Mapping the Surface
(Trafalgar Law x gn!Reader)
wordcount: 1.7k
Tags/warnings: mutual pining, sensual, mildly suggestive, fluff, tension, mild angst making out, medical terminology (and examination if you squint), no use of y/n
Summary: Law found you completely absorbed in one of his medical textbooks, so immersed that you initially didn't register his presence. Instead of scolding you or dismissing your interest in the field, he offers to give you some anatomy lessons.
If there was one thing to know about Trafalgar Law, it was that he doesn't waste words.
"Watch."
And when he did speak, it meant he decided you were worth the time.
With precision that lived up to his name as the "Surgeon of Death," his steady fingers drifted over your neck, close enough to give you goosebumps and make your hair stand on end, but too distant to actually feel anything.
“This right here is your sternocleidomastoid. Do you remember what it does?” His voice was a low rumble. You stared at the mirror he placed you in front of and swallowed dryly at your reflection.
This had all started when he caught you with your nose buried in one of his old anatomy textbooks, unsupervised and aware that you were probably crossing some sort of boundary. You braced yourself for it, too. A stern talking-to, a warning, or even the book simply being taken out of your hands. Law liked his privacy about as much as the next person, if not a little more, and clearly, you were in the wrong!
So, when you inevitably got caught red handed (nothing can get past the captain), it came as a shock when his stern expression softened, “Do you understand any of it?”
In the midst of your bewilderment, the best answer you, an aspiring medical professional, could conjure up was a shrug and a nervous grin. His compassion flustered you.
At that point, he’d taken the book from you (which was to be expected), and flipped through the chapter you left off on–the skeletal system. After a beat of silence, he finally turned back to you, “Then I’ll teach you.”
. . .
Since then, you had come to know every bone in the body by name, location, and function, understood the role of osteoblasts, and studied various orthopedic conditions and their treatments. Now, you were exploring skeletal muscles. Despite this being your nth lesson over the past several weeks, you could never quite adjust to the…intensity of his lectures.
“Flexion and contralateral rotation,” you refocused and the words finally tumbled out. He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he watched your reflection with half-lidded but sharp eyes. A faint hum of approval left his throat, “Good. Show me.” Inked hands, traced your jaw to tilt your head, demonstrating the motion. Your head slowly tilted forward before carefully rotating. His touched wasn’t forceful, rather it was expectant, as if he figured you were going to follow through.
“Don’t memorize names,” Law’s hands relaxed, but didn’t leave your neck. You nodded, although your focus had admittedly been alternating between the lesson and the way his breath ghosted over your skin. “It’s more important to understand physiology. You cannot fix anything if you don’t know how something moves…or breaks.” An intimate quiet took over the room, interrupted only by the familiar creaks and groans the Polar Tang made with the ocean’s turbulence. You abashedly averted your gaze, in fear he could read your thoughts. Despite this, you felt his eyes linger on you, studying your features and your reactions.
Your captain finally broke the silence, “The sternocleidomastoid, in my opinion, is a solid conceptual transition point between the trunk and the craniofacial muscles,” his voice dropped an octave as you allowed his hand to slide upward, fingertips tracing the cordlike muscle from your clavicle to the underside of your jaw. His touch grew lighter, transitioning from the firmness of an instructor to the feather-light graze of someone focused on sensation.
“Let’s start with the masseter.”
. . .
He broke from his upright stance and discarded his coat, allowing his tattooed arms to be exposed. Instead of pulling away from you, he pulled up an ottoman and sank down, sitting in the narrow space between the mirror and yourself so you were eye-to-eye with him.
You took a steadying breath, “The masseter…” You moved your hands to press your fingertips into the angle of your jaw, before being halted by Law.
“This time, I want you to do the talking. I’ll do the demonstrating. Try your best to teach me about the craniofacial muscles.”
He gently took your wrists and guided them to his own face. His palms were roughened from both training and the meticulous handwashing of a doctor.
You realized that you’ve never been this close to your captain. You’ve always studied him from a distance, but never close enough to see the cracks in his composed exterior. You noticed the exhaustion in his eyes, the dark rims from sleepless nights and a past he never spoke of. There was a rough texture to the stubble along his chin and jawline, a stark contrast to his meticulous demeanor. And then, there was his scent. He smelled of a combination of sterile antiseptic, salty ocean air, and wood.
“The masseter,” you repeated after coming back to your senses, your voice miraculously steady despite the way you could feel your face heating up. Despite your attempts to keep the physical contact clinical, both you and him were well aware of how your fingertips betrayed you, lingering just a little too long on the heat of his skin.
The lesson continued. You recalled the names of the muscles as the textbook states, before explaining their respective functions and motions. Your voice found a practiced rhythm, a subconscious attempt to prove to yourself that you won’t crumble under such pressure. Law blinked to demonstrate the orbicularis oculi muscles, his eyelashes casting flickering shadows along his cheekbone. You couldn’t help but use this brief moment to admire the amber of his eyes.
