Chapter Text
A sudden flash.
A deep, hot pain ricocheting around your innards.
You doubled over, the feeling of a phantom knife stabbing you near your core. You let the wrench in your hand fall, a loud clang ringing through the air, and dropped to your knees on the floor.
“Hey, you alright?” Franky asked, lifting his goggles and turning off the welder.
“No, but I will be,” you grunted. “Just give me a minute.”
“Should I get Chopper?” he asked as he started to get up from his position on the floor.
“No, really, it’s alright,” you said, the wave of agony finally subsiding, leaving behind a vague feeling of queasiness that you knew would be gone momentarily. “He can’t do anything for me.”
It was almost your entire adult life that you’d experienced these phantom pains, and you struggled to have anyone tell you the reason. It was most certainly tied to your monthly cycle, of that you were sure, but the way in which it incapacitated you mentally and physically was becoming more of an annoyance and a hindrance than anything else, rendering you incapacitated at the most inconvenient times. Chopper had done the best he could since you’d joined the Strawhats some time ago—he’d given you antibiotics and some mild pain relief medicine when you had first suggested it was simply a routine bladder problem causing your continued discomfort, a problem you were at least familiar with. But as time went on, and the antibiotics seemed to do nothing to quell the pain, Chopper conceded that perhaps, despite his training, he didn’t have the equipment or the specific experience needed to properly diagnose and treat you. As you lay in bed one night, biting your pillow with every shockwave in your abdomen, it occurred to you there may be a way to get help yet.
“So wait. You wanna leave and join the Heart Pirates?” Luffy asked, his eyebrows knitted in confusion as you told him your plan over breakfast. “But why?”
“Not leave forever. It’ll be like an internship,” you said cheerfully.
“What’s that?” he asked, head tilted to the side.
“It’s a temporary assignment,” Nami clarified from her spot next to you at the table. “Not forever, just for a while to learn some things that can help us.”
“Ohh, I get it now.” The look on Luffy’s face said he absolutely did not get it, but you soldiered on anyway.
“It would be a great opportunity to learn how a submarine functions,” you continued. “Just think of how much I’d be able to help Franky if he needs to build any specialized vehicles for us!”
“Well as long as Traffy thinks it’s fine, I think it’s a great idea!” Luffy grinned in a way that said he still was not entirely clear on what exactly you were doing or why, but that he trusted your judgment.
As you packed your bags the following week, waiting for Law and his crew to meet you at your port, you wondered if you could even trust your judgment. Sure, “Traffy” had been fairly easily convinced to bring you aboard (after all, what’s one more warm body and willing set of hands?), and sure, you were a pirate after all, and deception was perfectly in your wheelhouse, but was it worth the ruse?
As you boarded the Polar Tang and waved goodbye to the captain you’d just lied to and hello to your new captain who’d you just lied to, you wondered if Law or his crew could smell the dishonesty on you. There was no need to wear your paranoia like a coat, you told yourself over and over as you were shown to your quarters—you were going to keep your head down for a while, learn the ins and outs of your new underwater home, and bide your time before knocking on your Captain’s door to beg for help.
***
“Come in.”
You were surprised that Law even heard you knock; you had barely touched your knuckles to the door. “Captain? I was hoping I could possibly talk to you about something.”
“Everything okay?” he asked, eyes still on the papers in front of him as you pushed open the metal door.
Your eyes drifted towards the ceiling as you considered where to begin. “Not exactly.”
“Is it a problem with someone?”
“No!” You waved your hands frantically in front of you. “No, nothing like that at all, everyone has been so kind to me since I’ve been here.”
“That’s good to hear.” He set his pen down on his desk and turned his chair towards you, his powerful gaze settling on you. “So what brings you here, then?”
“It’s–it’s a medical issue.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, what seems to be the matter?”
“You see, I have this pain in my abdomen, like right here–” you gestured to a spot near the apex of your thighs, just off to the left “—and it comes and goes. But it’s been happening for, well, about as long as I can remember. Sometimes the pain is worse than other times.”
“I see.”
“I thought it might be a bladder infection, so Chopper was treating me for one, but it didn’t really seem to do anything.”
He sat back in his chair and removed his hat for a moment, running his hands through his soot-black hair as he thought. “Did he do a pelvic exam?”
“Uh, no.” You shifted from one foot to the other, and leaned against the door frame. “I don’t know that either of us really thought much about that.”
