Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Law twirled the stolen pen between his fingers, tapping first one end and then the other against the desk’s smooth wooden surface, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. There were hospital chairs he’d rather be sitting in, and he’d once slept on the floor to avoid those. The coffee they’d offered in the waiting room had been shitty too. And the wait time here was horrific. Despite having been right on time for his appointment, he’d been alone in this woman’s office for fifteen minutes now, with nothing better to do than steal one of her pens out of its cup and stare at the bullshit posters that were plastered across the walls.

‘Find your soulmate, find your happiness!’ one poster proclaimed. ‘Finding love is hard. Let us draw you a map,’ read another. Both had the text over a pretty nature background that Law didn’t think had anything to do with soulmates. Another, printed over the face of a man who Law presumed was supposed to look like he was about to start crying, advised ‘Just because your soulmate mark looks simple doesn’t mean it is. Don’t take chances - let us help.’ Law thought the poster’s subject looked more like he’d jammed his thumb in a drawer than like he was having trouble with his love life.

Law wasn’t sure why they felt the need to cover the Soulmate Agency offices in those posters. If you were in the office surely you had already decided to let them help.

Not that Law really believed that was what they were doing. They oversimplified the whole business, pretending like some fairy tale happily-ever-after ending was waiting for everyone with just a little bit of dedication - and, of course, a nice sized check.

Law didn’t buy any of it. At best, he considered soulmates to be a messier business than the agency - or the average random citizen on the street - wanted to admit. It wasn’t this cutesy, simple, clean-cut bullshit the movies advertised and the agency sold.

Oh, sure, maybe there was some of that. Some people always got to be lucky bastards. But what the movies tried to pass off as ‘complicated bonds’ was a joke. The movies liked to focus on the romantic soulmates, the simple soulmates, and, going by these posters, it looked like the agency did too. People with names, timers, dates, first words. Two people with romantic soulmate bonds that went both ways. People whose only problems were skeptical parents, serendipitous misunderstandings, and faulty assumptions. Things that always worked out in the end and let the curtain close on a happy ending. They packaged that up, sold it off, and called that messy. The Soulmate Agency offered to swoop in and make sure you never had to deal with that mess. Neither liked to touch on the kinds of problems Law knew existed.

In all fairness ‘If you’re really lucky you’ll fit into one of these categories enough for us to be able to help you and you won’t have to deal with all the issues that come from not having a soulmate bond like this because we won’t be able to do fuck-all about it' didn’t make for as good of an advertisement, and would probably be difficult to fit onto a poster. And what would you use for the background? A forest fire? Not very marketable.

Law picked up a pamphlet from the desk and flicked through it with one hand, spinning the pen between his fingers with the other. ‘I found my soulmate, but I’m not theirs - Now what?’ That was a little better, a little truer to life, but the back of the pamphlet was covered in referrals to various relationship counselors. What a romantic start to a relationship - hey, I just met you and we haven’t even gone on a first date yet, want to go see a therapist together? Upon opening the pamphlet Law was immediately met with the word ‘denial’ - maybe they just aren’t ready to commit yet! - and he rolled his eyes. Below that, the pamphlet recommended getting tested for compatibility to make sure everyone was right about who their soulmate was. That was even better - We just met, but I think you should break up with your partner because I think I’m entitled to you.

Law put the pamphlet back, feeling irritated, and looked at the surrounding ones. ‘My tests were inconclusive - how do I tell if my soulmate is platonic or romantic?’ Inside were several paragraphs questioning whether or not soulmate bonds could be platonic at all.

‘We have a two-way bond, but they say they don’t want to be soulmates with me.’ Law pulled that one out despite knowing he probably wasn’t going to like what he read. Inside the pamphlet was a lot of information about people with commitment issues, multiple platitudes to not give up, and on the back was another list of relationship counselors. Nowhere was there any mention of maybe letting the other person make their decisions for themselves. Law put it back with disgust, berating himself for having looked in the first place.

It was exactly what Law had expected, but he was annoyed and disappointed all the same. Even the supposed soulmate ‘experts’ didn’t want to talk about the soulmate bonds that really were messy. Nowhere in the office was there anything about the possibility of not ending up with a soulmate and a happily ever after. There was a pamphlet labeled ‘They say we’re soulmates, but I think they’re just trying to keep me from leaving them. What can I do?’ but there was nothing anywhere about the fact that they might, in fact, be soulmates, and the other person could still be an abusive, controlling asshole. There was also nothing about the people whose soulmates were familial, their siblings or their children, who got disproportionately accused of manipulating the system. Usually by complete strangers who thought they had some business getting involved in someone else’s personal life.

Law had gotten that lesson burned permanently into his worldview eight years ago. Corazon, despite being a sap for all things soulmate related, still didn’t talk about his soulmate bond and how it had led him to Law if he could help it; not in public. Not around anyone who might have the ability to raise a fuss about it. Law could no longer be taken away from Corazon and hurled back into the system because of it, but old habits died hard. They’d kept it firmly under wraps while Corazon had worked on the paperwork to adopt Law, and they’d never really undone the secrecy. Custody battles based on the soulmate argument all came down to whether or not your judge believed soulmate bonds could be familial, and Law and Corazon’s luck had been bad enough up to that point for them to not want to risk it. They’d sidestepped the issue and Law had thought that his life would be a lot better if perfect strangers would stop being so interested in his personal life. He still thought that now.

Law had grown up hoping he would be one of the zero-point-four percent of the population to have no soulmate bond at all, but he had never been a lucky person. He had woken up a few weeks ago, on his twenty-first birthday - a disgustingly average age for soulmate marks to appear - with twenty-six tally marks on his left arm, just below his his elbow. Five clusters and one lone line. A pretty typical type of soulmate mark; though the exact meaning of it could vary considerably. Law had thought it was just his luck to not even be fortunate enough to have a mark that was invisible to anyone looking at him.

Could have been worse though, he had to admit. It could have fucked with his dreams. His insomnia was plenty bad enough without having supernatural forces rooting around in his head every night.

Law would have liked to ignore the marks, but doctors were required to be tested and registered. Something about prevention against them lying about their marks in order to take advantage of patients. And, despite Law’s lack of interest in the whole thing, a requirement was a requirement, so he’d made an appointment with the Soulmate Agency and resigned himself to a long day of being poked and prodded and scraped as they took whatever samples it was they needed to give him some explanation about this thing no one understood.

A week later, he was back here waiting on the report of what they had found, not sure what to expect, or what to hope for. Soulmate tests could yield incredibly vague results; something that had always annoyed Law on general principle, considering how much said tests cost.

Law ran his fingers over his mark again. He couldn’t shake the idea that he should be able to feel them. He didn't know why; they didn't look much different from his tattoos and he couldn't feel those. Maybe it was the significance. Surely something with so much potential to dismantle his life should be more tangible.

The door opened. Law sat upright in his chair and shoved the pen hurriedly into his sweatshirt pocket, doing his best to look like he had been waiting patiently and definitely wasn't stealing her office supplies.

“Thank you for waiting,” she said, smiling and sitting down. She had that overly friendly customer service voice.

Law just nodded, not trusting himself not to be a dick if he opened his mouth. A dozen smartass remarks about the wait time were sitting on the back of his tongue.

“Now, I’m afraid your tests were inconclusive about type, but I don’t want you to worry too much about that, okay? That’s the newest test on the market, and you can’t make any assumptions off of it not telling you loud and clear that you have a romantic soulmate bond. Most bonds are romantic, after all, remember that. But I’m afraid that, depending on your circumstances, you may have to deal with some of those awkward hang-ups that come from not being certain about just what kind of relationship this is leading you to. However, I think you’ll be pleased to know that the odds are in your favor. You have an excellent chance of-”

“It isn’t romantic,” Law told her shortly. “You don’t have to reassure me of that.”

She looked up at him, face contorted with confusion. Her hand was frozen halfway through flipping over a page in his file. “I’m… sorry?”

“I said that it’s not romantic.”

“Sir, as I said, your test results weren’t conclusive. However, as I was about to tell you, you do have excellent odds. While we can’t put ‘romantic’ on your file without a ninety-five or higher percent certainty, that doesn’t mean you can’t know that you’ll have a romantic bond. In your case, it is about eighty-seven percent likely that it is romantic, it’s only that-”

“No.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Yes. It can’t be romantic. I’m not - I don’t - I’m aromantic. I don’t… Just no.” Not the most eloquent argument he’d ever made, but he was off balance today. Really, all he wanted was for her to shut up about romance and let him get out of her office. He’d have been happy to skip the meeting altogether and just have them put his paperwork through with him none the wiser, if they’d have allowed such a thing.

The woman - Mary, according to her name tag - was staring at him with surprised confusion. Law was probably the first person she had ever met whose problem was that he didn’t want the test to say his bond was romantic. The tests for that were new and usually came back with shaky percentages, at best. For anyone else an above fifty percent chance that, yes, he was going to find the love of his life, would have been the highlight of his month. Not good enough for the paperwork, but plenty good enough for hope. Add that to everyone’s bias that romantic bonds were the only ‘real’ kind of soulmate bonds and that missing thirteen percent from Law’s odds would have been laughable to anyone else.

Law wasn’t anyone else. He didn’t want a soulmate, and he really didn’t want anyone selling the idea that he was going to fall in love - actual, romantic, head-over-heels love - with his.

“Well, sir, the tests-”

“Are wrong. Or I’m in that thirteen percent. Or someone or something fucked up somewhere because this thing -” Law gestured at his arm- “is not romantic. Okay?”

Mary stared at him. Her customer service face was cracking. “Well, I’m afraid that the percentages suggest otherwise. And for the purposes of your registration we have to put what the test says. You could get retested, if you wanted, but, as there is no actual evidence that there was a mistake on our end, you would have to pay for it.”

Law wasn’t paying for this bullshit twice. He knew; it didn’t matter what went on his file. It was confidential; it wasn’t like anyone was going to be spreading around that he was supposed to be searching the globe for the love of his life, or whatever it was that soulmate enthusiasts ran off to do after their tests came back. “Forget it. Just… what else did the test say?”

She looked at him warily, but slowly turned her attention back to the paperwork. “You really have some of the clearest test results I’ve ever seen. You’re very lucky.”

Oh yeah. Law felt downright blessed. “Does that mean you know for sure what my tally marks mean?”

“Yes, sir. They’re a countdown bond.”

“A countdown to what?”

“One will fade each time you encounter your soulmate. There is, of course, variation between cases, but most people with bonds like this one have had the tally marks then be replaced by some more traditional mark; such as their soulmate’s name, something they’ve said, or a significant date between the two of them.”

“What qualifies as an encounter?”

“I’m afraid your test results can’t tell us that. Encounters, as they relate to soulmate bonds, vary wildly. You may only have to see your soulmate, or you may have to actually speak with them, or touch them. I’m sure it will become clear once you begin meeting them. And since you have so many there will be little room for doubt by the time you run out of marks.”

“Why is it a countdown? What’s going to be so special about that twenty-sixth ‘encounter’?”

“Well, soulmate bonds have to stay a little bit mysterious, don’t they?” she asked, trying for a mischievous smile. She’d really mastered the art of saying ‘we have no fucking idea’ without making it seem like the Soulmate Agency was a waste of time and money. “I’m sure it will be something very special to the both of you.”

Law resisted the urge to glare at her, though he imagined at least some of his mood showed on his face. Mary was only trying to do her job, he told himself. She was probably a hopeless romantic who found this job gave her a real sense of purpose. She probably thought the lack of concrete answers led to a more ‘romantic’ and ‘thrilling’ search for one’s soulmate. She wouldn’t be the only one. “Is there anything else you can tell me?” Law asked, forcing his tone to stay neutral. “Or is that all the tests can find?”

“I’m afraid that’s all we can tell you with certainty. Anything else would be conjecture based solely on anecdotal evidence, and I’m sure you’ve watched enough television to know what a bad idea it is to make assumptions like that about soulmate bonds.”

Well, at least Law could revel in being right about this whole thing being a waste. But it was done and over with now and Law had what he needed. “Well, thank you then,” he said insincerely, standing up and offering a hand for a goodbye handshake. “Is there anymore paperwork I have to fill out, or do you take care of that?” They had better do it, considering how much they charged for a test that mostly amounted to a large shrug and that couldn’t even guarantee it was accurate.

“We’ll take care of it, sir. All relevant paperwork will be in the system within a week, which will satisfy any job requirements for you being tested. We’ll mail you a hard copy of the results as well.”

Which would no doubt end up abandoned in the bottom drawer of Law’s desk, never to see the light of day again. Law shook Mary’s hand with a false smile that she returned, and he left.

He slammed his car door harder than was necessary as he got into it. He probably should have taken public transport; he wasn’t sure he was in a good mental state to be driving right now. But he hadn’t known how long this would take and he didn’t know the bus and subway schedules on this side of town so he hadn’t wanted to rely on them. And cab drivers talked too much, especially if they picked you up from a place like the Soulmate Agency. They’d be butting into his business before he finished reeling off the address. Beside all of that, it was also the day before Halloween. Who knew what kinds of weirdos would be on public transport. Law didn’t, and he didn’t want to find out.

Law pulled out of the Soulmate Agency parking lot, teeth grinding together in irritation before he realized what he was doing and wrenched them apart again. Waste of time, waste of money, waste of energy, just to get some information he didn’t want and that would have barely been useful to him if he had wanted it. If he had gotten the tests for any other reason besides a job requirement he would have demanded a refund. He wouldn’t even have gotten the tests done in the first place.

And they were wrong. There was no way his bond was romantic. He’d spent weeks researching romantic and sexual attraction as a teenager, sometimes not stopping until Corazon yelled at him to ‘get some damn sleep already.' He was aromantic and he knew it. He was twenty-one years old and had never had so much as a crush. If the tests said Law’s bond was romantic - even with a thirteen percent margin for error - they had a bug in their system.

Law’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel. It was a Saturday, which meant it was family dinner night with Bepo and Corazon. Corazon had insisted the day before that he wasn’t all that interested in the details of what the tests had said, but Law knew that wasn’t true. Corazon would want to know everything as soon as Law arrived. If he arrived. The traffic was horrible, even for New York. And Law wasn’t familiar enough with the side streets around here to be able to avoid the bulk of it.

His mind drifted as he waited for the cars to clear. A countdown, huh? Unfortunately, that meant it probably wasn’t anyone Law already knew. They would have started fading already if it was. Failing having no soulmate mark at all, Law had hoped for it to be a platonic bond with one of his friends or something, so he didn’t have to deal with anyone pushing him to go out looking for his soulmate, or with having to integrate his soulmate into his life. Why couldn’t it just be Bepo and make Law’s life a little easier? Or Shachi, or Penguin?

...No, never mind. He’d rather it be a stranger than one of those two. He shuddered a little at the thought. The last thing he needed was to be giving those two encouragement to drag him into trouble.

Someone in the jam of cars ahead of him blared their horn. Law jumped out of his thoughts at the sound and looked up just in time to see a yellow straw hat with a red band sail past his windshield, floating gently on the wind. A moment later someone in a pirate costume came bolting out from between the cars, slammed into Law’s car before he could stop himself, gracefully recovered, leapt up and over the hood, grabbed the hat, jammed it onto his head, and started running again. Two police officers appeared and charged after him and seconds later, all three of them were out of sight.

Law shook his head. Halloween. Couldn’t they at least wait until the actual day of to start causing trouble? Maybe it was the years he’d spent with the Donquixote family, where Halloween was mostly a day to take advantage of the cops being stretched too thin to do their jobs, but Law didn’t understand the appeal of the holiday. Running around in costumes, causing trouble and disturbing the peace.

The cars slowly started inching forward again. The cops and the pirate had probably been responsible for the jam in the first place. Law shook his head again. Seriously.

Corazon, as Law had known he would, wasted no time before pouncing on Law and demanding information, not even waiting until Law had gotten the door shut behind him.

“Well, what did they say?”

Law pulled his arm away before Corazon could pull up his sleeve and look at the marks again. It was understandable that he was so excited - his own soulmate bond had been about as life changing as they came - but it wasn’t like the marks now came with an informative pamphlet just because Law had gotten a test. “Can I take my shoes off first?”

Corazon stepped back a little, letting Law take off his boots and shrug out of his jacket. “It’s a countdown,” Law told him. “Apparently one will fade every time I ‘encounter’ - their word, not mine - my soulmate until they’re all gone. And before you ask, no they couldn’t give me any information about how to find my soulmate.” He wasn’t going to tell Corazon about the agency thinking his bond was romantic. Why spread false information?

“So you’re going to meet them twenty-six times then?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“I wonder what’s going to be so important about the last one. I mean, twenty-six seems like a lot of times to meet a person just to get to the beginning of a relationship.”

Law shrugged and the two of them moved to sit down next to Bepo at the table, Corazon continuing to theorize out loud. Law rolled his eyes at his adoptive brother; a silent can you believe this? Bepo had been watching the conversation, looking relieved that he wasn’t the target of all the excitement. He looked back apologetically, but not like he’d ever be willing to trade places.

Lucky son of a bitch. His soulmate mark hadn’t shown up yet. When it did, Law was going to relish watching him get stuck under the microscope for once. Some of the joy would be lost by the fact that Bepo would probably have a lot more interest in his bond than Law did in his, but Law would enjoy it all the same.

“I guess you’ll probably have a harder time figuring out when you’ve met yours than I did,” Corazon remarked as they started eating.

“Probably. A fading line on my arm is going to be a lot easier to miss than having my color vision suddenly switch back on.” Law was still amazed that Corazon had managed to keep Doflamingo and the rest of the Family from noticing that all those years ago. Law was pretty sure that if he had suddenly had his color vision come back after seeing the world solely in black and white for twenty years, he would have reacted. It would have been an event . Instead, even Law hadn’t suspected anything was up until Corazon had finally broached the subject, months later. It was hard to believe now, watching Corazon nearly take his eye out trying to open the container of butter, but Corazon had been a good FBI agent. Reckless, unlucky, and not nearly as job-oriented as his father was, but good. He’d known how to keep from blowing his cover.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find them soon enough anyway,” Corazon said, once he’d recovered from his latest near-death experience. “And with twenty-six marks at least you probably won’t be one of those peoples whose mark doesn’t really tell them anything concrete. You’ll work out who they’re responding to sooner or later, once you start meeting them.”

Law shrugged as he reached out, opened the butter container for him, and handed it back again, all while barely being aware of what he was doing. “Maybe. It doesn’t really matter to me.”

“It will once you meet whoever it is. Romantic, platonic, familial, whatever - soulmates are a big deal, Law.”

Law nodded, not wanting to start an argument, but he was skeptical. Corazon always acted like finding his soulmate - finding Law - had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, but Law could never forget that it had come with the price tag of Corazon blowing his cover, losing his job, and nearly losing his life. Law could do without that kind of blessing. His soulmate probably could too.

Not that he’d ever say that to Corazon. He genuinely just wanted Law to be happy. Law would just hope to never run into his soulmate. Plenty of people never found theirs, regardless of how hard they did or didn’t try. Shachi and Penguin were on a constant hunt for theirs, and were no closer to finding them now than they had been when Law had first met them over four years ago. Corazon hadn’t been looking for his at all, and had tripped over Law - very nearly literally - while at work one day. Soulmates were like that sometimes.

“How’s school going, Bepo? Is that lab still kicking your ass?” Law asked, not bothering to hide that he was changing the subject. Corazon rolled his eyes but didn’t object to it.

Bepo scrunched up his nose. “I don’t know how you got through those things.”

“It’s that upper division biology course, right? I got them to let me test out of it. The professor didn’t put up a fight; he’d had me for a different class and I think he’d had enough of me proving him wrong without handing me a scalpel to do it with.”

Bepo sighed. “I wish I’d been born a genius.”

“Oh no, you don’t. I’ve got perfect grades, I’m starting my career young, and everyone’s always saying I have a bright future ahead of me, but at what cost? A lifetime of ostracization and everyone being certain I’ll burn out in half a decade. So the future will be bright, but short-lived.”

“Burn out from the E.R.?” Corazon asked. “Or from being a doctor in general?”

“You know, they never specify. E.R. burnout is a thing though. I’ll last six years, just out of spite, if it comes to that.”

“Do not, Law.”

“I’m not giving those bastards the joy of being right.”

“Law .”

“Relax, Cora-san, I’m kidding. I’ll be fine. And if I do get burned out in the E.R. I’ll go be the best doctor in the area with a private practice or something.”

Corazon looked disbelieving.

“What? Don’t you trust me?”

“To take care of yourself? You’ve never done it yet. Why should I believe you’d start now?”

Law grinned at him. “They say there’s a first time for everything, you know.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

They finished eating dinner, talking about Bepo’s classes and what type of medicine he was going to specialize in, talking about Law’s upcoming job as an E.R. surgeon and how nice that would be for him, finally being out of school and in the workforce, even though Corazon was concerned about him having Shachi and Penguin - loose cannons, in his own words - as co-workers. As much as he liked knowing that Law had friends outside of his family, he was never certain that those two were the sort of friends he’d been hoping for.

When dinner was over and the dishes loaded away they moved into the living room to watch a movie, Bepo and Law teasing Corazon about still having boxes piled around despite having moved out of D.C. months ago, and the two of them were all moved into their apartments. It was a usual family night, right down to the way Bepo fell asleep on Law’s shoulder for twenty minutes before Law had to wake him up because his arm was asleep. It was enough to get rid of Law’s bad mood from his meeting at the agency. A piece of calm normalcy.

He returned home a little after midnight, feeling relaxed and reassured, the threat of a soulmate lurking around a corner seeming much farther away and fanciful than it had a few hours ago. Law’s life was finally on track, after ten years of derailing it and then trying to force it back in a better direction. He had his degree, and once his paperwork went through he would have his career.

He’d never thought he would get this far. He still woke up sometimes with phantom pains under his scars, certain it had all been a fever dream to comfort him in his final hours. A doctor at twenty-one, his biggest problem in life now the twenty-six marks on his arm rather than… Well, it just wasn’t a big problem, relatively speaking.

Though it felt like one when he pulled off his sweatshirt, looked at the lines, and realized with a gut-wrenching jolt that the one lone line had vanished.

Somehow, he had already met his soulmate.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Doc…” Penguin’s voice came through the phone in the wheedling tone that always meant he was about to ask for something he wasn’t supposed to have. “You, uh, taking today off for your birthday?”

Law adjusted his phone between his cheek and his shoulder so he could pour his coffee while he talked. “In all the years you’ve known me have I ever used my birthday to get out of anything?” It was just the opposite, really - he usually used work to get out of birthday dinners. The fewer opportunities people had to make waiters sing him embarrassing songs the better.

“Your dedication to your job is an inspiration to us all. So, uh, assuming you’re not going to be late either…” He trailed off, unsubtly trying to lead Law into agreeing to something before knowing what it was.

“I’m never late for work. Would you just spit it out and tell me what you want already? I have coffee to drink.”

“Could you cover for me? Only for, like, ten minutes! I’m just… running a little late.”

Law looked up at the clock on his microwave. 6:45 glowed back at him in obnoxious green lines. “You don’t have to be in for another hour. How are you running that late?”

“Well, I’m sort of…” Law could hear Penguin shuffling on the other end of the line, trying to make his story less embarrassing. “…stranded, I guess. In a different city.”

Law sighed. “Does this have anything to do with a girl?”

“Why do you always assume – Well, yeah. And a lot of drinks. She was really hot though! At least, I think she was. It might have been the tequila.”

Law smirked. It was always something with Shachi and Penguin. Speaking of which… “Do I need to cover for Shachi too?”

“We’re not joined at the hip, you know. We are capable of showing up for work at different times.”

“That isn’t an answer, Penguin.”

“He'd probably appreciate it. He’s picking me up.”

Of course. Law took a sip of his coffee, letting Penguin stew in his silence for a minute. Then he set down the mug and said, “You two have exactly fifteen minutes past the start of your shift. If you aren’t at least in the parking lot by then, you’re on your own.”

“Doc, you’re the best. We’ll make it by then, no problem.”

Law would be surprised if they showed up within twice that much time, but he hung up without saying so. If the two of them weren’t such good doctors – and if Heart Hospital didn’t have such a high turnover rate – they would have been jobless ages ago. Human disasters, the both of them, and it got exponentially worse when they were together. Years later and Law still wondered how he had managed to befriend two people so unlike himself. Stockholm syndrome from years as roommates in med school, probably. And a lot of bribes in the form of late night coffee runs.

For his part, Law was not only not late for work, but was early enough to visit Bepo in pediatrics and bring him a cup of non-hospital coffee. Bepo looked vaguely zombified and like he might just collapse face-first into the cup if he didn’t drink the contents quickly enough.

“How long have I been here?” he groaned. “It feels like years.”

“Just under thirty hours, I think.”

Bepo groaned again, louder this time. “I’m never covering anyone’s shift ever again.”

He would. He always did.

Law couldn’t really empathize with his friend’s exhaustion. His chronic insomnia frequently had him working from one shift into another, even if he wasn’t technically supposed to still be there. More than once, he’d kept going until someone had started to worry he was going to fall asleep on the operating table and loaded him into a taxi. Any other hospital probably would have gotten on Law’s case about it, but Heart Hospital was severely and constantly understaffed, and a tired but still extremely competent surgeon was miles better than no doctor at all. Heart Hospital had to skirt a lot of lines to keep their doors open. They were, by far, the most affordable hospital in the city, which didn’t leave them with a lot of profit to spare. Law had been offered countless positions at other hospitals in the city, even the lowest paying of which had offered him twice as much as Heart Hospital could. None of them, Law imagined, would be so willing to indulge his bad habit of working himself into an early grave.

Law tried to look sympathetic. “Well, you’ll be done in a few hours and then you can go home and pass out for two days.”

“Finally. I can’t even remember the last time I had a full day off.”

“I’m pretty sure it was a week ago, Bepo.”

“Ages.” Bepo yawned and took a drink of coffee. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks.” The two of them and Corazon had done birthday dinner and drinks on Saturday, making today pretty unremarkable, as far as Law was concerned. “I’ll see you later. Enjoy your coffee.”

Bepo chugged what was left of it and waved goodbye.

Luckily for Shachi and Penguin, it was a slow day. It didn’t take too much effort for Law to make up for their absence until they arrived, right when Law expected them to – forty-five minutes after their shift was supposed to begin, looking only mildly abashed at their lateness and offering Law a cup of black coffee and a raisin bran muffin as compensation for his trouble.

“You two do realize you wouldn’t have been this late if you hadn’t stopped for these, right?” Law pointed out as he took the gifts.

Neither of them responded, and they were suddenly very busy working. They had selective hearing.

The day was so slow Law even made it to lunchtime before having to go up to his elbows in somebody’s chest cavity. It probably said something concerning about him that that made him classify the morning as boring.

In the E.R., patients came and went like they were being brought to him by a revolving door. Even if they didn’t leave the hospital after Law was done with them, they stopped being his responsibility as soon as they were out of sight. Unless the patient was a regular, had a unique problem, or had an impressive personality, Law usually had forgotten virtually everything about them by the time his shift was done.

At two-thirty that afternoon, the paperwork said that Law’s next patient had a weird name and a head injury that needed stitches.

The guy did not seem at all concerned about his injury, despite the blood that was matting his hair to his scalp and the trickle of it running down his face. His eyes were glassy and unfocused and Law didn’t need a CT scan to know that he almost certainly had a concussion. He had freckled brown skin; the kind that said he had started out dark and spent enough time in the sun to get darker. He was wearing a battered straw hat, which looked to have been placed on his head with great care to keep it from getting bloody.

“I’m Dr. Trafalgar Law. I’m going to clean up your injury and see if it needs stitches,” he told the guy, voice flat and matter-of-fact. He’d been told by many people that his bedside manner left much to be desired. He usually retorted that he had gone to med school to learn medicine, not how to make friends. Besides, unless the days were as dead as this, he mostly did surgeries. People didn’t care about your bedside manner when they were under anesthesia.

This particular patient didn’t seem to mind his bluntness. “’Kay.”

“You’ll need to take your hat off.”

He frowned at that, an expression that might have been a glare if his eyes had been capable of focusing enough. “How come?”

“It’ll get in my way. You can put it down on the counter over there.” Law gestured towards it.

Straw Hat’s expression didn’t flicker, not even to look where Law meant. “I don’t want to put it down. I might lose it.”

“I promise not to let you walk out of here without it.”

Straw Hat didn’t deem that worthy of a response, just kept frowning at Law.

“Or… you could just hold it, I guess. I just need you to not be wearing it.”

Straw Hat eyed him suspiciously, as though he thought Law might simply snatch the hat away, but he accepted the compromise and settled the hat into his lap.

Law got to work. “How did this happen?” He hated making small talk, but if patients were busy talking they didn’t usually have the chance to silently work themselves into a panic over their injuries. Law had learned the hard way what an event that could be. Besides, it was generally a good idea to keep an eye on the cognitive capabilities of concussed patients.

“My friend didn’t think I could do my juggling trick and balance on the stair railing at the same time.”

“And you proved him right by falling off of it?”

“No , I proved him wrong by keeping it up for more than six seconds.” He frowned. “Then I fell off.”

“Six seconds? Was this for that… What is it called? Vine?” He’d been hearing Vine stories since the day the damn thing had come out. He wanted to get it declared a public health hazard.

“Yeah!” Straw Hat’s head jerked up as he said it and Law had to physically push him back into place. “Usopp makes Vines of me doing stuff all the time. He says I’m famous.”

“Do all of your Vines end with you falling off of things and having to go to the hospital?”

“Not all of them. I do come here a lot though. I don’t think I usually need to, but my brothers get mad if I don’t.”

“Good for them.”

“I thought I knew all the doctors here. Are you new?”

“No. But I usually treat higher priority patients. If you come in for minor injuries, like this one, you’d only be likely to see me if it’s a really slow day. Like today is.”

“Oh. Cool.” A pause, and then, “I like your tattoos.”

Law’s hands didn’t falter, but his breath caught in his throat. “Really.”

“Yeah. They’re neat. I’ve never seen a doctor with tattoos before.”

“Most people think they’re unprofessional.”

Straw Hat huffed. “That’s dumb.”

Law didn’t respond to that. Straw Hat was far from the first person to notice the tattoos, but most people seemed perturbed by their doctor having ‘death’ tattooed across his knuckles. He braced himself for the follow-up question that usually came – the one about the patches of pale skin that jigsawed across every visible part of him.

But Straw Hat seemed satisfied to leave the conversation with his opinion on the way tattoos were generally treated in the workplace and let Law finish patching him up in silence. “There, you’re cleaned up. One of the nurses will-“

“I know. I’ve hit my head before.” Law didn’t find that surprising. Straw Hat went his way, and Law went another.

The day remained slow and routine. Broken arm from a car accident. Heart attack. Police officer with a shoulder injury. Coffee break.

“Hey, Doc,” Shachi greeted, patting Law on the shoulder while he filled up his third cup of shitty hospital coffee for the day. “Heard you got to meet Luffy today. He’s a regular; this really the first time you’ve treated him?”

“Luffy?”

“Yeah. Reckless kid, messy black hair, wears a straw hat, probably got hurt doing some stupid stunt he swears wasn’t stupid? I think he's, like, Brazilian or something?”

“The guy I treated for a head injury that wouldn’t take his hat off so I could look at it?”

“Sounds like him. He loves that hat.”

Penguin appeared from somewhere to join in the conversation. “It seems like he comes in here every other week. Sometimes more. I’m pretty sure he’s single-handedly keeping the lights on around here. I don’t know what he does, but he sure gets hurt a lot doing it.”

“Vine,” Law said. “This time, at least.”

“He seems like the type.”

“Well, he was definitely a memorable one. What about you two? Any exciting patients today?”

“Had another of Whitebeard’s kids,” Shachi said. “Or a kid-to-be? I don’t know when they become his.”

“What was he in for?” Penguin asked.

“A fight in juvie, I think? So they sent him to us to get his jaw wired back in place and to Whitebeard to get his shit together and become a decent, hard working member of society.”

Law smirked, imagining what Sengoku would say if he heard someone saying that about Whitebeard’s foster kid operation, no matter how joking their tone. Whitebeard had been in a biker gang once, years ago, before he’d begun walking the straight and narrow - supposedly - and started taking in all the boys of the city who the foster system had washed their hands of. Sengoku, who had spent years trying to get something to stick on the Whitebeard gang before being promoted out of it being his problem, still held a grudge.

“Well, you both have had more interesting days than me,” Penguin complained. “The height of my day was a skateboarding accident. Kid was trying to convince her mother she wasn’t the one on the skateboard.”

“Cheer up,” Law said, finishing his coffee and stepping away. “There’s still time for a real emergency to walk in.”

“If they’re a real emergency, they’re probably not walking, Doc,” Shachi said, and then he and Penguin started cracking up at the joke. Law rolled his eyes and left them to it.

The day didn’t get any busier, but an hour before Law’s shift ended a familiar face was in front of him.

“Officer Tashigi. Here by yourself?” Their hospital treated most of the police officers in the area, so Law at least knew of most of them. He was pretty sure he’d never seen Tashigi without her partner before, but Smoker was not a subtle or quiet person; if he’d been around Law would have known from the other end of the building.

“It’s not a work injury, Dr. Trafalgar. I was arguing with someone and I, uh, wasn’t paying attention, and I sort of… tripped on the stairs. And then fell down them. The entire flight of them.”

“You were arguing with somebody?” Law had never seen that either, except for her occasionally shouting at Smoker to not be such a dick to whatever unfortunate nurse had gotten stuck with him.

“I was trying to get Roronoa to sell me his swords again. They’re antiques, and he keeps using them. He’s already broken one; it’s just a matter of time before he breaks another and he doesn’t even seem to care -“

“Tashigi. I can’t work if you’re waving your arms around.”

She went red, readjusted her glasses and went still. “Sorry. I’m really passionate about old swords.”

“Did falling down the stairs make him more or less willing to agree to sell?”

“I’m pretty sure he ran back into his apartment and locked the door as soon as he knew I wasn’t dead so that I couldn’t yell at him again.” She sighed. “I was hoping it being my birthday would get me some points, but he just said that his birthday is in a month and then he’d just have to buy them back anyway, so why bother.”

“It’s your birthday too, huh?”

“Too?”

“It’s also mine.”

“You work on your birthday?”

“Only if I can help it.”

“And I thought I spent too much time at work.”

Law finished with Tashigi and sent her on her way. He clocked out at the end of his shift; a subway ride later he was home. He called Corazon and allowed himself to be wished a happy birthday even though he, Corazon, and Bepo had celebrated just the other day. He promised Corazon that, yes, he had this Saturday off again, and, yes, he would be over for dinner.

Eventually, he went to bed feeling that the day had been altogether uneventful.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the next morning when, as Law was getting dressed, something about the marks on his arm felt just a little bit off.

He examined them more closely, paying real attention to the little black lines for the first time in he didn’t even know how long.

Five neat little groups. Five lines each.

No. the last group was missing the diagonal line cutting across it. Four lines in that one.

Twenty-four lines in all.

Which mean that one was missing.

Law sat down on his bathroom floor. Or collapsed there. It wasn’t clear which.

His brain was filled with white noise static, refusing to acknowledge anything beyond the immediate and the easily processed.

The mirror was still defogging, droplets of condensation slipping down the glass, slowly, slowly, and then racing down to the bottom. One of the light bulbs overhead had gone out – when had that happened? – making one half of the counter lighter than the other half. Law had only gotten as far as putting pants on, and his bare feet were acutely aware of how cold the tile floor of the bathroom was. He hadn’t pulled a towel over his hair yet and it was dripping cold water onto his bare shoulders and leaving damp splotches on his pants. Outside, someone was blaring on their horn as though that would clear the traffic jam that must have formed.

And another one of his soulmate marks was gone. Fuck. When had that happened? Yesterday? Earlier, and it had just taken this long for him to notice it? It couldn’t have been any later than him getting home last night; he hadn’t seen anyone since then. But even if he assumed he would have noticed while getting dressed yesterday and that it must have vanished in the last twenty-four hours, that still left him with the possibility of it being anyone he’d encountered on the walk to or from the subway, on the subway itself, or in the hospital. He came across dozens of strangers every day. Maybe hundreds. Yesterday had felt no different.

Why now? The marks had been stagnant for five years; so long that Law sometimes forgot there had ever been a twenty-sixth line to begin with. Had his soulmate been out of town or something?

And what even qualified as an encounter anyway? Did he have to speak to them? Touch them? Just be close enough to touch them? Be in the same room? Was just seeing them enough, regardless of the distance?

He didn’t want to know the answers so he could find his soulmate. No, he wanted to know so he could avoid them. He’d spent the last five years - since deciding more marks weren’t going to be fading anytime soon - more than happy to be free of the entire bullshit soulmate system. Law was content with his current friend group and family. Whoever his ‘soulmate’ was, Law didn’t want them coming in and fucking it up.

God, what if they were one of those people who thought the soulmate bond had to be romantic? Yeah, the lady at the Agency had said it probably was, but after five years to think about it Law had decided they probably just said that sort of thing because they thought it was what their clients wanted to hear. What if this person assumed that a tally mark on Law’s arm – or lack thereof – meant they should be jumping straight into bed together? Starting a relationship off with Law drawing boundaries in that area – the boundary being a giant KEEP OFF sign – right out of the gate seemed like a good way to derail the whole thing before it even got up to speed.

Not that Law wanted it to get up to speed. He’d prefer for it to never even make it to the station. He’d like to replace the tally marks with a tattoo that read NO THANK YOU in large, bold letters.

‘Get yourself together,’ Law ordered himself. He took a deep breath and forced himself back to his feet. He wouldn’t accomplish anything by having a panic attack on his bathroom floor. It was just one mark. He still had twenty-four to spare. Two marks in a five-year span wasn’t a bad record. Losing this one didn’t mean he was destined to lose the others. It didn’t mean it was a two-way bond, or that his soulmate had any idea they’d come across one another.

Hell, although he couldn’t imagine how it would work with this kind of mark, Law didn’t have any proof – other than the unreliable testimony of the people at the Soulmate Agency – that his soulmate was even a person. There were cases, however rare, of people whose soulmates were, while person related, more concept based. Edward Newgate – Whitebeard – with his dozens of foster and adopted kids apparently had the concept of family as his soulmate. Sengoku had once mentioned that he had a co-worker whose soulmate was his duty. Maybe Law’s was the idea of saving people. (He ignored the voice in his head saying that if that were the case the marks would have begun to fade the day they appeared.) He didn’t know anything for certain.

One step at a time. Get dressed. Coffee. Breakfast. Brush teeth. Work. Did he want to go to work? Was he calm enough to go to work?

Yeah. He’d go to work. If he didn’t, he’d only spend the day over-thinking himself to death. Besides, one of the many reasons he didn’t want a soulmate was because he didn’t want anyone interfering with how he lived his life; didn’t want some significant other insisting he go to a ‘better’ hospital or work different, shorter hours so he could spend more time with them. No, he wouldn’t allow that. He’d go to work, go through his routine like he always did, and just keep an eye on the marks. If they kept disappearing he could reassess the situation.

He almost checked the lines before leaving his apartment building, but he stopped himself. He wasn’t going to lose one without seeing another human being. He couldn’t allow this to become an obsessive habit.

He did check the moment he reached the hospital though, before even making it through the doors. Still twenty-four. Nothing had happened on the subway, at least. Law pushed his sleeve back down and took a deep breath. Unless he wanted half the hospital involved in his personal life, he had to act normal. He could only imagine the carnage if Shachi or Penguin or someone like them decided to ‘help’ him find whoever it was.

Of course, it was just Law’s luck that the hospital was a madhouse that day. He barely had time to breathe, less time to think about the marks, and no time at all to slip off somewhere and check them in privacy.

Law wasn’t sure he was still supposed to be on shift when he caught enough of a break to start making his way to the cafeteria in search of something that resembled nutrition. He wasn’t certain it was even still the same day. It was light outside, so it was either still Tuesday or he’d been at work for over twenty-four hours. He was too much in work-mode to guess which. He was nearly to the cafeteria when Shachi and Penguin intercepted him and steered him in the opposite direction.

“Bonney’s food truck is outside,” they informed him. “We’re treating ourselves for dinner.”

Dinner. So, probably a few hours past when Law was technically supposed to have gone home today, but still the same day, at least. Probably. Shachi and Penguin didn’t usually work that many shifts in a row.

Law allowed his friends to pull him along with them. Bonney was a loud, crass woman who ran a food truck stocked with some of the greasiest food mankind had ever known, and sometimes she parked across the street from Heart Hospital, prompting most of the staff that could to forgo whatever the cafeteria was offering in favor of pizza, hot dogs, and burgers. And in favor of drooling over her. She wasn’t Law’s type – no one was, really – but everyone else seemed to be half in love with her. Law mostly just wondered how she kept her truck stocked when she always seemed to be eating as much of it as she physically could.

Law didn’t eat much greasy food for the same reason he didn’t smoke cigarettes anymore – he’d watched too many videos informing him of what kind of havoc they’d wreak on his system and he’d never managed to clear the ensuing mental block. But when he was tired, hungry, and the cafeteria was serving food Law wasn’t sure he’d feel comfortable giving to a dog, he could let it slide.

The food truck line was more of a mob, people entering and exiting it in groups. It jumped forward, Law took a step, and stumbled as someone collided with him from behind.

“Oops! Sorry!” The voice sounded more amused than apologetic.

Law turned his head to glare at the guy and was surprised to recognize him. It was Straw Hat, from the day before. Law raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”

Straw Hat tilted his head and pointed to the truck. “Getting food, duh.”

“You’re supposed to be home, resting. You have a concussion.”

Straw Hat squinted at him, then his face brightened. “Oh! You’re the guy from yesterday!” He punched the arm of the person standing next to him. “Usopp, this is the doctor who helped me yesterday after I fell. Doctor Trafa – Tora – Trof – Torao!” Despite obviously knowing that wasn’t Law’s name, Straw Hat said it with the utmost confidence.

Usopp rubbed his arm, scowling, though Straw Hat didn’t seem to notice. “I’d expect you to be on a first name basis with every doctor here by now.”

“He is with some of us!” Penguin said, holding out his hand for a fist-bump. Straw Hat obliged, high-fived Shachi, then turned back to Law.

“Thanks for the stitches. I feel way better today.”

“Good for you. But no one heals from a concussion in under twenty-four hours. You should be at home. And you definitely shouldn’t be eating this garbage.” Law punctuated the statement with a gesture towards the food truck.

“The food here isn’t garbage. I like it.”

“You liking how it tastes doesn’t mean it isn’t terrible for you.”

“You’re eating it!”

“I’m not recovering from head trauma!”

“That’s my head, not my stomach!”

“That isn’t-“

Straw Hat’s friend stepped in. “Don’t bother. I don’t think Luffy knows how to rest, and it’s impossible to change his mind about food.”

Law frowned at him. “Did he call you Usopp? The friend he was arguing with yesterday before his accident?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound remorseful.

“Yeah!” Straw Hat – Luffy – repeated, much more enthusiastically. “He bet me I couldn’t do it and I did.”

“Hey, hey, I didn’t bet you anything. I said you couldn’t do it, meaning that you shouldn’t do it, because you’d fall and crack your head open. Which you did.”

“But I lasted way longer than you thought I would.”

“That’s not the-“ Usopp cut himself off, rubbing his temples. “I don’t know why I’m trying to have this argument with you.”

“And you filmed me! I looked cool!”

“You warned him not to do it and then filmed him anyway?” Shachi asked, laughing.

Usopp shrugged. “He was going to do it no matter what I said. Might as well get some publicity out of it.”

It was suddenly very obvious why Straw Hat was a regular around the E.R. He not only had no sense of self-preservation, but no responsible friends to serve as the voice of one. Law took a deep breath and shoved down his doctor instincts. If Straw Hat wanted to run around town with a concussion, make himself sick at a food truck, and probably pass out on the side of the road at some point, it was none of Law’s business unless and until he came back into the E.R. At least he had a friend with him who could pick him up and drag him home if the need arose.

A cell phone chimed. Usopp dug around in the bag hanging off his shoulder until he found it. He frowned at the message on the screen. “Luffy, your brother figured out you snuck out.”

“Which one?”

“Sabo.”

Luffy frowned too. “He worries way too much. I’m fine! See?” He gestured at himself, as though the mere fact that he was capable of standing without assistance was proof he didn’t have to worry about things like head trauma.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Usopp agreed, “but you know what he’s like. And if he finds out I helped you, he’ll kick my ass. I don’t know how a computer repair guy can be that scary, but he is.”

“He won’t beat you up. He likes you.”

“He won’t like me if he feels like I’m endangering his little brother.”

Luffy rolled his eyes and shook his head, then clutched his head in both hands with a wince. “Whoa. I’m really dizzy all of a sudden.”

“Yeah,” Law said, “that’s the concussion. Go home. Listen to this brother of yours; he’s clearly smarter than you are.”

Luffy glared at him. “He is not.”

“He at least knows you shouldn’t be running around town right now.”

Luffy huffed, crossed his arms over his chest, and scowled. “I’m fine.”

“And if you want to stay that way you need to rest. You can’t fuck around with head injuries.”

“I don’t need rest, I need to eat, that’s how-“

“Your turn, Doc,” Penguin interrupted, directing Law to the window and derailing the argument.

