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Apparently, it does matter that Mihawk's wound never got properly treated. Johnny and Yosaku had mentioned something like "proper doctors" and "stitches" in the immediate aftermath of his fight with Mihawk, but Zoro hadn't been able to feel his legs, so that wasn't his biggest priority. He really didn't even feel the wound, moreso an inability to move properly. Johnny and Yosaku had carried him to the boat, and Usopp managed to haul a waterlogged Zoro aboard. Splayed on the deck, soaked in seawater and blood, Zoro stared up into the sky and swore fealty to his king.
Zoro looked down. There was noise, distantly, and things happening. It didn't matter. He told Luffy what he needed to. Zoro stared at the blood welling up, pink to white to yellow to red. He'd never been cut this deep before, he thought. Is that fat?
Usopp practically doused him in something that fizzed. Zoro watched it happen. It didn't feel like anything. He at least expected a little bit of a sting. He remembers the pain from previous experiences, layers it over what's happening now. But he doesn't feel anything
"I don't think I've ever cut myself this deep before." Everything feels a bit slow. "Is that fat?"
"Stop moving! Listen, I'm not a doctor, but this is bad. I'm-"
Zoro zoned out. Time passed. After a while, he looked down and saw white bandages pulled around him. No more red. No more pink white yellow. He couldn't see it. Somehow, that made him nervous. What could be hiding under there? But there wasn't any blood on the bandages. There was blood on his haramaki, his pants, dripping into his boots. He felt it soak into his socks.
He didn't get the opportunity to wash them until much, much later.
Zoro doesn't remember much after Luffy yanks him out of Arlong's grasp. Luffy wins, he knows that. He knows it'll happen before it does, watching his blood mix with the saltwater dripping off his body. His vision is too blurry for him to really see the damage, but that's fine. He doesn't need to know. He's already seen the wound. He already knows Luffy will win. Zoro drifts, not quite unconscious.
He can't fall asleep - he's in too much pain - but he can't quite be aware of anything else going on right now. His vision narrows to the bloody shreds around his chest, the glint of the sun off the East Blue lying before him. Zoro's every sense sits on the sword's edge along his chest and rattles in time with his heartbeat. Pinkish saltwater gathers beneath him. The bloodstains in his clothes leech reddish brown. His bandana flickers in the wind. Here, under the midday sun, Zoro is unaware.
Zoro is so unaware that Noko and a few villagers walk right up to him unnoticed. Hands gather under his arms and legs, someone grabs his swords.
For Zoro, there is only pain. They move him onto a small wooden platform to avoid irritating his wounds. Zoro gasps. The feelings flush through him anew with the movement and he sees red. His legs pedal uselessly, the heel of his boot dragging through blood, unable to catch friction on relief. There is only pain, and the relief of it. If Zoro is still, and he lies still, even as they carry him as quickly and gently as they can, he feels himself gather around the sword in his chest. The specifics of the world matter less and less when Zoro is confined to the cut across his chest.
Zoro is no longer a man. He is no longer his dream. He thinks not of Luffy, of Nami, of Arlong or what has happened, if the battle still goes on, if Luffy might call to him for aid. Zoro cannot think of Kuina, her name not even legible in the murky depths of his mind.
There is no Zoro, no self.
There is only pain, and the relief of it.
Slow pulses meter out his existence.
Each thump is one more second of endurance.
A small triumph.
He is here.
The pain may lessen.
He is here.
The long, thin line widens.
He is here.
The feeling lessens. He twitches a hand. It brushes against something cloth.
He hears someone muttering nearby, and some metallic noises.
He opens his eyes. He's in an unfamiliar building, laying on a low cot. There's a tray on a rolling cart next to his bed, and an old man at a sink, washing his hands.
"Awake already, huh? Here, let me get you something to drink."
Zoro isn't sure he could raise a hand right now. But he remembers his name. Kuina's face, lit by moonlight. Mihawk's beady eyes. Arlong and that stupid nose of his. Luffy and his raucous laughter.
The old man cups a hand behind Zoro's head and draws a pillow closer to prop his head up, bringing a cup to his lips. Zoro drinks the water as quick as he can. He doesn't look at the old man and twitches his feet. He's not just a gaping wound. His boots have been taken off. The blood in his socks is still there. It's crusted brown now. His feet feel weirdly light.
"Hope you've got a strong stomach, kid."
The old man is back. Zoro eyes his bandana. His chest is partially bandaged now. He's not bleeding anymore, but the bed is a little wet. Abruptly, Zoro realizes that he is filthy. The white sheet underneath him is stained pink and brown. He smells like low tide.
"I gave you all the painkillers I can safely give you, but I don't have a local anesthetic. But if you've survived this long with just some shitty bandages, I'm sure you'll be fine."
It's weird, getting stitches. Zoro growls every time the old man pokes him with the damn needle. He gets shushed. Zoro tracks the pinpricks of pain across his body, starting at his shoulder and moving down to his hip. The old man pauses to remove some of the bandages he's put on. The wound was too large to leave entirely uncovered. Zoro watches his skin part and then be pulled together. There's pink white yellow again, until thin blue strands pull his skin closed. The doctor ties each stitch tight and the knot settles above the wound.