In truth, despite the fact that Chopper was never anything but professional with his medical care, having treated injuries and disorders you couldn’t even begin to imagine, you felt incredibly uncomfortable asking him to complete an internal pelvic exam. Sure, he was more than capable, and perhaps you could have found a way to make yourself feel at ease, but the concept of having one of your crewmates stick their fingers inside of you and root around, right before having to sit and stare at them across the dinner table, left a peculiar taste in your mouth.
Law laced his fingers behind his head and crossed one leg over the other. “Why don’t you come by the exam room tomorrow, let’s say same time, and we can do a little more…exploration?”
“Sure, sounds–sounds good,” you nodded, tripping over your words—you had felt yourself grow a little warm at the particular way he’d said exploration, drawing out the word in his low, rumbling voice. “I’ll see you then. Thank you, Captain.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, returning his stack of papers. “Let’s hope we can figure out what’s wrong. I’ll do everything I can to get you some relief.”
I certainly hope so, you thought to yourself.
***
The exam hadn’t even started yet, and you were already deeply regretting asking Law for help.
You perched stiffly on the elevated table, paper crinkling under you, the undersides of your thighs sticking to the exposed bit of vinyl. You pulled and tugged at the thin cotton gown that had been left for you on the side chair (accompanied by a scrawled note, “I’ll give you ten minutes to change, don’t worry”), feeling like no matter how tightly you had tied the thin straps at the neck and waist into haphazard knots, you were still at risk of sudden exposure with even the most minute movements.
Not that it mattered, you reminded yourself—Law was about to be knuckle-deep in your vagina in a moment, what did it matter if he caught a glimpse of your ass cheek or a peek of your pubic hair before he got started with the assessment?
“Safe to come in?” a voice said from the other side of the door.
“Yep, I’m decent,” you responded. “Well, as decent as I can be.”
Law entered the room, flashing you a brief smile as he shut the door behind him.
“Well, welcome, I guess,” he said while he washed his hands. “How are you doing today?”
“As okay as I can be,” you said, staring at the floor.
“Any pain right now?”
“Mm, not at the moment.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said as he fished two latex gloves out of a box on the counter. You watched with an inappropriate fascination as he put them on, slowly pulling them down over his long fingers, letting the band settle on his wrists with a light snap. There was no denying that many a wandering thought of yours had involved Law’s strong hands and slim fingers, and how they’d feel exploring every inch of you, every dip and curve of your body; this, however, was not the time for indulging in fantasy, you chided yourself.
He walked over and stood before you, his slim hips almost touching your knees. “I’m going to start by giving you a breast exam, is that okay?”
You shrugged, trying to maintain some sense of detachment. “Sure.”
He pulled your gown down your shoulders, placing the fabric in your lap. He palpated your breasts with his warm, gloved hands, then moved two fingers in circles on various spots. As he moved one hand to the side of your body to feel under your arms for any abnormalities, his thumb brushed against your nipple, pebbled from the cool air of the room.
“Sorry, I know it’s a little chilly in here,” he smirked as he walked back over to the counter and quickly scribbled in a notebook. “Everything seems good there, no concerns.
“Oh, good.” You nervously smiled at him and lifted your gown back over your chest, crossing your arms tightly over you, trying to warm yourself and convince your traitorous nipples to relax. As you watched him with his back turned, you ruminated on the way his thumb had grazed you—it was so brief, but almost tender, in a way you could almost swear, if you didn’t know your captain better, was intentional.
“Okay, I’m going to do a pelvic exam,” he said, sitting down on a wheeled stool and scooting it towards the end of the table. “Go ahead and lay back for me, and place your feet in the stirrups.”
You reclined onto the table, and fumbled at correctly plating your heels in the metal stirrups. Your knees drifted together as you felt the cool air of the room waft over your exposed vulva.
He sighed. “You have to spread your legs for me if I’m going to examine you, you know.”
“Right, sorry,” you muttered as you let your thighs drift open. In the time you’d known Law, even before your new venture aboard his vessel, you’d thought on occasion what it would be like to have him command you to spread your legs; this, however, was certainly was not the way you’d had in mind.
“I’ll be gentle, I promise,” he said, the rumble in his voice vibrating your core.
Stop it, stop it, stop it, you said to yourself. Stop making this weird, he’s your doctor. You can have your stupid little crush later, when he’s not shoving a piece of plastic in you.
He inserted a speculum into your vagina and you felt yourself stretch with every little click-click-click as he adjusted it.
“Doing okay?” he asked.
“So far, so good,” you said through a tight smile.
“You’re doing so well for me,” he said, his voice low.