Law hadn’t even realized the line was still moving. He let the fight drop. He wasn’t sure why he’d even engaged in it in the first place.

Law ordered a burger; the closest thing to real food Bonney had to offer, and the easiest one for Law to overlook just how much grease was dripping off of it. Said grease had nearly soaked through the plate by the time he had finished. Down the sidewalk a bit Law could see Straw Hat eat four hot dogs, two bites each, and then beam at his friend, who looked like he couldn’t decide if he was impressed or disgusted.

Well, if Straw Hat made himself sick at least Law could say that he’d warned him. He rounded up Shachi and Penguin and dragged them back to work.

By the time Law went home he’d worked seven hours past what should have been the end of his shift. Hardly the first time he’d done that. On busy days, it was more likely than not that it would happen. No one ever really tried to stop him – the hospital didn’t have enough doctors to be sending them away while they could still work.

On the subway, about halfway home, he remembered about the marks and rolled up his sleeve.

Twenty-three. Fuck . And since he hadn’t checked it the entire time he’d been at work he was no closer to guessing who was responsible for this than he had been that morning. With such a vague definition of ‘encounter’ it could be almost anyone. Someone he’d passed on the street. A patient whose room he had walked by. A family member of a patient whose room he had walked by. Some new doctor or nurse or secretary. Someone on the subway now. Hell, it could be Straw Hat or his friend. It could be a hundred different things. He’d started with twenty-six marks and they’d started fading again on his twenty-sixth birthday; maybe that had something to do with it.

Law rubbed his forehead. He was too tired to be dealing with this bullshit. All he wanted was for his soulmate to stay out of his life. At this point, Law’s entire plan was to pretend nothing was happening and hope that they stopped fading. If that failed, he would hope that the bond didn’t go both ways so that his soulmate would never realize that Law even existed.

And, of course, Law could always lie. A soulmate bond couldn’t be officially proven without a test and no one could force Law to take one, though Corazon would probably try if he ever found out. Law could swear up and down that his mark wasn’t responding to a particular person, make up all sorts of reasons and excuses and explanations until his soulmate finally gave up and went away. There were options. Many of them included living the rest of his life in denial, but they were options.

Law got home, spent a few minutes staring at the pathetic contents of his fridge, then collapsed into his armchair, pulling out his cell phone to order delivery. Really, he needed a drink. Or a cigarette. Fucking med school, making him so aware of what cigarettes did to his lungs that he’d had to give up his smoking habit. He could admit it was for the best; he would have ended up as bad a chain-smoker as Corazon by twenty otherwise. Still. He at least needed to start keeping beer in his apartment. He was acutely aware of how bad that was for him too, but if he wanted a drink badly enough he could get past it until he was too buzzed to care.

His phone chimed with an incoming text message. The name Nico Robin blinked at him.

NR: Do you have this Friday off? I’m free for coffee at four.

Coffee with Robin sounded like a fantastic reprieve. Law didn’t know if Robin had a soulmate, but he did know that she was entirely uninterested in anyone else’s. Law wouldn’t even have to feel like he was hiding something like he would when he saw Corazon on Saturday.

TL: I work the night shift Thursday, so coffee Friday afternoon will be perfect. Is the university trying to get me to do a guest lecture again?

NR: I suppose you’ll have to come to find out.

Law didn’t understand why the university always wanted him to give lectures so badly, or why they sent a history professor to try to convince him. He’d given a few lectures over the years, usually as the hospital’s way of thanking the school for donations, and - with one exception - he didn’t think anyone had ever enjoyed them, including himself. He could barely hold conversations, let alone give speeches. But Robin wasn’t as pushy as the university seemed to think. She would bring it up once so she could say that she had, and that would be the end of it.

Law sent off a text agreeing to see her there and leaned his head back against the chair with a sigh. It felt good to have plans for something as ordinary as coffee. With this soulmate business suddenly landing front and center in his life, it felt like an anchor. He’d have coffee with Robin on Friday, dinner with Corazon on Saturday, and with any luck he would have lost no more marks by then. He would like nothing better than for those two events to feel like a normal ending to a mostly normal week, rather than like the eye of a storm.

Chapter Text

By Thursday afternoon, a few hours before his shift, Law hadn’t lost any more marks, and had gotten himself mostly under control. He’d even taken advantage of the free time to call his father – a decision he almost immediately regretted.

“Have you left your apartment since the last time I saw you?”

“I do have a job I have to go to, you know.”

“For anything besides work. When was the last time you saw sunlight for more than two minutes?”

“Cora-san…”

“Don’t you-“ Corazon broke off with a yelp and a thud. Law waited. “…I’m okay. What was – yeah. Don’t you ‘Cora-san’ me. At least go for a walk or something, okay? Fresh air is good for you.”

“We live in a city, there is no fresh air.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“Little late to be trying to break me of that habit, don’t you think?”

“Quit trying to make me forget what we were – ow – what we were talking about, Law.”

Law rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll take a walk before my shift starts, okay? Will that make you stop nagging me?”

“I nag because I love you. You’d sit in that apartment until the world ended if I let you.”

“Shachi and Penguin drag me out sometimes.”

“I’m not sure their idea of fun is quite what I meant, but I suppose it at least means you talk to people.”

“I talk to people all the time.”

“Outside of work, Law. Everything you do revolves around your job; it’s not good for you.”

“I like my job.”

“I know you do. And I’m glad you do! But you have to have a life outside of it. How many un-work-related friends do you have? And no, I don’t count.”

“…”

“See?”

“There’s Robin.”

“Oh, a whole one person. I’m amazed. Ouch! ”

“I don’t know what just happened, but I’m going to call it karma.”

“I love you too. But I mean it, Law! Go out! Get some air! Talk to another human being!”

“Dad .”

“I’ll settle for you going for a walk. But I want photographic evidence! Don’t think I’ve forgotten about all the times you lied to me about cutting class.”

“It wasn’t my fault no one believed that I was too smart to be wasting time in them.”

“Yes, yes, you were a teenage genius, I know. Quit stalling.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going. I’ll call you later.”

“Remember, pictures!”

“Dad! ”

Law actually liked walking around the city. What he didn’t like was doing things without some sort of purpose. He had considered getting a dog, but it would be cruel to keep it shut up in his apartment all day while he worked, and since all of his friends also worked at the hospital and Corazon would probably trip over a dog and break his neck, Law had no one to help him exercise it and take it out when he worked long shifts. He could hire someone, he supposed, but he didn’t like the idea of a giving a stranger a key to his apartment. So he remained dogless.

It was a good day for a walk. The sun was out and the fall weather was only just barely starting to settle in, keeping it from being unbearably hot without being bitter cold either. Law put his hands in his sweater pockets, picked a direction at random, and started walking.

Twenty minutes later, Law remembered the real reason Corazon was always pestering him to do things like go for walks. They cleared his head, let him drift and not think about much of anything. Walks had helped Law with the nightmares that had haunted him after leaving the Donquixote family. They’d helped him pass med school, relaxing him when he started over-studying. He should go on more.

Of course, he thought that every time, and then promptly failed to do so until the next time Corazon got concerned about him.

Law’s brain jumped back online when he looked across the road to see a street performer doing a backflip in front of a small crowd – a street performer with a familiar straw hat at his feet.

Law wasn’t sure what the show was, but the flip appeared to have been the finale. There was some applause and the crowd dispersed, most of them tossing some cash into the hat as they left. Straw Hat was grinning widely. He looked around and spotted Law.

“Torao! Hi again!”

Law hadn’t had any intention of talking to Luffy, but at this point walking away would just make him a dick. He crossed the street.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Luffy greeted. “You’re dressed different.”

“Yeah, they don’t let doctors wear sweatshirts while they’re working. Too hard to get blood out of them. I see you still don’t understand the concept of taking it easy.”

“It’s been days; why would I still have to rest?”

“You’re supposed to take it easy for at least a week after a concussion. I know they told you that before they discharged you.”

Luffy seemed to have stopped listening to him. If he’d ever started. “Did you see my show? I’m really good, huh?”

“I saw the end of it. I take it doing that sort of thing is why you fell?”

“I hardly ever fall.”

“That’s not what I-“

“And I juggle too, wanna see?” He didn’t wait for Law to answer before pulling three balls out of the pocket of his shorts and tossing them in the air. Law was a little impressed despite himself; Luffy didn’t seem like he would have the hand-eye coordination or the focus needed for juggling.

“Is this what you do?” Law asked, nodding towards the hat full of loose change. “I mean, as a job?”

Luffy nodded. He dropped one ball out of the air, bounced it off his knee, caught it again, and it rejoined the other two going between his hands. A passerby who’d caught the demonstration dropped some loose bills into Luffy’s hat. “Usually. I do whatever I want. Sometimes I do other stuff though.”

“Like what?”

Luffy shrugged one shoulder. “Just whatever I want. I’ve had a bunch of jobs, but I usually get bored of them. I don’t get bored of this. Oh, and I help my neighbor sometimes.” He didn’t elaborate.

“Help them with what?”

“It’s a secret.”

“…Okay.”

Luffy grinned at him and stopped juggling, catching two of the balls and letting the third hit the ground, where he kept it from rolling away with his foot. “I’m really good at secrets.”

“Why though?” Law asked, as Luffy started putting his things back into his pockets. “Not about the secrets or your neighbor, I mean, why do this? It doesn’t seem very reliable.”

“I want to. I like it.” He tried to stuff some dollar bills into his pockets, then seemed to decide they weren’t going to fit right in that state and started working on folding them into a less crumpled mess, his expression one of intense concentration.

“You look like you could use a bag,” Law told him.

Luffy nodded without looking up. “Yeah, like a backpack or something. Ace and Sabo keep trying to make me bring a water bottle, but I don’t have anywhere to keep it, you know? I barely have room in my pockets for what I’m already carrying.”

“You could probably buy yourself a bag with that.” Law nodded towards the cash stacking up in Luffy’s hand.

“Nah. Rent’s due this week and Ace is gonna get his paycheck late so I’m helping.”

Luffy finished with the dollar bills and started working on stuffing change into his pockets evenly so he wasn’t heavier on one side than the other. Law watched him. “How long have you been doing this for?” There was something practiced in the way Luffy was distributing the weight, like he was doing it from muscle memory rather than thinking about it.

Luffy paused for a moment, eyes rolling up in his head as he thought. “Since we moved here, I guess. When I was eighteen. But I’ve been practicing for ages. Since I was seven.”

Law blinked. “You’ve wanted to be a street performer since you were seven?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What, um, inspired you?”

Luffy finished emptying his money out of his hat, picked the hat up, twirled it on one finger, and put it on. “I met this guy named Shanks. He saved me from being hit by a car and gave me his hat. He’s a street performer and a pirate and he travels all over the world and I decided I was going to be just like him. Except for maybe not the traveling part. I like living here; all my friends are here.”

He said all this very fast. Law stared at him, trying to register what he’d said, trying to work out if he’d heard him correctly. “You met a guy… who was a pirate?”

“Yep.”

“A pirate.”

“Uh-huh.” Luffy did not seem aware that there was anything odd about what he was saying.

“Like, a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ pirate, or…”

“Yeah. He and his crew do reenactments and stuff. It’s cool.”

“Like, renaissance fair type of stuff?”

Luffy rolled his eyes. “I guess. But pirates are way cooler than that stuff.”

“I… see.”

“What about you? Why are you a doctor?”

“Being a doctor is a much more typical career choice than street performing, you know. Or piracy.”

Luffy just looked at him expectantly.

Law sighed and crossed his arms over his chest like he was cold. “I’ve wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember. My parents both were. I like the challenge, and I like knowing that I’m doing something. I like knowing my work has results.” Law winced internally as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Until he said it out loud he never realized when he was about to say something that made him sound like a condescending prick. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like he was implying that other people’s jobs didn’t have results, or that jobs that didn’t have results weren’t worth having. Even Luffy’s job – and Law was using the term lightly – obviously meant something to some people, or Luffy wouldn’t be able to make money off of it. Law opened his mouth to begin trying to backtrack, but Luffy spoke first.

“Good. I know people who hate their jobs, and I don’t get it.”

“Sometimes you just work to pay the bills.”

Luffy huffed, clearly unimpressed with that explanation. Despite having up-close-and-personal experience with doing what you had to do to survive, Law smiled a little at that. He supposed Luffy didn’t seem like the sort of person that would even consider sacrificing his happiness in order to pay the bills. If his hero was a nomadic street performer pirate it was surprising enough that Luffy went to the hospital after being injured and that he didn’t live out of a car. Not that Law knew he didn’t live out of a car. But he had said rent was due, and people didn’t usually pay rent on car space.

Law checked his watch. “Speaking of work, I have to go to mine.” He pointed at Luffy with mock sternness. “How about you try to keep yourself from having to come see me during my shift, okay?”

“I don’t try to go to the hospital,” Luffy protested. “You sound like my brother.”

“The same brother that was trying to make you rest after your concussion?”

Luffy rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“Does this brother also pay for your hospital visits?” Luffy certainly didn’t seem to be doing it himself.

“His job pays the best.”

“I think he’s entitled to nag you a little bit then.”

Luffy stuck his tongue out to let Law know what he thought of his input.

Law shook his head. “And aren’t you cold?” The day was far from freezing, and Law was the sort of person who wore jackets in the summer, but he would have thought it was at least too cold to be wearing shorts and a tank top.

“I don’t get cold as long as I keep moving.” Luffy did a cartwheel to emphasize his point.

“All right then. If you end up in the E.R. with hypothermia, I get to say I told you so.”

“It isn’t that cold, Torao.”

Law’s phone chimed. Donquixote ‘Corazon’ Rosinante .

DR: did you go out

DR: did you

DR: proof law

Law rolled his eyes. He should have known Corazon had been serious about the photographic evidence. “Hey, Straw Hat, want to help me with something?”

“Sure!”

“My father wants proof I left my apartment today.”

Luffy didn’t want for any further instructions. He snatched Law’s phone out of his hand and had navigated to the camera and snapped a picture of the two of them before Law had time to process what was happening. Luffy handed the phone back, beaming.  

It was a pretty decent picture, considering how quickly Luffy had taken it. He was grinning from ear to ear, eyes screwed shut by the force of his smile, his face close to Law’s to make sure they would both fit in the frame. Law just looked caught off guard. Law sent it to Corazon.

TL: Give me a minute, would you? Here. I even got human interaction, aren’t you proud?

DR: whos that

TL: Street performer I ran into. He’s a regular at the hospital. I saw him for a head injury a few days ago.

DR: did you tip him

Law took a few dollar bills out of his wallet, took Luffy’s hat from his head, put the money inside it, and handed it back. Luffy laughed.

TL: Yes.

Law put his phone back in his pocket. “Okay, now I’m going to work.”

Luffy waved goodbye, walking backwards as he headed the other direction. “Bye, Torao!”

It wasn’t until he was scrubbing in at the hospital that Law thought to check his marks.

Twenty-two.

Law stared, counting and recounting. He came up with twenty-two every time. So what had…

Surely it couldn’t be Straw Hat doing this. The thought had occurred to Law on Tuesday, but really only as a joke. His soulmate, an accident prone street performer with no concept of consequences? Who considered piracy a valid career choice? Surely the universe wasn’t that dedicated to fucking Law over. But if one was an incident, two a coincidence, and three a pattern…

Law shook his head. No. he’d never met Luffy before Monday, and he’d lost that twenty-sixth mark five years ago, on his way to Corazon’s from the Soulmate Agency office. He hadn’t met Luffy that day. He would remember if he had; he was a hard person to forget.

An image of a straw hat soaring through the air swam up through his memories. What if he had been close enough to its owner for that to qualify as an encounter?

No. He was drawing the fucking line at Luffy – Straw Hat fucking Luffy – being his soulmate. That was bullshit. It was just a string of coincidences, coupled with Law’s brain jumping to the worst possible conclusion. Luffy. Was not. His soulmate.

Law shook his mind clear and went to work. His soulmate was not Luffy, and he had a job to do.

The next day was Friday, and when Law woke up that afternoon he was more grateful than ever for his and Robin’s plans for coffee, though one look at his arm had him wishing they were plans for something with alcohol.

“You look tired,” Robin said as she arrived, sitting down across from Law, coffee in hand.

“Night shift. And I’ve been sleeping like shit all this week anyway.”

“Should I get the university’s offer out of the way early then?”

Law made a ‘come on’ gesture. “Give me the pitch.”

“The real life stories of professionals in the field are invaluable to ensuring our students are confident in the path they have chosen. It provides students with a connection to the job that they cannot obtain through classroom and lecture experiences alone. In the case of yourself, Dr. Trafalgar, we feel that speaking with an accomplished doctor closer to their own age will help the students to feel as though their goals are more possible.” It was the same speech as always and Robin reeled it off with practiced ease.

Law scoffed at the last point. “If they want to have my job by my age they need to be out of school by now. Or Tony’s age.”

Robin smirked at that, but made an effort to hide it behind her cup. “He wants to talk to you again, by the way. He’s filled up another two notebook pages with questions he wants to ask you.”

“He has my phone number.”

“He’s shy.”

“I’ll see about calling him when I have a free day. Take him out to lunch and let him interview me.”

“Give him one of your inspirational speeches?” She was teasing him now.

“I don’t know why they think anyone wants to hear me talk. I don’t want to hear me talk.”

“Everyone loves a story about a child prodigy, you know. How do you think I became a professor so young?”

“Oh, there’s a good pep talk. ‘If you’d been born a genius like me, this would be a piece of cake for you. But you weren’t, so good luck.’”

Robin laughed. “Is that a no to coming then?”

“Unless they’re helping to keep my hospital out of the red, I’m not putting myself through that.”

“I’ll tell them you thought about it and you’d really love to help, but your schedule just doesn’t allow for it.”

Law smirked. “Are you trying to say I’m tactless?”

“Only that they’ll probably never donate again if they feel like you’re trying to bully them.”

Law rolled his eyes. “I hope you’ve warned Tony that they’ll be wanting him to do this in a few years.”

“Oh, I think he’ll find it flattering.”

“Won’t stop him from being scared to death of speaking in front of a crowd.”

“I’m sure by then he’ll have - Nami!”

Law twisted in his seat to see who Robin was waving at. Waving back was a young woman with long orange hair who had just walked in.

“Law, that’s my friend, Nami. Do you mind if she joins us?”

Law shook his head. He got along well enough with Robin, he imagined he’d be able to have a conversation with a friend of hers. “As long as she’s not part two of trying to get me to do guest lectures.”

“No, you don’t have to worry about that. Nami doesn’t work for the university.”

“They couldn’t afford me,” Nami said. She had walked up and was now leaning against their table.

“Nami, this is my friend, Law. The university is trying to get him to do some guest lectures for the med students. Do you want to join us?”  

“I brought my dogs,” she replied, “so only if you two are okay with sitting outside.”

Robin looked at Law. He nodded. “I’m always being told I need more fresh air.”

“Great! Luffy’s outside with them, I’ll meet you once I have my coffee.”

Law got up and followed Robin. He was halfway out the door before the name registered. “Wait, Lu-“

“Torao!”

Law stopped dead in his tracks. How many times could he accidentally run into one guy?

Robin had stopped too, looking confused. Probably wondering who ‘Torao’ was.

Luffy was sitting at one of the outside tables, the leashes of three different dogs in one hand. He was smiling, looking expectantly at Law.

“Hi again, Straw Hat,” Law said wearily, walking over and dropping into one of the chairs.

“You two know each other?” Robin gestured between them as she sat down. “Small world.”

And getting smaller, it seemed to Law.

“Yeah, Torao gave me stitches one time when I went to the hospital.”

“Which was on Monday.” Law reached out and started petting the nearest dog; a brindle boxer that was more than happy to rest its head on Law’s knee. “And we’ve ran into each other a couple of times since then.” Each of those times preceding a mark fading. Law was dying to check his arm, but if one was missing the last thing he needed was for Straw Hat to question what he was doing. There was no fucking way he was Law’s soulmate and Law didn’t need him getting any ideas. “How do you two know each other?”

“We met through Nami,” Robin told him. “I met her while she was doing some research at the campus library a few years ago. And she’s known Luffy even longer than that.”

“Robin’s one of my best friends!” Luffy announced proudly. “And Nami is too!”

Luffy struck Law as one of those people who would say that about almost anyone. “And how do you know her?” The dog he was petting nudged his hand, directing him to scratch behind its ears.

“I ran into her while she was moving into her apartment. I broke a lamp, so she made me help her move in the rest of her stuff. By the time we were done, we were friends.”

“And he’d broken almost every fragile thing I owned,” Nami added, emerging from the coffee shop. She handed Luffy a few muffins and a cup of coffee Law hoped was decaf, then sat down her own muffin and coffee so she could pet two of her dogs, who were vying for her attention. The boxer Law was petting wagged its tail at her but kept its head in Law’s lap. “He was helpful with the furniture though.”

“I’m really strong.”

Nami looked at Law. “He’s an idiot, but the kind that’s nice to have around. He even helped me scare off a group of creeps that used to hang around the station when I first started working there.” She sat down and looked at the dog Law was petting. “Archie likes you.”

“Archie, huh?” The boxer wagged his tail at the sound of his name.

“Yep. That’s Archie, the Afghan shedding all over Robin’s skirt is Charlie, and the Setter begging for Luffy’s muffin is Harry.”

“They seem like good dogs.”

“They’re fantastic dogs. Aren’t you, boys?” She snapped her fingers and all three turned their attention to her. She had them do a few basic tricks, tossed them each a treat, and dismissed them again. “Luffy helps me walk them sometimes. They adore him.”

Law looked over at Luffy, who had just shoved an entire muffin into his mouth. “Dog walker is another one of your jobs then?”

Luffy frowned, swallowed, and made a face. “She doesn’t pay me.”

“And I also don’t charge you for all the food I buy you, or for when you break my things.”

“Yes, you do!”

“Only the expensive things.”

“Everything you own is expensive!”

The conversation began to derail into petty insults. From the amused look on Robin’s face, Law suspected this was a common occurrence. Law tuned out of it, petting Archie, who was looking at him wistfully, although he didn’t have any food to offer him. When Law began paying attention again the argument had stopped and Luffy was telling Nami how he and Law knew each other.

“I think you’ll find, Law,” Robin said once Luffy had finished, “that Luffy knows almost everyone in the city in some way.”

“I like meeting people,” Luffy said by way of explanation.

“Though they don’t always like meeting you.” Nami looked at Law. “He’s almost as famous at the police station as he is at the hospital.”

Law raised an eyebrow. “Police station?”

Nami leaned over and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Luffy’s supposed to have a permit for a lot of the stuff he does. And he doesn’t. They’re always trying to prove he’s breaking the law.”

“It’s dumb that you have to get permission to do stuff,” Luffy said. “So I don’t.”

“I’m sure that defense works well in court,” Law said dryly.

Nami scoffed. “They hardly ever manage to scrounge up enough proof of anything to get him to court. At worst, Luffy just has to call his lawyer to growl at them a little.”

Between hospital visits and legal fees, Law was starting to wonder how Luffy had the money to eat.

“And Barto’s my friend, so he helps me for free!” Luffy said, as though he’d heard what Law had been thinking.

Nami shook her head. “I don’t know how that man got through law school.”

“Do your brothers ever get the chance to do anything but lecture you?” Law asked. “I’m surprised they ever let you leave the house if you end up in the hospital or the police station that much.”

“Ace and Sabo think the permit thing is stupid too,” Luffy told him, an unsaid ‘so there’ suggesting that that should be the end of the conversation; as though the brothers in question were the undisputed experts on the subject.

“He has to get it from somewhere, doesn’t he?” Nami said.

Law didn’t want to think about the idea of there being three people like Luffy running around the city. Just the one was already one too many. Uncertain he could handle actively engaging with Luffy any longer, Law turned the conversation towards Nami. “And what do you do? You said something about a station?”

She nodded. “You’ve never seen me before? I’m the weatherwoman on channel six. And I’m the best, most accurate meteorologist you’re ever likely to meet.”

Law had a vague recollection of Penguin and Shachi drooling over some woman who was on the news every morning. He wondered if he’d just met her. “That’s impressive.”

“I know. I’m the most popular one too. I have more fans that most of the news anchors, even.”

“It’s the boobs,” Robin said amicably.

Nami nodded. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

“Got what?” Luffy asked, looking at Law for an explanation. “She says that all the time and I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

Nami patted his arm, a little condescendingly, Law thought, and Luffy scowled at her. “I do appreciate that you have no idea why so many people stare at me when I walk by, Luffy.” She looked at Law. “It’s flattering, but sometimes a girl needs someone who doesn’t leer at her, you know?”

Law didn’t know, but he was pretty sure it had been a rhetorical question anyway.

They sat and talked for another twenty minutes before Nami left, taking Luffy and her dogs with her. Robin and Law parted ways soon after that.

Law yanked up his sleeve the second he was alone. Twenty-one.

If one was an incident, two a coincidence, and three a pattern, then four…

Four felt like a damn death sentence.

Chapter Text

By the time Law reached Corazon’s apartment for dinner the next evening he felt like death warmed over. He hadn’t gone to bed the night before; instead spending his time writing up extensive notes on the events of the week. His best estimate for the time frame of each mark’s disappearance, everyone he knew he had seen during those time frames, everyone he could think of who might have passed by him, and then filling the margins with arrows and notes and possible explanations for how his soulmate might be literally anyone or anything besides Luffy. At six-thirty, feeling slightly better under the defense of ‘lots of different things could be going on’ Law had finally passed out on the couch for an hour and a half before one of his neighbor’s dogs had started losing its shit at something out the window.

Now, Law was jacked up on four cups of coffee and attempting to look like everything was fine.

Corazon opened the door, disapproving stare already in place.

Fuck, Law had hoped one night wouldn’t be enough to give him away. “Would you believe me if I blamed work?”

“You and I both know that you working long shifts doesn’t mess with my vision.”

It was just Law’s luck that his father would have a soulmate bond with him that double-functioned as a concerned parent alarm. Anytime Law’s health took a dip, even if it was just because of a bad night’s sleep, Corazon’s ability to see colors dipped right along with it. It was irregular; for some reason staying up at the hospital for a day and a half barely caused a flicker, but if Law pulled an all-nighter to read, or avoid nightmares, or theorize about soulmate bonds, Corazon’s vision was reduced to pastels. “Sorry. I got really sucked into taking notes on stuff last night, and then the next thing I knew the sun was coming up. And then I overcompensated on the coffee.”

Corazon sighed and stepped aside so Law could come in. “You and your medical journals.”

Law nodded. He hated lying to Corazon, but a little truth avoidance wasn’t too terrible a thing. “I know, I know, I need to stop thinking about work sometimes.”

“There is more to life.” He picked a package up off the coffee table and tossed it at Law. “Dad told me to give you that for your birthday and to tell you he’s sorry he couldn’t join us for dinner last weekend to celebrate.”

Law wasn’t sorry, and he doubted Sengoku was either. The two of them had an understanding – play nice around Corazon and only internally acknowledge their lack of affection towards one another. The older Law got the less actual animosity there was between himself and his adoptive grandfather, but Law doubted they’d ever really see each other as family without Corazon tying them together. These days, their relationship consisted of a lot of minor petty insults. Like Sengoku almost certainly having waited to mail the package until he was sure it wouldn’t get to Law until after his birthday. Or mailing it to Corazon rather than digging up Law’s address. Law blinked at the address label.

“Something wrong?” Corazon asked.

“No, I just… I must be more tired than I thought. I forgot your name was Rocinante for a second and I was really confused.”

Corazon laughed. “You know, I told myself to break you of the habit of calling me Corazon when you were thirteen, but I was so happy you were actually talking to me that I couldn’t make myself do it.”

There was a knock on the door as Law started tearing off the tape. “Hey, Bepo,” he said as Corazon opened the door, not looking up.

“Hey. We aren’t doing presents again, are we? I thought that was last weekend.”

“Gramps was late.” Sengoku hated when Law called him Gramps. Law liked to think that, even as far away as Sengoku was, he somehow knew whenever it happened.

He finally got the box open, revealing an FBI jacket and an FBI mug. “I didn’t know the FBI had a souvenir shop,” Law said dryly. “Think he gets discounts?”

Corazon lightly smacked the back of his head. “Be nice. Send him a thank you message and come get dinner; you look like you’re losing weight again.”

“You say that every time.” Law pulled out his phone.

“It’s true every time. Bepo, be honest, does Law ever eat at work?”

“Uh, yeah. But Penguin and Shachi usually have to remind him.”

Law stopped mid-text to glare at his adoptive brother and mouth ‘traitor’ at him.

“Your well-being is controlled by those two. That is not comforting.”

“At least you know they won’t let me die. There’d be no one to cover for them.”

Law sent a text to Sengoku that read Is it even legal for a non-FBI agent to wear an FBI jacket? and the three of them sat down to eat.

Corazon was a worrier, and knew Law better than Law liked to admit, so Law had come prepared to deflect awkward questions about what was going on from him. He hadn’t been expecting them to start coming from Bepo.

“Are you sure you’re doing okay, Law?" Bepo asked, staring pointedly at his plate so he didn't have to meet Law's eyes. "You’ve seemed kind of off the last few times I’ve seen you.”

Dear God, how obvious was he being that even Bepo had noticed? Law hadn’t seen him for more than a few minutes at a time since Monday morning, before this bullshit had all started. Thank God Shachi and Penguin were as observant as a couple of bricks, or he’d really be in trouble.

“I’m fine. It’s just been one of those weeks, you know?”

“Did something happen?” Corazon asked.

Law’s left arm itched. “No. I think I just slept bad Monday night, and then it threw the whole week off. You know how it goes.”

“And then you stayed up all last night reading. Your sleep schedule is a disaster, Law.”

Law wasn’t sure it even was a schedule. Sleep was just a thing that happened to him sometimes. “I know. I’m working on it.”

“Loading up on caffeine until you can see sounds isn’t ‘working on it’. I don’t want you slipping back into those habits you picked up in college.”

“No one wants that, Dad, promise. I’ve had enough Red Bull and gummy bears to last me a lifetime.” He still could barely look at a gummy bear without feeling queasy.

“Well, if something is bothering you-“

“Nothing is. I’m fine.”

“If something is bothering you,” Corazon repeated, more firmly this time, “you can talk to me about it okay? Don’t just keep everything bottled up all the time.”

“Yeah, Dad. I know.”  

The next several days passed without incident. Mostly, it was comforting for Law to be able to look at his arms and not be surprised by how many little black lines there were. The part of him that wanted proof he wasn’t bonded to Straw Hat, however, really wanted one to fade without any chance of Luffy being nearby.

Despite his promise to Corazon that yes, of course he’d make sure to take better care of himself, he still wasn’t sleeping well. Well enough that Corazon didn’t seem to feel like he was living in the first twenty minutes of the Wizard of Oz, but not well. By Thursday he’d overthought himself into a state of mentally clawing at the suddenly claustrophobic walls of his apartment, unable to relax or focus on anything when he wasn’t at the hospital.

He went for a walk to try and clear his head, and pretended not to notice that he was choosing a route that took him as far from where Luffy had been performing last week as possible. Law was trying to not let this soulmate bullshit demolish his carefully structured and stable life, but he was becoming increasingly aware of every visible soulmate mark he saw on someone else while walking down the street. Every T.V. show romantic subplot felt a hundred times more relevant than it ever had before. He’d actually asked Shachi and Penguin about their soulmate searching escapades, as though he’d needed incontestable proof that he’d lost control of his life.

Whatever it was that was in control of soulmate bonds, Law wished it would fuck off.

It did not fuck off, and appeared to be insulted at Law’s wish for it to do so, because Law turned a corner and there was Straw Hat Luffy, halfway up the block, crouched down and looking at something in the alley. There appeared to be something in his hands, though Law couldn’t tell what.

Law froze. He didn’t remember moving his arm, but his right hand was clasped over the marks as though that would keep them from disappearing. Did this count as an encounter? If that first incident five years ago had – and if that had been Luffy – surely this would? But maybe that had only been because the traffic jam had interfered with Law’s day. Maybe if he just kept walking and pretended Luffy was invisible, nothing would happen.

He checked his arm. Still twenty-one. It either wasn’t Straw Hat they were responding to, or this didn’t count as an encounter, or they took a while to fade.

Did he want to go talk to Luffy? If Luffy wasn’t his soulmate, this would be a prime opportunity to prove it. And even if he did lose another, that didn’t have to mean it was Luffy. He still had lots of alternate explanations to fall back on. If a mark faded now, he’d have some more concrete evidence to base his theories off of. He had a lot of tally marks still, despite how rapidly they were vanishing. He could afford to lose one for an experiment.

Law took one long, deep breath and started walking towards Luffy, feeling as though he were foolishly approaching a wild and dangerous animal.

Luffy heard him when he was a few feet away and jerked his head up to see who was coming. “Torao!” he shouted, then winced, glancing back into the alleyway. “Good,” he said, in a whisper now. A whisper louder than most people's speaking voices, but a whisper nonetheless. “I need your help with something.”

Law wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting Luffy to say, but that wasn’t it. “What kind of something?” He didn’t whisper.

“Shhh! You’ll scare her.” Luffy turned his attention back to the alley.

Intrigued now, Law kept silent and crouched down beside Luffy.

Immediately in front of them was a large dumpster bin. Next to that was another dumpster bin of identical size. Other than that, the alley was empty.

Law glanced sideways at Luffy, who was still looking ahead intently. “Who is ‘her’, Straw Hat?” Though he felt a little ridiculous for doing so without understanding why, he was whispering now too.

Luffy pointed. “She’s hiding between the dumpsters. You can see her if you look under them.”

Law squinted into the shadows of the alleyway, bending down a little more for a better vantage point, then just kneeling on the ground. He could only imagine how ridiculous the two of them must look to any passerby.

He still couldn’t see anything.

“Straw Hat, there’s nothing-“

Then he tilted his head just the right way, or she moved, or his eyes adjusted to the lighting, and the outline of a medium-sized, scruffy looking dog appeared between the dumpsters, chin on the ground, staring back at them, ears flat against her head.

Law jumped back at her sudden appearance, almost falling over. “Holy shit.” He looked at Luffy. “Is she yours?”

Luffy shook his head. “No, she’s a stray. I’ve been seeing her around for the last couple of months, and so have a lot of my friends. I’ve gotten her to let me get close enough to pet her a few times, but she always runs away if there are any sudden sounds or movement.”

“Are you trying to catch her?”

“No. I’d like to, but I can’t take her home and I don’t want to send her to the pound. I just try to feed her when I see her; she always looks hungry.”

Law couldn’t see her well enough to tell if he agreed, but what little of her fur he could see looked matted, so he could believe it. That, plus the timidness, suggested that she’d been on her own for a while. “Does she have a name?”

“We’ve been calling her Aloshi. Robin and Nami named her. I don’t know if she knows it.” He offered Law what he was holding – a partially wrapped hamburger with a bite taken out of it. “Do you want to try? She’s being more shy than usual today. But you’re quieter than I am, so maybe she’ll like you better.”

Law took the burger. “Why not just leave the food where she can get to it? I’m sure she’d come out and eat if we weren’t here.”

Luffy made a face. “I want to see her. I want her to learn that I’m her friend. And what if she’s hurt? What if she’s hiding like that because she can’t move?”

“Fair enough. I’ll give it a try, I guess.” He deliberated for a moment, then slowly approached the gap between the dumpster until he was only a few feet away from the dog, blocking the small space she was hiding in. Luffy followed him. “Stay standing,” Law told him softly, “but try not to look threatening.”

He could almost hear Luffy trying to figure out how to project ‘not a threat’ towards the dog. Law lay down on his stomach, the burger held out in front of him. “Aloshi,” he called gently. “Come here, girl. No one’s going to hurt you.” She didn’t approach – Law hadn’t really expected her to – but she focused her attention onto him. Law was no veterinarian, but he sized her up as best he could with the dim lighting and the way she was flat against the ground. There were no obvious signs of injury; no visible bleeding or body parts that seemed to be out of place.

“I don’t think she’s hurt,” Law told Luffy, still with the same soft tone. “I think she’s just freaked out that she’s stuck between the dumpsters and the building. She’ll have to go past us if she wants to get away and she doesn’t like that.”

“That’s why I was on the sidewalk,” Luffy said, doing his best to mimic Law’s volume and tone. “But she still wouldn’t come out.”

Law bit the inside of his cheek, thinking. “Okay, let me try something. Step back a bit and to the side. Close enough for her to still see you though, so she doesn’t think you’re getting ready to ambush her.”

Luffy moved to do as Law said.

“Slowly .”

Luffy slowed down until he looked like he’d stepped out of a slow-motion scene in a Saturday morning cartoon. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Trying to show her we aren’t hunting her. My guess is that she ended up hiding like this because she was hiding from something; that’s why she’s being more timid than usual. We’re going to have to show her we’re not here for a fight to get her to come to us. Now, just stand there. Try to look relaxed, not like you’re getting ready to do something. And stay quiet.”

Law couldn’t see Luffy, but he assumed he was obeying. Aloshi kept looking back and forth between them, but her gaze lingered on Law – the closer threat – longer each time. Finally, her attention had switched to Law entirely. Law stretched his arm towards her, offering her the food. Her eyes flickered to it and Law could see her nose twitch. Good, she could tell what it was.

Slowly, pausing every time she tensed, Law used his other hand to tear off a piece of the hamburger patty and toss it to her. It landed a few inches from one of her front paws.

Aloshi flinched for a moment, then moved to investigate when nothing hit her. She found the meat, ate it, and began licking the concrete where it had been. Only when she was sure she hadn’t missed any did she refocus on Law. He repeated the process, this piece landing a little farther away from her than the last one had. A third time, and while she ate that one he slowly stood up and moved to stand next to Luffy.

Aloshi finished checking for crumbs, looked back to where Law had been, and flattened her ears and bared her teeth when she realized he had moved. Law made sure she could tell he was still holding the food and didn’t move.

Slowly, inch by inch, Aloshi began creeping out of her hiding place towards them.

Finally, she stopped moving about six inches away, clearly unsure if she wanted to take the opportunity to run away or risk trying to take the hamburger out of Law’s hand.

“You’ve fed her before, right?” Law asked, barely loud enough for Luffy to hear.

“Yeah.”

“Did she eat out of your hand?”

“One time.”

Law handed the burger back to him. “See if you can get her to again. She knows you better.”

Luffy held the burger out. “Come on, girl, I know you’re still hungry.”

Aloshi began inching forward again. She kept her eyes on him, muscles tense and ready to run, but began to eat the burger out of his hand.

“Don’t try to catch her if she does run,” Luffy said quietly, keeping his eyes on the dog. “We’ll just scare her more and she might not come back.”

“Yeah.” Aloshi’s ears swiveled as the two of them talked, but she seemed to be relaxing. “I wonder what got her so worked up to start with.”

“Maybe the dog catcher was after her or something.”

“Maybe. Or maybe other strays. Or asshole kids with rocks.”

Luffy stared at him. “You think someone would do that? She’s just a dog. She’s not going to hurt anybody.”

“There’s a lot of shitty people out there, Straw Hat.”

Luffy made a noise that was alarmingly like a snarl and caused Aloshi to look up at him. She had finished eating and was now trying to get Luffy to let her eat the wrapper the burger had been in. Luffy slowly moved one hand and Aloshi allowed him to pet her neck. “If it was people, I’ll kick their asses.”

“And how are you going to find them?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Let me know how that works out for you.”

Luffy crouched down for a better angle and started petting Aloshi with both hands. She seemed to have decided she liked the attention.

“You’re good with dogs,” Law commented. He held out a hand so Aloshi could sniff it before moving to scratch behind her ears.

“So are you.”

“Am I? I’m not around them much.”

“Don’t you like dogs?”

“Sure. I just don’t have time for one. We had one when I was a kid, but that was… That was a long time ago.”

“Dadan always had at least one guard dog around when we were kids. They weren’t usually a lot of fun, but they were still good dogs.”

Law restrained himself from asking who Dadan was. Surely the less he knew about Luffy the better. He refocused on Aloshi. “She needs a vet.” Now that he could see her properly it was clear that Luffy had been right – she was severely underfed. Her coat was scraggly and matted and Law could see bones anywhere the fur wasn’t thick enough to hide them. She didn’t look like she’d ever seen a bathtub, or a brush. Her fur was black, light brown, and white, but the white was so filthy it barely counted. She had a long, narrow muzzle, and half-pricked ears. Law was no expert in dog breeds, but he figured ‘mutt’ about covered it. While she had no obvious injuries, Law wouldn’t be surprised if there were some underlying issues. Heartworm or fleas or something. At the very least, she probably needed to be vaccinated.

“We could try to take her,” Luffy said, sounding doubtful, “but I don’t have anything we could use for a collar and leash.” He appeared to be trying to gently untangle one of the knots in her fur with his fingers.

“And I doubt she’d follow us all the way there on foot, even if we still had food to offer her. She probably wouldn’t get into a cab either.” Law had stopped rubbing her ears as he thought and Aloshi nudged his hand to get him to continue. “She’d need an owner anyway, to keep her out of a shelter. You said you can’t take her home?”

Luffy shook his head. “Our landlord doesn’t allow dogs. I could try sneaking her in, but I don’t know how good she is at hiding. And I don’t know what Ace and Sabo would say. Ace would probably say she’d upset Stormy. What about you? You two seem to get along.”

Law thought, not for the first time, that having a dog would be nice. Company that didn’t demand conversation from him. A reason to get out of his apartment more. But that didn’t make his schedule any lighter, or make it any kinder to keep a dog – especially one Aloshi’s size – shut up in his apartment all day. “I told you already, Straw Hat, I don’t have-“

Out on the street, a car horn blared and tires squealed as someone slammed on their brakes. Aloshi bolted, through the alley, around the corner, and out of sight before Law registered that she was moving.

Luffy straightened back up, biting his lip with a frown. “Well, at least she ate.”

“She looks like she’s been taking care of herself for a long time. She’ll be all right.”

Luffy glared at him. “Just because she can take care of herself doesn’t mean she should have to.” He kicked at the ground. “Thanks for your help.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it. Sorry she ran off.”

“She usually does. She hates loud noises. But I go all over. I’ll see her again. Maybe she’ll be more willing to come to me next time.”

Law nodded. “That would be… I hope she does.” Now that he was no longer focused on the dog his heart had remembered he had something to be worried about and was pounding against his ribcage, demanding to know if his tally marks had dropped to twenty.

Luffy crumpled the hamburger wrapper into a ball and tossed it into one of the dumpsters. “Now I’m hungry. You want dinner? There’s a pizza place a block away.”

All Law wanted was to check his arm before he saw anybody else. “Thanks, but I… I’m not a big fan of pizza.” Not the best excuse, but all he could come up with on the spot. He had been a better liar, once upon a time, but apparently it was a skill that rusted without regular use.

Luffy blinked at him. “Everyone likes pizza.” He said it with the same certainty and incredulousness one might expect if he had been correcting Law about what color the sky was.

Law wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just stared back.

Finally, Luffy shook his head in disbelief. “You’re weird, Torao. Fine. Do you want to go get something else?”

“No, I – I should really get going.”

“Oh. Do you have work or something?”

Law latched gratefully onto the lie. “Yeah, work. No time to eat. I’ll see you around.” Probably. Hopefully not, but probably. Law started walking away without waiting for a reply.

“You should eat something, Torao!” Luffy called after him. “You can’t work if you’re hungry!”

Law waved at him without turning around to acknowledge that he’d heard and kept going. He turned at the first corner he came to, where he all but collapsed against the nearest wall. The brick was cold and uncomfortable, solid and upright, and the only thing keeping Law from just sitting down on the sidewalk. He yanked up his sleeve.

Just four neat little clusters. Twenty marks. Law leaned his head back against the brick and closed his eyes. Not surprised, exactly. He hadn’t had a lot of faith in the coincidence theory. But disappointed. Stunned that it was somehow Luffy, which just didn’t make any sense.

Law took a deep breath. There had to be another explanation. There had to be. Just because Luffy must somehow be involved didn’t have to mean that he, himself, was Law’s soulmate. Just that there was some weird shit going on with Law’s bond. That was pretty common. Lots of stories out there about that.

He should research those. Maybe someone out there had a story similar enough to this one for Law to guess what was really going.

He returned home, dumped a can of Monster into a cup of coffee, and fired up his computer. He hesitated a moment, considering, then typed ‘my soulmate mark responds to someone who isn’t my soulmate’ into the Google search bar. He scrolled past all the links that looked like they might offer ‘denial’ as an explanation, and started reading.

Chapter Text

Law’s alarm went off the next morning to find him still at his desk, leaning closer to the computer screen than was healthy, halfway through another mug of coffee and Monster. The notes he’d made a few nights earlier were next to him, along with several new pages of possible explanations that didn’t involve Luffy being his soulmate. The titles of several articles were scrawled across the paper, including ‘I Met My Soulmate After Realizing My Marks Were Responding to Her Brother’, ‘My Bond Led Me to the Person Who Set Up Our Blind Date’, and ‘A String of Coincidences Had Me Guessing Wrong About My Soulmate for Six Months’. He’d even dug his soulmate paperwork out of the bottom drawer, slightly more bent and battered than the last time he’d seen it. He was taking everything written on it with a grain of salt; it was still mostly guesswork. Look at their assumption about it being romantic.

