god damning them to be unfit.

But they don’t need anyone to pretend that they need some higher guiding hand. Lon’s parents aren’t f*cking dead, and they’re an adult.

“Oh, come on, Trafalgar.” Lon says, exasperation raising their voice, “Blood loss is almost always involved. I’m a, a normmn- a normal f*cking person, I’ll bleed no matter how much you try to co- try to coddle me. I’ll get the job done, so quit pre-pretending to give a sh*t, and I’ll still be alive by the time you have a moment to fix your little tool.”

They don’t mean to hiss the last part – don’t mean to say any of it, really – but it all comes rushing out of them anyways, fingers curled into their palms and shoulders lent forward like they’re about to lunge for him.

Trafalgar stares; they can see the moment he decides to put his anger aside in favor of filing their reaction away, and it makes them flush with embarrassment – he’s being the f*cking adult between the two of them, and isn’t that a treat?

“Okay,” he says evenly, “we can do something else for emergencies. If you can’t access the full transformation of your Zoan when severely injured, then we’d have to think of an alternative for me to help anyways.”

“I don’t want your help,” Lon mutters. It might come with a price I can’t pay. “I can take care of myself.”

As soon as we leave this room, injuries won’t be mistakes I made trying to prove your investment was worthwhile. They’ll just be mistakes you waste time on.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted me to be someone you could respect? What leader worth that doesn’t take care of his people?”

Lon turns to him, head lifted from where they had been staring at the paper, a bewildered frown on their lips at the bear trap of his words.

“I’m not your people. Your crew is.” They tell him, slow and careful. At his burning silence from their near-insolent tone, Lon shifts their weight from foot to foot, hand coming up to their throat. Louder, “I’ll, uh, give you a quick run through of what these sound like.”

“So it’s impossible for you to respect me?” Trafalgar interjects. Annoyance sparks in their hands.

“That’s, that’s not what I meant - you’re thinking of a captain’s role. All I want is to be treated reasonably, but,” they swallow the hellfire ‘please,’ “Don’t make me think you care. Just be a, a commander. I’m too far removed from your path for you to give a sh*t, anyways.” They bitterly mutter.

He pulls out the desk’s chair to sit down; he’s quiet about it, but there’s a restrained heaviness in his movements that speaks of displeasure. “What you want, then, is for me to treat you like a person without caring. You realize those ideas oppose each other?”

“No, they don’t.” Lon quietly says, their palm planted silently on the table. “You think they do, but that’s because you only treat who you care about like people. The rest of us are just cannon fodder to you.”

They wait for him to deny this, to argue, vehemently claim there is more to him than this – but disappointment is familiar curdling in their stomach when Trafalgar’s fingers fan across his mouth as he leans into his hand and pulls their paper towards him and instead kills the conversation. “Show me what these sound like.”

Dipping their head in complacent mourning, they move on. The first was a warning call; they press their palm to their sternum, their fingers splayed against their neck, and with a little focus, out comes a sharp, curt caw.

Trafalgar startles; they reach over to tap the first line and repeat the sound. As soon as they’re quiet, he’s leaning towards them, all misgivings from their mulish attitude forgotten in the face of curiosity. “Did you train yourself to do that?”

How typical of a scientist. Like recognizes like.

Lon rubs at their throat and clears it. “No. I, I used a localized shift. Just changed the voice box.”

“Can I cut your trachea open?”

They blink, step away from him on instinct. “What?”

“Birds have a syrinx below the larynx – but it’s not the larynx that vocalizes, it’s the syrinx, unlike in mammals. There’s no organ that looks like that in any other related animal group in vertebrates. It’s an evolutionary novelty.” His fingertips press against the line of his mouth, intent stare turns distant. “I wonder how the body supports it if it’s a hybridized form. How extensive is the required musculature? How well does it integrate?”

They are so terribly glad he’s found something to be excited about.

“So, may I? I’d only make an incision from your larynx down to the sternal angle.”

“What do you think?” He pauses too long. Aghast, “The an-answer you’re looking for is no.”

“In the future?” He tries. Lon thinks he’s a little too hopeful.

“In what future?”

Trafalgar’s eyes dart away from their incredulous stare for a moment. “Yours,” he confidently answers.

They shut him down. “No. Do you want to hear the, the rest of these or not?”

“Absolutely.”

Sighing, heel of their palm pressed back against their sternum, Lon taps each line of the list as they run through it and repeat the sounds when he asks with his head tilted to listen.

They are rather unenthused about their Zoan being so fascinating to him. It means he’ll be a bigger pain in their ass in the future.

After repeating sounds for what must have been hundreds of times, Lon leaves him to ferociously scribble in his notebook and go to tear one of the blankets off the bed to curl up in the corner with – they’re pretty sure he’s going to get some sort of sleep tonight so long as they didn’t freak him out with the Vergo news too badly – and settle in to rest on the floor.

As they watch him from the corner, they blearily note the wry contrast between them: where their throat aches and they’re exhausted (they take their opinion back: songbirds do not have it easy, and Observation already had them running on empty), Trafalgar is downright invigorated by this newfound point of interest. They’d go so far as to say it’s the most awake they’ve seen him in days.

They pretend not see the page they now take up in his notebook, questions and theories about the capabilities of their Zoan cluttering each line. Calling him out for it would make for more trouble than it was worth.

Closing their eyes, Lon listens to the scratching of his quill, hoping the sound will keep them at ease (it helps that it broadcasts where he is in the room - their own early warning system).

It’s a repetitive, dull droning on the wood, save for when it sharpens: forceful streaks into paper where they can imagine it shrieking, heavy pressure gnawing at the nib until it cracks, the brittle spine of it splintering; Lon’s brows furrow – what’s got Trafalgar so pressed? – all the fragile barbs of the vane rumpled and splitting apart and their mouth parts to complain –

Chill seeps into their shoulders. Readjusting makes snow crunch under their spine, invites its wet fingers to splay across their skin.

Teeth snap in their ear.

Suddenly, they're grounded, wings trapped underneath them and stomach to the sky, and there's a thundering of paws and baying that’s nearly upon them. A weight presses onto their chest, dull claws dig into their skin, and their hands fly up to push at the animal's chest, barely able to keep slobbering jaws from closing around their neck.

It's so dark. All they can see are the flashing whites of their eyes - and thoseteeth.

The frozen ground bites into their palms as they scramble backwards, but Lon doesn't get far before déjà vu closes around their calf and chokes them with pain. The dog drags them slow across dirt and snow in persistent spurts, and they’re being yanked right back to where they started.

A cry tumbles out of their throat, gravel and clumping leaf litter buried under their nails as they try to grab atanything and hold on - yet there's nothing. Only the soft give of the cold under their hands.

A hound darts forward. When they kick it away from them, its wretched yelp rings distorted and warped in the darkness.

Then, a new sound: a low growl filled with stones in their ear.

Frozen, they turn their head to meet the burning eyes of a mutt. It's livid, rabid frothing dripping from the corners of its mouth, and the stare is too intelligent, far too sharp.

As they stare, mouth agape, one of the animals surges forward and rips open their stomach.

Silent agony lances through them, transforms their hands into spasming claws in the dirt, and the whole pack yips itself into a frenzy as they dart forward, shiny teeth tearing off long strips of meat from muscle and skin.

One of the dogs buries its snout high up into their abdomen, teeth chattering into raw flesh and tongue lapping at exposed bone.

With a good jerk, it's running away with their liver, blood dripping and the ends of it drooping towards the ground from where it hangs out of the hound’s mouth.

They sound like an animal themselves, their tortured howl blending with the braying of the pack.

Another growl so close to their ear it’s nearly in their skull.

There's almost a word hidden in there.

"What?" Lon whispers, tears slipping into their mouth. Ripped nerves cage their limbs in frozen anticipation, their frayed ends jumping at nothing.

Almost as if to answer them, the mutt with the burning eyes lunges forward and snaps its jaws around their throat. Foul portent rumbles into blood bubbling over mangled meat.

What did it say?

Lon lurches off the blankets bunched up under them, a ragged gasp exploding from their chest as their heart pounds. They swear they can feel the pop of their trachea as teeth puncture it. What did it want?

At the desk, there’s a clatter; Trafalgar peers around the cabinet down at them, face backlit by the struggling lamp atop his work and hair mussed up on one side, flattened on the other. Ink is a whispered print on his cheek.

The glazed look in his eyes makes the shadows under them all the darker. Apparently, sleep had been an unexpected visitor. “You good?”

Catching their breath, Lon nods. A dream. Dreams don’t carry meaning.

Unconvinced, he waves them over; dazed in the aftermath of adrenaline and baffled by what he could want, Lon slides the scant few feet over – as if they’re getting up for him to see the shake in their legs – and Trafalgar presses the back of his hand to their forehead.

His eyes droop. Just looking at him reminds them of their own weariness, shoos the ache of their pounding heart into a bittersweet lullaby. “Yeah, you’re good,” he mutters to himself.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” They quietly accuse him past a dry mouth.

Trafalgar’s already drifting away, arm folded on the desk as a pillow and head dipping down to rest again. They wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes had already slipped closed, his hand left to rest at their pulse as he slurs an answer. “If I get up, I won’t sleep.”

While they’re distracted, his palm rudely plasters itself across their face so he can lazily shove at them and their spiteful complaints. “Go away now. You’re okay.”

Lon grumbles as they lean back into their space. At least he was good distraction - he looked so ridiculous, it kept their eyes off the shadows they could imagine rolling fur and bunching shoulders and snarling jaws parting around teeth in.

Unease lines their spine. Their eyes drift to the door.

At his desk, Trafalgar sighs like he’s Atlas, grumpily mutters something, and Lon squints at the filing cabinet in front of them with suspicion with arms wrapped tight around their middle and legs brought up to their chest.

To their surprise, Nin and an orange are shambled into their lap.

Blankly, Lon blurts, “What?”

“You’re good,” he repeats, like a broken record, and there’s the quiet thump of him catching sleep.

I guess this is helpful, they think, gripping Nin’s worn flag in one hand, her handle biting chill into their other. Maybe she’ll bring them enough comfort to really close their eyes instead of staring at the door and seeing a mutt behind it.

Trafalgar makes a nuisance (which is putting it lightly) of himself once he’s fully healed; Lon expected him to get antsy, yes, because he’s somehow more impatient than they are - which is ironic considering he’s willing to wait for forever for an ‘opportunity’ to kidnap Caesar (they think he’s afraid, but they’re not sure of what. Maybe his own success).

Regardless, he’s been grating on their already fragile nerves, and it leaves their knuckles aching, their eyes darting around the room as their metronome heart bounces between adrenaline and dawning horror at how the idea of his blood on their hands soothes them. It doesn’t help that he insists on spewing bullsh*t like he’s trying to force it to stop on extreme over the other.

“You were careless on Dressrosa,” he accuses from where he’s poring over their journal on their activities with the dwarves (as if you have any right to make judgement calls on what I did and did not do). They’re certain it’s his least favorite, seeing as it had nothing to do with what he wanted from them.

Lon stares at him and the invitation for violence on his lips from their place at the end of his bed, feet planted on the wall and shoulders slipping down to the floor. “Maybe if you gave me a more specific set of rules, I would’ve per-performed more to your tastes,” comes their snippy reply, their fingers tapping on their mouth. “Or - even better - if you had been there.”

He’s caught off-guard by that, journal dipping down in his hand. “You would’ve preferred if I were there?”

“Oh, yeah,” they drily drawl, the antsy press of their feet on the wall pushing their shoulders onto the floor. “I would’ve shoved you Doflamingo’s way the first chance I got. Two birds with one stone.”

His expression is souring into familiar danger as they hold up two fingers, their own mirrored flame of agitation snapping in their ears. “One: get rid of the ba-bastard who has my heart; two: maybe drown the other one before he can recover from his victory. But,” their arms part at their sides in dramatic gesture as their voice dips into vicious emphasis, “Certainly, if you were there, I wouldn’t have had to, to second-guess the quality of my work.”

Maybe you would’ve killed me within the month, and I wouldn’t have had to be here at all.

Trafalgar manages to keep his temper in check for once, but only barely. They can see the way it’s jumping along his temples, and he only toys with the metronome in their heart when he wants to see it bend to his whims.

See, if he would just quit, everything would be fine – but, alas, he has a crippling addiction to having the last word - and Lon can’t help but listen. That’s their heart, after all.

He spits, “I’m sure Doflamingo would’ve loved a pet like you.”

Their mouth parts in silence.

They’ve simply been shut off – that’s what must have happened: all their fidgeting stills, their thoughts turn to static, and any expression is wiped from their face as the agitated creases around their eyes go lax.

How many months was it in his hands? Fingers in their feathers, days in a cage, wet guts in their stomach?

Lon, above all, desperately does not want to react to his words any more than they already have, and there’s the dawning of apprehension in his eyes of ripping open a wound he cannot heal; but cruelty is still curled in his mouth, and he doesn’t quit. “Or does he already own you?”

How many days in a cage? How long hating what I’ve become? And they’re on their feet, shouting, “You people don’t ff-fucking own me!” because the only other option is to weakly groan and curl into nothing, and that’s not an option at all.

And if they repeat it enough, it gets rid of the heavy sensation in their throat that swells up like bile, mouth watering with nausea; and if they say it enough, it’ll erase the slime caked on their feathers and skin – if they say it loud enough, they’ll finally be theirs to keep.

“You people don’t own me,” Lon snarls through the defeat – they want out of here, want to go home, want to be safe, want to be happy, “No one does,” and being the adult in the situation feels a lot like running away from the problem.

It’s all his f*cking fault.

It’s all his fault, and theirs, and the Marines’, and Doflamingo’s, and the duct system they escape to that shakes with their sobs like it understands the wild agony in their chest of being used with nothing to show for it.

They want to go home.

It’s all their f*cking fault.

Of course, Lon can’t sit around and cry forever, no matter how easy it is without a sea in their lungs, so it’s after a reasonable guestimate of an hour that they shift down into a form more suited for hopping into places they shouldn’t be.

They’re not ready to go back – they don’t think they will be for a while, really - but they can find something to do to keep themselves busy.

Right now, their first order of business is wiggling their way into the pantry again: they’ve got most of Building B mapped out, save for the areas around the garrison (seeing all that weaponry so close to jittery hands made them nervous, so, naturally, they avoided it), and it’s they head there first to collect dues (read: steal food) and finish their map.

Quite an important task as, in a brief stint of not thinking at all, Lon had neglected to memorize the route to the pantry or make note of it the first time round, so now they have to relocate it all over again. Hence their handy-dandy map they’re about to throw down some knowledge on.

Lon’s guessing it’s early morning – their stomach is kicking up a fuss in a way it only does after going to bed hungry, and the garrison is empty when they get through all the dust and clutter sloppily shoved into the vent (they don’t think about what stories the knickknacks tell of the soldiers, nor if they were ended abruptly, all littered a handful of feet away from the grate they’re peering through) – and contemplate kicking out into the room.

On one hand, they don’t know how often new recruits are brought in, so there’s no guarantee their ‘I’m new, take pity,’ excuse would work.

On the other hand, there is a folded uniform at the end of each bed. They might all be out for early morning training or showers.

All the better for them, Lon decides, shifting and trying to avoid crushing the horde of trinkets as they worm their fingers between the slats and undo the latch keeping it flush against the wall. A few things get swept out with them, but it only takes a few moments to gently scoop it all into their palms and deposit it back in the vent.

Getting to their feet, Lon eyes the door at the end of the row of cots; so far, it’s stayed shut - holding their breath to check with Observation tells them there’s no one nearby – and they make their way down the line of beds, checking the sizes on the uniforms.

It might not be useful right now, but no one looks twice at a face if the uniform is right during an emergency. Oh! – a smile curls their lips as they swipe the shirt and pants – found one.

If there’s a hat, they can pretend it got knocked off in the rush.

Carefully chucking the uniform into the vent (it neatly soars past the danger zone of emotional baggage and skids deep into the system before it hits a turn with a quiet thwump), they take a last look around the room. It’s pristine and orderly – not barren like the one they share with Trafalgar; no, there’s too much of life’s touch here in the scuffed metal railings on the bunked cots and the scratches on the floor from moved furniture – and everything seems close to picture-perfect.

Other than clothing, there’s nothing else for them to gain by taking; Lon will leave the sentimental photos and letters pinned to walls well enough alone.

I wish I had pictures of home. I could’ve grabbed my box of notes.

Another glance to the photos over their shoulder to trace the lines of relaxed faces and smiles, and envious longing settles in their chest.

Maybe if they hadn’t left home in such a hurry, they would’ve grabbed a photo or two; and it’s ridiculous, really, because who has vivre cards but not photos? Who has a snail to a home halfway across the world and nothing to hold, nothing to trace over to imagine a familiar hand writing to them?

Folding back into the vent, lifting the grate up and re-latching it flush to the wall, they shift to hop past the minefield of the soldiers’ keepsakes.

How typical of scientists to remember everything practical in case of emergencies and nothing sentimental.

Bitter absence was mourning in their hands, now empty without any home to carry.

When they come across the uniform they had sent skidding into the ducts, Lon tucks away their sour thoughts and focuses on pushing it along with them – maybe if they take a right here, they’ll come across a new room – and carefully cools all that storming emotion into hardened obsidian.

It can’t burn that way, and it’s more tolerable when it sits, deadened, in their chest where they can ignore – is that the f*cking pantry? Did I finally find the pantry? I didn’t even have to wander for forty minutes!

Thank the stars for well-timed distractions.

A single pulse of Observation (it’s all empty, and they wonder where the people go, sometimes, how they simply seem to disappear without a trace), and they’re shifting, sending the heel of their palm through the grate to pop it out and drop to the floor with it in hand.

The first thing they take is an orange – there are several bags of them, and now it makes sense why Trafalgar uses them as rewards – and with this, I don’t have to go back soon.

The second thing they grab is bread. It feels like a luxury, with how sweet it is.

Long as I take food they have surplus of, they won’t notice. I’ll keep my choices varied so it looks naturally random if they keep accounts of their stores - they probably do, it’d be strange if they didn’t, wouldn’t it?

Lon snatches a few more things, lobs them up into the vents (the potato makes a hefty thump, and they are looking forward to the texture of the starch on their tongue), and considers the grate. Maybe I got a little overzealous.

If they fling it up like a discus, it’ll make a hell of a racket.

But they could fling it up like a discus.

Unfortunately, they refrain.

A minor headache later, they manage to wrangle both themselves and the grate back into the ducts, and it’s in place with their weight sprawled out atop it (they’re tempting fate with this, but the metal bites into their back in a way that reminds them they’re alive, and the potato they’re gnawing on is crudely wonderful and lapping at the grainy texture is cacophonous and nice).

Lon thinks they’ve done well for the day, small as it is, and grief is a shadow hidden around the corner where they don’t have to look it in the eyes.

They’ll take their time snooping around the entries into the other buildings later. Right now, they’ll enjoy the gleam of ink drying on their map and gnawing through their fresh stash of snacks.

Later becomes now, and Lon’s facing down the barrel of a gun – they’re being dramatic here, but it certainly feels that way: before them stretches an entirely new duct system they haven’t yet had a chance to explore, seeing as it had been closed off from the rest of the institute with a pesky seal.

Now, however, that seal has sunk back into the steel walls the vent mouth sits in, and peering past the rubber lip reveals a pathway straight into Building C.

That’s the good one, right? A pause to rifle through their memory. The only other building of interest is R, and that’s for Vegapunk’s lab. They wiggle a little further in (the walls here are tighter, irritatingly enough); and Caesar’s lab is in here. What floor did Trafalgar say it was on?

Lon glances over their shoulder. On the off chance that the seal closes and they get stuck in the building, they might be able to bullsh*t their way out of here. It’ll mean changing shifts down there, in the hallways themselves - and they were looking for a break from being crammed in the same room as Trafalgar, not a permanent vacation.

But if I can find Caesar’s office and get into it, it’ll be worth it – even if I end up getting stuck.

If they can’t change the self-destruct operative within the system, then they can at least take notes on everything Caesar has lying around in his laboratory.

With one last look to the shrinking window into the building they’re familiar with, Lon takes the first right they come across, and then it winks out of sight.

They practice sustaining Observation for a time in their crow shift – or, at least, they try to. It prefers to come in bits and spurts (turns out, it’s a little difficult for animal instincts to look beyond themselves when their favorite thing to blare is survival), and on the rare moments where they come across a crossroads and can fold themselves into a tight ball for comfort, breath hitting the metal and fingers curled tight into their palms, their shoulders drooped towards the metal bulging under their knees, Haki comes ridiculously easy.

It likes to flow out of them on an exhale - and if they let their eyes glaze just so, they can get the notion of color from even four rooms away. Of course – because of course it works that way, of course they can’t see the true contours of their own abilities – they don’t know what their Haki looks like.

Maybe if they get really bored, they’ll ask Trafalgar what color they are.

It’s silly, but Lon hopes it’ll be something nice like a subtle lavender. Maybe even periwinkle.

Anyhow, they’re finding this building a tad unpleasant: turns out there are a lot of floors, and it’s hard work trying to jettison themselves between levels without clipping their wings on the sides of the ducts, let alone avoid succumbing to the claustrophobia tightening in their chest like a corkscrew when they clamber up outside a shift.

They did go down to the basem*nt, albeit briefly – they forgot where Trafalgar said Caesar kept much of anything, so they found themselves checking each floor available to them – and discovered a waste container sitting innocuously in a pool of shadow of its own making.

Seeing it made their stomach churn.

Unsurprisingly, it reminded them of Dressrosa, that dark maw beneath the earth where people were put to die. It had all the same disjointed limbs stretching up into the ceilings, winding metal snakes slinking off into parts unknown that they couldn’t see.

There was even a similar stench clinging to the steel, all sour endings and rotten beginnings.

A foul taste lingered in their mouth for an hour after their hands stopped shaking and all their bones were able to settle back into place.

Anyhow, basem*nt? Not a fan.

The first floor proved to be uninteresting: nothing but twisting hallways that dwindled into obscure darkness and arcing lobbies with no one in them.

It felt like the place belonged to echoes rather than people. Like the sounds of their own breathing caged their heart in their throat with how every brush of their feathers and thump of their knees bounced down dusty ducts like overeager puppies into ears that weren’t there – but how would they know? They may be proficient with their Observation, but there was always better.

Or maybe everyone there had gone to the building they’d just left – plausible enough, right? It’s the biggest part of the institute. Maybe most of the work takes place there.

It wasn’t as if the place was entirely devoid of people, after all – Lon had seen a handful of personnel wandering through the place, heavy, clunking tools perfect for bludgeoning in hand and pushing along stuttering, belching piece of machinery like cattle to slaughter.

At least the emptiness of the place would make it easier to weasel their way back into the main building should the ducts be sealed off again.

As for the second floor, it seemed more like an information hub where employees came in to plan out their daily duties.

However, Lon pauses as they survey the room below the grate they’re perched upon, the third floor is interesting.

Below them sprawls a control panel, stretching out from wall to wall to decorate the place with blinking lights and overcast screens that broadcast idleness and nothing more.

However, where the technology is idle, the people are not, and they fill the wide space – all metal plates overlapped on the floor like crowded teeth and wires hanging from the ceiling to be pinned to the walls as if they were manicured vines – with their hustle and bustle, clipboards clacking and papers rustling. Loud murmuring harries the room with an undercurrent of noise.

Lon stifles a sigh. Tough luck, huh? I could trigger a fire alarm - surely there’s one here? Unless there isn’t. Caesar did sound rather lackluster when it came to safety protocol.

Setting off the fire alarm would be pointless. His devil fruit would let him travel near instantaneously to the area to smother the fire, and that’s only if I caused one. Either way, it rouses suspicion.

Causing a lab accident - maybe loosening the valve on a gas cannister or the straps holding them upright and letting them fall over – that’s more likely, but then the vents would possibly be put on lockdown and I’d be trapped here.

They rock from foot to foot, talons clacking on the ducts. Not much of an option that I’m left with.

Settling down to tuck their wings tight against their sides and sit atop the grate’s corner, Lon peers down and watches the engineers work. Might as well collect observations while I’m here. I’ll either learn something or think of something.

Turns out, it’s a little boring watching them work: these were computer engineers, after all, and a great deal of their work (Lon must’ve caught them at the tail end of a meeting when they were first running about, and what they wouldn’t give to eavesdrop during one of those, really - the information they’d be able to glean then) involved sitting down and clacking away on keys to write lines of code that glare and distance obscured.

Not that Lon doesn’t do the same – they’ve been needing to do the same to run their simulations so they can finally get a move on with their research (first, of course, would be finding Trafalgar in the damn institute so they could even get the journal with all their written code) – but it’s awfully boring watching other people do it, and squinting at their screens can only get them so far before all the characters start to run together.

So, huffing, Lon decides to explore the fourth floor. They’re getting real tired of hopping around everywhere, but at least it makes for a rather consuming way to spend their time.

On the bright side, they did learn something. Mostly, they got a sense for general procedure and – Lon’s going out on a limb here – they assume the computer that everyone avoided like the plague was maybe the one with the important self-destruct protocol (but that’s just a theory, and Yiling would have plenty to say about that as a die-hard experimentalist).

They bet it has several layers of administrative protections to get through, too.

Unfortunately, Lon’s no hacker, so if Trafalgar wants them to do something about that protocol, they’re either going to have to cause great misfortune for the first fellow who bypasses the firewalls for them, or they’ll have to make like a rat and chew (a figure of speech, for the sanctity of their teeth) through the wires in the walls.

It’s on the fourth floor that they become uneasy. The air smells, sits, feels strange. It twists and writhes like it’s alive, and Lon does not fancy being the bug it suffocates.

Something squirms there, in the space between the atoms, and they wonder if they should turn back now while they still can; maybe something watches past what they can see, and only the heavy shackles of what they might find are keeping them tethered to a body that’s never quite fit them.

But, I can learn something here if I’m careful, so they press on and wind their way through ducts where the air moves with them.

For a while, there’s nothing in the flashes between metal bars; for a while, it’s just them and shuffling feathers and soft breaths and an absent heart - and the harsh lights that burn past the slates to blare pristine countertops and strange, hideous things twisting behind glass.

It’s interesting (I should drop down to take notes and track what’s being made in these labs) in a callous, clinical manner - but something stops them, and they listen to the mantle of pressure placed upon their shoulders in an imitation of a burning world, and they continue on.

That burden eases when they wind towards what they think might be the end of it all, every turn veering away from the institute’s edge, and they do let themselves into the first room they come across where only whisps of that poisonous prickling of awareness can reach them.

At first, they think it bland: it’s boring in a way that tidy, barren labs are not, and it’s filled with mundane things like tussled bedsheets and battered cabinets, and Lon would have thought it the room they share with Trafalgar if it hadn’t been for its size and the worn bookshelves whose deep gouges they trace with unsteady fingers.

Trafalgar had mentioned Caesar’s quarters being located on the fourth floor, but Lon doesn’t think these are his.

Any lover of his craft fills his space with it without ever meaning to, and along these shelves are stories of carving and woodworking - and when Lon squats down, they spot a box of wooden figurines bathing in discarded shavings tucked far under the bed. It reminds them of Rayveon. Of home, for a fickle moment they languish in, breath stuttering out of reach before they wrest it back under control.

There’s a story of haste with how it sits lopsided and dented, all its cardboard edges well-loved in brutality.

Lon glances about for a name, but there’s nothing for them to find. They know it’s not Caesar’s, though -pardon their rudeness, but Lon doubts he’s a lover of anything other than brutality.

Against the wall, a wardrobe closet holds rumpled work clothes: all thick canvas and shades of brown and grease stains, and Lon supposes it must be a mechanic who lives here.

Or at least, that’s what they think until they push past it, all the fabric bowed carefully over their forearm as they trace green, green, green in delicate straps and bold words and chunky branding, and it’s green, green, green in the strand of hair they pick off the shoulder of a thick leather jacket.

sh*t.

On second thought, it would have been better to find their way into Caesar’s room. It probably would’ve been atrocious, if they were to judge based off what Trafalgar’s tales of the man have told them, but they’re not wary of Caesar like they are her.

And maybe that’s a mistake: just because they haven’t seen him working doesn’t mean he doesn’t use unsightly, inhumane ends to feed his creations. He may be a coward and a bumbling idiot from Trafalgar’s perspective, and clumsy and cruel from the state of his labs, but that doesn’t stop him from being dangerous.

But it’s Monet’s room they’ve stumbled into, and it must be a treasure trove of information (the woman even Trafalgar is uncertain around), and Lon is skimming across every battered spine and praying their heartbeats aren’t somehow too loud, despite being hidden away in an entirely different building.

What am I going to do - just take a notebook? I don’t have paper with me. Their eyes go to the desk shoved against the wall – there’s gotta be loose paper here, right? Everyone has paper. It’s, they pull open the drawer under the tabletop, it’s essential.

A pen rolls out to clack against the wooden lip; they snatch it up before it can tumble back into hiding and move to the cabinets. Each drawer falls open without protest, and it’s weird how nothing is locked. Shuffling through her things (huge invasion of privacy, they know, but she also drugs children, so they don’t feel too bad), there’s not a whisper of documentation.

There’s plenty of niche interests and invisible habits that make the place look normal – but that’s all. It just looks normal. Lon’s eyebrows furrow. It’s normal.

That’s not right.

Everyone has something to hide. She’s just good at it.

The floor is more of the same metal plating, and they didn’t see anything in the vents when they came in. There are no other ventilation mouths into the room, and nothing was hidden behind the books on the shelves, nor was there anything in the gap between it and the wall.

Her trash is empty, and there’s nothing under her mattress. No false backs in the closet, no raised bottoms in the drawers.

It’s too normal in here, and they know she’s hiding something. She must be.

Lon finds a SIM card sealed in plastic anchored to the inside of the drain of the shower. The metal cover lolls at their wrist, and their knuckles graze the filth lining the drain’s throat.

The card doesn’t look like it’s meant to be taken out more than once based on how heat has created a permanent, ribbed seal nearly flush against the card’s edges.

Fingertips pressing into it where it sits, Lon thinks about their options.

They could leave it here, come back for it later – but what if she moves it? There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to find it again – and if they take it now, it’ll alert her that someone’s visited, and they have no way of telling what the consequences for that would be.

Of course, they could take it now and leave a fake replacement.

But the trick would be finding a heat source to create the seal all over again and getting something small enough to match. It had to feel the same.

Lon stands, wiping their hand on their pants, and heads back into the main room. Maybe they can find what they need there.

If they can trim the edges of a larger shaving of wood that the carvings had been resting in, it’ll give them the shape. It takes a few minutes to find one consistent in thickness – as they search, they’re careful to set everything back just as it was, never raising the intricate statues (interesting such a vulgar scientist is so pious, making icons out of nothing) more than a handful of centimeters above their resting place – and their replacement is tucked between two fingers as they move back to her closet.

There had been tools in drawers, but they were for ripping and tearing, and if they can’t find heat, then they at least need something to pinch teeth into plastic and cinch it closed. The final texture will be all wrong, but it’ll hold in dim lighting and keep their decoy from falling out.

They did find the waterproof adhesive she had used to glue it to the inside of the pipe there in the drawers, however, and that goes into their pocket. Speaking of pockets, maybe she keeps some tools in her work clothes? Was there a utility belt around one of them?

And it’s rifling through the pockets and zipped hiding places in those canvas jumpsuits that they find the transponder snail, small and innocent in the center of their palm. Huh. It’s a shade of pink that has them grimacing instinctually, and it’s topped with shades whose edges bite into the meat of their thumb.

If Caesar has to report to him, then maybe his number is whitelisted on the island? Or maybe there’s a way for her to get around it.

I wouldn’t doubt it.

It’s interesting, though, that she has a snail to reach Doflamingo.

In the end, Lon pockets the SIM card, slides in their replacement (they’re lucky the wood is dark, and in the shadow, it looks the same shade of smokey grey), and uses the thinnest layer of glue they’re capable of applying to the seal they’d popped open, forgoing useful tools and settling for their fingers to cinch it closed.

It still ripples in the same place, give or take a few edges – not that it’s as important, now; all that matters is that there’s something with the same size and thickness in the plastic, and that it’s glued at the same height without dropping its prize down the drain.

Lon puts a weak layer of the adhesive along the back; the best way to ensure no one finds out what they’ve done here is to take advantage of the precarious position of her hiding spot.

Where she used thick coats to hold it in place, they leave a barrier between the plastic and metal thin enough they think it could be knocked straight down into the pipe with a too-rough touch. And if she’s the one to knock it in, well, that’s her fault, isn’t it?

And if she does, then their tracks are well and truly covered.

Lon leaves her room just as empty and bland as it had been when they arrived and with a SIM card small enough to shift with. Her pen is rolled back into the drawer they pulled it from, all the tools returned to their original resting places.

Now they just have to hope that they won’t be trapped in this building. Not when they’re holding something potentially precious.

Of course, life rarely turns out the way they want it to.

All that effort to get back where they started, and Lon is met with an iron wall, rubber seals pressed tight against the duct’s edge.

Damn.

They suppose they’ll have to do something cautiously drastic now, like take the clothes they’d been dragging along (thoroughly dusty now, more grey than off-putting mustard and white) and walk around through the main halls of the building until they got into the one they needed, or they tripped Trafalgar’s Observation – whichever stroke of luck struck first, really.

Peering through the open mouth of the grate they had pulled aside, they drop their stolen uniform to the floor first, themselves second, and make like a scorned lover changing in the hallway. Ducts were a little too tight for them to change into the pants.

With their folded clothes tucked underarm, they meander their way to the first floor and truly flex their Observation to avoid employees traveling their way until it has them dizzy, leant against a wall to catch their breath.

They suspect some of them must’ve been using Haki of their own if the dogged chasing after their steps was any indication - but Lon put a quick stop to that by shifting into an open grate and waiting, heart a little too fast and breath stopped in their chest, until the curious follower lost interest or walked past.

On the downside, Lon finds they’re a little hopeless at navigating the building when outside the ducts: nothing goes where they hope it to, and when it does, it’s blocked off by restricted rooms that demand keycard access they haven’t stolen yet.

But they suppose they’ve gotten close enough to trip Trafalgar’s radar, because, suddenly, there’s a flash of familiar blue – thank f*ck, I was getting tired – and they find themselves back in his space.

He doesn’t really look at them; he keeps dodging eye contact and instead glances down the hall, crowding them into a corner and demanding they shift – Lon tells him he can just shamble them back into the room, he complains they’re being difficult, they accuse him of being cagey, and so on.

All in all, it’s as if they’d never left, despite the awkward distance between them.

Trafalgar only meets their eyes when they sigh and press their bundle of clothes into his chest and, begrudgingly, shift to tuck themselves into his pocket; and it’s with the most obnoxious gait in the world that they set off. He doesn’t announce his steps here like he does with them, but there’s still a subtle sway as he rocks into the next movement - and he’s rather like the sea, except it gives them wicked motion sickness.

Lon doesn’t need him to tell them it’s safe to come out again; they have the lock’s heavy breath – a swift, dull ca-clunk – memorized, and they’re back on their own feet in seconds, pulling the SIM card out of their pockets to brandish it like a golden toy.

“Guess what I’ve –“

“I’m sorry.”

The two of them blink in the other’s silence.

Trafalgar takes the SIM card from their hand and observes it like it’s the most interesting thing in the world – which it is, but he’s not distracting them that easily – “Why?” Lon asks, taking the clothes clenched tight in his left hand.

He’s very good at not looking them in the eyes, which is a little funny considering he has no issue doing so when he’s spitting vitriol and about to knock their teeth out. “I shouldn’t have said those things. They were cruel.”

Lon shifts their weight from foot to foot, their excitement over their discovery dwindling. To be honest, they hadn’t expected him to apologize.

They hadn’t expected the self-betrayal of accepting his apology, either.

“It’s,” well, it’s not okay; none of it’s great, “it happens, I guess.”

“I’d prefer it if it didn’t happen again,” they admit.

“It won’t,” and it’s a promise of his that they’ll remember.

I hate how forgivable you are written in the curl of their fingers – but Lon nods their head, and that’s that. “What’s this?” He prompts, their precious finding laid flat in his palm, a picture-perfect distraction from the bitter storm brewing on their tongue.

If they open their mouth to speak, lightning would be certain to strike - and Lon doesn’t have the best track record with high voltage.

‘I found it in the shower drain of Monet’s room,’ they stiffly offer, hands now reluctant to share. Tapping at its plastic face, ‘I got into Building C. That’s where I’ve been the last couple of days.’

They glance at him; this time, he meets their stare, almost expectant. Don’t, they think, beg, demand to themselves. Don’t.

Their traitorous mouth parts to form words all the same. “Thh-thanks for not calling me back early, by the way.” Nauseous disappointment rises in their throat and drowns their voice to a whisper. “Wouldn’t have discovered what I did.”

“Figured we needed some time.”

They numbly nod agreement, raise their loyal hands to speak for them again. ‘Let me know what’s stored on that card when you look into it.’

Mind drifting back to the snail they’d found in her work clothes, Lon turns on their heel to absentmindedly gnaw at their knuckle. If I tell him, he’ll be on edge all week. Make him anxious about the state of his mission, too.

A sad*stic streak curls in their stomach. Their head tilts to eye him over their shoulder. “How much do you know about her?”

“Probably less than you since you were the one to look through her room,” comes Trafalgar’s dry response. They’re sidestepped to reach the desk, the SIM card going into their jar with the picture of the CP-0 agent, and he’d be funny if they were in the mood. “What I’ve told you is what I know. Have you eaten recently?”