You felt a perverse swell of arousal at his praise. You clenched your jaw and balled your hands into fists at your side—why now, why with a piece of plastic holding you open like a prized poultry being stuffed for dinner, did you have to let his voice make you feel any particular type of way?
“I’m going to put my fingers inside you now, okay?”
“Okay.” You exhaled slowly.
You stared at the ceiling as he slid two fingers inside of you and poked and prodded at your walls. The vague discomfort of the speculum and the probing of his fingertips certainly did well to erase the latent feeling of desire you had experienced moments earlier.
“I’m going to press on your abdomen, see if I can feel anything abnormal. Tell me if anything hurts.”
He pressed his two fingers up while he pushed his free hand down on different spots on your abdomen. When he reached one particular spot, you felt a searing pain rocket through your body, like a red-hot knife stabbing through your insides.
“There!” you said through gritted teeth. “Pain! Right there!”
“I see.” He pulled his fingers out of you, and wheeled back to the counter. “You can sit up now.”
“So, what does that mean?” you asked as you gathered yourself, swinging your legs back over the side of the table.
“Well, it’s one of a couple of things, based on the way you reacted. I’d need different equipment to be sure, equipment I don’t have access to here.” He paused as he removed his gloves and briefly stood to wash his hands. “I suppose we could hope we come to an island where they have what I’m looking for so I can do a full scan.”
“Isn’t there anything you could do in the meantime?” you asked.
“I can give you some pain medication to ease your symptoms.”
“That’s it?”
He paused, twirling a pen between his long fingers as he thought for a moment. “Surgical intervention would be a possibility.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” you said, seeing relief on the horizon. “Just take out all the parts that are causing me problems.”
He sighed. “It’s not quite that simple.”
“I mean, it is, isn’t it? Couldn’t you use your devil fruit to just, you know, remove stuff?”
“Yes, possibly.” He scratched at his chin, and his gaze met yours. “But we don’t know exactly what’s causing the problem. I’d still have to open you up and have a look around first, and that might cause more issues than it would fix. Plus keep in mind, any surgery requires recovery time, and something that involves your abdomen, especially the lower abdomen, might have you out of commission for a while.”
“But it’s gotta be better than this, right?”
“Possibly. Depending on what I find and what we have to take, you may also need hormone replacements, just to help you function correctly. And frankly, I don’t have access to those, not out here.”
You didn’t care that the desperation in your voice was nearly tangible. “Look, it’s not like I’ve never had to help someone through a long recovery before, I know what it takes. And I’m sure I can make do without the hormones, I’ll just learn to deal with it. Captain, please, I’m serious, just take whatever is in me out of me if it’s going to be a problem.”
He stood up and leaned his long body against the counter, and stared down at you. It was unnerving how vulnerable you felt, sitting nearly-naked on the vinyl table, thin fabric barely keeping you from being fully on display for him, angry tears beginning to bead at your lash-line, your face hot with frustration. The pain had gone on too long, you thought, and here was the only man you knew that could help you, trying to find ways to deny you the solution (albeit the least ideal one) to your troubles.
“Here’s what I’d suggest,” Law finally spoke after what felt like hours of silence, as he stared at you, barely blinking, running his tongue over his teeth. “I have an idea for an intervention that could help relieve some of your symptoms without having to resort to surgery just yet. If it works, then we’ll just continue treatment; if not, then we’ll consider opening you up and seeing what’s inside. Does that sound acceptable?”
“I guess so, sure.” You felt like you didn’t have much of a choice; you were at his mercy, and probably would have agreed to just about anything if it would bring you some relief.
“Good. I’m looking forward to starting your treatment. Come by tomorrow, same time.” He paused. “And be prompt.”
“Of course, Captain.”
He handed you your pile of clothes from the chair across the room. “Take your time getting dressed, this room won’t be needed for a while.”
“Thanks,” you said, waving weakly at him as he walked out and closed the door.
You winced as you zipped your pants back up—all the poking and prodding left your insides tender, and a twinge of pain rocketed through your core. Maybe you just should have stuck to pain medicine, you thought to yourself as you re-hooked your bra, your mind still lingering on the way his thumb delicately brushed your nipple. Maybe you just should have continued taking the pills Chopper gave you when things got especially bad, and kept your mouth shut, and stayed back on the Sunny, and maybe—maybe—found relief eventually from some gifted doctor on an island one day, if you were lucky. But instead, here you were—miles under the ocean, drifting along to some place you weren’t sure of, trapped in a metal tube with the weight of your decision and the only doctor who might be able to help you find relief.
You shuffled back to your station to finish you day of work, wondering what sort of treatment Law had in mind.