They seemed certain that his soulmate was a specific person, but there were soulmate bonds that tied people to a type of person instead. That was nowhere near as common as person-specific bonds, but it was at least more common than the concept bonds. Or, even if Law’s bond was person-specific, his bond might still be responding to a trait of Luffy’s rather than Luffy himself. Maybe Luffy just had something in common with Law’s soulmate.

With what Law knew about Luffy that wasn’t the most reassuring theory, but surely Luffy had some positive qualities. He was friendly, at least. A little too friendly, in Law’s opinion, but there were worse character flaws. And Law was self-aware enough to know that was partially his own problem – he was too antisocial to be around people as friendly as Luffy.

Law’s phone chimed and buzzed against the desk. It blinked ‘low battery’ at him as he picked it up.

DR: red seems to have vanished from the color spectrum

DR: would you know anything about that

Oops. Less than a week after promising it wouldn’t happen again too.

TL: … Sorry?

DR: is your insomnia back or is something going on

DR: do you need to start talking to someone again

No, no he definitely did not need that. Therapy had probably saved his life as a teenager, but Law could happily go through life without ever having to go to another session again. He had too much baggage and he didn’t enjoy unpacking it.

TL: I’m fine, really. There’s just been some new research coming out lately. You know how I get.

DR: yes i know how you get

DR: do you think you could get that way without the all nighters

TL: I’ll try. Sorry.

He rubbed his eyes. Well, work was going to be an adventure today. He might have to pull back on how many surgeries he butted in on. At least he’d have something to think about besides the contents of all these sheets of notes on his desk and the fading lines on his arm. He was never going to be able to use tally marks for anything ever again once all this was over.  

By lunch he had drunk a terrifying amount of coffee, even by his standards, and his brain was taking advantage of the downtime to list off Luffy’s characteristics, as the theory that he just had something in common with Law’s soulmate was one of the most viable ones he had. According to his research, those characteristics could be physical or personality based, so he had a lot to work with.

Black hair and brown eyes seemed too common to be triggering his marks; especially with the five years of inactivity. Height, maybe? Or maybe something to do with the scar under Luffy’s left eye? He hoped it was nothing to do with Luffy’s recklessness. Law thought his heart might give out if he were to become close with anyone who went to the hospital as much as Luffy did. His friendliness? His love of cheap, greasy food? Being the type of person to go out of his way to feed a stray dog? That last one wouldn’t be so bad.

“Hey, Doc, where are you?”

Law jumped at Penguin’s voice and jerked his head up to see Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin all watching him, looking slightly concerned. Law had nearly forgotten he was in the cafeteria with them. “Right here.”

“That’s very funny. You spaced out. You okay?”

“I’m fine. I was just thinking.”

“About what?” Bepo asked.

“Nothing.”

“That was some intense thinking about nothing,” Shachi said, mockingly serious.

Law glared at him and stabbed at his lunch with more force than necessary. Bepo apologized for prodding.

“Maybe he’s finally got a date,” Penguin suggested, tone obviously joking. Law had known them since his first year of med school; they knew about Law’s lack of interest in such things.

“If I did,” Law told him, pointing between him and Shachi with his fork, “you two would be the last ones I’d tell.”

The two of them made identical noises of protest. Law smirked, wolfed down the rest of his food, and got up from the table.

On his way out of the cafeteria he nearly collided with Clione.

“Law!” His relief was visible. “I was just looking for you!”

“What’s going on?”

“Officer Smoker is here again. He’s already scared two nurses out of the room, and you know he doesn’t listen to-“

Law nodded. “I’ll deal with him. What room?”

Officer Smoker was a beat cop; Officer Tashigi’s partner. He was in the hospital every few weeks, apparently usually forced there by his superiors, getting checked for concussions or getting stitched up after a fight. Sometimes it was fights with criminals. Sometimes it was fights with other police officers. There was a rumor he would have been fired from the force years ago if he wasn’t close personal friends with the chief. The only reason Law had difficulty believing that was because it was hard to imagine Smoker being close personal friends with anyone, let alone someone in authority.

Tashigi was outside Smoker’s room. Law could see her heave a sigh of relief when she saw him.

“Oh, good, you’re working today! I’m really sorry, he’s just in a bad mood because he’d nearly caught him and then there was a call on the radio, and then traffic, and we had to chase the guy, and-“

“Tashigi!” Smoker yelled from inside the room. “Quit talking to Trafalgar and tell him to get me out of here already!”

Tashigi looked apologetically at Law and stepped aside. He smirked and walked into the room. “Hello, Officer Smoker. I haven’t seen you in a while; I thought you were going to lose your position as Heart Hospital’s most regular patient.”

Smoker huffed and grumbled something under his breath. Probably a string of curse words even Law didn’t know.

Law appreciated Smoker as a patient. There was no need for small talk or reassurances with him, or even to reassure his friends and family that he’d be all right. Stitch him up, give him instructions to take it easy that everyone knew he wouldn’t listen to, and he was out the door. Normally the lack of interaction was exactly what Law hoped for in a patient. Today, however, as lunch had proved, putting himself on autopilot only caused his mind to wander to places he would rather avoid.

“Tashigi said the guy got away? That doesn’t sound like you, Smoker.”

Smoker scoffed. “The bank robber didn’t. It was the other one; that damn Straw Hat kid.”

It was a good thing Law had steady hands and could stitch up a man’s face in his sleep or he would have taken out Smoker’s eye with the needle. “Straw hat kid?” he asked, doing his best to keep his tone casual.

“Yeah. He’s this punk ass street performer who’s always wearing a straw hat. He’s always hanging out in places he shouldn’t be, doing things he shouldn’t do, and he doesn’t have permits or licenses for anything. I know he knows it’s illegal, but every time I’m about to arrest him something seems to come up.”

“Lucky kid, huh?”

“Sure. Or he’s some sort of damn hellspawn. No human should be able to get that many lucky breaks.”

“I wouldn’t have figured you for the superstitious type.”

“You would be too, if you’d ever seen this kid’s luck in action.”

“What’s his name?” Law couldn’t imagine there were a lot of law breaking street performers in straw hats running around the city, but it never hurt to be sure.

“What do you care?”

“If he does stunts or anything there’s a good chance he’ll end up in my E.R. sooner or later. I could keep an eye out for him.”

Smoker huffed, probably resenting the implication that he needed help to do his job. “He does always seem to be sporting new bruises or bandages,” he finally admitted. “He name’s Monkey D. Luffy. You’ll know him if he comes in; he’s got one of those ‘larger than life’ personalities.”

That was an understatement. “I’ll keep that in mind. Isn’t a street performer below your pay grade though?” Now he was talking to keep his brain from screeching about how he knew yet another person who knew Luffy. He was starting to think it was a miracle he’d gone so long without meeting him.

Smoker glared at him. Not something most people would do to the doctor putting their face back together, but Smoker didn’t have a lot going for him in the way of self-preservation. “He’s a menace to society, a lawbreaker, and he needs to be off the streets.”

Luffy was reckless, impulsive, loud, lacking in common sense, and Law would really like to never, ever see him again, but Law had met a lot of menaces to society and he didn’t think Luffy really qualified. “Well, you’re the cop,” he said agreeably.

Smoker made a noise that Law took to mean something along the lines of ‘damn right, I am.’

Less than an hour after Law had sent Smoker on his way that very menace to society was grinning and waving at Law, apparently unconcerned by his clearly broken nose.

Law’s heart jolted at the sight, his breath catching as he recognized him, and then he sighed in resignation. He was probably down to nineteen now. “Really, Straw Hat?”

“What?” Luffy protested in the nasally voice of those unable to breathe through their nose. “I haven’t been to the hospital in ages! ”

“It’s been less than two weeks.”

“Yeah, I know.” He seemed to be waiting for Law to explain how that wasn’t ‘ages’.

Law sighed again, deeper this time, closed his eyes for a moment, and got to work.

Smoker would probably burst a blood vessel if he ever found out, but Law knew he had no intention of turning Luffy in. He’d entertained the idea for a split second when he’d first realized Luffy was next on his patient list, but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even really consider it.

Not because of the soulmate marks, of course. Law just didn’t think Luffy’s crimes were really worth police department resources. And there was Robin; she might object a little if Law got one of her friends thrown behind bars. Or maybe it was because of the dog. How could Law help a guy feed a frightened stray dog one day and then throw him to the police the next?

He wasn’t growing fond of Luffy though. Definitely not. How could he be? He’d just met him, and Luffy was not the sort of person Law would ever choose to have as a friend.

He squashed down the voice pointing out that Penguin and Shachi weren’t the sort of people he would ever choose to have as friends either, and look how much time he spent with them . That was different. Circumstantial friends that hadn’t gone away, that was all.

“What did you do this time?” he asked Luffy. “Did your friend with the camera dare you into doing some stupid trick again?”

“I got into a fight,” Luffy said simply, tilting his head to make it easier for Law to clean off some of the blood.

Law’s eyebrows raised at that. “Really? You don’t seem like the type.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, you’re not very big, for starters,” Law said before he could stop himself.

Luffy glared at him, an expression that wasn’t at all intimidating. “I’m strong.”

“And ,” Law went on, not responding to the comment and pushing Luffy’s face back where he needed it to be, “you’ve been friendly every time I’ve met you. Not like you want to get in a fight.”

“Well, I like you.”

Law tried to pretend there weren’t any potentially dangerous implications in that sentence. “And you don’t like whoever did this to your face?”

“No. He looks worse than me though.”

“And what did he do to deserve that?”

“Cabbage hit me. It’s not my fault I’m a better fighter than him.”

“Cabbage?”

“Uh-huh. He said I was ‘stealing’ his fans and then he started punching me. But I’m tougher than he is, so I won. But then Franky said I had to go to the hospital anyway.”

Law suspected ‘Cabbage’ was the result of Luffy being unable to say the other man’s real name, and he felt he’d gotten off lucky with the nickname ‘Torao’. “Yeah, being the less injured person in a fight doesn’t mean you’re not injured at all. Am I going to be treating this ‘cabbage’ guy next?”

Luffy shrugged. “He probably went somewhere else. I think he’s rich. He got mad when I ripped his jacket.” Law finished his job and stepped back. Luffy stood up.

“One more thing, Straw Hat. Do you know an Officer Smoker?” He didn’t know why he asked. He already knew Luffy was the guy Smoker so badly wanted to catch.

Luffy’s face broke into a grin. “Yeah, Smokey! He’s the cop that’s always trying to arrest me. I like him.”

Law was starting to have some serious questions about what made Luffy like people.

“Do you know him?” Luffy asked earnestly, and Law suspected that if he said no Luffy would offer to introduce them, with no concern at all about the risk of arrest. He wondered if Smoker knew that the ‘damn straw hat kid’ considered the two of them friends. Maybe that was the real reason Luffy upset him so much.

“I’ve treated him before,” Law replied, trying to sound neutral about it.

“Oh, good. He gets hit a lot; he needs a good doctor.”

“I’ve cleaned blood off your face twice and reset your nose once. What makes you so sure I’m a good doctor?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but you don’t know that.”

“Sure I do. I can tell. And you just told me.”

Luffy’s logic was giving him a headache. Or maybe that was the sleep deprivation. “You’re done, Straw Hat,” he said instead of responding to that. At this point he just wanted Luffy to stop showing up and giving him miniature heart attacks. He could be weird and illogical and over the top all he wanted; all Law was asking was that he go do it somewhere else, to someone else. Was that really too much to ask? “Try to stay out of here for more than two weeks this time, okay?”

Luffy shrugged. “I wouldn’t come in so much if all my friends didn’t make me.”

“Let me rephrase that. Try to go more than two weeks without giving yourself an injury that warrants you going to the hospital, okay?”

Luffy looked bored and disinterested, most of his attention on putting his hat back on and making sure it was positioned properly. “I do what I want. If I get hurt because of it, at least I had fun.”

“Are you still going to be telling me that when one of your stunts gets you killed?”

Luffy blinked at him and tilted his head. “How am I going to tell you anything if I’m dead, Torao?” He laughed. “You’re kinda dumb for how smart you are, you know.”

Law’s head throbbed and he barely resisted the urge to find a chair to collapse in and bury his head in his hands. “Just… go,” he managed to say. Luffy went, oblivious, as he had been every time thus far, to Law’s internal distress. Law could no longer tell if Luffy was unobservant or if Law was just a better actor than he had originally thought.

How was Luffy not dead yet? How did he not have more scars than just the one beneath his eye? And, possibly most importantly, why the hell did Law care about any of it? Once Luffy wasn’t sitting on the table in front of him, needing medical attention, he was no longer Law’s problem. It was no business of his if Straw Hat Luffy wanted to do cartwheels down a flight of concrete stairs. If anything, it was providing Heart Hospital’s staff with job security. He shouldn’t give a damn what Luffy – who, in most ways, was a stranger to him – did with his time, no matter how dangerous it was.

He shook his head. It was just this damn bond, he told himself. He was managing to run into Luffy plenty enough already; he didn’t want his risk to increase because Luffy was always coming into Law’s place of work. He just wanted Luffy to stay out of the hospital so Law could keep his marks where they belonged for long enough to calm the fuck back down.

Not that Luffy was his soulmate. Even if he had just checked his arm and confirmed that, yes, he was down to nineteen tally marks now.

The final few hours of his shift passed in a blur, hazed over by a single thought that echoed again and again through his head – It can’t be him. It can’t be him. If I have a soulmate it cannot be him.

And there had to be some way to reassure himself of that. He needed something tangible, something he could look at and refer back to every time this happened, some proof that God, or the Universe, or Nature, or whatever else got credit for soulmate bonds, wasn’t deluded enough to think that somehow this was a person Law should be bonded to for the rest of his life.

Surely soulmate tests could give more concrete information than what they’d given him in that file five years ago. Maybe there had been an update, or an uncertain possibility they hadn’t wanted to tell him about. Maybe they had cases that resembled him enough for him to have a real explanation to grab onto, from a more reliable source of information than sensational articles on the internet. Something, anything, to say he wasn’t supposed to spend the rest of his life unable to escape a guy that made him leave every conversation feeling as though a bomb had gone off in his head, leaving all his thoughts either scattered or destroyed.

He called the Soulmate Agency on his way home; had them pull his file and set up an appointment for Monday afternoon. This wasn’t right, and Law was willing to investigate any avenue that would prove it. He didn’t have a lot of faith in the tests they gave, but they were miles more comforting – or would be, once they agreed with him – than the stories he’d spent the previous night reading. More reliable than that, more official. More personalized to him.

There was an alternate explanation, he kept telling himself. There was, and he would find it.

Once home, Law couldn’t even calm down enough to sit on the couch and watch T.V., or to make something to eat. He paced back and forth across his apartment, thinking that his downstairs neighbors should be grateful that the building was nice enough that he probably wasn’t disturbing them. His stomach growled, but he couldn’t seem to stay in one place long enough to even boil a pot of water for pasta, or throw something in the microwave.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, pulling out his phone. If this didn’t deserve a disgusting, overly cheesy delivery pizza he didn’t know what did. He ordered through the app, not trusting himself to talk to another human being on the phone, not able to sit still long enough to use his computer, and continued to pace as he waited. He was going to wear a path through the carpet.

He wasn’t paying attention to the clock, but he figured his pizza would take a good hour to arrive. It was dinner time on a Friday, the place had to be busy. So he jumped when, after less than thirty minutes, there was a knock on the door.

Law checked his watch, wondering if maybe he had spaced out and lost track of time, but it confirmed that this was probably the fastest delivery Law had ever received. He’d have to tip the driver well.

He opened the door and nearly had a heart attack.

“Torao! Hi!”

Law’s left hand was still on his door knob, clutching it tightly enough to make his knuckles ache. “Straw Hat. Small world.”

Luffy was wearing a black t-shirt with the pizza place’s logo on the chest, holding the bag that carried Law’s pizza, and grinning. His nose was still swollen and bruised, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Yeah. I thought you didn’t like pizza?”

It took Law a moment to remember why Luffy would think that, and then was surprised that Luffy had remembered. “I… I usually don’t. It’s just been a long day. I wanted something gross.”

“Pizza’s not gross, Torao. It’s good.”

Law’s brain registered a horrifying thought. “Please tell me you didn’t drive here.”

“Nope. I’m a really bad driver. I crashed Dadan’s car into a tree once when she tried to teach me.”

Law didn’t ask who that was or why she had thought letting Luffy have control of a two ton metal box was a good idea. “Do you… bike?” Luffy hadn’t given him the pizza or the receipt yet, so there was nothing Law could do to make Luffy get away from his door faster.

“Sometimes. Or skateboard. And sometimes I just run. I’m really fast.”

“Got it.” Did his voice sound weird? Was it his breathing? Just how fast was his heart managing to go? “So you’re… a delivery person as well as a street performer.”

“Nah. I’m friends with the manager and he calls me if one of his usual guys is sick last minute. I’d get bored if I did it all the time, but it’s fun sometimes. I meet some weird people.”

Law was both curious and terrified about what would make Luffy consider someone weird. “Well, that’s… neat?”

Luffy nodded. He pulled the pizza out of its bag and handed it to Law. “Here you go. You really like vegetables on your pizza? That’s so weird, Torao.”

Well, there was at least a hint to the answer to Law’s question - healthy eaters were, unquestionably, weird in Luffy’s mind. “And what do you like on your pizza?”

“Meat! Sausage and bacon and chicken and-”

“I know what the meat toppings on pizza are, Straw Hat.”

“Then why didn’t you get any?”

“I got pepperoni.”

“That’s one. And everyone gets pepperoni.”

“Hey, am I tipping you to judge my pizza choices?”

Luffy stuck out his tongue.

“Can I sign the receipt now?”

“Oh, right. Here.”

He didn’t hand over a pen with it, but Law kept a handful near the door for writing notes to himself, so he didn’t ask for one. He gave Luffy a good tip - he had been fast, and it wasn’t entirely his fault that he was the last person in the world that Law wanted to see - and handed back the slip of paper.

Luffy grinned - he hadn’t even looked at the tip yet, why was he grinning - and waved. “Enjoy your weird pizza, Torao!” He turned back down the hallway, not quite running but not walking either.

Law shut the door, his hands shaking.

Chapter Text

Except for work, Law did not leave his apartment all weekend; not even when he realized he was out of virtually all food aside from a few packages of ramen noodles. He was starting to fear that he would run into Luffy at the grocery store, or in the parking lot, or that he would be driving and Luffy would suddenly appear at his window. He needed this soulmate business dealt with before Luffy could wreak any more havoc on his life than he already had.

The Agency had set up his appointment to be with Mary, the same woman he had spoken to five years prior, presumably because of her familiarity with his file. Law couldn’t imagine she would remember very much important information after half a decade, especially not any information that couldn’t be gotten just by a quick overview of the paperwork, but whatever. It didn’t matter who he talked to. He just wanted this addressed.

Law shook Mary’s hand when he entered her office and immediately sat down. He wasn’t in the mood for any more pleasantries than that.

Mary’s office hadn’t changed much. The same posters hung on the walls, with the same messages. One or two looked new, as though the Agency had to update regularly to keep things exciting. The same ‘helpful’ pamphlets were on display on the desk. The same mug was holding the same pens. Same brand of pens and everything. Law knew because he still had the one he had stolen five years ago in his own pen mug at home. He briefly wondered if it could still write.

“Now, what seems to be the problem?” Mary asked, opening up Law’s folder.

Law’s brain presented him with nothing but an image of Luffy, grinning and waving and holding his hat onto his head with one hand. “This has to be a mistake,” was all he managed to say. He had meant to be more eloquent, more convincing. Maybe Corazon was right and the lack of sleep really was getting to him.

“Is this about your test results suggesting it’s likely that your bond is romantic?” Mary asked in the forcibly polite tone of those accustomed to dealing with customers who didn’t like what she had to say.

So she’d remembered him snapping about that. Well, he supposed it probably was a pretty uncommon reaction. Most people snapped because their test results didn’t say it was probably romantic. “No. I mean, I’m sure that’s a mistake too, but that’s not why I’m here. This is about…” He cast about for the words for a few moments, then gave up, rolled up his sleeve and showed her his arm. “It’s about this .”

Mary looked blankly at the marks for a few seconds, then her face brightened. “You’ve met your soulmate! That’s wonderful! What… What makes you think there’s been some mistake?”

“It can’t be him. Okay? It can’t be. Platonic, romantic, whatever the hell else, I don’t care, the guy these things are responding to cannot be my soulmate. There’s no way. There’s been a mistake in the tests, or there’s some more unusual explanation, because this guy… No. It can’t be.”

Mary took a notepad from her desk and a pen from her mug. “When did the first mark fade?” she asked, writing something down as she spoke.

Well, at least she hadn’t jumped to the denial explanation. She seemed to be listening to him better about this than she had about the romance thing. “The first one was the day I left here, five years ago. I’m not sure exactly when; I didn’t notice it until late that night.” The image of someone snatching a straw hat out of the air drifted through his memory - had that person been wearing a pirate costume? - and he shoved it aside. “The others have all been within the last two weeks though.”

“You only lost one in five years, and then five in two weeks?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too.”

“Well, that is unusual. The person you think the marks are reacting to – are you certain you met them before all six incidents of one fading?”

“The five most recent ones, yes. I don’t know about the one five years ago. I didn’t really see anyone that day, except for my dad and my brother, and I see them all the time.”

“And I assume there hasn’t been anyone else who could be causing this instead?”

“Would I be here if there was? It has to be him, which is why I’m telling you there’s been a mistake. You’re wrong about what the marks fading means, or it’s some weird three degrees of separation thing like you see stories about sometimes, or some other explanation I haven’t thought of yet, because this guy can’t be my soulmate.”

“May I ask what makes you so sure of that?”

“He just can’t be. I don’t think I could find a single person on the planet who would be a worse match for me. Two of our meetings have been because he came into my E.R. Just… someone like that can’t be my soulmate. He’s loud and he’s reckless and if I ever had to spend any significant amount of time with him I would probably kill him. I’m not a huge believer in soulmates, but even I have more faith than that.”

“Well, if you’re just looking for assurance that he isn’t your soulmate…” She hesitated, waiting for him to confirm that that was why he had come. Law nodded. “Then the two of you could come in for a compatibility test. You know about those, don’t you? We run tests on both of you and then run them against each other and we can tell with about ninety percent accuracy if you’re soulmates. People whose bonds are vague or unclear about who they’re referring to, or whose bonds are different, favor that option. Now, if he’s your soulmate but you’re not his then the tests will be more inconclusive, but you would still get an answer about whether or not it’s possible for him to be your soulmate. Some people find even that much enormously helpful. We have one young man whose bond is so vague that he comes in and gets tested against a new girl about once a month. He’d probably do it even more often than that if it-“

Law didn’t care about her stories about someone else’s desperate quest for their soulmate. “And it costs a fortune and involves me having to tell him that the possibility of us being soulmates exists.” And it had the chance of coming back positive, which Law wasn’t willing to risk. The most reassuring thing at this point would be for Luffy to have a soulmate mark of his own; one that was completely incompatible with Law’s, so that he wouldn’t come chasing Law down. But however hard Law wracked his brains he couldn’t think of a casual way to bring it up. He didn’t want Luffy realizing anything was going on. Even if Law wasn’t Luffy’s soulmate, it being the other way around would still be on the table, and Law didn’t know how Luffy would react to that. What if he was one of those people that jumped in feet first at the first mention of the word ‘soulmate’, as though it somehow guaranteed a happily ever after? His luck had him running into Luffy around every corner already, it seemed; if Luffy thought they were meant to be together he’d never get rid of him again. The thought of it made Law shudder.

There was the opposite outcome too, of course. The one where he told Luffy there was a chance that he was Law’s soulmate and Luffy reeled back, every bit as horrified as Law had been over the last two weeks. More horrified, maybe. Luffy had just as many, if not even more, reasons to be against the idea. Law was well aware of what he looked like, with his scars and his tattoos, and he knew he was hard to get along with. He was reserved, anti-social, didn’t really have many friends outside of work. Luffy, who seemed to be friends with half the city, would never want to be tied to someone like him.

It was a bad situation no matter which way it played out. The only real question was if Luffy would want to give being soulmates a try first or if he’d realize the problem immediately and take off running. Either way, it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for Law. For either of them, really. Much better to deal with this without ever getting Luffy’s attention. And then just hope that Luffy’s soulmate was someone else.

“Well, yes,” Mary said, her voice making Law remember that they’d been in the midst of a conversation, “I imagine he would want to know the reason for the tests.” Her carefully maintained customer service expression was beginning to slip off her face.

“Yeah, and I would like to not bring this up with him.”

“Are you certain you’re not just… intimidated by the idea? A lot of people hesitate at the idea of having a soulmate once it happens, it’s perfectly normal. It’s a big commitment, after all.”

Ah, there it was. He’d known he’d be accused of being in denial once he brought this up to somebody. “It’s not cold feet. I don’t want this. I don’t want him. And the whole thing is bullshit anyways.”

“We do have several counselors we could refer you too-“

“I don’t need a counselor!” Law bit the inside of his cheek as soon as the words were out. He closed his eyes. Deep breath in. out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I don’t need a counselor. I just wanted to know if you could tell me about any alternate explanations.”

Mary had visibly had enough of him. Her mouth was pursed, her shoulders tense. “Aside from a full retest or testing the two of you against one another, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can tell you that you weren’t told five years ago.”

It had been clutching at straws from the beginning, Law knew. He left feeling like shit all the same; disappointed, frustrated, guilty, and very much in need of a drink or a pack of cigarettes.

Law had caught the bus to the agency, but he wasn’t ready to get on something so public at the moment. He walked a few blocks; found a park and then a park bench. He collapsed onto it, pulling his hat down towards his eyes like a child who took ‘if you can’t see me, I can’t see you’ too literally.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. A sharp gust of wind pressed against him, his sweater inadequate protection. It suited his mood.

Law shut his eyes and laced his fingers together behind his head. He’d known the trip more than likely wouldn’t help, but he had apparently been more hopeful than he’d realized.

And now he didn’t know what he was supposed to do next.

Maybe he could get another tattoo to cover up the marks so they could fade away without him – or anyone else – paying them any mind. Some people did things like that. He’d have to find someone who was willing to cover up a soulmate mark, but it was a big city. There had to be someone. For enough money, there was someone for any job imaginable. And he had a good glower. It would help shut down some of those protests of ‘but are you sure you really want to do this?’

Of course, there were some people who went through all the trouble and money to tattoo over their soulmate marks and found that their soulmate marks just refused to be covered. They rose back to the surface of the skin again and again, no matter what was inked over them.

Still, it was an option to consider. It might shield him from questions, at least. With the right tattoo, he could make it look like he had put the tally marks on his arm, rather than fate.

Law sighed, running his fingers through his hair. It was cold out and he really should be heading home before it began to rain, but he couldn’t quite convince himself to get off the bench and start dealing with his life. He’d always known that when one thing went wrong all the other shoes were quick to drop, but he’d gone long enough without a disaster that he’d let his guard down.

“Torao?”

Law snapped his head up so quickly it hurt his neck. “Straw Hat.” Seventeen. He’d lost all of his pent-up frustration in the Soulmate Agency; he didn’t have the energy to be anything but resigned. If fate was real and he was doomed to just keep running into Luffy, again and again, for the rest of his life, there was nothing he could do about it.

“Are you okay?” Luffy asked.

“I, uh… I just got some bad news, is all. I’m fine.”

Luffy stared at him intently. Law shifted uncomfortably under it. Was Luffy going to pry? Law had already snapped unfairly at a service worker. He didn’t want to get into a fight with Luffy tonight too.

“You need food,” Luffy declared after a few heavy moments had passed.

Law raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Food makes everything better. Especially meat. Do you want to go get dinner?”

Well, he’d already lost the mark. It might not be a terrible idea for him to get to know Luffy a little bit better. If it was a type of person bond it would be helpful to have a better idea about what kind of a person Luffy was when he wasn’t being brought into the E.R. or preoccupied with trying to rescue stray dogs. “I guess,” he said, getting slowly to his feet.

Luffy beamed. “Great! Come on, I know the best place.” He grabbed Law’s arm and pulled him along beside him.

Law was acutely aware of the fact that Luffy’s hand had landed directly on top of the soulmate marks. He desperately cast around for something to say to distract himself, and to avoid any awkward silences, telling himself that he was imagining that it felt like the tally marks were beginning to burn. “So, have you seen Aloshi again?”

Luff frowned and shook his head. “No. Well, I did once, but she was across the street and ran away before I could get to her. She’s really fast.”

“She is a dog.”

“Yeah, I know. They cheat.”

“They cheat?”

“Yeah.”

“How so?”

“Because they have twice as many legs.”

“How does that make it cheating?”

“Because it is.”

Law didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. It didn’t seem like the sort of logic that could be debated. Thunder rumbled overhead, closer than before.

Law and Luffy both looked up at the sky, which was growing darker by the second. They looked at each other. “Nami said there was going to be a storm today,” Luffy told Law.

“Is she usually right?”

“She’s always right. Want to race the storm to the restaurant?”

“I don’t even know where-“

But Luffy was already going. Law could see why he might think he was capable of catching a running dog; he was halfway down the block before Law could blink. “Come on, Torao!” he yelled over his shoulder.

Well, it was run or get drenched. Law took off after him.

The rain beat them, but only by a block and a half. Luffy ducked under the awning of a restaurant and grinned up at Law, water dripping off the brim of his hat, past his face, soaking his shoulders from the sides. “I win.”

Law was panting. Long distance running was no longer something he did very often; he’d nearly forgotten how. “Actually, Straw Hat, I think the storm did.” His sweater was soaked through, and once the adrenaline from the race wore off he was going to be freezing.

“Yeah, but I beat you.” His grin widened. “And you’re smiling.”

Law hadn’t realized he was until that second, and it made him jerk back, almost re-dousing himself in the downpour. “I-“ He stammered for a second, brain racing for something else to talk about. “Are you sure we’re in the right place? It looks pretty rundown.” He cast all his attention towards the building, not looking at Luffy’s face.

“Sanji hasn’t owned it very long and he doesn’t have a lot of money to make it look nice. The food is awesome though.”

From the outside, the place barely looked like a restaurant, let alone a restaurant Law would trust not to give him food poisoning. Through the door, however, it was a different story. Well-lit, warm, and it smelled fantastic, though Law couldn’t put his finger on what kind of food he thought the place might be serving. It had the low-level chatter of an uncrowded restaurant with satisfied customers. A sign near the door read ‘please seat yourself’.

Luffy took Law’s arm again. “Come on, I have a table.”

“You’re that good of friends with the owner?”

“Yup.”

The table was in a corner near the back of the restaurant. It was one of those restaurants that allowed you to look into the kitchen where the chefs were working, and there was even a bar along the window where people could presumably sit and talk to the cooks while they made their meals. No one was sitting there at the moment though.

The booth Luffy led Law to was a wraparound one that was big enough to sit at least ten people comfortably, even without pulling over extra chairs to sit at the part of the table the booth didn’t reach. There was a placard in the center that read ‘reserved’, which Luffy knocked to one side as he sat down.

“Where are the menus?” Law asked as he sat down beside him. He carefully kept a person’s worth of space between them.

“There aren’t any. Sanji just makes whatever he feels like and then serves it to you. Or you can pick one of the things written on the blackboard over there. But you should just get what Sanji says, unless you’re allergic to it.”

The blackboard Luffy had pointed to had ‘Today’s Specials’ printed across the top, followed by the names and brief descriptions of a couple of meal options. There didn’t seem to be any sort of theme.

“Okay, I’ll trust you,” Law said. He wouldn’t have expected a guy who ate at food trucks on a regular basis to also dine at a place like this. He pulled off his sweater and draped it over the seat to dry some. “Who’s Sanji?”

Luffy pointed.

A man with blond hair that covered half of his face was approaching the table, dressed in a pricey looking suit. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Law. “Hey, Luffy, who’s this?”

“This is Torao, he’s my doctor sometimes.”

Sanji leaned conspiratorially towards Law. “I don’t care how much you make, you deserve a raise for that.” He straightened back up and returned his attention to Luffy. “Are Robin, Nami, or Carrot coming tonight?” he asked hopefully.

“I dunno.”

Sanji appeared to lose all interest in the conversation and he turned to walk away. “You have any food allergies, Torao?”

“No, and my name is-“

“I’ll bring you whatever I feel like then.” He paused, stepped back, and leaned towards Law again. “You don’t eat like he does, do you?”

“What?”

Sanji’s expression changed to one of pity. “You don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, then I hope you have a strong stomach.” He walked away again, ignoring Luffy’s demands that he explain what the hell he meant by that.

Law understood as soon as their food reached the table. He hadn’t known human beings were capable of opening their mouths that wide. Or of shoving that much food down their throats without choking on it. If the food hadn’t been so good, Law would have been too disgusted to eat it.

Sanji was clearly a hell of a chef, and Law was surprised he’d never heard of his restaurant before. Maybe Sanji liked it that way though. Too many rich and entitled customers and Sanji wouldn’t be able to get away with just tossing whatever food he felt like at whoever had come through the door.

Luffy had been doing most of the talking before their food had arrived, and he didn’t slow down now. He told Law that he and Sanji had been friends for ‘ages’ – Law took that with a grain of salt, remembering that Luffy had said the same thing about staying out of the hospital for two weeks – and that he and a bunch of his other friends came to the restaurant ‘pretty much all the time’. Law wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that he could understand every word Luffy was saying, even through all the food.

Finally, Luffy leaned back in the booth, sighing and looking satisfied. There were four empty plates in front of him. “See? The best, right?”

Law nodded. “Yeah, it was good.”

Luffy frowned. “You didn’t finish.”

There was still a piece of untouched garlic bread on the side of Law’s plate. “I don’t like bread. It’s a texture thing.”

Luffy reached over and snatched it up without hesitation. “More for me then.”

Law considered Luffy’s scrawny frame. “Your metabolism must be insane.”

“It runs in my family.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Two.”

“And the three of you live together?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you all eat like that?”

“Yup.”

“You guys can afford all your hospital bills, rent, and for all three of you to eat this much? Your brothers must be miracle workers.”

“My brothers are the best.” Luffy tilted his head to one side. Law could sense that something about the mood of the conversation had shifted. “Are you feeling better?”

Law blinked, finding himself at a loss for words. He had actually managed to go the entire meal without obsessing over the fact that the person sitting next to him was apparently supposed to be his destiny. His stomach lurched at the reminder, but not as much as he would have expected it to. “Yeah, actually,” he replied, his words slow and surprised. “I do feel better.”

Luffy beamed, and Law really understood why the expression was called that. Luffy’s face almost seemed to glow. “Good! See, food always makes you feel better.”

“Yeah, this was… This was nice. Thank you, Straw Hat.”

Sanji appeared again. “Are you paying this time, Luffy?”

Luffy smiled at him with a shit-eating grin that seemed to fit on his face a little too well.

Law reached for his wallet. “I can-“

Sanji waved him off. “No, it’s fine. I just assume he’s not going to be paying for anything he eats. And don’t worry about your bill either.”

He left again. Law looked at Luffy. “That’s normal?”

“Sanji’s my friend,” Luffy said simply.

“Hell of a friend, giving you that much food for free.”

“He’ll make me do something to pay him back later.”

“Got it.” Between this and walking Nami’s dogs it seemed like Luffy might be trying to resurrect the barter system.

Luffy slid out of the booth, slowed down by how full he was, and stretched. “I need to go home before my brothers call Sanji asking where I am and he tells them I didn’t pay again.”

Law got out of the booth too. “What, you can’t just text them?”

“My phone’s dead.”

“Of course.”

The storm had slowed to a drizzle when they stepped outside again. Law pulled his sweater a little closer around himself against the chill. He waved down a cab.

“I’ll see you later, Torao,” Luffy said, starting to walk away backwards as Law reached for the door handle.

“Yeah, probably,” Law admitted. He hadn’t mean to say it aloud, but thankfully Luffy didn’t ask what he meant.

Law phone went off in his pocket and he pulled it out as he opened the door.

DR: did something happen today?

Law still wasn’t ready to talk to Corazon – to anyone – about this soulmate business just yet.

TL: No. Why?

DR: everything just seems really bright today. thought maybe it was you but maybe its my imagination

Law froze halfway through the car door and snapped his head around to where Luffy had turned and started jogging away, repositioning his hat to keep off the worst of the rain. A car drove by and the sound of the engine reminded Law that he was supposed to be getting into a taxi. He collapsed into the backseat, gave his address, and stared out the window, watching the water droplets race each other down the glass. He checked his arm. Seventeen, as expected.

It was probably just a coincidence. Or Corazon’s imagination. Or maybe Law had just been so stressed the last two weeks that his relaxation during dinner had returned Corazon’s vision to normal and it just seemed unusually vibrant by comparison.

Law rubbed his temples. If Straw Hat kept this up, he’d give Law gray hair by thirty.

Chapter Text

"Whatever it is you want, the answer is no,” Law said without turning around. Shachi and Penguin had followed him out of the hospital as he'd left, dogging along behind him with the obvious intent of bullying him into something. “It’s the middle of the night, guys. I’m going home. Pester me tomorrow or something.”

“We’re just here to tell you we’re going to a Halloween party next Friday,” Shachi told him, voice filled with wounded innocence as he and Penguin slid around to cut Law off. 

“Good for you. Hope you have fun.” Law tried to sidestep around them.

“When he says ‘we’ he’s including you, Doc,” Penguin said.

“Is this what it’s come to? You just invite me to events on behalf of myself?”

“It’s the only way to get you to leave your apartment.”

“Come on, Doc, it’ll be fun.”

“I think we’ve established that you two have very different ideas of fun than I do. Can I go home now?”

“Bepo’s coming!” Penguin protested.

“Bepo likes parties,” Law told them, feeling as though he were trying to explain a difficult concept to a young child that wasn’t interested in it anyway. “I don’t. So have fun.”

“You have fun when you go,” Shachi said. Both of them had their arms crossed over their chests and their jaws set with determination. “It’s just getting you there that’s hard.”

“Halloween is on a Friday this year,” Penguin told him, “and the four of us – and a few other people from work too, like Jean Bart – have that night off. So, barring any unforeseen emergencies here, we are taking advantage of that and we are going to a Halloween party together. And we are going to get you out of both your apartment and this hospital because I’m pretty sure that at least one of them is draining your soul. You’ve been acting weird for weeks.”

God, even these two had noticed? How bad of an actor was he?

He sighed. He knew them well enough to know they wouldn’t give up on this and if he didn’t agree he’d spend the next week trying to shake them off. And if Bepo was going too he’d be the next one to bring it up, along with all the rest of Law’s work friends who were going. And Heaven forbid Corazon find out and start pushing him to go. “What are you trying to get me to dress up as?” he asked with a sigh. He knew them. They’d insist on costumes.

Penguin and Shachi exchanged matching victory grins. “Zombies. Okay, we’ll text you the details of where and – Actually, we’ll just meet at your place on Friday and make sure you don’t back out and that you dress up properly.”

“I need Halloween costume supervision now?”

“Yeah, Doc, you never know. Do it by yourself and you might end up having fun. We know how much you would hate that.”

Law rolled his eyes, wondering, not for the first time, what had possessed him to befriend these two back during med school. “All right, all right. Can I go home now, or do you have more teasing me to catch up on?”

“See you around, Doc.”

As he walked away, Law supposed he should really be counting his blessings. With the kind of luck he had he might have ended up with one of them as his soulmate. Straw Hat was insane and overwhelming and gave Law a headache every time they spoke, but he wasn’t Shachi and Penguin and that seemed about as good as Law’s luck was likely to get. Shachi or Penguin, rather. Law sometimes had trouble remembering that they were two separate entities, joined at the hip as they always were. A few times, back in the early days of their working at Heart Hospital, they had been put on different shifts. Despite it always looking like they were just goofing around when they were working together, both of their productivity levels had immediately plummeted when separated, and whoever wasn’t on shift had spent an absurd amount of time hanging around morosely. The hospital had learned its lesson quickly.

The two of them were constantly trying to track down their soulmates, and Law had warned them that they’d need to preface any relationship they got into with a warning that they were a package deal, because Law didn’t imagine they’d ever really be able to live apart from one another. Whoever they ended up with was going to get more than they’d bargained for.

The next day, after a not-so subtle text reminder from Robin, Law finally got around to messaging Chopper. 

TL: How’s the semester going?

TC: Law!!! Its going good so far. Its harder than last semester tho

TL: Med school is like that. I have tomorrow off, do you have time for lunch?

TC: Yes! Id really like that. I have a bunch of stuff I want to talk to you about

TL: Okay, I’ll see you then. Bring your notebook and I’ll see what I can help you with.

Law didn’t generally enjoy the role of mentor, teacher, or anything else of that nature, but Chopper was an exception. They’d met on one of the rare occasions when Law had agreed to give a talk at the university. Chopper had latched onto Law, realizing that for Law to have his job at his age he must have once been in the same position Chopper was in now – child prodigy, years younger than his peers, and having trouble fitting in.

The scars had probably had something to with it too, though Chopper was too polite to ever say so. Chopper had not lucked out in the genetic lottery; he was tiny with a port-wine stain splashed across his face. Not a large one, but more than enough to set him apart that much more. Chopper never admitted that people tended to give him a hard time, here and back in the small town he had grown up in, but Law knew the signs of someone who was being bullied for something they could neither help nor hide. He’d seen it in himself and in Bepo often enough. Chopper was more like the latter, and it triggered protective older brother instincts Law hadn’t even realized he had. He hadn’t been able to turn his back on the kid when he had asked if he could talk to Law, one-on-one.  

He'd quickly developed a soft spot for the kid, just as Robin had when she’d first met him. Chopper reminded Law of himself back in college; or, rather, what we would have been like without the pent-up anger, the anti-socialness, and the slew of other mental issues. Law doubted he was the best mentor Chopper could have found, but he did his best to offer whatever advice he could think of. Chopper at least seemed to enjoy the friendship, if Law could offer nothing else.

The next day, in a desperate attempt to keep October from fading into November and autumn from losing its battle against winter, there was a small sort of fair going on at the park. Chopper, steadfast in his belief that cotton candy counted as a meal, suggested that be where they meet.

It was the sort of event that Law would hate in the summer, when it was undoubtedly packed with screaming children and their frustrated parents, the sidewalks impossible to walk on, and the grass a hazardous area, full of the risk of stray Frisbees soaring through the air towards one’s head. Now, however, the mornings were cold enough to leave frost on the grass, and the sidewalks were littered with fallen leaves all crisp and crunchable under foot, so few people were interested in attending. Not many people shared Law’s preference for being outside in cold weather, and so Law rarely had to deal with large outdoor crowds when he went to public places like this once the weather cooled.

Chopper had already bought himself a stick of cotton candy by the time Law found him, and Law guessed by the way he was jittering in his seat that it wasn’t his first one of the day.

“Hi, Law!” he greeted, at least some of the excitement stemming from the sugar rush.

“Hi, Tony.” Law sat down across from him at the picnic table. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good! Do you want cotton candy? It’s really good and there isn’t a line.”

“Nah, too sugary for me.”

Chopper looked appalled at the very idea of ‘too sugary’. Law suspected Chopper’s heart was going to break when his teenage sweet tooth and metabolism abandoned him.

“Oh,” Chopper said, popping more cotton candy into his mouth, “is it okay if a friend of mine joins us? He’s working nearby and it’s lunchtime and I’ve been so busy with homework that I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“I don’t mind.” Chopper was a sweet, mostly calm kid, sugar rushes notwithstanding.  Anyone he hung out with regularly couldn’t be too different. “I’m glad you’re making friends. Are you getting more comfortable living here?” At least while Law had been in college Corazon had never been more than an hour away with traffic. Law had been determined to prove to himself that he could make it on his own, but the knowledge that he could go home had been more comforting than he liked to admit, even now. Chopper’s family was a ten-hour drive away at best, through mountains that were nearly impossible to get through in the winter. For the last two years of living in the city Chopper had barely managed to make it home and back for Christmas, and he was almost always at least a little bit homesick, no matter how often his parents made it down to visit him.

Chopper nodded. “I have good friends now. I mean, I’ve known most of them for a while because Robin introduced me to them – her boyfriend is so cool – but it took me a long time to really believe they were my friends. But they’re really nice, and Nami helps me study, and Usopp taught me how to play soccer, and Luffy always makes sure that I’m not working too hard because sometimes I start studying and I-“

“Wait.”

Chopper stopped abruptly and tilted his head at Law, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“What’s the name of this friend that we’re meeting?”

“His name’s Luffy. Why?”

Law was starting to think that the only real miracle around all this soulmate stuff was that it had taken him this long to start running into Luffy. “Look, um, Tony, I think I need to-“ Law scrambled up from the bench as his brain scrambled for an excuse. “I forgot that I-“

Someone across the park caught Chopper’s attention and he waved at them. “Luffy! Over here!” He returned his attention to Law, looking crestfallen. “You have to leave?”

Luffy skidded up to the table, ripping up patches of grass as he caught himself with one hand so he wouldn’t just slam into it. His other hand held his hat in place. He grinned at them both.

Well, too late to avoid him. Law sat back down. “Never mind. I’m fine.”

