Chapter Text
Law did not have any more nightmares as he slept.
Of course, he did not usually have multiple intense nightmares in one night, so it didn’t mean anything.
As long as he also ignored the fact that it was strange that he managed to actually get back to sleep in the first place. Especially considering he had dozed slightly on the beach today. By normal accounts his insomnia should have won by far.
Shambling out of Mugiwara-ya's grasp, Law took the opportunity to have a shower. By the time he came back out the other pirate was awake, and for some reason sitting on the desk and poking a finger out one of the small checkerboard windows. He turned to Law with a grin as he walked out of the bathroom. “Good morning Torao!”
“You are going to let me vivisect you on our way to Sabaody. I can put you under if you get too squeamish,” Law declared. He did not want Mugiwara-ya thinking for a moment that he had given in without a trade. The younger captain just snickered, not seeming the least bit bothered.
“I gotta stay awake to make sure you don’t take anything, plus I wanna see,” Mugiwara-ya insisted. Damn, Law had kind of been hoping that he wasn't paying attention when he’d said that. It had been intended just as a threat, but he wasn't expecting the other pirate to actually let him.
“It’s not like you would miss a bit of blood or tissue samples,” he complained as he dried his hair. It looked like someone must have returned their clothes when he’d been washing. He could see his pants and jacket folded on one of the beds. Mugiwara-ya had gotten dressed already, while he had just thrown the borrowed pajama bottoms back on.
“Your tattoos are cool,” the younger pirate said, and it was so blunt it almost didn’t parse as a compliment.
“Thanks?” he managed, having to take a moment to process the sudden topic. He guessed last night was the first time Mugiwara-ya had seen them, since he’d been wearing his hoodie since Sabaody.
“It’s the heart pirates, right?” he asked, and Law just nodded, going over and grabbing his shirt and hoodie. There was definitely some relief in having clean clothes again, and he figured as soon as he was dressed Mugiwara-ya would be dragging them both down to breakfast
“Whose heart is it?”
“What?” Law paused, not expecting or even really understanding the question. Mugiwara-ya pointed to the tattoos on his chest.
“You named your crew after a heart, right? Whose heart is it?”
Law wasn’t really sure what to say for a moment. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he never expected someone to... ask.
“My benefactor,” Law managed finally, snapping out of it and throwing his hoodie on. He had no idea why he bothered to answer; it wasn’t anyone’s business. When he could see again, Mugiwara-ya looked confused.
“A beneficial?” he asked, and Law rolled his eyes.
“Benefactor. It’s like- someone who took care of me when I was a kid. He’s the reason I’m alive and have the op-op fruit, and I’m the reason he’s dead,” he explained.
Why did he explain? Maybe because Mugiwara-ya had asked so casually. He could say it simply caught him off guard. Maybe because it seemed like he barely cared about the answer. Like he’d only bothered to ask on a whim.
Maybe because he wasn’t sure if anyone would ever ask again, and it felt like a wasted opportunity if he didn’t tell someone.
Mugiwara-ya was as good a person to tell as any.
“I know what you mean.” When Law looked back at the younger captain sitting cross-legged on the desk, he was holding his titular strawhat in his hand, smiling at it like it was the most precious thing in the world. To him, it probably was.
“Shanks gave me my strawhat,” Mugiwara-ya continued, even though Law had not asked. For a quick moment, he nearly asked if he meant that Shanks, but then stopped himself. Of course it was that Shanks. His smile, which had been so genuine, so earnest, twisted somewhat when Mugiwara-ya looked back up at Law again. “That was after he lost his arm saving me from a sea beast,” he laughed, although there was something strained about it. “Man, I was such a dumb kid.”
Oh.
“I know what you mean,” Law repeated.
-
Hack wasn’t looking at them as he led the two down to the commons for breakfast, and Law wished he had Kikaku back already. As it was, he had to settle for glaring daggers at the fishman.
If he could talk to him alone, maybe he could correct whatever… idea he'd gotten in his head last night. Sure, pirates weren’t exactly known for their purity, so the fact that they’d only known each other for a few days wasn’t going to be winning any arguments, but he still had a long list of other reasonable excuses. Also the simple fact that nothing had happened.
Of course, Mugiwara-ya didn’t seem to notice either way, clearly just excited about food and getting the hell out of the Revolutionary Army’s stronghold.
“Hockey, when’s the staff champion supposed to get here? I wanna get on the sea already,” Mugiwara-ya asked as he shoveled food into his mouth.