As they shake their head, he hands them several oranges to occupy their empty palms. Seems he likes their lying tongue.

Figures he would. Maybe he never gave it back after those twenty-six months; maybe he made it his the moment he stole it, and their voice would forever be warped by his intentions before it could ever make it out their mouth.

“Why?” His question feels hesitant, like he knows he won’t like the answer they’re about to provide him with.

“There’s a snail to Doflamingo in her room,” Lon tells him carefully – not for the sake of his security, no, but so they don’t stutter in putting the nails in his coffin.

All the emotion drains from his face; he turns to marble, untouchable all over again, and contemplates the information they’ve given him from a million miles away. His eyes have hardened into steel, no longer a dance between grey and gold, and maybe Lon relishes it as they cradle their given food and wait.

They suppose they mimic each other in some way: they can see the apathy yawning in him, and it matches the world he bleached in them that withers into dust in their bones. “Are you certain it’s hers?”

“It was in her room.”

“How do you know it was hers?”

“Clothing style and color of shed hair.”

A frown flickers across his lips; he turns his head to stare back at his desk like all the carefully laid plans he has stored there will have to be sent off with a Viking’s goodbye, all solemn fires and bitter waves, and his hands clench into fists.

Lon, for a moment, entertains what it would be like to realize the man you’ve spent running from all your life to kill has already gotten roots into the stronghold you’re meant to take the first stand against him in.

It makes the corner of their lips quirk up.

But Trafalgar seems more resigned, like he isn’t all that surprised that it’s turned out this way, and they suppose it makes sense, since this is where SAD is produced, after all – but that doesn’t make it any less of a surprise when he focuses back on them and continues his run of peace. “I’ll be back with something for you to eat.”

Lon narrows their eyes. Better to aggravate him now than to have him spring his foul mood upon them later when they’re not expecting it. “You’re – you’re not upset?”

He sighs, runs a hand through his hair to make it messier than it already is. “It’s unpleasant news, but it’s not surprising Doflamingo would plant a rat of his own in Punk Hazard to keep an eye on Caesar.”

They hum, nodding. Sitting atop the desktop and setting their oranges down at their hip, Lon inspects their nails.

Nerves have gnawed them down to the quick.

“I’m going to do something about those kids.” They announce. Trafalgar stops from where he’d been reaching for the door, expression unreadable as he looks back at them. As they lean back on their hands, Lon meets his eyes. “It’s not right to leave them here, so I - I won’t. Either plan for it or don’t.”

But Trafalgar must be feeling just as worn as they do: all he does is dip his head, murmur, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and make his way out the door.

Their mouth twists in distaste. I guess that’s it, huh?

Glancing to the oranges next to them doesn’t give them any answers they like for how to make themselves content – but there’s a chance resting will fix whatever’s broken in them that’s twisted the rest of them unrecognizable.

At the very least, they won’t have to think about it for a little, and there’s no better part of them for not thinking at all than the animal that hides under its wing.

Trafalgar knocks on the cabinet twice before they can make a mess of their feathers in shock when he slides a plate next to them, and he doesn’t shout or glower when they shift to bring it into their lap, their heels knocking against the drawers.

“Don’t put your personal affairs above the commands I give you. As long as you can do what I ask, I don’t give a sh*t what you do in your spare time. Just keep it out of my way.”

Good enough. “Alright. Did you take a look at – at the SIM card yet?”

His mouth thins as he shakes his head. “No. I’m still looking for a card reader for it.”

Around a mouthful (Madoka would give them such a look for this) and behind their palm, Lon’s voice comes out muffled as they shrug a shoulder. “Want me to look for one?”

If he can’t do it, then they might as well do it for him.

But he waves them off, chucks his boots off and drops into bed. Someone’s had a long day. Lon’s eyes drift to the desk. They can find something to quietly occupy themselves with until they’re tired enough to keep their eyes closed, too. It might help reset them further, let them keep this barren vacancy in their lungs.

“Don’t bother. It’ll be a waste of your time. I already have access to equipment storage and the labs,” he replies, just shy of suffocating himself under the blanket. Lon doesn’t know how he avoids nightmares sleeping like that; heavy covers over his face and nose with spent exhales making it hard to breathe.

Not to mention, it’d get terribly warm, like being stuck high up in a house where the bottom floors were filling with flame, and all that was between skin and heat was a door ready to burn with suffocating carbon dioxide slinking in underneath it.

Certainly not their cup of tea.

And with how he reeks of instability, they’re surprised there isn’t a hang-up about lack of air in there somewhere.

They probably have a complex about it.

Belatedly, Lon realizes the time to respond to him has long since passed.

Somehow, their plate’s emptied itself, too, and they’re left staring at plain ceramic to the rhythm of slow, steady breathing from a pirate who believed them trustworthy enough to turn his back to.

Clambering down from the cabinet, steps silent on the desk and plate gently set atop the wood, rather than trust, Lon wonders if it’s just impertinence towards what they could do to him that lets him sleep so soundly around them.

Nin is warm in their wooden palm.

They should really get some sleep.

Settling into their corner of rumpled blankets, Lon tries to do just that - teasing fatigue out of hiding between blinks, dancing between pitch and the greyed outlines of the room, and another slow, measured inhale, another long blink,

and they’re opening their eyes to a field of green and skies a lovely shade of opal.

It’s home.

Grass pillows their head, their fingers twitch in dark topsoil.

They’re home.

Glancing to their right, they see Madoka stretched out on her favorite gingham blanket, tall stem of wine held delicately between her fingers and swirling around in its glass bubble. Leant on one arm, her bob haircut catches on the nape of her neck and drags there, gold flashing in the sun from where it hangs from her ears. She’s giggling, her attention on Yiling, who cracks joke after joke as Rayveon shakes his head in put-upon disappointment.

Yiling – oh, how he was made for movement - has his whole body enraptured with the force of his storytelling, arms coming up as if he’s some great conductor orchestrating an invisible swelling epic, his head bobbing like gulls on the sea, legs twitching where they’re folded under him as if he’s two seconds from running straight into the stars. His once neat button down slowly comes untucked to acquire wrinkles as a diligent scribe collecting his every joyful jolt.

And Rayveon’s carving something new, chewing on another stalk of wheat – he’s been trying to cut back on his smoking, they remember – and the slivers of wood fly off from his knife onto the blanket like tiny sparks, bouncing on the gingham until they come to a stop, all scattered cartography of an artist’s work in progress atop a checkered pattern. His jeans are still rumpled and stained and his favorite boots have a few more scuffs than before, but they’re dressed in love like always, shining with a new coat of color and wax as the sun beads sweat along his forehead.

But behind the three, there’s Niklas, his hands on his hips as he stares into the sky. He’s counting clouds and looking as close to the sun’s brilliance as he dares (he’s pretty ballsy for an old man, even with how his eyesight is going), and his beard has grown long enough to curl up against his collarbones in cresting waves of silver. Sunspots adorn his skin, all born of an Icarus soaring too close to the stars and far too stubborn to simply fall and die; no, instead, he’s made himself wings of roiling stardust and a broomstick of fusing atoms, and he’s shooting off into space where he belongs.

Their fingers curl into the dirt and grass bunches up in the spaces between like they’re the gnarled roots of a tree - and they are so utterly whole in this moment.

Niklas’ head turns to them, his smile bright and eyes soft. “You coming home, kiddo?”

Lon’s breath catches in their throat. Two different answers are stuck there. Rayveon glances up, rich, black skin adorned with new wrinkles they haven’t gotten a chance to love yet. “Idiot,” comes his brusque rebuke. “They’ve never left.”

Madoka lets out an ugly pig-snort – she hates it, and it’s always been Lon’s favorite sound – “As long as there are stars in the sky, we’ll be together. Isn’t that right, Lon?” And she looks to them, so loving and kind, and -

With no other answer to give her, they nod, something warm and wet dripping down their cheeks into the dirt.

Yiling laughs, leaning forward onto his hands to brush bitten knuckles to their face (how could they forget it was him they learned such a wicked habit from?). “I taught you how to be dramatic - it’s about time you learned how to really turn on the waterworks!”

He shoves a cracker into his mouth, their figure of graceless kindness, and crumbs fly everywhere with the force of his words. “Give us old coots a run for our money, won’t you?” Madoka gasps, affronted, as she brushes her dress clean, and his eyes are home, “Don’t worry. We already love the stars from a distance. What’s a few thousand miles between us?”

Niklas crouches down beside them, hand on their shoulder. He points up at the night sky, wispy clouds trailing across it with the band of the Milky Way colorful between the grey. “Isn’t it wonderful?” He glances back to them, grinning so wide it shows off the gap between his front teeth.

Smiling back, voice a whisper, “Yeah,” Lon blinks to see the stars past their tears.

But instead of the night sky and a telescope, there’s a cold metal ceiling.

And instead of Madoka scolding Yiling for being messy, there’s a small hiccup in the air that makes their chest stutter, and suddenly they’re crumpling into a ball on their side as their carefully crafted restraint knocks itself over and all the dominoes start falling.

They can still feel the warmth of Niklas’ arm wrapped around their shoulders when he’d wake them from freezing nightmares, his wheezy breaths pressing his ribs into their arm and the buzzing of his chuckles on their skin. He’d always crack the most terrible puns until they caught enough breath to complain.

And Lon finds themselves sobbing into their tiny pile of blankets, something broken and lonely and lost keening out of their throat. ‘What’s a few thousand miles between us?’

Stupid Yiling. It’s tens of thousands. His estimate is off, as per usual.

It makes them cry harder: they miss double-checking his work after Rayveon slips it into their hands as if it’s contraband while he glances over his shoulders like someone’s going to light a fire under his ass for it.

‘As long as there are stars in the sky, we’ll be together.’

Their chest aches, hollow and empty, and there are no more nights sandwiched between Madoka and Niklas as they listen to Lon reciting facts the two already know by heart - but they were nothing but patient, encouraging teachers, and they always gasped at just the right moments, always paused just long enough before asking ‘why?’ to make Lon feel like a real scientist at eight years new.

They miss the stars so damn much.

They miss their little gang of bumbling researchers, all parents and teachers and mentors rolled up into one. They miss them so much it leaves them gasping.

They wish, more than anything, for it to be Rayveon when they smear their sorrow across their face.

But no matter how roughly they rub into their skin to mimic all his callouses, it’s not, and it’s a crushing disappointment that knocks the wind out of them, not his infamous bear hugs, and a quiet wail is muffled into their knees.

They’re awfully lucky Trafalgar left before they could wake up.

But the hours after are terribly long, and they end up right back where they started, doing something they always seem to be here: spending what must be most of their time slouched in the corner, head tilted back to lean against the wall with their eyes closed.

Well, not most of their time. Most of it is really spent being a nuisance, getting in their Trafalgar-appointed exercises (it's definitely notjusttrying to beat the sh*t out of each other, no, it's got to be more productive than that – look, they also do their physical therapy), trying to work on their research, or snooping through the facility and answering the commentary left in their journals. That’s productive.

Right? There are things that they do. They have purpose.

They’ve just been a little off, and there’s nothing wrong with that - even if it’s been a while since they’ve felt like themselves.

Nothing at all.

So, they sit crammed between the wall and Trafalgar's filing cabinet, their palms pressed to the cold tile and legs sprawled out in front of them as their mind wanders into moments they haven't visited in years.

They never really thought they'd need to revisit these memories. Thought they'd have all the time in the world to make more.

Lon might be mourning. Grieving and homesick and stuck underground, and they might be in mourning.

They wonder who has experimental tea Tuesdays with Madoka now that they’re no longer there, if they giggle with her the same way when she takes the first sip and makes a face. Who sweeps Yiling's labs in the cool mornings where the sun is still reaching curious fingers across his desk before he comes in, standing tall in the middle of an empty floor to bask in the warm light. Who warms and fluffs Niklas' blankets for his evening naps, neatly lays them out on his favorite leather armchair; who bandages all the nicks on Rayveon's fingers when he's done with his wood carving and grins at his snorts when he sees the cartoon characters covering new wounds.

They think of their old classmates and friendly rivals, all the late nights spent bickering and studying together, and the long, dreary hours pulled for exams - and they wonder who’s there for their new lows and fresh highs, too.

Lon sighs, hands bunching into fists with a sudden whisper of energy. I hate it here. I hate where I am, what I am, what I’ve done – I just; I just hate all of it –

- and they're scared of the future, sometimes. There's no one to walk into it with. No familiar faces, none of their closest friends, and none of the people who raised them.

And sometimes, they wonder if it would be better not to think of these things at all - to avoid it so thoroughly that they erase the past from their mind and the people in it because that would hurt so much less.

Wouldn't it be so much better to be a mausoleum swept clean of its contents and coated in dust rather than an empty home waiting for someone to come back? At least if they were a mausoleum, they wouldn't have to look at all the knickknacks that other people's love left behind. At least, then, there wouldn't be anything to miss - there would just be vague loneliness, misplaced emptiness, and Lon could move on with their day.

But, instead, they're a house where the warmth of someone else's greeting lingers and all the colors are still soft and inviting and yellowed with nostalgia, and there’s a breath permanently caught in their throat where they’re waiting for that first boom in welcoming laughter.

Instead, they're a house anticipating the moment where the past becomes present so they can be taken off pause, where all the dust motes can stop hanging in the air and the light blocked by heavy curtains can be let in again to play.

They miss the people that made the Isle home. They miss visiting the observatories to say good morning to the telescopes and running their hand along all that cold steel, to bounce in to wink at the sleeping eyepieces and admire the black nothing the telescopes dream of to imagine all the stars hanging in reach. They miss all the things that made it theirs: the easy routine they had spent years building, the way every familiar face had a hand in shaping them like well-loved clay, the way they were a collage of all their favorite things the Isle had to offer.

Their laugh used to sound like Rayveon's, they used to argue like Madoka, used to hug like Niklas, used to joke like Yiling. They used to hop from foot to foot like the neighboring sparrows, stretch and groan like the old barns, cross a room like the telescopes, grin like the sun. They were made of parts, a mosaic -

but, now, all the pieces are faded. And where their color's been rubbed away, Lon's peering into fractured mirrors to see a million different faces reflected back at them.

And it's fine, to have only themselves.

But it's lonely, and Lon is different now.

It’s no surprise that colors aren't as vibrant without their counterparts.

A whisper. "Hey." Cloth hisses against steel, a body thumps, and a shoulder knocks into theirs. Lon opens their eyes to see Trafalgar squished next to them, his left shoulder all but folded in to fit between them and the wall. Their right shoulder is similarly curled, but they just have sh*t posture.

"Hi," Lon croaks. "Bad day?" They don’t know how long it’s been, really, but they assume long enough to fade the redness from around their eyes.

Trafalgar sighs, taking his hat off to rest it in his lap. "Something like that." It leaves his hair ruffled and near a rat's nest, and there are no new bruises on his neck when they think to check.

They wonder what’s happened with him. This is uncharacteristically touchy of him, but they won’t complain. The vacuum in their chest roars over the itching of his arm against theirs, and the ache in their lungs swallows the discomfort - and it’s just enough relief to remind them how long it’s been since they’ve sat with someone.

Humming, Lon closes their eyes again. Trafalgar remains silent as he runs his thumb back and forth across his cap's bill.

It has stories they’re not privy to, but,

he thinks of his crew, they think of the Isle,

and the two of them sit,
lonely, together.

And it seems that another night of fitful rest does little to cure the fog in their head.

Trafalgar gets antsier the deader they feel, and he’s spent more of his time outside the room while they do the opposite, happily taking him up on his old offer of using the bed when he’s not in it to sleep the days away.

He’s bound to say something about it soon, but, for now, Lon’s satisfied with the tense silence between them. Like hell they’re telling him why they feel the way they do, and they’ll be damned if he asks.

But his patience ends, just as the days do, and the strained peace between them snaps (Lon is certain he’s been leaving the room more because their funk is a drain on his Observation since they’re the loudest thing in here, and they despise the way it makes them a little lonelier when he can’t take it anymore and steps right out the door.

He must feel guilty about it, because sometimes he’ll sit with them.

He’s been doing that more. It’s a kindness they don’t know if either of them can afford.)

“Care to spar?” Trafalgar asks, setting the journal he’s been nosing through down on billowed blankets. Lon lifts their head up from their arms, blinking blearily at him.

Somehow, I don’t believe beating the sh*t out of me will make me happy. Go back to your personal improvement classes, Trafalgar. I think they passed you on accident.

“No.” They bury their face back under the careful cave they’ve constructed of the blankets and a pillow, fully intending to slip back into their nap. Far be it from Lon to deny the allure of escaping reality.

“That’s too bad,” he says brightly, their shoulders tensing, “But good practice for the field since real fights break out regardless of whether or not you want them to.” Snappish irritation sharpens their teeth as they turn their back to him, determined to ignore him.

If his company was going to come with these stipulations, then Lon thinks they’d rather have the loneliness.

They grumble a suggestion of where to stick it to the wall; alas, Trafalgar yanks them off the bed and onto the floor, and they’re stuck in a tangle of their own damn long limbs and blankets, short-sleeved shirt riding up on their stomach as they try to bat the massive comforter away. f*cking – damnit. I am not in the mood.

He takes a step towards them, and Lon has enough presence of mind to use adolescent Observation – oh! This makes sense now, because he’s filled with jittering energy and nowhere to put it – but the discovery doesn’t stop them from being pissed as his hand comes down and yanks them up by the scruff like they’re a naughty kitten.

Lon’s about to start biting like one, too, dour mood thoroughly soured into something hellish. Hopefully he fancies losing a finger or two.

An agitated sigh and a flash of warning from their Observation, and he throws them into the desk. A snarl is startled out of them for the way their thigh smarts (they’re probably going to see a bruise blooming there in the next few minutes pretending to be a continuation of their shorts in a wild attempt at color matching the denim), and he has the audacity to casually stretch out his arms.

Lon’s eyes narrow, their lip curling to flash predator’s canines as their fingers sharpen into talons. You want a fight? Fine. Trafalgar’s anticipatory grin flinches violence through them – and their hand is darting out to wrap around an inkpot they chuck straight at his head.

It’s very satisfying to ruin his things, actually. Almost a better alternative to lying around all day in an effort to pretend they’re not real.

Ducking under the projectile – it shatters against the door, splatter of void slowly dripping down the metal as he swears at them for wasting his precious ink – puts him in the path of their fist, adrenaline thrumming so eagerly in their bones they can hear the electric hum of it in their ears.

When Armament asks them why, they tell it, ‘to hurt,’ and it purrs with them and bites into his stomach, and they’re darting back out of reach as his hand comes down to clamp around their buzzing forearm.

Displaced air rushes past their skin; Lon shoves the desk chair into Trafalgar’s path, and it clatters as it rockets into his abdomen before being slammed into the wall when he knocks it aside.

Cool frustration has begun to pool in his eyes; Observation (why? and Lon says, ‘to remember a future’) pings a left hook and they drop, hands darting out to his hips and heaving him onto the floor. Their knees protest at the impact when they straddle him, the collar of his shirt fisted in their grip as they draw the other back to punch him.

“You’re using Observation well,” he compliments, right before his palm cracks into their nose, iron thick on their tongue. “But not well enough.” And they reel back, pinching the torrent from their nose trying to flood into their mouth and forearm held in a defensive guard in front of them. Their blood splatters on the floor, ugly and bright, when they spit it out.

sh*t. Observation and Armament shine there, in the globules of carmine, and the absence of their questions linger in Lon’s thoughts.

They’re awake in a way they haven’t been for days, but they’re unsteady rocking to their feet and the adrenaline rushing through them is starting to tear at all their fraying seams.

(a part of them wishes he’d see that and stop, but there’s no calming a broken dam)

Trafalgar’s smirk is cutting as he surges up after them while they backpedal and grasp at straws. Think, think, think - what does he listen to more: body tells or Observation? Do something to get me out of this.

Lon’s eyes dart to his left and their shoulders dip like they’re about to lunge away with their glance, and they throw their weight straight into him; his legs are already bent, braced for the impact, and he immediately throws them to the floor, shimmering fist smashing into their stomach.

Gasping, their body curling like a dying spider around his hit, Lon gouges long lines down his forearm amidst the spray of red they’d left there.

They do know one thing: animalistic movements are difficult for Observation to detect, and their claws in his skin draws a vicious snarl out of his chest that their atoms scream to freeze to. Breathe. Observation, then. Inhale. Makes sense. Exhale. Good failsafe.

And Lon plays pretend; they grin up at him – he pauses for a moment, eyes narrowing – but I’ve faked out Observation before. They think of throwing themselves up to dig claws into the leg he’s aiming to drive through their stomach, sinking their teeth into his thigh and ripping; how the pop of flesh would be loud in their ears and the rich taste of blood thick on their tongue as muscle tears under their cruel fingertips, and Trafalgar jerks his leg back while they’re rolling up to their feet. And they’re still darting up, just differently than planned, than imagined, and Lon gets it: it’s all moving in the same way, being liquid in the universe’s motion and seeing each possibility that branches off from a single twitch of their fingers (punch, scratch, slap, whatever they want) and letting all those choices confuse the user while they’re dancing to a tune they don’t even hear.

Pivoting on their heel, they drive their elbow into his spine; at his grunt, Lon sneers (real, real, real, so real and vivid), wild and intent, and their shoulder twitches towards the left and he’s kicking at empty air as they twist to drive their knee between his legs.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much. He’s wised up enough to have his Color of Arms spread neatly across every inch of skin like he wears the love of the universe in a cloak.

He’s grinning at them instead. “Neat trick, Lon.”

Trafalgar swings his leg through, twisting neatly on the ball of his foot to smash it into their side and slam his hand into their sternum as they stumble.

A broken, rasping shout tears out of their throat as they fall backwards, Armament (don’t want, don’t want, no, no, no) flashing across the back of their head and shoulders as they crash into the tile. They’re sent skidding across the floor with a firm shove from his boot to their hip. With their head nearly under the bed, Trafalgar is quick to drop on top of them and lean back – they think he’s aiming for their stomach, his knees bracketing their hips – and Lon eyes the blankets hovering above their bloodied nose.

Take three of using the environment.

It sounds a little hysterical, a little trapped, and every breath tastes like iron.

Flickering between their body and its edges, Lon yanks the blanket down, wraps it around his arms, and rolls onto their side; he’s unbalanced by them shoving off the floor, awkward straddle on their hips with restrained arms toppling him. They rise up with his sideways momentum, one hand tight around the bundle of his arms and the other winding the body of the blanket around his head – I’m not suffocating him, he’s fine, this level of violence is fine, he’s stronger than I am – and their neck twitches.

Lon slams his head into the floor.

They jerk their hand back, “sh*t, ssuh-sorry, I didn’t mean to do that –“ a deep snarl interrupts them and Trafalgar’s surging up to slam them into the floor hard enough to make them choke, blanket half-discarded and hands around their throat. His grey eyes are darker than they should be.

“Don’t apologize.” Trafalgar sneers, teeth flashing ugly promises. “I can be rougher now.”

A hoarse, nervous chuckle escapes them (I’m scared. You scare me), fingers curling under his palms and knee bending as they push against the floor. “Uh, let’s, let’s not get too hah-hasty here-“

“Let’s see how you fight injured,” he purrs, low and soft, and there’s the flash of a blade, Lon’s eyes widening and Haki (why? They give it nothing but desperation, and it answers out of pity) flashing across their skin – but he’s spilling Armament across the scalpel and sinking it deep into the side of their thigh.

Oh, gods, the words nearly on their lips and drowned in their wretched inhale. Slamming the back of their head against the tile, there’s no stopping their breathing from picking up as they eye the f*cking scalpel cheerily jutting out of their leg.

Lon’s elbow swings into his temple, making him recoil and hiss – bastard was too caught up grinning down at them like a damn predator to pay more attention to the whispers of his Observation – and they shove him off them, knocking him onto his back.

Haki (bleed, scared, so scared, bleed for me) flashes across their talons, dripping with the dazzling colors of the night, and Lon plunges their hands into his abdomen – success or failure be damned, they want to make him nervous, too – Trafalgar shouts, and his swears bury themselves in their lungs as they find the breath to snarl in his face.

There might be nothing left of them; just grief and violence and that terrible burning of a neutron star counting its final millennia.

Under their wicked claws, there’s give for a millisecond: it’s all they need to draw blood, maroon rushing to stain his shirt. Lon jerks back as his hands reach for them, on their feet in seconds as he lunges after them. They bang into the cabinets. Everything agitates the blade in their thigh.

Incensed, they yank it out (it bites and burns something terrible, pained whine stifled in their throat), the consequences be damned, and fling it at his chest. Trafalgar blocks it with one forearm, good-for-nothing, co*cky bastard he is, and Lon hurls themselves onto the desk, retreating where he advances. Their fingers dig into the cracks between the filing cabinet and the wall, and, with a grunt, they’re tilting it over into his path.

He swears at them when it crashes to the floor, he hasn’t used his devil fruit yet (isn’t his restraint strange?), and they reach for the second cabinet, eager to send it to the same raucous fate.

Their back hits the wall.

They’re running out of options, and he’s got over a decade of experience and trained strength on their two years.

Should I shift?

Lon has their hands wrapped around the cabinet’s edges when his fingers close around their ankle and jerk them down, ripping them away from their corner. Gasp half-caught on their teeth, Lon twists and plants their foot on his chest, kicking him hard with their uninjured leg and slashing at his face to force him to back up.

But as soon as the arc of their swing finishes, he’s back in their space, his fingers wrapped around their thigh and too close to the weeping stab wound – they’ve gotten blood all over his desk, and they hope it stains ugly – and a hand in their hair pulling their head back until their throat is bared to match their teeth.

Desperate is a foul word in their twitching hands. Their knee smashes into his stomach and fingers streak towards his eyes, their breathing ragged and raspy over his grunt. He straightens out over them until he’s not quite out of reach, their nails scrabbling at his armored throat, his knee pinning their free leg against the side of the desk’s skirt – and Lon’s halfway to trying something inspired when his fingers press into the stab wound he left.

Their fist slams against the desk’s top as they cry out, swearing (Niklas - Dad, and it’s a shameful, guilty part of them that wants him to come and save them like he always did when they were younger). “Why don’t you shift?” Trafalgar blandly asks, as if they’re chatting news over tea and Lon’s not pinned against the desk after they took turns beating the sh*t out of each other.

Gritting their teeth, they glower at him. “Ge-eht your fingers out of –“ Lon’s concentration splinters at the shrieking pain shooting through their leg and into their spine when he moves his hand away, and they forget how to breathe for a second, a hiccup in their voice for no one to notice. “f*ck!”

His fingers creep back towards the wound when they don’t answer his question fast enough for his liking; Lon’s hands fly to cover it, their nails digging into his skin. “Impatient bastard,” they spit, “I don’t – I, I don’t shift because it’s bleeding too much. I wouldn’t be able to move well.”

They eye him warily past their nose as he hums, contemplative. “This counts as a serious injury?” Trafalgar looks like he’s itching to press on the wound again.

“Your curiosity has sh*t timing.” Lon snaps. They’re helpless right now, and it makes their skin crawl and throat close like they’re sipping on sulfur dioxide all over again. “Yes.”

“Does the shift exaggerate the wound?” Trafalgar asks, so calm (too calm, cunning, plotting, bad, bad, bad, insists their brain). His expression is impassive, and they wish they could fly.

Licking their lips, Lon plants a bloodied hand on his chest and pushes firmly instead of giving him an answer.

He doesn’t budge, but it helps. “We done?” They miss the peace they had minutes prior. It had the added benefit of being bereft of stabbings. Blood has long since begun pooling and cooling under their thigh. “I need to – to stitch this.”

He seems far away, stuck between considering them and not with his hand tightening in their hair. Prickling flight creeps into their veins. Maybe they’ll have to risk it and shift anyhow; they should at least be able to dart into the vent - but it still depends on whether he’ll use his devil fruit.

“Trafalgar?” Lon asks. Their voice is uncertain and shamefully small.

His reaction is odd: he blinks like he’s waking up, eyes focusing back on the tense lines of their shoulders, and there’s a weight in his gaze that speaks of humanity (they understand, they think, but there’s still a chill going down their spine knowing that it had left him at all).

“sh*t, sorry.” He shakes his hand out of their hair with hasty guilt and steps back; Lon pushes themselves away from him, back cradled comfortably by the corner made between the remaining filing cabinet and the wall. The front of their shirt is splattered from their nosebleed, and their shorts reek of iron after having soaked up the blood still collecting on the wood. “Let me help –“

“You can help by giving me some, some room.” Lon interrupts, tracking the motion of his hands as the words stick to the roof of their mouth.

Those hands twitch, and Lon’s eyes jolt to his face, uninjured leg yanked close to their chest. “I’ll get the sutures and gauze.” For once, Trafalgar follows their demand without complaint.

Tension lingers in their shoulders as they watch him rummage through the fallen cabinets, his body purposefully angled towards them so they can see his face and slow, deliberate movements. They’d be annoyed if they weren’t searching for an agitated twitch in his eyebrows, or wrinkling in his nose, or scrunching eyes – and, upon finding nothing, they glance down at the blood they’ve smeared across the desk.

He’s done before they can decide what the tangle of emotion in them means, and nitrile gloves are laid atop the small tray he’s set down.

Pinching their nose to make sure it isn’t broken smudges flaking crimson onto their fingertips, and their fingerprints turn purple under the blue gloves they tug onto hands cluttered with more scars than they remember. He doesn’t protest when they flush the wound out right then and there, bloody rinse leaving ruddy ponds streaked across the wood.

Lon gets as far as wielding the tools as they remember him: threaded needle clamped in its holder and forceps at the ready in their left hand - before they hesitate above the sluggish wound and mumble, abashed, “how do I do this?”

Trafalgar doesn’t reach for them, but he does step closer, hip leant against the cabinet he’d pushed back upright opposite them, and his hands slowly wander in the air to follow instructions that muscle has memorized.

His voice stays calm and quiet, a harsh contrast to the blazing manic it’d been earlier, “We can do simple interrupted sutures for this. Pierce the skin at a ninety-degree angle. Keep one to three millimeters of distance between the wound’s edge and where you sink the needle in. Be consistent about it. Rotate your wrist to push the needle through the skin. The curvature of it will do all the work for you.

“Pull the thread through, and then use the forceps to create square knots once the needle’s been pushed through. Make sure the edges of the wound are slightly raised. You want a running hill. Cut the thread each time you’ve completed a suture.”

Their head bobs in acknowledgement; the needlepoint goes against unmarred skin, and they sink it into flesh as soon as they take their first inhale. His hands still walk through the same motions in the corner of their eye, keeping pace with their progress.

Dissolvable thread drags through their skin, the needle piercing into their leg and sliding through flesh like a fish taking to water – or, they suppose, a ship’s keel slicing through waves – with beads of blood around the thread like disturbed seafoam. Sometimes the knot at the needle nose catches, and Lon has to urge it along while squashing the instinct to jerk their leg away.

They let the fish dive, the ruddy ocean splash, and, soon, the unpleasant itch of the waters of their skin is secondary (it’s happening farther away, where it isn’t their problem, isn’t something for them to live through), and the wound begins to seal itself with each stitch like they’re zipping up a messy seam.

There had been a moment where they worried they’d need his help to push all the skin together to maintain the risen edges of the wound - but then they’d finished one stitch and another, and that concern buried itself in the gap that neatly lessened with each addition.

When there’s no more wound to suture, Lon rests their wrists high up on their thigh and tilts their head back against the wall to breathe. Primarily to will away the nausea as their skin leaves liquid behind to settle back into solid flesh. In hindsight, they really should’ve tried for some sort of numbing agent.

Two raps on the desk.

Lon’s eyes go to Trafalgar. “You did a good job for your first time,” he compliments.

A heavy exhale, their tight grip finally relaxed on the instruments, Lon sets them back on the tray and drops their dirty gloves onto the healthy leg. “So, rih-respeck-respectfully, what the f*ck was that?” They ask drily. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t thinking there for a moment, and I’m – I’m sorry. But I also didn’t leave you needing stitches.”

He must find the wall incredibly interesting if the way he’s avoiding their gaze says anything.

Lon stifles a sigh. I forgot the both of us were allergic to open discussion.

“I wasn’t thinking, either.” Trafalgar manages after a long moment.

Incredibly enlightening. I totally couldn’t tell.

“How about,” Lon says slowly, “If we can catch it, we let the other person know. Call it incident prevention.”

A flicker of a smirk. They preemptively pinch their brow. “I could shamble you into a cabinet,” he offers. “I’ve heard breaking line of sight with the person you’re arguing with is an excellent way to defuse the situation.”

Lon pinches their brow harder. He’s so unfunny it’s practically a natural wonder of the world.

Briefly, they contemplate ruining his life; it’s a work in progress sort of plan, but it’s there, and they have at least three objects they could use as makeshift shivs.

Unfortunately, they decide to be the responsible adult out of the two of them and pointedly pretend he’d never opened his mouth at all. “If I tell you to stop, you have to stop. I’m not – I’m not undermining you when I do that.”

It’s a small blessing that he doesn’t try to argue innocence or for them to compromise; he nods, holds his hand out where death is still splayed out on the knuckles for them to shake, and says, “You have my word I will.”

Lon eyes him, expressionless. And how much is your word worth?

“Since you can’t leave like I can,” they scowl at the reminder of their limited freedom, “If I catch it, then I will.”

He moves out of the way when they gingerly slide off the desk. “Okay,” Lon ignores his outstretched hand and their own relief at his blasé attitude towards being snubbed. “That’s what we’ll do then.”

So much of their relationship (and their future’s security) seems to be built upon hesitant starts towards normalcy – not to mention dependent upon Trafalgar’s flippant generosity.

Their thigh throbs angrily. The pain has already begun its trembling path along their nerves. Generosity, huh? Feels more like punishment than I remember. Lon’s attention drifts across bland walls as he steps away while they search for a rag to wipe their skin with. Of course, he can’t hurt something that isn’t there.

Maybe his hands aren’t the only ones marked with the cruel gift of death.

But that’s something they shouldn’t think about.

Instead, they focus on scrubbing the desk clean with their dampened rag with Trafalgar intent on giving them space, and the same silence they’ve come to expect from him settles between them.

It feels uncomfortable these days, though. They’re getting tired of the minimal progress they’ve been making.

When they glance up, rag scrunched up on the wood and hands wiped off on their shirt, Trafalgar’s watching them with an uncertain quirk in the stoic line of his mouth. Lon can’t decide if it tastes like disappointment or guilt, but they want nothing to do with it; eyes narrowing into slits, they curl their lip at him. His expression flattens in return, and they think this is the first time he’s taken the trouble to flip them off.

A shining moment in their life, honest – but try as it might, it can’t compare to his outraged sputtering when they fling the dirty rag into his front.

In the morning, Trafalgar nudges them awake. “Leg not burning?”

A moment spent trying to slow the sharp dart of their eyes to his hands and calm their heart; while he pretends he doesn’t see the tension he puts in them, they assert there’s no infection-pulse coming from their thigh and give him a thumbs up.

“Great,” he flashes their research journal and a smile at them, lowering the notebook enough so they can hesitantly reach out and lovingly run their fingertips along the spine. “You up to play?”

Gingerly getting to their feet and brushing their bangs back – they’ll need another haircut soon – Lon stretches. “Yeah. How long do you want – do you want me to wait?”

He scoffs, normalcy riding a fragile line in his stiff shoulders, their journal going tucked away into his coat pocket. “As if you have any concept of time. Come when you get bored enough to start pacing.”

“Better hurry then,” Lon sighs, crowding him out the door as if he’s the itch under their skin. “I think I’ve picked up on your impatience.”

Trafalgar moves as if he’s going to retaliate physically, elbow jerking towards their stomach, and Lon flinches out of the way – but not before tripping him into the solid steel door with their bad leg, standing steady on their good one. For the sake of their own pride, it was on purpose and not out of instinct.

On top of that, his swearing is incredibly gratifying, and they’ve stumbled and scampered to the bathroom for safety before he could even begin to think of reciprocating.

They only peek out into the room once they hear the door thud shut and click with the lock engaging. All clear. Now what?

Bland room, devoid of their research, and notably missing antagonizing entertainment. Somehow, they manage to get to what they think is the fifteen-minute mark before they get sick of their talented combo of limp-pacing. Lon’s leg was starting to ache, anyways, so shifting was for the better.

If all goes well, today will be the day they find him and finally get to type up their code.

Using Observation has faded into dull awareness of running the task in the background by now; of course, they refused to be bad at it, so it was only a matter of time before they got to this point, difficulties with their crow shift be damned - and theyreallywant to run these simulations they've been dreaming of for months. Lon hadn’t shied from the sometimes hours they’d spend exhausting their will, and while their otherworldly perception is nothing in the face of Trafalgar’s, they think it’s a little harder to sneeze at now.

Shift interference aside, the facility sprawls, their endurance forced to improve in leaps and bounds to accommodate their exploration, and all their tenacityhadto pay off eventually, right? It’d be -

Bingo. The silvers and golds they've come to associate with Trafalgar are right beneath them. He's the only one in the room. For now.

Shifting to trade out feathers for hands and knees pressed into the duct’s belly (the stitches pull in bitter disgruntlement at their position), light splays across their face in harsh strips from the slats they peer through. "Trafalgar," Lon calls in a whisper, knocking twice on the metal skin. His head tilts up, eyes catching theirs as they grin, victorious, at him. Consonants catch on their teeth on repeat, like a bird’s strangely predatory call hissing in the night. "Let-t-t me in."