“Torao!” Luffy exclaimed, sounding delighted. “You know Chopper?”

Law nodded. “Nami and Robin weren’t kidding, were they? You really do know just about everyone.”

“I like making friends.”

“You guys are friends too?” Chopper asked.

Luffy nodded and hopped over the corner of the table to drop into the seat beside Law. “Torao patches me up at the hospital sometimes, and one time he helped me feed Aloshi, and the other night we went to Sanji’s restaurant together.”

“Oh, you met Aloshi?”

“Yeah!” Luffy answered in Law’s place. “Torao’s great with dogs.”

“Wow,” Chopper said, his eyes wide with amazement.

Law rolled his eyes. “I didn’t do that much. I just helped her calm down so she’d come out.”

“Which I didn’t know how to do, so it was awesome. It’s good that you’re talking to him, Chopper. You guys can both be the best doctors ever.” He paused, then frowned, presumably realizing ‘the best’ wasn’t usually a title multiple people could hold.

“Law and I won’t be in the same field, Luffy,” Chopper explained patiently. “I want to have a general practice like my dad, not work in an E.R.” He glanced nervously at Law. “Uh, no offense.”

“None taken; the E.R. isn’t for everybody. It’s good that you know what you want to do. A lot of people don’t, so they just try doing what they think they should and end up burning out because they hate their job.” He’d said goodbye to a lot of coworkers that way.

“Why would you ever work at a job you hate?” Luffy asked. He stole a pinch of Chopper’s cotton candy and stuck his tongue out when Chopper glared at him for it.

“They don’t usually realize they’re going to hate it until after they’ve started doing it,” Law told him.

“Well, why not quit once you realize? I’ve quit lots of jobs I didn’t like.”

“It takes a lot of work to get into a hospital. People don’t want to feel like it was for nothing.”

“If you hate it, isn’t it still for nothing?”

“There’s still the money. People have to pay their bills.”

“You can pay the bills with a job you don’t hate.”

“Not always. I mean, does this street performance thing pay your rent?”

“It can!” Luffy pulled a wad of cash out of one pocket of his shorts. “See?” He waved it in front of Law’s face. “I made lots today. And I haven’t even had lunch yet!”

“Luffy’s really popular,” Chopper chimed in, his eyes wide and awestruck. “Usopp says that thousands of people watch him online.”

“Hundreds of thousands!” Luffy corrected enthusiastically.

“Popular doesn’t mean profit,” Law pointed out.

Luffy rolled his eyes and gave Law an exasperated look. “It’s not about money. It’s about liking what I do. And getting to do it, even if people try to stop me.”

“People like Officer Smoker?”

“Yeah! He’s weird. He never has any fun, but he likes his job anyway. Like you.”

“Who says I don’t have any fun?” Luffy wasn’t exactly wrong, but Law was unexpectedly offended by the statement.

“You don’t smile enough to have fun very much. I’ve never seen you smile except for when we raced to Sanji’s restaurant.”

“You raced?” Chopper asked. “Who won?”

“Me,” Luffy said, at the same moment that Law said, “the rain storm.”

“Okay,” Luffy conceded, “the rain beat me. But I beat Law!”

Chopper nodded as though that was precisely what he had expected. “Luffy’s really fast, huh?”

“I don’t run much,” Law said, not realizing how much it sounded like he was trying to defend himself until he had already said it. “Not long distances, anyway.”

“I run a lot,” Luffy said proudly.

Chopper let out a long, wistful sigh and Law and Luffy turned to him. He was staring sadly at the paper tube his cotton candy had been on, which was now empty. His eyes kept flicking over to the vendor. “Well, I’m glad that you two are friends,” he said, rediverting his attention back to them with obvious effort. “I like that all my friends like each other. Except for Sanji and Zoro, I guess. But they still hang out with all of us together, so it’s okay.”

“Tony, I wouldn’t exactly say Straw Hat and I are-“ Law began.

At the same moment, Luffy said. “Yeah, Torao’s a good guy.” Law stopped talking and let him finish. “I’m glad I met him.”

Law’s hand moved instinctively to the tally marks. Would Luffy be more or less glad to have met him if he knew about them? If he knew that he was somehow, in some way, connected to Law through them? Even if Luffy himself wasn’t Law’s soulmate, Law could no longer deny, even to himself, that something existed between them. What would Luffy think of that? What response did Law want?

Anyone would be disappointed to have Law for a soulmate. When people with romantic bonds thought ‘soulmate’ they thought of grand romantic gestures and happily-ever-afters; two kids, a white picket fence, a perfectly trained and groomed golden retriever in the yard.

The people with platonic bonds would be no less disappointed to get someone like Law. They thought of late night conversations, people to laugh with and to be their wingmen. Joined at the hip, friendships like the one between Shachi and Penguin, where one almost ceased to be without the other.

Law would never ask, but he often wondered how disappointed Corazon had been when color had flooded back into his world and the reason for it had turned out to be Law; difficult and abrasive and violent and everything Corazon probably never wanted anything to do with.

No matter what kind of bond, people would invariably be disappointed if their bond proved to be tied to Law. No one, whatever the nature of their bond, thought ‘soulmate’ and imagined someone who was moody and anti-social, covered in scars, with enough emotional baggage to break someone’s back. They didn’t want someone with long and unpredictable hours, who lived in a mediocre apartment and worked in a slightly shitty hospital because that was where they wanted to be. If someone was going to date one of the most talented doctors in the state, they would want him to work in a hospital that reflected his skill, earning a paycheck that did the same. Law knew at least a dozen people who had once worked at Heart Hospital and then left when they’d met their soulmate, or even just gotten into a serious relationship. They had been convinced that, for the good of their love life, they should get a different job. Or, more accurately, the same job in a better funded hospital. Law would never make that concession. Anyone who suggested it would be shown the door. Heart Hospital was poor because of all the hoops it jumped through to make sure everyone got what they needed, regardless of their ability to pay for it. Never able to forget the way so many healthcare professionals had turned him away when he was ten years old and sick with no family and no money, Law was grateful for that.

It had never bothered him that his loyalty to his job might negatively impact his love life someday. It wasn’t really bothering him now, but thanks to this soulmate business he was, for the first time in his life, considering it as a conversation he might actually have to have. He wondered if Luffy’s dedication to doing what you wanted, not what made money, would hold up if it meant being unsure of when he would next see his significant other.

Not that that significant other would ever be Law. It was just a thought. It was just that Law had met too many hypocrites in his life to assume Luffy wasn’t one.

And being a doctor – the head of the E.R. department and a surgeon, no less – was really the only thing Law had going for him. He heard that more often than he liked to admit, from all sorts of sources. Implied by friends of Corazon or Sengoku, most often. ‘At least he’s a successful doctor. God knows his personality isn’t doing him any favors.’ They never said it so explicitly, of course, Corazon would never stand for that, but Law knew what they meant.

So far Luffy didn’t seem to mind Law’s personality, but Law doubted that would continue indefinitely. He and Luffy didn’t know each other very well. Luffy didn’t know how permanent Law’s sullen attitude was.

Law shook his head, trying to return his thoughts to the present. Why was he even thinking about this? He didn’t want Luffy to like him; he wanted Luffy to stop showing up around every corner, giving Law an existential crisis he was too young for. And he didn’t like Luffy, so what did it matter what Luffy thought of him in return?

He tuned back in to Chopper and Luffy’s conversation in time to hear Luffy insist that he ‘had so’ done four backflips down a flight of stairs without falling and Nami was a liar for saying he hadn’t. Chopper was wide-eyed, clearly impressed, with no doubt in his mind.

“So, when did you fall?” Law asked, confident that he knew which part of the story Nami was contending.

“When I tried to do a fifth one. But only because that stair was uneven.”

“Wow ,” Chopper said, Luffy’s fall not diminishing any of the hero worship in his eyes.

“Did that fall land you in the hospital too?”

“Yeah. I didn’t see you that time, I saw…” He waved his hand above his head. “The one with the penguin hat.”

“Penguin.”

“Yeah, the penguin hat. I just said that.”

“No, that’s his name. Penguin. Or that’s what we all call him, at least.”

“Oh. Cool. I see him a lot.”

“You know, it’s probably not a good thing for you to be able to say that about so many E.R. doctors.”

Luffy’s face scrunched up with confusion. “Why not?”

“Because it means you go to the hospital too much.”

“I’ve told you, I only do that because my brother makes me.”

“The issue isn’t whether or not you go to the hospital; it’s how often you get injured enough to justify going.”

“Usopp says the fame is worth a little pain,” Chopper chimed in helpfully.

Law raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re studying to be a doctor and you’re encouraging this?”

Chopper shrugged. “I’m not studying to be his doctor. As long as someone fixes him up afterwards, what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that he’s going to get himself really injured one of these days.”

Luffy shook his head. “Nah, I’m tough. I’ll be fine. When I was a kid I stabbed myself in the face and I didn’t even go to a doctor to get stitches.”

“When you were – you did what ?”

Luffy pointed at the scar under his left eye. “See? I was proving I was tough. One of Shank’s friends stitched it up for me. Grandpa was really mad, but Shanks thought it was funny.”

“Shanks is the guy who inspired you to be a street performer, right? Why am I not surprised he’s the sort of person to think a kid stabbing himself in the face is funny.”

“Yeah, that’s him. He gave me my hat too.”

Law was amazed Luffy had lived to see adulthood.

Law didn’t respond, and Luffy and Chopper resumed talking animatedly to each other. Law found himself staring at Luffy, who was too engrossed with the conversation to notice.

Assuming for a moment that there hadn’t been a mistake, that this wasn’t a type-of-person bond, that nothing else bizarre was going on, that would mean there was some cosmic force of God, or science, or the universe, that said Law and Luffy were destined for each other in some way. Or, at least, that Law was destined for Luffy.

Law wouldn’t have thought that force capable of being so wrong.

Some people didn’t believe in soulmates at all. They chalked it up to coincidences and self-fulfilling prophecies; the idea that if you thought someone was your soulmate you would find a way to make it work with them. Law could see the appeal in believing that, but he’d never been able to believe it himself. He’d grown up religious, and even when everything in his life had gone to hell and he’d lost everything even dimly resembling faith in a higher power, a lot of those beliefs had been too deeply ingrained for him to just turn his back on them. Some of the faith in soulmate bonds was in that category. Being Corazon’s soulmate had saved his life, after all. So he could believe in them, despite his skepticism about them not being all they were cracked up to be. He’d just never wanted one for himself.

But this. This man, still baby-faced, standing half a foot shorter than Law, scrawny, covered in bandaids and bruises, with a million-watt smile and horrible hat hair – and yes, Law was aware of the hypocrisy in him criticizing someone’s hat hair – and an oversimplified view of the world and everything in it. If they were destined to be together, and if there was a higher power pulling the strings, then that higher power had an incredibly dickish sense of humor. Neither of them could ever be happy with each other as their soulmates.

Chapter Text

Friday’s Halloween party was at a bar, because Shachi and Penguin were apparently incapable of partying anywhere that wasn’t a bar, but it was less seedy looking than Law would have expected. The worst thing about it was the bright, tacky sign that informed passerby that it was called ‘Outlaws’. Law ordered a drink the moment they walked in – he had long since learned that it was best to take the edge off of new situations early. Just one or two drinks; enough to get him buzzed without getting him drunk.

A man with bright green hair was leaning against the bar, dressed as Frankenstein’s monster. He was glowering in the general direction of the entire rest of the room, and Law imagined he was either really dedicated to being in character, or else was thinking of inventive ways to kill whoever had convinced him to wear the costume.

He noticed Law looking at him and jerked his chin up in what Law assumed was a nod of greeting. He moved down the bar to stand next to Law and gestured to the bartender that he wanted more beer while Law started sipping his whiskey. “I hate when they have parties here,” the man said to Law. “They’re so loud I can’t sleep, and so crowded I can barely drink.”

“Why come then?”

“I live here.”

Law raised an eyebrow and the man pointed upwards. “Apartment complex upstairs. And I have friends who are coming anyway.”

“That I get. My friends dragged me here. And into costume.” It was really just costume makeup and fake blood, along with some ripped up clothes, but it had been enough to satisfy his friends. “I don’t really like parties much.”

The man shrugged. “I don’t mind them. I’ll just fall asleep somewhere if I’ve had enough. But this room is too small for a party this big.” Someone ran into him from behind as he spoke, causing his beer to slosh over the sides of his glass. “See? If I can’t drink in peace, I don’t want any part of it.”

“Good thing you live above a bar then.”

The man grinned approvingly. “I’m Zoro.”

“Law.”

They stood next to each other in silence for a few minutes; Law slowly sipping at his drink and trying not to look too amused at the chaos his friends were causing across the room. Penguin and Shachi appeared to have started a drinking game and had made the mistake of challenging Bepo – who had a much higher alcohol tolerance than them, thanks to his size – at it. There was a lot of shouting coming from that corner of the bar, as Bepo continuously apologized for beating them while he continued to do so, and they shouted at him to not apologize if he wasn’t really sorry.

The bar grew impossibly louder when the door opened again and a new group spilled in. Law stiffened and nearly dropped his drink as it registered that one of the new voices was painfully familiar.

“There you guys are!” Zoro shouted at the newcomers.

Law stared at him.

“What?”

“Does he know everyone?”

Zoro grinned, chuckled, and slapped Law on the back. “You mean Luffy? Yeah, he does. I’m used to it.”

Straw Hat appeared beside them. “Hi, Torao! You know Zoro too?”

Instead of answering, Law drained the rest of his whiskey.

“Yeah, we just met,” Zoro told him. He didn’t ask how Law and Luffy knew each other. The bartender appeared and handed Luffy a drink, though Law didn’t think he’d ordered one. It appeared to be juice. Law gestured for more whiskey.

Luffy took the drink, fist-bumped Zoro in greeting, and redirected his attention to Law. “You’re a zombie? Cool.”

Law nodded, took his whiskey from the bartender, and drank half of it in one go. Most of his brain seemed to have gone offline. He felt like he lost a little more of his ability to function every time he ran into Luffy, as though the soulmate marks were taking a bit of his brain with them when they faded. “Yeah.” He gestured at Luffy, feeling the need to say something substantial in return. “And you’re a pirate.” That wasn’t surprising, considering who his hero was.

Luffy nodded, grinning. His straw hat was hanging from its string around his neck so he could wear a black hat with a skull and crossbones in its place.

“Every year,” Zoro said, rolling his eyes. “He hasn’t even replaced the costume in years. Figures that since he’s stopped growing he doesn’t need to bother with clothes shopping.”

It did look awfully ragged, and a few parts of it had obviously been patched since purchase. It also looked strangely familiar.

“Law, you’re here too?” another, higher pitched voice said.

Law glanced around to see that Chopper had run up to them as well, dressed as the world’s least intimidating vampire.

“Okay,” Law said slowly, lowering his glass. He pointed at Chopper. “You are definitely too young to be allowed through that door.”

“It’s not like I’m serving him alcohol,” the bartender said. She leaned over the bar to hand Chopper a glass of something. It looked like the same thing Luffy was drinking. “You want another whiskey?”

Law looked down to see that his tumbler was nearly empty again. “Yeah.”

The rest of Luffy’s group surged over to join them, all of them making themselves right at home. Law could only assume that they were as well known here as at Sanji’s restaurant, since the bartender didn’t seem to need to take any of their orders. Robin was among them, dressed as a witch. Law also recognized Nami, Usopp, and Sanji; dressed as an angel, a ghost, and a werewolf respectively. There were three unfamiliar faces as well. One had bright blue hair, slicked up into a pompadour, dressed as some sort of robot. Another was a young woman in a rabbit costume that was really just a pair of ears and a tail with an otherwise normal outfit. The third looked vaguely familiar, though Law couldn’t put his finger on why, looked far too old to be a part of this group, was wearing a terrible skeleton costume, and was holding…

“Is that a rabbit or have I had too much to drink?” Law asked.

The bartender pushed more drinks at them, one for each of Luffy’s friends. She rolled her eyes. “Brook, do you have to take Laboon with you everywhere you go?” She sounded more amused than annoyed.

The man in the skeleton costume nodded. “He gets upset if he’s left alone. And he likes parties!”

Law knew very little about rabbits or how to interpret their body language, but Laboon, at the very least, didn’t appear to be afraid of all the noise and people. He was also huge; Law was impressed Brook was able to hold him so easily.

Each of Luffy’s friends took their drinks. Law finished his and ordered another. “Brook, you look familiar,” he said. Distantly, he was aware that his words had started to slur together. The bar seemed to be shifting slightly, making it difficult for him to keep leaning on it.

“He’s on TV,” Nami told him. “Does a comedy show and magic tricks for kids. Hence the rabbit.”

“He’s too big to fit in the hat though,” Chopper said.

“Which is why Brook should get a new rabbit and give Laboon to me,” said the woman in the rabbit costume. She had been petting Laboon, but Brook pulled him out of reach when she spoke, as though afraid she might be plotting a kidnapping.

“You can’t have Laboon, Carrot!” Brook scolded.

“I’d take good care of him!”

They continued arguing, their friends paying little attention to them.

“I think his sense of humor is a bad influence on kids,” Nami said, leaning conspiratorily towards Law, “but no one asked me.”

Law remembered now; a lot of the kids in the hospital would have Brook’s show on in their rooms. His sense of humor mostly involved puns, if he recalled correctly.

Nami knocked back her drink and waved for another. “You up for a drinking contest tonight, Zoro?”

Zoro scowled at her. “Would you make up your mind about whether or not you think drinking contests with me are a good idea? And if you think I’m letting you walk away any more of my money, you’re out of your mind.”

“What’s the matter? Think you’re going to lose to me?”

Zoro’s scowl deepened. “Fine. What are we drinking?”

Luffy laughed. “She’s going to kick your butt, Zoro!”

Nami didn’t look like the sort of person who could hold a lot of alcohol, but she did seem like the sort of person who wouldn’t have made the challenge if she wasn’t sure she could win, so Law could believe it.

Penguin, Shachi, and Bepo staggered through the crowd to join them.

“Doc!” Penguin shouted, a little louder than necessary. “We came to ask if you want to-“ He cut himself off, looking down at the empty tumbler in Law’s hand, and watched as the bartender filled it up again. “How many have you had?” His words were slurring and he was swaying back and forth, leaning on Shachi to stay upright.

Law shrugged. “Couple.”

“More than that, by your slurring,” Shachi said. He sounded hypocritically concerned, considering how slurred his words were.

Bepo, clearly drunk but less so than the other two, put his hand on Law’s shoulder and made eye contact with him. “Are you okay?”

Law nodded, or at least attempted to. It seemed very possible that his head had fallen more sideways than straight up and down. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re drinking. Like, a lot. You’re drunk.”

“Yeah. And?”

“…Sorry.”

“It’s a party, right? Wasn’t I supposed to have fun?”

“You don’t usually drink for fun.”

Law shrugged again. “I’m trying something new.”

“Okay.” Bepo didn’t sound convinced and a reasonable, not-drunk voice somewhere in the back of Law’s head informed him that this conversation was going to resume as soon as they were both sober enough to manage it. He wondered if he could bribe Bepo into not mentioning this to Corazon and decided it was unlikely; Bepo was a terrible brother to have if you were trying to hide things from your father. Never held out under interrogation. Besides, Corazon might already know. Back in Law’s teens, during the worst of his drinking days, it had made the colors in Corazon’s vision bleed into each other. He said it was very confusing and hard to miss.

But maybe just one night wouldn’t be enough to cause problems.

Penguin and Shachi had lost interest in Law’s drinking habits and were now drooling over Nami. Sanji was watching them, fuming, but Nami was wearing a predatory smile that somehow looked all the more terrifying when contrasted with the halo and the fluffy white wings. It was surreal; Law was learning firsthand how Shachi and Penguin were always getting into so much trouble because of girls in bars.

Bepo backed off of Law, began speaking to Chopper, and the two of them hit it off almost immediately. Luffy and Zoro were still next to Law, arguing over who would win in a fight between two superheroes Law had never heard of. Law didn’t know how they had gotten to that when they had been talking about drinking contests a few minutes ago, but they were both very invested in the fight.

Law’s brain had turned to a soft, fuzzy, white noise. It was nice, being around so many people who seemed to be enjoying his company but weren’t demanding he talk to them. He caught himself staring at Luffy. His wild gesturing was easy to focus on and Law found himself rooting for Luffy in the debate, despite not having any idea what he was talking about.

It had been a long time since he had last gotten properly drunk; it apparently did weird things to his brain now. Thankfully, he was too drunk to care.

Nami called the group’s attention back to her by slamming her hand down onto the bar. Everyone jumped back from her a little bit; especially Shachi and Penguin, who looked shocked. Law suspected she may have cut them off mid-sentence. She pointed at Zoro. “Are we having this contest or not?”

“You’re the one who got distracted, stringing those two schmucks along.”

“They’re buying our drinks; say thank you.”

Law laughed and lolled his head to one side to look at the schmucks in question. “I think you two have been hustled.”

“I’m okay with that,” Shachi said, not taking his eyes off of Nami, and Penguin nodded agreement.

Zoro and Nami apparently had drinking contests a lot, because their friends were all reorienting themselves so they could watch without being in their way, moving with practiced ease. Usopp, in a loud voice worthy of an auctioneer, announced that they would be taking bets on the contest’s winner. Nami and Zoro each bet on themselves. All of the Heart Hospital group had come to join them by now - Law didn’t remember seeing them come over, but they were obviously there – as had a good portion of the rest of the partiers in the bar, many of them pulling out their wallets. Most people bet on Zoro. Luffy’s friends were among the last to bet, and all of them, save Usopp and the man dressed as a robot, bet on Nami.

“How about you, Torao?” Usopp asked in an excellent used car salesman voice. “You getting in on this action?”

Law glanced over at Luffy – he head was getting unreasonably heavy – then back at Usopp as he dug his wallet out of his pocket. It took more effort than usual. “Yeah, I’ll bet on Nami.”

Shachi nudged him in the ribs as Usopp wrote down the bet, checked for any others, and turned to start refereeing the contest. “Just how wasted are you, Doc? She’s maybe half his size; there’s no way she’ll win.”

“She’ll win,” Luffy said confidently. “She loses sometimes, but not much.”

“Never if there’s this much money on the table,” Robin said.

“I think you’ve been hustled again,” Law told his friends. “I hope you brought a lot of money tonight.”

The man dressed as a robot laughed, stepped up next to Robin, and put his arm around her waist. Law remembered Chopper mentioning that Robin had a boyfriend and supposed this must be him. He didn’t look like the sort of person Law would imagine Robin wanting to date, but maybe he was just embracing the Halloween spirit. “They've been hustled alright,” he said.

“Didn’t you bet on Zoro too?” Penguin asked.

“Zoro’s my bro,” the man said. “I have to support him.”

“Are you going to regret that loyalty when you’re broke tomorrow, Franky?” Robin asked, affectionately patting his arm.

“I’ll never regret supporting a bro.”

Definitely not the sort of person Law would expect Robin to date.

Several drinks later, along with a lot of shouts, cheers, and disappointed groans, Law had been proven right and Zoro had passed out on the bar. Money was collected and handed out appropriately, and Nami hopped up onto the bar as if it were a throne. Sanji began fawning over her and her victory, strategically placing himself between her and most of the other people in the bar as he did so.

Luffy punched Law’s shoulder. “Told you.”

“I figured, when you all started betting on her.”

Luffy laughed. “You’re talking funny, Torao.”

Law squinted at him. “Are you still sober?”

“I don’t drink. My brother let me drink when we were kids. I threw up for two days and I’m never going to drink ever again.”

“Sometimes I think that might have been Ace’s plan,” Sanji said, throwing his arm around Luffy’s shoulder. Nami appeared to have shooed him off so she could eat pretzels in peace as she gloated over her triumph. “Is he coming tonight?”

“No, Whitebeard’s having a party tonight too. Ace has been weird about taking time off work lately anyway. He’s even been sleeping over there a lot more.”

“You know Whitebeard?” Law asked.

“He’s Ace’s Pops.”

“You and your brothers are some of Whitebeard’s kids?”

Luffy shook his head. “Just Ace; not me and Sabo.”

Luffy certainly had an interesting family. Whitebeard was, at least according to his kids, the white knight of the foster system, taking in the ‘lost causes’ no one wanted to touch. Ace must have been a really fucked up kid when he was younger to have ended up with him. Presumably without even being an orphan, since his younger siblings hadn’t gone along. Law thought it would be rude to ask for details though. None of his business.

Next to them Zoro snored and Luffy jumped up, insisting he needed to gather opinions in order to settle the debate he and Zoro had been having before the drinking contest. When Law admitted he didn’t know who either of the superheroes were Luffy launched into a blow-by-blow explanation of their abilities and resources, which Law was too drunk to properly comprehend.

Eventually, he managed to convince Luffy that yes, of course he agreed with his choice – whichever choice that was – and Luffy darted off to find more supporters, leaving Law to continue drinking in peace.

Law couldn’t tell how much more time had passed when Shachi jolted him out of a state of semi-consciousness by snapping his fingers in front of Law’s face. “Doc, hey, you okay?’

Law frowned at him. “How come you look like you’re falling over?”

“Because you’re falling over.”

As he said it, the bar finally slid out from under Law’s arm and he dropped to the floor, only stopping when Bepo caught him and heaved him back to his feet. “I think we should take you home.” There was obvious concern in his voice.

Law shrugged. Or tried to, at least. The command didn’t seem to get very far from his brain before fizzling out. Bepo was keeping one hand on Law’s back, propping him upright. “If you guys want to stay, I don’t mind.”

“Doc, I’ve never seen you this hammered,” Penguin said. “You’re going to have a killer hangover tomorrow anyway, and I’ve decided I don’t want to know what happens if Heart Hospital’s best doctor gets any drunker than he is right now. It’s like seeing your teacher drink; it just feels wrong .”

Law tried to glare at him, but his face wouldn’t focus. “I thought you wanted me to cut loose? Be more relaxed? Have fun?”

“Yeah, we thought that too, but this is terrifying and I take it back. Stay sober forever, please. Come on, we’re taking you home.”

Law’s pride said that the four of them walked out of the bar and got a cab to take them to Law’s apartment. His blood-alcohol content said that he got distracted halfway out of the bar when Luffy saw them leaving and shouted “Bye, Torao!” and Law had turned around and collided with the doorframe. His friends had then half dragged him into a taxi, all of them stumbling over each other as they got in. Even worse had been the trip up the stairs to his apartment door, where it was a good thing Bepo had a key because Law was in no condition to be fishing his out of his pocket and he didn’t particularly want any of his friends doing it for him.

Once inside, Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo went looking for water, cups, and ibuprofen. Law leaned against a wall and watched them, his brain not working well enough to explain where any of those things could be found. He did note that, even while drunk himself, it was entertaining to watch three not-as-drunk-as-him-but-still-very-drunk people try to navigate a kitchen that wasn’t theirs. Penguin checked the silverware drawer for pain meds three times.

Finally, everything located and water poured into glasses, Bepo nudged Law towards the bedroom, set a water glass and a few ibuprofen down on the nightstand, and then Law collapsed face first into his pillow.

“Try to drink at least some of that before you fall asleep,” Bepo said.

“You guys need to drink too,” Law ordered, some authority lost because of the way the pillows were muffling his voice. “Water, I mean. Not alcohol. You drank enough alcohol.”

“We will,” Bepo said agreeably as he left the room.

“Lots of water!” Law shouted, turning his head so the sound would carry better.

“We’re all doctors too, you know!” Shachi yelled back from the living room. Bepo shut the bedroom door and Law lost consciousness. He wouldn’t be able to remember the specifics of his dreams the next morning, but they were bright and vivid, splashed with reds and yellows and blindingly white smiles.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Law felt revolting. Not only did he wake up with his head pounding like someone was hitting the inside of it with a sledgehammer, but it also felt as though it were suddenly as large and heavy as a cannonball, and his mouth felt like he’d slept through the night with it stuffed full of cotton. He hadn’t undressed before falling asleep, hadn’t so much as taken his shoes off, and everything felt like it had shrunk half a size; now just a little too tight against his skin. He hadn’t washed off any of the costume makeup either, and now there were faint traces of it on his pillowcase, meaning he was going to have to spend a significant part of his day doing laundry with a hangover. It was Law’s first hangover in years, making him feel like he was fourteen again and still using unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with his then-undiagnosed PTSD.

Slowly, with a great deal of wincing and moaning, Law sat up, took the ibuprofen that was on the nightstand, gave up on trying to drink the now lukewarm water, and made his way out of the bedroom.

In the living room he discovered that his friends had elected not to leave the night before, and were instead piled on top of one another on his couch in what looked like incredibly uncomfortable positions. If they woke up too suddenly, someone was likely to get a broken nose.

Law considered turning the TV on at full volume and blasting them awake, but decided against it for the sake of his own head.

A few minutes later several groans said they had been woken up by the smell of Law making coffee instead.

Penguin was the first to make it to the kitchen. “You’re the best, Doc,” he groaned, leaning against the counter next to the coffee maker.

“Who said you get any? My apartment, my coffee.”

“We brought you home.”

“You also took me to the bar.”

“You had fun. Admit it, you enjoyed yourself at least a little bit.”

Law was pretty sure anyone with that much alcohol in their system would have enjoyed themselves at least a little bit. But he’d relaxed - sort of - and had managed to keep from giving anything away about the internal crisis he had every time Luffy was anywhere near him, so it certainly could have been worse.

Not that he was going to admit any of that to his friends. He had his pride to think of.

He pointed at Penguin’s face to change the subject. “You have zombie gore smeared all over your face. I better not find the rest of it all over my couch.”

“You won’t,” Shachi said with a yawn as he entered the kitchen. “Most of it’s all over my shirt.” Even though none of the lights were on and all of the blinds were closed he was wearing his sunglasses. He’d probably fallen asleep with them on.

“Thank God none of us have work today,” Penguin said.

“Clione does,” Law told him. “So does Jean Bart.”

“Poor sorry sons of bitches.” His sympathy sounded like it was in the vein of ‘better them than me.’

Not that Law could blame him. Laundry was going to be difficult enough today. Surgery would have been hell. “Is there a reason you three are still in my apartment and not in your own homes?”

“Sorry,” Bepo said, shuffling into the kitchen to join them.

The coffee machine finished and powered off. Law poured a mug and handed it to Bepo, then poured one for himself, smirking at Shachi and Penguin’s matching sounds of protest. “Don’t be so loud,” he told them. “You’re hell on my headache.”

“How come he gets coffee?”

“Familial privileges. Are you going to answer my question about why you’re still here? You weren’t so drunk you couldn’t figure out how to get a cab home.”

“It was my fault,” Bepo said as he dumped sugar into his coffee.

“It was,” Penguin agreed. He nodded for emphasis, but then stopped with a wince, holding a hand to his head. “We all sat down to drink some water and we were planning to go home after, but then Bepo fell asleep across both of us and there was no getting up after that.”

“Ah.”

“I want to know what got to you last night, Doc,” Shachi said.

“Got to me?” Law knew exactly what Shachi meant - and what had ‘got’ to him - but he wasn’t going to admit that. He’d rather talk about his soulmate crisis with any given random stranger off the street than with either of these two.

“Yeah. Knocking back that much whiskey that fast isn’t like you.”

Law shrugged one shoulder and focused on his coffee. “Halloween spirit? Loosening up? Trying to forget I know who any of you people are? Take your pick.”

He came across too harsh and Bepo frowned at him. He could tell Law was purposefully avoiding the subject and he didn’t like it. Law shot back a warning glare. He didn’t want to talk about this at all, but he especially didn’t want to talk about it in front of Shachi and Penguin, in the middle of the kitchen, hungover, with costume makeup still smeared on his face. Bepo stayed quiet, but Law doubted he was going to leave the subject dropped for long.

“Maybe it was Luffy,” Penguin suggested.

Law nearly dropped his coffee, and it was a damn good thing everyone was hungover and staring at the floor to stave off vertigo because his poker face was not very convincing right now. “Wh-what? What would Straw Hat have to do with it?”

Penguin chuckled. “I’m just saying, if anyone could drive a usually sober person to drinking it’s the guy who does cartwheels down stairways and then insists it isn’t his fault he needs stitches. Maybe he was telling you about all the highly dangerous, potentially lethal stunts he has planned and you just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Law managed a weak laugh that could almost pass itself off as being real. “Something like that. He definitely has no self-preservation instinct, that’s for sure.”

“Anything for the Vine,” Shachi said solemnly, nodding.

“Give me glory or give me death!” Penguin added, no actual excitement in the words, dramatically clenching his fist and raising it slowly in the air. He groaned as punctuation.

Law rolled his eyes and immediately remembered that he had a headache and that it was a bad idea. He finished his coffee, rinsed out his mug, and loaded it into the dishwasher. “Okay, you two. Help yourselves to coffee, I’m going to shower. Don’t touch any of my stuff. Bepo, don’t let them touch any of my stuff. I don’t care how much they gang up on you; I’m meaner than both of them combined and you know it.”

It wasn’t until the shower, the coffee, and the pain meds had all woken him up and alleviated some of the throbbing in his head that Law realized it was a Saturday that he and Bepo both had off, and that meant they were supposed to be having dinner with Corazon tonight. Law thought he would rather work through the hangover. He’d been acting weird over the last few weeks, and he was always careful about how much he drank, so there was no way Corazon was going to believe that it had been an accident or that Law had just let himself go for one evening. And Bepo had been there too and Law was certain he was still concerned, even if he’d temporarily forgotten about it.

Having family members who cared so much could really be a pain in the ass sometimes.

Law and Bepo spent most of their day nursing their hangovers and watching quiet movies that Law didn’t pay attention to, busy trying to come up with a feasible excuse for last night that didn’t involve soulmates or Corazon wondering if he should put rehab on the table as an option. He didn’t have much luck, and when they arrived at Corazon’s he was fully braced for Corazon’s protective dad mode to engage.

Instead, Corazon made small talk with them until they sat down to eat and then asked, casually, “So, how was the the Halloween party you guys went to last night?”

Law’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth and he put it back down. “It was fun,” he said carefully.

Unfortunately, that was all the opening Bepo needed. “Law had a lot to drink. We almost had to carry him home.”

Law glared at him. Traitor. Bepo muttered an apology and busied himself with eating his pork chop, though he kept glancing up and between them. “Overestimated my alcohol tolerance,” Law said, trying to mimic Corazon’s casual tone. “Been too long since my last party, I guess.”

“My colors got pretty wonky last night.”

“Well, you know how it is. Once you’re drunk you don’t want to stop drinking. By the time I realized how hard it was hitting me I’d already reached that point.”

“You were drinking straight whiskey,” Bepo pointed out. “How did you not notice?”

Law glared at him again. “I wasn’t paying attention and I drank it too fast. I’d have been fine if I’d drank it slowly.” He’d have been fine if Luffy hadn’t come through the door and basically made Law start doing shots.

“I shouldn’t have gone with Shachi and Penguin to play drinking games,” Bepo said apologetically.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Law protested. “I just got distracted talking to people and drank too fast. It’s not something you need to freak out about.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Corazon said. His tone was still too casual. “I’m just… concerned. I just want to make sure you aren’t slipping or anything.”

“I’m not going back to drinking myself to sleep every other night. I’m not, Dad. I swear. It was one time. I started drinking at the party, got drunk too fast, and then just kept going. It wasn’t a - a coping mechanism.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but the spirit of it was, and it wrenched in Law’s gut. “I’m under control. I’m fine.” He hoped.

Corazon looked about as convinced as Law felt. “I can help you start going to a therapist again, if you need it.”

“I told you, I’m fine. It was a party. Aren’t you supposed to get wasted at parties? Shachi and Penguin always do.” He could always count on Shachi and Penguin to provide him with conversation deflectors.

“And I am amazed the two of them ever manage to make it to work, with as many as they seem to go to. And it’s not the drinking I’m worried about, you know that. It’s that you never drink like this, not since you quit. I just… Law, I don’t want you falling back into that again.”

“I know, I know. And I won’t. This won’t happen again, I promise. The hangover was more than enough to remind me why drinking isn’t a great pastime.”

The three of them were quiet for a few minutes as they ate; the pensive kind of quiet that meant Corazon wanted to say something else but hadn’t yet figured out how to say it without making Law shut down on him.

Law liked that it always took Corazon a few minutes to work up the nerve to ask questions he didn’t want to ask and that it was always obvious when he was doing so. It gave Law time to brace himself so he didn’t snap at Corazon when he didn’t want to answer them.

It was a dysfunctional system, but he and Corazon were pretty dysfunctional people, if they were being honest with themselves, so that worked out pretty well.

“Is anything wrong?” Corazon finally asked. “Anything that’s been bothering you, or stressing you out, maybe making you more likely to drink? I know you didn’t mean to, but maybe subconsciously?”

There most certainly was, and it was five feet tall with a pirate obsession and a talent for getting hurt in ways that even experienced emergency room doctors raised eyebrows at. Law was going to have to have that conversation with Corazon eventually, he knew. If all the marks finally faded off he was going to have to pull himself out of the land of denial he had set up shop in and talk to someone about it, and Corazon was the best option for that.

But not yet. He still had fifteen tally marks on his arm - he’d checked that morning - and that wasn’t few enough to make him admit this was something that needed to be addressed. “I’m all right, Dad. I promise.”

Corazon pointed his fork at him. “Don’t think making a point of calling me ‘dad’ is going to get me to let this go.” He was doing a poor job of looking serious.

Law had slowly started Corazon ‘dad’ to his face about ten years ago, gradually increasing the frequency until he said it as often as not, but it still made Corazon unreasonably happy to hear it. Law may or may not have occasionally used that to his advantage to get out of trouble. “I would never try to manipulate you like that.”

“You’ve been trying to manipulate me in one way or another since the day I met you, back when you were still a violent little terror.”

Law smirked. “And sixteen years later I’m still managing it.” That was as much as they ever talked about those days; just vague mentions that they understood and acknowledged but ultimately sidestepped around. A few of Law’s therapy sessions had had Corazon come in and forced them to really talk about it, drag themselves through the memories all over again, and while Law could admit they’d needed that he was hoping to never have to do it again.

One more reason to not want a soulmate. Soulmates always wanted to know all those little details, wanted to have the other person’s past handed to them like a book they could dig into and analyze. Law had no intention of giving that to anyone. Even Bepo didn’t know everything, though he knew more than anyone else who hadn’t been involved. The idea of telling Straw Hat - who struck Law as the type of person who barely knew what a secret was, let alone how to keep one - any of it made Law feel a little ill.

Not that Luffy was his soulmate. Maybe in a few months he’d be able to look back at this crisis and laugh at the ridiculousness of how freaked out he’d been over something that so obviously wasn’t true.

Corazon smiled, then grew serious again. “Well, if something is bothering you, or if something starts to, you can talk to me, okay? You don’t have to just bottle everything up all the time.” The gravity of what he was saying was almost immediately lost as Corazon dropped his knife, grabbed at it, nearly stabbed himself in the opposite hand, and then tipped his chair backwards and onto the floor with the force of his trying to get away from the utensil. The knife, thankfully, clattered down onto his plate.

Law and Bepo paused their eating and peered over the table at him. “You okay?” Law asked.

“Yeah.” Corazon made no effort to stand up.

“My offer to childproof your house still stands.”

“Oh, you’re hilarious.”

“I’m just saying. Bepo and I are always worried we’re going to come over and find that you’ve jammed a fork into an electrical socket, aren’t we, Bepo?”

Bepo nodded. He had started eating again.

“I’m not that bad,” Corazon protested. Law gave him a pointed stare as he tripped over his chair while getting to his feet. “This was just because I was distracted.”

“What about all the band-aids?” Bepo asked.

Corazon looked at his hands, both of which showed more band-aids than skin. “You try doing as much paperwork as I do every day without getting a few papercuts.”

“That’s more than a few,” Law told him, “and you work for the IRS. I really feel like you should have learned how to do your job without injuring yourself by now.”

“I am a federal agent, it’s natural for me to be occasionally wounded in the line of duty.”

Law snorted. “Oh God, don’t let Sengoku hear you say that. He helped move you to the IRS so you’d stop getting hurt.”

“I was transferred so I could adopt you and actually be around and be a decent dad to you. And to you, Bepo, when you came along. FBI agents have very irregular schedules, you know.”

“If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”

They both knew it wasn’t true, not entirely at least, but Corazon’s shooting and all of the fallout from it was one of the topics they touched only rarely, gingerly, under very specific circumstances, with careful preparation. Law still had nightmares about that hospital’s waiting room sometimes. For a while he had been afraid he’d never able to set foot in a hospital again; all of them tainted by the days Corazon had spent unconscious and somewhere on the line between life and death.

But they could pretend his retirement had been a choice. Always made Law feel better.

“But seriously, Law,” Corazon continued, settling back into his seat, refusing to be distracted from the core of the conversation, “if you need to talk...”

“If I need to talk, I’ll talk. I promise. It was just a few drinks that got out of hand. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“You’re my son. I have to worry about everything.”

“Worry about Bepo for a change.”

“Worry about what? Bepo’s an angel.”

Law glanced over to see that Bepo had gone red to the tips of his ears and was smiling at his plate.

Corazon laughed, ate the last of his dinner, and lit his customary after-dinner cigarette. “See? You’re the son that’s going to give me gray hair before my time.”

Law rolled his eyes fondly, smiling a little. “And, as the son, it’s apparently my job to worry about what you’re doing to your lungs.”

Corazon shrugged. “I’m too old to stop now.”

“You’re not that old.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. You’re horrible at it anyway.”

“You are ruining your lungs, Cora-san,” Bepo said.

Corazon glared at him, through there was no heat behind it. “Really? You too?”

“Sorry.”

Law laughed and let it drop. It wasn’t a real argument, just an old ritual Corazon should have seen coming when both his sons had announced an intention to go into the medical field. The knew they weren’t going to convince Corazon to stop smoking, but their doctor instincts insisted they make a token effort. Still, Corazon wasn’t a heavy smoker anymore, just one in the morning and one at night, rather than the pack a day it used to be, and Law more than understood the appeal. He’d smoked for a while himself, before university classes had set a mental block in place, stopping him cold turkey. He’d mostly brought it up in hopes of it being a good distraction. He appreciated that Corazon cared, that he had noticed and was worried, but Law needed to keep this to himself for a little while longer.

The most amazing thing about Luffy being related to the vanishing soulmate marks was that it had taken so long for them to start fading. There had been that first one five years ago, but then the next half decade had passed without even a hint of an incident. Now Luffy seemed to be everywhere.

When Law walked in to see his next patient he was barely even surprised to see Straw Hat sitting on the table again. He did make a mental note to start checking the names on the paperwork and seeing if he could pawn Luffy off onto other people when he came in.

Either that or he was never going to agree to cover someone’s patient rotation ever again, no matter the circumstances.

This time Luffy was in front of him with a black eye, bloody knuckles, and a split lip from a fight he proudly admitted to having gotten into with someone named ‘Kid’.

“Wait, was this Eustass Kid?” Law asked, stopping Luffy mid-story. He hadn’t intended to engage in the conversation, but now Luffy had his attention.

“Yeah, I think that’s his name. He’s got a band and they’re awful and they like to pick fights with me.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but - Did you win?”

“Yeah. His face looks way worse than mine.”

“His face looked worse than yours to start with.”

Luffy laughed. “So you know him?”

“He comes in sometimes; usually after he’s injured himself by being an idiot in that autoshop of his. Spends most of his visit bullying the nurses. He’s a dick, good for you for hitting him.”

“Have you ever heard his band play?”

“I didn’t even know he had a band.”

“They’re awful.” He said it very seriously. It was clearly very important to him that Law believe him about the terribleness of Eustass’s band.

“If Eustass is in it they must be. Does he sing?”

“He says he does. I think he yells into the microphone. I like loud music, but he hurts my ears.”

“He is exactly the kind of person I would expect to be in a band like that.” He should have known Kid was in a band; the hair and the pants should have been a dead giveaway.

It struck Law that it was probably unusual for him to have so many encounters with his supposed soulmate or soulmate-related person in a hospital, with said person in need of medical care. But anything involving Luffy was probably destined to be unusual.

“Well, you’re going to need to take it easy after this,” Law said. “Split lips don’t heal very well if you keep talking.”

“But I’m busy,” Luffy said, heedless of the warning. “It’s Zoro’s birthday today.”

“Well, be mute at his party.”

Luffy glared at him. “What kind of party is it if you have to be quiet?”

“The kind where you don’t reopen your lip and bleed all over the cake.”

Luffy blew a raspberry at him and Law had to fight the urge to laugh.

Chapter Text

Late Friday afternoon, after a long shift, Law was walking the few blocks between the bus stop and his apartment when he heard Luffy shout his name - nickname, it was his nickname, he was definitely not starting to think of Torao as his name - and he looked up to see Luffy charging across the street without bothering to check for cars.

“Straw Hat, this is is why you end up in the hospital so often.”

“Aloshi’s hurt,” he blurted out, paying no attention to Law’s comment. “She got hit by a car, I think. I found her and she’s all bloody and she’s breathing funny and she’s having trouble moving and then I saw you and I-”

“Slow down, slow down. Where is she?”

Luffy didn’t answer, just turned and darted back across the road. Law followed.