“Koala should bring him to meet you as soon as he arrives, I assure you,” Hack said. That seemed to mollify the impatient pirate for the time being, as he went back to stuffing his face. Law ate his food in silence, mostly staring at Hack and waiting for the man to meet his eyes.
Mugiwara-ya was starting to slow down when Law noticed Hack suddenly became alert and stand up, still stubbornly refusing to look at him. “Oh, it would seem they are here. I must return to my work,” he said quickly before hurrying away.
“Hey, I need to talk to you!” Law snapped after the fishman, but he was already gone.
Whatever. More likely than not, it didn’t matter what he said. He’d probably already told Dragon whatever inane things he thought he saw last night, and Law was probably being put on a list to behead and impale on a spike as they ate.
“Luffy! Trafalgar!” Koala called out, and Law finally turned back to see what this Chief of Staff looked like, insisting his mind drop the other topic. The man with Koala-ya looked younger than he would have guessed, for such a high position. The scar over his eye made it seem like he’d earned it though, one way or another. His smile was nearly as big as the guy who was made of rubber as he waved at them from across the commons. “This is Sabo!” She introduced as they made their way over.
Except he couldn't focus on that, because Law was immediately distracted by the death grip on his arm.
“Mugiwara-ya?” he asked, startling when he looked over at the other captain.
He was pale, eyes bigger than they had any right to be, and he was starting to tremble as he clutched tighter onto his arm. Even at a quick glance Law could see that his breathing was too shallow, an obvious onset of panic hitting him.
“Somewhere else,” he said quietly, and Law realized his eyes were locked on this Sabo guy. Glancing over, both him and Koala had paused, clearly noticing the absolute distress written across the pirate’s face. There was no recognition there though, just confusion.
“What’s wrong?” Law asked quietly, really wishing he had a weapon. He would have to make due with something from the kitchen if necessary, but he hated being outnumbered and without the right tools.
“Somewhere else,” Mugiwara-ya repeated, and Law realized he was pleading now as he shook his arm. “Torao please! Take us somewhere else!”
Law activated his room without another thought.
“Wait, wha-”
“Shambles!”
It only took a few quick changes before he had them back up in their room, mostly because Law had no fucking idea where else to take them. Still, it would have to do for the moment, while he figured out what the fuck had messed with the other pirate so badly.
“Mugiwara-ya,” Law tried to get his attention. It seemed to work, Strawhat blinking as he realized they were indeed somewhere else, but when his eyes focused on Law, they were still too wide and distressed.
“Torao! You’re a doctor! You’re a doctor, right?” he asked frantically, like the whole world depended on it, and Law nodded.
“I am,” he assured Mugiwara-ya calmly. “What’s wrong?”
“Can someone- can a person come back from the dead?” Luffy-ya choked out desperately, still clutching his arm like a lifeline.
Law didn’t know what this was about, but it had clearly shaken the younger captain fiercely. Mugiwara-ya was looking at him like he would believe anything he told him right now.
Law sighed softly.
“No, of course not. Don’t act like you aren’t smart enough to already know the answer to that question,” he said, maybe gentler than he might normally be. It was certainly true though, as much as the pirate acted like an idiot, he clearly wasn’t.
Still, Law wasn’t expecting the tears that started to well up in his eyes.
“But then who- who was that?”
-
“What was that?”
Sabo didn’t know how to react.
He’d already been through a whirlwind in the past forty-eight hours. It was like the world was set on cracking, with how the pirates and the navy were preparing to face each other. They were barely able to spare someone to go check on whatever was going on in Sabaody, which seemed completely unrelated to the Whitebeard fiasco. Then, with all that going on, he got a call from Dragon asking him to come back to Baltigo so he could personally escort his son.
Which, who knew that Dragon had a son? Sabo didn’t. Sabo was pretty sure almost no one did. There were a few people who may have been aware, but neither of his top guesses had been around for a while. Even if he could have reached out to Ivan or Kuma, he couldn’t risk it. Despite their secure frequencies, they weren't going to risk the information leaking out, so he hadn’t even found out who this mysterious son was until Koala greeted him at the beach.
Strawhat Luffy. Honestly, Sabo had been excited! He’d heard about the pirate from the attack on Ennis Lobby, and barely a day ago he’d found out that same pirate had attacked a celestial dragon in Sabaody.