"Don't shout," he tells them, and that's all the warning they get before they're being shambled onto the pristine tile at his side, barely a stumble on their part as they straighten to shift their weight off their bad leg.

Lon holds their hand out expectantly. "Research.”

Dragging it out of his coat pocket, he nonchalantly dips the spine towards a computer. "Use that one. I've already logged on. There's an elementary compiler for you to run code through." He turns his attention back to the slab of meat that he had been dissecting and Lon steadfastly ignoring, "I don't know how well it'll work, though."

An excited smile breaks across their face all the same. Something was better than nothing; flipping through the pages of their worn journal (he scrubbed the bloodstains off the cover as best he could while they were out one day), Lon's fingers splay across the first page of many, scrawled lines of code spilling from margin to margin.

The computer's keys are loud, clacking with each tap, but Lon tunes it out into background noise as soon as they find the program he mentioned. And from there, it's glancing between wrinkled pages and a flickering screen, translating one programming language into another, and the occasionalshftof meat being separated from fat by a sharp blade.

Lon's finally gotten it to run, beautiful, ancient, decrepit computer rattling its way through their code and displaying galaxies in slow orbit around each other - they're haltingly jumping and prancing in a circle and filled with glee (they only had to debug the program eight times!), journal clutched in their hands and held high overhead - when voices bounce around behind the lab's doors.

Trafalgar's at their shoulder in a flash, hurriedly minimizing their program as Lon shifts down into bristling feathers, and right as the door swings open, he's shambling them and their journal into his pocket before either can hit the floor.

It's rather undignified, being crammed in his coat. Coarse fabric has surprisingly little give when their wings push against it as they tuck the unwieldy limbs against their body.

Ugh.

“Trafalgar!” Caesar’s voice rings in the large space, gratingly nasally and pitched; hearing it makes them want to commit a crime. “How are things?”

“I believe I told you I would be informing you of my progress the moment I reached a significant milestone.” Trafalgar’s tone is flat, irritated, and Lon’s feathers are being rubbed the wrong way with his every movement as he continues dissecting whatever organ they were ignoring. “You’re interrupting my work.”

“Oh, but it wouldn’t be right of me as your employer to not check in every now and then, don’t you think?” Caesar replies, all coy and haughty, and Lon bets he turns incompetent the moment he tries to speak to Monet.

He must step closer, though, because there’s that strange miasma beginning to swarm at the mouth of the pocket they’re hidden in, and Trafalgar suddenly slams his knife down into whatever he’s been dissecting.

There’s a sharp, wet crack and popped ligaments buried under it, and gristle splattering onto marble. Caesar swears in disgust, his airy footsteps backtracking in a rush. “Oops,” Trafalgar calmly says, “Seems I wasn’t being careful enough. I’m awful at multitasking, you see. I got a little too distracted.”

“That’s f*cking repulsive, Trafalgar. Your work is messy,” he spits, insulted by, Lon assumes, whatever organic material sprayed onto him.

“It is,” Trafalgar agrees, and Lon can hear the note of satisfaction buried deep in it; they don’t know if it’s maniacal whimsy over what he does, or for making Caesar squeamish, but it gives his voice an odd lilt.

He sounds – how to put this? - vaguely happy. “God, you’re not even listening to me,” Caesar complains, clearly offput as Trafalgar continues his work. Another sharp retort from the blade meeting the board it’s atop (they hadn’t gotten a good look earlier, but they wouldn’t be surprised if it had been a cutting board – something about it would have just been so fitting for him), a noncommittal hum from the doctor, and, “f*cking freak,” mutters the scientist with more war crimes than successes under his belt.

Thankfully, he deems it fit to run off with his tail between his legs: the doors slam shut and there’s none of the hushed limping of his footsteps in the room.

Trafalgar’s knife pauses in its ominous whispering as he widens the mouth of the pocket large enough for them to twist their head and stare at him. “I got rid of the rat,” he confides in them, as if it was any sort of secret – they’ve been right here, why’s he gotta pretend like he did something special? – “Come out. I’m sure you can finish what you were doing with your code.”

To spite him, Lon curls tighter. It’d be f*cking stupid to immediately come out. Caesar could still be in range for his Observation to cover the lab, and it’d be right suspicious if someone appeared as soon as he left. Annoyance flashes through them. Trafalgar is really bad at this. If anyone were listening, they’d wonder who he was talking to.

Above them, he sighs. “I might forget you’re in my pocket and put something sharp in there. Do crows like being pincushions?”

He’s the most irritating man they’ve ever had to deal with.

A hand begins to descend, blotting out their artificial sun.

As appropriate, Lon freaks out – only a little, though, they’ve got some pride left to them still – and bites at his fingers as if they’re a carnivore, going to rip your skin off and maul the bones, what the f*ck, what the f*ck; alas, all they get for their trouble is a light swear from him and a hand closing around them all the same.

Deep discomfort thrills in their bones. Cage of flesh, and still somehow no less impenetrable than steel. Cage of flesh, and their freedom hasn’t been their own for a very long time, has it? They’re just a pet in someone else’s hands, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a tyrant or a pirate, it’s all the same in the end.

Light hits them, harsh and bright, and Lon forgot what they were ever doing to begin with – who could dream in a place like this? What pointless research, down where the stars cannot reach them.

Shifting to their feet, eyes sweeping across the greyed gristle indeed speckled across the counter, Lon steps out of Trafalgar’s reach and runs their hands through their hair.

Maybe they’ll play at having boundaries again. “I dah,” the wrong sound dies against their palate, “I don’t like it when people do that.”

Not looking at him, they lean back over the counter to pull up their program, skimming the code for lines to optimize and considering what functions to add. Maybe they’ll have it display the approximated lifespan of the collision as it occurs rather than after the fact.

Trauma. What a mood killer, huh?

“Do what?” He asks, hand hovering over his tools.

Lon rolls their wrist. Oh, I can remove this line. Add an additional argument in the original function to make it more organized. Keep like together. “Don’t grab me.”

Silence sits heavy between them, and Lon can practically feel him drawing unnecessary conclusions (maybe not incorrect ones, but the passing seconds invite them to remember Doflamingo and his permanently strangling grip on everyone around him). “I won’t,” Trafalgar says, perfectly neutral, and their breath of relief is disguised as the same as every other exhale they’ve had.

It’s nice to work side by side with another scientist again, at least. If they let their vision blur enough, a familiar body from kinder evenings on the Isle is at their elbow, and the black coat turns to white, and it brushes against the cupboards with raspy whispers as militaristic heels click on the floor.

They go home (surely thinking this way must be a betrayal, like staying in any one place for long enough can erase the weight of years of memories, like home isn’t the people as they’d thought, but just a place to sleep and spend the time) after wonderfully long hours, and they ache after being on their feet for so long to hunch at a computer with stubborn keys.

“I’ll try to work in labs with computers,” Trafalgar says once they’re out of his time-out pocket, “Let me know if there are any other instruments you need, and I’ll try to find locations that have them.”

Lingering at the cabinets and rubbing their thumb down the spine of their journal, they consider his offer. It sounds a lot like ‘come and find me if you want,’ and, sometimes Lon is surprised that he’s willing to extend olive branches for forgiveness.

But they suppose it makes sense - they have to work together long-term, anyways. They don’t blame him for wanting a peaceful professional relationship.

“I’d love a telescope,” they wistfully remark, staring at the cold ceiling. “I doubt you have any here, though, so as long as the lab has a computer, it’s – it’s fine.”

He dips his head, “I’ll keep an eye out,” and the two of them go their separate ways as best they can while stuck in the same room.

You’d think that we’d at least talk to each other by now. We used to do that, didn’t we? It felt like we did. Now it’s just quiet.

Whatever. It’s not their problem. Maybe they were hoping to see someone else in him.

Unfortunately, the narrative sees fit to disagree with their assessment.

Lon stretches awake with a yawn, lazily adjusting their sweater back into place, and absently wondering why they’re up before is appropriate.

Turns out it’s because of a pirate: his shadow falls over them to splay on the wall, and they’re rudely rolled over so that the lamplight from the desk spills onto their eyes as they violently flinch, forearm raising in guard in front of their face. The f*ck’s happening? Adrenaline is lazy to wake in their system. Did the stress finally get to him?

"I have questions." He announces. It's … oddly petulant.

Damn, it might’ve.

A beat. Lon carefully evaluates the level of insanity in his eyes between bleary blinks. He doesn’t have a knife yet – but it’s not like he needs one. Metal nicks their tongue when they drag it across their teeth. They don’t need one, either. You know, this is not at all what I was getting at when I thought we should talk more.

It’s decided that there’s an uncomfortably unhinged look to him. Unluckily for de-escalation techniques, Lon never learned how to be reasonable around Trafalgar, so they toss self-preservation to the wind.

"No, the f*ck you don't," Lon murmurs – it comes out in a growled, gravelly tone – and shoves him away. He stares for a moment, eyes narrowed, and then he's yanking them off the bed and onto the cold floor. Lon yelps as they land with a thump. The impact aches in their shoulders as they slowly push themselves up, a bloody irritation stirring in their hands.

"You know what? It’s changed into a grievance," he says pleasantly. "Care to spar?"

Hissing, "Ijust– just woke up. Why are you pissed?"

"You have a natural talent for getting on my nerves."

They kick at the bed – aiming at his shins would be suicide when they’re this sluggish and bound to aggravate their already protesting stitches further - "You're always on myass, Trafalgar."

Blithely arrogant, he snatches their ankle and walks to the desk, Lon towed across the floor after him as Tobias’ knife gnaws at their chest. They’re like an oversized trash bag - except not, figures he’d forget they were a person just to maintain his perfect track record of disappointing habits - and he knocks the room’s chair into their stomach to draw a snarling hiss out of them like he’s got a personal vendetta against garbage collection.

Lon - ever the vengeful opportunist - latches onto his leg, talons shredding the fabric, as he hauls them up. Scowling through a flinch as the chair clatters a little too close to their face, "What the f*ck is yourproblem?"

"I’m bored," he spits, like it's the most disgusting update of the century.

Lon is so sick of dramatic men with power - power being an important word to emphasize. They don’t have a problem with normal people, unlike this guy.

"That is not grounds for abeating," they snarl when his knee roughly shoves into their chest, forcing them to lose their hold on his leg and swing like a cattle carcass from his grip as familiar iron tightens around their lungs to leave them gasping at air. “And it’s not – it’s, it’s not my problem, either.”

He ignores their entirely reasonable counterargument and instead chooses war. How characteristically repulsive of him. "Use Haki. I want you alive in the future."

Lon snaps, hating the way embers so easily dance in their throat, how naturally ash coats their tongue, "Can’t we do this later?"

"No."

They snarl, loud and irritated, and shift. Lon darts away from his grasping hands and dives under the bed, balefully glaring at him when he leans down to frown at them trying to put out the flames he’s fanning. "You're being lazy. Your Haki needs work,” he speaks suffocating smoke to spill out into the air and gas them back into reach, and there are faces in the grey that rasp the consequences of failure to them.

Lon shifts back, the bars of the bed pressing hard into their spine from where they're laid flat out under it, and snarls, the rattling exhale of it a clean storm cloud pushing back the smog.

It’s their ego (that fragile smoke and mirrors barrier between them and the world) on the line, right? Turns out, they’re just as bad as he is. "Lis-lissten here,Trafalgar," claws dig into the floor at the smug satisfaction curling into his smirk. Theyknowhe’s baiting them, but they have to, "The dayI'mlazy is the dayyoudie."

But it looks like you want to, so who am I to stop you?

Starving predator he is, Trafalgar bares his teeth at them in a grin. "Room. Takt." As soon as the bed begins to levitate, they lunge for his ankles, eager to return the morning’s favor, rip a few tendons as interest.

Alas, his heel lifts up and jerks into their ribs, strangled bark from their collapsing lungs following the impact. "Good thing I'm here to keep you from getting lazy, then," he snarks, as if he, again, wasn’t, isn’t, won’t be flagrantly suicidal (Lon read those Dressrosa plans. This man checks all sorts of boxes, and not one of them was ‘mentally sound’). "Where's your Haki?"

"f*ck if I know," Lon hisses between telling themselves to breathe and trying to get up off the floor before he can pin them in place. Heavy on the defensive, they’re ducking and rolling away from him on near-autopilot, and they're about to do something terribly rash when Trafalgar swings his sheathed nodachi at them. Where the f*ck -

"Wrong answer," says the bastard.

"Ff-foul!" Lon yelps as the weapon cracks against their shin while they backpedal away from him. “Weapons disallowed!" He brings the point of it down onto their stomach to stab a gasp of pain out of them and clasps his hands over the hilt – and then invites himself to the audacity to lean on it.

"Says who?"

Let it be known it was not in their plans to be pinned like a bug. In fact, Lon thinks they would rather draw and quarter him than be forced to breathe the same air as him for however f*cking long he decides he needs to marinate here, doing nothing.

"The – the rules," they insist, biting on the throat of calm by the skin of their teeth, kicking fruitlessly at his knees - he's just out of reach and impossibly smug, and for someone so often emotionless, he sure is good at being full of himself, all strung up in phantom feathered pink. Your stars-awful track record says you shouldn’t have weapons, too. At least I try not to hurt you.

The palm of their hand slams into the sheath in attempts to knock it off them (success!), but all it accomplishes is Trafalgar putting more of his weight onto it (f*ck!).

Gritting their teeth against the nauseating feeling spreading across their stomach from the pressure and the insistent burn of a seething father between their ribs, Lon glares at the amusem*nt breaking Trafalgar’s apathetic mask. "I don't remember making any rules."

There are no words for the insecurity that wells like a yawning sinkhole in them – but if they drown like they were meant to, it might fill the gaping wound in their stomach and turn it to an idyllic lake in another universe. "That's because they're, they’reunspoken." Water rushes in, trickles over their raw edges to plummet down to rocks fit to dash innocence against. And I thought we would’ve learned something from the last few fiascos, but I guess that’s too much to ask for.

Trafalgar stares coolly down at them, watching the dirt of their muddled emotions turn to tar that sucks at their skin. Their hands are gripped tight against the sheath and pushing up against it, trying to counteract his force on the opposite end as he pushes them down into that pit. "Well," he pauses, slamming the scabbard down to make them lose their hold on it, their desperate claws scrabbling for a handhold, and Lon gives him a few breathlessly choice words as they find there is no bottom to their unease - "That's ridiculous."

Over their grunt of pain, “This would hurt a lot less if you used Armament.”

"I'mtrying," Lon wheezes, brows furrowed as they bare their teeth and pray to be animal a little faster so that they might bite into him without remorse and let his beating heart bleed across their lips and find it appetizing.

"Try harder."

Well, they were sort of trying, but now they’re just sort of really pissed. Lon snarls, wordless, at him as those embers spark again in the flooded column of their throat. Would it kill him to be more helpful? I bet it would.

Violence begets violence - and those embers make it out of their mouth while riding on an exhale and catch fire on the paper of their skin, their snapping flames writhing across the backs of their eyelids, and Lon grabs onto every burning star to chuck them all at the wall in their mind in hopes a twisted miracle sticks.

I want this to stophurting.

I want to hurt him.

- and it works for one shining, demeaning moment! – but only for as long as the anger burns in them, and then it fizzles out under the weight of their barren shock at the canine shape of their own teeth. His nodachi digs back into their stomach like bitter condemnation to pin a feral dog to the cold metal of its euthanization.

But scared dogs bite, and their teeth are bared in final warning as they rip their heart from its place, Tobias’ dagger in their palm for mere milliseconds before it’s flung straight at Trafalgar’s chest. His eyes widen marginally (they’ll shamelessly take the small victory, cradle it to their stomach to feed them as they’re cast into hell), and he lets up on the pressure boring into their abdomen enough for them to finally knock it off them.

While they're rolling away from his nodachi, they get their legs back under them with a violent intensity that is all feral alley mutt.

Trafalgar's mouth twitches down in irritation as they shove themselves to their feet, and he’s swinging his weapon in an arc that rings through their bones in familiarity – it’s the same motion he used to decapitate them back when they were first found on his ship, and so much rage spills through them that slick iron coats their tongue, and they’re shifting, flinging themselves at his face in a flurry of feathers.

Their knees slam into his chest, a meaty thump from the trunk of his ribs, and their fist cracks against his nose. Old, bloody repulsion flamed into insidious hate coats their knuckles, leaving it humming and shimmering in its Armament coat when they pull it back. Trafalgar grabs their hips and twists to make them take the brunt of the fall.

The blood dripping from his nose splatters onto their cheek. Their shoulders smart.

Lon looks from the Armament they feel like they've chained to their clenched hand to the begrudging surprise in his eyes. Face split by a vicious grin, they punch him again. Oh, yeah.

That wasn’t supposed to work.

A quiet crackle fills the air when the Haki coating his cheek hisses against theirs.

But it did.

Something tells them to do it again, to do it better, do it worse, carve ruin, and they’re sitting up, hand tight on his shoulder and their windup is bigger this time (aim for his nose again) -

"That's enough," Trafalgar tells them, firm strike against their solar plexus and unpleasant thwap to their throat. Lon chokes, lungs working overtime to suck air back in while their diaphragm sits, useless and stunned, in their body (he takes their voice, their breath, their everything from them). Their fist is caught in his palm, his grip tight enough to make their knuckles ache to splinter.

"You're just mad I surprised you," they rasp.

He snorts, sitting back and pinching his nose with his head tilted forward. "Quite the contrary," he says thickly. "That was good. I'm almost proud." His praise tastes like cyanide suicide on their tongue.

Lon wipes his blood off their cheek, their sleeve bearing a matching smear with their skin. "Why'd you stop me, then?" Livid spite has cooled to slow-flowing magma, the charcoal crust of their words making them almost soft in their mouth. His grip tightens. Their knuckles creak.

"There's not enough room for us to keep going here. I'd end up throwing you through the wall."

Their brows furrow. Lon's eyes dart to said walls, just to check, confusion keeping them tame. He says it so easily, so nonchalantly.

Uh, they’re still metal.

"They're made of steel," they tell him slowly.

"Steel can be ripped through like anything else." Comes his bland reply.

Lon does some math, shaking their hand out as he finally releases them and their anger, "Isn't– isn’t that nearly 200,000 tons-force? To send me through awall?" Confusion cools the molten flame in their chest to obsidian.

Trafalgar idly watches them. "I am not the physicist."

They feel like he's not taking this seriously enough. "That would crush me," they warily point out.

He shrugs. "Ounce for ounce, bone is stronger than steel.Andyou can either work on your Armament or avoid walls whenever you're fighting." His eyebrows raise pointedly as they wrinkle their nose in protesting warning. Not slander, but it’s close. "Personally, the former is more reasonable."

And Lon is about to kindly remind him that they are, indeed, working on it, it's justfickle and strange, when they realize something far more pressing. "Wai-wait, so you can throw people through steel walls?"

"It's a common talent here in the New World.”

He’s too flippant with this. This is practically life-ruining. He’s too calm while they grapple with this realization, eyebrows furrowing as it dawns on them. Distantly, their thigh aches and throbs. It’s annoying, so they keep ignoring it.

"I'm in hell," they mutter to themselves. All that’s missing is the brimstone - the fire’s already in their lungs. He’s not just levels beyond me – he’s on an entirely different scale.

"Doflamingo and Vergo can do it, too, of course. Multiple walls, even," he adds.

Is my suffering a joke to him?

A beat passes; and under the rising exhausted indignation, there’s terrible, burning curiosity. If he’s on a different scale, what can I do to get there?

Their mouth runs, their arms wave, hands gesticulate – the body is here, real in its aches and bruises - but their mind wanders. "I, I don't see me beingstuckin the – in the same room with them, now do I?" Lon snarks at Trafalgar. There’s always a way to make the earth shake. We’ll see what it takes for his to crumble, won’t we?

Still pinching his nose, Trafalgar shrugs and steps into the bathroom, voice muffled under his hand. “I’d say I’m your best option.”

Rolling their eyes – ah, yeah, genocide versus murder; I finally see you are the lesser of two evils. I am eternally grateful – “You were hardly an option at all,” Lon mutters.

They don’t think he hears them, which is for the better; the tap turns on and water overruns their words as it rushes to hit porcelain, and they tentatively rub at their freshly acquired hurts, dance their fingers over the stitches on their thigh under their shorts.

Even if you’re good at Haki and competent with your devil fruit, you can’t cover everything. There’s always a weakness somewhere.

I just have to find it before people like him can take advantage of my obvious ones.

The tap turns off, and they reluctantly tear their blank gaze from the shadows dancing across the walls from the lantern on the desk. I just have to be successful once.

When he ducks back out, streaks of red cleared from his skin, he smiles at them. Their mouth flickers into an uncertain mimicry without thinking, but they’re quick to twist it into neutrality. "It was a good hit. Your Haki does have a nice strength to it.”

“Oh,” they dumbly reply. “Does it really?”

They almost feel bad for plotting against him. He should do something stupid so they won’t. “It does,” he reasserts, quick strides carrying him to a stop in front of them. “How’s your leg?”

Automatic but skirting honesty, “It’s fine,” and they get to their feet to cautiously eye him. “How big is the difference between us for Armament?”

The air shifts as Trafalgar’s fingers flex and curl into a fist, lopsided smirk eking onto his face. “Wanna see?” It’s boyishly cruel.

Lon opens their mouth. It clicks shut after a second. Do I? I don’t like the way he’s offering.

Debating the merits of it – it probably wouldn’t at all be worth it, really, but now they’re curious with a side of hard-headed, and what better way to understand than to feel it themselves? – and ultimately losing to the temptation of doing something incredibly stupid, they nod.

“Okay.”

His eyebrows raise in surprise. “Okay,” he echoes (wait, I’m having second thoughts), winding his arm back and commanding, “Best Haki on your stomach, now.” A nervous grin etches itself onto their lips – maybe this is a terrible idea? – and they plant their feet shoulder-width apart and muster the feeling of teetering on the edge of a cliff, caught between the knife’s edge of calm and the starving violence that Dressrosa’s gifted them (they were frustrated earlier, they just need that again - come on, I need a spark), across their abdomen.

Trafalgar’s knuckles flash with that pitch ink of his Haki before it fades entirely as if it’s sunk into his skin; their eyebrows furrow in confusion, their own Armament wavering without the glowing iron of their agitated focus, without an answer (its why gets lost in their distraction, like leaves scattering in the wind), and then his fist is buried in their stomach, and it, honest to stars above, feels like they’ve tried to stop a train the size of a softball.

They think they hear what remains of their Haki crackle, a small hiss of a candle to the roar of a wildfire, and it shatters under the impact. Lon, on the other hand, is sent crashing into the door behind them.

Six feet behind them, that is.

“What the ff-fuck,” they wheeze, gasps begging to be let past the vacuum in their chest, “You’re not even real,” Lon groans in a strained whisper, something wet trickling out of the corner of their mouth from where they’re curled on the floor like a wretched spider.

They have to suck in air through gritted teeth like they’ve jumped two weeks back into the past, where breathing was something they had to remember how to do, and it feels as if his knuckles have left an imprint on their organs.

“I didn’t think you’d say yes.” Trafalgar offers, looking a little perplexed.

“Of course I’d say yes, I’m f*cking stupid.” A sharp inhale, yeah, that’s enough air, “How do I get to, to your level?”

Heels clicking on the floor as he walks over, Trafalgar crouches down and wipes the corner of their mouth with a thumb. It comes away bloody.

Oh, joy.

“Improving your focus. Next time, I’ll take into consideration your idiocy before I make a joke.” He drily comments and passes them an orange.

Where the f*ck does he get these things. There’s no way the pantry’s keeping up with him. They tuck it away against their stomach anyways. It’s theirs now.

“You’re sh*t at making jokes.” Lon criticizes, breath almost theirs again. “No - no tonal change.”

He’s halfway to retorting when they cut him off, struck by incredible revelation. “Wait, this isn’t just my fault.” Trafalgar’s face twitches into something like false innocence, and they narrow their eyes, pointing accusingly at him. Their left arm stays defensively barred around their stomach. “You’re the one who threw the punch. You, you could’ve said no.”

You can’t victim blame me. You’re the common perpetrator in a great deal of the worst events in my life.

“I can give you another orange,” he offers, as if that would soothe them.

It doesn’t. Not at all. “I refuse to be bribed!”

He shrugs, hands flared out, like his nonchalance can ward off the fact that they’re making valid points. “I was also interested in how easy it would be to break your Haki.”

Lon groans, three-quarters despairingly and more than two wholes offended, as they hiss, “Easy?”

“It’s not like you’ve been practicing for long,” he argues, “So, yes, easy.” His hands curl under their arms to haul them up and they squawk in complaint, their skin itching. “How bad is it?”

Lon scowls. “Not as bah- not as bad as your face, probably.” When they tilt their head up to stare at him, Trafalgar’s unimpressed deadpan is what greets them. It puts a smirk on their face.

“What are you, five?”

“No. You’re short another eighteen years. Thought doctors were good at estimating age,” they ramble, “Maybe you’re not cut out to be one.” Trafalgar rolls his eyes, notably more exasperated than before, and sets them on their feet.

Hard-won orange gripped in their left hand, they tug their shirt up to inspect the bruise. Mottled red and purple sprawls out in an explosive burst across their skin, a cloud saturated in the bloody colors of a wine sunset. “That was fast,” they murmur to themselves. Struck by sudden concern, they frown, hand dropping the hem of their shirt to touch the flaked blood smeared out from their mouth. “Am - am I dying?”

The walls do not respond to their whisper. Figures.

In a surprise turn of events, I rediscover a desire to live with absolutely no thanks to Trafalgar. The ghosts ‘round here really pack a punch.

Speaking of Trafalgar, they turn to face him, perturbed with their eyebrows knitted together, and point at their stomach. At a normal volume, they ask, “Good?”

He mumbles his silly magic to himself – ‘scan’ being the important one, here – his eyes focusing on something they can’t see and confirms, “Good.”

Lon sighs in relief. That’s nice. I was hoping I wouldn’t be bedridden again.

Trafalgar gestures for them to follow him and they do so in an absentminded limp, circling back to their earlier question as he pushes the door to the bathroom open. All their mental processes take the opportunity to leave the premises as they keep a careful distance away from him, and their mouth runs on autopilot. “You said I’d get better by improving my focus. How do I know I’m - I’m focusing on the right thing?”

He glances over his shoulder at them, rummaging around in the cupboards. “What do you focus on when you’re using Color of Arms?”

Lon wrinkles their nose. “’Color of Arms,’” they mock. “Just say Armament.”

“Do you always need help staying on topic or is it just today,” he asks drily.

“I dunno, maybe it’s a side effect of you smacking me around too hard when I wasn’t prepared for it,” they snidely hypothesize, “I focus on anger. And, uh, feeling violent, I guess.” A frown curls their lips. It sounds really lame when I put it like that. Childish.

Trafalgar does a slow blink, whatever mission he was on apparently paused. And then he’s dragging his palm across his face. “What?” They ask hotly. “I just try to match you. You told me to use emoh-emotion.”

“I’m surprised you got this far,” he mutters.

Lon scowls. “Well, explain to me how I should be doing it, then.”

“I already told you – it’s will, too. It’s what you want.”

“I do that,” their hands gesture aimlessly as they sputter, “I want to hit you. It works.” At his unimpressed deadpan, they hopelessly try to defend themselves, “Or – or I don’t want to get hurt. Is that better for you?”

Exasperation painted clear on his face, “For the love of,” he cuts himself off and sighs, offering them his prize. “Take this.”

Examining the object he’s pushed into their hold, they realize it’s an ice pack, still malleable in their hands – a bitterly cold one at that - and they have no idea why he’s chosen to store it in the bathroom’s cupboard.

To answer their own curiosity, they crouch at the space Trafalgar had just vacated and stick their arm inside.

Oh. That is quite cool. Not cold enough for this, though. “How did you get this to be cold?”

“Can you quit asking me irrelevant questions and put it on your stomach?”

“No. Get explaining.”

Clearly out of patience, Trafalgar drops down next to them; he raps thrice on the wood, and that’s all the warning they get before he’s grabbing their wrist and pressing their palm against the piping (it sucks out the warmth in their fingers in heartbeats they don’t have and stifles the instinct to grimace) and rudely tucking the ice pack under their shirt for it to bite against their stomach.

“I leave the cold water running through the pipes. It comes from one of the groundwater wells, so it’s already chilled. That ice pack is three parts water mixed with one part isopropyl. Keeping it here,” he taps the metal to make it ring as their brain murmurs, lower heat capacity, “Is good enough. I made a few after the last incident.”

Lon doesn’t give him the grace of being discrete. “Oh, you mean when you came back with a sprained –“

He shoves them over. Their words are cut off with a squawk. “It’s interesting you never noticed that the water had been running all this time.”

“Why would I concern myself with your ca-capricious whims? I just leave things as I found them.” Lon can’t find it in themselves to get up from their Trafalgar-induced sprawl on the floor. They’re damn tired.

And you know what? These tiles are actually kind of comfortable. The ice pack on their stomach is cold enough to not be, but it’s yet another thing they can’t be bothered with.

Trafalgar, on the other hand, turns to face them, his arms crossed over the knees folded up into his chest from where he’s crouched at their legs. “Strange of a scientist to not concern themselves with their surroundings. Maybe you’re not cut out to be one, either.”

“You’re obnoxiously petty.”

“As if you’re any better.”

“I think ruining my life by kidnapping me, sending me out to die, and treating me like a – like a disposable pawn gives me a pass.” Lon rattles off without much thought, staring up at the ceiling.

Although, they think they might be tired of this grudge. Maybe not of having it, but of how it colors who they see in the mirror; that broken thing with shattered pieces all scattered across the floor and kicked under furniture and into corners, whose parts they can never gather without coming away bloody, whose grave lies among the dust motes, invisible.

“Are you really still upset about that?”

“Really strange question you’re asking there. Sounds rah-rather Doflamingo of you.” His mouth twists into a scowl, a storm begins to brew in his eyes, and Lon cuts the force of nature he’s becoming off.

“I’m bothered by how unequal we are.” His jaw clicks shut at their sudden blunt honesty, their head turned to meet his gaze. “You hold too much power over me. What type of life is that? You might relax your rules as time goes on, but it won’t ever be real freedom.”

Staring back up at the ceiling, “That’s what bothers me. I don’t own myself anymore, and no matter how ‘nice’ you get, it - it won’t fix that.”

It’s too silent between them, now. Lon forcibly evens their tone as they change the topic. “Anyways, explain Armament to me again. Maybe I’ll get it this time.”

“It’s a little ironic,” Trafalgar blurts in the quiet after, voice soft enough that they have to strain to hear it. “I didn’t own myself either when I was younger. It still feels like I don’t.” Lon watches him in the corners of their eyes, noting the subtle downturn of his mouth and the curdling in their stomach to match. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.”

“Yeah,” they mutter. The words taste like gutted telescopes and shattered lenses. “It wasn’t supposed to at all.”

Two taps to the floor, Lon glances to his rueful smile, and he goes, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

If you were really sorry, you would’ve let me leave you.

“Me too,” and they reach over and pat his knee. “Thanks.” Their hand forms a fist they knock into the same knee. It’s not enough to make him hiss, but it does draw narrowed eyes and disapproval from him, and that’s norm- good enough. “Quiht dodging my question and share your secrets about Armament. I’m sick of my slow progress.”

Begrudging amusem*nt shines in his eyes. “I have no interest in repeating myself,” they call bullsh*t on that - he’ll overexplain his plans and techniques until he’s blue in the face, if to just double check that what he’s saying makes sense, “So I hope you’re listening.”

“Emotions are good for early Armament, but it’s like,” he pauses, searching for the words, and, for once, Lon waits patiently, tempered by dissonance. “It’s like trying to keep a fire going on a handful of leaves. Your Haki is going to flare up with one burst of strength, and then it’ll go. It’s not good for consistent strength during a fight, and you can kiss it goodbye if you’re trying to use it for longer than a minute.”

Lon hums, ‘Anything else?’

Trafalgar scolds them. “Be patient.” As is appropriate, they pull a displeased face at him. Did he not already see how patient they were being? It’s like telling the sky to be blue. Pointless. “If you keep with emotion, then you’re going to rush to a dead end. You have to focus on what it means to you to want something.”

He stops, considering them. “Do you want to get off the floor?”

“No. It’s comfortable here.”

“Freak,” he remarks. Lon thinks it’s in good nature, at least; “Room,” and they’re about to bitch to hell and back if he picks another fight or moves them as he pleases, but he simply “Shambles” pinkened cranes with faded gold wings into his hand.

Oh. Their lips flicker to a fond smile, and they brush over the journal’s worn cover in a reminder of ownership as he flips it open to a random page. So long as he’s careful, they’re not fussy over him looking at their work; it’s not as if it’ll make any sense to him anyways, and they’d tell him to take his contract and f*ck himself with it the moment he damaged it.

“What do you want with this one?” Lon asks, fingertips pressing into the spine like they can feel all the imprints their notes and theories have left on wrinkled pages through the leather, all of it scrabbled together into something like a scientific paper Niklas might be proud of.

How they adore it.

“You made this because you wanted to. I don’t know where you found the time, or patience, or energy, but it’s here. Haki is like this; it’s not a want that’s in the present. It’s,” he rolls the wrist not holding their journal. “It’s what you’re always thinking – what you’re always dreaming of.” Lon firmly pushes his hand until their journal is no longer held out at such a strenuous angle, the spine bending in a way that says it’s aching to snap, and he sets it on his lap.

It sits there, lovely with its ugly, messy pages. What a labor of worship.

“That focus you feel when you’re working towards it is what Haki listens to. You have to show it how you’re using it to achieve that dream.”

Lon keeps their head turned towards him, fingers slowly drumming on the ice pack numbing their stomach as they muse, “I didn’t expect Haki to be such a romantic thing.”

Trafalgar snorts. “Every powerful tool I’ve used has turned out to be something of a romantic. It’s damn annoying.” He tilts his head sideways to look them straight on, sharp grin spread lazy on his lips. “Why should I have to appeal to the finer sensibilities of Haki when I want to kill the man in front of me?”

“Thinking of, of Vergo?” They ask, without any tact.

He sighs and stares at the wall again. Lon’s already done that. They can confirm that it is, indeed, a very boring wall. “He’s on the list.” Trafalgar pauses, hand twitching in something of an agitated flick. It’s like watching a cat snap its tail when it’s annoyed. “How’s your stomach?”

“Doesn’t hurt as long as I don’t touch it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, again. The first apology was a … surprise, but the second might be an indicator that something’s wrong with him. “I shouldn’t have swung. I forget you’re not as strong as you seem.”

Lon’s eyebrows furrow as they squint at him in suspicion. “So you dying or …?”

He snorts, hand splayed across their journal. The cranes don’t match the dark ink on his skin, but the birds seem as if they’re perched on his knuckles, winding feathers between his fingers, lying heads along the curve of his nails. “What, my apology not good enough for you?”

Nope. They wave him off, heaving an exaggerated sigh. “No, it is - you just don’t strike me as the type to make a habit of apologizing.”

“I don’t make a habit of getting myself into situations where I should apologize.”

That’s “bullsh*t.” He shuts his mouth quick when they glare pointedly at him; one of these days, he’ll quit walking into it.

Yeah, right. And he’ll let me walk out.

Lon directs their stare back to the ceiling, nails tapping on the ice pack as their thoughts wander back to the past. I don’t think he’ll ever believe himself to be in the wrong, but one day, he’ll leave well enough alone. And then I can pretend like I’ve moved on, too.

Silence falls back between them. Trafalgar offers them his hand, cold against theirs (he feels dead, sometimes, and it’s strange, living with the walking corpse he works to be), and Lon is hauled to their feet, ice pack still clutched to their stomach.

Gingerly wandering their way back into the room – he graciously allows them to sprawl across the bed until the ice has thawed and dripped between their fingers, chill running down their sides to wet the blankets in steady blinks – and he doesn’t complain when they give up on the pack, setting it on the floor to sweat, and shift to flutter atop the cabinets to perch there.

He just stretches up to feed them a slice of his orange (he procures them out of thin air, they decide) every now and then, and lets them rest.

They wonder how hard it would be to bite his fingers free of the knuckle joint.

When they shift to eat, the orange slice bursts on their incisors, their canine piercing the flesh. They lick the drops of juice off their lips.

Behind them, the shadow of god splays across the worn walls.

And Lon thinks a lot of the person is in the hands: Trafalgar’s are somehow unblemished, movements permanently precise, and no fidgeting in trembling nails – his hands don’t tremble at all, and with steadiness like that, it’s no wonder he’s made to be a surgeon – and the ink on his fingers is stark and bold and fearless.

They think it might mirror him some (not terribly so, they’d hate to inflate his ego - and there’s fear in the shadows under his eyes just like there’s terror in the corners of theirs, and no man can hide forever), but it says a lot about him.

How he’s careful with his hands and never moves without a plan, without contingencies, without a goal in mind. He’s a scientist, surgeon, and pirate, and, somehow, he manages to keep his greatest tools unscathed.

In contrast, Lon’s hands are scraggly: rough from playing in the sun and grappling with the bark of great trees, scars from shattered glass in labs, strange callouses from they can’t remember when, and a near-constant tremor that isn’t theirs.

How traitorous.

But, today, they might’ve switched places: Lon’s hands are steady, soothed by the rush of adrenaline, and his are jittering, all laser-pinpointed accuracy gone haywire.

But all the chance in the world doesn’t swap their scars, their callouses, their memories, and –

and Lon fights dirty and desperate.