There were blood smears down the sidewalk to where Aloshi had dragged herself into an alley and behind a trash can, where she was now huddled. She tried to growl when they approached her, but it was weak ,and her breathing was too shallow for her to keep it up for long.

Luffy held out his hand for Aloshi to sniff. She seemed to calm a little bit as she recognized him, but she may have just been too tired to do anything else. Luffy stroked her head and looked up at Law with more worry than Law had seen from him yet. “What do we do? She needs a vet, right?”

Law maneuvered around Luffy and the trash can so he could kneel down beside the dog. He slowly ran his hand down her side, over her legs, lightly enough to not hurt her, but with enough pressure to make sure he would know if he touched somewhere sensitive. “Yes, she does. She needs the bleeding to stop at the very least, and I’m pretty sure her ribs are at least bruised. She won’t heal from this without help.”

“Can we move her? On TV they say you can’t move people if they’re hurt.”

“As long as we’re careful I don’t think she has any injuries that we’ll make worse by moving her. The good news is I think she’s too hurt to try to get away from us.”

“Your idea of good news is kind of depressing, Torao.”

“I’ve been told that. Go get a cab, okay? With any luck the driver will know where the nearest vet is.”

“What if they don’t?”

“That’s what smartphones and the internet are for. Go. I’m going to figure out the best way to move her.”

Luffy went.

Law rubbed one of Aloshi’s ear. She whined plaintively up at him. “Easy, girl. We’ll get you taken care of.” She looked up, apparently focusing on his voice, so Law kept talking. It helped keep human patients calm, why not animals? “You’re lucky Straw Hat found you,” he told her as he moved his hands under her, looking for the best way to pick her up. “His timing is crazy. I would know. I know he’s loud and obnoxious, and I get that you probably have a good reason for running away from him all the time. You’ve probably been hurt by a lot of people who sound just like him. But he’s trying to help you. We both are, but it’s really him you should thank. He’s called me over to help him help you twice now, you know.”

Luffy skidded up behind him. “I got a cab.”

“Good. I’m going to pick her up, I’ll need you to open the car door and then help me get her in.” Aloshi was a little big for this, but options were limited. The major height difference between Luffy and himself meant that having Luffy help him carry her would cause more problems than it would solve. He managed it though, with only minor whines of protest from Aloshi. The three of them settled into the back of the cab, Aloshi across Law’s lap with Luffy sitting next to them, stroking her head and promising her she’d be all right now.

“She will, right, Torao?”

“I don’t know. It’ll depend on how much internal damages she has, which I can’t tell.”

“But you’re a doctor.”

“For humans, not for dogs. And I don’t usually diagnose that sort of thing. Not without medical equipment, anyway.”

The two of them were quiet for a moment, until Law noticed that Luffy looked like he was trying to burn holes into the back of the passenger seat with the power of his mind. “What’s wrong?”

“Why didn’t they help her? Who hits a dog and just drives away?” His voice was shaking.

“A lot of people,” Law answered honestly.

“What?”

“Lots of people hit people and then just drive away. I see their victims in the E.R. enough to know. Imagining people doing the same thing to a dog isn’t hard.” He was being depressing again, he realized distantly.

“It’s wrong.”

“No argument from me there, Straw Hat. But people are fucked up and do wrong things all the time.”

Luffy huffed. His jaw was clenched, but the hand petting Aloshi stayed steady, slow and gentle, offering her what little reassurance he could.

The vet techs helped them bring Aloshi inside when they got there, and then one stayed with them to ask questions.

“How long ago was she hit?”

Luffy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How long ago did you find her?” Law asked.

“Uh…” He grabbed Law’s hand and checked his watch. “I dunno, maybe twenty minutes ago?”

“What kind of dog is she?”

They both shrugged at that.

“A mutt,” Luffy said.

“Part collie, maybe?” Law suggested.

“How old?”

“She’s a stray,” Law said. “We told you that when we came in. We don’t know.”

After a few more shrugs the word ‘stray’ finally seemed to sink in and the tech left them to wait.

The waiting room of a vet’s office was not at all like the waiting room of a hospital, but they both had a heavy emphasis on the word waiting, which was not something Law had ever learned to be any good at. He kept getting up to walk around, rubbing at the palm of his hand with his thumb hard enough for it to hurt, checking his phone - for what, he didn’t know - sitting down, and getting back up again.

“You’re nervous,” Luffy observed. He was too, Law could see, but it was mostly manifesting in him bouncing his leg up and down without getting up from his seat. He had also pulled a fidget cube out of one of his pockets and he was flipping the switch on one side back and forth with an audible click each time.

“I hate waiting rooms,” Law told him. “I hate waiting.”

“Good thing you’re usually the one people are waiting for then, huh?”

Law smiled weakly. “Part of why I became an E.R. doctor, actually. I like feeling like I’m doing everything I can.”

“You’re doing everything you can right now.”

“I like for ‘everything’ to be more than ‘nothing’.”

Luffy nodded. “Who did you have to wait for?”

“Huh?”

“You had to spend a long time in a waiting room before, right? That’s why you hate them. I hate waiting too. When I was a kid my school burned down. One of my brothers got burned really bad and the other one got arrested and I couldn’t do anything but wait for weeks. It was the worst thing of my life.”

Law didn’t know what he had been expecting from Luffy, but it hadn’t been anything so introspective. “My dad,” he finally admitted, forcing himself to sit back down. “When I was thirteen.”

“Waiting sucks.”

“Yeah. It really does.”

They fell silent again. Law kept fidgeting, standing and sitting again, checking his phone, twisting his watch around his wrist.

Luffy’s phone rang, the sudden noise loud enough to make them both jump.

Luffy pulled it out of his pocket. “Hi, Ace.” The person on the other end was so loud Law could almost make out what they were saying. “Wha- No! I’m at the vet! Aloshi got hit by a car. Torao helped me get here.” The next pause made Luffy frown. “But I’m waiting for - Oh. Right. I forgot.” He winced. Law imagined he wished he was still forgetting whatever he had forgotten. “I’ll call you back in a minute, okay?” He hung up without waiting for a response and turned to Law.

“Do you have to go?”

Luffy made a face. “My grandpa is visiting and he wants to have dinner with me and my brothers. He doesn’t like excuses.”

“Sounds like he’d get along with my grandfather.” Work was the one and only excuse Sengoku ever accepted, and Law was pretty sure that was only because of the type of work he did. He sighed, suspecting that the offer he was about to make was one he was going to regret later. “Here, give me your number and I’ll text you when I know something.”

Luffy took Law’s phone to enter his number in it and handed it back. “Okay. You should call though. I don’t like texting.”

“Am I going to get you in trouble if I call you while you’re at dinner?”

“Probably. Grandpa always finds something to be grumpy about though, so I don’t care.” He called his brother back, told him which vet’s office to pick him up at, and hung up again. “Oh, here.” He pulled a handful of crumpled up bills out of his pocket and shoved them into Law’s hand. “I don’t know if that’s going to be enough for everything she needs, but it’s all I have right now.”

“I have a good savings account, I’ll pay for the… the rest of it.” Law’s mid-sentence pause was a result of having unfolded the money Luffy had just handed him. Luffy had pulled almost three hundred dollars in cash out of his shorts pockets like it was nothing. Law stared at Luffy.

Luffy blinked back, clearly getting that Law was thrown, but not understanding why.

“This is a lot of money to be carrying around, Straw Hat.”

“Today was a good day. They happen sometimes. Some days I barely make any.” He still didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about carrying hundreds of dollars on his person when he didn’t even really have a job. Or when he lived in a large city with a very real chance of being mugged.

A large part of Law was tempted to ask Luffy if he was actually a drug runner or something and that was the real reason he and Smoker butted heads so often. He didn’t, deciding that however Luffy went around earning his money he was better off not knowing about it. It was either illegal or weird, and either way ignorance was bliss.

Besides, Law had met plenty of drug runners. Luffy wouldn’t last a day.

“Okay. I’ll call you.”

Luffy nodded. “Oh, and you can borrow this too.” He handed Law his fidget cube. “You can give it back next time you see me. Talk to you later.” He darted out of the building before Law could respond. Luffy seemed to do everything very fast, like it might somehow get away from him if he didn’t hurry.

Waiting alone was worse than waiting with someone, although the fidget cube did seem to be a better outlet for his nervous energy than his phone was. Still, after another fifteen minutes of idle fidgeting, Law started texting Corazon, filling him in on having met an injured stray dog and taken her to the vet. He did an impressive job of omitting Luffy from the story without feeling like he was lying about anything.

DR: you adopted a dog?

TL: I said I took her to the vet, not that I brought her home.

DR: shes a girl?

TL: Yes.

DR: whats her name

TL: Aloshi. I didn’t name her, before you ask. Someone who’s seen her running around the city did.

DR: thats great! i think a dog will be good for you. what kind is she

TL: I didn’t adopt her!

TL: But I think she’s some sort of borzoi/border collie mix. Or maybe some other kind of herding dog. She’s got merle in her coat. He’d done a google search.

DR: thatll be a good dog for walks

TL: I told you, I didn’t adopt her. I just took her to the vet.

The vet returned then. Law put his phone away and stood up. “Is she going to be okay?”

“She’s stable. She was pretty banged up, but it looks like a lot of it was superficial. I want to keep her under observation for twenty-four hours, but if no complications come up she should be able to be picked up tomorrow evening. You’ll just have to keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t overexert herself. We’ll set up some physical therapy appointments for her.”

Law frowned, glancing towards the back where he knew Aloshi was resting.

“Is something wrong?”

“She’s a stray.”

“Currently? I’d assumed she’d been recently adopted by you or the friend you came in with. She’s clearly been homeless for a while, but most people don’t wait around to find out about a dog they don’t own.”

“No. My, uh, friend, he’s seen her on the street before and fed her a few times, but he’s never been able to catch her.”

“Is he intending to adopt her?”

“He can’t. His apartment doesn’t allow dogs.”

“I see. Should I have a shelter come pick her up then?”

“No!” The forcefulness of the refusal caught Law off guard, but he stood by it. He knew that dogs who went into shelters didn’t always make it back out again. Especially dogs with poor social skills or high medical bills. “No. I’ll - I’ll figure something out. No shelter.”

“All right. We’ll call you when she’s ready to be picked up then. Would you like to see her before you leave?”

Law followed the vet to the back. Aloshi was only barely awake, unable to keep her head up for more than a few seconds at a time, but that wasn’t stopping her from warily eying everyone else in the room. She looked even more ragged than before, with patches of her fur cut away to get rid of the mats and make room for the vet to work. When she saw Law her tail wagged weakly a few times, and she made a weak effort to lift her head up again. Law crouched down to be at eye level with her and rubbed her ears.

“You see? I told you we’d get you taken care of.” Aloshi licked his hand. “Yeah, you’re okay. Straw Hat and I will figure out what to do. You won’t end up in a shelter, I promise.”

He hadn’t adopted her. He hadn’t. It was just that he had put this much effort and money into saving her, and it would be ridiculous to then send her to a shelter where God only knew what would happen to her.

He waited to call Luffy until he was home, not wanting to try to deal with the chaos that was Luffy while he was walking down the street. Luffy picked up almost instantly.

“Is she okay?” he asked without any sort of greeting.

“She should be. She has to stay at the vet until tomorrow night, but the vet says she’s doing well.”

“Good.” There was a brief pause. “What’s going to happen to her after that?”

“I was going to ask you that. I told the vet I’d pick her up and not to call a shelter, but we need to decide what to do with her after that. We can’t just turn her back out on the street.” Law wasn’t sure when this had become a ‘we’ problem, but this didn’t seem like the time to deal with that particular development. “You can’t take her, right?”

“No dogs allowed. What about you? You didn’t have time to answer last time I asked.”

“I’d be allowed, but I don’t have the time. I work long hours and my schedule changes all the time. I can’t just leave her shut up in my apartment all day, she’d be miserable. And she probably isn’t trained very well, so I’d have to keep her in a kennel, and that isn’t fair to her.”

“Oh, oh, I could help!”

“How?”

“I could walk her for you! And train her! I helped Nami train her dogs and I walk them for her all the time; I know how to do it.”

Oh yeah, that would solve Law’s problems. Just let the guy he was desperately trying to avoid have a key to his apartment. It was bad enough that Luffy now had his phone number.

On the other hand, it sounded like a better option than letting Aloshi end up in a shelter or back on the streets. And Law had been wanting a dog for a long time now.

No. No way. Now way was he thinking about giving Luffy an all access pass to his apartment.

“I’ll think about it,” was what came out of his mouth. “But what about one of your friends? Could one of them take her? Like Nami; she has dogs already.”

“Her place only allows three dogs total. She can’t have any more.”

“Robin?”

“She has a bird she doesn’t always keep in a cage. She wouldn’t want to leave him alone with a dog she doesn’t know well. Sanji wouldn’t want a dog because he wouldn’t want it near his kitchen. Chopper lives in the dorms. Franky would probably take her, but he’s always building stuff and it probably wouldn’t be safe for her. Same with Usopp. Zoro can’t have any pets over twenty-five pounds and there’s always cats around his place anyway. Brook has Laboon and-”

“Okay, okay. I get it. None of them are options.”

“I asked all of them after I saw her the first time. I would have tried harder to catch her if I’d found someone who would adopt her, but I didn’t want to catch her and then just send her to the pound.”

“I agree. I’ll find a way to keep her out of the pound, Straw Hat, I promise. I’ll ask around my friends.”

“You really don’t want to take her?”

“I said I’ll think about it. I just want to make sure we’ve considered all of our options.”

“Okay. Let me know what you decide to do, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I will.”

Law hung up, rubbing his temples. He didn’t have to talk to anybody to know that none of his friends could take her for the same reason that he couldn’t - they all spent too much time at work.

And Law wanted to adopt her. It only took him crossing four people off his mental candidate list for the first arbitrary reason he could come up with for him to admit that.  His primary reason for not getting a dog was gone now that Luffy had offered to be his dog walker. After all, who would be better equipped to work around Law’s erratic schedule than someone who didn’t have to worry about it conflicting with their job? Luffy could even take her with him while he worked; it wasn’t as though he had a boss who would get upset about it. And it would be great socialization practice for Aloshi. The only problem with the idea was who Luffy was.

Law rolled up his sleeve and ran his fingers over the tally marks. Thirteen left now. It had been just over a month since Luffy had come into the hospital that first time, and Law had gone down twelve marks since then. How fast would they disappear if Luffy started coming over to look after Aloshi on a regular basis, if Law handed him a key to his apartment? The hope that this was some sort of mistake, a misunderstanding, was getting weaker by the day. It was one last straw to grasp at, but Law didn’t know how long it would hold out if the marks kept fading like this. Law didn’t want to deal with any of that, didn’t want to deal with any of it ever if he could avoid it.

But that wasn’t Aloshi’s fault.

Law sighed. He’d have to go visit his landlord and put Aloshi on the lease. And he’d have to call and find out if he could adopt Aloshi through the vet’s office.

The next day Law told Corazon that he had, in fact, adopted a dog, and then he told Corazon there was no need for him to sound so smug about being right.

“You never do anything halfway, Law. As soon as you started talking about her I knew you’d end up taking her home with you.”

“You act like I’ve done this before.”

“Well, it does remind me a little bit of when you brought Bepo home.”

“Bepo’s a person. And you adopted him. I was fourteen.”

“You brought him home and informed me he was going to stay with us now; what else was I going to do?”

Fourteen year old Law had been very against anything to do with being obviously affectionate. He’d insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t have cared if Bepo had starved to death out on the streets,while simultaneously flying into a rage at every schoolyard bully who so much as looked at Bepo sideways.

“Look, Cora-san, would you just help me get stuff for her? I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“You? Not prepared for something? That’s new.”

“I know, I know, I would have made a great boy scout. Would you please help me? I’m supposed to pick her up at five tonight and I want my apartment ready for her by then.”

“Of course I’ll help. What do you need?”

“Well, I was up most of last night doing research - I’m sorry if that messed with your eyesight, by the way - and I need to dog proof my place, so if you could buy some dog food, toys, bowls, and a leash and collar that would be great. I know what brands I want, I’ll text you. And I’ll pay you back. Oh, and a kennel.”

Corazon laughed. “Even when you’re unprepared, you’re prepared.”

Law hung up on him and got to work dog-proofing his apartment.

When Corazon arrived to drop everything off he offered to drive Law to the vet’s to pick Aloshi up. He claimed it was so she could sit in Law’s lap, but Law suspected it was so he could meet her. Corazon was acting like Law had adopted a child instead of a dog

“I forgot to ask this morning,” Corazon asked as they drove, “but I thought you didn’t want to get a dog because you didn’t have time for one?”

“I have a, um, friend who’s going to walk her for me.”

“Aren’t most of your friends as busy as you are?”

“Not this one. He’s, uh… He’s self-employed.”

“It’s nice of him to help you out.”

“Yeah. Well. He really likes dogs.”

His casual tone must not have been incredibly unconvincing, because Corazon immediately side-eyed him. “Something going on with this friend?” he asked suggestively.

“Dad, what have I said about using that tone?”

“You’ve never used that tone before.”

“You’re hearing things.”

“Am I? Is this what you’ve been all worked up over? You have your first crush?”

“Crush? Dad, what am I, twelve? And I’m not interested in that sort of stuff.”

“And last night you weren’t going to adopt a dog, but here we are.”

“Not quite the same thing.”

“You could still give it a chance. What’s the worst that could happen from trying?”

“That is not a question you should ever ask someone who works in a hospital.”

Corazon snorted. “Well, if you change your mind…”

“You will be the first to know, I promise. Except him, I guess. Not that anything’s going to happen with him, because it isn’t.”

Corazon shook his head as he parked the car. “Come on. I want to meet your new dog.”

“Don’t make any sudden moves when you do; she isn’t very good with people yet.”

The same vet from the day before met the two of them when they walked in. “Have you made arrangements for where she’ll be living? I’m sure you understand why I can’t let you take her without some assurance that she won’t end up back on the street again.”

“I’m adopting her,” Law said. “I called earlier and the receptionist said she’d have the paperwork ready.”

The receptionist handed a clipboard across the counter at him.

The vet looked pleased but not surprised. Law wondered if it had really been that obvious that there had never been a chance of her going home with anyone else. “Excellent. I’ll have someone go get her while I fill you in on what sort of care she’s going to need, all right?”

It was a long list of things; medications, future checkups, exercise routines, what activities to avoid and what would probably be good for her. She’d been given some vaccines, but she’d need to come back in a month for a set of boosters. They’d treated her for fleas and groomed her, but Law was going to have to brush her regularly. She’d need parasite control, heartworm medicine, on and on. Thankfully, doctors - even doctors at Heart Hospital - made good paychecks, and Law was a saver.

When Aloshi was finally brought in she looked cleaner than before, but still unkempt. They’d clearly had to shave several mats out of her fur, making it all uneven now. Her ears were back, her muscles tense, but she recognized Law immediately and planted herself behind him. Corazon sat down beside her and held his hand out for her to sniff. She eyed him suspiciously, regularly looking up at Law to see if he had any opinions about all this. He tried to come off as relaxed as possible to reassure her while he spoke to the vet.

By the time they were ready to leave, Law loaded down with an armful of medications and paperwork, Aloshi had decided that Corazon was acceptable and was allowing him to slowly pet her head, as long as he didn’t make any sudden noises or movements. Law bent down to put her collar on; the last thing they needed was for her to make a run for it as soon as they were outside.

Aloshi’s ears went back again and she pulled away from him, peeling her upper lip back and showing her teeth.

“Easy, girl,” Law told her quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He let her investigate the collar, not attempting to put it on her again until she was satisfied. When he tried again she still tensed up, but she allowed him to put it around her neck and attach the leash.

He’d need to talk to Luffy, make sure he knew to let Aloshi pick the pace for putting her collar on, especially the first few times. Aloshi would probably need to set the pace for just about everything the first few times.

Law was a little nervous about trying to lead her anywhere using the leash, but she seemed more than happy to follow him anywhere that wasn’t back into the examination room, so he didn’t have to pull her to get her outside. She was a little more wary about getting into the car, but Law had had the foresight to bring along dog treats and managed to bribe her into it. Law sat down in the passenger’s seat with her and Aloshi did her best to turn herself into a lap dog.

“She seems like a sweet dog,” Corazon said, smiling at them both as they pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah. She just needs some good experiences with people, I think.”

Corazon made a soft noise that was almost a chuckle. “Reminds me of a kid I met a few years back.”

“If you start suggesting that I’m projecting my issues onto a dog Aloshi and I are going to walk home.”

“I’m just saying that maybe you met someone who understands you.”

“Dad, she’s a dog.”

Aloshi whined, looking plaintively up at Law and then back out the window. She didn’t seem to care for it whenever the car sped up, slowed down, turned, was passed by any other car, or otherwise did anything besides travel in a straight, steady line.

“If she could talk, I think she’d be a terrible backseat driver,” Corazon commented. Aloshi looked over at him and marfed softly, as if to say that she didn’t think he should be talking while he drove. “See? It’s like she thinks she’s my mother.”

“Well, she did get hit by a car yesterday,” Law pointed out, gently running a hand down her back to try to reassure her. “She knows how dangerous they can be.”

When they reached Law’s apartment she appeared to be less than interested in entering the building. Still reluctant to use the leash to force her to go anywhere Law coaxed her with more treats. He figured she was underfed anyway.

Once they were in his apartment Law unclipped the leash, though he kept the collar on so she could get used to it. She cautiously began investigating the space, eyeing the furniture as though it could jump at her at any moment.

“She acts like she’s never been inside before,” Corazon commented.

“She might not have been. The person who helped me bring her in said he’s been seeing her around since May, and that she’s definitely been a stray that whole time. Even if she had a home before that I don’t think it was a very good one.”

The two of them sat down at the kitchen table and watched Aloshi survey her new territory. She kept looking up to check that they were still there. Law supposed she was either checking to make sure they weren’t going to abandon her, or else making sure they weren’t sneaking up to attack her. Law wasn’t sure which of those explanations would break his heart more.

When she eventually started to relax, going longer and longer without checking on them and finally letting her ears prick up and her hackles fall, Law poured some food into her new bowl and slid it towards her. She started drooling as soon as she smelled it, her nose twitching. She watched Law closely as she ate, clearly concerned he might snatch it away. He stayed still and in her line of sight the whole time, and by the time she had finished she didn’t seem to be staring at him quite as much. She licked the bowl clean and looked up at him expectantly.

“If you stuff yourself, you’ll be sick,” Law told her.

Aloshi looked unimpressed by this point.

Corazon laughed and clapped Law on the shoulder. “I think you’re going to have your hands full with her. You’ll be good for him, won’t you, girl?” Aloshi allowed him to slowly pet her head. “I’m going to head home. Let her get used to one person at a time. Let me know how she settles in, okay?”

Law rolled his eyes. “Cora-san, you’re acting like I just gave you a grandchild.”

“I realized years ago that a dog was the closest thing I’d ever get from you.”

“Goodbye , Corazon.”

Aloshi seemed to appreciate Corazon being gone, leaving her with only one person to be wary of. After another fifteen minutes of investigation she pawed a few times at her dog bed, deemed it acceptable, and laid down on it with a pleased huff. She seemed to be settling in without any trouble, save for her opinions about being taken outside on a leash.

She was leaving her stitches alone too, which Law was grateful for. He’d hate to have to introduce her to the e-collar while trying to get her comfortable.

Law had every intention of not letting Aloshi sleep on the bed with him. She had a perfectly good bed of her own. Two of them in fact, one out in the open and one in a more than spacious enough kennel. But it seemed cruel to lock her up on her first night in a strange place. And she was still injured, though she seemed to be recovering well and the pain meds were doing their job. Just for the night, Law reasoned. Just to help her settle in.

The next morning Law spent an hour gearing himself up to go get a new key made. A key he would be giving to Luffy. Luffy, who was pretty high up on the list of people Law would not want to see when he got home from work every day.

He sighed, looking down at Aloshi as he drank his second cup of coffee. “Would you be okay in your kennel for an hour or so today? If I don’t deal with this now I’m probably not going to.”

Aloshi ignored him, preoccupied with having a staring contest with her new tennis ball.

“It’ll be a good test run, I guess,” Law said, thinking aloud. “And once I’ve gotten the key I’ll give Straw Hat a call. I hope you realize what a crisis I’m having over giving him access to my apartment.”

Aloshi experimentally put a paw on the ball.

Law had been concerned about having to fight with Aloshi about getting her to go into her kennel, but once he had tossed some treats inside and Aloshi had sniffed around she curled up contentedly on her bed and let him close the door on her without any fuss. Law left her her ball and a few more milkbones just in case.

“Be glad you’re in here and not out there today,” Law told her as he pulled on his long black coat. “It’s pouring rain.”

Law hated driving in the rain. He wasn’t big on driving at all, really, but especially not in the rain. So he walked a block down the street and caught the bus instead. He’d take the few minutes of being wet over trying to drive in this - and the associated traffic - any day.

The bus ride there was uneventful. Getting the new key was uneventful, save for the lurch in Law’s chest every time his brain reminded him that this key was going to belong to Luffy, of all people.

On the second stop of the return trip, Luffy boarded the bus.  

He was sopping wet and grinning and greeted the bus driver as though the two of them were old friends. At this point Law wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they were.

Law froze. Should he alert Luffy to his presence? He needed to talk to him anyway. Did just being on the same bus as him qualify as an encounter? Or could Law save himself from losing another mark if Luffy didn’t see him?

It was a moot point a moment later as Luffy spotted him as soon as he turned around to find a seat. He collapsed into the seat beside Law and grinned at him. Rain water was dripping off the brim of his hat.

“Do you not own an umbrella, Straw Hat?”

“Nah, I forgot it.”

“How could you forget it? It’s been raining like this since before the sun came up this morning.”

Luffy shrugged. “Fuji called me this morning to help him out and I was excited so I wasn’t thinking about the rain.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Law hesitated. Might as well bite the bullet now, he supposed. “Were you serious about walking Aloshi for me?”

Luffy’s face lit up. “Yeah! Did you take her home then? You didn’t call me.”

“I was busy getting her settled. But yeah, I did. I couldn’t… I guess I got attached to her. I have today off, but can you start taking her out tomorrow?”

“Uh-huh!”

Law fished the new key out of his pocket. “Here you go then. I can… I can show you my place and where I keep her stuff now, if you have the time?”

“I have time. Being out on the street’s no fun in this weather.”

“Okay. I’ll show you where everything is, give you my schedule. I’ll text you if anything changes, which it probably will. And do not forget to lock my door when you leave.”

“I won’t.”

“I mean it, Straw Hat. If I come home to that door being left unlocked with nobody home even once I will find a new dog walker.”

“I’ll lock it!”

That was the most assurance Law could reasonably expect to get.

They were quiet for a few minutes, surrounded by the background noise of the bus; the low chatter of the people on it, and the wet thud of raindrops against the windows.

“I’m glad you adopted her,” Luffy said at last. “Not having a family sucks.”

“Yeah,” Law agreed softly. “It really, really does.”

Luffy tilted his head inquisitively. “You have one, right?”

“I do now. But there were a couple of years when I was a kid where I didn’t.” His right hand traced the lines of a scar along the back of his right wrist. “My parents died when I was ten. I didn’t meet Corazon - my adoptive dad - for.... Well, I met him pretty soon after. But we didn’t start getting along until a few years later. He adopted me a while after that. And then there’s Bepo, my foster brother. Corazon took him in when I was fourteen.”

“So you two are brothers now?”

“We think of ourselves as brothers, yeah.”

Law grinned. “Siblings are the best. At least, mine are.”

“Parents aren’t?”

“I don’t have any. I have a grandpa, but he works a lot. We grew up with Dadan.”

Luffy said the name like Law would somehow know who she was. Law did remember Luffy having mentioned her a few times before, though he hadn’t actually told Law anything about her. “Foster parent?”

“I think so. We just lived with her and her family. There were tons of them, but Sabo, Ace, and I were the only kids. And the only ones I really liked; everyone else was always busy or boring or mad or something.”

Law shook his head, smiling despite himself. If Luffy’s siblings loved him even half as much as he seemed to love the two of them it was no wonder Luffy had so much self-confidence. “They’re older than you, right? So you’ve never had to be alone. That must be nice.”

Luffy shook his head. “Grandpa didn’t send me to live with Dadan until I was seven. And I almost lost them both when I was twelve. They were pretty much the only friends I had back then. None of the kids in our hometown really liked me very much.”

“Why not?” Luffy was a bit much for Law, but even he was starting to… well, to not find him as aggravating as he had. And Luffy certainly had no trouble making friends now.

“Ace said it was because they were ‘small-town-fuckers’.” Luffy made finger quotes around the words. “We’re all orphans and they didn’t like that we didn’t have parents. And Ace is gay and Sabo’s really into social activism and I’m autistic and they didn’t like any of that either. We moved here as soon as I turned eighteen.”

“I’ve never lived in a small town. Sounds like you were lucky to get the family you did.”

Luffy nodded. “I was. And now Aloshi is too.”

“I hope so.”

“She is! She likes you, and you like her, and you’re really good with dogs.”

“Well, she’s a good dog.”

“Yeah. I could tell that the first time I saw her.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’ve just been wondering how long she’s been on her own for. The vet said that she’s probably about two years old. She doesn’t seem to be used to being around people. She didn’t seem to know what to make of being inside either.”

“I met her… It was in May, because it was really close to my birthday. My friends and I were having a water gun fight in the park and I saw her digging through some trash cans. We tried to catch her, but there were too many of us so we scared her and she ran off. I’ve been seeing her a bunch ever since.”

“She’s been a stray for at least six months then, even if she had an owner until just before the first time you saw her. No wonder she’s so shy.”

“She’s good with other dogs though. I saw her one time while Nami and I were walking her dogs and she wasn’t scared of them at all. They even sniffed each other.”

“That’s good, at least. I won’t have to worry so much about her getting into a fight with someone else’s dog then. She could get into a lot of trouble for that.”

They reached Law’s stop, and he made a point of looking exasperated as they got off and he offered Luffy space under his umbrella. Luffy did not respond to the look and crowded under the umbrella happily.

“Do you ever wear anything warmer than that?” Law asked, gesturing to Luffy’s shorts and sandals.

“This is my look.”

Law snorted despite himself. “I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use the word ‘look’ like that since junior high.” And he’d barely even gone to junior high.

“Zoro says it.”

“And Zoro is the expert on slang words?”

“Zoro’s cool  He’s famous, you know.”

“For what?” Remembering Zoro’s bright green hair, Law had a hard time seeing him as ‘cool’. Even if he tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and suppose it might have been for Halloween.

“Teaching people how to fight. On YouTube. And in person too, but YouTube is where he’s famous. He says he wants to get more students than that… What’s his name… The hawk eyes guy. Mihawk. More students than him. He says Mihawk only trains cops well and not other people who need it. Zoro trains everybody, especially about how to fight cops.”

Law had no idea who Luffy was talking about, but fighting lessons weren’t really something that overly concerned him. He did know what poor areas in the city could be like, so he hoped Zoro’s lessons were helping somebody, somewhere, and not just landing them in more trouble. “You seem to know a lot of moderately famous people,” was all he said to Luffy.

He shrugged. “It happens.”

“It doesn’t happen to me.”

They had arrived at Law’s building. The two of them stood under the overhang where it was dry while Law put away his umbrella and dug in his pocket for the key.

Luffy shook himself like a dog, then looked at Law like he thought he was extremely stupid. “It does so. You’ve met Zoro. And Nami. And Brook. And-”

“Okay, okay, it never happened to me before I met you.”

Luffy grinned at that. “I have a lot of friends.”

“Yeah, trust me, I’ve noticed.”

When they entered Law’s apartment Aloshi was sitting up in her kennel, watching the door, presumably having heard them coming. Luffy bounded past Law to let her out. She wagged her tail and began sniffing him almost immediately.

“Wow, she’s a lot friendlier now!” Luffy exclaimed.

“A few good meals and a decent night’s sleep can make a hell of a difference.”

Luffy nodded with understanding. “I don’t like being hungry either,” he told Aloshi, who licked his face in response, since it was right in front of her. She then began nudging at his hands with her muzzle.

Law laughed. “I think she’s gotten used to you trying to feed her. She’s trying to figure out where the hamburger is.”

Luffy looked around, found and grabbed the box of dog biscuits, and gave one to Aloshi.

“She’s going to get fat if we keep feeding her like this,” Law said, though he knew he had no room to talk.

“Nah, I’ll take her on lots of runs.”

“Not yet you won’t. The vet said light exercise only for the next two weeks.”

Luffy frowned. “That’s a long time.”

“She need to recover. It takes a while.” He shouldn’t have been surprised by this conversation. This was, after all, the same person who had decided it was a good idea to go running around town less than twenty-four hours after nearly cracking his skull open. Luffy’s concept of healing was clearly very different than Law’s.

“Maybe she just needs to eat more.” He gave her another biscuit.

“That is not how the healing process works.”

“That’s what I do.”

“Before or after you come into my emergency room, bleeding everywhere?”

“After, obviously. Aloshi went to the vet, they fixed her, and now she needs to eat.”

“She’s been eating. That doesn’t mean getting hit by a car no longer affects her.” Law took a deep breath, refocusing himself. It really didn’t matter why Aloshi couldn’t go on runs for a few weeks, so long as Straw Hat understood that she couldn’t. “Look, just walks for now, okay? Once the vet says it’s okay you two can run all you like, but let her take it easy for now. Even if she doesn’t think she needs to.”

Luffy huffed at him but nodded. “Fine.” He ran his fingers over her tags. “It’s good she has a home now.” His voice was quiet now and Law didn’t respond, uncertain if Luffy was talking to him.

Chapter Text

The idea of keeping the marks from fading off became laughable once Luffy had a key, especially because Luffy didn’t share Law’s interest in the two of them avoiding each other. Any day that Luffy walked Aloshi and Law got home before midnight there was as good a chance as not of Luffy still being in his apartment. Law wasn’t sure if Luffy was waiting for him or just keeping Aloshi company, but it didn’t make any difference to the steadily dwindling marks on his arm.

When Luffy wasn’t there when Law came home, Law was as likely as not to find gifts from him instead; badly done origami animals or pictures of things Luffy had apparently thought Law would like to see, taken on a phone camera and printed off on normal printer paper.

And it wasn’t as though Luffy was staying out of the hospital either; shortly after Thanksgiving he’d bounded up to Law and demanded he sign his cast. He had apparently broken his wrist during a ‘holiday camping incident’ with his family. Incident, not accident, which Law hadn’t wanted to press for details about. Law couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever let Luffy near things like campfires or hunting knives, but maybe his whole family was as crazy as him.

That was a terrifying thought.

The day after that particular meeting, Law and Robin had another lunch date, and Law was so distracted that Robin put aside her typical ‘not my business’ approach and confronted him about it.

“What’s going on with you today? You’re very… not here.”

Law sighed and yanked his hands through his hair. “Soulmates are bullshit.” The words almost exploded out of him. Not telling anyone had proven more stressful than expected.

Robin raised an eyebrow. “You have a soulmate?”

If he didn’t talk about this soon he was going to lose his mind. And of everyone he knew, Robin was the most likely to back off if he asked her to. He yanked up his left sleeve to expose the ten tally marks that remained. “I started with twenty-six.”

Robin looked at them studiously. “What does it mean when they fade?”

“That I’ve encountered my soulmate.” He tugged his sleeve back down, not wanting to look at the things any more than he had to. “They keep fading faster and faster, and it’s only getting worse.”

She didn’t ask for elaboration, and Law was grateful for that. He’d rather avoid telling her that the source of all his inner turmoil was one of her best friends.

Instead, she asked, “What’s so ‘bullshit’ about that?”

“I’m aromantic, for starters.”

“It could be platonic.”

Law shrugged. “I don’t really want one of those either. Besides, I’m sure you’ve heard how hard it can be to tell your soulmate that you’re meant to be platonically. Do you know how many people come through my hospital because a conversation like that has gone wrong?”

“I think your job is making you a cynic, Law.” She was smirking at him over her coffee.

“Oh, no. I was a cynic long before I became a doctor.”

“Well, you’ve met them, haven’t you? Do you really think it would happen like that?”

“I’m not a good judge of character, Robin. Years of poor decision making have proven that.”

“That’s a ‘no’ then.”

“It’s an ‘I don’t know’. And things I don’t know make me uncomfortable.”

“Well, are you their soulmate?”

“I don’t know. They haven’t said anything, but neither have I so that doesn’t mean anything.” Honestly, Law didn’t think Luffy would have kept quiet about something like this, but he didn’t want to make an assumption and then be blindsided when he was proven wrong.

Robin tilted her head, looking at him. “Do you want to be their soulmate?”

“No . That’s the problem. I don’t want to have anything to do with this soulmate thing. And I really don’t want to be their soulmate, or have him be mine, or, or-”

“Do you dislike them?”

“Yes! Or… k-kind of? No? I don’t know. I do know that I have nothing in common with him.”

“You like him.” She held up her hand to silence him when he tried to protest. “I’m not saying a lot, or if it’s platonic or romantic. But you like him. If you didn’t, this would be easier. You would avoid him, not think about it, and you’d be willing to tell him to leave you alone if he found out. You’d be willing to tell him to leave you alone now. The fact that you’re struggling with this at all means you like him, at least a little bit.”

Law glared at her half-heartedly. That was the trouble with going to helpful people - they were helpful. And usually right. And goddamn it, he didn’t want Robin to be right about this.

“See? You aren’t even arguing with me.”

“Fine . So I don’t hate him. I still don’t want a soulmate. Especially not a romantic one.”

“And you’re certain you’re aromantic?”

“God, you’re not going to start with the late bloomer speech, are you?”

“No, absolutely not. I’ve heard that one too many times to ever even consider repeating it to another human being.”

Law looked over at her properly at that. “You’re aromantic?”

“Aromantic, demiromantic, somewhere in there. Franky is my one and only exception to not being interested. It was a somewhat alarming development, but it’s all worked out. I’m not saying it’s the same for you; I would never want you to feel like I’m pushing you to identify a certain way. But could that be part of why you’re having a hard time deciding how you feel about this man? If you feel like you’re having to question things you thought you were certain about it would make sense that you’d resist.” She smirked again. “You don’t like being argued with, Law. Even if it’s yourself doing the arguing.”

Law glared at her, knowing she was right, and knowing he was proving her point by the simple act of glaring. “I don’t want a soulmate,” he repeated stubbornly.

Robin reached across the table and put her hand over his. “You know, having a soulmate doesn’t mean you have to change anything drastic about yourself. In fact, if he’s a good match for you then you two should have a good relationship as you are, no pretending or impressing required.”

“And if we aren’t a good match? And don’t tell me that’s impossible; history is littered with stories of soulmate bonds gone wrong.”

“If you aren’t good together, fuck him.” She paused and then added, “Or don’t, as the case may be.”

“Oh, you’re hilarious.” He was fighting the urge to smile. “I just don’t like…” He cast around for the right words. “I’m not… I’m not good at relationships. Of any kind. I never have been. I have my dad, and my brother, who I’m close to. I have Shachi and Penguin, who I’m pretty good friends with. I have you and Chopper, who I can at least have a conversation with. And that’s it. And trust me, I’m never the one to do the majority of the work in a relationship. I’m not good at it.”

“Well, maybe your soulmate is. One’s strength is the other’s weakness and all of that Hallmark nonsense. Look at me and Franky. He’s better at people and parties and those sorts of things. I’m better at problem solving, conflict management, things like that. It’s about balance, not matching.”

It was hard to imagine Luffy providing balance to anything. “I just don’t want one.” He was beginning to sound like a broken record.

“Why not? I don’t mean that judgmentally. If you don’t want one then you don’t want one. But knowing why can tell you a lot about what to do about it.”

Law knew exactly why he didn’t want one, when he got down to the core of the issue. Nobody else was going to want him. Why set himself up for inevitable failure? Why put himself in the position of seeing someone’s - Luffy’s - look of disappointment when he realized Law was about as romantic as a bag of bricks? Why would he ever want to go through the process of watching concern turn to pity turn to irritation as his partner slowly got fed up with the nightmares, the panic attacks, the all-nighters? Corazon called it self-sabotage. Law called it self-preservation.

But he didn’t think he and Robin were good enough friends for him to unload all of that on to her over coffee.

She recognized the tightness in his face. “You don’t have to tell me. I know it can be… a lot. But maybe you should tell someone? Your dad or your brother, maybe?”

“I think they’d be too excited about me having a soulmate to listen. They’re well-meaning, but they get… exuberant.” And were both romantic saps too.

“From what you’ve told me about your dad you might not be giving him enough credit. And you don’t have to tell him you have a soulmate. Tell him you’ve been thinking about it in general. Lie. I know you can, you do it to the university all the time. You can’t just bottle everything up all the time, Law. I used to, and it’s not healthy. You’re going to combust in on yourself. You already look stressed and exhausted. That won’t go away by you ignoring it.”

Again with the helpfulness.

“I’ll think about it,” he told her, which wasn’t a lie. He would think about it. He thought about it a lot.

He probably wouldn’t take her advice, but he would think about it.

Robin’s face suggested she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Well, good luck. I hope it works out for you.”

“Hey, do you want to meet my brothers?” Luffy asked one day at the end of November. “You could come over for dinner tonight!”

“It’s already after five,” Law pointed out. He’d just gotten home and Luffy seemed to be seizing on the opportunity presented by Law getting home at a reasonable hour. “Isn’t that sort of… short notice?”

“Nah, we have people just drop by for dinner all the time. Sabo’s co-workers, Ace’s boyfriend, counselors or kids from Whitebeard’s place, my friends… We always make lots of food, so it’s fine. Come on, I’ve talked about you a lot and they want to meet you. You’ll like them.”

Law didn’t think that Luffy, who seemed to like everyone he had ever met, was the best judge of who Law would get along with, but he still didn’t immediately refuse the invitation.

Luffy was growing on him. He was still reckless and irresponsible, a chaotic force of nature, and didn’t seem to be aware of what an inside voice was, but he was also fun to talk to, enthusiastic about virtually everything, and absolutely genuine in everything he did or said.

Law wasn’t used to that, had a hard time believing it most of the time, but he also liked it. Genuineness had been rare growing up, and he had noticed he had a tendency to latch onto it wherever he found it - just look at Corazon and Bepo. Even Shachi and Penguin, as over-the-top as they could be, didn’t have a dishonest bone between them.

Law now had only severe anxiety - rather than complete terror and dread - every time one of the marks faded, and he was finally starting to consider filling Corazon in on what had been going on, getting advice on the best way to broach the subject with Luffy. He’d been watching Luffy for any sign that the bond went two ways, but Luffy was too hard to read for him to really hazard a guess.

But if anything was ever going to happen with him and Luffy, regardless of what that something might be, it would be a good idea for him to be on good terms with Luffy’s brothers.

“Alright, Straw Hat,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Luffy beamed, grabbed Law’s wrist, and bid Aloshi farewell.

“I’ll drive us there,” Law volunteered. “I hate riding the bus at this time. It’s always too crowded.”

“Yeah,” Luffy said, nodding, “it’s too loud to talk to anybody.”

At least they were in agreement about the solution, if not the problem.

Besides, if Law had his car, it would be that much easier to find an excuse to duck out if dinner got too uncomfortable.

“Is there anything I should know about your brothers before I meet them?” Law asked as he drove.

Luffy’s face screwed up with concentration. “Like what?”

“Things they don’t like to talk about? Politics, religion, that sort of thing?”

Luffy rolled his eyes. “That stuff is boring.”

“Well, yeah, usually. But those were just examples.”

“Hmmm. Well, Ace doesn’t like cops. And he hates, ummm… he calls them ‘romantic robbers’. Like criminals who are famous and popular even though they were bad people? Like Bonnie and Clyde, or Roger and Rouge. Someone tried to make him watch the Roger and Rouge movie once and Ace hit him and broke the DVD.”

That struck Law as something of an overreaction, but also exactly like something that someone Luffy had grown up with would do. “Okay. I don’t like those sorts of stories very much either, so no problem.”

“Oh! And Sabo is blind in his left eye, so don’t sneak up on him from that side.”

“Got it.” Law didn’t feel nearly prepared enough for this, no matter how many times he told himself that he really had no reason to be this nervous.

Luffy’s apartment parking lot made Law a little concerned that he might return to find his car windows smashed. The building looked likely to give him tetanus, he could hear something that sounded suspiciously like mice, and he half expected the wooden stairs to give out under him as he climbed. He winced watching Luffy, who bounded up them with no care for the way they creaked and groaned.

Luffy threw open the door to one of the third floor apartments and yelled, “I’m home, and I brought a friend to have dinner with us!”

“Zoro again?” a man’s voice yelled back.

“Nope! This is Torao, he’s a doctor.”

Law followed Luffy into the apartment, looking around. Luffy had tossed his hat onto a coat rack that also held a black top hat and an orange cowboy hat. It was a whole family of odd fashion choices, it seemed. He reached the kitchen and found a man looking at Luffy skeptically. “Like, a doctor like…” He looked over at Law, and Law could see the exact moment he registered the tattoos. “Like, is that his gang name or something?”

Luffy scowled at him. “No . He’s a surgeon.”

“A surgeon of what? Death?”

“Don’t be rude, Ace,” another voice said, and another man who was probably Sabo joined them.