Each stitch has two little strands that stick out. It sort of looks like there's a line of bugs marching down Zoro's chest. The dark lines are stark and thin across his chest. The pain has receded further, a blunt feeling now that spreads and holds his attention, but is easier to bat away than before. Zoro watches the doctor quietly, hissing or groaning when the stitch is tightened or the needle is painful. He doesn't think he's ever been this tired before. He can't even speak.
Finally, the doctor finishes.
"83 stitches," he tells Zoro. Zoro lets his eyes drift back to the ceiling. The old man spreads a salve over the fresh stitches. Zoro feels the goop and the pull of friction on the little legs. Mihawk's wound gathers in the back of his mind. He drifts, trying for sleep but falling short. He doesn't realize that the pain is getting worse again until a cool, wet towel lands on his forehead. Zoro gasps.
"You're running a fever, too. You'll be lucky this doesn't get infected! Knock on wood."
Zoro grunts. The old man's knuckles rap across wood and he turns away from Zoro, busying himself with something else. The towel drips a bit into his hair. Zoro's whole body starts to ache, as if the pain has spread from the wound outwards. It's a pulse again, less sharp but wholly encompassing. Zoro loses track of the bed again. He knows he's in Cocoyashi's infirmary, assumes the old man is puttering around somewhere. But it's all surface level. He has to hold on to the thoughts. Otherwise he might forget again.
A small pinprick in his arm draws his attention, sharp and tiny compared to the clumsy ache all over him.
His eyes open. When had they closed?
"Your next dose. I'm only sorry we don't have anything stronger."
The pain falters. Zoro, in this brief reprieve, falls asleep.
He wakes to Sanji of all people looking down at him. Sanji's strong, Zoro will give him that, but they haven't chatted much. Sanji is there because Luffy wants him to be. Zoro is insignificant in the face of Luffy's wants.
"We're having a party to celebrate. Want to join?"
Huh. Zoro blinks. The pain is tucked into the back of his mind now, there to be acknowledged but not ceded to. He can't be weak. He shifts his right arm to push himself up.
The feeling floods back into him, vicious and ever-pulsing. Zoro's eyes widen and his elbow slides out from under him. His head thumps back onto the pillow and Zoro is breathing hard, sweat beading over his body.
Fuck.
Sanji is looking down at Zoro with equally wide eyes. His cigarette is nearly out.
"The hell do you think you're doing?!" the old man yells. Noko, Zoro remembers as he fights to relax, body instinctively trying to escape itself. Zoro's focus on the situation at hand wavers. He struggles to hold on to his thoughts.
"It's a fucking miracle you're still alive, don't go ruining my handiwork just because you want a drink."
Zoro is too busy trying to breathe to shoot him a glare.
"Sorry, doctor. I didn't realize he was in this bad of condition." Sanji is looking at Zoro like he's nervous, now. It pisses Zoro off. He's not going to up and die now, of all times. What a shitty way to go.
Noko goes out to grumble over the festivities, and Zoro is left with Sanji, silent and awkward. Zoro's still not sure he can talk. He realizes his chest has been bandaged. Sanji is also patched up, though he's much less worn looking than Zoro. He's got his head tilted at kind of a weird angle. Zoro stares at the ceiling and braces himself. Then he shuffles his arm up and underneath him, and tries to sit up.
It's like he's an overfull cup, and the pain is endlessly pouring out of him. It flushes down his body as he struggles upright, from the top of his shoulder down his arm, spilling into his belly and making him sick. But Zoro is ready this time. The pain is acknowledged and it vies for his attention over his goal. It's just a matter of focus.
He bumps his head on the headboard and wiggles his hips back. The bandages that the stitches are underneath pull awkwardly and god is that a weird feeling. It's almost more offputting than the pain. Could his skin tear, before the stitches? Zoro refocuses. Injuries are strange - if you shy away from the pain, Zoro knows, sometimes you end up doing less than what you're actually physically capable of, just because you it hurts. He likes to think he has honed his sense of "truly wrong", his real limits. This is just another way of familiarizing himself with his body.
But Zoro gets upright. His chest burns as he inhales and exhales, the stitches protesting at the stress of being in a new position. They were done with him flat on his back, so any movement pulls at them. Zoro grinds his teeth and controls his breathing. His stomach rolls.
Sanji stubs out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe.
"Stubborn," is all he says.
Zoro shoots him a glare. He feels much more at ease now that he's upright. Laying down while Sanji loomed over him felt weird.
"Well, shall we?"
Zoro loathes these stitches. They're itchy, and strange, and it makes sitting down and getting up a pain. He's never been so conscious of how he moves in his damn life. He can't raise his left arm hardly at all. Even turning his head too fast makes the uppermost of the stitches start to pull. The bandages make him sweaty and he doesn't like how restrictive they are.
Getting on the Going Merry when they leave takes him three times as long as everybody else, because he can't use his left arm to reach up, so he has to go up the ladder one rung at a time. Sanji enlists Usopp's help to rig the gantline and haul their supplies onboard. Usopp and Sanji avoid looking at Zoro as they work, as if unable to acknowledge him. Zoro is useless.