It's fingers in the eyes, knees in the groin, kicked up sand, environment turned weapon,biting,and clawing.

And it’s just like their hands: an open book.

And he is just like his hands: often inscrutable, sometimes born of art.

But there’s nothing inscrutable about the snarl on his lips, the hands around their throat, the mania crackling in the air as they both lose their minds to spit and hiss at each other like a pair of feral cats bloodily pining for survival.

Lon’s almost proud of themselves, really, for getting this far – for being this wild, this dastardly, this much of a pain in the ass - to have pushed him over the edge with them.

Because, right now, they’re thinking that the first one to kill gets the luxury of having an opportunity to heal.

So, it doesn’t matter if he meant for this brawl to be quick and light-hearted, or another stepping stone for them to take as they learn; they weren’t ready for it, he hit in the wrong place (slammed to the ground, crushing pressure on their stomach to pin them, iron bar of muscle over their chest just shy of the force needed to suffocate them, and Lon sees red, yellow, orange, heat wavering the air, blue arcing in the air, electric shock buzzing in their sternum, ugly greens and terrifying pinks, and there must be smoke in the air, flame and string reaching for their skin), and now the two of them will pay for it.

He may be older and have more experience, but he’s still a house of cards.

And when Lon collapses in on themselves, all they have to is aim a single breath towards him for Trafalgar to come toppling down with them.

But there are really much more pressing matters than the drivel sloshing in their thoughts - one being the present (they’re beginning to forget how they got here, all the sensations fading fast, prickling long since gone, and they don’t know if he’ll be able to remember in the end, either); one such example is the present, focus: Trafalgar's got his hands around their throat – and they're getting so used to ink wrapping around their neck, they may as well get a tattoo there just to prolong the memory, turn it into a superposition of suffocating and breathing - their back to the tile, his knee ground painfully into the inside of their hip, focus, and Lon reaches up, grabs the first thing under their fingertips, and smashes it straight into his temple.

It turns out to be a mug, the ceramic shards raining down –his fault for leaving it on the floor - and they're rolling out of the way as the damage clatters down.

If he wasn’t before, he'spissed now, snarling deep in his chest, and he launches himself at them like an animal with a hint of something small and sharp in his hand, and itelectrifiestheir world because they’re still not ready.

Chest hitting the floor as they flatten themselves down under his first swing, they wrap their hands around the leg of his doctor's rolling chair - the important thing to note here is that it'smetal - to send it careening straight into his shins.

Neither of them are thinking straight (at least, Lon knowstheyaren't, but they heard the impact of metal on Armament, so maybe he's more lucid than they were giving him credit for, and it only makes their heartrate tick upmore, makes the world around them tremor harder), and as soon as he's kicking the chair out of their hands, they're scrambling to their feet to avoid the downward slash, breath catching in their throat at the scalpel juddering deep intilewhere they once were, the vibration of it shuddering up through their boots.

That's not fair, they think only with slight notes of hysteria,he's using Haki on his weapons.

As he yanks it out ofstonelike it's nothing and comes lunging after them, Lon is reminded of the fact that they, on the other hand, have nothing.

Their shoulder goes clipping into a wall as they try to dart out of his path - but they're not fast enough and there's vicious pirate slamming into them (déjà vu, anyone?), his hand damning as it pins their aching shoulder against the metal behind them andsends sharpsinking into their side.

The thoughts running through their head snap into incoherent snatches of information, and as far as they're concerned, they’re his twisted reflection; if they bleed, so must he.

Talons go streaking straight for his eyes, and he can't jerk his head back fast enough.

Instead, hetwiststhe scalpel in his hand, ripping and cutting as he jerks it towards himself - as if his gift of agony is enough to stop them when they’re halfway gone - and there's some sort of weak whine of pain burying itself behind their teeth, but Lon's hooking their claws into what they hope is skin andyankingdown.

Thin trails of blood drip down his cheekbones.

They've spooked him bad enough to make him use his strongest Haki over his face, all invisible armor on his tawny skin, and they'referal, he'swild, and Lon's moving on pure instinct to lurch forward and sink Emilio's teeth straight into his shoulder.

A pop, he grunts, metal swells in their mouth, and they knee himhardbetween his legs as he's pulling the scalpel out of their side.

Lon's not sure they’re fighting for survival anymore – but they know they've been crafted out of spite and misery and terrible things and they're going to paint him maroon, and they've stopped caringwhoseblood it is soaking his clothes.

He drives the scalpel into their stomach, blazing thing that drives deep past the hilt when they topple him over, one hand wrapped around his throat and fingers pressing into his eye socket.

Lon's donebeing human: if they're going to be gutted like an animal, then they'llmaimlike one.

His grip is blistering iron around their wrist and he's snarling something they can't understand, all sharp threat and low warning burbling in their ears as they drown.

(Maybe he’s just as animal as they are, too – the two of them, violent and dumb, and heading for slaughter.)

Realizing they can't move their captured hand, Lon lurches down to snap at his nose; he yanks the scalpel out, ugly, messy wound left behind, and flips it to drive the hilt into their throat. Bright crimson splashes onto his cheek when they choke.

Hand around his throat snapping back into a fist, they strike right across his windpipe, aiming to feel itcollapseunder their knuckles.

But it doesn't; frustrated panic reminds themHakidefends against impact and blows with a mosquito buzz along their arm, and Lon decides that they'll just have to think of something else.

Now here's a good line of question for testing: is Haki for internal use?

His clothes shine in the light, damp with carmine that smears across grey when it transfers from his front to the knee they're burying in his stomach, their knee to freezing tile, their veins to skin to blood out in the open.

And Lon knows they’re flagging - but first, they're going to put in some good oldresearching.

Fingers winding through his hair - he's distracted and there's real apprehension in his eyes now, and the moment his grip is loosening on their wrist, they yank it out of his reach to try to steal the blade out of his hand (he's always so nimble with his tools, though, and all they get for their troubles is a deep laceration across their palm they don't feel) - andyank, exposing his throat and slamming his head into the floor.

Vibrations they know are disorienting, Haki or not, make his mouth part in a gasp; that'swhat they were waiting for: they drive their bloody fingers into his mouth, long talons at the end of their fingertips, and they'remillisecondsaway from getting their answer, to see if the inside of his throat will shred like paper the way itshould(he can't summon hisroomwithout his words of power - andwhat's it like to not be able tospeak?) and suddenly there's electricity burning through the hole he's stabbed into their deflating lung.

Their talons catch against his tongue as their fingers curl, and Lon registers the warm well of blood spilling against their fingerprints (there's the answer to their question, but it's a damn shame they can't do any more testing) before a wheezing shriek gasps out as they slump atop him.

Unfortunately, they'd forgotten that his moves don’t necessarily require verbal triggers - they just make them stronger - disregarding the fact that the electricity was a new one.

He tugs their hand out of his mouth, their fingers catching on his teeth and coated in bloody spit, and throws it to the side like it's personally offended him.

Lon supposes it had, considering they were going to make him choke on his own blood with it.

Muscles burning with the aftershocks of an electric execution, they find they can't lift their head from where it's dropped to his chest, cheek pressed over his thumping heart and fabric rising to block their mouth with each ragged inhale. It's sticky wherever they meet, foul iron thick in the air, and Lon thinks they might be a little dizzy, eyes hardly open and single lung fluttering desperately to compensate for its collapsed sister.

Underneath them, Trafa*glar pants, scalpel dropped from his hand to bounce against the floor in chiming rings. His hand is slick when he worms it under their ribs to create some sort of shoddy seal against the hole he put in them, and his voice comes out thick past the bubbles of blood bursting against his throat, "Why do you fight like that?"

Their fingers flex into his side, making him stiffen for a moment before he registers there's no claw behind it, and their answer is a thin wheeze as they put the sounds together in their mouth. "Dressrosa." And you.

"Unlearn it."

"No," they hiss.

His head tilts back, presumably to help himself catch his breath, “It’s unsustainable,” he argues, as if they didn’t already know that.

For someone who knocked them down to one functioning lung and put two new holes into them, he sure is trying to get them to blow hot air. “It works against,” they pause, wet gasps trying to settle their spinning vision, “people like you.”

Lon can feel the beginnings of words unbidden forming in his chest before they’re left to die there in disgruntled grumbling, and the hand not plastered to their ribs comes up to support their spine. “You always make more work for me,” Trafalgar complains over their groan as he slowly sits the both of them up, moving their palms to seal against the wounds he’d left on them.

Tilting their head back to rest against the wall, their eyes blearily focus on the ceiling high above them because it’s easier to look up than down and see their life bleeding out onto the floor.

It’s odd for a reason they can’t put their finger on, the thought of all the red sand in their hourglass running thin.

When did they get so desensitized to it?

But the doctor hums as he gets to work, “Room,” and they think it eases the both of them, the remaining mania in the air oozing out the door to leave only weary exhales poisoning their shared breaths, and the worried thought disappears from their mind.

Waiting patiently for him to fix whatever they’d done to him – doctor’s health, then patient’s, otherwise there’d be no one to lift them out of their self-dug grave – and obediently move their hands out of the way when it’s their turn. “Sorry about your mouth,” they rasp, not knowing if they mean it.

They spot the remains of a nasty slash on his front (they won’t deny the vindictive pleasure seeing it gives them, but it’s only fair, really, in the grand scheme of things) and there are scratches and bruises across his face where they went from trying to gouge out his eyes to surprising his Armament with blunt force.

“Sorry about your shirt,” Trafalgar returns, sharp snip of scissors cutting it straight down their middle. It sticks with all the blood when he pulls it away, and the tug of the threads makes them wince. “For f*ck’s sake,” he mutters. Not something they’re over the moon to hear coming from him.

‘Problem with what you did, doctor?’ They wryly sign, eyebrows arched as he shambles sutures into his hand. Next to him, there’s antiseptic and gauze and things they can’t be bothered to identify as he sanitizes the skin he’s working on, right before cutting a hole into the side of their chest.

Knocking their hands away (Lon wonders if Madoka would clasp them in hers the same, still), “Shut up. If you didn’t fight like a wild animal, we wouldn’t be here.”

If only they could sigh – but, alas, they’re running on limited oxygen, the tightness of their chest shamefully familiar. ‘Wild animals survive, don’t they?’

Trafalgar doesn’t have anything to say to that; he just raises their arms to hover around their chest with his forearm, “Hold your breath,” and in goes a hollow needle on a catheter between their ribs and under a serous membrane with a pop.

“And you got my blood in your mouth, too,” he complains bitterly, clearly ignoring them as he tapes the tube down to their side, its end whistling with the slow draining of the excess air inside them and whirred into a system they hadn’t noticed him shambling in (they must be out of it if they aren’t noticing changes in their surroundings anymore, and his devil fruit is still just as full of bullsh*t as they remember - like, come on, would it kill him to make physical sense? Their head lolls to the side, adrenaline dripping out the corner of their mouth).

It feels so strange as he fiddles with all the settings on the machine, subtle movement echoing where it ought not to be. “Your lung will heal on its own as pressure is reduced with the extra air leaving the pleura space. Don’t jostle the tube. It’ll have to be there a few days.”

Lon hums, keeping their heavy-lidded eyes on the open space of the room over his shoulder to avoid looking at the mess their body’s become. You really f*cked me up today, Trafalgar.

Speaking of the room, it’s as barren as always, but with a bonus of blood splattered across the floor.

He makes quick work of sutures – they think he must feel guilty when they feel him trying to meticulously fix the muscle he tore through, but if he wants extra practice, they won’t complain – and neatly disembowels them into his hand to inspect the lining of the organs in their abdominal cavity. Strangely, it’s just as painless as him drawing their lungs out of their chest had been.

A relieved breath, “You’re lucky I missed the organs,” and Lon’s surprised enough to glance down (lucky? Hisses insidious grudge in their mind. Me? You’re the plague I can’t shake) and they’re steadfastly ignoring the morbid interest in seeing the pool of intestines and stomach gleam in the light.

“Sick,” they mutter, and they’ve never seen him be so careful before, gently pushing everything back into place as quickly as he can, but their question lingers as he zips up their skin. ‘Why doesn’t it hurt?’ They sign to him, suddenly languid under the bone-deep wearing weighing on them.

“Devil fruit takes away the pain.” He traces the outline of their wounds a healthy distance away from the sutures keeping them together, meticulously wiping away any blood not yet clotted. By the way their skin’s prickling is up ticking into an uproar, they’re going to have to push him away soon (kind touch hurts more, they’ve learned). “What’s an operating room without analgesics?”

Humming, point taken, they gently push him away when he starts to check inconsequential bruises. “Stop.”

Their skin aches to burn, all needling teeth burrowing from the inside out.

His head dips in easy acceptance. “You want ice? And put on the oxygen mask on for a few minutes; I don’t like the tint your skin’s taking.”

They consider how cold ice will leave them – but it does lend itself to faster healing, so discomfort is an easy loss to take, and they nod to him, signing a ‘please’ that mixes sour with the iron on their tongue – and fit the mask he’s offered them over their face.

Trafalgar gets to his feet with a grunt, meandering to the bathroom and dropping his ruined shirt off on the floor, and Lon closes their eyes as the shower turns on, content to sit there.

He’ll get the ice later; for now, they’ll reset.

Turns out, ice isn’t all they get later: Trafalgar sticks to his rule of ‘patient takes the bed,’ so a semi-comfortable mattress is an unforeseen benefit.

However, Lon, insulted he thought he could get away with being a hypocrite in their presence, pointedly reminds him that he’s also injured by shaking the roll of gauze in their hand at him – they were in the middle of tying it off in the back since he couldn’t reach it himself – and he relents with a sigh.

Well, relent isn’t quite the right word for it. He indirectly admits he is a walking whited sepulcher. “I was going to find another place to sleep.”

Lon tells him exactly what they think of that by pressing a handful of half-melted ice against his spine (there are bruises there from where they threw him too hard, and the water runs down cold and quick to wet their work – damnit, didn’t think about that – but they get the startle and loud swear they were looking for). He always finds the most difficult solutions. It makes him a pain in the ass.

They’re still out on the jury if it’s just a man thing, pirate, or Trafalgar-specific, but even if it is a problem, it’s up to him to fix it. They’ll nag when they remember, maybe. Maybe when they’re feeling saintly.

“Care if we share?” Lon offers after a few deep breaths (adjusting to one lung, here), like a responsible, well-adjusted young adult.

He looks surprised – what, you think I can’t be kind? It’s all I used to be - turning his head over his shoulder to look at them. “No, I don’t. I thought you might.”

“We get ah-along best when,” Lon runs out of air and it takes too long to catch it, and his eyes flick to their hands as they speak with them instead. ‘You’re less likely to stab me if you’re sleeping.’

Trafalgar nods, “Alright, then.” He holds his hand out to them, half-smile on his face, and they’re pretty sure he’s about to crack a joke. Lon regards him with more suspicion than usual. “I won’t stab you so long as you don’t roll onto me.”

Sighing, they take his hand and shake it, voice crackling to chide him. “Work on being funnier.”

They guess they get a sleepover, too.

And, later still, when Trafalgar pulls a face when they say they prefer facing the wall, they hum to him, “Untraumatized civilian sh*t,” and he reluctantly concedes that they have a point, albeit bullies them for habits that don’t match their present.

He shuts up when they threaten to start crying.

Now, the two of them look over the bed’s edge, fingers curled into the end of the mattress – his elbow is in their uninjured side, their hip digs into the wall, the machine attached to them bites into the shiny new scar on their thigh, they’re pretty sure he has all the makings of a blanket hog – as he points out the small piles of supplies he’s organized on the floor.

To the far right, “There’s gauze and sutures if you pop a stitch for some reason or start bleeding,” Lon nods, if I pop a stitch, it will be because of you; to the center, “Water and oxycodone – if you need more than one tablet, tell me so I can give you the right amount and you don’t overdose,” great tip, thanks; and the far left, “Extra blankets. Self-explanatory.” They are the furthest thing away from me. Awful of you.

They feel like a little kid at their first sleepover. A silent giggle tickles their sternum. That’s probably why they’re giving him less sh*t than usual. ‘Why are they so far away?’

He shrugs. “That’s just the order.” Then, almost offended. “I won’t use all the blankets - I don’t take up that much space.”

They peer doubtfully at him, bring their hands up, elbows precariously perched on the mattress’ edge. ‘It’s not a matter of how much space you take up, it’s how susceptible to cold you are.’

There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips as he reads their hands. He’s probably realized just how ridiculous this entire situation is, too. “I’m okay with the cold.”

Something about that reeks of unspoken hang-ups. Normal in this starforsaken hellhole of a household.

Lon huffs, arm pushed into his chest when they reach down to snatch his blanket pile into oblivion. “Ss-spoken like a liar,” they mutter.

Trafalgar leans away to avoid getting knocked in the face with an unfurling corner of thick fabric and gets to his feet – Lon is firmly ignoring the memory of how difficult it was to argue him into agreeing to take his shoes off (he kept referencing the importance of being prepared at all times, and Lon thinks this dude really needs to learn how to relax) – to suffocate the flame in the lamp at the desk and leaves them to organize the nest, it’s not a nest, they’re building.

He collapses into the bed with a sigh, Lon whispers a quiet complaint, ache in their front bitching where the mattress had rebounded into their careful wounds, and he mutters an apology somewhere under an insult. “If you have a medical emergency, make sure you’re loud about being in pain.”

Very ableist of you to put the flame out. They have to write characters in his palm to get their comedic commentary across. ‘Right now, your sleepover rating is at a C.’ Lon bluntly tells him, and when he makes a sound of confusion, they switch to tapping out the letter again in Morse, switch back to characters on his skin, ‘If my pain doesn’t sound authentic enough, will that startle you into attacking me, too, or will the attempt be enough for you?’

“A C is pretty good,” he surmises – he’s wrong, it should be a B, at least, for a sleepover – “And it’s the thought that counts. Isn’t that what people say, anyways?”

‘Talk to me when you raise it to a B. And they do, but I don’t like your context.’ Lon will admit he can be kind of funny sometimes, but it’s in a ‘maybe should be behind bars’ way – and he should be behind bars.

He (un)pleasantly mutters something they can’t understand, rolled on his side to face the room at large with the conversation’s end, and Lon hums back as they stare at the ceiling (it took a lot of careful maneuvering to get onto their back with the chest drainage system, but they were nothing but persistent, and it is very much worth it).

They’re more tired than they expected to be, although maybe that’s reasonable given all the activity they did today. Acquiring a few near-fatal wounds can be terribly exhausting.

They’d sort of forgotten, which is to be forgiven. Probably for the better.

They hadn’t realized they’d fallen asleep, but they do know that they’re up now. Brain sluggishly working to understand why they’re up, they register the digging insistence of the stitches and the incessant burning of the injuries underneath whose flames only climb higher – if every part of Lon’s body could just shut up so they could sleep through at least one full night, that would be great, thanks – and all the determination in the world when they close their eyes again to ignore it doesn’t bring back the exhaustion they’d had only hours earlier.

Instead, it remains hovering just out of reach.

Stifling their frustrated sigh, Lon carefully pushes themselves up (the tube in their chest gets in their way when they stretch for the oxycodone on the floor, and they spend a very real minute contemplating removing it before ultimately deciding they like breathing more) and it’s with some tactical wiggling that they’re able to grab the painkillers.

f*ck the water. I got spit, they think, taking a pill out of the silly bag Trafalgar had put them in.

It gets stuck in their throat.

“Where do you get your confidence,” Trafalgar grumbles, apparently awoken by their shifting but only intervening at the sound of their muted coughing.

They gratefully accept the water he passes them, “practice,” strains Lon, throat now cleared.

Unconvinced, “Uh-huh,” he sets everything back down on the floor before waving them to lay back down, motions clear in the dark with their adjusted eyes. “Sutures okay?”

He sounds out of it; it makes the wariness curled around their bones urging their fingers to curl into fists relax, even as he maps out the not-quite fever warm of their torn skin without asking.

They brush their palm over their front. “No blood.”

A quiet disgruntled sound at their rough treatment of his work – Lon wasn’t rough at all, really, he’s just fussy and needs everything to be perfect – “Good,” and then he’s flopping back over onto his side, clearly dismissing them in favor of sleep.

They wait a moment before hesitantly reaching out to write on his back. ‘How long for these to work?’

“Thirty minutes.”

“Mm.”

Turning his head to peer at them over his shoulder, “Do you want me to pull up a room until they kick in?”

That would make him tired. “No. ‘M impatient.”

“Right,” he says. He clearly doubts them. “If you change your mind, that’s fine.”

I will not be changing my mind. They tap affirmative on his spine, careful to avoid the bruising they remember from earlier, and steadfastly wait the pain out.

In the morning – well, there was a morning, and it was the first time Trafalgar woke up and moved to get out the bed in a daze, but Lon swore at him for jostling the mattress until he sluggishly relented – and whatever time it is now, it’s most certainly several hours after the fact.

He checks the progress of the chest drainage system half-awake, and slowly warms up to living when the two of them take turns bent over the sink to scrub away blood flaking on skin.

To no one’s surprise, neither of them are fond of the metallic smell; although Lon would argue Trafalgar’s worse about it than they are: he cleans it away near obsessively, despite how jostling the skin around the wound runs the risk of prolonging the healing process.

“Right after we agreed to not let things get out of hand,” he mutters as he meticulously works a warm rag snug against his stitches.

They eye him, mulling over the context of his reference.

Oh. He means when we promised to let the other person know if we couldn’t handle sparring. “I bit you. You almost lost your scalpel in my stomach. That’s distracting enough.” Sentences are easier in the morning, after their body’s had nearly 24 hours to recuperate.

“A bite is not equivalent to a deflated lung.”

“I was going to shred your throat,” Lon adds. Got you there, didn’t I?

He relents, pausing in setting the rag on the sink’s edge. “I was still in control.”

And something about that makes their stomach twist to writhe in evil discomfort, legs itching to carry them a step away from this man until it turns into a sprint across leagues that bury him deep in the horizon. It seals their mouth shut.

So, Lon changes the topic, meeting his eyes in the mirror as they switch back to sign. ‘Why tattoo your jolly roger?’

His hands drifting up to touch the ink, he slowly replies, “I am as much of my crew’s as they are mine. It’s a pledge to them. And yours?” How honest of him. It’s a coin flip on whether he’s guilty or out of it.

They stare at the ceiling as they gather their thoughts, their own hands moving lazily. ‘It’s also a promise. No matter what, I belong to,’ pausing - saying ‘her’ wouldn’t make sense, now would it? – ‘I belong to the pursuit of understanding.’ And it sounds right, feels right, deep in their chest.

“A pretty promise,” Trafalgar murmurs.

A ghost of a smile, and Lon ducks their head as a stray thought whistles past, subway train in an overgrown tunnel filled with passengers that say, it’s the prettiest thing about me, and they don’t know what to do with the strange station that’s taken residence in their chest.

Because they have become a little too twisted, haven’t they?

One day, I’m not going to be able to look in the mirror, and it sobers them so quickly it feels like a punch to the gut, joy’s ghost banished from their expression.

Next to them, Trafalgar wrings out his used rag. It stains the pristine porcelain pink.

After days have passed – long enough for them to be rid of the machine and its incessant noise and all the foreboding that had taken residence along their spine - Lon tilts their head over their shoulder, arm slung up on the bed's edge from where their back is ambitiously slumped towards the floor, to stare at Trafalgar.

It really is strange to live with him in such close quarters for so long. They still don't know what to make of it – but the anger does, and it burns bitter regret in their joints, coating their fingerprints in soot.

Their gaze must be something weighted, because he glances towards them from where he'd been bent at his desk, nose nearly to one of their journals, without a single word from them. Lon’s own nose wrinkles: there's no way the pages don't reek of decay and blood after all that running around they did. "What?" His voice is rough around the edges from where he’s been silent too long.

Something complicated is creasing the lines of his face when their mouth opens and half a sound comes out, abruptly aborted as they snap into reality.

Lon doesn't want to bother with deciphering it, so they spit out the first thing that comes to mind. "Can't you give me something to do?”

His stare flattens. "I did. It's called resting."

"Tha's boring.”

"Lie down, then."

"That is the same as resting."

His hands flare out, exasperated. "Sleep."

"Who sleeps this early?" They argue.

Trafalgar's impassive deadpan cracks into a hint smug. "It's actually one in the morning."

Lon blinks. "Bullshh-it."

Leaning back in his sh*tty chair, he spreads his arms out to the side, smarmy smirk curling his lip over his canine. "It is."

Their eyes narrow.Impossible. Lon awkwardly shoves themselves up, lurching to their feet in what feels like slow motion. "No, stay over there," he demands pointlessly; Lon just ignores him, and they make it to the desk with no terrible incident befalling them.

"As if it’s a, a blessing to have your f*cked-up sleep schedule," they remark, curdling the victory on his face and shoving at his wrist - conveniently, in addition to annoying him, it also moves his arm out of the way so they can lean against the desk and rest because (as it turns out) deep stab wounds are a bitch. Thanks, Trafalgar. “Like you have a watch. Isn’t that too civilian for you?”

Rolling his eyes and tilting away from them, surreptitiously dragging their journal out of reach with him, "When I finally got around to leaving Caesar's lab, it was nearly eleven. I can keep time. I know what two hours feel like." Wise not to argue the first point.

"How incredibly well-adjusted of you," Lon quips, ignoring his nagging protest as they snatch backtheirjournal and flip through it.

"I wasreadingthat," he complains.

They simply brush him off. "I know what bit you were on." They come to a stop at their first page on Doflamingo, hesitating on whether they should scan through the ones after.

There's always more to add, isn't there? How much do I remember?

Dressrosa – they know there was more to it than playing pretend under Doflamingo’s thumb – but as time passes, it becomes harder to find the courage to push past all the awful memories to see Emilio, Miss Vera, the dwarves, Kyros.

If it’s Doflamingo, though, I remember more than enough. I don’t know if I can forget.

Holding their hand out and chewing on their bottom lip, "Pass me a pen?"Guess I’ll give him a freebie.

The quill he'd been rolling across his knuckles is stilled by his thumb, and he reaches over to dip the nib in an open inkpot before passing it to Lon. "Thanks," they mumble in afterthought, already scrawling corrections in the margins of the page, eyes scanning over the haphazard codes they'd written across ignored feints.

Stars, is there any open space here? Lon flips through pages as if they're personal insults, movements rough as their fingers hover on dog-eared corners and stained blots, jumping from word to word to diagram before their elbow jerks down and they're scrutinizing the next page.Nothing.

They lift their chin up to glance at the rest of the desktop; there's the plain white of an unburdened canvas for them to ruin, and their hand darts out to drag it towards them, journal sat down to bump into their left wrist as they scribble down every bit they never quite covered in their departure and every little loose end collected by breaking into Doflamingo's office.

Leant out across the desktop, their shadow flickers in Trafalgar's lap, edges dancing with the lantern's flame.

Pausing, rereading what they'd just written, their wrist judders against the wood, unintentional metronome as they tally their thoughts. It makes the nib jut down into the paper when they're not careful, large blot blooming across free space and its flung siblings scattering around it. The pirate at their hip, lounged in his chair, pushes the inkpot towards them; their quill, that extension of their thoughts, all that meticulous planning gone to waste, arcs into fresh ink to drag it in messy smears over the page.

They don't stop until it's filled, and then they're pushing it away to start on the next blank, sketching out careful scars and memorized limps, hidden weakness and augmented strength, and in the center of it all is a dreadful grin so wide it might as well be Glasgow.

Trafalgar's hand sneaks under their arm and across the desk, the ink across his fingers nearly blending with their hasty script, and Lon raises their elbow to let him pull their finished paper into his hands. He hums, appraising, and opens his mouth, "This is -"

"Shut up. Almost done."

In the corner of their eye, he manages to look only mildly miffed.

Hand stilling, their eyes squint shut under furrowed brows as they try to recall anything else.

Lon hadn't written much in the journals once the last month hit.

All of them (themselves and the books, funnily enough) had been scattered. There was never any time, and nowhere for their words to run in pages cluttered with ends. Like hell they were going to risk walking into their own coffin by stealing, let alone buying, another.

Muttering through a sigh, "okay," Lon sets the quill down, staring at the ugly sketch under their hands - grotesque because of the man there - and tallied reminders of how his left wrist twitches without his permission, how the fingers curl and clench and stick together, how his right foot always steps forward a little further than his left, the permanent imbalance in his strength, how his neck cricks and his eyes are bloodshot and the left tilt in his casual hunch.

Like he's always cringing, ever so slightly, for a blow that won't come.

Sneering at the sketches, they push it to the pirate, fingers spread across the center of it. "You good at physics, Trafalgar?" They finally meet the calm steel that's been watching them with blatant curiosity, like an old toy has taken on strange new light, and he draws his chin out of his palm.

"Is the physicist asking me to their job for them?"

"Only the part you can do. It's – it’s a word problem." Lon draws their hand away from the page, watching as his eyes flicking down to the man revealed there and lip curling. Birds of the same feather, and one scorns the other.

"In here,” they tap the paper, pulling away from their thoughts, “The knowns are buried. Decide what you need and what you don’t, and prove that putting the two of you in the same room ends with him dead.”

That curled snarl of his twists upwards, higher, like it's reaching the furthest reaches of the universe, and he stares up at them with malicious glee that bares all his teeth in an executioner’s grin.

There's a deranged curl more grimace than grin stretching across their lips to match his as they watch lightning burst in his eyes.

Even if you lose, I win, they realize. A swallow could never be noticed by hurricanes or thunderstorms.

Trafalgar's chin tilts upwards, their lip catches on their canine, and I win. "Looks like you went and gave yourself something to do." He comments, sly and satisfied. "Mind if I use another variable in my answer?"

Their head rolls to one shoulder. Dressrosa can be opportunity. "As long as you define it." Lon’s eyes go to the wall, already distant even as he answers them.

"Good."

Whoever leaves the throne room alive will be the next player.

Their fingertips drag across the desktop, catching on the divots, and they meander back to the bed. Maybe they fancy themselves a kingmaker. Armament doesn’t protect you from smoke inhalation, and Observation buckles under exhaustion. Treachery and loyalty taste the same in servitude.

Trafalgar catches their lingering smirk, and there’s too much cunning predator in his patient stare.

But, your devil fruit depends on stamina. You’re already running out of time.

He doesn’t scare them when bloody mania drives itself under his nails like he used to.

After all, humans have killed snow leopards before.

(but who’s to say you’re human, Lon?)

Lon’s stitches come out, the two of them avoid spats, and all the dangerous mania they’d been filled with feels more and more like laughable hubris as time goes on.

Strange yawning, yearning sinkholes gape in their chest when they look at their warped reflections. Aching echoes twist like thorny vines across their sternum at the cornered mutt in the mirror, unfamiliar and mangey.

They’d always had a stubborn streak harsh enough to turn vicious – it was necessary, when completing a PhD too young and battling the conviction living’s growing worthlessness – but that was meant to spit in the face of fear of the unknown and hesitation, not to scoff at the taste of someone’s blood on their teeth, at sinking their teeth into someone’s throat and ripping to spray their heart’s desperate pleas across their hands and shirt.

So who can blame them if they’re a little more timid over the next few days? If they’re afraid of themselves? It’s no surprise they’ve become reticent when their own shadows have grown monstrous and dogged, snapping and slathering at their heels.

But Lon hates to be this rattled around Trafalgar, so they go make trouble in the ducts – as if close-calls with Caesar and Monet are an improvement to the pirate they’ve grown used to – and he doesn’t ask questions, much to their relief.

In fact, they’re the one who ends up asking too many questions. Seems the only way to beat a scientist is through death and starvation, and even that might not be enough.

The air between them has curdled into pensive silence.

A storm cloud has been brewing in his eyes, and it’s not left the cold steel of his irises since the day they’ve arrived.

Their attention snaps back to him when his chin raises - like he’s said something profound, something life-changing, something that will surely send them scurrying back like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs (they’ve already forgotten what it was, more focused on how it’s at odds with the hint of a cower in his posture where he’s stood with his back just shy of the wall, and he’s taught them to be some sort of animal, all right. It’s the kind that bites at the first sign of weakness).

His words ring in their ears where they don’t in their mind, though, and they thought they’d sent him into a fury enough times over it to silence the tinnitus of his taunts – and why wouldn’t they belittle him for it, when it’s asinine sh*t like ‘only the weak get to choose how they die’? And him telling them, ‘it’s no wonder you can’t do what you love when you’re not strong enough for it,’ is such a slap in the face - as if being a researcher is something that requires inhuman feats of strength.

Lon eases out of their defensive stance with their brows furrowed and lips pinched into a frown, and they step forward where he hesitates. They’re not reacting the way he wants them to, and it’s throwing off his game. Too bad for him - this mongrel doesn’t want to play.

It’s a little funny how all of Trafalgar’s backwards thinking and issues are sourced right down to the same sickening shade of pink.

There’s a curiosity in them that burns like bitter tundra winds, nose upturned to catch the scent of his secrets, and their words will always come out ugly no matter how they dress them.

So, they don’t try. And timid their hands may be, their tongue is not.

“Why are you so insistent on following the rules set by a man who wants to control you?” Trafalgar seems almost taken aback, mouth parting in protest, as they consider him, as they turn him into the insect pinned to foam board, pick up the pin and arrange him the way they want. “I don’t get it. You make promises you don’t intend to keep just so you can run back to him and let him hurt you.”

When they take their next step, palm flat to their chest and shoulders tilted forward, he steps back. “I’m here because I have no choice.” They point to him. “You made sure I had no choice. You – you’ve, you’ve escaped him. Why do you come back?”

His throat clicks. “I have to avenge Cora-san.” Part of them is surprised they’ve gotten an answer from such a proud man.

The other part says he’s just as small as he was meant to be. Little boy, standing stock-still in the snow of ash and ruin.

In the end, it’s only fair.

“No, you don’t.”

They want to be worth something here, too.

But – if Rosinante did as much for Trafalgar as he hints him to have, then he must be like Niklas. And if it were Niklas and I in their situation, he wouldn’t want me to go down this path. “The only thing you owe him is a, a happy life.”

Trafalgar shakes his head in an irate flick (their lip twitches to curl up; they’re not pest to be shaken off). He moves in frames, all distorted and jerky motions overlaid atop each other. “I don’t have to explain this to you,” he snarls, more to himself than to them.

Lon wonders if he’s ever once considered them a real conversation partner. Maybe, to him, he was always speaking to something inconsequential - someone temporary, if they were lucky.

“Fine,” Lon concedes, and the conflicted thunder in his gaze abates, “You have to. So why make it a suicide? You have a crew to come home to.”

Don’t you love them? Why is one dead man worth more than twenty-one alive? Are they not family?

And he looks like a man drowning.

And, for the first time, Lon considers that, maybe, he was never able to hear them past his bubbling screams.

And, for once, Lon hopes for something good for him.

They hope he’s able to grieve.

The next day, he gifts them something ugly.

Lon thinks it’s out of spite, eyes snapping open as the stench of blood hits them all at once, their startled jolt planting their hands straight into cold, wet organ that’s been half-flayed to open up like a twisted book whose pages squish under their nails.

Trafalgar’s not in the room – what a blessing that is, to not to have to worry about stifling the distressed croak in their throat or disguising the wicked pace of their breathing as calm and collected – and as they scramble to their feet to backpedal away from the gory mess he’s left for them, Lon suspects this might be a lesson. Cruel in a way only little girls and boys can be, that ruthless targeting of weakness where empathy isn’t yet a concept – there’s only them, the suns of their own solar systems, and the other, and Lon’s done something to displease the boy who fancies himself a cold star.

It takes twenty minutes to calm down; they don’t clean up the strewn pieces (what a punishment for pressing too hard, for prying where they ought not to, and it might just be the only lesson they’ll learn from him) and instead go straight into the duct systems, hiding in those rattling metal hallways that shake the same way they do.

And, for a time, Trafalgar occupies the room when they do not (they’re glad they’ve learned Observation, if only to use it to avoid him – they don’t fancy a repeat of experiencing whatever sad*stic streak’s taken ahold of him), and Lon sleeps in the bed when he’s not there.

He wouldn’t dare put souring meat in the blankets, not when all of them are his - they think so, anyways. The uncertainty makes it difficult to rest.

They ignore the meals he leaves out for them. They don’t want his feeble peacemaking attempts.

Instead, Lon goes elsewhere (it’s good that they know where the pantry is) - elsewhere, where he can’t drive cruel fingers into their septic wounds; elsewhere, where they do not hold their breath at the patrol of his footsteps; elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere;

Yes, Lon is elsewhere.

They’re somewhere he can’t find them. Not at all.

Rubbing their arms, Lon blows into their hands. It's cold here, and if it weren't the purest void of space stretching out around them, they're certain they'd be able to see their breath plume out in front of them in a cloud of white.

They take a step forward and trip on something soft, something that snaps as their foot goes through it, something that bursts - wet and vile - under their hands when they catch themselves. And the smell, stars (there are none down here), thesmell, wells up in a warm swell that breaks across their face in gritty mist, and it's old meat rotting in a humid basem*nt too warm for its own good. “Trafalgar,” Lon gags, “this isn’t funny – “

And then the sound spills over into the air. But it's not air: it's vomit and excrement, blood and urine, and so much decay crammed into endless space that it somehow becomes small,suffocating, infinitesimal. It's staggered begging, panic-punched screaming, splitting nails scratching at cement walls, echoing caterwauls, wretched sobbing. Their hands clench into fists and their fingers catch on something firm. Slick, stringy meat buries itself under their nails.