When you reached the zygomaticus major, the corners of his mouth lifted to demonstrate its contraction. The ghost of a smile played on his lips, and seeing that sliver of warmth chipped away at the professional detachment you tried so hard to maintain. Your hands drifted lower, cupping his face and brushing the hollows of his cheeks.
“And this is the… buccinatus?” You faltered.
He corrected you, “Close. Buccinator.”
“Right.” You pretended not to notice his subtle lean into your palms, his weight shifting towards you ever so slightly. “It’s responsible for compressing the cheeks, I remember that at least.”
Hesitantly, your palms slid down. Your thumbs rested just above his chin to trace the muscle, an attempt to maintain a safe distance in fear of overstepping an invisible line.
“Then, we have the orbicularis oris.”
You looked down at his lips, before quickly glancing aside, overly mindful of your lingering eyes. You shifted your focus upwards to his, opening your mouth to speak, before you noticed that Law was gazing at your own parted lips.
The silence between the two of you grew heavy with silent tension. You froze like a deer in headlights as he observed the way your breath hitched and how you tried to find your voice once again.
“Orbicularis oris, it’s functions are…” You whispered. The words died in your throat, a futile distraction from the sudden shrink in distance between the two of you. When did he get this close?
He didn’t wait for you to finish your sentence–or your thoughts. Law cupped your face, mirroring your own hand placement on him, and bridged the agonizing inch of distance. When his lips met yours, the firm resolve he always had seemed to melt away. What remained was gentle and grounding. One of his hands slowly slid from your cheek to the nape of your neck, steadying you as though he feared you might break. Your fingers tangled into his dark, messy locks of hair, deepening the contact and eliciting a low groan from him.
With this, his hold on you tightened and he surrendered to the contact. It was as if the fear of losing control got replaced with the fear of letting you go. You wrapped an arm around his torso, pulling yourself flush onto him. His tongue swiped at your bottom lip, asking for permission, which you granted by opening your mouth wider and letting him in. Every frantic press of his lips to yours, every slide of his tongue grew dizzying and intoxicating. You trailed a path of searing, wet kisses from his lips to the corner of his mouth, nipping at the skin and making him shudder.
The kiss didn’t end so much as it slowly receded like the tide. Law was the one to break the seal first, pulling back just enough to breathe, though the separation and loss of warmth ached. Law stayed close, his forehead pressing to yours. Your breaths mixed, ragged and hot. The lingering heat between you and him felt as if it were fading with the lack of contact, and the air suddenly felt too empty.
As the initial rush of that break in composure faded, the silence that rushed into the room felt cold. You felt the change. His hands, tenderly holding you, suddenly stiffened. His breath, ragged and warm against your lips, hitched, before steadying into something controlled.
With grace, he rose from his sitting position. His eyes swirled with something completely unreadable. His hands, which cradled your face earlier, moved down to rest at your hips as helped you up from your seat. Your legs felt like liquid as he took a small step back from your personal space. The air was electric, charged with all of the unspoken words from countless lessons prior.
“Damn it.” He exhaled. His words sounded like surrender, rather than anger, “Do you understand how difficult it is to pretend you don’t affect me?”
He huffed out a half-laugh, half–sigh. His grip around your waist around you loosened so he could get a better look at your face.
“Since I was a child, I studied the inner workings of the human body. I could tell you about how heart rate variability decreases under stress. The autonomic nervous system responds to external stimuli, such as temperature, movement, and breathing patterns.”
He paused, brushing the hair out of your face.
“What I can’t explain is why these things are triggered by your presence, when they shouldn’t be.”
You finally pinpointed what you saw in your captain’s eyes: Uncertainty. Law was far from an emotionless machine, but he kept his cards close to his chest, making him largely unreadable. This was one of the first times in a long while that he faced a problem without having a thorough plan to manage it– because the easy way out would be to ignore all the gentle touches, lingering gazes, soft-spoken words you and he exchanged. Pretend it never happened. But his heart, body, and soul betrayed him, telling him otherwise.
“...Does it bother you?”
Your question hung in the air, fragile but intimidating. A look of appalment flickered across his features. Law leaned in, his forehead dropping to rest against yours.
“It doesn’t just bother me,” he whispered, voice laced with raw honesty, “It’s a complication. An unpredictable variable. There’s no way to cut out the way you make me feel without disrupting my own balance.”
Law took your hands, tracing your knuckles, “...But more than anything, I want to understand this.”
You pressed your lips to his.
“Then I’ll teach you.”
. . .
A/N: Hi guys! first time posting on this account :D yaay! I had a lot of fun writing this :) Initially, I was going to write smut, but things started getting too sweet and angsty and i didn't wanna take away from that. should i write this in another chapter?