The three siblings looked nothing alike. Though Law would be taller than Ace if he straightened up, Ace seemed taller, towering over Luffy. He was muscular and broad, freckled over every bit of visible skin - which was a lot, because he was wearing nothing but hiking boots and cargo shorts. His hair was black and even messier than Luffy’s.

He was also a huge hypocrite - he had almost as many tattoos as Law did. His right arm was covered in a tattoo sleeve of fire that turned into a blue and gold phoenix at his shoulder. His left arm had a circle of the four card suits around his bicep, and the letters ASL going down his arm in a vertical line. Across his back was a tattoo that Law recognized as being the same tattoo all of the employees at Whitebeard’s camp had.

He did not, however, have the word death tattooed across his knuckles, so Law couldn’t really be offended at the comment. Besides, Ace didn’t sound like he meant it as an insult.

“I’m a real doctor,” he said. “I work at Heart Hospital.”

“They let you work there with tats like that?” Ace sounded impressed. “See, Sabo? I told you I wasn’t ruining my career opportunities.”

Sabo snorted and nudged his brother. “Dinner’s going to burn if you don’t get out of my way and let me take it out.”

“It helps to be the best doctor in three states,” Law told Ace.

Ace nodded approvingly. “There you go. Just be above reproach, I like it.”

Sabo rolled his eyes. He was the same height as his brother, but his build was slighter. He had messy blond hair, but it looked less like a rat’s nest than Luffy’s or Ace’s did. There was a burn scar across much of the left side of his face. Even if Luffy hadn’t told him about Sabo being blind in that eye, Law was pretty sure he would have guessed; it was slightly off-color, and surrounded by scarred skin. He wondered if the fire had damaged Sabo’s other eye too or if the glasses he was wearing were unrelated. Unlike his siblings, who seemed to be in denial about it being almost winter, Sabo was wearing at least three layers of clothes.

“Nice to meet you… Torao?” Sabo said, leaning over for a handshake. “I’m Sabo, and I apologize for my brother. He was raised in a barn.”

“No he wasn’t,” Luffy said, scrunching up his face.

“Well, the woods. Which is worse, really. But there were barns involved.”

“I’m being polite,” Ace protested. “I was complimenting Torao on his job.”

“You accused him of being in a gang.”

“And now I am complimenting him on looking like he belongs in a gang without actually being in one. Pops would approve.”

“Edward Newgate, right?” Law asked. “Whitebeard? I’ve met him; he does approve.”

Law could feel Ace warm up to him at that. “You know Pops?”

“You’re one of his counselors, right? Heart Hospital handles most of your hospital visits. And I’m head of the E.R., so.”

“Small world. Come on, let’s eat.”

“Torao doesn’t like bread,” Luffy said, trotting to the kitchen table.

“Good thing we’re having lasagna then.”

“I’m assuming Torao is a nickname?” Sabo asked as they sat down, looking at Law.

“It’s his last name,” Luffy said.

“My last name is Trafalgar,” Law corrected, “but apparently the nickname is here to stay.”

Ace froze halfway through scooping lasagna out of the dish, watching Law warily. “Do you want him to stop?” His tone was tense, and Law suddenly remembered Luffy telling him how much trouble he’d had with bullies growing up.

“No!” he told Ace, surprising himself with how much he meant it. “I’m actually getting pretty fond of it. I’d have told him if it really bothered me.”

Ace didn’t stop watching him, but he did go back to getting himself food, which Law took as a good sign. Very protective older brother, Law noted. Whatever way this soulmate business played out he would want to tread carefully around Ace. He looked like he both could and would snap Law in half if he fucked with his little brother in any way. No wonder Luffy was so confident; his brothers probably ate his enemies for breakfast.

Sabo seemed calmer, but there was an intensity in his gaze that made Law hesitant to get too comfortable. “How did you become friends with the best doctor in three states, Luffy?”

“He was my doctor one time when I fell.”

“The head of the E.R.  does routine check-ins for small injuries?”

“I do at Heart Hospital. We have a high turnover rate, so we tend to be understaffed. I can help out with the smaller stuff so, if i have time, I do.”

“And Torao is Aloshi’s owner,” Luffy added.

“Oh, awesome!” Ace said. “You should have brought her along.”

“I thought dogs weren’t allowed here?” Law asked.

Ace waved him off dismissively. “Who cares? Our landlord’s a dick who never fixes the heat when it goes out. Besides, I have a cat when I’m not supposed to. What’s the big deal about having a dog over?”

“Lord Storm is not a pet,” Sabo said, sounding like he’d made this argument before. “He is a con artist who might be planning to murder us all in our sleep if we ever forget to shut the window at night.”

Law nearly snorted into his glass of milk. “You have a cat named Lord Storm?”

“I call him Stormy,” Luffy said.

“His name is Lord Storm the Fourth, to be exact,” Ace said, giving his brother a disapproving look. “I have one named Kotatsu too, but he lives with Pops. He likes the kids.”

“Lord Storm is not a pet,” Sabo repeated firmly. “He’s this mean, mangy street cat that Ace keeps feeding even though I keep telling him not to.”

The three siblings bickered over that for a few minutes before moving on to other topics, such as whose turn it was to pick something for movie night, whether or not they could get out of Christmas dinner with their grandfather, and whether Ace should be teaching the kids under his charge how to make wooden knives. Luffy didn’t participate in the conversation as much as Law would have expected; he mostly watched his brothers with amusement, chiming in helpfully here and there, and making faces at Law, who was enjoying himself more than he had expected to. This wouldn’t be such a bad family to see on a regular basis. Perhaps Law had tested the waters long enough and, once he and Luffy were alone, it would be time to bite the bullet.

After they had all finished eating and were just sitting around the table talking the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“A couple of soulmates met each other at work today,” Sabo told them casually.

Law jolted at the word but, thankfully, no one seemed to notice.

Ace grinned. “Did you get stuck being a photographer for the happy couple?”

Sabo scowled at him. “I like doing that sort of thing. Just because you kept your soulmate bond a secret for months doesn’t mean that nobody else can get excited about theirs.”

“You hid your soulmate mark?” Law asked, tone casual. He’d never met anyone else who hid theirs. Although he supposed that, if they were doing a good job of it, he wouldn’t have known if they were.

Ace nodded. “It’s not like it was hard. Mine was dream stuff, all in my head. But yeah. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I had a lot of issues a few years ago, several of them involving soulmate bonds. I couldn’t see it ever working out, so I didn’t want to acknowledge it even happening.”

Luffy made a face. “And now you and Marco are dating and you’re gross.”

“Is Marco your soulmate?” Law asked, curious if Ace had gotten over those issues, and also wondering if there was a way to naturally steer the conversation to Luffy and what his soulmate bond was.

Ace’s face softened and he smiled. “Yeah. He’s really great.”

Luffy huffed. “At least you got lucky. I’d have had to fight someone otherwise.”

Ace laughed, reached over, and ruffled Luffy’s hair, ignoring his sound of protest. “Has my baby brother told you what a skeptic he is?” he asked.

“You haven’t struck me as being skeptic about anything, Straw Hat,” Law said, looking at Luffy.

Luffy rolled his eyes. “I don’t like soulmates.”

The bottom dropped out of Law’s stomach.

“They’re dumb,” Luffy continued, oblivious to Law’s newest internal crisis. “They give you an excuse to never try anything else, or to be mean to people and say it’s not your fault. And everyone just does what their bonds tell them to do. I don’t like taking orders, even if it’s from God or the universe or whatever.”

“You, uh, try to ignore your soulmate mark then?” Law asked, hoping he didn’t sound too invested. The other three people around the table didn’t seem to be suspicious, at least.

“I don’t have a soulmate mark,” Luffy said. “And I’m glad.” He glared at Law. “You’re not going to be one of those people that gets freaked out by that, are you?”

“No!” Law said, a little louder than he probably needed to. “Not at all! I’m… not a fan of soulmate bonds either, honestly. I’ve seen a lot of bad ones in the hospital, and they’ve always seemed like they’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

Luffy brightened and Law’s heart skipped a beat. He was fucked. “Good. Some people think I need to be fixed. And I don’t.”

“Definitely not,” Law agreed. He didn’t miss the way Sabo and Ace looked at each other and seemed to relax a little. He imagined that if he had thought Luffy needed to be fixed he would not have left the apartment entirely intact. “Soulmates are overrated, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” Luffy agreed emphatically.

Sabo sighed. “Cynics everywhere.”

Luffy laughed. “ Sabo’s a romantic. He wants to meet his.”

“Well, eventually. I’m busy with work right now.”

“Where do you work?” Law asked, now desperate to get on to any other topic. He couldn’t start analyzing how he felt about this new development with other people around, and it seemed too early in the evening to come up with an excuse to make a break for it, especially since he had been having a nice time.

“Computer store. I fix stuff, mostly.”

“Don’t be fooled by the casual tone, Torao,” Ace said, adopting his brother’s nickname without hesitation. “The boy is obsessed with his job. How you can be so obsessed with working at some random tech store with two other people and barely any customers I’ll never know, but there you have it.”

Sabo blushed. “I like my job.”

“I know. I don’t get it, but I know.”

“You’re obsessed with your job too,” Sabo said defensively.

“I do something at my job. I’m helping to reform the troubled youth of America.”

Sabo snorted and coughed like his own laugh had caught him off guard. “Is that what you’re doing? I thought you were just taking them on increasingly terrifying camping trips.”

“Yeah. Reforming. Camping trips build character.”

“Sure, Ace.”

“They do! And I’m teaching them important survival techniques. None of those kids are ever going to have to worry about starving or freezing to death if they get lost in the woods.”

“We live in a city. I don’t think there’s a big risk of that.”

“A city with woods bordering part of it. And people travel, Sabo. Anything could happen.”

Sabo rolled his eyes but he was grinning and he shoved a bowl of salad at Ace. “Just eat your damn vegetables. That goes for you too, Luffy.”

Luffy grumbled, and stabbed fiercely at a piece of lettuce.

The rest of the evening was still pleasant, with no further mentions of soulmates, but Law had a difficult time focusing on the conversation. Thankfully, no one seemed to mind when he asked them to repeat themselves, or was quiet for abnormal lengths of time. Still, he was relieved when enough time had gone by for him not to feel rude or transparent by saying he wanted to go home and check on Aloshi.

Luffy followed him outside as he left. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Did you have fun?”

Law nodded. He had, save for the time he’d spent shoving away a panic attack. “You and your brothers are good company. You three seem pretty close.”

Luffy nodded. “They’re the best. I’m glad you three got along.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m not… I’m not always very good with other people. I usually have a hard time talking to them. But your brothers are pretty easy.”

“I used to have a hard time making friends too. They helped me a lot. And then we moved and it was easier because people here aren’t fuckers.” He tilted his head at Law. “Did you get picked on in school too?”

Law looked away. “I, uh, I didn’t really go to school until college. I skipped a lot of stuff, and I mostly took online classes. Hard to get bullied in those.”

“Oh. That’s probably good. Getting bullied isn’t any fun.”

“No, I - I imagine it wouldn’t be.” He gestured towards his car. “I should… head home. Let the dog out.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later, Torao. Give Aloshi a treat for me.”

“Will do.”

Law’s hands were shaking when he turned the key in the ignition and he considered, for the briefest of moments, starting up smoking again. Maybe Corazon was right and he needed to start talking to a therapist again. A casual question about his school days should not have dragged up so many memories so quickly.

It was only because he had already been on edge from this whole soulmate nonsense, he told himself. It wouldn’t have affected him otherwise.

Or maybe it was because it had been Luffy who asked. Maybe this bizarre tangle of feelings Luffy had created was making Law want to tell him the truth. The whole truth, not the half truths he had been telling him, had told nearly everyone else in his life.

Which was plenty alarming all on its own. Even Shachi and Penguin didn’t know why Law hadn’t gone to a public school before starting university. No one ever seemed to think much of it. Why should they, when Law mentioned it so casually?

Law wrenched his mind out of the past, but that, unfortunately, landed it squarely back in the present, where there were plenty of new problems to replace the old ones.

Luffy was adamantly anti-soulmate. Didn’t have one, didn’t want one, and, it could be safely assumed, didn’t want one of his friends to walk up to him claiming that he was theirs. Law should have told him about the marks two months ago and saved himself a lot of grief. Hindsight really was twenty-twenty, and it was also a bitch. Instead of doing that he had waited, and now he was interested and sooner or later… Law didn’t know. But he was willing to bet that it wouldn’t be good.

And he had, apparently, despite his best efforts, gotten his hopes up for this thing with Luffy to not become a horrible, mangled clusterfuck, and now there didn’t seem to be anywhere else for it to go.

He buried his face in Aloshi’s neck when he got home. The universe really wasn’t willing to give him a break.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Law.” Doflamingo’s voice rolled through the building as though being broadcasted over a PA system. It echoed down the long hallways, seemed to come from behind every door. “I thought we were family.”

Law shook his head, and the motion seemed too big for him. He stumbled, the floor tilting away, trying to shake him off. “You’re not my family!” He was running somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where or how to get there. There was only the long hallways of Donquixote Inc., more unending and twisting than they usually were, and Law’s shoes hitting the floor and the sound reverberating off the walls.

Doflamingo made a tsking sound that echoed louder than Law’s footsteps. “I love you like you’re my little brother, Law.”

Law shook his head again. The floor tilted, farther this time, and he was sprawling down the hallway.

“I suppose it’s my fault,” Doflamingo said with a heavy sigh. “I should have been more careful about who I let you spend time with.”

Law’s hands were hot, sticky, and red. He pulled back with a shout, trying to get back to his feet. But everything around him was a huge pool of blood, Corazon’s black feather coat in the center of it, like the limp corpse of some great bird.

Law screamed, scrabbling backwards, getting to his feet while he slid. “Cora-san!”

At the edges of the pool of blood, cast largely in shadows, blocking all of the hallways Law might have escaped down, was the Donquixote family. Baby 5 with her pistol, Dellinger with his knife, Vergo with his quarterstaff, all of them, all of them waiting to stop him if he tried to bolt past. They were unmoving, only waiting, and on each of their faces was Doflamingo’s grin. All around them, Doflamingo’s laugh began to echo.

And then it was behind him. “Law…”

Law whipped around. Doflamingo stood over the black feather coat and picked it up, grinning at Law and staring at him from behind those horrible pink sunglasses of his. The coat dripped blood, ran blood, but Doflamingo wasn’t touched by any of it. Even his shoes were clean, despite standing in the center of the pool.

“Law, you understand that I have to punish traitors, don’t you?”

Law jerked awake with a cry, kicking out instinctively. There was a soft thump and it took him a moment to realize it was the sound of Aloshi jumping off the bed to get away from him. His heart was pounding, his breathing ragged and forcing its way painfully through his lungs. He fumbled for the lamp on his bedside table, not caring when he heard his alarm clock clatter to the floor.

He sat in the dim circle of light, gasping for breath, trying to loosen the band that had cinched tight around his ribs, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Aloshi slowly crept back onto the bed and rested her head on his foot.

He hadn’t had one that bad in months. He had nightmares more often that not, unless he went to bed already too exhausted to think, but it had been a while since one of them had jerked him awake still screaming, had set a weight on his chest, and refused to be banished by the light being turned on.

Law rested his forehead against his knees, shoulders trembling. He would not be getting anymore sleep tonight.

Chapter Text

“Jesus, Doc, you look awful ,” Penguin said. He handed Law his own coffee and went to get himself another cup.

“Thanks,” Law said flatly, unable to muster up much bite for the words.

“Did something happen?” Bepo asked.

It wasn’t Law’s morning. Three of the four people most likely to realize something was wrong and to want to do something about it, all coming after him at once. He shook his head, looking into his coffee cup. “Nothing. It’s just personal bullshit. Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d worry about more than personal business with you, Doc,” said Shachi. Bepo and Penguin’s expressions said that they agreed.

Law didn’t have the energy to come with a convincing lie for them. He shrugged instead. “I have it under control. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Too late,” Penguin said, dumping sugar into his new cup of coffee.

Law just shook his head again.

“Let us know if you need to talk, okay?” Bepo told him, though he said it with an expression that suggested he didn’t think Law would.

“Sure,” Law agreed, with a tone that said he probably wouldn’t.

Penguin and Shachi didn’t look to believe him, but they shuffled away obediently, knowing Law well enough to know that he didn’t want to talk. Bepo shuffled closer.

“What about Corazon? Have you talked to him?”

Law took a large gulp of coffee that burned the back of his throat.

“Law?”

“No. Not yet, I mean. I will. Probably. Eventually.”

“Should I tell him to call you?”

“No. I’m fine. I’ll talk to him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I just… need to sort out my head a little bit first. Figure out how to talk about it. Okay?”

Bepo looked at him suspiciously. “...Okay,” he said slowly, “but I’m giving you a deadline.”

Law rolled his eyes, though he could privately admit that that was fair. “How long do I have?”

“Two weeks.”

“Until New Year’s.”

“Christmas.”

“Two days after Christmas, so we don’t ruin the holiday mood.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

So Law had just under a month to get his shit figured the fuck out and decide what to tell Corazon.

Because he did want to talk to Corazon. As much as he hated admitting it, even privately, talking to his father was comforting. Corazon knew him better than almost anyone else ever had, certainly better than anyone currently living did - even Bepo - and, despite Law’s knee-jerk instinct to fear that Corazon would grow sick of him, he was incredibly patient with Law’s inability to keep his shit together for any prolonged length of time.

But Corazon could be overly helpful - and overly meddlesome - sometimes, and Law preferred to at least be able to clearly explain what the problem was before going to him. And he had yet to figure out how to articulate what was going on with his and Luffy’s… relationship, even to himself.

Bepo’s deadline loomed over Law as the days went by. He obsessed over it, writing draft emails and letters and speeches for himself in the hopes that one of them would help him figure exactly what it was he needed to do next. He ran the speeches by Aloshi, who was unimpressed, and who generally went to fetch her collar from it’s hook around the time that Law devolved into growling and muttering at himself in frustration.

“I’m not not interested,” he told her one day. “But I’m not interested either, you know?”

Aloshi yawned and stretched out across the couch. Now that she was properly settled in she had clearly lost interest in being anything other than a house pet. Law couldn’t blame her; he’d kill a man for a good heating system.

“It’s just a lot, is all. And he doesn’t want a soulmate. And I don’t want a soulmate. So maybe I should just ignore it? See if I can get it tattooed over, or just bandage it up or something. It’s not like pretending it isn’t happening would ruin our… Do you think Straw Hat and I are friends? Have we reached that point? I honestly don’t know what to call our relationship at this point. He thinks we’re friends, but I’m pretty sure he says the same thing about every cab or bus driver in the city and anyone who’s ever sold him a hot dog.”

Aloshi kicked in her sleep.

“Do you think he’d get pissed about us being soulmates? I mean, I know he hates the idea of having one, but it isn’t really my fault, you know? I would just be being honest, and I know that’s important to him.”

Law sighed, running his hands through his hair. “But at the same time it would mean admitting that I’ve been hiding this from him since October and that’s not very honest.”

His phone buzzed across the coffee table.

DR: dad wants to know if we want to have xmas dinner with one of his frnds on 20th?

Joy. A whole meal of Sengoku and Sengoku clones.

TL: Sure. Anyone I know?

DR: no. garps weird and doesnt usually do stuff like this. dad probably won a bet

Corazon thinking someone was weird would lead to an interesting evening, if it led to nothing else.

TL: I’ll be there.

Maybe he’d talk to Corazon after dinner. Beat Bepo’s deadline by a week and get some gloating points.

And, after this long of banging his head against a wall, maybe Corazon would be able to offer a new perspective, give Law something to try that didn’t feel likely to blow up in his face.

Or maybe he wouldn’t, but at least then Law would be able to say he’d tried something. And he wouldn’t feel like he was lying to Corazon and Bepo every Saturday dinner.

God, Bepo’s jaw was going to drop when he found out. Law’s soulmate mark had been a hot topic for a few weeks after it had appeared and he’d had it tested, but it hadn’t been brought up since. Bepo and Corazon must have figured that Law would tell them if something changed. Or maybe they just had never really expected for Law to find whoever the marks were meant to respond to. God knew Law had never expected it.

Besides, Law thought, pulling up his sleeve and running his fingers over his arm, he was about to be out of marks. 

The night of the twentieth of December was frigid, but Law didn’t mind much. He’d worked the night shift the night before and he hadn’t quite recovered from it yet. The crisp air was helping.

Dinner was being hosted at Corazon’s, who was the only one with enough space to feed what apparently added up to eight total people. It was warm inside and Law allowed himself a moment to adjust to getting the feeling back into his face and his fingers before walking into the kitchen.

Law didn’t realize he had dropped the casserole he’d brought until he heard the dish shatter on the floor.

“Torao? You okay? You dropped your food.”

Law turned around and left the apartment. He thought maybe he’d heard Corazon calling after him, but it hadn’t registered. Nothing had past Luffy is sitting at the dinner table and I’m all out of marks 

Despite the cold, Law pulled up his coat and shirt sleeves to look at his arm.

He had expected a bare patch of skin, something that had once been a normal sight but that would look strange after five years of tally marks.

Instead, the lines had been replaced by scrawled, messy handwriting that spelled out Monkey D. Luffy .

Law made a noise that was almost a laugh and almost a curse word. It was like whatever force was behind soulmates had wanted to be sure there could be no misunderstanding. Like he hadn’t picked up on the one similarity between twenty-six different events.

God, that mark was going to be a lot harder to hide than the tally marks had been, and would probably draw a lot more attention too. And if anyone read it it would be game over. Including Luffy. Especially Luffy.

Law realized his phone was ringing.

“Hello?”

“Law?” Corazon’s voice was almost panicked. “What’s going on, are you okay?”

“...Yeah. Sorry. Could you… could you make up some excuse for me? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Law-”

“I’ll tell you after dinner. I promise. But I don’t really want to talk about it in front of Sengoku or some people I barely know. Please?”

“...Okay. Right after dinner, okay?”

“As soon as everyone’s gone. Promise.”

Law made his way back to Corazon’s, taking a deep, bracing breath before going in. He checked his phone, where a text from Corazon informed him that his cover story was that a rough day at work had made him temporarily check-out. He’d told Sengoku it was because of the PTSD, which Sengoku had believed because Law had done exactly that more than once as a kid. Sengoku had dealt with everyone else, though Corazon warned that Sengoku's friend had a tendency to be crass.

“You okay, Torao?” Luffy asked as soon as Law reentered the apartment. He was frowning slightly, his expression concerned.

Law nodded. “Yeah. It’s just been a rough couple of days. Sorry.” Ace and Sabo were watching him with something like concern, or perhaps something like suspicion. Law wondered what they would think of Law being Luffy’s soulmate. Would they think he was good enough for their little brother? Would they be angry at Law for having kept it a secret, view that as some sort of insult to Luffy as a person? They both seemed to be pro-soulmate, after all. Ace even had one.

One who wasn’t here, Ace realized. Was he busy? Not liked by all of the family? Were he and Ace fighting?

It wasn’t any of Law’s business and he knew that, but he was burning with curiosity all the same. Cruel as it felt, he sort of hoped that Ace and his soulmate were fighting, proving that soulmates weren’t a one-way ticket to happiness.

But he wouldn’t bring it up. He’d ruined the mood enough for one evening.

“Small world, huh?” Law asked, smiling weakly at Luffy. “Our grandpas being friends.”

Luffy nodded, shoving most of a roll of bread into his mouth in one bite. “Does your grandpa want you to be a cop too?”

Sengoku laughed, and it managed to be sarcastic. “Law doesn’t have enough respect for authority for that.”

Law shrugged unapologetically. “That's true.”

“Lucky,” Luffy said. “Grandpa is still trying to get us to.”

“Garp, please stop trying to convince your grandkids to come work for me,” Sengoku said, rubbing his temple with one hand. “I have enough headaches trying to keep you in line.”

Garp laughed, loud and unapologetic. Law supposed that was where Luffy got it from. “They would make great agents with a little training!” he shouted. There was no reason for him to shout. Law suspected it might be his normal volume.

“We really wouldn’t, old man,” Ace told him.

Everyone else laughed, but Law considered Ace. He’d recognized that tone. He’d used it on Doflamingo and the rest of the Donquixote family hundreds of times. It was a tone that was trying to say it was being funny, light-hearted, but, in all honesty, was covering up the urge to start a fight. No one else seemed to notice, but Ace’s face was much less amused than the others. His shoulders were sullen.

Ace didn’t like his grandfather, Law realized. And not in the way Law didn’t like Sengoku, where he disagreed with him on most things, like politics and how much power law enforcement should have and how corrupt law enforcement was on whole, but he ultimately liked him okay as a person if he overlooked all that. Ace didn’t like Garp on a fundamental level, and he was only playing nice for the sake of Christmas, or his brothers, or whatever it was that mattered to Ace.

Law didn’t say anything. Ace’s family drama was his own business, and belonged in his own family.

“Well, Law and Bepo have real jobs!” Garp was saying.

“Admitting your grandkids are bums, huh, Garp?” Sengoku asked, grinning. Law didn’t think he’d ever seen this side of Sengoku before. He looked like he maybe he’d actually left work at the office for once.

“We are not!” Luffy protested. “We pay our bills!”

“Don’t exactly have a career though, do you?” Garp retorted.

“He makes money,” Law said. “Enough to live comfortably. And he likes what he does to get it. Lot of people can’t say that much.”

His defense of Luffy and his not-job came as a surprise to him. Hadn’t he said almost the same thing about Luffy’s job multiple times?

Not recently he hadn’t. It suited Luffy. Law couldn’t imagine him in any career that had a steady schedule, or rules and requirements, a clear goal, or a uniform. He couldn’t imagine him doing anything that most people would consider a career.

“Yeah!” Luffy said enthusiastically. “And I can do whatever I want! I can walk dogs and help people and have fun and hang out with my friends, and I don’t want to be a cop!”

Garp huffed. Law got the impression this was an old and tired argument.

Now that Law’s head was back on, dinner wasn’t too bad. He repressed the thoughts of the name now on his arm with the ease of long years of practice, and all of the evening’s tension was now coming from whatever issue it was that was brewing between Ace and Garp. Which was unpleasant, but at least wasn’t Law’s problem. Law watched as the others slowly became aware of it; first Sabo, then Luffy, then even Corazon and Bepo and Sengoku.

It came to a head halfway through dessert, when Garp said, “How many Christmas dinners are you planning on having this year anyway, Ace? Since you apparently have to have a different one for everyone you know.”

“Wouldn’t be a problem if you could figure out how to play nice,” Ace retorted, stabbing at his pie with more force than was needed to get through the crust.

“Wouldn’t be a problem if all your friends weren’t so disrespectful of the law.”

“We wouldn’t have to be, if the law actually did anything for any of us!”

Law tensed. They were veering towards a real fight now. Sabo had stopped eating and was watching them; Luffy was watching them while shoveling food into his mouth even faster than before.

“You ungrateful brat, I looked after you for years!”

“Oh, is that what you called it? Because it felt a lot like you unloading us onto some woman you barely knew and taking off for months at a time.”

“Ace-”

Ace threw his fork down and it bounced off the plate with a clang and dropped to the floor. “No, fuck you. You didn’t raise me! Dadan did, and then Pops! You can’t even be bothered to be nice to my boyfriend after I’ve been dating him for three fucking years! You still act like he’s a fucking phase!”

“Ace…” Sabo started, reaching for his brother’s arm.

Ace jerked his arm away. “Screw you, old man. I’m going home.” He stomped out of the apartment, yanking his coat off the hook as he went by, and slammed the door behind him.

The apartment was quiet for a moment.

“Sorry,” Sabo said, directing the apology to Corazon. Next to him, Luffy glared at Garp, then sighed and returned his attention to his food. “He kind of has a temper.”

“Corazon’s seen worse,” Law assured him. “I was a hell of a teenager.”

So Garp didn’t approve of Ace’s boyfriend, soulmate or not. Law wondered if Garp knew they were soulmates. If he did know Law wondered if that was part of why Luffy hated the idea of one so much. They certainly didn’t seem to be helping their family with their interpersonal issues.

Dinner wrapped up not much later, Luffy and Sabo making transparent excuses to leave. Law guessed they were going to check on Ace. Garp and Sengoku stayed a little longer, but not much. It seemed to Law that Corazon was hinting that they should go.

As soon as it was only Law, Corazon, and Bepo, Corazon spun on Law. “Okay. What the hell happened earlier?”

Law sighed and sat down in one of Corazon’s armchairs. Words were still escaping him. Instead, he held his arm out and slowly rolled up his sleeve.

Corazon and Bepo’s jaws dropped.

“You found your soulmate,” Corazon said.

“It’s Luffy,” Bepo said.

Law nodded and pushed his sleeve back down. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it for months. But it just keeps getting more complicated.”

“Months?” Corazon repeated. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“I was… I wanted to figure it out first. If I wanted a soulmate. If I wanted him for a soulmate. What to do about this stupid mark either way.”

“Have you told him?”

“No. He doesn’t want a soulmate. He doesn’t believe in them.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He told me, Dad. He thinks they’re stupid and controlling. He likes his brother’s soulmate, but he doesn’t like that they're soulmates. He doesn’t have a mark and he’s glad for that. I can’t imagine he’d be happy about it if I told him that he’s involved in a soulmate bond despite that.”

“How well do you know the kid?”

Law sighed. “Pretty well,” he admitted. “He’s the guy who found Aloshi, and who’s been walking her. And he’s a regular at the hospital. And he’s friends with Chopper and Robin. I run into him a lot.” He looked at his arm. “Obviously. I started losing marks in October, and I’m already out. Tonight was the last one. Hence the…” He gestured to indicate the way he’d briefly lost it when he first walked in.

“I thought you’d been acting weird lately,” Bepo said.

“Yeah, apparently I’m not the liar I used to be.”

“Thank god for that,” Corazon said. He sat down on the couch. “So. What are you going to do?”

Law shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t like him at first. I didn’t think it’d be an issue. And then I thought I could just pretend the marks didn’t have anything to do with him. But now… Well, there aren’t a lot of excuses for having someone’s name tattooed on your arm, and ‘soulmate mark’ is probably the least creepy of all of them. And he’ll see it eventually. Maybe not for months, but eventually. And if he finds out on accident it’s going to seem like I was hiding it from him, that I’ve been lying. He’d be furious.”

Corazon was watching him carefully. “And that would upset you?”

“Yeah. We’re… we’re friends.” Admitting it felt like ripping off a scab.

“Do you like him? Like, like-like him?”

Law raised an eyebrow. “Corazon, no one over the age of thirteen uses the word ‘like’ that way.”

“Don’t dodge the question, you brat.”

Law smiled a little. The conversation thus far was not quite as awkward as he’d feared. “I… I don’t know. I like him. I don’t know if it’s romantic, or platonic, or some weird cross-over of the two, but I like him. And I don’t exactly have a lot of friends. I don’t want to fuck anything up.”

“Do you think maybe you’re overthinking it?” Bepo asked. “Sorry, I just mean, maybe it isn’t this big of a deal?”

“He’s right,” Corazon said. “Maybe you’re thinking too hard about the soulmate part of all this.”

Law hadn’t been expecting that. Law had expected them to tell him he wasn’t thinking enough about the soulmate aspect of this. “What do you mean?”

“Well, what would you do if he wasn’t your soulmate?”

“I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Let’s say you were. Let’s say you had all the same interactions with him as you have, you developed the same feelings, but he wasn’t your soulmate. What would you do?”

Law shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never… I don’t get like this. About anyone. Ever.”

“I know you don’t. Listen, it sounds like most of what you’re worried about is because he’s your soulmate, and you don’t know how he’s going to react to that. But if you weren’t soulmates, do you think you might try to ask him out?”

Law genuinely didn’t know. He’d never asked anyone out before. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask Luffy out now. “I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it. You’re obsessing over him being your soulmate, Law. But now that you know he is, that should be the least important part of your relationship. If you would ask him out without it, ask him out. If you wouldn’t, don’t.”

Law laughed dryly. “Would you have saved me if I wasn’t yours?”

Corazon’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened. “Of course I would have! Law, you’re my son ! You being my soulmate got my attention, but it was never the reason I got you out of there. I did that because you’re my son and I love you.”

This conversation was not going in any of the directions Law had been prepared for.

“Law, have you been thinking I’ve been stuck with you for the last thirteen years?”

Law shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking at the floor, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t just make this worse.

That was plenty of answer for Corazon. He was off the couch and hugging Law, the angle awkward as the chair wasn’t meant to hold two people, especially when one of them was as tall and gangly as Corazon was. “I’m sorry,” he said, arms tightening around Law’s chest. “I am so sorry.”

“For what?” Law wasn’t hugging Corazon back but he wasn’t trying to get away either. It was sort of nice, actually. He always thought he hated to be hugged right up until he was actually being hugged.

“For not being a good enough parent to keep you from thinking that way. For not realizing you thought that way. God, Law, I am so sorry.” He pulled back so he could look Law in the eye. “Listen, I’m glad you’re my soulmate. It helped me find you. It helps me make sure you’re okay. It keeps you from being able to lie to me about if you’re taking care of yourself. But it has nothing to do with how much I love you. Okay?” He lightly cuffed the side of Law’s head. “And you have to tell me if you’re feeling like this, you brat.”

Unexpectedly, tears were pushing at the back of Law’s eyes. Corazon was already crying and Bepo, hovering uncertainly next to the chair, didn’t look far behind. Law didn’t really want to join the party. He managed a weak chuckle and shook his head, like none of this mattered to him. “We’ve kind of gotten off topic.”

“This is more important. Bepo, come here and lay on your brother.”

Law was the smallest of the three of them, and suddenly found himself at the bottom of an impromptu dog pile. He wheezed. “Is your plan to cure my low self-esteem to just kill me?”

“Would it work?” Corazon asked.

Law would have flipped him off, but his arms were pinned.

The position wasn’t comfortable for Law, and he doubted it was much better for Bepo and Corazon, but he couldn’t seem to argue that he wanted up. Something heavy and clawed had just unhooked from his chest a fraction, and Law, for the first time in years, was realizing just how large and nasty the thing had been. He had thought it was just a small voice that hissed in the back of his mind on low days, not something that was leaching into every inch of him, tainting every conversation he’d ever had with Corazon.

Oh.

And poisoning every thought about having a soulmate.

“Maybe I’m worried that Luffy will only like me because he’s my soulmate. Or only hate me because of it. Not because of… me.”

Corazon ruffled his hair. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of kid who would do that. He seems pretty genuine.”

“You have no idea.”

“So stop worrying about it so much.”

Law laughed a little, slightly hysterical, slightly manic. “I worry about everything. It’s in my nature.”

“And it’s going to make you go gray before I do if you don’t stop.”

“I could pull off gray. And don’t worry, Dad, I’ll make sure you go gray with me. It can be a bonding experience.”

“Brat.” He squeezed Law’s shoulder. “Did I help any?”

Law nodded. Despite both of them still sitting on him he could breathe a little easier. “Guess I just have to figure out exactly what I want, huh?”

“That does make it easier to ask for it. You call me if you need to talk, okay? I’ll be a soundboard for your terrible pick-up lines.”

“Hey!”

“You didn’t have an embarrassing dating phase as a teenager, you’re due for one.”

“Straw Hat Luffy,” Bepo said, shaking his head. “So, is it just really true that opposites attract?”

Law would have thrown up his hands if he could. “I have no idea. I kept running into him and it just happened.”

“How did you run into him that often?” Corazon asked.

“Hell if I know. He knows everybody in the fucking city, I think. I mean, he apparently has three degrees of separation between us.”

“And he’s in the E.R. a lot,” Bepo added.

“Apparently I was the last doctor to meet him,” Law said dryly. “He’s accident prone, reckless, doesn’t listen-”

“And you have feelings for him,” Corazon finished, grinning that stupid, dopey, ear-to-ear grin that made Law want to grin back, even if it was at his expense. He usually forced himself to scowl instead, unwilling to let Corazon think he’d won.

“I am not twelve, Dad,” he managed to get out, smiling a little.

“And thank God for that. Can you imagine twelve year old you with a crush?”

“I don’t want to.” It would have been horrifying. He probably would have presented any subject of his affection with a half-cleaned skeleton or something.

Law let out a deep breath, his chest loosening a little. He wouldn’t admit to that; he didn’t want to give Bepo or Corazon the chance to say ‘I told you so’. He’d probably psyched himself too much about this conversation, he was willing to admit, so long as he didn’t have to admit it out loud.

He could figure this out, he told himself. He couldn’t see how, but he could.

Chapter Text

“Law, are you doing anything today?” Robin sounded panicked, out of breath.

“Not today, no. My shift from hell starts tomorrow morning.” Proper Christmas with Bepo and Corazon had been celebrated two days earlier, because Law was too much of a work addict - and too valuable to Heart Hospital - for anyone to try to make him take Christmas off.

“Good. Chopper got snowed in, so he’s not going to be able to go home for Christmas or his birthday this year. He’s pretty down about it, so we’re pulling together an emergency surprise party for him. Can you make it?”

“Where and when?” He should be sleeping, preparing for what would probably be a shift lasting well over twenty-four hours, but making sure Chopper didn’t feel abandoned on his birthday was more important than fighting his insomnia.

“We’re setting up as we speak, and it’s at Outlaws. The same place we met you on Halloween?”

“I remember. I’ll be there soon.”

“Chopper will be thrilled to see you.”

Someone yelled in the background and Robin hung up in a hurry.

“Guess we got back from our walk just in time, huh?” Law said to Aloshi.

Aloshi had promptly collected her bone the moment they were through the door and sprawled across her dog bed.

Law pulled his coat back on. His wallet caught his eye and he paused. It would be best to bring Chopper a present, wouldn’t it? With Christmas and his birthday only a day away from each other it would probably be pretty noticeable that he wasn’t getting his usual haul of presents, even though Chopper would never admit to being sad about it.

Robin had said they were still setting up. He had time to find Chopper something small, just to show he’d thought about it.

Candy, Law figured as he got in his car. Chopper had a sweet tooth at the best of times, and it only increased when he was upset. And then Law could feel like he’d sort of contributed to the party.

He pulled into the parking lot of the first store between him and the bar and found the ever-present section of massive bags of holiday candy. Farther down the aisle were rows of cheap presents and stocking stuffers.

A black drawstring bag with a skull and crossbones on it caught his eye. Luffy would probably like something like that, and hadn’t he mentioned being in need of a backpack at one point? Pockets could only do so much after all.

Law shook his head. He was not buying Luffy Christmas presents right now. He was shopping for Chopper. He grabbed a bag of candy.

It would be polite to buy Luffy something for Christmas. He had been walking Aloshi for a while now. Was going to be while Law worked the E.R. Christmas rush. It could be like a holiday bonus. Law bit his lip, looking at the bag.

He could keep it in his car. Say he’d picked it up after his shift in apology for making Luffy dogsit for so long over Christmas. That wouldn’t be weird, right?

Law grabbed the bag before he could second guess himself. Back in his car, he shoved it under the passenger seat like it might attack him if left in the open.

Law wasn’t sure how much time Chopper’s other friends had had to set up his party, but they’d done an impressive job of making the bar look like a totally appropriate place to have a seventeen year old's birthday party. There were streamers and what looked to be a hand painted banner and Shakky the bartender was laying out plates of food. Underneath the birthday decorations the place was also decked out for Christmas, but it was hardly noticeable.

Robin saw him first, smiled, and waved him over. “You have good timing. Chopper should be here in just a few minutes. We’ve had Nami out distracting him.”

“This is nice,” Law said, gesturing. “You all really came through.”

“Oh, we’re just getting started!” exclaimed Usopp, bounding up beside Law and planting a party hat on his head, which Law promptly tore back off. There were limits. “Chopper’s birthday here is going to be eight million times better than a birthday he could have had anywhere else!”

Law looked around. He could see Sanji in the kitchen, presumably making whatever Shakky was bringing out. Franky was finishing putting up a few more streamers, while Usopp, who had ran back over to him, handed him the relevant decorations. Brook was in the corner and appeared to be tuning a violin. Luffy was assembling presents and occasionally trying to steal a snack, which Zoro appeared to be defending with his life.

“How big of a party are you planning anyway?” Law asked. He was watching Shakky and Sanji continue to pile plate after plate of food onto tables. Luffy was laughing at something Zoro had said.

“We’ve called just about everyone Chopper knows,” Robin said, laughing. “And it sounds like most of them will be able to make it, at least for a little while. I’m glad you could. I thought you might be working.”

“I will be soon. But I have time to make sure Chopper doesn’t have to be alone and depressed on his birthday. Besides, this is a good chance to tell Chopper all about how much being a doctor sucks this time of year.”

“You love spending your Christmases working.”

“Yeah, well. You would too, if there was much work for professors over the holidays.”

“Oh, there is. I have two lesson plans to revise, and they’re finally letting me start a new course on pre-revolution Russian history, so I have to make that lesson plan, and figure out what textbooks my students will need. Write up a syllabus, start making some quizzes and homework assignments, that sort of thing.” She didn’t say it like she was complaining. She said it with great relish, actually. Law couldn’t blame her. The two of them had their workaholic natures in common if they had nothing else.

When Chopper trotted through the door it seemed to take him a moment to register that the banner said his name, or that all the food was his favorites. Law could pinpoint the exact moment it hit him; his eyes welled up with tears and he looked around at everyone there like he half expected it all to be a joke. “You guys threw me a party?”

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Luffy said, grinning ear-to-ear.  “What good’s a birthday if you’re not gonna party?”

As though Luffy’s question had been an order everything seemed to start at once. Chopper lunged forward, exclaiming how he was so happy and everyone was so nice for doing this for him, not that it meant anything to him, you jerks. Brook began to play a song on his violin. Sanji presented a huge cake that Law would have thought was excessive if he hadn’t seen firsthand just how much junk food Luffy and Chopper were each capable of eating. Chopper was laughing so hard he struggled to blow out the candles, but Luffy was standing next to him, making up excuses for every failed attempt not to count so that Chopper’s wish would still come true.

The bar began to fill up until it was nearly packed to capacity.  Law stayed near the bar, away from the crush of people, drinking punch instead of alcohol. The hangover after Halloween had been hell, and he had to work tomorrow. Besides, despite the still-present twist of nerves in his gut, Law didn’t feel the need to drown himself in booze to ignore the fact that Luffy was in the same room as him.

As though summoned by the thought, Luffy slid himself onto the barstool next to Law. Law smiled at him involuntarily. “Hey, Straw Hat. Good party.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome,” Luffy agreed. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“I can’t stay late though. I have work tomorrow.”

Luffy nodded. “I remember. Hey, is it okay if I take Aloshi to my place for some of the day?”

“If it’s okay with your brothers and you guys don’t think you’ll get in trouble then it’s okay with me. I just appreciate you being willing to watch her over Christmas. I doubt most dog walkers would be.”

“Well, I’m also friends with both of you, so it’s different. It’s dumb that you have to work on Christmas, but I’ll make sure Aloshi gets lots of ham.”

Law shook his head, surprised to realize the gesture was more fond than annoyed. “You’re going to put Aloshi off dog food.”

“Nuh-uh. Food is food, Torao. It’s always good.”

Law didn’t understand how someone who was regularly fed by a gourmet chef could be so undiscerning when it came to food.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Luffy exclaimed. “I got you a present!” He bounded away and was back almost before Law could process what he'd said, and he shoved a wrapped box into Law’s hands without waiting for a response. It was very badly wrapped, and Luffy seemed to have used every bit of tape he could find to keep it all together.

Law stared at it for a moment. Straw Hat had clearly not suffered from the same crisis of wondering how it would look if the two of them exchanged presents. “Should I open it now, or wait until Christmas?” he asked, half of his brain going over if he should go out to his car and get Luffy his Christmas present.

“Now! I want to see if you like it.”

Law ran a finger along an edge of the paper, but didn’t move to tear it off. “I got you something too. It’s still in my car though. And I haven't had time to wrap it yet.”

“Oh, cool! You can go get it in a sec. Open mine first!” He was steadily leaning closer to Law, like he might take over unwrapping the present if Law didn’t get a move on.

Law started pulling off the paper. Most of it had to be forcefully ripped through; Luffy hadn’t been fucking around with the tape. Under the paper was a battered white box, probably saved and recycled from previous Christmases and shopping trips.

“It’s a scarf!” Luffy announced the second Law had the box’s lid off. “I made it myself.”

Law could have guessed that. He didn’t know much about scarf making, but it was almost impressive, how much Luffy had managed to make this thing look not like a scarf. It was yellow and black and hideous, lopsided and substantially thicker in some places than in others. Law pulled it out of the box and draped it around his neck. “Feels like it’ll be warm.”

“You can wear it when you walk Aloshi.”

“Thank you, Straw Hat. That’s… I really appreciate it.”

“Okay!” Luffy clapped his hands together. “Now what did you get me?”

Law rolled his eyes and stood up. “Are you coming out with me to get it or do you want to wait here?”

Luffy was already up. “I’m going with you.”

Somehow, Law wasn’t surprised.

They stepped out of the bar and Law found that, despite its misleading appearance, the scarf was effective at keeping away some of the cold. It probably would be nice for walks. And it wasn’t as though Law  cared a whole lot about how he looked to strangers - being a prominent doctor with scars and tattoos had curbed him of that - so the scarf being an eyesore wasn’t really a drawback.