Shouting, they shove themselves up - the force sends their left handdeeper, and it crashes through thepersonunderneath them and out into a body made of rot and bloat with a pop.

“Trafalgar,” their whimper gets lost in the sound of people dying and dwindles into a whisper, “this isn’t funny.”

A too-deep breath. Lon shoves their face into the crook of their arm, desperately trying not to throw up, clammy fingertips wrap around their ankle, and they know where they are.

A wheezing voice rasps its way to their ears; the hands reach higher up, clambering up onto their pantleg to tug them down, and the screams are louder: the moaning, the wailing, a cacophony of trapped rats all suffocating under the weight of one another. Lon can't shift - there's nothing there, no familiar pull - and backpedaling only sends them in deeper into the marsh of the dead.

Trapped, they step somewhere more solid - an angry shout, "Get off me!" - and the woman whose stomach they've stood on rushes up to wrap bony hands around their thigh and yank them down. Lon crashes onto their elbow, and it goes through gristle and bone and a chest cavity to nestle right next to a soupy liver, and they're sitting in the lap of a dead man. The woman shrieks, raging, and her children swarm over them, wet hands stinking of decay and metal wrenching their mouth open to steal their air like they have anything other than heavy carbon dioxide in their lungs. Sharp knees straddle their hips, and she swings something wicked into their stomach.

There's nothing to grab onto here, nothing to push themselves against: it's all just rancid meat, and stifling death, and every thrashing kick buries them deeper until they're choking on someone's hair as they scream and there are unflinching teeth pressing into their spine - and the snapped femur she's raking down their abdomen spills their intestines out over their sides, bloody surface tension broken, and hands plunge into the bared carmine gold, and and, and -

- squelching, something hot and wet splatters across their cheek and trails into their mouth, and they drown under the thick taste of iron. Tiny fingers wriggle into their eye sockets; agony lights up the dark, sending them sparking and arching straight into the woman's hungry gape, teeth closing around their excavated diaphragm, and and, and -

Lon lurches to their feet, palm sealed across their mouth as they stumble into the bathroom and bang their hip against porcelain on the way down; wet chunkshit ceramic to make their stomach turn on itself again, twisting into infinity as it writhes under their skin, stitches fit to burst with the tremors of their traitorous vessel, and more bile splatters out before they can catch their breath. Tears drip down their cheeks - they want, need, it tostop, stomach cramping hard enough to feel like a wound, but the sounds and smell and the look of it: all pink, all thick, like globules of fat and phlegm flung to smatter on unforgiveness, make itworse- and a hiccup makes them suck stomach acid down.

They’re drowning in a cycle: shuddering, spluttering, hacking, hiccupping panic; inhale too quick, burning burning burning, cough and cough and hurl, and sniffle and sob and repeat. They must be dying.

It's all they can do to just cling to the cold ceramic.

Their crying sounds strange rebounding off the walls. Repulsed, their skin prickles to detach from effeminate bones.

Their spine curves, their head bows, their stomach constricts.It's okay, Lon prays,it's okay, no one else is here, it's just me.They're not broken if no one’s around to hear, to spit the words into their paling face with their pieces scattered around them. I’m not there, not there.

Those rules of reality are simple: Trafalgar is out, and so Lon is okay. I’m not there, not on Dressrosa - on Punk Hazard, not there, not there.

They suck in air, oxygen hitting the back of their throat in a harsh punch, and their groan turns into a terrible, pleading whine.

They sound like an animal. Except they’re a carcass - everything has been scooped out of them, and they're just empty skin and bones held up by a shaking grip on the bowl pressed into their chest as rigor mortis sets in to stiffen them in a pool of their own offal.

If I believe it, breaths they can’t catch, I’m fine.

But, between one heave and the next, there's a noise beyond the door. Saliva and bloody bile drips over their bottom lip, their tongue presses surrender into the bottom of their mouth, and they can'tstop, even with the horror lighting fierce fire in their bones and the embarrassment screaming at them tostop as their eyes snap open. Their fingers tighten around the toilet bowl, and Trafalgar's eyes are darting between their face and the heaving breaths making their chest stutter in their peripherals, and they are broken - and it is not just embarrassment screaming, it is their damning, tattered voice rasping in the air in unholy hymns to shriek at him to get out.

His hand lands on the square of their back, "Deep breaths." Lon shakes their head, brief respite in another grimace, hate him as he stays, as their own body silences them to gag hoarsely before him, and he insists. "Take a breath."

This is your fault. They want to scream at him again, but he’s real and crouched next to them, and there’s sorrow and an apology in his eyes while they are but a poorly reanimated corpse before him, their limbs stretched out and wrong and trembling.

So, shoulders rising to their ears, they take a chance; and, like a fool, they love kindness.

Maybe beat dogs should learn how to run away. Maybe their heart ought to love silence.

It’s a mistake listening to him: sucking in a deep breath makes the sharp smell burn down their throat and sends them reeling back into bloated bodies bursting under their hands. They bow back over the bowl with a barren stomach and a throat chewed through by acid. There are pink blots floating around in the clouded water.

They sign something begging to him (turns out, beat dogs come back - come running after the distant drum of their heart), frozen gaze on those clots like Elyse's eye, like tongue, like skin, and maybethis is punishment for being wicked.

Cold hands cover their eyes, and the sight stops. But there's darkness trapped with them and the smell rises up, and Lonswearsthere's death's breath twined with it. Jerking forward, shamefully terrified, they nearly claws the hands off their face.

"Tell me what's wrong." Trafalgar blurts before they can make their best effort at shredding his skin or losing to the raging war tearing their stomach apart.

You - you’re what’s wrong; why did you do this to me? Help me.

Their left hand refuses to budge from its iron grip around his wrist. The right jitters away to flash signs at him; they think they say things like‘sight, smell, sound, bad, bad, bad,’ but there's too much static to think through, and neurons are firing across different timelines, through different dimensions and there's nothing to anchor themselves to. Their throat burns, their - it's not hyperventilating, it'snot– it’s swallowing nails, heart beating flame.

The wrist they're slowly cutting circulation to slides his captured hand back across both their eyes, the second slipping down to press a corner of his sleeve against their nose.

He's muttering over their hyperventilating – that’s not what they’re doing, shut up - their tears slowly making the cloth damp.

"Breathe through your nose now."

Lon sucks in a breath and seals their lips shut, exhaling and inhaling in short bursts; their shoulders are hiked up to their ears and their right hand is curled into anxious claws on the ceramic bowl as they wait for steel-toed boots to swing into their ribs - but only snow and mineral oil awaits them.

"Can you feel the tiles under you?"

Lon pauses, hiccup stuck in their chest, and considers the cold press of the tiles they know are an off shade of white into their folded knees.

Yeah, they can feel that.

A hesitant nod into his hands; their breathing is still hard and fast, but it's better, not having to smell the atrocious mess they've made.

But where the smell and sights aren't, the memories are.

It's – it’s better, but they’re not (“If you don’t pull up weeds by the root, they’ll come back,” reminds Madoka in their ear, her nails dirtied with soil, plum juice staining the cracks of her lips), and their hands drift down to sink worried claws into their thighs as they try to anchor themselves, try to punish the need for kindness out of them.

"Don't do that." His admonishing words swim somewhere between static and noxious red.

The panic hits them full force, now, no longer held at bay by their fear over never being able to stop emptying their stomach until there was nothing left of them.

They wonder how many times people had retched inside that place, if stomach acid had burned anyone living - how it would linger and age, how far they would have to stumble across all those bodies to get away from the smell only to find that infinite darkness had walled them in a mass grave.

All the trembling in their bones wobbles the desperate gasps bursting from their chest off their axes, spinning tops of accretion disks ripping apart - what if when they’re caught on Dressrosa, Doflamingo casts them down to lie with dead men? What if he stuffs funeral soil into their mouth and slams the coffin lid shut on them and all the bodies they filled it with? What if they’re caught, deemed better tamed and leashed to that same stake at his side, to serve as a tool to bring to heel those more innocent than they; whatifthey have to take pieces of other lives again, become a glutton and guzzle it down, what if, what if, what if -

- blood is thick over their fingers and it takes them too long to recognize the dry sobbing is coming from them; Trafalgar holds them tighter like well-intentioned pressure fixes shattered things, and Lon unsticks their hand from their pants to leave sinful stains there, head bowed forward away from him.

"Am I making you panic?" He asks against their ear, voice tight for a reason they don't know how to place.

“Whhy did – did you do that?” There’s desperate confusion in their stifled wail, and they’re just a kid all over again, at a loss for words when people hurt each other.

Trafalgar falters behind them, suddenly quiet. “What?”

They’re hardly coherent to their own ears underneath the crying, “If you wanted me to, to f*ck off, I would’ve,” they push his hands off their face to hide in their palms in hopes it’ll stop the trembling, their teeth blunt against their skin as their mouth parts in ineffable, fanged agony, “If I - if I asked too many questions, you could-could’ve just left – if I was making you uncomfortable, you could’ve just – could’ve just told me to f*ck off. I know I’m a – I’m an asshole, but I can leave well enough alone. I won’t hurt you for it.”

He recoils as they flash between artic chill and desert heat. Drawing their knees up to their chest, Lon wraps their arms around their legs tight enough to make it nearly impossible to breathe, their voice dwindling as they run out of air, “you didn’t have to do that.”

A sound gets stuck in his throat, its meaning lost to the yellowed corners of the room. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs, and he sounds guilty enough that they forget who they’re crying for. “It won’t ever happen again.”

It’d be better if he’d stop doing the things needing an apology, but, as it turns out, the two of them are slow to learn with each other.

They’re getting sick of his promises. Theirs, too.

He says something else – instead of making it to their ears, it gets lost in the tense line of their shoulder and finds itself laid to rest under their raspy breathing alongside the turmoil of faces they’d sworn they’d felt pressed up against their feathers in the dark – and his knees come up like shameful sentinels on either side of them.

Lon’s startled when he starts rocking from side to side, slow and careful and tugging them along for the ride, but it's so like their absentminded fidgeting they do when zoned out and thinking about their research that they stutter out of their tense freeze to mimic him. Momentarily, their thoughts silence.

Their hands have migrated to their arms, fingers flexing into the skin as they struggle to remember calm and let their sharp pants measure beats of their heart. It's working for a moment: a single moment where they're almost clear-headed, breathing, grounded, his inhales pressing into their back and their exhales rounding their spine into his stomach in a give and take - and then it all comes crashing down as soon as another gasping hiccup breaks the rhythm and the unexpectedness of it is nearly as upsetting as what had set them off in the first place.

And Lon sounds like raucous rainfall, dry grief coming out of them in staccato staggering down staircases to slam against their sternum.

Fist pressed to their chest and breaths beating like drums against their knuckles, Lon leans as far forward as his arms will stretch, cold air rushing into the space between them.

Dismayed, they tell him, "I'mtrying, Iswear," and they sound so terribly broken. Puzzle pieces they thought they’d found go shifting out of place again.

I'm better than this, so why isn't it going away?

"I know. It's okay. It'll end."

It’ll end. Lon repeats it over and over again in a rush to themselves; if they say it enough, it'll speed time up and then it'll be over, and they can catch up on the rest they've been missing.

"Can you feel me breathing?"

Lon freezes. He pauses with them and hesitates to continue.

Between rocking side to side and his forcefully regulated breathing that sends them forward and back in centimeters, they're constantly moved against different textures, different sensations. It's beyondoverwhelming - but what theywantis overwhelming, to scrub their frayed nerves raw until it all settles into a blank, thoughtless nothing where not even rigor mortis can keep them stiff.

"Breathe with me." Trafalgar says, exaggerating the depth of each inhale and slowing down the exhales for them to match.

They still get snow and steel from his sleeve when they bury their nose into his forearm, and their breathing is as wicked and sharp as the blades he smells of, but they've stopped making such miserable sounds, so it must be improvement.

He must think so, too, because he murmurs, "Good," and keeps going; slow inhale, firm exhale, and Lon wants sobadlyto do good, to be agoodperson, and they think their nails are digging into his arms with how tense they are, grip relocated to hang onto him – this strange moored ship in a storm they've become - but he doesn't complain. Just breathes.

Eventually, the shakes go away, the painful adrenaline fades, and they're panting from exertion and not spiraling terror, and the light of the bathroom chases the shadows of their memories off. The first thing they really register is that he's been rambling, low and soft. "- and the bucket fell straight onto Bepo's head while Penguin and Shachi were laughing their asses off, the assholes, andIhad to put petroleum jelly in his fur to get the damn thing off. Penguin bought him two pounds of the most expensive salmon on the island to apologize. Wouldn't stop complaining about how poor it made him, like it wasn’t his own damn fault.”

Out whispers a hum to show they're listening. He hasn't stopped swaying from side to side, and they nearly relax into the reassurance it provides.

“Bepo still mentions it from time to time to make him guilty. He’s damn good at guilt-tripping - not that he’s ever wrong for it. Did I ever tell you how Uni learned to make sashimi?"

He asks like they're friends, like they've been talking for years, as ifof coursethey would know about all his crew's shenanigans becausethey'vealways been there.

Lon shakes their head, reaches up to flush the bile down (the noise of the water, the mechanical roaring of the systemhurts, but it passes, and it, too, does not last), and twists in his hold until he understands their intentions and loosens the tight grip around them.

Above their head, he carries on, "Uni wanted to learn all our favorite foods - he learns them in order of seniority, so Bepo was second on the list - and he spent days holed up in the kitchen, surrounded by all these books. You could hardly see him past the f*ckin’ mountains of cookbooks he had. Had a few manuals on the types of fish, too."

Trafalgar lets them twist and twist and twist – and they’re allowed to rest their forehead on his collarbone without remark (it’s maybe one of the kindest things he’s done for them, allowing this weakness without bitter winter scorn, and they curse the hunger it reawakens in them, hope their skin hates him faster).

"It took him a week. Bepo wanted to try everything he was making, but Uni’s a perfectionist, so he kept turning him away. He ended up making a seafood buffet for Bepo. I remember it took up the whole table." A nostalgic chortle takes him by surprise, and the flickering smile on their lips in response is just as unexpected, "Bepo started sobbing. Uni told him that if he didn't stop crying, the salt from his tears would make the fish taste different."

They liked Uni. He was kind. All of his crew had been kind.

“Bepo stopped crying so quickly I thought he’d sucked the damn tears back in. Ate the whole spread in an hour.” A pause, Trafalgar dipping his head down, "Okay?"

Mouth sour, aching head, phantom trembling racing through their limbs to chase after adrenaline – Lon’s been wrung out and scavenged for parts. But they're okay, so they give him a hesitant thumbs up.

Exhaling in a quiet sigh, he uncurls their fingers and wipes the blood off the nails. "Want to talk about it?”

They look elsewhere. They'd say the filthy grout was very interesting this time of year if they hadn't already memorized most of it.

(everything is so exhausting with him, this back and forth they can’t ever seem to keep up with, and they still don’t know where the two of them stand)

In the corner of their eye, Trafalgar's expression flickers through phases as he grapples with the desire - theneed because he’s a nosy bastard, and he’s just as weak to curiosity as they are - to pry, to know, to push until they give in, and every doctor's respect: formal training not to prod after emotional outbursts and instead provide space to recollect and feel safe again.

They both know the latter is a moot point. As if they’d ever feel safe with him.

He, somehow, perhaps purposefully ignorant, finds a middle. "Sometimes," Trafalgar begins, "I'll take baths wrapped up in a blanket."

Lon blinks, uncertain smile eking out to crack the weariness caked on their face. "What?" The sound of their voice makes them wince. It's loud and crackling in their ears yet leaves like a whisper of breath in midnight death.

"It's nice," he defends, soft snicker riding on their nose, "It calms me down. How about you try it? And," his eyes flick to theirs, “Maybe you can tell me why you had such a severe reaction.”

“Are you asking me why I’m traumatized,” Lon asks so flatly it’s hardly a question.

They’ve never seen Trafalgar backtrack so quickly. “I, well – look, I know it was f*cked up of me to leave my –“

“Yeah, it was.” Some of the anger comes back to rustle in their sternum, but it’s embers in a bed of cold ash, and there’s nothing for it to catch flame upon this time.

He rubs at his neck, “A strong reaction is expected, but this happened half a week after the fact,” a quick gesture to hurry himself along, and maybe they’re getting a kick out of seeing him at a loss for words, “It’s just not normal.”

Lon deadpans, “so I’m not normal?” They are getting a kick out of it.

“I don’t mean it like that –“ he’s really getting flustered now, and they know it’s got to be from his medical ethics and all the careful phrasing the field has to live by – all that stigma around mental health, and Lon’s implying he’s contributing to it. They make a note to do it more often – “It’s not a bad thing, it’s just not good, to react like that.”

Thank f*ck they’re dead tired. Otherwise the faint smile toying with the corners of their mouth would have infected their hoarse voice. “Are you saying I was overreacting after you left chunks of organs where I was sleeping?”

It’s great that he’s not looking at them. No, he’s too busy shoving his foot in his mouth. “I don’t mean that,” the wonderful panic of a socially awkward person is written across his face and, oh, game’s up, the sincerity he’s trying to convey to them with pleading (i.e., still awkward) eye contact melts away at their amusem*nt. “You’re f*cking with me.”

“Only a little. You said – you said the blanket stuff works for you?”

His jaw clicks shut on whatever retort he had been conniving. “Yeah, it does.”

Lon rolls their aching shoulders. “I’d be willing to try.”

“You gonna be okay if I get up and grab a blanket?”

Their brows furrow, mouth opening in offended retort: of course I’ll be okay without you – but it would mean being alone on the cold floor with a body more exhausted than they’re prepared to note. The loneliness might invite the memories back in.

Sometimes he gets them to think about what they are and aren’t ready for. Awful of him.

“Yeah,” Lon’s answer comes out softer, smaller than they intend it to. “I’ll be okay. I can stuh-start the bath or something.” Trafalgar’s careful as he untangles himself from their space and steps out the door he burst through.

Watching his back, Lon sees a man who, in another life, they think would’ve been a miracle worker for the hopeless. He would’ve been the doctor he must dream of being.

Only the bathtub’s creaking faucet is louder than the aching and popping of their joints when they stand up.

What a disappointment the two of them must be to their own potentials.

Draped across the porcelain edge, arm hanging down to stretch fingers out to lazily test the temperature of the water (their mouth still feels rancid, they should really do something about that), if there’s someone watching, they must be so – a blanket whumps against their spine, Trafalgar’s inked hands wrapping around the bathtub as he leans down into their view to grin. “You’re about to be the soggiest burrito known to man.”

Between the shock and the silliest, most out of left field phrase they’ve ever heard coming from him, Lon is baffled into laughter that’s sharp enough to leave their mouth bleeding.

Distantly, as they tug the blanket down to pool in their lap, they realize he does the same thing they do when they’re trying to make someone happy and briefly wonder where he learned it; their neighborhood was filled with children, so they knew how to play the clown well, but who did he grow up around?

Maybe he was an older brother, once upon a time.

“I’ve ne-never looked forward to that before, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess,”

“Great,” they’re hauled to their feet, blanket dropped to the floor in the process. He immediately forgets about them, distracted by turning off the faucet and checking the bath’s temperature (Lon may have stopped paying attention to it when he started pestering them, but who’s to blame them? It’s hard to talk to a pirate and be productive at the same time), and they wander over to the sink, determined to rinse out their mouth.

Promptly shoving their head under the tap, they twist it on. Cool water soothes their aching stomach and washes away the bile and urge to vomit still lingering in their mouth.

Two knocks on porcelain; Lon absentmindedly lifts their hand up from where their elbows rest on the sink – they’re aiming to make their stomach ache for an entirely different reason, and the name of the game is drinking like they won’t ever again – and Trafalgar’s hip leans against theirs. They pointedly knock on the sink thrice as they turn off the water to eye him.

Recognition flashes in his eyes; he quickly steps away from them (and, yeah, they might be starving for friendly touch, but who isn’t these days? They still need forewarning for it to tame their skin) and pushes the blanket into their arms. “I’ll be in the other room. Call if you need anything.”

Oh. They offer him a strained smile and squash the nonsense disappointment in their stomach. “I will. Thanks.” They’re an adult; they can handle being a little lonely after a quick mental breakdown.

Trafalgar waves them off, and the door clicks shut behind him.

It’s no good to cling to people. This is practice for when I see Emilio again. If I’m craving company bad enough to want his, then it’ll be even worse when I’m around them.

Their shirt and pants find themselves crumpled on the floor (Lon’s sure neither them nor Trafalgar want them to be wrapped up in the throw without trunks on, so those stay) and the blanket winds up wrapped tight around their shoulders. The water is hot enough for them to break out into a sweat, but the throw is impossibly soft on their skin, and it drapes heavy across their knees and sides. Its weight is comforting, the edge of the tub cold against their forehead where a headache wars against them, and it’s quiet. It’s relaxing - but it’s them and the barren silence in their mind where only death in the aftermath sits.

Them, and the elephant in the room and the distant embarrassment they refuse to feel. Lon refuses to feel any of it, let alone think about it.

And that means it’s just too quiet.

Their knuckles tap on the bottom of the tub in reassuring thumps.

By their estimates, Lon makes it ten minutes before they sling water at the door (imagine calling a pirate by his name, how laughable) to summon Trafalgar. It patters, gentle at first, before the mass of the arcing body of it splatters hard enough to make the door rattle in its frame.

When he enters, he hisses, displeased, at how the water sucks at his boots when he lifts his foot away from the neat puddle they’ve made. “You’re cleaning this up,” he blandly demands, disregarding their friendly wave. How disrespectful, Lon notes with distant glee. They can collect interest on that. “What did you need?”

They’ve weaseled their arms out of the blanket to sling them over the bath’s edge, goosebumps running in neat lines on their skin, and he eyes their hands as if he expects them to spawn mischief from their fingertips like a magician.

If he were more wary, he’d know they really spawn it from their mouth. “Take a seat,” Lon invites.

He sighs. “The floor is wet.”

“Not all of it,” they gesture at the dry patch at the other end of their launchpad (i.e., bathtub). They’re delighted when he sighs, long and suffering, and begrudgingly settles against the tub’s side.

Silence becomes a third party in the room; he’s lost in thought, and Lon’s content to soak in the sound of breathing other than their own filling the air.

Abruptly, he goes, “I hate bread.”

Lon blinks at him. Huh?

Their mouth runs without their permission. “I might hate meat.”

They were right. It does spawn mischief - but it wasn’t supposed to be used against them.

Trafalgar’s head is tilted towards them, deceivingly patient. “Bread sticks to my teeth too much. It gets soggy when you try to combine it with most things, and it’s too sweet.”

“Noted, uh,” their mouth has a mind of its own, and Lon is stuck trying to do damage control before they’ve even said anything. “I like chicken still, I think. It’s easier to stomach if- if it’s dry –“ he makes a face at that and they toss him a rueful smile, “I know right? Dry is just poorly cooked chicken. But if isn’t, it – it poh-pops when you bite into it.”

“I used to like bread.” His tentative truce tastes saccharine on the back of their tongue, thick and cloying. Artificial. (but, stars, do they have a sweet tooth) “I’d get anpan or melonpan when I was younger.” The words come out careful, like he’s skirting around a memory he’s afraid of falling into.

Lon finds themselves nodding, and they’re in the backseat of their own body as someone else drives. “I can’t stand pork or steak anymore. Fish is still okay. The color is-isn’t ugly.”

“I’d like to eat bread again, but it still makes me nauseous.” His eyes go to the ceiling, the storm of his gaze suddenly tired and waiting to be calm over dark seas of depthless exhaustion. “It might be a while until I can.”

“Yeah,” they whisper their defeat, “I think it’ll be a while for me, too.” They’ve drifted over to his side without noticing, back pressed to the porcelain he’s on the other side of, and their voice comes out smaller than it ought to be. “You think we’ll come out of Dressrosa alive?”

Trafalgar turns his head to look at them. “Maybe.” There’s a lie of omission hidden in the grey of his eyes. Parts of the iris are darker, such dull smoke that not even the gold flecked around his pupil can shine there.

Lon imagines that’s where he keeps all his secrets. In lines so fine and shadows so careful, they’re impossible to notice unless someone’s been looking for a very long time.

They turn their head away from him so he can’t see the hope crumpling with their wrinkling brows as they force a laugh. “Maybe we can share a, um, a meal we hate. We can eat melonpan and r-rare steak. Finish what the other can’t so there’s nothing to feel bad about wasting.”

“Okay,” he replies. “Let’s do that.”

Letting their head rest against the curve of the tub towards him, shoulders hunched and fingers buried in the wet blanket now cold on their shoulders, they really wish on stars they can’t see that he isn’t making an empty promise.

He’s a damn good liar, isn’t he?

Once things have calmed and they’re, well, more mentally stable, Lon makes another circuit of the institute the moment Trafalgar steps outside the room for his daily routine; they’re certain he’s aware of their intentions based on the royal purple of exasperation lighting up his spine, but they pay him no mind and instead spend more hours than they bother to count winding through twisting ducts and dropping into labs bereft of their immoral scientists.

After all, there’s no better way to take their mind off one tyrant than to bombard themselves with the misdeeds of hundreds of other miscreants.

From what they’ve seen, Caesar is a man whose genius is profound, but one which he rarely refines his creations with; rather, he prefers to bounce between project to project and leave them in their most volatile stages – of course, this seems to suit his purposes in being as destructive as possible.

He raises his followers the same way, teaching them to be careless in their documentation.

Lon’s certain (maybe after Dressrosa they’re not too sure, anymore. People are uglier than they thought them to be) there were experimentalists who started out kind and became twisted under Caesar’s watch.

Those researchers had to be twisted.

There were too many drugs that were dangerous, yet so clearly loved, sealed behind glass cupboards and all labeled with their intended purposes. The one that had worried them the most - well, 'most' is irrelevant at this point - was one that effectively paralyzed the victim by acting as an overwhelming muscle relaxant. They’d hastily scribbled down the scattered theory for its antidote, but what use would an expert on biological warfare have for cures when he tosses lives away like they're trash? Their notes are incomprehensible at best, at worst useless, optimistic pandering characterized by the absentminded afterthought of inhabitants of the lab.

It leaves them slinking back into the room long hours past the day’s end, Trafalgar glancing up from his desk, a breath leaving him, and Lon takes enough time to confirm that, no, they did not have another spot of panic while they were in the ventilation system.

Later, he relinquishes half the bed to them – they take one end, he the other, and they think they’re both wary of the eggshells cracking underfoot – and Lon stares at a ceiling blocked out by writhing shadows as their mind races.

We’ll do good, one way or another, just by disrupting the institute. Trafalgar’s going to destroy it in the end, so that gets rid of all the materials.

He doesn’t have much to worry over because of his devil fruit. Isn’t stamina his only limitation?

Rolling onto their side, knees brought to their chest, they gnaw at their knuckles. But where does that leave me? What will I do?

If the weak don’t get to choose how they die, then how do I get around that?

There are plenty of nasty deaths hidden in these walls. Lon isn’t looking to be the one to find them.

The answer to their problem has always been rather simple. They’ve known that.

The hard part will be the self-control.

"Trafalgar," Lon begins, stepping up to his shoulder where he sits, working, as usual. They've been thinking about this for a while (it’s been thirty-one hours, fifty-eight minutes, and twenty-two seconds). They think they want it.

Perhaps ‘need’ would be more accurate.

Chin lifting to look at them, he sets his quill down. They take it as permission to continue. "Can – can you make two pills I can keep in my mouth? I need one that kills me - the other can be an antidote, I suppose, in case if bursting the other was an – was an accident.”

His gaze grows heavy to bear on their shoulders, and they rock back and forth on their heels like that could ease the weight he puts on them. “And, uh, would it be possible to make the walls of the antidote thicker? Ss-so it's not as easy to crack."

"No."

Lon frowns, brows furrowing. "Why not? It is too difficult?" Their eyes wander around the bland room, "I can try working on it myself if it is - so it isn't so much work."

His arms fold, and their attention darts to him. "It's not difficult."

"I don't see the problem, then."

"I'm assuming you'll have them in once we begin operations here and on Dressrosa?" At their nod, he gestures towards them, wrist turned to face his palm towards the ceiling. "You'll burst the poison the moment you get into a fight. You want me to make them, you practice with duds first so you get used to keeping them intact."

He turns back to his work, picking the quill up again. "If you're going to kill yourself, make it intentional, not an accident."

They blink in surprise; they didn’t expect him to be reasonable - they thought he was just going to be a dick.

Lon smiles, elated, as they lean forward and plant their hands on the desktop. Ducking down into his field of vision - he looks put-upon already, but it's in his typical melodramatic fashion, so they figure they're fine - "Okay! When can you make the duds?"

"Tonight, after I’m done. Might as well get it out the way."

Another thought strikes them, mouth parting in realization. "Can – can I come with?"I can only cycle through the vents so many times.

"As long as you don't knock sh*t over in the lab."

Beaming, "I won't." They are one well-intentioned liar. Accidents are bound to happen.

They glance to his stack of papers, both written and not, and determine they've got enough time to catch up on hours. Even when they're trying not to, they always seem to be losing sleep. "Wake me up when, when we're leaving, yeah? I'm taking a nap."

He rolls his left wrist, eyeing how their planted hands have nearly half of them on the desktop, and lazily points to the corner of the workspace with his elbow still planted on the wood. "Be my guest. Since you’re already here," he pauses, dipping the quill back in its inkpot, moving aside as Lon clears out the corner, shoving all his sh*t – and his train of thought - out of the way, “You napping there?”

“Well, since you’re offering,” Lon drawls.

He’s quick to clarify. “I wasn’t.”

They ignore him, sure sounds like you were, and shift down to totter to the corner. Healthier talons click on the wood, the scratching of his quill sending comforting vibrations through their feathers when they settle, and he constructs a lean-to of journals to block out the lamplight when he gets bored of what he’s working on.

Hours later, they’re awoken by his gentle tapping on the wood. “You ready to go? Security should be lax enough at this hour that you can f*ck around some.”

They’re delighted he’s taking into account their natural penchant for mischief-making.

Shaking out their feathers (he tucks a stray vane into a journal as a bookmark when they pluck it for being unsatisfactory), they bob their head in confirmation.

Lon thinks they’re both surprised when they hop into the palm he offers, clambering up to his shoulder as he gets to his feet. There must be something in the air making them overly benevolent tonight. Maybe some sort of gas leak.

Gas leak or no, out the door the two of them go, bird of death accompanying a surgeon serving the same master.

Turns out he’s right – when they get there, the lab is quiet. Trafalgar busies himself at his station, Lon peers over his shoulder, and they try not to gag when he gives them a pipette of liquid to taste.

The same effort, however, cannot be afforded for the faces they’re pulling, and he laughs at them as the atrociously bitter serum spills across their tongue to stain it sour colors. They stand there, disgruntled frown making all the lines around their mouth stand at attention, and hope for the minutes to pass faster so Trafalgar's awful concoction will fade with the time.

In return, he tells them they're in for a good ten-minute wait. Lon reacts with an appropriate amount of despair.

"It's so your brain associates the pills bursting with negative consequences. You'll avoid crushing them without even thinking about it, even when you're being thrown around," he explains.

It makes a terrible amount of sense, but that doesn't mean they have to be happy about it.

And thrown around they are, swung straight into a wall and grimacing at the loud pop emanating from their mouth that spills a truly foul taste across their tongue. Trafalgar steps back, dusts his hands of them. "Which one was that?"

"Right side," Lon answers. "No early death for me.” But when I die, it won’t be by any hand other than yours.

They wish they were more willing to move on – more forgiving, more resilient, more than what they are. They wish they were the starry-eyed physicist that died light years ago who would read the heavens for a divine history to spark the future; instead, they are habits they do not recognize, smoke that is forever acrid in their throat, and anger that seems more relentless than they.

But time doesn’t stop for them, no matter how long distance preserves the dying light of their reflection. They know their future runs on borrowed moments strung together by hands not their own – yet hands can be swayed, can’t they?

Their future may be limited, but they have more control over it than the past. They can’t rewrite that.

No, they hadn’t been blessed with such a devil fruit.

Accepting his hand, they're hauled up to their feet where his palm against theirs is replaced with a fresh dud pill. "No, but no second chance, either, and that's just as bad. Try again."

Lon tucks it inside their right cheek, arguing, "I made it longer this time, though. That's improvement."

He's dismissive as always, but there’s a smile hinted in the lines of his mouth. "Barely."

The bastard hardly gives them any time to duck the fist swung into their jaw.

They’ve been practicing for what feels like hours (they know it’s more like an hour and a half, but their mouth is dry from their quickened breaths that strangely do not leave them breathless and useless, and they’re stumbling more – it’s no joke yanking around someone who’s mostly muscle and issues, and they have a hell of a time foiling his plans to slam them into the walls), and all Trafalgar has to show for it is a droop in his eyelids and breathing only half as hard as theirs.

“Need a break?” He asks while they’re skidding across the floor, warily eyeing his confident stride towards them.

Lon, their pride smarting just a little at the difference between them, snarls, “no,” and his smile breaks like slow sunrise on his lips, cold and cruel and fond of twisted things.

The violent shine of their teeth in the dim light is all the warning he gets - that and their intent pinging his Observation, of course - before they're lunging for him, fingers tipped in harsh talons and bad intentions. Last go. Now or nothing later.

Trafalgar twists under their grip, aiming for their stomach with an Armament coated fist. Ducking in a burst of feathers and diving for his knees, they shift back to slam into his shins and send him crashing to the floor over their back. The momentum sends them sliding across the tiles away from him as he’s wrenching off his front, and Lon twists, bunching their legs under them to spring to their feet andpolitelyhop onto his stomach before he can get up.

But as soon as the impact draws the front end of his gasp out of his mouth, he's lurching up and yanking them down. Lon happily follows the direction of his pull to send their fist into his chest, Haki practically lurching to coat their knuckles - it very much is a creature of will, and right now, it and Lon follow violence (they want to be stronger) - and they get a grunt out of him despite Armament of his own blooming across him like spilled ink, the impact of it buzzing up through their arm.

Trafalgar growls, his hand splaying across their lower back to shove them into the floor, their right arm bruising in his hold. When he surges up onto his knees, it’s as if he's liquid, and he plants his left knee into the space where his hand had been, and the tight grip on their wrist that had yanked them down harshly twists their arm up behind their back.

Lon hisses through their answering snicker. Made him feel it.

Feathers ripple out of their skin, their bones shifting and hollowing, and Trafalgar’s devil fruit is just as fast – not forcing a shift, just stopping it – and a jolt runs through Lon. Their tongue swipes the pill tucked into their left cheek out to snap their teeth down onto it.

Foul bitterness floods their mouth.

He pauses at the loud crack, meeting their eyes (they’re a little wild, now, and just because there’s no pain this time from him meddling with their shifts doesn’t mean there wasn’t before: harsh and loud enough to burn away what felt to be all of them) from where their head is twisted to stare at him with a lopsided grin over their shoulder.

“Which one?”

“Left.”

His hold adjusts, left hand coming up to grab their shoulder as he moves off them, and they let him pull them up. “That was a good call,” he congratulates – and it blooms warmth in their chest, much to their chagrin. He should know better than to praise them, really. Distracts them from their final supper of vengeance. “Do you want to pick this up again later or tomorrow?”

Humming as they shake out the tension and the lingering ringing in their arms, Lon’s answering smile is sheepish. “Tomorrow?”

A gentle thwap to their shoulder, “What are you asking me for? If you’re too tired, we’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Are – are you not tired?”

He shrugs. “A little.”

Exasperated, Lon swats at his arm and mutters, “I’ll give you a, a run for your money one day.”

As they dig around for a change of clothes, they can see his eyes crinkle. He doesn’t say anything in response, but he catches them as they’re heading to the bathroom. Lon, disgruntled at their mission being interrupted, glances at him in question – what on earth could be more important than me getting a shower right this minute.

In silent answer, Trafalgar procures an orange – they’ve long since given up on keeping track of where he stashes them – and they accept his gift, mental complaints of being gross momentarily put aside.

Mm, they think disapprovingly, pesky man and his stupid oranges.

“Your Haki feels stronger.” He comments.

“Yeah?” Lon’s prideful grin is hidden from view as they turn away from him, lazily stepping into the bathroom with their small successes. “That’s good.”

The rest of the day is quiet after their spar. It’s pleasant. Fulfilling.

Like ducking up from where they’d been hunched over a broken telescope to transform it into art and turning around to present the small pendant they’d made of its lens to a beaming Niklas.

Shirt bunched under their chin, Lon watches Trafalgar carefully snip through the sutures left in their skin. What little remains of their bloody scuffle that had ended in a collapsed lung is a healthy, shiny stretch of new scar tissue and skin irritated with now unnecessary stitches.

“It didn’t take as long this time,” they comment, curious fingers already mapping out the new landmark on their body - up until he smacks their hand out of the way.

Stitches, like hooks, gently tug at their flesh as they’re pulled out and unceremoniously dropped onto a tray at their thigh (an exception to the ‘no sitting on the desk’ rule that they find particularly delightful because he is a hypocrite, and it’s usually his fault: in cases of medical need, it serves as a temporary examination table).

“Probably because you’ve been eating and resting properly,” Trafalgar mutters, tapping at their side as he pulls out the last suture. “You don’t bruise as easily, and your nails aren’t so brittle.”

He pushes away, snapping his gloves off and setting down his tweezers and careful scissors, “Alright, you’re good to go.” Chin in hand, he eyes them as they smooth out the wrinkles in their shirt. “Want to practice with the dud pills again?”