Luffy finds Zoro leaned against the stanchions up forward after they get underway. They're supposed to be bow watch right now, looking out for anything that the Going Merry might run in to. Zoro doesn't understand why the steering isn't up front, if they need to avoid hitting things. Nami told him to shut the hell up and go look for stuff.
Zoro takes off the bandages. It's been a few days since he was stitched up, it's probably fine. Airing out a wound, and all that, right? Isn't sea air supposed to cure ailments? He piles up the gauze as he takes it off one-handed.
Luffy watches Zoro, instead of the water, and Zoro watches Luffy watch him.
Luffy crawls closer. He reaches out with a single finger and pokes at the little legs of the stitches. Zoro's still in pain, and the direct contact with the wound kind of hurts in a new, sharper layer on top of that, but Zoro doesn't flinch. Luffy's gaze flickers up to Zoro's face anyways, like he knew that it hurt and he knew Zoro wouldn't flinch.
They haven't had a chance to talk since that moment on the Baratie. Zoro had meant every word. Luffy had responded like he hadn't expected anything less. They had gone into battle together against Arlong, but Zoro was far from fighting fit then. Still, he hadn't lost to that stupid octopus man, obnoxious as he had been.
And maybe it's that simple. Luffy isn't one for overthinking, isn't one to dwell on his losses or his wins. He's here. His breath ghosts over Zoro's exposed chest. Zoro's still wearing the blue shirt he found on that errand boat. He hasn't thought to get a new one. Luffy's straw hat rustles in the wind and he blinks up at Zoro. They breathe together under the rising sun.
This is simply a matter of pain, and of his new body.
In the face of the severity of his limitations, Zoro is more prepared to concede that this was in face a "big deal" (Usopp's words). He's not fully mobile yet. Zoro's instructions from Noko are to keep his wound covered for at least a week (it's been a few days, that's probably fine, right?). The stitches need to stay in for three weeks before he could remove them, and he's not to do any kind of physical exercise in the meantime. He's been given medicine to take daily for his fever and to avoid infection.
He's never been one for following directions, but Zoro keenly remembers how it felt to stand before Arlong on trembling legs, barely aware of anything beyond the immediate threat of death. Pain so bad he could not see. His world had narrowed only to that feeling, and the relief of it. His entire existence one long bloody line in the flesh.
So Zoro dutifully takes his medication, takes naps as often as he can, takes Usopp's hand when he offers to help Zoro up. He takes a ginger sponge bath, avoiding getting his stitches wet and peering curiously at the inflamed wound. There's yellowish pus dried around the stitches and he picks at it curiously. The little legs of the stitches poke his arm when he reaches across his body and he jolts at the feeling. It's a strange reminder of the foreign material currently holding him together.
The pain has ebbed to a more manageable feeling so long as he stays still. It is there, but demands little. If Zoro wants to move, to sit up or lean over or look side to side too eagerly, the wound flushes with indignation and demands more of his focus. It is a long process of negotiation with his body to do anything, from sitting at the table to climbing into his bunk. Being horizontal is the least draining, but it is a pain to shift his body gradually up and down without curling forward too much.
Zoro has a list of things he has taken for granted, and now even sitting is on it. Nami won't even let him go aloft to furl.
Three weeks creep by. Zoro finds a new shirt just like his old one, and the blue button up disappears. Usopp lends Zoro a delicate pair of scissors to cut his stitches.
"Just be sure to wash them before AND after!" he reminds Zoro. "I'm surprised you're not using your sword to cut them..."
Zoro had considered it, but ultimately discarded the idea. He doesn't need to practice cutting himself up - he needs practice cutting other people up.
Luffy finds Zoro in the treasure room where he's set up to take his stitches out. Usopp's scissors gleam on the ground next to him as he removes his shirt. Luffy sits on the ground next to him, legs crossed, eyes wide. Zoro gives Luffy a glance.
He snips and removes each little stitch and watches his chest become free. The wound itself is healed over, new skin purple and gnarled and raised, but Zoro is still in pain. He is not completely healed. He runs a hand over the scar. It's a dull pain now, an echo of the thing that brought Zoro so low before. The scar tissue is knotted and uneven. Zoro notices that the scar is lined with 83 dots on each side. This scar will heal to forever stand out against his skin. The color will fade from that flushed purple to a washed-out pink and then to off-white but it will not sink into his skin. It will remain raised, puckered near his shoulder, tight when he stretches properly for the first time in nearly a month. An indelible mark.
Luffy's fingertips run over the scar, starting with the pucker at his shoulder, down over the give of his chest, to the trailing end at his hip. His touch is firm and with it comes the pain. It's meek and stiff. Zoro doesn't flinch. Luffy's gaze flicks up to Zoro's, like he felt the soft bite of it too.
"Ne, Zoro." It's quiet. Zoro blinks.
"What, Luffy?"
"Did it hurt?"
Luffy's eyes gleam as they bear down on Zoro. His fingertips sit on Zoro's scar still. On Mihawk's scar. On Kuina's dream. On Luffy's swordsman. King of the Pirates.
"Not a bit."