Pain Management

Chapter 10: Recovery (Epilogue)

You sat alone on the deck and leaned back onto the heels of your palms, face tilted towards the sky, letting the dusky pinks and blues of the setting sun warp around you like a blanket as the breeze drifted across your skin. You missed this—you missed the immaculate oil paintings of evening, swaths of vibrant tangerines and fuchsias that slowly faded into watercolor lavenders and indigos under the pale light of the rising moon. You'd been spoiled by them so accustomed to them that you almost didn't think about it until a feeling of loss, of emptiness, would wash over you some nights as you stared out the portholes into the murky abyss. Your hand settled on your lap, and you flinched when you noticed it again—there was no scar, no lasting pain, but there still persisted a dull ache from where Law had so carefully taken you apart and put you back together just a few days ago—something he was accustomed to doing already, in his way.

On that morning, hours before you were to be anesthetized (a measure Law insisted upon so you weren't subjected to the horror of him passively taking apart your insides), he grabbed ahold of your hips and pulled you back into bed when you tried to leave; it was only for a shower, you assured him while you stroked the tops of his palms with your fingertips, only to ready yourself for what the day held for you.

"Don't go yet," he whined into your neck, his tickling your skin while he held you from behind, pulling you tightly to him. "Stay a little longer, okay?"

"Just for a minute," you smiled softly, knowing a minute would turn into an hour, and drowsy embraces would turn into being pinned underneath him while he lazily thrust inside you, whispering praise against your kiss-bitten lips. You could never refuse him—not like this, not when his eyes were still barely open, his low voice husky with sleep, lean body heated like a furnace as he pressed against you, limbs wrapping around your body like vines.

After a while, his grip loosened and he sat up, pulling his knees to his chest. The question came suddenly, cutting through the quiet of his room, his voice hushed and uncertain: "You won't leave, will you?"

"What do you mean?" You waited a moment before you moved to sit next to him, leaning your head on his arm.

"After. After the surgery."

"Of course not. Why would I leave?"

"I don't know." He glanced down, gaze focused on anything but you. "Because you got what you wanted."

"What I want is you," you reassured him, reaching a hand up to stroke his hair, your fingers gently carding through soft, black strands. Maybe it was what you'd wanted all along, a need held somewhere deep inside you in a murky place you dared not go. Relief, though temporary, could be found in the bottom of a bottle of pills, but not this—this was something you'd longed for as soon as desire and yearning had taken root inside you from that first time you'd met him.

It was then, as you sat together in the near-dark of his quarters, that he told you he loved you—he placed a hand on your cheek, a subtle tremor in his fingers, and turned you towards him. Law held you there while he studied your face as he often did, steely eyes examining every feature despite the dim light, taking notes on you like a case study, committing the truths of your face to memory. He kissed you softly, like he'd break you if he pressed his lips to yours any harder, then inhaled sharply as he pulled away, uttering a hushed "I love you" while his lips still brushed yours, like he wanted to breathe it into you. It fell from your lips effortlessly when you said it back—like something that had always been twirling on your tongue, just waiting for the right moment to be set free.

As the sun continued to dip below the horizon, you sat on the deck and closed your eyes, filled your lungs with cool air, let the slight spray of the salt settle on your skin as the submarine bobbed up and down with the evening tide. Your thoughts drifted with the glittering waves, pushed and pulled along as you pictured them—your crew, your friends—in your mind's eye. If only you could have hugged them one last time, wrapped your arms around them like you meant it, like you'd never, ever let them go. You had, before you left, but that was different—those were embraces of see you later, and I'll be back soon, of unsaid reassurances that without fail, you'd return to drink tea together, and eat family meals, and bicker over who got the bath next or who'd left laundry in the hallway again, only for it to all fade away as you sipped sake and sang and danced together on the deck until the stars sat high in the darkened sky, twinkling with joy at your revelry.