That was quick.

Sliding off the desktop, they rummage in the drawer where they know he keeps them. “You’re just bored and jittery,” Lon accuses, “and I’m the only person you can beat the sh*t out of wi-without consequence.”

They talk over his affronted retort, his eyebrows drawn together in loud disagreement. “I’m mostly kidding.” Not. “But, lucky for you,” they tuck the pills on the insides of their cheeks, nestled alongside their molars, and tilt towards him, “I’m always bored here.”

The two of them share matching grins (his bloody with routine, theirs vicious with opportunity), and he’s grabbing their leg the moment they kick him and his chair away from them.

And (maybe this has become more fun than training, and Lon doesn’t learn from bruises like they used to) they throw themselves at him to watch his confident smirk fade into surprise – hard to use Observation to tell the future when I’m not thinking, isn’t it? – the chair clatters to the floor, his back thuds against it, their knee buries itself in his sternum to knock all the wind out of him, and their forearm finds itself across his throat.

Just to be petty, Lon shoves his right leg off the chair’s seat hard; they know it wrenches at the hip joint, and his wince is victory up until he releases their shin to haul them off him and heave them straight into the cold tile. “I thought I’d been eating properly,” Lon hisses, going for his eyes.

Their hands are smacked out of the way, wrists slammed to painfully bite into the floor, and he jabs them in the stomach hard enough to make them gag. “I do this for a living, you brat.”

He’s so complimentary today.

Right as his palm shoots towards their jaw, Lon grins through a snarl and shifts halfway; they hit him in the head with one wing, fully shrink down as his hands snap towards the fragile bones, and zip overhead to drop straight into his back – but his own devil fruit breathes into being, azure halting them before they can do damage, and the two of them go tumbling across the floor.

Their shoulder hits the bed’s leg, they slam his head into the tile, he kicks them hard enough to make them stumble into the cabinets, and the two of them are thunder and lightning in a room that rattles with their violent playing.

And when they’re done, foul taste in their mouth from another burst pill (he got them this time by throwing an elbow into their back, the vibration of it leaving them dizzy, and then tripping them while they were caught off guard. Hitting the ground so hard it made them gasp, mouth open to suck in air, he played dirty by curling his fingers into their cheek to fish out the pill and snap their jaw shut on it), Lon kicks at his thigh with what little energy remains in them.

“That – that was cheating,” they argue, “No one else is going to do that.”

He wipes his hand off on his pants, knocks their boots off his lap, “I’m just preparing you for the inevitable.”

“No, you just didn’t want to lose.”

Scoffing, “I got tired of you fighting like a rabid animal.”

Lon scoffs. “Excuses. And wh-what inevitable?” They sit up, gently digging their elbow into his side, voice sharpening as they try to tighten the noose of their shared history around his neck. “You gonna turn on me and try to put me down a second time?”

A sensitive topic for him, too, based on how he tries to pass off the sudden chill in his stare; but however silly he makes himself look with that haughty sniff, Lon’s eyes are locked on the dark calculation hidden under his every shifting glance. “I do what I need to. You step on my desk enough to warrant it.”

For now, they decide to let him get away with it, unexpected unease winding through their stomach be damned. “It’s ugly enough to warrant being stepped on,” Lon mutters in retort. They never hated the truth until they met him. “What’s your favorite color?”

Trafalgar blinks (it’s the right question to ask, because all that deadly cunning is wiped away), and his head swivels to look at them. “Did I hit you too hard?”

Lon rolls their eyes, getting to their feet and wandering to over to his coat, “I can’t ask a question?” They rifle through the pockets, ignoring his snippy demands. Nothing. They give up quickly, looking over their shoulder at him. “Where do you keep the, the oranges?” I want a reward for dealing with your ass.

“It’s a stupid question,” he retorts, walking over to nudge them out of the way. “I don’t have any today.”

Damn. “It won’t kill you to answer. If it helps, mine’s forest green.”

Trafalgar’s eyebrows raise. “Green?”

“Yeah. It’s nice to look at it.”

“I didn’t peg you as someone who liked something so calm. I’m fond of grey.”

‘Peg you,’ he says. Hah.

Trafalgar, truly, tears them every which way; with two sentences, they have three different options for responses: offense, inappropriate, and belittlement, and they leap onto the opportunity for distraction as if starved.

Like any immature twenty-three-year-old, the corners of their mouth curl into a sly smirk. “I’m not into that, actually.” His expression flattens. He looks like he wants to hit them again – I should probably do something for the bruises – and Lon immediately takes advantage of his disappointed silence to insult him. “Grey, by the way? To each their own, but you ch-chose the one option that is arguably lifeless.”

Two out of three isn’t so bad. They can be offended another time.

“You’re not funny –“

“I think I am.”

“ – and black and white are also,” this is the first time they’ve seen him use air quotes, and the sight is simultaneously awful and hilarious, “’lifeless’.”

“Sounds like you’re deflecting. Maybe even overcompensating.”

His brow furrows, nose wrinkles, hands come out at his sides (they’re trying really hard not to snicker at him, and he is laughably easy to bother), “For what?”

Lon shrugs, turns away from him, “How am – how am I supposed to know? You just reek of repression.”

Trafalgar heaves a long-suffering sigh and mutters, “And you reek of instability.”

Before they wander too far away (as if the other side of the room is ‘far,’ now), he pushes something cold into their hand. When they look down, it’s an orange, dimpled skin a novel under their thumb. A smile weasels its way onto their lips.

Apparently, he found one after all.

Someone alert the press because they're feeling like they might just fall apart at the drop of a hat.

Whiplash, they know - but, to be fair, it’s a day where they’re forced to preen: the unbearable ache that lies with their feathers and has been plaguing them on and off has graduated into a wildfire that whispers to their itching fingers dreams of flaying.

They suspect Trafalgar can tell – the imminent breakdown, they mean - because he's been near religiously sticking to knocking to warn them of every movement he makes, and he doesn't complain when they get feathers on his papers. Rather, he makes quiet conversation despite their silence and keeps flipping through his notes.

"What route would be best to use if I wanted to get into the underground port?"

Pausing on the feather they weren't supposed to rip out and most definitely were going to anyways, Lon hops over to bow their head towards the sketched route half-covered by his palm. Tilting his hand up to read the words under it, his brows furrow.

“But this takes me through the countryside. Isn’t incoming traffic from there into the kingdom more heavily monitored? I’d assume they would find it odd if a newcomer were to come through.”

Lon blinks at him. They were perfectly happy having No Thoughts At All as they rabidly chased after relief for their symptoms rather than solving the actual problem (since that would require help and all, again), and here he is, sitting there like the smarmy f*ck he is, and rudely asking them to speak to him. Unfortunately, that would require thought.

The asshole knows it too, based on how he preemptively moves his work off to the side of the desk and stares back. "Wouldn't they report something like that to Doflamingo?" He's terribleandpersistent.

Lon gives up.

Shifting with a beleaguered sigh, they lean on one hand to pull over his notes. He's copied their map of Dressrosa's layout, smart, and they slowly trace through it as their consonants roll in their throat in the poor imitation of the body they want to be in. "Newcomers arre only suspicious if they come in alone. There are nov-novelty shops children like to drag their parents to on the outskirts of the city and a wide area for picnics that the toys use to reconnect with family. If you meander – so go slow - through here, you can take your time with preparations in an environment that isn't a ticking time bomb, and guards don't expect trouble from the countryside ssince it's been quiet for so long.”

He nods, head tilted to study the path they're drawing through his work. "Where do I go from there, then?" The side of his hand is warm against their leg.

They hate it. Like the pain they can’t shake that slowly digs needle-like teeth in to gnaw at their joints before a calm they’ll never reach.

Their throat clicks on their swallow, and the feathers choking them dissipate.

"Follow the toys. They don't realize they grav-gravitate towards the port. I think it's a mix of Sugar's devil fruit having an attractive influence and it being their workplace. When they look more aware and start to drift away, keep going forward. You'll be at the port after a few more minutes. That's the fastest route and the most pleasant one.”

"Do they not check incoming workers?"

"They, they do. Get a wig and some makeup to cover up your tattoos. Shave. They have to replace people frequently enough for the guards to let things slide every now and then."

"Is that guaranteed?"

"Nothing is guaranteed." Lon automatically replies before pausing, turning the words over in their mouth carefully. "There shouldn't be any activity from the dwarves in the port. The guards will get lah-h-ax, and when something isn't as according to protocol, they'll get flustered. They won't want to cause an uproar by being suspicious. It would get on Doflamingo's nerves if they were wrong, so they'll keep quiet."

Trafalgar smirks faintly, glancing back to his notes. "His iron fist strangling the people, huh?"

That’s one way of putting it. Subdued, they reply, "Yeah.”

Lon's getting ready to shift back into the body they both prefer when he knocks thrice on the desktop. They stare, wary and expectant, but he doesn't move. "Let me look at your wings.”

"I don't think that's a good idea," Lon slowly returns.

"And why is that?"

Belatedly trying to smooth their risen hackles, Lon mutters back. "I don’t want to accept your help just for it to come with strings.”

His hands spread as he leans back, leg neatly crossed at the knee. “It won’t come with strings.”

“Like hell it won’t,” Lon snaps, twisting their fingers together.

It’s remarkable how even Trafalgar’s able to keep his tone. It’s just enough to keep them calm and seated on the desk. “I don’t make promises for nothing.”

Lon hums noncommittally, bullsh*t. You’re a liar and you f*cking know it. Attention going to the incessant burning itch under their skin, they take sharp, steady breaths that keep him at bay. It’s gotten better since the first time they took care of the feathers – all the vanes were laid flat and neat and wonderfully pristine for a few days – but even with their combined efforts, a single drop of water doesn’t do much to assuage the drought of their body.

Because unhealthy feathers collect dust. Dirt sticks between the strangled vanes, keratin cracks in sharp tectonic shifts right down the quill, and, sometimes, the feather itself dies. Shafts will splinter in their skin – just broken teeth buried in their graves neatly lined by scar tissue – and what’s broken stays broken.

And Lon hasn’t changed that.

They’re going to have to live with these ugly, battered things that trap themselves in the mantle of their half-shift - these brittle, fractured pieces of them that get lost under the bodies they create and clutter their skin with - until next year, where the future might be waiting with fingers crossed for a better roll of the die, where their next molt might be more merciful and grant them a more able body. One that doesn’t require so much help – doesn’t need nearly as much.

But this is now, and they are here, and their body has always been fickle from the day it’d shot up like a beanstalk to give them limbs too long for them and joints that permanently protested in the ringing echo of the gunshot of a biological Russian roulette.

They cannot rely on luck. Cannot hope for the rifle in an indifferent hand to shoot blanks; they can only staunch the bleeding now and hoard filthy gauze as they brace for impact.

He’s been awfully patient. Quiet. Maybe it’s part of his sadism, to leave them to ferment in their thoughts like this.

Dragging their hands down their face, fingers pressed into their eyelids hard enough to convince them the stars behind their eyes are their prints, their identity, Lon sighs, “okay.” Misery tugs the corners of their mouth down as they meet his stare, and they ignore the flash of surprise they see there when their shoulders round in defeat. “Help me, please.”

He’d make for a good doctor, they think, as he slowly leans forward and keeps his voice soft like they’re some rabbit he’s afraid of spooking. It’s a shame this is where he’s ended up.

Lon pulls their shirt off, runs a hand over their arm to switch skin for feather, and carefully rolls a spine between their fingers.

It’s a shame I ended up here, too.

It takes time for the explanation to come out, his eyes flickering between their distant expression and the rote motion of their fingers in their wing as they give him piffling detail on how to help them.

"You, uh, comb through.” Brows furrowing, they find the words want to stick to the roof of their mouth. “Move your thumb and pointer in a circular motion. It gets - gets rid of built-up keratin. If a feather feels loose or broken, just slide your fingers up close to where it comes out of the skin and gently pull it. It doesn't come out easy, leave it in."

Lon looks up at him. They hesitate before slowly offering their wing from where they’re bunched up on his desk. "'s simple."

Trafalgar nods, his hand landing on their feathers. Distaste scrunches an eye. They still abhor the feeling, the weight - a low warning in their mind, a half-threat of punishment - but his face is calm, passive interest in his movements. It takes a lot of effort not to fling his hand off.

A few minutes pass in silence – bated breaths on their end, easy inhale, exhale on his – and Lon raptly watches him work, ready to pull away at any moment.

But he’s good at working with his hands, all that doctor’s precision and attention to detail serving him well, and they draw part of their wing back to work on it themselves. Primaries run into pockmarked wood and metal in the cramped space of the desktop when they angle their front away from him, and their hand drifts behind them to run their thumb along their spine as they bite the bullet. They are going to be normal about this. “Coul’you – could you get the ones here?” They are remarkably normal about it.

Another feather joins the small pile of discards at their knee. “Same procedure?”

Lon nods, turning their head away from him as they work through the wing awkwardly positioned in their face. They’re rougher than he is, but they think they’ve earned the right – they’ve had to deal with the ungainly things since they were young, and they’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass lately - and, admittedly, the pain is good distraction.

He gets through one line on their mantle before they interrupt him again, sighing as they give in to the niggling thought. “You’re not Doflamingo.”

Eyeing the hands that come away from their back to slowly wrap a white-knuckle grip on the edge of the desk, his answer comes flat and certain. “I am not.” He’s angry, but they’re not done, twisting to search the muddling emotion in his stare.

“You won’t use this ah-against me.” Lon cautiously asserts, trying to justify the trust they’re putting in him. “You don’t play games like that.”

And, Trafalgar - Trafalgar has understanding dawning on his face of how hard this is for them. Why it’s awful to overwrite the memories he doesn’t know are there of Niklas and Madoka working through Lon’s feathers with them at the end of stressful days, his cold touch replacing their ghostly fingers in a silent murder only they bear witness to. How they’re almost asking for it, letting someone they don’t fully trust to help, when a yanked feather feels like getting a piece of their scalp torn off - because Lon can get used to bruises and marks and misplaced cuts, but there’s no getting used to plucking and having keratin ripped free to take chunks of skin with it.

“No, I don’t.” His hands go back to their spine, the tattoo on his forearm looming large in their peripherals as they ease out of their tense slouch. “I much prefer to take my victims to pieces.” A pointer slides under a longer vane, teasing the end of it away from their back as his voice dips low and dangerous. “A scalpel works just as well as any mind game.” In his tone, they can nearly taste the way a smirk curls his lips. Feel how his bared teeth would puncture their skin.

Exasperation floods them. He’s being a creep. His sh*t doesn’t spook them anymore. They’ve seen what he looks like after two days without sleep.

Give it up to Trafalgar for being able to give them enough secondhand embarrassment that it becomes physically impossible to have a mental breakdown. “Uh huh,” Lon drily replies, sorting through a patch they hadn’t realized had the time to get this messy.

A quiet snort behind them. “You fine now?”

“Yeah,” they roll the shoulder he’s not working on, feeling all the feathers slide against each other with the movement and note it still catches on a spot deep under the scruff of it all. “Thanks.”

Twisting to reach back – he pulls away to give them room to move – they dig their fingers into the thick mantle and awkwardly sort through the vanes. “Can you get this one?” Their pointer taps against a gnarled spine (the vibrations sink into their skin to map out an object that is entirely wrong, their shoulder twitching to flee).

Sliding his fingers under it to grab at the base, “This one?”

At their nod, there’s a gentle tug at it – it doesn’t come out immediately, and there’s the sick drag of something broken glued back together wrong in their skin, “yank it,” they’re tired of it and want it gone.

He hesitates. “Are you sure?”

Lon reaches back, “yes,” and their grip wraps around his wrist and yanks for him.

It stings like a motherf*cker, pain drawing a quiet hiss from them as they aggressively pet the area down to lay all the feathers flat and smooth again and snatch the culprit out of his fingers to crush it in their palm. Serves you right.

“Christ,” Trafalgar swears behind them, nosy touch finding its way to the agitated blotch where they’ve drawn blood. Lon swears, too, but it’s more in complaint that he’s touching them. “Can you not do that?”

“I was just doing what, what was needed,” they defend.

“That wasn’t needed at all,” he argues back. “I was going to pull it out properly.”

“It was going to bleed either way,” Lon dismisses, leaning back into his careful hands, his steadfast where theirs are hesitant, their fingers turned nervous of the inevitable punishment they administer. So, they’ll pretend nothing’s gone awry by their own impatience and let him handle it. Totally normal – no, average - of them.

Trafalgar grumbles, terribly methodical in how he combs through every vane, and, like most things between them do these days, it ends in silence, their chin dropping towards their chest.

He does a good job. They estimate they’ll be good for another few shifts; it’s certainly an issue resolved – but where one fades into the background, another rises into the foreground, and the name of this unpleasant pestilence is boredom, chittering its nasty teeth until they’re driven up the walls with madness.

Chasing him down in the institute has gotten to be too easy – he’s started purposefully obfuscating his presence, though, so it’ll be difficult enough soon. They’re fine on that front for entertainment, but it’s only one activity. They need more options than that. Doesn’t he know crows need enrichment in their enclosures? Rookie mistake.

And Lon can only theorize out their ass for so long without access to new information or data, and they’ve already combed through their final paper enough times over to call it as perfect as it’ll get. They’ve stretched and strength-trained and physical-therapied and weaseled their way into different locations across the facility to the point that they almost feel more on top of the scientists’ research than the scientists themselves.

For f*ck’s sake, they’ve started dreaming about wandering through the institute.

Trafalgar’s still out for most of the days, they can’t call back home until they’re off the damn island, and, like home, they only think about Dressrosa if prompted.

All this to say Lon’s run out of options, and they and boredom mix about as well as alkali metal and water, and explosions are only fun if they’re being incited with purpose. Otherwise, it’s just a professional PR nightmare that makes it harder to get grants for research.

They press their fingers into their eyes, back somehow relocated to press into the floor with their legs propped up against the wall, and contemplate a possible solution.

An obvious one is getting Trafalgar to spring whatever harebrained plan he has already. Been there, done that, walked away with their tail beaten firmly between their legs.

Another is, frankly, much more attractive: they could bully him into letting them go outside.

Lon thinks they’ll go with that. He’s still snippy when they bring up getting a move on, so it’d be prudent of them to try a new route. Even if he gets pissy with them for this, the amount of energy thrumming in their bones tells them they’ll break something if they have to keep sitting, so the outcome will be the same, anyways. Might as well ask.

So, getting to their feet and wandering over, "Trafalgar," Lon leans against the cabinet, fully prepared to pull out every argument in the book, no matter how much of it ends up becoming bullsh*t, "I think it would be good," they steeple their fingers, "if I went outside."

His mouth begins to form the word 'no,' Lon readies themselves to protest, and then he pauses. "Why?”

Lon blinks in surprise before they're recovering just as quick, rushing to tally off each reason on their fingers to have something to do with their hands. "I would be able to test the new limitaay-tations of my wings in an environment that is much better at simulating the stresssors I can expect to face when you put your plan into action,"yeesh, that was a long one, they take a breath, "If I'm going to be useful to you during a fight, it would be good if I got used to you using your devil fruit to teleport me elsewhere while I'm midflight or maneuver,and," Lon laces their fingers together, glancing back up at him. "I haven't been outside in a very long time. Fresh air is important. And I’m bored. Very bored."

After considering them, thin eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline, Trafalgar sighs. "I suppose that isn't a bad idea."

A slow grin spreads across their lips as he gets to his feet. This is the most excited they've been in several months, and they have to stick their hands in their pockets to keep them from fluttering.

"But," he says as he pulls his coat on, “I tell you to do something, you do it.”

Well, that’s a little, uh. Hesitation curls in their stomach. A little restrictive. A different type of boring, if you will.

Their awkward shifting from foot to foot tugs the line of his mouth into a stern frown, and Lon jumps at the hand firm on their jaw to bring their gaze level with his narrowed eyes. “I’m not f*cking around, Lon. If you can’t follow my orders, we’re not leaving this room.”

It’s harder to look him in the eyes when he’s that close; there’s no anger burning in their throat to give them the courage to stare him down, and Lon grimaces in discomfort as they pin their gaze somewhere over his shoulder. “I’ll listen.”

“Are you sure? I’m not letting you f*ck up what I’ve worked for.”

He’s too close, and Lon gets why people like Doflamingo invade personal space to make a point.

Pushing at his chest and tilting their head back to escape his grip, “I promise. Just - just don’t make me do something that’ll end with me dead.”

His tone stays flat, watches them back away. “Don’t get caught.” A beat, and then his hand is palm up between them. Just like that, he’s wiped all the harsh solemnity from his face, and they can hear the effort he puts into making his voice gentle like it’s an unspoken apology. “You ready? We can’t stay out long since you don’t have a coat.”

Wary, they glance between his hand and face – no change there – and Lon taps at his fingers before drawing away. “I, I can layer. That’ll let me stay out longer, right?”

They cleverly do not mention that only the shirt they modified (i.e., sloppily cut away the sleeves so their wings could fit through them) will stay on once they get to flying.

As they’re rummaging through their bag and hastily shoving long-sleeve after long-sleeve on, he compromises. “It’ll buy you a few more minutes.” The undercurrent of amusem*nt in his words coaxes the excitement to unfurl in their chest once more and to lay to rest their worries, and there’s fresh energy putting extra spring into their step.

Hopping over as they tug their boots up a little higher and a little breathless, “Great.” They nearly give themselves vertigo with how quickly they whip their head up to meet his eyes, eager grin playing on their lips, “I’m holding you to that.”

His hand had dropped to his side while they were busy with their side quest of ‘acquire warm clothes,’ and Lon nudges it back up again. “I’m not promising anything,” Trafalgar reminds, like they care.

They take the time to graciously respond, “mhm,” hand pressing into his lifted palm as they jump straight into a shift and make quick work of beating at his curled fingers with their wings to create room.

“I don’t know why you bother,” he huffs, exaggeratedly flexing his hand open for them to settle in. “I can’t keep you out in the open like this anyways.”

It’s a matter of principle, actually. To not invite myself to act like your pet when other people do it for me – but the thought is a whisper, and it gets swept up with the jittery elation bubbling in their bones and drowns under their fluffing feathers as Trafalgar steps out the room.

Unfortunately, they only get a glimpse of the experience of walking in the hallways for a single breath before he drops them into his pocket and the sight disappears from view.

His hush at their disgruntled croak would’ve been more convincing if he hadn’t stumbled on the snort trying to precede it - but they suppose they could be merciful enough to overlook it, seeing as it’s mere seconds before there’s wind howling overhead and the frigid touch of the bitter air brushing against their feathers.

“One moment,” Trafalgar murmurs, calling for patience that’s already left, “Room.” Lon fights their way up in his pocket, head stuck out with feathers made wayward by their struggle and the blast of wind they take straight to the face. His room keeps to itself, stretching out low and invisible in the gentle storm of flurries. “Shambles.”

Exhilaration crowds their throat the farther the institute gets with his every command; it’s disappeared entirely on the horizon when Trafalgar tries to speak again. “Alright, you can –“

Lon bolts out of his pocket, soft, twin cracking thumps in the snow as they shift and their boots go straight through the layer of thin ice that had crusted over the inches below. A wild grin is ripped into their cheeks as they yank their layers off overhead – Trafalgar sighs a complaint, but he’s a problem for future them.

Right now, Lon wants to feel the moonlight on their skin, and she is so beautiful and full above them.

It's a wicked cold, where snowflakes go to die and chill on their bare arms, and the hem of the hacked-at shirt’s thick fabric is bunched up against their stomach in their eager hands.

“Dressed like that, you have maybe five minutes,” Trafalgar warns, stern arms crossed over his chest.

Glancing to him, eyes crinkled in glee, “I’ll take breaks. I can warm up in the – in the other shift. And,” they bound over, struck by a memory they’d long since forgotten, to grab at the neckline of their shirt and point at their neck, “I can make these, and it’s like a coat!” Downy feathers are thick along the column of their throat and soft across their stomach, and they don’t feel the bite of the groaning weather nearly as much.

He’s got the spark in his eye that tells them he’s found something particularly interesting (and considering dissecting something in the next few minutes. He has worse self-control than they do) as he peers at the feathering, and Lon bounces away from him as soon as he acquiesces. “Fifteen minutes with you moving around. If you take breaks to warm up, then it’ll be up to forty-five. Then we have to head back because I’ll be cold.”

Their grin gets brighter, they take tiny hops a few meters away from him to kick up the snow, and they stifle their excited shriek to shake their reddening fingertips into wings to launch themselves into the sky.

It’s stunning up here; the winds are vicious, aching to rip them this way and that, and it’s adrenaline straight through their stomach and all the way to their primaries and out their mouth in a delighted whoop. Flurries blend into a wall of chill that smacks into their wings, sending them into an ass-over-tea-kettle tumble through the air, and their giggles are sharp in the wind’s glacial whispering.

Above it all, the moon watches kindly, dancing with the clouds broken into awkward chunks around her. It reminds them of young children cackling together, sticky fingers and hands pulling candy floss off the stick in clumps too big for their mouths.

Sucking in air means ice scratching at their lungs, and it’s been too long since they’ve stretched their wings like this, all hubris and invincible youth coasting on a dopamine high. Their muscles ache, their shoulders are tight, but Lon’s diving down to harass the snowdrifts, a violent pull away from the ground to create shimmering snowfalls of their own making.

As they’re rolling and rising in the air, from far below on the ground, Trafalgar tilts his head back and smiles.

Their first fifteen minutes pass quickly; Lon’s beckoned back to the ground when Trafalgar lazily waves them down. He doesn’t look cold, they determine, as they touch down in a decidedly messy manner, leaving great runnels of disturbed snow behind them.

Breath curling in front of their mouth in sharp pants, they shake off the snowflakes gathering on pitch feathers and look to him. “Yeah?”

His boots crunch as he walks over, nodachi swung off his hip to be confidently planted in the snow. Lon swears it hisses, and they’re pointing at it with an arm bruised deathly by the cold. “Is she okay?”

‘She’ slips out their mouth without thinking, but the world seems to whistle in encouragement, and they’re struck with an image of ancient boughs, stretching up to hold the sky with shades of emerald so dark they’ve turned black.

There’s a lot they don’t understand about the way of things; it all seems to flow endlessly from one thing into another, like some great river they’ve only just stumbled onto the banks of, shocked into a standstill with a telescope momentarily forgotten in their hands.

Trafalgar glances over his shoulder at her and smiles, a man blessed with self-assurance and power, “Kikoku’s fine. She’ll forget about it when I give her mineral oil later.” Their chin dips in a nod, and, now that they’re still, they’re fluffing their feathers out with the chill running through them. “You think you can handle a five-minute break?”

Another nod, more emphatic this time. “Yeah!”

At his offered hand (they note it’s gloved, which means he can stay out longer before complaining that he’ll get frostbite in his fingers), Lon’s form snaps into a crow that fluffs out all its feathers; they look more like a ball of shifting black marked with snow, complete with sharp, shining eyes that he raises up to peer at.

“Your mobility looked good. Make sure you’re not doing overly expensive maneuvers. Go easy on your muscles and joints.” Lon gets tucked into the neck of his coat, and, in attempts to be polite, they do their best not to get melted snow on his skin. His hands disappear into his pockets, and they stare up at the moon with him. “It seems the strength training and stretching worked well.”

He snorts, one corner of his mouth turning up. “You’ll be bitching tomorrow when we run through them again, though.”

Lon rolls their eyes, pointedly turns in his coat to tuck their head under their wing and keep their back to his voice. That’s what I think. I can handle being sore and doing work on top of it. His shoulder rises, head tilts, and his cheek is pressed against their back to nudge them. “You have nothing of value that I want for us to bet on,” he airily says, “So just know I’m right.”

He snorts at the harrumph that shakes them against his skin. Hubris plagues him. “I’m going to start using my devil fruit when you’re done. Don’t think I didn’t catch on to the fact that your reasonings for going outside were bullsh*t, but practicing working together was a good idea.”

Lon weasels out of his coat, clambering onto his shoulder to hop off it and land in the snow with soft thumps as their boots make deep imprints, and they turn to wag a finger at him, “If you don’t throw me around, I’m going to be disappointed.”

His eyebrows raise. “It’s, it’s for the adrenaline rush.” They snap. Wait, no, that sounds bad. “And so I get used to trusting you to not send me splatting against the ground.” Great save.

Trafalgar dips his head, thumb slid under the edge of his glove against his wrist to peel the pair off and tuck them into his pockets. “I hope your spatial awareness is good,” and Lon’s answering grin is viciously eager as they take a running start into the sky.

His devil fruit is sharp on their skin, crisp in their throat, and they’ve barely reached a comfortable soaring height when their stomach yanks, and their up is down, and they have to violently send themselves careening in the opposite direction. The gut-instinct beat of their wings buffets the snowdrift under them, and Lon eyes the mischievous (less malice than they’d usually expect there) smile curling over his canine.

Lon snorts, rolls away from him, and goes shooting straight up.

What better way to build goodwill between them than playing a game?

Winner makes the other nervous first.

If they listen closely enough, they can hear him muttering his words of power under his breath as they’re being zipped this way and that, tiny puffs of displaced air and snow following their broken trajectory. Lon twists and turns and battles their momentum on instinct, breathless laughter spilling from their lips as they focus – really focus – on not being tossed straight into the snow.

The adrenaline has them dancing on the jolts of self-preserving fear spiking through their stomach to sternum, and as soon as Trafalgar’s pausing to stretch, hands drifting to his mouth for his breath to warm them, Lon’s cackling and diving straight towards the ground.

He notices what they’re doing when they’re halfway there, scoffs and his shoulders tilt in a way that tell them he’s rolling his eyes; realizes they’re not pulling out of the dive when they’re three-quarters of the way to impact and swears; and Lon is a breath from hitting the packed ice (they’d avoided the shine of it ‘til now) when whiplash hits them, hard and vicious, a safe hundred meters above the ground.

Damn. He threw me high.

Lon cackles at him, lazily tumbling in the air and dropping height in stops and starts.

As soon as they’re within earshot, Trafalgar lets loose a foul stream of vicious swears at them. Someone’s a sore loser. Their grin growing seems to incense him more, and they’re shambled straight into a snowdrift.

Wet chill wiggles between their feathers.

Squawking, they topple out of their powdery hell, and no amount of dancing around rids them of the sensation of icy water running along their skin – Trafalgar, on the other hand, is having the time of his life laughing at their suffering – and Lon shakes themselves like a dog, feathers disappearing to dry themselves with the shirt that is, unfortunately, now mostly wet.

A disappointed groan as they stare at the fabric. There are no merciful gods here. Trafalgar, still snigg*ring, waves them over as he chides, “If you can’t handle the punishment, then don’t do it. Come here. Fifteen minutes are up.”

Lon despairs as they begin shivering, quickly stepping over to shift back into his open palm. His fingers are cold on their feathers, too, and as soon as they’re back in the neck of his coat, he hides his hands in gloves and pockets. “I suppose for the last fifteen, we’ll stop f*cking around. I’ll switch to directing your movement. You do well with reorienting yourself.” His voice drops into a mutter. “There’s some lag, but if I imagine if I signal to you how I’m changing your coordinate plane, adjustment will be seamless. I can set up a system of hand signals for us to use when we’re done.”

Whatever the silly doctor wants, he gets, Lon absentmindedly thinks. He sounds like he knows what he’s doing. They’re getting a little tired, which simply won’t do. They want to play around longer.

At the thought, their mind latches onto the idea. Now wait just a minute. Surreptitiously, they edge out to rest their throat on the lip of his coat’s collar and eyes the moon. f*ck being productive. I can just play. Glancing to his expression – the poor, pathetic bastard remains blissfully unaware – Lon imagines they’re sapping all his warmth before they’re taking off.

The mumbling they’ve been ignoring cuts off, amusem*nt in his voice made dry by annoyed exasperation, “Done with your break already?”

And Lon shifts, bolts into the sky, and there is a difference between him swapping their position haphazardly versus directing their movement; suddenly, he’s a conductor, and they are music.

But just as all works of art have a mind of their own, so does Lon, and they wrench themselves this way and that to break the flow of his work until he’s forced to play rougher, too.

A hard yank around their midsection as they go zipping in a direction he doesn’t want (right now, the name of the game is tag, albeit with more fall and catch involved), and Lon’s laughter comes pealing out of their throat as their momentum is abruptly cut short – it reminds them of old rollercoasters and rickety carnival rides where the bruises and danger were part of the fun – and Trafalgar somehow hasn’t lost his patience with them.

They suppose it’s good practice for him, really, having to promptly correct their course as they dive back towards the ground, and they’re giggling as they’re displaced higher up all over again (this close, they feel like they can touch the stars, and their feathers break away so they can stretch a hand up and hold the moon’s lovely face) and fall right back down, wind whistling a song only their bones remember in their ears.

His devil fruit feels like it sighs around them - and Lon is alive, and the clouds are wonderful breaking on their face and catching in the down lining their eyes, and the silence is soothing symphony rather than cantankerous cacophony all the way up here.

Out of the corner of their eye, they can see him make a lazy roll of his wrist, pointer aimed northeast in an indication of where he wants them to start moving. Lon pretends they don’t see him (he most definitely knows that they saw him) and revels in the rough stop and start all over again, all their inertia halted in the best way, shoulders snapping forward and cackling as their knees get swung up into their chest.

Up here, they feel free.

Trafalgar, apparently having given up (they’re pretty sure their fifteen minutes are winding to an end), makes a quick counterclockwise flick of his wrist, the tips of his fingers tracing a circle in the air.

To their delight, it sends them spinning counterclockwise, too, and the tighter they ball themselves up, the faster they go. I love conservation of angular momentum, and feathers along their spine are ruffled every which way by the wind rushing down their shirt. When they can’t make themselves go any faster, he does it for them, and the world becomes a navy-blue blur, the moon a long smear of grace over the crown of their head.

He slows them to a stop when Lon lets their legs fly out, their palm sealed against their mouth.

It’s a sloppy coast down to the snow, but they’re still giggling through the nausea. “I thought you came out here to practice, not to play,” he scolds without any heat, patting their back when they start coughing.

“I,” they gasp in air, “always have ulterior motives.”

A chuckle to their left, and he tugs them out of their bent over slouch. Their stomach is soothed, the world doesn’t leave them as dizzy, and he’s saying something awful: “Your forty-five minutes are up.”

Lon kicks snow at him, “Wait, n-no, that last fifteen didn’t count;” Trafalgar is just as petty as they are, and he’s quick to bend down and pack snow into a ball sent splattering across their stomach.

Laughing, they jump away from him and chuck all the snow their frozen fingers can dig into at him as they argue, “I didn’t learn anything about how to work with you, so I have to do it again!”

His eyebrows are raising right as their next projectile hits him square in the face.

They freeze, slow grin spreading across their lips to warm their cheeks, and as soon as he’s wiping it off – it smears melted snow into his eyelashes – with a displeased expression, the bubbling cachinnating they’re trying to smother under their hand rings out clear between their fingers.

“Sorry,” they gasp, “tha-that was an accident, I swear.” Another glance to the melted splotch on the bridge of his nose, and they’re fighting off a new fit of giggles. “I promise I didn’t do it on purpose.”

His eyes are narrowed as their smile turns impish and words sly. “I just happen to be better than you, I guess,” and that spurs him into action; they’re knocked over into the snow, squawking at the handful he shoves down their shirt.

It’s getting bitterly cold despite all the warm down lining their front, but even as he bats their offending hands out of the way when they try to sling more snow at him in retaliation, it still sends a flurry of the stuff spraying into both their faces, so they figure it’s close enough to a win.

Their brief scuffle ends with all of Lon soaked, a clump of snow in his mouth, and just enough of it down his coat to make him pull a face. He sits back, content to use them as a cushion between him and the snow (bastard. I’ll cause indescribable suffering in the coming days for this), and wipes his face as he catches his breath. He spits out the rest of the snow they’d put into his mouth, and Lon tries to warm their hands by sticking them under their arms.

Eyes slipping shut, they appreciate the sharp edges of the snow half-melted into ice biting into their back, the prickling of it as it melts down entirely and seeps into their clothes. They can feel goosebumps raised along their skin, and the feeling is so clear cut and straightforward that it’s relief.

They’re just cold and nothing more. It’s simple in what it means in a way life hasn’t been for a long time.

Trafalgar’s frigid fingers land on their pulse.

Lon jolts to sit upright, sending him toppling over, and they snigg*r at his misfortune, hand clapped over the chill he’d left on their neck. “I wasn’t dead yet, but you my-might be. Your hands feel like a corpse’s,” they insult.

He gets to his feet, nonchalantly brushing his coat off as if no one had seen his fall from grace and ignores their snide remark. “You had me fooled. Are you ready to go inside now?”

Lon follows up after him, thicker coating of feathers not as effective as it used to be. “No. I want to try letting you direct me again.” At his doubtful stare, “I won’t f*ck around as much,” they promise.

He sighs. “Alright. Get back up there. But,” he pins them in place with a meaningful glare they brush off, “We’re going inside after. It’s freezing, and now I have to deal with it since you put snow inside my coat.”

Scoffing, Lon gives themselves one last good shake and takes to the sky.

This time round, they pay attention to his movements.

There’s satisfaction curling the line of his mouth as things settle and smooth over, and they get it: there’s something deeply right about executing commands perfectly (it’s taking an equation so heavy the tails of it are trailing over the edges of their palms to break apart under its own weight, and then plugging all their knowns into it for it to work out so nicely in a simplified answer that fits on their fingerprint), and they let him conduct, he lets them soar, and it’s good.