“Why is it under the seat?” Luffy asked as Law bent down to reach for it.

“...It slid. While I was going around a corner. I haven’t had a chance to get it back out again.”

“Ah.” Luffy reached out for it. “Gimme.”

Law grinned, pulled the bag free, and held it over his head. “Your brothers didn’t do a very good job of teaching you manners.”

Luffy scowled at him. “That’s cheating.” He jumped, grabbing for the bag, but Law had enough height over him for that to not help him much.

“It’s taking advantage of my situation, Straw Hat.”

Luffy stuck out his tongue to show what he thought of that. “Give it. It’s mine!”

“Technically, it’s not yours until I actually give it to you. Maybe I’ll just keep it for myself, huh?”

Luffy jumped onto the roof of Law’s car and threw himself at Law. Surprised, Law dropped the bag and just barely managed to keep himself from following it to the icy sidewalk.

Luffy ended up back in front of him, both of his arms wrapped around one of Law’s. “There. I win.” He released Law’s arm and dived for his present while Law tried to get his heart rate back under control. Someone - Penguin, maybe? - had once told him that short people would go to any lengths necessary to get what they wanted if it was too high up for them, and it was apparently true. He should have expected as much from Luffy, who was willing to go to any lengths necessary to do anything.

“Cool!” Luffy shouted, examining the bag. “A pirate bag!” He put it on. It looked a little odd - drawstring bags usually did while empty - but it suited him. He beamed at Law. “Thanks!”

“I figured your pockets could use a break,” Law said casually, like he’d barely thought about it, like he didn’t even really care if Luffy liked it or not.

“I can keep snacks in it,” Luffy said, clearly delighted by the prospect.

“Maybe sandwiches or something?” Law suggested. “Chopper isn’t the only one who shouldn’t be subsisting entirely off of candy.”

“I don’t eat just candy,” Luffy said, though he sounded like he was barely listening. “I eat meat and stuff too.”

“How about fruits and vegetables? Ever eat those?”

“Sure, sometimes. I had an apple last week, and there were green beans in that thing we had at dinner the other night.”

“You mean the green bean casserole you ate two bites of?”

“Yeah, that.”

“You’re going to get scurvy or something, and you’re going to deserve it.”

“That’s a pirate sickness, isn’t it?”

“That isn’t a good thing.”

Luffy just grinned wider. He planted himself beside Law and linked their arms together. “Come on, Torao. We’re missing the party.”

“And wouldn’t that be just the worst.”

Luffy nodded seriously. “There is a lot of food in there.”

Law snorted and allowed Luffy to lead him back inside. He made his way back to the bar while Luffy darted off into the crowd to show off his new bag to anyone who would hold still long enough to look at it. Law watched him for a moment, feeling warm and pleased at the sight.

That couldn’t be a good sign. He sighed and focused on his juice, wondering if it would be such a bad idea to have just one shot of alcohol after all.

‘If you weren’t soulmates, would you want to ask him out?’ The answer was starting to look a lot like a yes. But how did someone ask out someone like Luffy? And what kind of date did Law want it to be? Romantic? Platonic? Queer-platonic? And where did you go for any of those kinds? A fancy restaurant was the first thing that came to Law’s mind - classics were classics for a reason, he supposed - but he couldn’t imagine Luffy even being allowed through the door of one, aside from Sanji’s.

Law broke down and asked Shakky to dump a shot of vodka into his punch. That wouldn’t get him drunk or hungover, just enough to take the edge off before he started panicking again.

“Nice choice with Luffy’s present,” said a voice at Law’s side.

Law turned to see that Ace had appeared at some point and taken over the next barstool. “I thought it suited him.”

“It does. Though God only knows what weird shit he’ll start bringing home now that he has more room to carry it.” He ordered a drink, then turned to watch the party while he sipped at it.

Law took a gulp of his drink and winced as it burned his throat on the way down.

Ace noticed and smirked. “You know, it’s always weirded me out a little that doctors are allowed to get drunk. Like, if you’re going to be allowed to mess around in someone’s internal organs, maybe you shouldn’t have alcohol.”

Law smirked back. “Guess you shouldn’t end up in my hospital tonight, huh?”

“I’ll let Pops know not to send anyone to Heart Hospital if they electrocute themselves.”

“Please do. We’re going to be busy enough.”

“Is that why the alcohol?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Just… Dealing with some shit I’m not ready to deal with yet.”

“Ah. Yeah, I know that one. Used to do it a lot before Marco started getting concerned I was going to kill myself on it or something.” He said it lightheartedly, like he wasn’t talking about possible alcoholism. Law understood that.

Law bit his lip. “Marco’s your soulmate, right?”

“Yep.”

“Do you mind if I ask you something?”

Ace looked at him, then down at Law’s drink. “Soulmate troubles, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, Sabo would tell you that I’m shit at giving advice, but he’s over there getting suckered into karaoke and still hasn’t figured out he’s in love with his co-worker, so fire away. “

“How did… Look. Luffy’s a skeptic. You can’t be a complete believer.”

“I’m not. I used to hate soulmate bonds, actually.” He made a face down at his drink. “Or I hate how people talk about them, at least. Luffy’s right. A lot of people think it means they don’t have to do anything ever again, and it’s bullshit.”

“But you have one. And you love him.”

“And we know it’s not just destined to be easy. What’s going on with yours?”

“I…” He didn’t want to tell Ace that it was Luffy who was causing all of this turmoil. Ace’s opinions might change if he knew his little brother’s love life was on the table. “I just figured out who my soulmate mark is tied to. And I’m trying to figure out if i want to act on it. I like them. We’re friends, but I don’t know if I want to be anymore than that. I don’t know if I could handle being more than that. They’re sort of… not what I would have pictured. And I don’t buy this bullshit that there’s some great cosmic force that knows who I’m going to love more than anyone in the world. I love my dad. My brother. One of them could be my soulmate and I wouldn’t mind. But this person… I don’t know if I want to take a leap of faith like that because some marks on my arm said I should.”

Ace finished his drink and twisted in his seat so he was facing Law. “Do you want to know my theory?”

Law shrugged. “Why not? None of my theories are helping me much.”

“I don’t think soulmate bonds have anything to do with who or what you love the most. I think it’s more about helping you get what you need.”

Law waited and, when Ace didn’t clarify, shook his head. “I’m not following you.”

“I don’t think the bond is to prove that you’re with who you should be with. I think it’s to help you find someone you wouldn’t have found otherwise. To lead you to them, or to make you realize that they’re important to you where maybe you wouldn’t have thought about it before. Take me, for instance. It’s a different type of love for each of them, but I don’t love Marco any more than I love Sabo, or Luffy, or Pops, or any of the other members of my family. But I’ve always loved Luffy and Sabo. Pops did most of the really hard work in establishing a relationship between me and him, and I became a member of his family as a teenager. But Marco…” Ace broke off, smiling to himself. “If it weren’t for us being soulmates, I don’t think either of us would have had the courage to do anything, because we’d have been too worried about being rejected, or fucking up our friendship. Especially since we’d only just managed to start getting along.”

Law sighed. “But why did it have to turn romantic? What was wrong with it being a friendship?”

“Nothing. But it’s better romantic. All of my other friendships are better platonic. This one wasn’t.”

“I’ve never wanted a romantic relationship. With anyone. And now this!” He gestured with his left arm, though Ace couldn’t see the name written there.

Ace laughed. “And you, what, think it’s making you fall in love with them?”

“And why wouldn’t I? I never had problems like this before this damn thing started counting down.”

“Maybe it’s just getting you what you need.”

“You think Lu - this person - is my soulmate because I need them?”

“Because you need the help to realize you want them. You mentioned there are people you’d rather have your bond tying you to?”

“Yeah.”

“If you want them to be connected to you with a soulmate bond then you already know you love them. You don’t need a bond to tell you that, or to give you the push to act on how much you care about them. Your soulmate - would you have given them a second thought if you didn’t have your bond calling them to your attention?”

A second thought, maybe, Luffy was hard to ignore under any circumstances, but probably not the kind of attention he was giving Luffy now. “Probably not,” he admitted. “Not the way I am, at least.”

“See? The bond isn’t making you fall in love with them; I don’t think anything can make that happen. It’s just… giving you a push. Waking you up.”

“How does your theory fit with your brother?” Law asked, hoping Ace would assume he was changing topics rather than asking a highly relevant question. “Luffy and his insistence he doesn’t want a soulmate bond telling him what to do?”

Ace laughed. “I know that technically Luffy still has a time for a mark to appear, but I’m expecting for him to be one of the few people who don’t have a soulmate bond. He agrees. And it’s not because he isn’t capable of love, or doesn’t deserve one, or whatever other bullshit explanations people have come up with over the years, but because he doesn’t need one. Luffy isn’t one for denying what he wants, or to be too afraid to go after it. He isn’t going to need some cosmic universal force to tell him any of that; he’ll do it on his own. That’s why he’s such a cynic. He doesn’t get how other people can see the world so differently from how he does that they need help to find things that make them happy.”

Law stared into his drink, absentmindedly swirling it around as he thought about that. “Lucky him.”

“There’s advantages to being as simple-minded as he is. But hey, that’s why people like us get cosmic assistance.”

“You think I should go for it then. Even as uncertain as I am.”

“I just think that if the universe goes through this much effort to tell you that you should do something, you should at least consider it.”

Law idly wondered if that would remain the case if he knew exactly who he was telling Law to go after. Law supposed he would find out if he did try to start anything with Luffy. Ace and Sabo were probably the types to give protective older brother speeches.

“Of course,” Ace added as an afterthought, “I spent six months rigorously ignoring and avoiding my soulmate mark, so take everything I tell you with a grain of salt. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty and all that.”

“Six months, huh?” That was oddly comforting; Law had only been avoiding his for three.

“Having a soulmate sounded like a lot of work. I had other things to do.”

He said it flippantly, and Law knew the tone well enough to suspect that it hadn’t been that cut and dry. He didn’t press.

“How did you tell him?” Law asked. “I mean, do you start with ‘I want to go out with you’ or with ‘you’re my soulmate’?”

“That I can’t help you with. Marco and I are mutual soulmates and we figured it out at the same time. Good luck.” He said it with a tone of better you than me, and Law was pretty sure he was grinning a little.  

“Lucky bastard,” Law grumbled.

“Yep.”

Law let the conversation drop, mulling over Ace’s advice. Across the bar, Luffy was challenging people to karaoke contests. Chopper was unwrapping a present, running to the person it was from to thank them, and running back to open the next one. All of Luffy’s friends seemed to be filled with a vibrant, infectious sort of energy. Even Law was feeling it, though for him it was more manifesting as him not feeling like he needed to go home after half an hour of dealing with people than as wanting to be the party’s center of attention.

This wouldn’t be such a bad group to meld into. He thought he might have already melded into it. No one seemed surprised by his presence. No one gave him curious looks, wondering what he thought he was doing there or what Luffy was thinking by inviting him. It hadn’t even been Luffy who had invited him. It had been Robin.

He wondered what she would think about how he was starting to feel about Luffy. He almost wanted to tell her; get a better idea of what his next move should be. She was Luffy’s friend, she would know. But it seemed dishonest, somehow. Like if Law was going to do this - whatever this ended up being - he should come up with how to do it on his own.

His phone went off, alerting him that if he didn’t want to spend all of his shift feeling like death it was time to go home and to bed. He hesitated for a moment anyway. It would be rude to just leave, wouldn’t it? He ought to say goodbye to Chopper, at least.

He found Chopper in the crowd, looking happy but slightly ill due to how much junk food he had eaten.

“Hi, Torao!” he greeted. Even he, it seemed, had decided to replace Law’s name with Luffy’s nickname. Law didn’t mind. He was responding to Torao as easily as he was Law these days. “Having fun?”

“Yeah, it’s a good party. I have to go though.”

Chopper frowned. “Already?”

“Yeah. I have a long shift starting tomorrow. E.R.s get busy around Christmas.”

“Oh. That’s kind of sad.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I was going. I didn’t want you to think I was just blowing off your birthday party.”

“Thanks for coming. I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah. Just give me a call if you need anything, or the next time you want to ask me some questions.”

Chopper nodded. “‘Kay.”

“You’re leaving?” Luffy’s voice asked.

Law’s heart genuinely skipped a beat and he firmly told it to calm the fuck down already. “Yeah. I need to get some sleep before work.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” He looked almost disappointed. “Hey, are you busy on New Year’s?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You shouldn’t be. We’re having a party, and you should come.”

“Yeah!” Chopper agreed enthusiastically. “We throw great New Year’s parties.”

“I’ll come if I’m not working,” Law promised.

“Good,” Luffy said. “And you can invite people too. Like those guys you brought for Halloween. They were fun.”

“I’ll let them know. Is it going to be here?”

“Nope. Our parties are huge, especially for New Year’s. We do that one at Whitebeard’s place. There’s tons of room and lots of people and everyone’s super friendly and you can even bring Aloshi.”

“I don’t know how she’ll feel about the fireworks.”

“Whitebeard doesn’t allow any of the really loud ones near the house. He has dogs too, and a lot of his kids don’t like them either. Only quiet ones are allowed that close. But it’s still super fun. And you don’t have to worry about Shakky hustling you out of all of your money.”

Law looked back at the bar, where Shakky was leaning over, talking to a guy Law didn’t recognize. Law suspected he was either being conned into tipping well over twenty percent, or else being vastly overcharged for his drink. Maybe both. He’d have to warn Shachi and Penguin about her; they were exactly the sort of people who would fall for that sort of thing. “I’m glad she’s in the holiday spirit.”

Luffy laughed. “You’re weird, Torao. I’ll see you later, okay? And I’ll bring Aloshi special snacks for Christmas.”

“Thanks, Straw Hat. I’ll let you know when I’m off.” It felt like he should do something else, some better way of saying goodbye, but nothing came to him and he left the party.

Chapter Text

“I hate Christmas,” Shachi said, his voice muffled against Penguin’s shoulder.

Law pushed another cup of coffee at him. “Drink fast, your break’s over in ten minutes.”

Shachi groaned but took the coffee. “Why are people so fucking weird? I don’t like knowing this much about what people are getting for Christmas.”

“Is that better or worse than how many toddlers I’ve seen who have eaten weird shit?” Penguin mumbled, not opening his eyes. He was leaning on Shachi as much as Shachi was leaning on him, trying to get in a cat nap before they had to rush off again.

“I have you both beat,” Law said. “I had an eighty-seven year old with heart palpitations whose family just dropped her off and went back to their party or photo sessions or whatever the fuck. That whole ‘family is the most important part of Christmas’ sure disappears quick sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“This, Doc, is why you’re a cynic,” Shachi said with a yawn.

“I’ve also had two O.D.s already. One of them didn’t make it.”

Shachi sighed. “Fucking holidays, man.”

Law’s phone chimed and he pulled it out. He smiled despite himself.

“What’s that?” Shachi asked, with enough enthusiasm to make Penguin raise his head a little and open his eyes. “Good news on Christmas? Share with the class, Doc.”

Law showed them the phone. It was a text from Luffy that was just a picture of Aloshi sitting in what looked to be Luffy’s living room. She was holding a bone and wearing a pair of fluffy antlers. Luffy had written MERRY CHRISTMAS in glittery capital letters across the picture.

“Well, I’m glad someone’s enjoying the holiday,” Penguin said, but he was smiling too.

“Who sent that?” Shachi asked.

“Straw Hat. He’s my dog walker. He decided to take Aloshi to his place over Christmas, since I’ll be gone for so long.” Law hadn’t realized how good of a job he’d done of not telling anyone about Luffy until he’d stopped trying to hide it; no one had known that Law had ever even seen Luffy out of the hospital, let alone that Luffy was Law’s dog walker or that they had each other’s numbers.

“You trust him with your dog?”

“Yeah, he’s good with her. We did have to put down a lot of ground rules about him not over exercising her while she healed from being hit by that car though.”

“So his inability to listen to doctors extends to everyone else’s health too.”

“He seems to be under the impression that doctor’s orders are more friendly suggestions than anything else. If he isn’t bleeding or in excruciating pain he doesn’t need to take it easy.”

Penguin chuckled. “Are you lecturing him about that every time you see him?”

“Not every time,” Law said. His face felt a little warm. What were they going to say if he started dating Straw Hat? They’d probably be in shock at Law ever wanting to spend time with someone so incredibly different from himself.

Not that they had a lot of room to talk. They didn’t have much in common with Law either.

Now that Law thought about it, none of his friends did. Robin was probably the one he had the most in common with of all of them. That was… probably a good thing. And it made sense. How would he go about making friends with people as introverted and quiet as him?

There was something comforting about that realization. If his best friends, his brother, and his dad could all be that different from him without it being a problem, there was no reason for Luffy to be an exception.

Law finished his coffee and stretched. “Come on, you two. Break’s over.”

They both groaned, but got up and followed him back into the fray.

“I’ll give Straw Hat this much,” Shachi said late on New Year’s Eve, “he and his friends really know how to throw a party.”

The Whitebeard place was fully decorated, more extravagant than Law had ever seen for a New Year’s Eve party before. Banners that looked homemade draped across the bar and every door - even the ones to the bathrooms - and streamers hung from the ceilings. A large flatscreen TV in the living room was showing the ball drop in Times Square, waiting for the countdown. Another TV was displaying a muted fireworks show - all of the pretty colors and none of the noise. New Year’s games seemed to be happening in every corner of both the giant house and the even bigger yard - karaoke contests, drinking contests, bets on who would hold on to their New Year’s resolution for longest, could anyone get the dogs to wear party hats. So far only one dog had been caught for the last one; a medium sized white terrier mix who wore his party hat with an expression of long-suffering resignation.

“This many teenagers in one place, they better know how to party,” Penguin said. “Is there alcohol here? Do you think Whitebeard would let drinks near all those kids of his?”

“How should I know?” Law replied. “Go ask someone who actually lives here.”

Penguin and Shachi bolted off to do just that. Law looked over at Bepo. “What do you want to bet that we’re going to find them passed out all over Whitebeard’s furniture at the end of the night?”  He reached down to pet Aloshi’s head. He hadn’t wanted to leave her alone in the apartment with fireworks going off, but he wasn’t going to be letting her off her leash here. She kept spinning to watch kids run by and, while Law didn’t think she’d be aggressive, he didn’t trust her not to just run off in the chaos.

“You think there is alcohol then?”

“This big of a party? If Whitebeard doesn’t allow it someone’s going to smuggle it in. I know I would have.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You were an angel teenager. These kids… are not.” Whitebeard’s home for wayward troublemakers. Law would have fit right in at the place about a decade ago. Although he imagined he would have butted heads with the old man and all of his counselors until they finally got fed up with him. Whitebeard had a lot of dedication towards helping every troubled youth he could find but surely there were limits.  

“Hey, what are you saying about our kids?” Ace shouted. He didn’t need to shout, he had come up alongside them, holding hands with another man who was blond with an undercut and who Law assumed was probably Marco.

“That they’re troublemakers,” Law told him, smirking. “Which they are. You can’t deny it.”

“Maybe not, but no one gets to insult our kids but us.”

“You’re a little young to have teenagers, aren’t you? What have you been getting up to, Ace?”

Ace grinned and gestured to the man beside him. “Law, this is Marco. Marco, Law. He’s a friend of Luffy’s.”

“Everyone is a friend of Luffy’s,” Marco pointed out.

“You’ve noticed that too, huh?” Law said. “I don’t think I know a single person who doesn’t also know him.”

“Social butterfly,” Ace agreed. It seemed like Law was right about there being alcohol somewhere; Ace looked slightly tipsy. “I don’t know where he gets it from because it’s sure as fuck not me.”

“Language!” a kid yelled at Ace as they went by, laughing.

“Fucking punk,” Ace said, looking after the kid. “You give them an inch…”

“They learn that attitude from you, you know,” Marco told him.

“I know.” Ace puffed up his chest a little, grinning. “They learn so fast. This is why I’m their favorite counselor, you know.”

“I hate to break it to you, babe, but Thatch is their favorite.”

“What? No, he isn’t!”

“Look, you can’t beat the guy who gives them junk food half an hour before dinner. Cake beats swearing any day.”

“The kids love me. I’m the cool counselor. Thatch dresses like he fell out of the dumpster of a thrift store.”

Marco flicked Ace’s ear. “That’s my baby brother you’re talking about, you know.”

“Your little brother has shit fashion sense. That isn’t my fault. You’d think Izo would have trained that out of him by now. For all of our sakes.”

“I think Izo likes knowing he will always be the more attractive one in their relationship.”

“Ha! So you admit he looks terrible!”

Marco just rolled his eyes. “I apologize for him,” he told Law and Bepo. “People keep handing him drinks because they’re too cheap to get him birthday presents.”

“The drinks are my birthday presents.”

“Yes, they’re clearly a great idea. I’m going to remind you that you said that when you’re hungover tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to get hungover. I’m barely even drunk.”

“Ace, catch!” someone shouted. Law jumped back a little as a beer can flew towards them. Ace caught it, which Law thought was pretty impressive. Marco gave Ace a pointed look, which Ace responded to by grinning and popping open the can.

“Ace!” another voice shouted.

There was Luffy. Law turned towards him, realizing distantly that there weren’t going to be any more indicators that he was running into Luffy. No more countdown. Just a name. It would have been easy to ignore a few months ago, but now that name was practically the only thing he could think about.

He realized Bepo was looking at him and he elbowed his brother in the ribs - be normal - as Luffy came charging up to their group. “Hi, Torao!” He spun to face his brother before Law could respond. “Vista said to find you because someone needs to tell your kids not to set off a whole box of fireworks at the same time.”

“Why not? That sounds cool.”

“I know!”

“No,” Marco said.

The two brothers glared at Marco. “No fun,” they both said.

“Uh-huh.” Law didn’t know Marco very well, but he thought he might look just a little bit amused. “Come on, before someone burns their eyebrows off.”

“Has that ever happened before?” Ace asked as Marco led him away. “Whose eyebrows were they?”

Luffy turned back to Law. “I’m glad you could come. It’s an awesome party, right?”

“Yeah. It’s huge.”

“Uh-huh. All of Whitebeard’s kids, and all of their friends, and all of their friends…” He trailed off with a shrug.

“I’m going to go find Shachi and Penguin,” Bepo said, and turned away before Law could quite register that Bepo was trying to give him an opportunity to do something. He turned after his brother, eyes widening, but Bepo was already walking away.

Law turned back to Luffy, struggling to find something - anything - to talk about. “So… what’s your favorite part? Of New Year’s?”

“Fireworks, probably. What about you?”

Law shrugged. “I don’t usually even really celebrate New Year’s.”

“Why not?”

“No real reason. I just don’t go to parties a lot. Too many people most of the time.”

“You don’t like crowds?”

“Not usually.”

Luffy held out his hand. “Come on.”

Baby 5 had liked holding Law’s hand, when she could get away with it. Law had always thought it was uncomfortable, that someone’s hands would inevitably start sweating or one person would hold the other’s fingers too tight and cause them to ache or someone’s wrist would be forced into a bad angle. He’d always shaken her off as soon as he could manage, usually making her cry and run back to Buffalo for reassurance.

Holding hands with Luffy was different. They fit, and Luffy’s hand was warm, but not to the point of being unpleasant.

Luffy tugged him along, leading him away from the house and the bulk of the party, their feet crunching over the frost covered grass. Aloshi trotted alongside them, visibly pleased to be getting away from all of the people who she had needed to keep an eye on.

“Where are we even going, Straw Hat?” Law asked as the sounds of the party faded completely.

“This way,” Luffy said, and Law couldn’t tell if it had been intended as an instruction or an answer.

They were at the edge of the woods that lined the far end of Whitebeard’s property, presumably the ones where Ace took some of the kids in order to ‘build character’. Luffy let go of Law’s hand, pulled off his jacket, laid it out across a huge rock, and sat down. “Here.”

Law sat down beside him. Aloshi put her front paws up on the rock to investigate how much room there was, then lay down on the grass at their feet instead. “What are we doing?” Law asked.

“Watching the fireworks,” Luffy said, pointing.

The fireworks they were setting off at the foot of Whitebeard’s driveway were the kind that weren’t generally allowed within city limits; the kind that could be seen from all over town and showered down colors and fire hazards in equal measure. Bursts of greens and blues and reds were lighting up the sky and raining back down past the outline of the house. They were far enough away that even Aloshi couldn’t seem to hear the pop as they exploded, and only an occasional shout or figure racing by reminded them that there was an entire party happening on the other side of the property.

Law tucked his hands into his coat pockets to keep them warm and tilted his head back to watch the show. The station Nami worked for was calling for snow - Law had been regularly checking since the first time he’d met Nami and so far Luffy was right; she hadn’t been wrong once - and Law could see the clouds for it rolling in overhead. It gave the fireworks a pure black and gray background to work against, instead of being backlit by stars and the moon. It led to an almost eerie shadowy effect. Law liked it.

He looked over at Luffy. He was sitting back, legs crossed and his arms out behind him, propping him up. He head was tipped back, his eyes wide, smiling ear-to-ear. Law could see goosebumps up and down Luffy’s arms, but he didn’t seem to be aware of the cold.

Something in Law’s chest ached. Luffy was radiant, simple in all the ways Law didn’t know how to be. There were things Luffy liked and things he didn’t, and he saw no reason to pretend about either. He liked fireworks and food and parties and his friends. He liked his freedom and his choices and, looking at him, Law couldn’t imagine him ever being drowned by regrets and what-ifs and all the other things that had been dragging Law down for over half of his life.

Law was something Luffy liked. That much was clear even to Law; why else would Luffy be sitting out in the cold, watching the fireworks away from the rest of the group? Why else would he have been so excited for Law to meet his brothers, to find out that their grandfathers knew each other? And while that like was so complicated for Law, a fierce tangle of pros and cons and conditions and exceptions, it was simple for Luffy. He liked Law. That was all there was to it. And it was so simple, so genuine, that even Law couldn’t keep telling himself that it wouldn’t last anymore. If Luffy had it in him to decide to just stop liking somebody Law had yet to see evidence of it.

He didn’t realize he was staring until Luffy looked over and caught him doing it. He wrenched his gaze downwards, then raised it again almost immediately, though he made sure to keep blinking this time.

“Something wrong, Torao?” Luffy asked.

“No,” Law said softly, and it was true. “Not exactly. Just… thinking.”

He expected Luffy to ask him what he was thinking about, or to tell him to just relax and enjoy the fireworks, but Luffy didn’t say anything at all. He just kept looking at Law, and Law kept looking at Luffy. The fireworks overhead were all but forgotten.

It could have been seconds or minutes or hours later when the party across the yard drew their attention again. There was shouting, louder than before, and unified.

“The countdown’s starting,” Law said needlessly.

“Uh-huh.”

They both looked down at the house, listening to the far off chants of “Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”  punctuated by cheering.

“Torao?” Luffy’s voice was softer than Law had ever heard it, quieter than a whisper.

“Yes?” Law responded, matching Luffy’s volume. His heart was starting to pound and he wasn’t sure why.

“You’re supposed to kiss people you’re dating when the New Year starts.”

“I’ve heard that. I’ve never done it before.”

“Neither have I. I’ve never liked someone in the way where I want to kiss them. I always thought it sounded kinda gross.”

A corner of Law’s mouth tugged up, amused, but their voices were still hushed, and the mood was heavy with… something. “I’ve kissed a few people. I always thought it was overrated. But it was also never people I liked very much. Maybe that changes it.”

“If it doesn’t, it should.”

Law wasn’t sure where this conversation was going and he was afraid to ask. It felt like the wrong word in the wrong place would shatter the air around them.

“Torao?” Luffy asked again.

“Yeah?” It was getting hard to breathe.

“Would you like it if I kissed you?”

Law’s heart gave a fast, painful beat, then seemed to stop entirely. Would he? He hadn’t liked it when he had kissed people in college. At best it had been anticlimactic and uncomfortable, with teeth clacking against one another and bad breath and awkward neck angles. Often, it had been worse, the other person getting too enthusiastic with their tongue or their hands and Law had left those parties in a hurry with a mumbled excuse to anyone who tried to stop him.  

But it seemed like kissing Luffy would be different. Everything else about Luffy was, why not this too? The thought of it didn’t make Law’s skin crawl like it had with everyone before him, or even with Luffy himself back at the beginning of all this. Something had changed.

It seemed that Robin had been right. The word demisexual rolled around his brain for a moment. Demiromantic.

He should tell Luffy no. They had things they needed to talk about. Luffy needed to know that kissing was the line, that no matter how much he liked - loved? - Luffy Law was probably never going to be comfortable with going farther. Luffy needed to know about the nightmares, the mood swings, about just what it was he would be signing up for if one kiss led to anything else - and, if Law knew Luffy, he doubted Luffy would have offered just a kiss.

And there was the name on his arm too. He still didn’t know what Luffy would think of it, but he knew he couldn’t just keep it a secret. That was cowardly, and unfair, and too much like lying for Law’s conscience. He would have to tell Luffy, and let the chips fall where they may.

He could feel Luffy waiting for his answer. Luffy’s face was expectant but patient, eager, but Law had no doubts that if he said no Luffy wouldn’t press the issue.

And, somehow, that was enough to make Law forget about all the things they needed to do. It was a new year, a new relationship, and Law wanted to. He couldn’t remember the last time he had let himself just take what he wanted.

“I think so,” Law said.

Luffy shifted a little closer. Law leaned towards him. He heard Luffy take a breath, and then they were kissing.

It started off as little more than just their lips touching, neither of them sure how this was supposed to go. Law tilted his head for a better angle, and Luffy followed his lead.

It was slow and surprisingly chaste. It was one long kiss, or maybe a dozen short ones with only brief breaks for air between them, Law wasn’t sure. Neither of them tried to use their tongues. Neither of their mouths were open enough for their teeth to get in the way. The differences in how they were sitting seemed to eliminate the awkward positioning one might expect from their height difference.

It was, by far, the best kiss Law had ever had.

Law didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath for all of it until they pulled away from each other and he gasped, feeling light-headed, dizzy, shaking all over but not unpleasantly.

“That was nice,” Luffy said, an unusual note of uncertainty in his voice, wanting to know if Law agreed.

Law nodded. His brain seemed to have gotten disconnected from his mouth and he was scrambling to recover. “It was.”

Luffy smiled and Law smiled back.

Then Luffy shivered violently and the heavy, quiet atmosphere shook itself back to normal.

Law rolled his eyes and stood up. “Put your jacket back on then.”

Luffy scowled at him even as he picked up the coat and tugged it on. “It’s wet!”

“Of course it is, you put it down on a rock covered in frost.”

Luffy huffed.

“Uh-huh.” Law held out his hand. Luffy took it, looking delighted. “Come on. Maybe your brother has a warmer coat you can borrow.”

Luffy fell in step alongside him. “That was a good first kiss.”

“Are you planning on there being more?” Law asked. His heart jumped towards his throat, not certain what answer he wanted Luffy to give.

“If we both want there to be.” Luffy’s grin was firmly back in place despite being cold and wet. “That’s part of being boyfriends, isn’t it?”

Law’s foot slipped in the frost-tipped grass, causing him to have to grab onto Luffy’s shoulder to keep from falling. He held on tighter than he needed to, knuckles going white. His other hand clenched around Aloshi’s leash. “We’re dating now?”

Luffy looked puzzled, looking at Law’s face like he was trying to decipher it. “...Yeah, Torao,” he said at last. “We’ve been going out for ages.”

Law knew that Luffy had a generous definition of ‘ages’ but even he couldn’t think that the minute and a half that had passed since the kiss would count. “When did that happen?”

Luffy shrugged. “I don’t know. But it did.”

“I’m not very observant, Straw Hat. Help me out.” They still weren’t walking again, Law realized. His feet were rooted to the spot, apparently not going to move until Luffy started making sense.

Which very well might mean he was never going to move again.

Luffy sighed and rolled his eyes upwards as he started ticking things off on his fingers. “We’ve been out to dinner at a nice restaurant with just the two of us. You’ve met my family and I’ve met yours. I helped you get a dog and we pretty much… co-parent. That’s what Sabo said it was called. We’re co-parenting her. You gave me a key to your apartment. We gave each other Christmas presents even though we hadn’t talked about doing that. We both think soulmate bonds are dumb and we like spending time with each other even though you don’t usually like doing that sort of stuff. And I like you. A lot. And you like me too. I can tell. I’m good at that sort of thing.”

The worst part was that that explanation made a sort of sense, albeit in a convoluted, twisting sort of way. “And… you want to be my boyfriend?”

Luffy rolled his eyes. “Yes, Torao. I thought about it a lot, and I want to date you. I’ve never wanted a boyfriend before, but I want you as one. As long as you want to date me, obviously. Which I figured you did, but apparently you’re not as good at noticing you’re dating people as I am.”

“I’ve never dated anyone before.”

“Neither have I. But this is exactly what Marco and Ace did when they started dating. Except for Kotatsu is a cat, not a dog. But everything else is the same. And maybe the soulmate stuff, since they’re soulmates. But other than that.” He looked up at Law and bit his lip and Law’s heart seized a little as he realized that Luffy was nervous. It seemed impossible for someone like Luffy to suffer from nerves, but now that Law was looking at him it was clear that he was. He had been operating off of different assumptions than Law - assumptions he had liked believing were true, apparently - and now he was worried that he was going to be rejected when he hadn’t even realized he would be asking a question.

Law took Luffy’s hand. Law was wearing gloves but Luffy wasn’t and Law could feel that he was cold through the fabric.  “I’m not sure I’d be a very good boyfriend. You could probably do better.”

Luffy’s face went firm and determined. “Nuh-uh.”

Hard to argue with that.

“You’ve been a good boyfriend so far,” Luffy said. “Even if you didn’t realize what you were doing. So just… keep being you. Except maybe buy me food more. Good boyfriends buy their boyfriends food. I asked and Ace said so.”

Law laughed at that, and some of the tension drained away. “I can probably manage to take you out to dinner every now and then.”

“So we’re boyfriends then? Like, for real now?”

Law squeezed his hand. “There are some things I’m going to need to tell you. Things that you have to tell the person that you’re dating. But… as long as you’re okay with that stuff... then I think I’d like to try the dating thing out with you.”

Luffy grinned and jumped a little in excitement, accidentally making Law pull too hard on Aloshi’s leash, causing her to grumble at them. “Sorry,” Luffy told her, grinning too hard for the apology to sound genuine. “So? Tell me then.”

“Do you think we could wait?” Law asked. “It… They aren’t very happy things. And I’m having a nice night.”

Luffy nodded. “‘Kay. We’re still boyfriends anyway though, right? I want to tell my friends. I’ve been waiting to because Sabo says you shouldn’t tell people you’re dating someone until the other person says it’s okay with them but I’m really excited to.”

That should have terrified Law. He should have asked Luffy to wait, told him he wasn’t ready for that step yet, wasn’t ready to know what all of Luffy’s friends thought of that development in their relationship. Told him that he wasn’t certain they would remain boyfriends past the uncomfortable but necessary conversation that was waiting for them. But Luffy’s kiss, or his confidence, or maybe just his presence, seemed to have banished the worst of Law’s worries for the night. “Yeah, Straw Hat. We’re still boyfriends. And… you can tell anyone you like.”

Ace cornered Law the moment Luffy went to the bathroom and left him alone in Whitebeard’s living room.

“What happened to all that soulmate stuff we were talking about last week?” he demanded.

Law supposed he really should have seen that one coming as soon as Luffy had bounded up to his brother and announced that he and Law were official. From Ace’s perspective it would look like one of two things had happened; either Law had decided to date Luffy instead of his soulmate, leading to some uncomfortable questions about if Law was cheating on somebody and how fast he’d gotten over the soulmate he’d been obsessing over less than a week ago, or else he had been talking about Luffy with Ace and strongly implied that he didn’t want to date Ace’s little brother because it would be too much work. Neither looked good for Law.

Law’s hands were up in surrender without him having to think about it. He was taller than Ace, but Ace was broader, looked to be almost entirely made of muscle, and he was in full-on protective big brother mode. Besides, it probably wouldn’t look very good for Law if Luffy came back and his new boyfriend and his older brother were in a fist fight.

“I took your advice,” Law said. Admittedly Luffy had done most of the actual work, but Law figured he didn’t need to give Ace all the fine print.

Ace’s lip curled up in a snarl. “Luffy’s your soulmate.” He said it flatly.

Law slowly reached over and pulled up his left shirt sleeve. Luffy’s name was still there, still scrawled like Luffy had signed it.

Ace looked at it for a moment. “That is so cliche. His name? Really?”

Law pulled his sleeve back down before anyone else could see. “It didn’t start as his name.”

"Still.”

“And he and I haven’t talked about it yet. We’re going to, just not tonight.”

Ace still didn’t look happy. “You said you didn’t think you could handle being in a relationship with your soulmate.”

He had, hadn’t he? He really needed to stop drinking and then talking about his personal problems. He apparently ended up saying things he shouldn’t to people he shouldn’t.

“Ace,” he said slowly, “I want you to imagine what it would be like to be in a relationship with your little brother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“For starters, it means that I’ve treated him for almost a dozen injuries and I’ve known him for less than six months.”

Ace considered for a moment and then nodded in resigned and reluctant acquiescence. “But if you’re only dating him because of that stupid fucking mark on your arm-”

Law raised an eyebrow at him. He was slumped against the wall, Ace penning him in, positioned so that he appeared taller than Law. He really wasn’t in any position to be raising his eyebrows condescendingly, but that had never stopped him before. “Did you miss the conversation we had where I almost didn’t want to even be friends with him because of this thing?”

“And you’ve come around pretty fucking fast, haven’t you?”

“It’s not like you’re the person I go to when I’m trying to work through relationship stuff.”

Ace shook his head, unimpressed. “Look, I don’t care about whatever fucking life crisis you’ve been having about my baby brother. I care that it’s about my baby brother. And since I have maybe twenty seconds before he comes back and tries to kick my ass for threatening his boyfriend, I’ll make this quick. I like you. You seem to be a pretty decent person. But if you hurt my kid brother because you’re a fucking moron or a commitment phobe or a whatever-the-fuck-else I will gather up every person in this house and I will make sure even your head of the FBI grandfather never finds your body. Got it?” He patted Law’s shoulder.

Law brushed him off. “It’s touching that you think Sengoku would look.”

Luffy returned then, bounding up alongside them, oblivious to the conversation he was interrupting. He put his hand in Law’s like it belonged there, his grip strong enough to maintain contact but it would be easy for Law to pull away from it if he wanted to.

He didn’t want to.

Ace patted Law’s shoulder again, as though they’d just been making friendly small talk. “I’ll see you two around. Now, there are at least four people who haven’t bought me birthday drinks yet and I need to fix that.” He charged off into the crowd of people. More and more of the party seemed to be moving inside; it was getting colder by the minute and people were getting tired and someone was in the kitchen making tray after tray of baked goods that had even Law intrigued.

“Is he okay to be drinking this much?” Law asked.

“Uh-huh. He doesn’t get mad when he drinks like he used to. And Marco’s here somewhere. He’ll stop him if he has to.”

“He isn’t driving tonight, is he?” It shouldn’t have been any of his business, but he’d worked a lot of New Year’s shifts over the last five years and sometimes they were almost as bad as the Christmas ones. Drunk drivers everywhere.

“Ace doesn’t drive. He’s got… That thing where you fall asleep at weird times?”

“Narcolepsy?”

“Yeah, I think so. He and our grandpa both have that really bad, so neither of them can drive. Hey, are you good at pool?”

“I used to be. I haven’t played in years though.”

Luffy started tugging him along and Law followed him through the house, weaving through the press of people. There wasn’t nearly as much evidence of drunken teenagers as he would have expected. Maybe Whitebeard had some trick up his sleeve to really convince his kids that it wasn’t as fun as the movies liked to say it was. “Usopp challenged us to a game,” Luffy said over his shoulder. He seemed to be navigating the house like he owned it. “And I’m not very good, but I bet we can win anyway.”

The challenge had been issued by Usopp, with Chopper as his partner. Robin was referee - Law thought she might be at risk of being biased towards Chopper but he didn’t say so - and all the rest of Luffy’s friends had gathered around the pool table to watch and cheer and place bets on the winner. Law was watching their faces for any change in their expressions when they saw him, but if Luffy had told them that the two of them were dating now none of them were showing how they felt about it.  

Usopp and Chopper were terrible at pool. Law wasn’t sure anyone had remembered to explain either the rules or the objective to Chopper and, while Usopp had occasional bursts of good strategy, he regularly got excited and took risks that never seemed to pay off.

“Told you we’d win,” Luffy said, grin audible.

“You did,” Law agreed. He took Luffy’s hand this time, and though his heart tightened a little at the boldness and openness of it he was glad that he did it. It was something he’d have to adjust himself to, the way he’d had to ease into calling Corazon ‘dad’. Luffy smiled at him and adjusted their arms so he could still face whoever he was talking to without either of their elbows bending unnaturally.

Usopp was shouting about a rematch without actually making any move to reset the game, while Zoro rolled his eyes at him. Chopper congratulated them both, saying that maybe they’d win next time, to which Luffy responded that sure, they probably would if they practiced.

Shachi and Penguin found them, stumbling up against the table, drunk and hanging off one another to keep their balance. “Hey, Doc!” Penguin shouted, louder than was necessary. “Having fun?”

“Not as much as you two are,” Law told them, smirking.

They flashed twin smiles at him from under their hats.

Shachi seemed to notice that Luffy was holding Law’s hand first. He straightened a little, wobbling on his feet, using Penguin’s shoulder as a crutch. Penguin looked at him, puzzled, then followed his gaze to Law’s hand. Law looked back at them with a neutral expression, nervous, but not so nervous as he might have thought he would be. The only concern that really gnawed at him was the idea that Luffy might change his mind once Law put everything out on the table for him, but even that worry was muffled by their hands and the way Luffy was talking like everything in the world was exactly like it should be.

“Something we should know, Doc?” Shachi asked.

Law shrugged one shoulder. “No,” he told them. “I told you that if I started dating I would want you to be the last to know.”

They stared at him, slowly putting together the implication of what he’d just said. It dawned on each of their faces within seconds of one another.

Penguin whooped, stumbled, and nearly sent both him and Shachi careening to the ground. “Congrats, Doc!”

Shachi laughed. “Straw Hat, huh?”

Luffy grinned, unconcerned that Shachi and Penguin might be making fun of them. “Took him forever to figure it out.”

“Yeah, I know Straw Hat. I’m a lost cause.”

“Uh-huh.”

Law didn’t know what to make of the way Luffy said things like that. It should have been either teasing or an insult, but Luffy managed to say it as a statement of fact that he had simply accepted and decided he didn’t mind.

“Well, if anyone can whip him into shape I bet it’ll be you, Straw Hat,” Penguin said. He kept looking at Law with a broad, amused grin, and Law knew he was going to hear no end to this the next time they had some downtime at work.

He was royally fucked if Luffy took off like a shot after they talked, but Law shoved that thought down as fast as it came up. He would worry later, probably work himself up into at least one panic attack before the conversation happened, but not tonight. His arm had ended up around Luffy’s shoulders, their fingers still intertwined, and Luffy’s back was to his chest, his straw hat tipped back by the way the brim caught at Law’s shoulder. Luffy was gesturing wildly with one hand - he didn’t seem capable of talking without his hands to help him - telling some story that Law couldn’t follow because he’d missed the beginning. He wasn’t sure if Luffy had even told the beginning, or if he’d just jumped in halfway through and his friends had had enough context to follow along. Aloshi was laying at their feet, watching Luffy’s hands in the hopes that some sort of food would appear there. Robin kept shooting Law small, knowing looks, and Law wondered if she’d worked out that Luffy was his soulmate earlier, or merely put the pieces together at the announcement of their relationship.

The rest of Luffy’s friends still showed no surprise - or any real interest - at the fact that they were dating. There seemed to be a slight shift around them, but Law supposed that might just as easily have been a figment of his imagination. It just seemed that there might of been a slight change in the spacing of the friend group, allowing Law to slip into a gap without anyone having to comment on it. Luffy had brought someone new into their fold, and the others seemed to be content to follow his lead.

Law tipped his head so his cheek was resting on Luffy’s hair. He was tired, but not in the bone-deep, frazzled way he was so used to at parties. It was simply the tired of staying up too late on New Year’s, and now he was warm and full and the ambient noise was just the right volume and he could almost imagine himself just drifting off right there.

He wouldn’t, he knew. He wasn’t that relaxed. But he felt no need to keep himself upright, or to pretend that he was more alert than he was.

New Year, he thought. And for the first time that he could remember, it really felt like one.

Chapter Text

Law had expected Luffy to pounce on the needed conversation almost immediately; perhaps the next time they saw one another, eager to be able to be official official. But Luffy carried on almost as though nothing had happened. The only indicator that New Year’s hadn’t just been a fever dream of Law’s was that Luffy took his hand whenever they walked together, occasionally kissed Law or requested that Law kiss him, and had decided that Law was every bit as good of a pillow as the actual pillows on Law’s couch. Better, even. Also, one of Law’s hoodies had gone missing, and Law suspected his new boyfriend was likely the culprit.