He sounded wild, and he was Dragon’s son! Dragon was kind of the closest thing he’d ever had to a father (he felt he could say that with confidence, even without his first decade of memories).
So Sabo was excited to meet him.
Then the kid had looked at him like that.
“Damn it! That was Trafalgar,” Koala answered, misunderstanding his question. “They did this before! I don’t know what’s wrong with them,” she complained.
“No,” Sabo said, because that wasn’t it. He figured it was a devil fruit, and he’d already been briefed on the other pirate they would be escorting. “Koala why- why was he looking at me like that?” he asked.
He was looking at him like... like he was a ghost...
“He looked like he knew me,” he said, and he could see the realization hit for Koala.
Someone might know him.
“That’s- you don’t think?” she asked, and Sabo finally noticed that people were staring at them, and he started walking. He wasn’t sure where those two had gone, but they had to still be on the island. All devil fruits had limits.
“Strawhat Luffy is from the East Blue,” Sabo started as they walked. He started to investigated the pirate a little after getting the report yesterday. Honestly though, as soon as he had gotten the order to return and meet Dragon’s son, he had put the look into Strawhat aside. So he didn’t know much. “It’s- it’s not impossible.”
He shouldn’t be getting his hopes up.
“Koala, I need to find them. I need to talk to him!” Sabo insisted, turning to her in the hallway. He could see the hesitation there, probably because she didn’t want him to be disappointed either. Still, she pushed past it and nodded.
“I can help you find him, but I don’t know how to keep them from running again. Like I said, it’s Trafalgar. He can like, trade places with things in some sort of range he can control,” Koala explained, and Sabo nodded, taking that into account. “I’d say we could ask to see Luffy alone, but they refuse to go anywhere alone!”
“What?” Sabo asked as they continued searching the stronghold. “Why not?” Koala sighed as she shrugged, opening a door and checking inside before moving to the next.
“I don’t think they trust us very much,” she said, and Sabo frowned slightly at that.
“I understand that for Trafalgar Law, but Luffy too?” he asked, although even as the question left his mouth he knew it was a little ridiculous. Why would the Strawhat pirate trust them? Because Dragon was his father? They couldn’t exactly be close.
“I don’t get the impression he’s the biggest fan of Dragon,” Koala said hesitantly, before shaking her head. “What I don’t get is why they seem to trust each other so much. They claim they only met the same day Kuma sent them flying here, but you’d never guess that from how they act.”
“What do you mean?” Sabo asked, ignoring the startled revolutionaries behind the next door and moving on. If he was going to formulate a plan, he needed to know who he was dealing with, and he didn’t know anything personally about the two pirates. Luckily for him, Koala had been with them for a little over a day now.
“Well, right off the bat Luffy refused to even leave his cell if Trafalgar wasn’t allowed to come with him,” she started. That was a little weird to do for a captain he had no connection with. It wasn’t unreasonable though.
“You said he doesn’t seem to trust Dragon, right? That could probably go for the whole Revolutionary Army. They could have just decided there’s safety in numbers, and that another pirate might share his mindset better than revolutionaries,” Sabo reasoned. Koala nodded, like she had already thought about that.
“Yeah, but then there was the bread thing,” she said, and Sabo didn’t bother hiding his confusion at that.
“Bread thing?”
“Trafalgar won’t eat bread, so Luffy demanded that the food we brought them not have any,” she explained.
“And he knew he doesn’t eat bread?” Sabo asked. That could be a clue that they were lying about not knowing each other, except then Koala shook her head, like it also mystified her.
“No, the first meal I brought down had rolls, and they traded after arguing about it?” she said, and they were making their way up to the next floor now.
“I guess Luffy could just be trying to see how much we will listen to him?” he suggested. His friend hummed slightly as she seemed to think some more.
“I suppose the big thing is that Hack says they’ve been sharing a bed the last two nights,” Koala added, and Sabo barely managed to grab the railing when he tripped on the stairs turning back to look at her.
“Well, you could have led with that,” he snapped. Of course, she didn’t look apologetic, just amused at catching him so off guard. “I guess that isn’t… totally strange, for pirates? Weird that two captains as famous as them would let their guard down so much, though,” he mused. Sabo did not know why this topic was making him so uncomfortable. He wasn’t normally a prude.
“Wait,” Sabo stopped suddenly, an idea starting to form. “Where is their room? One of the spares in the tower?” he asked, and Koala nodded.
Okay. That could work.
“I have a plan, but I’m gonna need your help.”