They’re a little surprised when they push against his devil fruit – it’s a hard command to dip lower, but the wind fronts have changed, and it would make for a messy flight - and feel his control in his room splinter against their solid will.

Lon climbs up higher to avoid the currents roughhousing with each other in a line of turbulence, and once they’ve got comfortable distance, they drop into a drive straight through it. With the target of their wings made small pulled against their spine, there’s nothing for the wind to bully and carry off course.

They pull out of the dive neatly, now at the altitude he had wanted them.

Far below them, they can see the white of his smile cut his cheeks in approval.

By the time their final fifteen minutes are up (it felt more like thirty, so they suppose it is high time they get inside, shivering even after they pull the layers they’d abandoned earlier back on), they’d ignored his devil fruit a handful more times, and he’d tugged them into a few aerial tricks to entertain the both of them.

It was relieving knowing that his fruit wasn’t all-powerful like they had thought - and they think the exercise did something in the way of trust: he doesn’t make sh*tty decisions for someone who’s never flown before, and he clearly appreciates their modifications rather than thinking it disobedience.

Gratefully accepting their spot in his coat’s collar, Lon stifles the urge to fling a wing into Trafalgar’s open mouth as he yawns. “Nice work. All the joints and ligaments in your wings feel okay?”

They rack their brain for the vocal system they’d come up with so long ago. I don’t think I ever established something for ‘yes’. Damn. What an oversight. Lon settles for an affirmative sounding chirp.

He understands them all the same and hums, “Good.”

Over his shoulder, ornate strap at their wing, Kikoku murmurs in languages they can’t yet speak.

Back in their shared room, Lon disappears into the restroom to chase away the chill with scalding water (Trafalgar yells at them to not make it too hot, otherwise it’ll “send a shock to their heart, and I don’t want to deal with that,” when they loudly swear), and he’s already half-buried under the blankets piled atop the bed by the time they step back out.

His boots are haphazardly slouched against the bed’s leg, his arm slung over the mattress’ edge where long lines of bold tattoos make ornate shadows on his skin. Strands of hair wet from the snow stick to his forehead and cheeks, and Lon snorts at him as they turn off the lamp relocated atop the cabinet.

He’s got the right idea, though. I’m f*cking exhausted. Stifling a yawn into their fist, Lon slouches in the seat at the desk and rests their head on their arms on the desktop.

They dream of the hole in their chest.

In it sits a family of songbirds, perched upon their bare clavicles in the mornings and weaving a nest under their sternum in the evenings, sheltered by the boughs of their ribs and supported by the column of their spine.

When Lon looks down, they spot clover and dandelions and plums blossomed along the trellis of their bones.

And when they open their mouth, the songbirds speak for them, their beautiful melody bubbling across the stones of their molars and over their bottom lip to grow wonderfully green things at their feet.

Awareness filters in like soft sunlight as they groggily wake; they flex their fingers into something soft their brain whispers is wonderfully springy moss, green of it bright where they cannot see and the taste of spring light on their tongue, and Lon lifts their head to ask, “What’s your favorite part about your research?”

Trafalgar’s voice comes gravelly with sleep. “What?”

They think about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and wonder where they must all go when they fly away before anyone can ever really get around to checking. “What’s your favorite part about your research?” The question comes out in a yawn.

Grumbling, he turns on his side to put his back to them. “The part where you let me sleep because I have a scalpel in my pocket.”

Rubbing at their tired eyes with the heel of their palm, what an odd habit. “Do you?”

“Lon,” he complains, “Shut up.”

Protests muttered into the desktop, fingers buried into the crook of their arm (maybe moss reaches up onto their fingerprints, creeps along the back of their hand, sprawls over their forearm, and they are finally something new and growing again), they put a pin with angels dancing atop the head in it.

So long as they remember their question, they’ll get an answer. Maybe in whatever the morning will be.

Well, they would ask him if he were there when they woke up.

Whatever. Leaning back to stretch out the stiffness in their limbs, I’ll ask when he gets back. They lazily get to their feet, pulling out an old journal of Dressrosian maps and Donquixote family members– not the best way to pass the time, but one nonetheless. It’s a shame I haven’t really seen his work yet. I bet it’s interesting.

Sat comfortably in the corner, Lon begins thumbing through cluttered pages made near incomprehensible with back-and-forth arguments between them and their missing roommate.

There’s a lot of blood.

It paints him in a second coat, sluggish dripping ringing out in the silence, and his handprints are foul smears across the walls as he stumbles upright.

This isn’t like last time, Lon thinks, considering the struggling half-mast of his eyelids and his parted mouth. He sounds as bad as they did when they got to Punk Hazard, every breath rasping out like gunshots rattling down subway trains and empty sewers. He’s dying.

A rogue smile is foreign on their lips. This is their chance. This is an opportunity.

(quiet, somewhere lost under the rushing pounding in their ears and the breath sucked into their chest, I didn’t think I was like this)

Trafalgar’s head snaps towards them, his nodachi – Kikoku, they remember – rings as he pulls her out of the scabbard, low growl in his throat in warning. Observation can’t save you now. Tobias’ dagger is curled into their palm, a part of them they were never able to carve out, and he can’t move as quick as they do; Lon darts in towards his side, he swings – all his limbs are weak from blood loss and Lon can see them trembling – and ends up staggering two steps to the left.

His blood is in the air, all his stamina pools around his feet, and the Lon his blade’s chasing after is in the past.

They go slamming into his chest to land atop him when he goes toppling over (his shout is strangled and a part of them winces), and their dagger is pressing into his throat with sharpened, splintering talons pricking into the sensitive skin under his eye.

Vicious and snarling, Lon demands, “Give it back, Trafalgar.” They jam the blade into his skin when his hand twitches.

Carmine swells up over the holy gleam of their weapon to trickle down. It runs like a burbling stream – almost pleasant - down tawny skin.

Objection flashes in his eyes, livid leer stretching his stained lips, and Lon buries their knee into the wound stretching across his stomach. “You don’t have room to say no,” they hiss over his muffled groaning, watching his eyes flutter. They bet it’s agonizing, a wound like that, buried atop all the others they can’t see but can smell, thick iron choking the air.

“So give it back.” Their lip is curled, hair falling down to frame his bloodied face, and his eyes are getting distant; the color in them is made vivid only by his outrage, but in creeps the gradual acceptance of dying livestock, slow and steady and inevitable. His blinks take longer, his stare touches on glazed – but Lon gets it to snap back into reality, iron hardening on their face, when they prick talons into his skin to drag the bottom lid of his eyelid away.

“Give it back or I’ll start taking pieces of you, too,” Lon whispers, sliding the pads of their fingers closer to his eye.

For some reason, they’re not afraid.

Not of the way his head jerks back, not of the blood they’re drawing to bury under their fingernails, not of the automatic tears pooling on their nails, and not of the edges of their fingers crept snug against the wet inside of lid and eye. There’s nowhere for him to run with a body that’s quit on him.

A world away, his blood runs slick over the worn leather hilt buried in their palm and weeps between their curled knuckles.

A bitter chuckle cracks out of his throat. “Bastard. You win.” His azure is faded, flickering, and a seastone safe crashes to the floor.

He watches them choke at the impact, their heart banging inside the safe’s clutches, but he doesn’t use his devil fruit to crush the organ; he doesn’t move, just tries to breathe past the rust bubbling in the corners of his mouth.

A wry smile curls there to lie amongst the stained colors he’s become. He’s won something, hasn’t he?

But it doesn’t matter - for once, it’s him heeling. He can kill them, but it wouldn’t be before they drove their fingers into his eye or slashed his throat open and drowned him with them, and he’s too weak now, anyways.

And as lordly and egotistical as he is, Lon knows his smarting defeat (he’s lost, he has, he has) to them means far less than the inability to achieve his goals.

After all, they were just an unintended nuisance. Hardly a consequence, really.

They ought to put him down.

I can leave. Pick up the safe and walk out the facility and dump it into the seas where no one will ever own my heart again and fly far from here.

I can be free.

I can get out.

No one will stop me - I’d just be another face.

Faster, now, thoughts like lightning in their mind. These hallways are quiet, and the facility is short-staffed for its size - and I’ll be out. If I get spotted, it wouldn’t be a hassle to escape, either. I can get out. There’s nothing stopping me anymore.

Lon’s eyes drift back to Trafalgar. He’s still watching them, chest rising and falling in stuttering gasps, and there’s hardly a glimmer of silver left through his eyelashes. Their own breathing is coming fast; adrenaline and excitement twine together in their veins, but there’s dread wrapping both their hands around the hilt of the dagger and raising it high above their head.

I have to kill him. If he survives, he’ll hunt me down.

Their grip tightens, his eyes sharpen, flare open, but the crackling azure at his fingertips is fizzling out into nothing (he’s run out of his well to draw from, and he’s going to dry up just like it once his heart pumps out all his blood). If I kill him, I’ll really be free. I could try going home; it’s been long enough, hasn’t it?

The worry, his panic – it’s all real, playing out on his face in slow motion.

An uneven smile trembles on their lips. I have to. He has to die. Then I can leave without worrying about covering up my tracks.

Their smile fades, they suck in another breath,
and Lon’s dagger swings down right as he loses the battle to his exhaustion.

And there’s only a whisper of disappointment, of unresolved resentment, of acerbic shock from his lungs when the weapon vibrates angrily in their hands.

He should’ve known better.

Lon buries their face in their rust-stained hands, uncaring of how it all flakes off into their cheeks. Their fingers rake roughly through their hair, and their knees ache from kneeling for so long.

They think they might be in shock, too, matching the last wheeze that had whistled out from Trafalgar.

He should’ve known better.

Their forehead is bowed, fingers curled into loose trails of gauze. The air is silent, save for labored breathing.

Breathing. They’re having a hard time breathing.

He should’ve known better.

Why did I do that? Lon stares over their shoulder at the seastone safe in the middle of the room. Why? Stained gauze is centimeters away, awful blankets buoy their elbows.

Water and high calorie snacks rest next to their folded thighs. Why did I?

I could’ve left him alone, and blood loss would have taken care of him for me.

I thought I would be able to move on. Misery curls, thick and cloying, in their throat. It rises sour in their mouth. I didn’t know this is who I was. Their fingers are claws in their thighs. I thought I was better than this.

Lon buries their face in their bloody hands. Stars, I thought I was better.

… Silence, for a long while.
what are you looking for?

On the fourth day, a groan spills into the air. Lon’s moving on autopilot, pushing their hand under his shoulders to tilt him off the bed and slowly trickle water into his mouth.

His wounds heal quickly. Old gauze, used sutures, and empty bottles of disinfectant have all built up into a small avalanche in the room’s only trash can.

Tobias’ dagger is still jammed into the tile, faded maroon a dried-out lakebed around it.

Trafalgar’s bruises range from the black navy of the deep sea to infection yellow green. His eyes are sunken, but the only traces of his blood are the beads trapped under bandages.

They’ll have to change those soon.

Quiet surprise colors his gaze when he looks at them.

They’ve been rooted to this spot, knelt at his bedside, and angry disappointment has painted deep shadows under their eyes. Uncertain detachment has their eyebrows furrowed. Deadweight unhappiness nestles in the downturned corners of their mouth.

They’re heavy. A dying neutron star, spinning slower and slower until all their light winks out.

“You didn’t do it,” he rasps.

Their glare grows heated, burning hot enough to set the blankets they’re boring holes into on fire. “No,” Lon spits. “I didn’t.” Their hands tug at their hair. “I’m ss-stupid and I f*cking didn’t.”

He should’ve been easy to kill - and yet they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, even when their freedom was right f*cking there. They couldn’t even bring themselves to leave.

They’re not the person they thought they were.

Why did they jump so quickly to murder when he wouldn’t have been able to stop them in the first place? They had an ability to disappear, and all the searching in the world wouldn’t let him find them.

They thought they were good - not this, not what he’s turned them into.

His agreement comes out in a sigh. “Yeah. Stupid and bold.” He almost sounds pleased.

Their face stays buried in their hands. Shoulders bow under looming consequence; Lon has no idea where they stand now - if he’s going to get rid of them the moment he’s able to move - and all the careful progress they’ve made together in tolerating one another has toppled over into hands that can’t hold such weight.

Lon hates their heart, that forbidden fruit. It’s too much temptation. It means freedom and this childish belief that, somehow, if they had it, everything would go back to the way it was before Marines and pirates and tyrants.

“Do you have food?” They press his next snack – dried fruit and macadamia nuts (they can only take so much out of the pantry at once when they have to drag it through the vents, so they go for high calories in small packages) – into his chest. It’s one of the few areas clear of bandages.

No, they only had to wrap the throat whose skin they split on their blade, plaster small bandages on his cheek where they pricked the bags under his eyes, bury his torso in gauze, stitch the jagged gash on his inner thigh (like he dodged and failed, like he was running like they were), and all but dump ice onto him when every inch of skin seemed bruised.

His fingers curl around the plastic; it crinkles loud in their dampened silence. “I meant for you.”

“Shut up,” Lon tells him.

“I’ll be up in a few hours,” he reminds.

At their startled stare, a lopsided, snarling grin pulls his lips back. “You don’t go into the New World unless there’s something inhuman about you. You can’t take weeks to recover from injuries.”

sh*t. They were hoping the strange way his skin knitted itself back together had been a trick of the dim light trying to appease their guilty gaze.

Their eyes dart to the seastone safe in the center of the room. It’s just been sitting there for days. They ought to make a run for it – they still can, seeing as all they did was set themselves back and let the biggest problem on their hands live – but it shivers out of sight with the dismayed gasp dying in their throat.

An iron grip on their wrist.

“Didn’t you hear me earlier?” Trafalgar hisses, somehow still weighing like a singularity on their lungs, on their future, even confined to bedrest. His eyes are sparking, molten and writhing, as he pushes himself up and drags them half onto the bed in the same breath.

Lon nearly has a mind to rebuke him. They worked hard to keep what little blood he had left in him, and he’s moving like he wants to see the rest of it on the floor.

“You’re stupid and bold. You’re staying.”

You’re staying.

There are no pills tucked into their cheek. Those are safely rattling around in their small metal mint container, sat atop his files in the cabinets.

And Lon is trapped in the past in this little metal box of a room, sat upon its dingy floor, their mouth parted and eyes wide and staring up at a man with his future in their hands; but this time, he says his sermons with such terrible conviction it’s as if there is no death that will bring them freedom as he sentences them to life.

In this godless, starless room, he takes all the parts of them he helped heal and makes them his, and he’s got his hands in so many pieces of them that they couldn’t possibly be theirs anymore. They’re his, clad in the invisible shackles of his hands around their throat.

Lon’s shoulders hunch in defeat.

An iron stare catalogues their expression: upturned brows furrowed, jaw tense and corners of their mouth downturned, and Trafalgar releases them. Lon stumbles back, rubbing their wrists against their temples in hopes it’ll self-soothe as they try to calm their rabbit-hearted breathing.

“Go get something to eat,” Trafalgar commands.

For some reason, they pass him pain medication (they saw his wince earlier, the grimace that bared the teeth all lined up behind his canines - and Lon knows pain better than they ever wanted to) and leave to fulfill his order.

There are hands cupping their forever frantic heart. Breaths that feel like words hit it, and Lon wonders what secrets it hears. But livestock aren’t privy to the thoughts of butchers, and they go rattling through the vents, all black feathers and wisping emptiness.

And the butchers sit, bowed over their heart and grin; there’s glee flashing like lightning in their eyes as they gaggle and cackle, hyena stares darting to one another to conspire with tongues lolling out because what a wonderful fool Lon is - all this time spent worrying about whether or not they could be trusted, about their unknown limits and when betrayal was inevitable, and Lon’s gone and delivered certainty on a silver platter.

It turns out, Lon is no different than a dog. Betrayal is unthinkable to those big, dull, brown eyes.

Rasping chuckles skitter into the stale air of the room. Still-healing wounds on hungry stomachs ache as Lon’s heart is pulled in closer, to nestle right next to the ribcage of a captor.

Had they been the one to come through the door half-dead, there would’ve been no hesitation. Lon would’ve been slaughtered in a heartbeat.

Yet, they know only folly – of who or what, God knows - but they’re a tender-hearted idiot.

Nooh-oha, hisses the viper, there’s nothing to worry about anymore! Now, the Surgeon of Death has a scout to be used with little need for concern over how to keep them in line (they have an attitude problem, but who doesn’t want a little spice?) and what better leverage exists than their heart? What better ball and chain than the heart of man?

“I just have to make you trust me.” The buzzing whisper; the low, groaning croak; the sharp bark; the rattling, silken snarl hits the fluttering organ cupped in tattooed hands, and it shudders.

People do terrible things in the name of trust. Loyal people could commit genocides without ever batting an eye.

The mark of Cernunnos, coat made white by disease, thinks of dissecting frogs with scraped knees, class photos with scalpels, nights hidden under covers with the moon in medical textbooks. I’ve always been an overzealous student. A grin warps cracked lips. This won’t be a problem.

Trafalgar spends two more days confined to his bed after that.

He doesn't ask them for anything; instead, Lon takes it upon themselves, loathes it as they do, to keep bringing him water and food, to check over the gouges that heal unnaturally quick, and to help him up whenever he deems it necessary to stretch out stiff limbs.

There's a hint of a smirk that never leaves his lips when they do.

They hate it. He knows something they don’t, and they hate it.

And Lon wonders why they do it - do they have nothing but the scathing purpose he’s burned into them? Do they have nowhere else to go? Or is it the not knowing where they belong, what they’d do if he died - maybe it’s the faded memory of his crew's love; and who are they to be no better than the Marines?

May the stars lead them astray if they do unto his innocent family what has been done to them.

In short, there are a million reasons that swim in static grey, and Lon can't pick one out that yells loud enough over the muddied sea of their emotions.

Or, maybe, Lon considers, rubbing a thumb over their knuckles, the skin itching where they’d gnawed at it, I’m paying him back for treating me like a person. How pathetic am I to feel grateful for that? Hands migrate into their hair to scrunch the strands, since when did I jump for nothing?

They don’t have an answer for that; or, rather, they do, but they’re not ready to hear it yet.

Looking to the ceiling, Lon wonders if they ever will be.

On the seventh day, he gets up, stretches long and tall, and steps into the bathroom unhindered. It rouses Lon from their own nap where they'd had their head buried in their arms on the desk.

Stars, why didn't they kill him? Damn having a purpose or plan, they could've untangled themselves from the inhumane things his goals will drag them into - they could've found somewhere to live and to forget Doflamingo and his crimes and the fact that if there is one ruler so cruel, theremustbe more because humanity stacks upon itself and where there is always better, there is also always worse.

Lon could’ve left, could’ve done anything other than the starawful option they chose. They could've been living in the bliss of ignorance. But he’s still alive, and Lon dreads the future and what it means. They're scared of what they'll find beyond the glittering horizon, crystal blue and skies so clear, in the secrets of the verdant islands that speckle it.

They’re scared of what they’ll find in the mirror, too.

Blearily, they stare at their hands, clutching at their fingers in an imitation of comfort.

Lately, Lon keeps looking to their hands for direction. As if they turn them over enough, they’ll find what they need there, safely nestled away in their palms all along.

Footsteps stop next to them, tattooed fingers splay across the desk, and Trafalgar's turning their jaw to direct their attention to him. The bandages on his throat are gone. The scar they've left on him is so thin, so fine, it's nearly invisible.

They feel lost a little lost, swimming in time. It’s not fair how you’ve uprooted my life and I can barely leave a scar on you.

"Have you eaten yet, Lon?" It's strange to hear their name. It has the terrible effect of dragging them back to reality where the chair holding them up and their elbows on wood and calloused fingers curled under their chin are grounding them.

"No," they mutter, blinking their vision clear. All they want to do is sleep; sleep and sleep and wake up in a different world, a different time with an entirely disparate set of problems. Their head is too heavy - if Trafalgar wants to put his hand on their face, then he can hold up the weight of their thoughts - and Lon lets their chin dip into his palm.

They hope it’s condemning; but he is a sinner without shame, and their skin slides across his, his grip changing, and the ball of his thumb swells into their jawline on one side and fingers curl into their cheek on the other.

Its intimacy is skin crawling.

Do farmers cradle calves like this? One last kindness before a captive bolt pistol thunders a concussive cry and bludgeons a steel fist into the forehead.

"Cahnn – (in another world, they hang from a hook pierced through their back, their boots brushing the dusty ground as pink spittle ropes from their agape mouth in thick strings, their eyes dull and dry and flies sipping from the tears pooled on their tongue) “ - can I use the bed?" Lon asks, their eyes shutting.

Distaste curls the corners of his mouth down; he doesn't like how this new coat colors them: drab defeat stresses veal to worthlessness, and subdued servants make for poor war dogs. It’d be a bad look if they were so fouled as to be priceless and had to be slated for discard.

“After you eat," he stipulates. There won’t be time the moment Punk Hazard goes to sh*t. They ought to get as healthy as he can make them in this limited lull.

Besides, the apathetic are difficult to manipulate. It’s like trying to evoke tears from stone.

A frown tugs their lips down. Displeasure greets him when their eyes open again and they'rearguingwith him in familiar routine. "I, I ate recently."

It makes him grin. He prefers his meat a little tough, anyhow. Resilient.

Good.

Tugging them forward - it makes Lon rise out of their seat, and he has to stand up straight, hand rising with them to keep his grip on their jaw. "And how recent would that be?" Irritation flickers across their face - his grin gets wider, eyes sharper.

Lon wraps their fingers around his wrist. "Few hours ago."

"Strange," he says, leaning into their space. "Because I don't remember you getting up."

"You must’ve been asleep," they snap. "Is it so - so surprising that you rest when you're injured?"

"I take note of when you leave," he counters. It makes them pause in where they'd been reaching out to push at his chest.

Lon switches tactics. "I'm not hungry," they reply, headstrong. Their mood is souring. They want tosleep, and he's being an asshole, and he’s in their way. "I'll eat when I wake up again."

His fingers flex on their jaw for a second; it makes them shift their weight. "Lon," he begins. Their brows draw together. The shape of their name in his mouth is disgusting. "You are my responsibility. I have to look after your health and well-being, and this includes making sure you eat."

They could gag on his words, all foul and falsely saccharine.

"No one – no one asked you to do that," they hiss, tilting their chin up and leaning back until Trafalgar releases them, fingertips grazing their throat. “No one said you, you had to look after the person who was going to kill you.”

“Is that something you wanted to tell your past self?” He coos, sticking his hands into his pockets with a curated casualness. Fire needs air, needs space, and as he steps back to give it to them, he’s waiting for them to explode on his command. Or, rather, he was going to make them if they hadn’t reminded him that he hasn’t yet given them a reminder of where they stand.

So, cutting them off before they can really get started and reveling in the way they fume, “I let the first attempt slide,” he warns, threat sitting pretty in his voice. “But if there ever is a second time, you’re the one getting buried.” They're a scout he'll be using – maybe even contracted, if he's pushing reality and the circ*mstances that brought them here - but they're not crew, and that makes them easily disposable.

A pointless staring match – his gaze sharp and unwavering, theirs fire and brimstone and not yet yielding – until Lon blinks away at his posture shifting.

“I don’t know why I did it,” they confess in weak defense to the saints invisible in the room. A cavern yawns wider in their stomach beneath the fragile tissue they’ve tightened over its maw to hide its shame. They’re wise to ignore it. “I, I don’t know what changed. I wasn’t a bad person before.”

“You are only as good as the people around you, Lon,” he says, impassively giving them a once-over, “You were just lucky to be surrounded by – what was it?” A cruel smirk tugs at his lips, “Kind, tenderhearted researchers, right?”

“Well,” stepping forward where they step back, hand locked on their shoulder as he looms - this impossible monolith to slow deaths and wars of attrition - he murmurs, “You’re surrounded by pirates, now, and we don’t do good things.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Lon whispers, hands curling into fists as they lift their gaze from the floor to meet his, “but I want to believe I can.” Their mouth tightens, and they shake off his hand as they retreat to the desk. “I want to – I want to do good in the world.”

“Only the naïve think that way.”

Glancing to him, eyes hardening and looking out over the ravine between the two of them, Lon replies. “And the hopeless can’t accomplish anything.” A bitter grin flashes across their lips, drawling sarcasm in their voice as the vicious light in them dims. “What a pair we make, huh?”

Trafalgar’s quiet at that.

They watch his footsteps as he leaves the room.

He’s on his own if he gets hurt again, demands their feeble heart.

Ignoring its telltale fluttering betrayal, they turn their attention back to the room at large. The poor air circulation hadn’t done it any favors, and the reek of blood still crowded it. The blankets hadn’t been washed yet, either, and there were dried splotches of maroon all across it adding to the smell.

It’s faded some with the days, however, and hopefully it’ll be merciful and let them rest well. Fluttering atop the cabinets to curl into a tight ball to rise above the stained floor they’d scrubbed until their hands were raw (it wasn’t enough) while Trafalgar was asleep hiding under their feathers helps. Lessens the stench of iron and puts it far away.

But blood follows them. It always does these days, and it would behoove them to remember that.

Lon jolts up, hands thwacking down to splay out across metal to catch themselves and their breath (they shifted in their sleep again, and they’re pretty sure that’s never a good sign), and Lon does not see the world in front of them: instead, their eyes are glazed over as they replay Tobias' knife slashing across their front and biting deep - deeper than they remember - and crumpling down into something small enough for Doflamingo to display in a cage they turn tarnished with red until the bars are melting, sending them pitching forward and tumbling down, down, down,

and straight into Trafalgar.

His eyes are wild, his breaths harsh and ragged in their ears, and they're crouched over him, pressing a blade into his throat until it sinks past skin and gets stuck halfway in his trachea while he gurgles so terribly pitifully. And this time, all his blood is pumped out over their hands, a thick waterfall that soaks into their jeans to stain their skin - and they swear they can taste it, terrible and heady and violent on their tongue and just like Dressrosa.

It's not the worst nap they've had. But they were soexhausted, colored in blues they couldn't swim out of and cool greys that sapped all their energy, and the least their mind could have done was let them wake up peacefully if it wasn't going to make them want to wake up at all.

Lon sits there, eyes closed, and tries to breathe enough to forget the terrible swoop in their lungs when they woke up, like the gasp that came out of them left a vacuum in its place and was never going to let them breathe in ever again; as if all it left was horrible emptiness and sorrow in its place to masquerade as oxygen for the rest of their life.

Am I okay?

Patting at their chest and neck, Lon is no fuller of holes than they already were, and their heart is still the thing that’s missing - though they suspect it’s not the only one, now. Yeah, I’m okay.

With trembling hands, they watch Tobias’ dagger bounce on the desk and clatter to the floor when they drop it.

They don’t really want it anymore.

Later, when Trafalgar comes back in, the front of their shirt and sleeves are soaked from the vigorous torment they’ve put his blankets through - drowning the sheets several times over and dumping in too much soap before scouring them hard enough to make the threads fray and fuzz. The water that had splashed onto them had only become clear after the fourth run, and odd pinks and browns are smattered on their clothes.

He looks a little surprised, mouth opening to question them; Lon supposes they’ve been forgiven for the things they said earlier (sometimes they wish he wouldn’t get over it so quickly. If he hung onto things a little more, maybe they would matter more with them), and they’re all business when they get into his space.

“Have you –“ Lon reaches out to find his pulse, counting the beats that run so much slower than theirs. They mouth the numbers, start over at sixty-eight, realize they're pressing too hard on forty-seven, and lighten their touch all through seventy-two.

Trafalgar stays frozen for them the entire time – they guess they startled him, and maybe he isn’t moving because there’s no color left to them save for those mourning blues and withdrawn greys - and doesn’t finish his question.

Their hand flexes into a fist at their side. He's still alive. Lon thinks of his crew,I didn't take away someone else's family.

Sighing,what a relief, their arm drops away.

They're going to need to wash off every trace of iron clinging to their skin after the rather frantic episode of laundry. The blankets don’t stink anymore, but they do.

“Everything okay?”

What a stupid thing to ask. “Fine,” Lon tells him, tone a bitter murmur.

He’s wise not to push, instead opting to switch the topic. “Mind explaining what that was about, then?” It’s not quite a question.

Lon says nothing for a long moment. “I’m – I’m glad I didn’t kill you.” I don’t think I know how to live for myself anymore. “It wouldn’t have been right, would it?”

I don’t think I know how to live at all. At least when you’re here, I feel things other than homesick and lost. At least I get angry. They can see him staring from the corner of their eye.

At least, now, I have to live. They don’t meet his gaze, rubbing at the back of their neck. Maybe I can learn what it means to be alive.

If things go well, anyways.

Trafalgar opens his mouth, clearly at a loss for words; there’s an unspoken, ‘it’s not what I would have done’ lingering on his lips, but not even he’s fool enough to encourage attempts on his life.

Standing and waiting does nothing to make the right phrase appear, so he drops his hand onto Lon’s shoulder and squeezes it like his awkward reassurance can fix the things plaguing them.

As if it’s his problem.

“Lon,” Trafalgar calls. They look up from their distracted doodle of constellations they’ve sloppily scrawled on their bounty poster, connecting the dots on stars on their teeth and blazars in their eyes (they found it tucked away in one of the cabinet drawers and were immediately struck with the childish desire to deface it – as if doing so would obscure their face on every wanted poster, make it someone else’s wanted poster and change what Niklas has learned about them), from where they’re leant against the wall on the floor and half-asleep. “Come here.”

Getting to their feet, they slink over to his desk to drowsily peer at him, trying to yawn themselves aware.

They’ve been a tad more compliant lately. Nothing like the sickly taste of guilt to keep them silent – and nothing like the bitter medicine of silent compliance to swallow down and pretend it’ll rebuild them into who they were again. Realistically, they know that won’t make them who they were – it wasn’t at all like them to begin with – but if who they were was inevitably someone who hurt, then maybe it wasn’t worth being them at all.

“Room.” Lon’s hackles rise and they waver on their feet, hands dropping down to hover at waist-height as they freeze in indecision. What’s going on? Did I do something wrong?

Trafalgar pulls out a scalpel - and that’s when their blood really starts pumping, adrenaline shocking through them and neatly booting most residual exhaustion out the door as they brace themselves (is this how I have to pay for what I’ve done, two weeks down the line after he’s pretended everything’s normal? I’m not ready) - but to their befuddled surprise, he flips it on himself.

There’s an amused lilt on his lips: the dick probably thinks all their emotions are funny, like he’s watching the panicked twitching of an insect under the microscope of his Observation. With his left sleeve rolled up to his bicep, he carefully slides the blade under the skin just above his inner elbow to follow dotted lines tracing out what might be a square inch.

More confusion floods through them to lock them in place, the air swimming strangely around them. Is this something I have to intervene in?

Then he goes and offers them the neat square of his skin as if it’s a gift.

Like any normal person, Lon’s mouth parts in disgust.

And an honest-to-stars-above chuckle drifts into the air when he pushes the warm flap into their palm and watches their mouth open further in a silent wail of despair and revulsion (understandably, they think, this new development momentarily pushes out every thought that had been hell-bent on burying them).

They get it now. He just wants to see them suffer for their sins. How could they forget he was fond of cruel and unusual punishment. “Why?” Lon hisses, strained.

Trafalgar gestures for their left arm – it’s not the one holding the patch of his skin – and they begrudgingly offer it, despite all the hesitance curling low warning in their bones (is it so wrong to want to trust him? Lon can’t tell what is and isn’t repentance). His cold hands push their sleeve up onto their bicep, and he presses the same scalpel to their skin after dotted lines are carefully drawn out for him to follow.

“Since you would probably sooner shiv me than ask me for help,” he levels them with deadpan warning to silence them before they can begin, their jaw clicking shut and old irritation building in the space of their swallowed words, “I figured it might be easier if I gave you something like a panic button.”

The incomprehensible ire squirming on their tongue fades into silence. Behind it is a question, and they imagine its mark hovering in the air between them.

And instead of asking, they say, “Mmnn,” like a dumbass, when the blade neatly separates skin from muscle for him to pluck away from their arm. Crisp air hits the exposed square of what looks to be no different from gristle to them.

It’s a disgusting sort of novelty.

Trafalgar’s lips thin - as if that’s enough to hide his amusem*nt, and what they wouldn’t give to stop caring like he does about who they are, to find what they’ve done inconsequential – and takes the patch of his skin in their palm to seal it into place where he’d stolen theirs. “With this, all you have to do to let me know something is wrong is pinch the skin here. I’ll provide aid to the best of my ability, and when I call you, I expect you to do the same,” he explains, sitting back to place their skin onto his arm.

The thought is almost sweet, if it weren’t so strange (and bitter. A fair trade, attempted murderer chained to their victim holding them captive) how running their fingers over the patch of skin sends nothing but radio silence to their brain.

And it’s stranger for how it comes from him.

Lon must be perched on a razorblade – no matter what choice they make, what action they take, it’ll end the same: blood and pain and realizing they can never be mutually exclusive from what either of those things entail. They want to trust, to be good, but what do these things cost?

Mouth twisted in an uncertain line, their eyes track the movement of their fingertips up and down their arm – they feel their touch just fine on their inner elbow and over their bicep, but in between there’s a dead zone. It’s boggling enough that their mind tries to force synapses to fire.

Lon swears softly when Trafalgar raises his hand to their skin on his arm and taps against it. Quiet delight dances in his eyes when they twist their arm this way and that, their regret momentarily forgotten, inspecting the seam between their skin and his and trying to slide a fingernail into it, only to find that nothing gives.

Maybe they can push aside the unease for now and the oily realization that, with this, they can never be separate from him, and instead pretend to be young and free again and indulge in curiosity.

New things can be good, can’t they? This doesn’t have to hurt. They pause. New things used to be good. This might not hurt.

Slowly at first, Lon reaches for Trafalgar; his eyes crinkle further, body language open and unbothered, and then, rudely, they latch onto his wrist, tugging his arm towards them and brushing their fingertips over their stolen skin.

Their brain insists they shouldn’t feel anything - it’s not their body, so why should they? – but there’s their touch, clear as day. A shiver runs through them, and they drop Trafalgar’s arm, stepping away from him.

Theoretically, this shouldn’t be of any particular note – they’ve already had their heart removed and it feels plenty, so why is this any different?

Practically, they know it’s vastly different. The skin is a sensory organ where their heart is not, and their heart’s felt nothing but displeasure (to put it lightly) when it’s in someone else’s hands. So far, this experience has been – well, not pleasant – acceptable.

“Think you’ll use it?” He breaks their train of thought, voice terribly light. What a sinister man.

Lon scrutinizes the patch. It’s in an easy to access, easy to hide, area. “Yeah,” they murmur.

There’s no whisper of ‘liar’ from him. Trafalgar’s smile is all smug satisfaction. “Good.”

A timid quirk of their lips makes a valiant attempt at mirroring his – but his thumb smooths over the skin on his arm, probably checking to make sure there are no air bubbles, and Lon snarls in defensive annoyance, hand flying to their arm like they can grip the sensation away. They don’t like that – how it makes them realize how much they miss soothing contact and soft words all over again.

“Stop that,” they snap at him.

Of course, the pirate in front of them doesn’t get it, which is both a blessing and curse.

Trafalgar’s eyebrows raise, mischievous smirk curling into the corners of his mouth. He pointedly drums his fingers on their skin, now with him wearing it like some pelt-stealing witch.

Their shoulders rise to their ears, lip curling, and they repress the shudder at feeling something that isn’t right – this doesn’t make sense, complains their synapses, and Lon’s patience is thinning; I know this doesn’t make sense, get used to it – and Trafalgar knocks it off before they can get really uncomfortable.

Disinterested, “Anyways, learn to use it,” he advises – advise is a strong word here, he’s more accustomed to demanding – and turns to set away his scalpel.

For just a moment, Lon imagines what it would be like to rely on him.

Then they take that envisioned future and dash it on the rocks. They’ll fare just fine without his help.

His giving them tools to use doesn’t make it any easier to reach out, and there’s no point in bothering with it when they won’t need to reach out. It wouldn’t be right to use it. Fingers curling around their elbows, and they are would-be murderer and victim, I won’t need it.

At least, if it hurts - if he hurts them, they can return the favor. Of course, it’s not the same as having -

Trafalgar’s murmur breaks their train of thought, attention focused on the neatly arranged array of medical tools in the drawer he has pulled out to avoid looking at them, and his chin is angled up and away from them and the lamplight looks sunset warm on his skin and, “Come find me tomorrow.”

“Okay,” they agree without thinking (they should know by now this gets them into trouble).

Eyes drifting to theirs, there’s a grin cracked across his lips. “Good.”

Lon spurns his approval and brushes their palm across the unfamiliar skin above the crook of their elbow. “Does this mean we’re moving soon?”

Despite his impervious veneer, he’s still adjusting to it, too; his hand absentmindedly drifts to the patch of them he’s traded himself for, and Trafalgar tips his head to the side to consider their question. “It does.” His attention sharpens on them, a wry smile curling his mouth. “What can you do, Lon?”

A part of them wants to tell him nothing. Another paints him a victim and offers whatever he wants.

Blinking, they settle for vague. “Programming – learning new synn-syntax doesn’t take long, but only if there’s sample code. I took biology and chemistry credits for electives in my undergrad. I should understand some of your jargon.”

Stars, it’s so much effort to speak, isn’t it? Their fingertips are so far away from them, and words stick in their mouth, and they could just tell him, ‘I can do whatever you ask.’

But even sinners know better than to give the devil blank checks.