Koala smiled at him, more amused than surprised.
“Of course you do.”
-
Law didn’t know what to do with crying.
Mugiwara-ya was still clinging to him, except instead of just his arm he was clutching the front of his hoodie and sobbing into his chest. For his part, Law was frozen, arms held awkwardly away from the younger pirate as he tried desperately to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do with this.
He could just shambles the other pirate off of him. It would be the easiest option, and he had no reason not to.
“Mugiwara-ya,” he managed after however long, placing an awkward, stiff hand on the younger captain’s back. “I have no fucking idea what is going on, and I’m going to need you to explain it to me,” he continued evenly.
Surprisingly, that actually seemed to work. Mugiwara-ya nodded, pulling away and wiping at his face like the tears had personally offended him.
“Sorry, sorry Torao,” he said, voice still shaky from tears. “I just- she said he was Sabo,” he continued, shaking his head as if that would fight off the tears that threatened to return. Well, that seemed like as good a place to start as any.
“And who is Sabo?” he asked.
“My brother,” Mugiwara-ya answered, and Law startled slightly.
“Dragon has another kid?”
Oh, wrong choice. He was eaten by the yeti.
“No!” Mugiwara-ya snapped, clearly frustrated. “I mean, I don’t know! I don’t know him! That has nothing to do with me, I got my brothers on my own and who our parents are has nothing to do with it,” he insisted, and at least it seemed like that had distracted him from the crying, and he huffed as he gave Law a look. “You’re smarter than that, Torao.”
“Right,” Law said, because well, if he took any time to think about it at all, that would have been obvious. Strawhat had been very clear about his feelings on his father, or at least, about as clear as he was on anything. “To be fair to me, I said I have no idea what’s going on,” he defended, which seemed to mollify Mugiwara-ya somewhat. Law had not missed the way he had said brothers, but that wasn’t really the point here.
“I guess I forgive you,” the younger pirate said, and Law snorted as he rolled his eyes.
“I’m overjoyed,” he said in the flattest tone he could manage. “So Sabo was your brother, who died,” Law continued, getting them back on topic because it was probably only a matter of time before someone found them. It wasn’t exactly a leap, considering he’d asked about people coming back from the dead and broke down sobbing. The statement sobered Mugiwara-ya, who nodded.
“That fake Sabo, he looked and sounded so much like him, but it couldn’t be him,” he shook his head, as if trying to shake out the hope. “He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t recognize me,” he added in a quiet voice.
“That fake Sabo is the one who’s supposed to escort us back to Sabaody,” Law said, and immediately he could see this was going to be a problem.
“No! I don’t want to be anywhere near him!” Mugiwara-ya demanded, and Law sighed, running a hand down his face.
“It was the only condition Dragon gave us for borrowing a boat,” he tried to reason, fighting not to get too immediately frustrated. By all rights, he deserved to, because this temper tantrum could cost them their free ride back to both their crews.
Except Law kept thinking about that morning. About I know what you means and such a dumb kid and how he would react if he had looked up and seen Lami alive and smiling at him like a stranger.
“I don’t care. They can pick someone else,” Mugiwara-ya insisted.
Law should argue. The incessantly stubborn pirate would just have to deal with it for the boat ride if it meant they could get out of here faster.
“You’re explaining this to Dragon. I have no leverage here,” was what he ended up saying instead, like an idiot.
It was at that point that there was a knock at the door.
“I’m not talking to the fake Sabo,” Mugiwara-ya insisted, getting up and moving away from the door. Law grit his teeth, but he really did not want to be accused of kidnapping the younger captain.
“Are you guys in there? We just want to talk!” Koala-ya called from outside the room. Thoroughly fucking done with this, Law got up and opened the door. He was a little surprised to find it was only Koala-ya there, but he guessed it made sense of they were trying not to freak Mugiwara-ya out any more than he already was.
“Mugiwara-ya wants someone else to escort us,” he said, letting himself sound as annoyed as he felt.
“We would have to talk to Dragon about that,” Koala-ya said, like this was an argument she was prepared to have.
Law didn’t notice anything happening until it started.
“Tor-”
Mugiwara-ya was cut off, and Law made the mistake of trying to turn around without dealing with the woman in front of him first. The second she was out of his sight, he was being grappled.
“We just have a question!” Koala-ya shouted as she grabbed him, and damn it he should have shambled a knife from the common’s kitchen before coming up here.
“Weird way of asking questions,” Law snapped as he pulled up a room around them. “Shambles.”
He had Koala swapped with a light fixture about halfway down the staircase, and a letter opener from inside the desk in his hand by the time he managed to turn around.
Mugiwara-ya wasn’t there, but the hidden opening that led out to empty sky was still open. Fuck. Why didn’t he inspect the damn room for secret entrances? He could practically hear Doflamingo in his ear, tsking his disappointment at the amateur move.
Leaning out and looking down, spotting the tophat wearing blond carrying a squirming pirate over his shoulder as they ran across the white, rocky terrain was easy.
“Shambles.”
The revolutionary stopped the moment Law had the letter opener up to his neck from where he stood behind him, his room buzzing barely perceptibly around them.
“Drop him.”
The army’s chief of staff put his hands up, and immediately Mugiwara-ya was scrambling away and, for some reason, rubbing his jaw.
“He did something to his hand! I couldn’t bite him!” the younger pirate complained.
“I don’t want to fight. I just have some questions,” the Chief of Staff said calmly, almost friendly, seeming unbothered to have a pirate threatening him.
“Really? Because it looked to me like you were trying to kidnap your leader’s son,” Law said, not trusting whatever the hell was going on here for a second.
“I was told that if I approached you both, you would just pull the disappearing act again. Look, now we’re talking,” the revolutionary said, as if this had all gone perfectly to some little plan he had.
“I don’t wanna talk to you!” Mugiwara-ya huffed, turning his back on the blond and crossing his arms, like some petulant child.
“Luffy,” the chief of staff sighed, in a way that sounded just a little bit too familiar for someone who had never met the pirate.
“Don’t!” Mugiwara-ya snapped, fists clenched and eyes squeezed tight. “Don’t say my name like him.”
“That’s what I need to ask you about,” the revolutionary insisted, turning his head just the slightest bit so that he could glance at Law behind him out of the corner of his eye. “Do you think you could ask your uh, buddy here, to put the blade down?” he asked. Mugiwara-ya looked back, but he was looking right past the other boy, to Law.
“Torao is his own captain. I don’t decide what he does,” he said.
If Law smirked a little bit at the acknowledged respect, no one saw it but the other captain.
This was a delicate situation though, and none of them technically enemies, for the moment. With a breath, Law pulled the letter opener away and dropped the room as he took a step back. His gaze did not leave the revolutionary for a second though, ready to jump again in an instant if he went for the other pirate.
“Wow, Koala wasn’t kidding about you two,” the blond said as he rubbed at his neck. Law was not about to ask what he meant by that. He didn’t want to know.
“What do you want?” Mugiwara-ya asked, voice cold. He still wasn’t looking at the revolutionary, and his clenched fists were still shaking.
“You know me,” the Chief of Staff said, and Mugiwara-a was immediately shaking his head, looking somewhere between furious and devastated.
“No! No, I know Sabo! And I know Sabo is dead. You aren’t him because you don’t- you looked at me like you didn’t know me! You’re just some fake who looks and- and sounds like him,” he insisted, having to bite out the words like it was physically painful to resist the hope.
“When I was a child,” this Fake Sabo started, and now that Law wasn’t busy figuring out if he should decapitate the guy, he could see he was watching Mugiwara-ya like a wild animal he was terrified to scare off and lose completely, “I was in an accident at sea. I don’t know exactly how old I was, because I don’t know anything that happened before that,” he explained slowly. Law perked up some at that.
“Amnesia? Seriously?” he asked, a little incredulous.
“I’m sorry if my life story is cliché to you,” Fake Sabo snipped at him, clearly annoyed at the interruption. Mugiwara-ya was practically staring the question into him though, so Law sighed.
“It’s a rare condition where someone loses their memories. Sometimes it’s temporary, and the person will go into a fugue state and start a new life for years before it comes back. Sometimes, in the case of severe trauma or injury, it doesn’t ever come back, at least not without something to trigger the memories,” he explained. As he spoke, he watched as Mugiwara-ya slowly raised a hand up to his cheek, touching the area that mirrored the large scar around the chief of staff’s eye. “Were you able to confirm for certain that your brother died, Mugiwara-ya? You saw his body?” Law asked, but he could already see the tears forming in the younger pirate’s eyes.
“Wait, brother?” Sabo spun around to ask.
Law did not feel an ounce of pity for the man as he was tackled to the ground by a sobbing Mugiwara-ya.
“Sabo!”