Their voice dwindles, the words start to stick, “I, I – I have my Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics with a, uhm, a focus on the high-densi-density interiors of neutron stars and black hole dynamics.” How they miss home and their work and a telescope under their hands. I’m nowhere near where I’m meant to be.

Their fingers twitch, intertwine to wring their hands. “Uh. Problem solving and, and quick thinking are some of my str-strongest skills. I’d consider my-myself versatile.” Lon pulls their gaze back to him from where it had drifted as they talked, “There’s always more, but those are the biggest.”

A slow, uneven quirk to the corner of their mouth. “I’d, uh, mention taking a leadership position with the - the revolution on Dressrosa, but I doubt you care about that.”

He shifts his weight off the filing cabinet, lazy grace in the co*ck of his hip. “Not when it comes to you,” Trafalgar confirms. “You’re headstrong enough as it is. Keep your extracurricular affairs to yourself, yeah?”

“Only if you don’t meddle in them,” they sharply remind in a murmur, fire a dull crackling in their lungs as they edge away from him.

His gaze is dangerously sly and punitive warning with his drawl. “Right. Remember who you report to, now.” And right as Lon’s getting uneasy in how his shadow seems to stretch to box them in, he puts their conversation back on track. “You do good investigative work without being asked.”

“Perks of being a physicist,” Lon mumbles, “I- I get curious.”

Trafalgar hums, and he doesn’t need to speak for them to get his warning. Don’t get too curious. Waving a hand as he reaches past them to grab paper off the desk, “How good are you at setting up systems?”

“Uh, what type?”

“Mechanical and electrical.”

Lon rubs their wrists together. “That’s – that’s not specific enough.”

This close, he’s at shoulder-level, and he’s examining them out of the corner of his eye. The past strikes them in his subtle stare, the present becoming more memory than real - and even if his mouth shapes different words, Lon is just as terribly unbalanced as they were when they first bloodied his snowed-in doorstep.

“I think you can guess what I want from you if I’m asking you to make systems.” Lon doesn’t want to guess. “You can modify what we come across, too, if you want.”

Glancing away – they were wrong thinking proximity doesn’t make them uncomfortable anymore. His presence is noxious acid burn on their nerves – as bitterness curls sour on their tongue. “I think you’ll find it rare that I actually want to help you.” Before he can snap something back, displeasure curling his lip, Lon clumsily changes the topic. “Why – why don’t you pursue an, an education? It’s never too late to get into research – I’ve, I’ve seen the textbooks you hide. It’d be easy for you, and then you could do what you really want –“

Low snarl in his voice, Trafalgar interrupts them. “It’s not that easy.”

Stars, they just want to go home, and it would be so easy if he would just do what he actually loved.

“It- it could be, though – you, you would-wouldn’t have to push all your projects to the, the side anymore and you could focus on them,” they press, speaking faster and faster as their hands begin to gesture with their quiet, now louder and louder and louder, pleading, “You wouldn’t have to, to do this anymore; wouldn’t that be nice? You’d be able to get certified as a, a- a surgeon, too, if you wanted –“

They should’ve kept a closer eye on his hands; there’s a blade in his tight grip, the soft kiss of metal hissing against their side and his arm primed as if he’s going to disembowel them in one smooth jerk.

“You know what?” Trafalgar purrs, death flat in his stare. “You’re a little slow sometimes, Lon. I think some practice would be good for you.”

Like a concussion resolves a social faux pas.

Their mouth parts with a half-baked argument morphing on their tongue, but, by the stars, the mere motion of it leaves them an empty husk, all they are wisped out into the air in silent protest without their notice. The anger and irritation of earlier buried in their sternum had already gone and left, and Lon’s wavering on uncertain feet, uneven heart, unsteady hands held out in front of them.

They won’t bother with the knife at their side – there’s not much they can do there that won’t antagonize him – but they can appeal to him.

What a joke.

Their breathing is soft and shallow, like any inhale too deep will send Trafalgar tipping straight over the edge to drag them with him. “I – I can practice tomorrow. I just can’t do it right now, Trafalgar. Sorry.”

The blade digs harder, their Armament weakly blusters at their side, he snarls louder - but there’s no blood yet. “Can’t do it right now, huh?” His words break so softly across their cheeks it feels like a lie. “You adding that on top of your research? Can’t study, can’t go home, and, soon, you won’t be able to do anything.”

Hands clenched into tight fists, Lon says nothing as his eyes search their expression for the spark of hate he’s hoping to incite.

Trafalgar doesn’t find the answer he’s looking for.

All his billowing rage whistles out. Bitter and deflated, the knife clacks back against the desktop. “Don’t push what you want onto me.” His eyes are haunted with empty pipe dreams. “We are not the same.”

As he turns away from them and slips out the door, Lon stands stock-still.

“We are,” they murmur to his afterimage. “But you hate yourself.”

And I’m still trying to recognize the person in the mirror.

And, in another world, they think they would’ve quite liked working alongside him.

They go find him the day after like they said they would.

Maybe it’s out of loneliness, maybe they’ve gotten too used to being around him near constantly, maybe they need their nerves to be scrubbed raw to feel normal – but, whatever it is, Lon’s kept their implicit promise and tottered down ducts (he’s a little too close to the Biscuit Room, today, and they suppose he isn’t expecting them. Usually he’s more considerate) to darken his doorstep.

But, frown tugging at their lips and head tilting to the side – they even close their eyes to concentrate better, deep worry lines etched on their forehead, the whole nine yards – they think someone is on their way to beating them to it.

Footsteps are winding down the hallways, straight for the room Trafalgar's in, and Lon has never understood the expression 'hit somebody like a bucket of cold water' until there's ice in their joints and a chill wracking them so hard it's got them convinced they've suddenly come down with an illness.

Because those footsteps are click-hshh, click-hshh, and Lon remembers the cadence of a Marine with all the time in the world to put down a troubled mutt.

f*ck. Again?

They'd thought he walked strangely when they first laid eyes on him. How sharply his heel met the ground only to lazily drag his sole along the metal up into the next step - and on that burning ship, they had wondered,why is there leather on the ball of his shoe?

But Vergo's making his way to the lab they’re beelining for, andif I get there fast enough, Trafalgar will disappear before he's in range of his Observation,and it's not really a question of whether they'll try to cover his ass or not - they justwill, because Trafalgar can be cruel, but Vergo lives like he was made to inflict pain.

(maybe Lon needs him more than they thought they did)

They’re lucky they’ve got these ducts memorized. Once they shift, there’s no more second-nature Observation to guide them, just the ticking of a silent clock.

A crow comes bursting out of the vent, startling Trafalgar into dropping his pipette; "What the f*ck, Lon?" He sounds almost scandalized as they stumble out of their shift. “I thought you weren’t coming today.”

"Ver-Vergo's on his way to you - get out of here," they blurt, hands a blur as they work on disassembling his experimental setup.

Trafalgar's mouth tightens. "Are you sure he's coming this way?"

"Yes," they hiss,the less touched this lab looks, the better - maybe Vergo'll assume he’s too late, "He had his, his sstupid full-of-himself walk - the one where he drags his foot - and I really doubt he'd do that for some random employee."

Trafalgar stops them from dismantling his burette from its stand. "If he is, then there's no use in running."

Lon halts to stare at him. "What? Of course there is -"

"No, because if he knows, then it means Caesar told him where I am, and if he's talked to Caesar, then he has my heart. There's no point in running. He'll use it against me until I come back to him. It's not like the last few times, Lon. This isn’t an accident.”

Eyeing him as they pause, do you hear yourself? You’re in my position, now. Run because it’s better than rolling over and taking it.

He meets their gaze steadily. There’s no surprised sense of awareness there.

f*ck, this is frustrating. Lon glances about the room, mind racing after they stumble past the hiccupped thought.But Vergo shouldn't get ahold of Trafalgar. There's no reason for him to get hurt like that. Their attention lands on the line of cages in the corner as their hands go to his shoulders. Right?

“What did you tell Vergo that night I first came here?"

Trafalgar's brows furrow in confusion, a snap of irritation writhing along his knuckles that they’re afraid to look at. They don’t want it to tell them they were never important enough to speak of.

The concern sparks a deep shame in them. "You landed, I drew Kikoku and injured you, and then you took off. I didn't bother following because you were already dying." More pathetic is the ease in their spine at his words.

Clearing their thoughts, Vergo just needs a distraction. I can be that. "You have blood in here, right?"

"I do," he says slowly, still uncertain on what they're getting at.We're running out of time.

Lon shoves at his chest, "You get the f*ck out of here, and I'll – I’ll find my way back later. He'll be too dis-distracted to use your heart.” They hesitate on a promise, decide against it – he needs no reassurance from them.

"What?" Trafalgar scowls, andthis isnotthe time for him to be stubborn. "You're f*cking stupid -"

They snatch a razor off the counter and swipe at him; a thin line crosses his throat and tiny beads of blood well up across his skin, right over that bitter scar that twists cold guilt in their stomach. "Leave, or I'll help him take you to pieces myself," Lon snarls, grabbing one of his precious vials (sorry about this, Trafalgar, hope you can remake it easy) and chucking it at his feet.

“You, you think I can’t?” They hiss hotly, “With him, I could.”

He jumps back to avoid the glass shooting across the floor, all its chemical innards strewn out in a dramatic splatter against the linoleum. "What thef*ck, Lon -" he looks up to see them lifting up a wooden block holding lines of test tubes, all neatly capped and pristine - "Don't break those!" His hand is held out in front of him, the other twitching at his side like he's about to use his devil fruit.

"Don't – don’t break them?"

Trafalgar's shoulders loosen slightly at them halting, their eyes sharp on him and not the block in their hands. "No - they're harmless on their own, but if they mix, they'll produce toxic fumes."

What a relief. I thought he was going to say he worked really hard on them. They grin at him, his eyes widening (how foolish of him to let his guard down. As if a few words could tame them, and that is familiar, this is who they are).

“Oh, good.” I have practice with toxic fumes, don’t I? And Lon heaves it high overhead and chucks it straight into the floor before he can so much as twitch, all the fragile necks crunching against the linoleum. "G-getout."

"You're f*cking crazy," he spits, backing up with his arm thrown over his nose. Some of the mixing chemicals have begun hissing, vapor curling up in thin streams from them.

"If you're still here when Vergo shows up, I'll take his side to get my heart back," Lon threatens, "I’m sh-sure he'll let me live long enough for that."

Trafalgar's incensed stare turns sharp, malicious. He looks like a trapped leopard, snarling as it's been backed up into a corner, and he’s yesterday’s beast with nowhere to go except for where they want him. Livid rage sparks in the air, ash in their mouth and the home in their lungs burning. "You better hope he kills you," he promises them, and Lon's leering in their bitter victory as he uses his good-for-nothing devil fruit to disappear from the lab.

They glance between the large splotch on the floor and the door;prick couldn't have left earlier? Wasted my time, and there’s no way Vergo didn’t see him disappearing.

Maybe that’s better. He’ll think I’ve been abandoned.

The fridge door is thrown open to reveal racks of blood bags, each a ruddy garnet wine and bloated like hung ticks. Without another breath - they're trying to hold it, actually, they've had enough of inhaling fumes that f*ck up their lungs for a lifetime - they yank three out, elbow knocking into the door to slam it shut as they cradle their props to their chest.

This should be enough. Bags hold 300 milliliters of blood, max, and three is reasonable.A pause in thought as they plan out their path through the room.Need to get angry in case he's close enough to read emotions. Easy enough? Fear is already there.

They jam a razor into the first bag inside the cage they’ve crammed themselves into, letting it coat their hands and spill over their stomach onto its floor (it makes their back slide on the metal: short, panicked streaks that gleam in the light) as they grip the unlatched door and kick their feet into it from the inside until the bottom is warped and bulging. Every good story needs a dramatic beginning.

They suck in a few breaths, hoping the contaminant in the air hasn't become too dense - as if it needs to be dense to harm them - and sloppily crawl out, messy handprint smeared on the floor and second bag slit to slowly leak in thick drops as they sway their way across the lab.

The third they let splatter over shattered glass, smear its lingering drops across the countertop as they send the instruments, bloody razor included, atop it crashing to the floor in clattering cacophony.I'm sure that was loud enough for Vergo to hear; and, with no better idea on where to hide the evidence, scramble to shove all the plastic carcasses into their pants flat against their skin. Any leak through will be better for me if he touches me, up until he realizes the sensation is wrong and that my pants and shirt are missing tears for the entry wound. It’s fine. I already drag on that leg, and I’ll just hunch. It’s fine.

Lungs burning, it’s fine, they wipe their mouth on their wrist, take drops coagulating in the creases of their palm and carefully transfer them to their hairline, and,go time, stumble out the door gasping.

Turning their head, they lock eyes with the Marine. Murderous intent (who knew passively thinking of all the sh*t Trafalgar's done would make them sopissed? He’s such a pain in the ass) fades into terror they don't have to fake.

Good to know he had dango as a snack earlier.

His skin had already turned shining pitch, veins popping along the back of his hand with how tightly he's gripping his weapon.Mad I killed your boy? They think, trying to embody murderous thoughts in the face of spine-chilling fear. It's a bloodbath in there. And then Lon cuts their losses on the bravado, whirls the other way, andbooksit, shoulders rounded and arm wrapped around their middle where they're supposed to be wounded.

Vergo calls out after them, footsteps kicking up into a run that has their heart in their mouth as they smack their hand into a wall to go skidding around a corner. "I thought I only hadonepest to hunt down and exterminate, you rat, but turns out you're still breathing!"

A delirious giggle builds in their throat, turning high and wheezy as it mixes with their panting.Well, I needed some sort of high-intensity workout, I guess. Their Observation comes in fledgling flickers when they’re this distracted - all it tells them is that he'sright behind them, which isn't as helpful as it thinks -and when glance over their shoulder, their eyes are widening at him swinging his bamboo stick high overhead.

Crap, crap, crap, where are the f*cking ducts -Lon throws themselves to the sides as he brings it down, a crack screaming out as compressed air bursts under his weapon where they’d been only a moment before. Another sharp turn, ducking under the bamboo stick thatrendsthrough the metal, and their breath explodes out of them in relief at the vent grate inches above the floor.

Right as they're diving away from him and for it, the bamboo stick rockets into their ribs, knocking them to the side as they skid to the floor.sh*t -

Vergo's on them in seconds, squatting heavy on their stomach where he's flipped them onto their back with the end of his weapon digging into the soft underside of their chin. Their hands are palm-up in surrender on either side of their head on the floor as they wince, and they'rereallyhoping he'll monologue long enough for them to think of something that doesn't involve giving up their hidden ace.

"Are you Law's plaything?" He asks, and Lon thanks their stars -wait, what is an appropriate affirmative response- and then they burst into frustrated tears.

No, that's an exaggeration: they glare at him past their nose and think about home and the Marines, and silent tears slip through the dried blood on their cheek. One of these days, I will finally be seen for the entirely individual package I am, comments a particularly dry thought. No longer will I be defined by -

Leering, he jabs the bamboo stick deeper under their chin, making them scrabble backwards at the tile - the vent is just beyond their outstretched fingertips - "The sooner that brat realizes he's grown up exactly the way we wanted him to, the better." And between the agitatedshut the f*ck upand gratitude for his motor-mouth, Lon's stomach is beginning to sink because howarethey supposed to get out of this? "I'm sure if I bring him the body of his toy, he'd lash out. Maybe he’d even tell me how he knew I was coming."

Oh, uh, the reason is yours truly. You’re welcome.

A violent grin that has them stilling on the tile.

"Then I'd get topunishhim again." Vergo coos. "I wonder how close to death he'll get.”

Eyes in tight, upturned crescents, familiar Glasgow grin, “I have to teach him a lesson for running away from the Young Master, too." His gaze darts back to them, "What do you think, little guinea pig? How many beatings can he take?" Oh, wow. Preferably none, actually.

"I'll help you," Lon whispers, praying they don’t trip over their words, "let- let me get my revenge first and kill me after."

Vergo pauses, Lon freezes - maybe they pushed it too far - and he grips their face hard enough for it to stain with his fingertips.

As something starts to creak in their jaw, he croons, "What an end that would be for him, hmm? To realize that he has less power than vermin - and one that he used to own, at that."

He leans down, the end of the bamboo stick cracking next to their head. "Tell me, rat, do you know how to address your superiors?"

Their skin crawls.This is the out. "Yes, sir."

Nothing.

Somewhere, their heart thumps faster. Somewhere, hands come up to hold it.

Vergo throws his head back and laughs, a booming, cruel cackling like electricity crackling bouncing off the walls and straight into their sensitive ears. "Good," he crows, getting off them and hauling them up by the throat, their hands tight around his wrist as Lon tries to will the panic down. "I'll let you spit on him, and then I'll gut you. That enough for you?"

There's only one right answer.Trafalgar f*cking owes me after this – or maybe it cancels out what I’ve done? Maybe we’ll be even."Yes, sir," Lon chokes. Maybe it will have been enough.

He drops them, his head turned back towards the hallway with Trafalgar's lab. They hit the floor hard, pushing themselves off their stomach - it still smears red across the floor, thank thestars- and onto their hands and knees.

They come nose to nose with the slats of the vent grate when they lift their head.

"There are only so many places Law can hide," he croons, bamboo stick whirled between his fingers in anticipation. "And I'm good at hunting down whelps."

A disbelieving breath leaves them, corners of their mouth eking up.There.

They look over their shoulder, fist coated in Haki reeled back, and meet Vergo's eyes.

A bloody grin bares their teeth, his victorious smirk drops into a scowl, and he's lunging for them as they send their knuckles through the grate, static fingers curling around the sharp edges to propel themselves forward.

He catches their ankle as they’re nearly through; Lon twists onto their back, hands pressed against the thin walls bulging outwards from their fingertips, and kicks frantically at his face and hand.

One hit lands solid, snapping his head back, and while murderous intent bloody enough to send a shiver down their spine explodes out, they yank their foot out of his grip and sink claws into the duct’s skin to heave themselves away from him.

They can't help the deranged cackling spilling from their mouth - they're lucky he's too damn broad-shouldered to fit in the vents - and it doesn't matter that he's howling down after them, bamboo stick slamming into the vent's mouth to widen it in great, wrenching blows, "I'll f*cking snap each bone in you one by one, and then I'll force you to use your useless f*cking Zoan to rip your damn wings off!"

Thatmakes them shiver, but they're stillhauling ass, blood nearly dried on their clothes and streaking in thick, uneven marks on the sides - and it's even better that the moment they're out of sight, they're yanking the emptied blood bags out of their pants to shift down into a crow that trails tiny drops of red. If he manages to get through, (they’re struck with an image of him forcing himself into the ducts, flesh bulging strangely and eyes large and hateful and popping out of a face contorted with rage as he worms his way towards them), he can't blame this on Trafalgar's influence. Not with a physical trail.

Vergo's next roar fades into a rattle that clips their wingtips as they clumsily glide through the ducts. "I'll get youandthe brat, and when I do, the both of you will be begging for mercy!"

Trafalgar doesn't have the opportunity he wanted to act on, but he sure has aneedbecause neither of them are getting any peace in this facility after this.

Once they can’t hear Vergo, or the sharp shrieking and clanging as metal shreds, Lon slows down to begin following the bitter cold whispering in. They have to get out of the institute and into the island’s open tundra, where Trafalgar is hopefully waiting for them.

They dive under a frozen fan - they'll excuse the poor infrastructure since this island used to be a rather wonderfully reasonable temperature - and soar as low as they can while still searching for a familiar black coat and spotted hat, the winds made less vicious by the friction between them and the land.

Lon's on their third lap of the institute (it's nearly a speck in the corner of their eye now) and second-guessing Trafalgar's evacuation methods when robin blue smacks into them.

Shifted and shivering by the time he's finished trading them with a spot of snow, they've only just stood up straight when he descends upon them in a flurry: patting down their front, checking their pulse, a neat smack to the back of their head; Lon bats his hands away (how are theyeverywherebut in their line of fire) - "Ow, f*ckin' - f*ck off."

"Is this blood yours?"

"No," they tell a doubtful Trafalgar. "What? I, I used the blood bags you had in the fridge."

His brows crease. "You're not hurt?"

Lon drags up the hem of their shirt to look at their side. They can stand a few seconds in frigid wind with bare skin. "I mean, I took a, a good whack to the ribs, but I think it's okay."

Trafalgar yanks their shirt down. "Don't do that, it's below freezing," he hisses.

"Like you weren't going to do it yourself," Lon retorts. It’s not like it’s just their skin, anyways – the moment they dropped their shirt back down, their devil fruit kicked in with a downy jacket of feathering. They bet they’re warmer than he is. "Do you have my sh*t?"

"Yes," he sighs, tugging at the strap of their bag slung over his shoulder. "All your documents and artifacts are in here. Get in my pocket or hood, we have to find somewhere to recuperate."

"Oh, that's good." A pause. "And no."

Trafalgar stares at them through fresh snowfall, familiar irritation curling his lip. "No? Lon -"

"Comeon," they groan, "I wanted to-to talk to you. I thought you wanted to hear the drama."

He rolls his eyes, irritation melting away into a softer exasperation they don’t look too closely at. Slipping Lon’s bag off his shoulder, he rummages around in it before pulling out an atrociously yellow war crime.

Their 'what the f*ck is that' is muffled when he shoves it over their head - it's ahoodie,apparently- "Wear this," he commands. "And talk quickly. I want a f*cking explanation for earlier, and I'm not treating you for hypothermia again."

“But if you did, it would be ser-ren-serendipitous symmetry. Ending where I began and all that.” Lon argues, muffled under all the fabric, and tactfully ignoring his loud groan. Hating on the beauty of symmetry for no good reason, he is. Lon pulls it over their face, hands getting through the sleeves only seconds before he's yanking the hood low over their eyes (they're certain he's done that for his personal amusem*nt). They ignore his second demand. "Is this yours?"

"Yeah. You look stupid in it."

They sneer at him in affront. "First, it's in theugliestf*cking color -"

"It's not ugly, it's the same shade of my ship."

"Ugly, and, second, it, it doesn'tfitright, ofcourseI look stupid in it."

"Why are you complaining? It's this or wait until we get to the cave system." They wrinkle their nose. The corner of his mouth twitches.Yeah, you're not slick."It’s this way. Hurry up."

Grumbling, Lon trudges after him. He tilts his head at them, seemingly more at ease now than he was before. So he did have a stick up his ass from being in that room. And I guess the self-sacrifice was a good enough olive branch for a truce. "Weren't you going to tell me what you did?"

At his call to action, Lon stands straighter, hurrying to walk slightly in front of him and wave their arms about as they speak. "Ss-so I made arightmess of the lab - I thought it would be good to make it look like a scuffle like I got out of the cage to get you to let me leave with you or something, just in case Vergo went back to check the room since you - you took too long to get out, thanks; and I took three blood bags, splattered themeverywhere - hope you d-don't mind - I also dumped the rest of the sh*t you had on the counters onto the - onto the floor.

He nods, apparently not all that attached to what he had been doing in the lab. Guess it was easily repeatable. Confusion crosses his face as their words register – “The cage?”

Lon continues as if he had never opened his mouth. It’s hard f*cking work moving around like this in the snow and bitter cold. "And then I stumble out the lab all, all dramatic, covered in blood, and haul ass - you should've seen his face, I think he thought I killed you -" Lon laughs awkwardly, quiet 'as if' in their tone, and he rolls his eyes, but he’s watching them a little more closely now, "I was gonna get into one of the vents to lose him, do my lit-little disappearing act, you know? - but I forgot how fast the dude is, and he swings," they stop to mimic swinging a baseball bat, swallow back the wince from their ribs protesting, "His dumbass bamboo stick into my ribs right ah-as I'm diving for one of the vents."

"I'll take a look at them when we get to the caves," Trafalgar murmurs to himself.

"I'm, I’m sure they're fine," Lon dismisses. "Anyways, you never men-mentioned how up his own ass this guy is?"

His eyebrows raise, satisfied smirk playing at his lips. "My apologies."

"Yeah, apology not accepted; anyways he goes," Lon pitches their voice so high it cracks, Trafalgar snorting and looking away from theircomedy as they flail their hands about, and Lon will be loud enough for the both of them to drown out what they’ve done. "'Oh, you're Trafalgar's toy,' and I amsucha good actor that I whih-whip out the tears on thespot!"

They're getting out of breath from their vigorous storytelling and slowing down to walk at his side seems appealing - but they're not through the dramatic bits yet, so they waste energy bounding around him in the snow as he lazily keeps track of them, amusem*nt gentling his expression. It makes them pause, that gentleness.

He looks younger, kinder; and Lon supposes playing a little more into being over-the-top isn’t so bad, either. Not if it makes him smile like that. "An’-and he says more bullsh*t, but I wasn't really paying attention." He doesn’t need to know. "And I convince the dude to take me along on his - his ssearch for you."

Trafalgar's eyebrows raise, tone a little drier - and they hear two voices: one his, the other familiar hands, wry rasp, blatant disbelief in the twist of pockmarked skin. "You did?" They almost feel normal.

Lon waves him off, chest puffing up in false pride. "Yeah, played up the 'vengeful test subject' thing and he bouhh-bought it since ‘m so good." Shoving their hands into the hoodie's pockets to briefly warm them, "Stuck-up asshole tells me he'll 'let me spit on you' and then gut me afterwards - pretty shhit deal considering I've already done that and kept my stomach intact."

Trafalgar rolls his eyes, suddenly unimpressed. "Yeah, little test subject," he drawls, "Don't think you can do it again."

"I settle for, for bleeding on you," Lon chirps, kicking snow at his shins for his comment - only to grimace as flurries turned slush is flung back into their own boots. "That's harder to clean, anyways, so it's actually a, uhm, step up from before."Speaking of harder to clean, they pick at the hoodie from where it's sticking to their front. Sound meant to be words stick to their thick tongue and claims it’s been snowed-in. "Ss-sorry about this? Feathers are a good buffer for only so long. It's aahf-ah’fensive, though, so I'm actually doing you a favor."

He sighs, exasperated, catching their elbow as they stumble backwards over a snowdrift. "What is your problem with my wardrobe?"

"Weird patterns and obnoh-xiouss colors do not go together, Trafalgar. They shouldn't even be apartof your wardrobe."

"I'm not changing it."

"Good," they sniff, "I like having a wide variety of things to, to make fun of you for."

"Uh-huh. You were saying?"

Lon dips their head as they mull it over, quelling the shiver in their shoulders. "Oh - this guy has the biggest hard-on for, for people treating him like an author-authority figure, doesn't he?" They glance up with a rude grin, eyes squinted in amused crescents.

He looks blindsided for a moment before his eyes are crinkling, too, matching mean smirk spilling over his lips as he snigg*rs, and they are two kids heckling the cruel adults of the neighborhood. "Yeah, he does."

They snort, ducking their head as they hop a few more feet in front of him and stay turned around to face him. He keeps a careful eye on their feet to make sure they're not tripping over anything again.

"You should've seen howfasthe bouht-bought what I was sellin’ the moment I brought out the," his attention goes back to their face as Lon dramatically places their forearm over their forehead to play a damsel in distress, complete with parted, downturned mouth, "’Yes, sir'!"

Their arm drops, hand shoved back into their pocket where their fist clenches around another wince, their spine forcibly relaxing into a slouch. "Dude's a, a fool. Was real pissed when I went into the vents an’ he couldn't chase after 'cause he's got,” their free hand mimes heaving up a breast, “Bigger tih-tit* than any woman alive."

Trafalgar's face scrunches, expression twitching between disgust and delighted, his hand coming up to muffle his snorting laughter. A grin blazes across their lips as he complains, "Shut the f*ck up, Lon, that's awful. I don't want to think about that."

They spin on their heel to trudge forward, head held high and nose haughtily upturned. "Well, think about it. I’m fuh-funny and right." Lon's all sorts of winded, now, though, with breaths kept carefully shallow for their ribs and they fall back in line at his side. "Almost there?"

He hums around a subtle smile, dark eyes staring out over the horizon. "See the shadowed spot in that mountain?" They follow the line of his arm to squint at the towering peak. There's a splotch of grey near its base.

"Yeah."

"That's where we're going. We should reach it in another forty minutes."

Lon hums. As thick as the hoodie and their feathering are, it's cold. It had been cold during their dramatics with blood flushed in their cheeks from all the movement, and it's cooler still now that they've settled down to match his pace. "Why can't you tel-teleport us over there?"

"I don't know what's going to happen," the banal tone of his admission catches them off guard, and when they glance sharply up at him, it's more for his acceptance of his lack of control than surprise with the situation. They know things are f*cked seven ways to Sunday - partly due to their interference – but they never thought calm could be attributed to Trafalgar.

Maybe he expected this, too. "I want to conserve as much stamina as possible, and it takes less energy to go on a walk then it does to jump so many miles."

A walk. "Besides," he continues, looking over at them, "I've been stuck in that damn facility for too long. It's nice to move around. If you're cold, then use your devil fruit fully."

Lon sighs. "I don't- I don’t want to. Your pocket is cramped, and I'd rather walk since the most exercise I get is our bullsh*t sparring."

Eyebrows raising, "What makes it bullsh*t?"

They scowl at him. He acts as if he doesn't already know the answer. "You ne-never play fair."

"Me? Compared to you, I go by the rules."

"I have to, to level the playing field somehow," Lon defends.

At first, all they get in response is a noncommittal hum.

Then, "I'm still not treating you for hypothermia," Trafalgar warns. They're about to argue and say theywon'tget hypothermia, and he should shut up about it when he unzips his coat and awkwardly shares it with them. The collar of it is nearly in their mouth, his hip digs into their side, his forearm crosses their chest in a chokehold awkwardly trying not to be one, and no matter how much they tug on the side of the coat he's shared with them, it cannot make it farther than two inches across their front. "But I won't force you to shift, either."

They glance at him, quiet for a moment under brows furrowed in contemplation. His mouth quirks up at the appreciation they tap into his side, and Lon scowls at it. Ew. I’m allergic. Go back to being a reprehensible criminal.

"Ah!" Lon says, as if they've just come across a realization, faux cheer in their voice. "I see - you'll just be treatingbothof us for hypahthermm-hypothermia." They rudely grab his hand and shove it under their arm to keep it away from their throat. "But it'd be tough for you to do after amputating your fingers - how is it – how is it that you only have fall gloves after staying here for so long?"

Trafalgar sighs, long and suffering, "Fine motor control for when I use my devil fruit. Winter gloves get in the way."

"Ff-fine motor control," they mock, their bag knocking into their back from where it's slid off his shoulder and onto his upper arm. It's an additional layer between them and the wind blowing into them, and one more shiver bites down their spine before they settle into the warmth at their side and mutter, "Thank you."

"It's nice to have someone to speak to," he says, in lieu of accepting their thanks.

"Lonely bastard." They mutter, patting his hip and snigg*ring at his affronted face. Lon yelps as he moves to drag his coat away from them, "Wait - nno, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It was a joke, I'm, I’m the same way!"

"You reek of blood and insult me on top of it. What else am I supposed to do?" He bemoans, graciously participating in their melodrama - but he keeps his arm and coat wrapped around their shoulders. Trafalgar looks at them, lip curling. "You really do stink. How much did you spill on yourself?"

“I think a little over a, over a full bag. Maybe, uh, 400 milliliters?"

"You better hope for a bath soon," he grumbles. "No one's going to sleep well with you smelling like that."

Lon scrubs at their face, inspects the flakes of red it leaves on their fingers. "Sorry.” They mumble, surprised they find they mean it; at least, it’s genuine for this version of him, this new Trafalgar Law sharing his coat with them, who walks without tension in his shoulders and speaks so casually.

They make it another twenty minutes into their ‘walk’ – I’ve decided miles are not a walk, thank you very much, it is a hike – before Lon finds their shoulders brought up to their ears in their body’s tense attempt at chasing after the warmth leaving them.

Lon’s jokes have dried up, and even as Trafalgar picked up the conversation by sharing stories about his crew, it couldn’t hide the soft tremble in his fingers.

He loves his crew so much it hurts to watch him - and he doesn't make sense, leaving them behind on an island and going out to die. Why do that when they make him so happy?

Shaking the thought from their head – they’ll either get their answer in the coming days or they won’t – they elbow him in the side, griping over his complaint. “Give – give me the pocket. I’ve learned my lesson, you c-cruel bastard.”

“What f*cking lesson?” He swiftly boots them out of his coat as they glare him down with a hiss; just because they were going to do it themselves doesn’t mean he gets to kick them to the curb before they do. “The only thing you learn is how to be mouthy.”

Faux-considering hum as they scoop up snow to threaten him along in zipping up his coat, “Mon-monkey see, monkey do, Trafalgar. What other monkey have I been around?”

He waits until they’ve shifted into his open palm – he’s careful when he brings them up to his hood, and they do their best not to let any of the falling snow melt on his neck, tucked under his jaw – to insult them. Clever, last-word thieving motherf*cker, who, with a sigh, pityingly says, “I really don’t know what you get from looking in the mirror all the time. Today’s youth – f*ck!”

It’s a good thing he’s given them permission to yank on his earrings when he’s being a bitch.

Once he does all the stepping into the caves for them – grand old formations, really, incredible things – the two of them combine numb hands to use the fire starter he’d packed. Trafalgar gets settled in front of their little fire with Kikoku slung across his lap and warms his hands, and Lon meanders back to the cave entrance to pick up handfuls of snow with the full intent to scrub their face and neck until they’re raw.

They dumped their filthy shirt there, out in the blank expanse clambering up the mountainside, and gingerly dragged clumps of snow across their stomach and sides until the only pink on them was the blood under their skin protesting rough treatment.

Trafalgar offers them a new shirt of their own when they step back inside, scolds them for thinking it's appropriate to only wear one layer (as if they intended for this to happen), their devil fruit be damned, and then shoves another long-sleeve on themandhis ugly-ass hoodie. They feel a little like a marshmallow, more plush than human.

Watching the skies grey outside and drop flurries that swallow the landscape whole, it’s quiet like it was between them when they were both still trapped in that room and breathing in old, rotting dreams and bloody-edged expectations shattered by anxious reality. But it’s different now, as they, taking advantage of his momentary tolerance, slouch against his side and stare at the flames flickering in front of them.

"You don't need the journal about the dwarves and Kyros, right?"

It’s a peaceful quiet. The type they used to go to libraries to find.

"No."

He doesn't complain when they feed it to the fire.

When the two of them aren't chilled to the bone, he takes a look at their ribs. "One is broken; you shouldn't have been moving around as much as you were earlier. Is pain not a deterrent to you?" he drily asks.

"If it's – if it’s not life-threatening, it can wait." Lon argues, their stutter having calmed as they settled and warmed up. "It only really started hurting when I stopped moving around. I think all the excitement kept enough adrenaline going for me to ignore it."

Trafalgar hums, waiting for their feathering to kick back in before smoothing their many layers back over their side, studiously avoiding the place the purpling splotch had burst. He looks up, then pauses. Tilting their chin up with the back of his hand, "Did he grab you?"

"Oh, uh," Lon carefully maps out the area, “Yeah. I think I have a talent for pirates choking me."

He does not laugh at their joke, but his stare does flatten into a 'really?' glare, so they think it counts. He just doesn’t recognize genius.

His thumb drifts to the spot Vergo had dug his bamboo stick in under their chin, and Lon taps something irritated on his knee. "There's a circular mark here."

"Stupid interra-interrogation tactic." They dismiss, even as they’re tempted to ask if he’s bothered it wasn’t put there by his hand. "It'll go away."

His hand drops, and Lon is taken aback by the awkward clap to their shoulder and the grateful grip it settles into. They have to fight the cringing smile off their face. "Thank you for doing that." He doesn’t ask why they did it, or why they said those things, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe they’re thankful he doesn’t.

They hesitantly pat his arm, voice bolstered with false bravado. "Next time I tell you to get out, get out faster. That way I have more time to prepare my acting."

Vergo makes use of Trafalgar's heart.

Lon holds his hand and wipes away the blood from his mouth as he screams and writhes on a dusty cave floor out in the cold and far away from his crew.

It’s then that they realize, no, it won’t ever be enough. I have to live with it. There is no real repenting.

When he's given a break, weak and exhausted, they sling his arms over their shoulders, tuck their hands under his thighs, and begin the trek back to the institute. His breathing is shallow against their back, his coat securely zipped up, and Kikoku hangs loosely in his grip. They hope their bag keeps his back warm.

She bangs against their stomach every now and then, but if it makes him feel better to hold her, they won't tell him off for it.

They wish they could do more - but he seems fascinated by the feathering they line their throat with (“You’re weird,” they told him, and he had paused in winding through the down to ask if that was bad. “No. You’re just like an eleven-year-old boy,” and Trafalgar had muttered something along the lines of ‘thank god,’ and buried his fingers back in the pitch at their throat), and he's keeping himself preoccupied by spouting off random facts about birds into their shoulder as they step through the snow.

"You gonna be okay?" They ask when he trails off from telling them about the mating patterns of the 'red-capped manakin' - it sounds fake, but, whatever, he's the everything biological nerd here.

His grip tightens on Kikoku. "I'll live."

"Kick ass," Lon tells him, watching where they're stepping. "I like you better than Vergo."

Trafalgar's chuckle comes out scratchy. Screaming had done a number on his voice, but the water they gave him seemed to help some.

They turn their head to look at him in the corner of their eye. "If - if I can help without getting in the way, I'll fight alongside you."

"Watch for my cues, then," he rasps. "Watch my hands."

"Okay," they stare at the institute rising over the horizon. "I will."

The two of them have some work to do.