Law allowed the anticipation to brew for just over a week before he worked himself into such a fit that his heart nearly gave out. The worst of it came on during a bout of insomnia, halfway through getting himself a glass of water at three in the morning. His hands started shaking, so hard he would have dropped the glass to the floor if he hadn’t slammed it down on the counter hard enough to make the water slosh over the edges. He stood there for he didn’t know how long, trying to get air into a set of lungs that no longer felt large enough to manage it, gripping the counter edge in an attempt to remind his hands that they were meant to be steady. His brain was a thick blanket of fuzz over the idea that he was fooling himself, thinking this thing with Luffy was going to last past Luffy knowing what his childhood had been like, Luffy seeing him like this, seeing one of the nightmares.

He jerked back to himself when Aloshi nudged her nose against his knee, demanding to know what he was doing in the kitchen that didn’t have anything to do with even the possibility of her getting food, and at such an unreasonable hour of the night too. Law turned around, back to the counter, slid down to the floor, and pulled Aloshi into his lap, fingers digging into her fur to ground himself.

He stayed like that until his legs felt like they could hold him again, and then he made his way back into his bedroom to get his phone. He sat down on the edge of the bed - collapsed, more like - and managed a shaky text to Luffy that took at least twice as long as it should have, since he kept spelling things wrong and having to start over.

TL: Come over as soon as you can? We still need to talk.

It felt commanding and tense and more than a little bit rude, but Law didn’t have it in him to revise it and edit the tone, and he felt like he’d explode if he waited until he was calmer to try again.

He managed a few shaky breaths after the text was sent, and then his phone went off with a chimed text alert. Not from Luffy - it was still the middle of the night and Luffy wouldn’t be up for hours - but from Corazon.

DR: u ok?

Law hoped he hadn’t managed to panic so badly that he’d actually woken Corazon up with the force of it. That sort of thing had never happened before, but there was a first time for everything.

Law called him instead of texting back. His fingers were trembling and the text to Luffy had been hard enough. He thought briefly that he was making a pretty shit excuse for a doctor; unable to keep his hands still when he needed them to be. Doctors were supposed to have steady hands, no matter what else they were doing or dealing with.

“What’s wrong?” Corazon asked in lieu of a hello.

That was fair. Law hardly ever called, and he certainly didn’t call in the middle of the night when a text would do just as well. “Panic attack,” Law said. He laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe slow and deep instead of fast and shallow. “Sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. Did something happen? A nightmare?”

“No.” Law took a deep breath that made his chest hurt and tried to let it out slow, but it whooshed out instead. “I haven’t told Luffy about… everything.” He almost said ‘about me’ but that would have made Corazon worry about Law’s self-esteem and restarted the old conversation about how it wasn’t Law’s fault, didn’t mean anything about who he was as a person, about how Law had changed and that proved Law was better than Doflamingo, better than the Family, better than he gave himself credit for.

“And… that’s causing you problems?” Corazon said it in that way that meant he was trying to be helpful, supportive, but he wasn’t really clear on what exactly the issue was.  Of course he wasn’t. Corazon could never quite seem to wrap his head around Law’s certainty that everything was going to fall apart around him, that everyone was eventually going to move on to brighter skies and greener pastures. He, after all, would never abandon Law, so why should anyone else?

Law could think of plenty of reasons why they should, would, had, but he wouldn’t tell Corazon that. He didn’t think he could take putting Corazon onto that train of thought. “Not sure how he’ll feel about it,” Law said. He had to keep his sentences short and force them out quickly, the words rushed and pressed together, as breathing was continuing to elude him. “Not sure I want to find out. Kind of need to find out.”

“Oh.” Corazon knew that he and Luffy had shifted their relationship into a different dynamic; Law thought Bepo might have filled him in before the New Year’s party had even ended. And Law had texted him about it, promising to tell him any details he wanted to know once things were a little more stable. “You’re worried about what he’ll say?”

“Yep.”

“What are you planning on telling him?”

Now that was a good question. What was Law planning on telling him? How much did he need to know? He’d need to know about Law’s disinclination towards sex, but the more time he spent with Luffy the less he thought that might be an issue. Luffy didn’t seem to have any interest in anything past kissing, and even those he seemed to prefer light and chaste. On that much, at least, Law thought he and Luffy may be on the same page.

He would need to be warned about the nightmares, of course. If Luffy ever spent the night those were likely to become apparent pretty quickly. Regardless of what Luffy thought about them he ought to at least have a heads up that, at any time, Law might start shouting in his sleep, sit up straight in bed, and likely swing punches at anything that tried to come too close to him. He’d had a few of them since getting Aloshi, but thankfully she had no interest in going near anyone who was being loud and had never come within reach until after he had calmed down enough to be sure he wouldn’t hurt her by accident.

And the rest… Law wasn’t sure to draw the line for any of that. It would be best to tell Luffy about the panic attacks, and tell him what to do if one happened - assuming he didn't just decide right then and there that this whole thing sounded like more trouble than it was worth - but was Law supposed to tell him what caused them? Print out a list of potential triggers right out of the gate? Was Law supposed to tell him what the nightmares were about, or just that they might happen and Luffy shouldn’t touch him if they did? And then what about all of the potential issues Law had always worried about? Was he supposed to bring up that he liked the shithole that was Heart Hospital and wasn’t willing to discuss changing jobs, or was that the sort of thing he shouldn’t make a problem until it really was one? Bringing it up preemptively felt like he was accusing Luffy of being the sort of asshole to decide Law needed to switch careers because he said so, and that was a pretty dick thing to accuse somebody of.

God, and he still needed to decide how to bring up the soulmate thing.

He ran a hand down his face. He was going to go gray by thirty if he kept going the way he was. “I don’t want to have sex,” he told Corazon. “I have nightmares and panic attacks. And I have to tell him that he’s my soulmate, but I don’t know how the hell I’m going to bring that up. Other than that… I don’t know. Do you think I should just tell him the basics and then just answer questions if he asks? Or am I supposed to just lay out everything that happened with my family, with Doflamingo, and all of that and hope he doesn’t take off running?”

“He didn’t seem like the running type to me.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“Honestly, Law, I don’t think there’s anything you’re supposed to do. I think it depends on what you’re comfortable with him knowing. And if he does take off running, that’s on him, not you.”

Law pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache was forming between his eyes and he wasn’t sure if it was the stress or the lack of sleep.

“This is really upsetting you, isn’t it?”

“Am I messing up your colors that badly? I’m sorry. I’m trying to get myself under control.”

“Don’t apologize, Law. And no. I mean, yes, you are, but you also don’t sound like yourself. I’m more worried about you than I am about how weird my room looks right now.”

“How do I tell him he’s my soulmate? He hates soulmates.”

“He has to know it isn’t your fault.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Law said, thinking of how many black eyes and broken bones and worse he had seen because someone hadn’t liked that someone else was or wasn’t their soulmate and lost their temper.

“Law, are you in love with him?”

Law let his hand drop. Was he? Love was a big word. Bigger than he could handle, most of the time. It had taken a long time for him to accept that he loved Corazon, or Bepo. At first he had guarded the word; it had belonged to Lamie and their parents and it wasn’t to be given away ever again. And then, even when he had started to overcome that feeling and tell himself that they would have wanted him to be able to move on, wouldn’t have wanted to be the thing holding him back and isolating him, he had still been unable to say it because something like that couldn’t be taken back, and it felt so vulnerable. He had lost Lamie and his parents, after all. Not outwardly admitting to loving anyone else had felt like a sort of shield, like maybe as long as he never said it it would somehow hurt less if he lost them.

His therapist had once suggested that he’d accidentally reinforced that idea after Corazon had been shot. Law had never told Corazon he loved him, and then Corazon hadn’t died the way all the people Law had admitted to loving had died. There might even have been some truth to the feeling; if Doflamingo had known that Law loved Corazon as much as Corazon loved him he might have had the extra bit of rage or dedication or whatever else to aim his gun just a little better, to buy off the hospital to make sure Corazon didn’t make it out of surgery, to block the call so Sengoku didn’t come running to make sure Corazon - and Law, for that matter - got out of the city in one piece.  

Law shook his head clear of the memories. “I’m not sure,” he said honestly. “I… I think I could? If I don’t already? But it’s… You know how I am.”

“Law, with the exception of your own, you’re a very good judge of character. I don’t think you’d feel like this about someone who was the sort of person to react as badly as you’re worried he will.”

Law laughed bitterly. “Good judge of character? Corazon, I was a member of the Donquixote Family.”

“Not because they fooled you. You knew what they were like. That was why you joined. You changed, you didn’t suddenly realize you’d been lied to. You always knew what sort of man my brother was, what sort of job you were applying for. You just stopped being the sort of person who wanted to do it.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Give yourself some credit. And some slack, for once.”

Law could still remember meeting Doflamingo that first time. He had been ten years old, sick and tired and in so much pain he could hardly believe he could talk without screaming. Doflamingo had seemed like everything he could ever want to be. He had seemed strong enough to never get sick, powerful enough to never be ignored by a police officer, rich enough to never be turned away from a hospital. Law remembered thinking ‘If you have to do horrible things to not feel so small and helpless and pathetic, then it’s worth it’. He’d said as much. Doflamingo had laughed at that - a laugh that Law sometimes had nightmares about now - and given Law a shot of something that had either stopped the pain or had made him forget that pain was something that existed, and then gave Law a job running drugs through the less savory streets of his city.

Corazon wasn’t wrong. Law had known what kind of person Doflamingo was from the beginning. That was why he’d gone to him.

“I’d kill for a cigarette,” Law said.

“A conversation might be a better idea,” Corazon suggested, which Law thought was pretty hypocritical of him.

“Yeah, I messaged him to come over when he can so we can talk. But it’s...“ He rolled over to look at the clock on his bedside table. “...Four-thirty in the morning. I think he’ll probably be awhile. And I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of luck going back to sleep before then.”

He wasn’t having so much trouble getting enough air to be able to speak as he had been, he realized.

“You could practice the speech you’re going to give him,” Corazon suggested.

“He won’t stick to the script.” Straw Hat was incapable of sticking to scripts. Law would be thrown for six loops before he had a chance to start talking.

“It would give you something to think about besides all of the things that could go wrong.”

If Law had been younger, or less mature, he would have stuck his tongue out despite Corazon not being able to see him. If he had been able to see him, he would have flipped him off. Since neither of those things were the case he huffed loudly enough for Corazon to know that he didn’t appreciate being so accurately sized up.

Corazon laughed.

“I’m sorry,” Law said. “You probably want to go to bed. God knows I’d love to.”

“It’s fine. I actually fell asleep on the couch at eight last night, so I’m good. I woke up to something involving a lot of men in suits shooting at each other. And then I realized I couldn’t see red, because the blood didn’t look right, so I messaged you.” There was a pause, and Law could feel Corazon preparing to say something. “You’ve seemed happier lately. And I don’t just mean because my color vision has stabilized again. You’ve just… looked better. More relaxed. It seems like Luffy’s good for you.”

Law bit idly at his nails and realized his hands had stopped shaking. “I hope he is.”

“You’ll let me know how it goes, right?”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll know how it goes.”

“Law.”

“I’ll send you a message. Or, depending on how this goes, show up drunk on your doorstep.”

“If you need to get drunk just call me. I don’t want you driving drunk.”

“I’d get a cab.”

“How about I don’t want you hungover on my couch?”

“Fair.”

They were both quiet for a minute or two. Law patted the side of the bed and Aloshi jumped up next to him, resting her head on his chest.

“Honestly though, Law,” Corazon said, “I don’t think you need to worry so much about this. I saw you two talking at Christmas. I think he really likes you.”

“Maybe,” Law said noncommittally. “We’ll see if that lasts once he knows what a fucking disaster I am.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Law’s right hand went from Aloshi’s head to the inside of his left forearm. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I was being rhetorical.”

“I know. You’ve been through a lot, Law. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be happy.”

They’d had conversations like this before. The one that stood out the most had been Law’s first year of med school, talking to Corazon and trying to pretend he wasn’t homesick. It hadn’t really worked, and had led to Corazon establishing their Saturday night family dinners. Law hadn’t quit smoking yet and had been lying back on his bed in his dorm room, the window open so the room didn’t fill up with smoke, taking one slow drag after another.

It had been Shachi and Penguin scaring him then. Law had made it through his first few weeks of university without really having to talk to anyone, giving surly, one word responses when people tried to talk to him, or complimented him on getting into med school before most people left high school. Most people had gotten the hint pretty fast and backed off, usually muttering about how Law must be pretty full of himself. Shachi and Penguin, however, had zeroed in on him and refused to take no for an answer.

“You’re making friends?”

Law took a long drag of the cigarette. “No. They want to copy off my homework. I’m smarter than them and they know it.”

“Have they said that?”

“Dad, I’m not even allowed to watch rated R movies by myself for another two weeks. I don’t think they’re trying to hang out with me for the ‘pleasure of my company’.”

“You’re great company.”

“You have bad taste.”

“Bepo agrees with me. Right, Bepo?” Law heard Bepo’s muffled affirmative in the background on the other end of the phone. “See? He loves you too.”

Law pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. He’d had a low headache pulsing between his temples for days. “You two aren’t exactly objective.”

There was a pounding at Law’s door. He sat up, propped up on one elbow, keeping his cigarette carefully away from the bedsheets and his opposite hand still holding the phone to his ear. He frowned at the door, like he could make whoever was there realize they had the wrong room without having to talk to them.

The person pounded on the door again. It was definitely a pound, not a knock. Law’s coat was hanging from a hook on the back of the door, and the pounding was hard enough to make the metal hook rattle against the wood.

“Hey, Doc!” came Penguin’s voice, shouted loud enough that the whole hall probably heard him. “We’re going for burgers, want to come?”

Law glared at the door but didn’t say anything, hoping that they’d think he wasn’t home and go away.

“Who was that?” Corazon asked. “Did they invite you somewhere?”

“Some guys in one of my classes,” Law muttered, going back to smoking.

“Are they nice?”

“They’re loud.”

“Doc, I’m not sure you ever eat,” Shachi shouted while his friend continued to bang on the door. “Come on, you’re going to rot in there!”

Shachi and Penguin were roommates on the other end of the hall. Law had caught their attention almost as soon as he’d arrived. At first he’d thought they were hoping to ride his coattails - ‘make use of the prodigy on the floor’ as one of the other assholes in the dorms had said - but, despite their apparent lack of discipline, the two of them had skipped a few years of school as well, though not nearly as many as Law. They didn’t need his help. Which left Law at a loss as to what they wanted from him.

“Are they calling you doc?”

“Yeah. Don’t ask me why.”

“Doc, we know you’re there, we can smell the cigarette smoke!”

Law ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.

“Maybe you should take them up on their offer.”

“Yeah,” Law said sarcastically. “I’ll just invite the local bullies right in the door, okay?”

Corazon had been right then, loathe as Law was to admit it. Law liked to think he’d be right this time too. But things could always change. Past performance was not indicative of future results.

Law didn’t end up getting any sleep that night, but he didn’t have another panic attack either, which he figured was about the best he could hope for. A little after nine Luffy texted him back with a string of enthusiastic emojis that Law could only assume meant that he’d be over soon. And at nine-thirty-seven Luffy bounded through the door without knocking. That was a new development, only started in the last week. Law figured Luffy had some idea that official boyfriends was in someway connected to unfettered apartment access.

Luffy hung up his jacket - proportionally even longer than Law’s, red and white striped like a candy cane - and his bag and then bounded over to Law. “What’s up?”

Law took his hand and pulled him over to the couch. Luffy followed willingly enough and positioned himself half in Law’s lap.

It was a bad way for them to be sitting, Law thought. This would get incredibly awkward very fast if their talk didn’t go well. It wasn’t a position meant for uncomfortable conversations or arguments or break-ups or any of the negative ways this talk might go.

But Luffy’s head was back against his shoulder and he was warm and comfortable and Law had never much liked to be touched but this felt so natural that he didn’t want to move from it, however much his common sense told him he should.

He’d been ignoring his common sense this long, after all. What was a little bit more?

“We still need to talk about that stuff I mentioned on New Year’s,” Law said, casting around for the best way to start. Most of the conversation had a rough outline scripted in his head, but he couldn’t seem to find a beginning.

“‘Kay,” Luffy said agreeably. He tipped his head back so he could look at Law expectantly.

Law squeezed Luffy’s hand, like he could somehow steal some of Luffy’s apparently endless strength. It struck him that if their positions were reversed things would never have reached this point; Luffy would have had all of his messy past laid out for Law within the first two meetings and if Law had had a problem with it Luffy would have gone off without a care.

Law had meant to start off with the worst of it first. ‘I’m a recovering addict,’ or ‘I used to be a drug runner for a crime lord in Chicago’ or ‘I have horrible PTSD that keeps me from sleeping more often than not’.

Instead, what came out of his mouth was, “You really hate soulmates, right?”

Luffy sighed and resituated himself a little, his face screwed up in irritated concentration. “I don’t hate soulmates. I hate how people act about soulmates. They get so stupid. I don’t have one, and I hope I never do. Even if it’s you.”

“What if someone had you as theirs?”

Luffy huffed. “They just better not expect me to drop everything to date them. I’m not doing anything because some stupid mark tells me to.”

Law gently tugged his left hand away from Luffy’s and rolled up his sleeve, holding it out. “I promise, I don’t want to be your boyfriend just because of this. But I don’t want to feel like I’m hiding something from you.”

Luffy blinked at it. He took Law’s arm and turned it a little for a better view. “Huh. Cool. That’s my handwriting.”

Law let out a surprised, breathless laugh. “I sort of figured it might be.”

“How long have you had that?”

“It turned into your name when we saw each other at that Christmas dinner with our grandfathers. Before that it was tally marks. They counted down every time we saw each other.”

Luffy was frowning, and it was making Law’s chest seize up a little. “You’re not mine. I don’t have one.”

“I know. That’s… that’s why I was nervous about telling you. I didn’t want you to feel like I was trying to… to make you date me. Or whatever.”

Luffy punched his shoulder. “Stupid. I like you.”

Law’s heart seized up again, but in a more pleasant way this time. “I know.” He had trouble believing it sometimes, but he knew. Luffy was too genuine not to mean what he said. “I didn’t want this to change anything.”

“It doesn’t. I won’t let soulmate marks tell me who to date and I won’t let them tell me who not to date either. The only way I’m going to be mad is if you’re only dating me because of it.”

“I’m not. I like you. I want this.”

Luffy retook his hand. “Good. Problem solved. You worry too much, Torao.”

Law smiled as something uncinched from around his heart, allowing him to breathe deeply again. “I’ve been told that.”

“Was that it? Because if that was it we should go get breakfast.”

Law considered him for a long few moments. “I have nightmares,” he said at last, slowly. “Bad ones. Like, if you ever stay the night they might keep you up too.”

“I can sleep through a lot,” Luffy said. “Or I can nap later.” He grinned. “I don’t have a real job, you know.”

Law laughed. “So I’ve heard.” He ran his thumb along the back of Luffy’s hand a few times. “I have a pretty messed up past. Hence the nightmares. And I have mood swings sometimes. Stuff that… that makes me hard to deal with.”

Luffy huffed. “I hate that phrase.”

“What phrase?”

“Hard to deal with. Teachers used to say it about me all the time. It’s so stupid. And they always said it like it was my problem, even though they were the ones that couldn’t do it.” He took Law by the back of his head and made deliberate eye contact with him. “People who say you’re hard to deal with are lazy assholes.”

A dozen arguments for that died somewhere between Law’s throat and his teeth. “I’ll tell you about my past, if you want to hear it,” he said, and his heart didn’t speed up like it normally did when he thought about telling people. He thought he already knew Luffy’s answer.

“I don’t care,” Luffy said, proving Law right. “I like you. And I like your dad, and your brother. And you don’t sound like you want to talk about it, so why should you?”

Law kissed him. It didn’t seem like there could be any other response to that. Luffy kissed back happily, if perhaps a little surprised by Law’s sudden enthusiasm.

Law pulled back when he ran out of air. “I don’t like sex,” he said. It felt too blunt, but it also felt like the only way to talk to Luffy.

“Oh!” Luffy said, like he’d just remembered something. “I knew there was something I meant to talk to you about. I don’t either.”

“I thought you might not. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” Their fingers were weaved together like they belonged that way.

“Yup. No sex, but cuddling is good, and so is kissing, but not all the time, and I like holding your hand.”

“Sounds good,” Law said, and it struck him as being a massive understatement.

“So,” Luffy said, “Breakfast?”

Law chuckled. “Sure, Straw Hat. Breakfast.” He could do with a strong cup of coffee anyway. And everyone was always telling him to eat more. With Luffy that probably wasn’t going to prove too difficult.

Law drove them to a diner of Luffy’s choosing; a little greasier than Law’s usual haunts, but the coffee was surprisingly good and that was all that really mattered in the end. Law ordered a small plate of basic pancakes, and Luffy ordered a breakfast platter that was meant to serve a family of four. They talked as they waited, about how it looked like it was getting ready to snow again and about sports they were good at or not good at, and overall not much of anything at all.

When their food arrived their conversation stopped so Luffy could get to work shoveling food into his mouth, and Law’s mind wandered back to the conversation he’d expected to have.

Doflamingo had once taunted that there was no escaping him. Where would Law - where would anyone - go? Who would be stupid enough to give him another chance, to take a risk on someone whose criminal record read Known Associate of Donquixote Doflamingo? Who would hire someone with scars that said he’d barely survived a disease few people knew about but almost everyone was terrified of? Who would think anything positive about someone covered in scars from cigarette burns and knives; scars that were eventually covered with tattoos that said things like Death?

Law hadn’t thought Doflamingo was taunting him back then. It had been a casual dinner time conversation that Law had barely even thought about at the time - Why, after all, would he ever want to leave? Where would he go? What were the chances he would even survive long enough to get there? But hindsight was twenty-twenty and Law could now see the threat that had been wrapped up in the joke. He could see that he hadn’t been arrested just once because of a fluke or an accident or a screw-up - Doflamingo had deliberately gotten him put into the system, fingerprinted and photographed, so that Law would have that much harder of a time starting over if he ever tried to escape.

But it still hadn’t worked. Somehow Doflamingo, who Law had always seen as larger than life, as invincible as a god, had lost his hold, his power, all the same.

“You okay, Torao?” Luffy asked as he reached for another strip of bacon.

Law smiled at him. “I’m fine.”

Luffy didn’t look entirely convinced, but his suspicious look was undermined by him shoving half a piece of bacon into his mouth in one bite. “Oh!” he said, voice muffled by the food. “When’s your birthday?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“October sixth. The day we met, actually. Why?”

“I didn’t tell you happy birthday that day,” Luffy said, ignoring Law’s question. He sounded deeply disappointed with himself.

“You didn’t know me yet.”

“Yes, I did. We’d just met.”

“Okay, you didn’t know me well. Why are you asking?”

Luffy shook his head. “I can’t get you birthday presents if I don’t know your birthday. Or plan parties. It’s important.”

“Ah. When’s yours then?”

“May fifth. And you have to talk to Ace and Sabo about birthday plans because they’re usually in charge of planning that stuff for me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” The waitress came by and took their mugs - hot chocolate for Luffy, black coffee for Law - to be refilled. “Fair warning, I usually work on my birthday.”

“What’s wrong with you, Torao? You work on Christmas and your birthday?”

Law shrugged. “What can I say? I like my job.”

“Me too, but presents.”

Law laughed. “Getting presents a day or two late isn’t the end of the world.”

Luffy shuddered at the thought. “No way. I mean, I guess unless they’re Grandpa’s. He could give me presents late.”

“Does he get you FBI stuff?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Sengoku does the same thing. I have so many FBI jackets and sweatshirts in my closet. I’m not even sure if it’s legal for me to have them.”

“If it isn’t legal you should wear them more often.”

“That sounds like a great way to get myself arrested.”

“Your grandpa is the head of the FBI. You’d get away with it.” He was grinning again and Law could see that Luffy had probably been raising hell since the day he was born, and maybe Garp hadn’t been being all that dramatic after all when he’d said it was Luffy’s fault he’d gone gray.

“I think you overestimate how much Sengoku likes me,” Law replied, and he was grinning too.

“It’s not about how much he likes you,” Luffy said, sounding more amused with every word, “it’s about… publicity.” He said the word slowly, like he wasn’t entirely sure of what it meant but he knew it was the word he wanted. “Gramps is always talking about his image. Sengoku’s is bigger.”

Law’s shoulders were shaking with quiet laughter now. “Are you suggesting I blackmail my own grandfather?”

Luffy shrugged, still grinning. He took a drink from his new mug, made a face, and shoved it at Law. Their waitress had put their drinks down in front of the wrong people. Law took a drink of Luffy’s hot chocolate before handing it over. He made a face not dissimilar to the one Luffy had just made at how sweet it was. “Hell of a couple we make,” Law said. “We don’t like any of the same things.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted Luffy to pick up on how nervous he was about that.

“That’s good,” Luffy said emphatically. “If you don’t want to eat my food you won’t try to steal my food and then I won’t have to fight you for it.”

Law laughed, surprising himself with the noise. “Think you could take me?”

“Yep.” The waitress set a fresh plate of pancakes in front of Luffy and he shoved half of one in his mouth in one bite. “I’m really strong.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Law considered swiping some of Luffy’s bacon just to see what he’d do, but Luffy had a fork in one hand, and Law didn’t want to be stabbed with it if Luffy was serious.

“We should go on a real date,” Luffy said. “Since we’re official.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Luffy frowned. “I don’t know. What do people do for dates?”

“Dinner?”

“We do that already. It wouldn’t really be special. Our first real date should be special.”

“Movie?”

“I don’t like going to the movies. I always forget to be quiet and then I get shushed.”

“That’s all the date ideas I know.”

“Ace and Marco go to bars a lot,” Luffy said. His face was scrunched up with concentration, clearly trying very hard to hit upon a good idea.

“Bars are too loud and crowded for me.”

“You’ve been to Outlaws.”

“Only for parties and only with a group of friends. Besides, you don’t drink. What would be the point of going to a bar?”

“Oh, yeah.” They sat quietly for a few minutes, Law sipping his coffee and Luffy crunching his bacon, thinking. Law couldn’t focus on coming up with something, too distracted by the odd, pleasant feeling of domesticity of doing something as silly and simple as thinking of something to do for a date while eating breakfast. The edges of his concern that Luffy still hadn’t seen him have a breakdown, that he might still take off running once Law’s problems were more than so many words, were still there, still sharp and jagged, but they were held at bay for the moment. It was hard to be afraid of Luffy while he was right in front of him, sitting in the sunlight streaming in through the diner windows, plowing through enough food to feed a small army.

“What about ice skating?” Luffy asked. “That’s fun, and gives us an excuse to hold hands the whole time.”

“I’ve never been ice skating.”

“I can teach you!”

Law didn’t think he trusted Luffy’s teaching abilities to keep him from ending up in his own hospital with a broken bone - and God help him live that one down around Shachi and Penguin - but he didn’t have any better suggestions. And if Luffy started suggesting Law try to do backflips along the ice Law could just refuse. “Alright, Straw Hat, ice skating it is.”

“Good. And we can get hot chocolate afterwards because we’ll be cold.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“That too. When do you want to go?”

“Tomorrow?”

Law shook his head. “Sorry, Straw Hat. Work.”

Luffy huffed. “Well, when do you want to go then? I can go whenever.”

“Friday night? I work late Thursday. I’ll sleep in, we can go after dinner? And there will probably be fewer people there for me to run into.”

“Running into people is half the fun, Torao,” Luffy said with an affectionate eye roll.

“Not if we have to end our date early because I broke someone’s leg.”

Luffy stuck out his tongue in lieu of any other argument. “Okay, Friday night.”

Law observed him for a moment, fingers tapping along the ceramic sides of his coffee mug. “Does it bother you that I work so much?”

“You like your job.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“As long as you like doing it, I don’t care.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Most people don’t like dating someone who’s gone as much as I am. I’ve seen it lots of times, with my co-workers. They end up having to break up or get a new job. I don’t… I don’t want that to happen with us.”

Luffy’s gaze was uncharacteristically serious and probing. “Does it bother you that I don’t have a ‘real’ job?”

Law hesitated for a moment, considering. “Not anymore.”

“You like your job and I like my job. It doesn’t need to be complicated.”

Law leaned back in his seat. “We’re a hell of a partnership, Straw Hat.”

Luffy grinned. “Good.”

Law didn’t understand how Luffy could do that so effortlessly, boiling the most complicated things Law could come up with down to one simple statement and considering the conversation closed. Everything he said was so simple that Law’s brain insisted it couldn’t be correct, but he also could never find any real flaws with Luffy’s logic. Sometimes his logic took twists that Law couldn’t follow, but he could still never argue.

Law didn’t know if that made Luffy right, but he certainly wasn’t wrong.

An overthinker and an oversimplifier. A hell of a partnership indeed.

Chapter Text

Ice skating was fun. Law discovered several new leg muscles he’d never used before, went sprawling across the ice at least three times, and Luffy skated effortless backwards circles around him, but Law found he didn’t much care. Luffy had become a comforting presence, despite his chaotic nature.

They had nachos at the food court outside the rink - well, Luffy had nachos and Law ate a handful of chips that weren’t soaked through with unnaturally yellow cheese - and then they returned to Law’s apartment, where Luffy sprawled himself out across the couch and demanded Law order them pizza.

Law didn’t mind the demand. Luffy demanded everything - it was just the way his voice was. Law ordered and moved to sit beside Luffy, who scrunched himself down a little to make room - for someone who wasn’t very tall he could take up an awful lot of room - and then sprawled himself over Law’s lap. “You know you’re going to have to let me up in twenty minutes so I can get the door for the pizza, right?”

“Nuh-uh, I’ll get up and get the pizza. You’re probably not even hungry.”

“I’m definitely not as hungry as you,” Law agreed. He doubted anyone was ever as hungry as Luffy, with the possible exceptions of his two older brothers. He didn’t know how the woman they’d grown up with had managed to keep them all fed. It must have cost her a fortune.

The pizza arrived - Luffy was off the couch and at the door almost before Law had registered the knock - and Law picked out a movie while he collected it.

“What are we watching?” Luffy asked around a mouthful of pizza. He hadn’t even gotten back to the couch yet.

“Horror,” Law told him simply, waving the case, so Luffy could see the glimpse of the monster that the cover teased.

Luffy swallowed and grinned. “Sweet.”

When they’d first compared movie preferences Law had been surprised to learn that Luffy liked horror, though he’d quickly realized he shouldn’t be. Luffy didn’t really feel fear, so as far as he was concerned a horror was just an action movie with more death and more unique bad guys. And Law enjoyed watching them with him. Luffy tended to spend the whole movie describing how he would fight the monster and why he would win and what the characters were doing wrong and how ‘well, they kinda deserved that, that was a stupid way to try and attack it’. Law was determined to someday find a horror monster that Luffy would admit defeat to.

Tonight would not be the night though. Luffy shouted at the T.V. as though it were showing him filmed-in-real-time events, rather than having been scripted and filmed back in the nineties. He would have thrown popcorn at it if he’d had popcorn, or was inclined to waste food like that.

When the credits rolled there were two empty pizza boxes in front of them that Law had to keep shooing Aloshi away from, and Luffy was leaning contentedly against his shoulder.

“You want a ride home, Straw Hat?” Law asked, punctuating it with a yawn. Ice skating had been more tiring than he’d been prepared for.

Luffy made a noncommittal humming noise and snuggled closer. “Don’t want to get up,” he mumbled.

Law snorted but didn’t argue. He also didn’t especially want to get up, and he didn’t really want to drive across town either. Luffy’s apartment seemed awfully far away this late at night. “Your brothers are going to come kicking my door down if you don’t come home.”

“Working,” Luffy said, voice muffled by a pillow.

“Sabo has night shifts at a tech store?”

“Sometimes. Lots of times.”

Law knew Ace liked to joke about worrying that Luffy was out running drugs or turning tricks, but Law thought it was Sabo that was most likely to be up to illegal activity when he was supposed to be working.

Not that it was any of Law’s business. Maybe Sabo was just sneaking out for dates he didn’t think his brothers would approve of. Or maybe there was a subset of the population that really did need a lot of tech work done after hours.

Sudden snoring alerted Law to the fact that Luffy had fallen asleep. Law froze for a second, then forcibly relaxed one muscle at a time. What had he thought was going to happen if he didn’t take Luffy home? He was either asleep or running; he had no middle setting.

But Law wasn’t sure what the protocol was for this. Was he supposed to take Luffy to his room? Leave him on the couch while Law went to bed? Both of them sleep out on the couch, where they would likely wake up with sore necks?

Maybe Law with a sorer neck than Luffy. Years of gymnastics had rendered him all but immune to muscular pain.

The couch cushions indented as Aloshi jumped up and settled herself down across Law’s legs. Well, that was that question settled, Law supposed. He lacked the energy to argue with her about needing blood circulation to his feet.

Law tipped his head back against the pillows - yep, he was definitely going to regret this in the morning - and slowly, over the course of nearly an hour, managed to drift off to sleep.

It was just past three in the morning when Law jerked awake, a scream tearing out of him during the split-second where he was both awake and still in his nightmare.

Aloshi leapt off the couch, trotted to her kennel, and laid down on her bed inside. Luffy jerked up, snarling before he’d opened his eyes, ready to fight whatever it was that had frightened Law awake.

Law was doubled over on the edge of the couch, head between his knees, struggling for breath. He wouldn’t have been able to see Luffy from this angle regardless, but he was also keeping his eyes screwed tightly shut - he didn’t want to see Luffy. Whatever response he might be having - annoyance, panic, pity - Law didn’t want to look at it.

Luffy’s hand settled on his back so softly, so gently, so tentatively, that it took Law a minute to register its presence. It was undemanding, not constraining, and so Law didn’t react to it, just allowed the presence, the assurance of another person being on the planet, to ground him as he caught his breath.

The world came slowly but steadily back into focus. Luffy was sitting next to him, one hand on Law’s back, waiting patiently. His face was concerned, but not the terrified concern of someone who had never seen a panic attack before and didn’t know how to deal with it. It was just… concern.

“Sorry,” Law finally managed to say.

Luffy frowned and the place between his eyes crinkled. “Don’t apologize. All you did was have a bad dream. Everyone has bad dreams.”

“Not everyone wakes up screaming from them and ruins everyone’s night.”

Luffy shrugged diplomatically. “Your night was already ruined. Since I’m awake you don’t have to be alone for it.”

Law had been told uncountable times by Corazon, Bepo, Shachi, Penguin, and, once, even Sengoku, that he shouldn’t be alone during his panic attacks. He’d always ignored them. That was just one of those things people said. And even if they meant it - which, when he had his head on mostly straight, he knew they all did - what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. If Law had a panic attack at night quietly while alone in his bedroom, there was little point in bothering anyone else about it if he didn’t need to.

He was suddenly certain that if he expressed any of that to Luffy, Luffy would reprimand him for being an idiot.

Law managed a weak and shaky smile. “Have a lot of experience with panic attacks, do you?”

Luffy shrugged again. “Not a lot. But I used to get them sometimes, after the fire that almost killed Sabo. And Sabo’d get them too, about the fire and his parents. And Ace, but he’d never admit that’s what it was, and me and Sabo would just end up laying on him.”

Law remembered his conversation with Ace about soulmates, and it occurred to him that a lifetime of dealing with whatever issues his brother was hauling around had prepared Luffy splendidly for dealing with Law’s.

It became a little easier to believe that Luffy really wouldn’t care if Law put all his cards on the table. Oddly, every time it became easier to believe that, Law felt a little less pressure to actually do it. Luffy didn’t care. If Law told him the whole sorry, sordid tale, Luffy would probably glaze over, possibly take a nap, and then ask what they were having for lunch.

“Still,” Law said, “I know how much you like your sleep.”

“I do,” Luffy agreed. “I also like you. And food. Hey, if we’re awake we can have snacks!” His face lit up at the prospect.

The strongest evidence that Luffy didn’t think Law was completely okay was that he didn’t immediately jump up and run to the kitchen at the thought of food, though Law could see in his face that he was thinking about the contents of the cupboard.

Law stood slowly and Luffy followed. “A snack’s not a half bad idea,” he said. “Hot chocolate sounds good, at least.”

“Hot chocolate for you, microwave burritos for me,” Luffy said, clearly delighted.

Luffy moved around Law’s kitchen as though it were his apartment. Law would have been startled by the intimacy of it had it been any other room; as it was he imagined Luffy was capable of doing this in almost every kitchen he’d ever stepped foot in. Memorizing the layout of a kitchen, the nuances of the appliances, and the locations of the food was doubtless his number one priority in any new place he visited where the owner was foolish enough to allow him access.

Law sipped his hot chocolate. Aloshi, assured that Law’s thrashing was done with and lured by the prospect of a snack for her as well, emerged from her kennel and pressed her head against Law’s thigh. When this did not immediately get her the response she wanted, she began to whine softly, looking up at him with giant, soft brown eyes.

Luffy gave in first, pulling the box of milkbones down from the top of the fridge - this was something of a challenge with his height, and involved him climbing onto the counter first - and tossing a couple of them at the dog.

“You’re going to make her fat,” Law said, not for the first time.

Luffy grinned. “Nah, I run her too much for that.”

Law just shook his head fondly. It occurred to him that he had never returned to the feeling of solid ground so quickly after a nightmare before. He might even be able to go back to bed in another hour or so.

Luffy, despite loving to sleep at the slightest opportunity, showed no signs of distress at being up at such an ungodly hour. Indeed, watching him, it was almost possible to believe it was actually the middle of the day.

“You’re sure lively for it being the middle of the night, Straw Hat,” Law told him.

“This is nothing. Grandpa used to wake us up way earlier than this.”

Law eyed the clock. 3:17. What was the point in allowing someone to go to bed at all if you were going to get them up again before three? “Why?”

Luffy shrugged. “Never asked.” He hopped up to sit on the counter while he ate. Prompted by the mention of his grandfather he began to chatter about camping trips; getting up early and fishing and hunting, about the time Ace had collapsed the tent while Luffy was still inside it, on and on, needing nothing from Law in return. Law listened but not intently, letting the words wash over him, reminding him where the ground was without forcing him to come back to it before he was ready.

Law yawned and Luffy broke off. “You want to go back to bed?”

Law considered his boyfriend for a moment. Had he been trying to calm Law down, talking to keep Law from falling into his own head? Or was it just that Luffy liked to talk and so he had, and it had just happened to help? It was impossible to tell with Luffy.

It was possible that it didn’t matter though, he thought. He felt better; well enough to lie back down, if not to actually go back to sleep. What difference did it make if Luffy had been trying to help or had been helping purely by virtue of being himself? “Yeah, I think so.”

Luffy hopped back down and shoved the now nearly empty burrito bag back into the freezer. Law winced at the sight - that was going to fall right back out onto whoever next opened the freezer door. He should have fixed it, but…

He took Luffy’s hand and led him to the bedroom. Luffy flopped face first into the bed as though suddenly overcome by exhaustion. “You’ve got a comfy couch, Torao,” he said into the blankets, “but your bed is better.”

“Beds usually are,” Law agreed, but he didn’t know if Luffy heard him. By the end of the sentence he could hear snoring from the bed.

The next morning Law, Luffy, and Aloshi woke up in a chaotic tangle of limbs and blankets and it took them a few minutes to sort themselves out and escape back into the rest of the apartment. Law filled Aloshi’s bowl and poured himself a cup of coffee. Luffy ate several muffins with large bites while texting his brothers, though Law couldn’t make out what the conversation was about, despite being able to see the screen. Luffy was a fan of text speech and emojis alike, and Law was getting maybe one-tenth of the conversation. He was pretty sure it involved Luffy assuring his brothers that Law had not murdered him.

“We should go grocery shopping,” Luffy declared suddenly.

Law blinked blearily at him over his coffee mug, not yet awake enough to follow Luffy’s leaping thought processes. “We should?”

Luffy nodded, self-assured expression firmly in place. “You don’t have enough food.”

“I don’t eat as much as you. I’m pretty sure your brothers are the only people on the planet who eat as much you do.”

Luffy rolled his eyes. Law wasn’t following something. “Torao,” he said patiently, “I’ll starve if you don’t buy more food.”

A corner of Law’s mouth quirked up, realizing. “Is that so?”

“Uh-huh. I’m going to be here a lot. I’ve only been here one night and you’re already almost out of food. So if you want to keep seeing me, we have to go grocery shopping.”

Law laughed. “Can I finish my coffee first?”

Luffy eyed the cup suspiciously - nothing so bitter could be trusted - but nodded. “Robin says you should never interrupt someone part way through their coffee. But we’ll go after, right?”

“Sure thing, Straw Hat. I wouldn’t want you to have to leave me.”

Luffy nodded, face so serious it became funny. “I don’t want that either.” And then he began composing a list out loud, repeatedly looking at Law and ordering him to remember something. Most of it was various kinds of meat.

Law leaned back in his chair, sipping his coffee, and committing it all to memory.

Chapter Text

When they reached Corazon’s apartment Luffy let himself in without knocking, as was his custom. He announced himself instead with a loud shout and a bark from Aloshi, whose leash he was holding.

Corazon, who had grown up with Luffy’s like-minded grandfather as an unofficial uncle, didn’t bat an eye. “You two are late,” he said, looking up at Law, amusement etched into his face.

They weren’t really late - dinner began at ‘about six’ and it was 6:15 now. A reasonable time to show up. Just uncharacteristic for Law.

Law shrugged, one side of his mouth pulling up despite his best efforts to stop it. “Luffy overslept.”

Corazon was thrilled that Law was allowing himself to be less rigid here and there, and it showed. “And you let him?”

Law joined Corazon in the kitchen with a shrug. “You should try waking him up sometime. It’s impossible.”

Corazon smiled. “I’ve heard stories about Garp. It’s a family problem.”

Law wasn’t surprised. The whole family - even Sabo, who pretended not to be - was loud and rambunctious and impulsive. Law supposed it only made sense that they would learn to sleep through one another’s chaos. And, by extension, just about every technique for waking someone up. It was little wonder Luffy couldn’t hold a job with regular hours, and had no interest in doing so regardless.

After a minute of comfortable silence, chatter from Luffy and Bepo drifting in from the living room, Corazon said, “You’ve been looking better.”

Law could believe it. “He helps me remember that sometimes I take things too seriously. And he’s always so obviously genuine that even my shit self-esteem can’t be convinced that he’s lying. Sometimes I think he’s an idiot for how much he loves me, but I always believe he does.”

Corazon’s smile grew wider. “Good. I’m so glad you found someone who really fits with you.”

Law laughed. “Is that what he’s doing?”

Corazon laughed too. “Yeah, I know. He isn’t the sort of person I would have imagined you clicking with either. But you clearly do. Somehow.”

Law couldn’t deny it. He had always thought the ‘opposites attract’ idea was an idiotic one. Now it seemed more likely that it was just packaged badly. Law didn’t have a lot in common with most of his friends. It seemed to be working well enough for him.

“He just…” He shrugged one shoulder. “He doesn’t let me get away with things, i think. And he’s surprisingly hard to lie to. I tell him I’m fine, he doesn’t believe me, and then he badgers me until I admit it. And other times he… He’s good to have around after nightmares.” Luffy, by luck, intuition, or exceptionally compatible personalities, seemed to always know when Law needed him to talk and when he needed him to be quiet. And if he had, even once, felt irritation at being woken up by one of Law’s nightmares and the panic attacks that usually followed, it had never showed.

Luffy couldn’t lie with a damn, and that was a comforting thing to know. He was also a little bit of a brat, which was also a comforting fact. When he said something didn’t bother him there was little worry that he was only being polite - Luffy was hardly ever polite. He was certainly never polite just for the sake of avoiding a confrontation.

There was a knock on the door and then it opened without the new arrivals waiting for a response. Ace and Sabo were politer than their little brother, but only marginally. Ace swung into the kitchen and set a six pack of beers down on the counter - there would be a fight later over who got to drink two, since Luffy wouldn’t drink any - and flashed Law and Corazon a smile. He looked tired. Luffy had said he’d spent most of the week on a camping trip with some of the Camp Whitebeard kids, and he apparently hadn’t yet recovered. He was grinning from ear to ear though, eyeing the oven. “Thanks for having us over,” he told Corazon.

The three brothers never passed up an opportunity for free food, and Corazon had been all too happy to start inviting them all along for family dinners. They didn’t make it every Saturday - Ace and Sabo’s jobs both had a high tendency to call them in last minute - but they showed up more often than not, and with increasing frequency. Law didn’t know when he’d won their approval, but a few weeks ago Ace had challenged him to an arm wrestling competition - Ace had won with flying colors - and then put him in a headlock, and Law had known he’d been accepted into the fold. It had been an interesting combination of irritation and warmth. Very brotherly, he supposed. 

Sabo's acceptance had been more subtle, and Law could tell that, even now, he was being watched, but he did seem to be approving. 

Law returned to the living room in time to catch the tail end of Luffy telling Bepo that he was going to get Law to go camping with him this summer.

“You want me to do what?” Law asked.

Sabo snorted.

Luffy beamed. “Camping! You said you’ve never been, so we’re going to go.”

“I don’t know if I want to go camping with you.” Law had heard horror stories. At least, they were horror stories to him. Luffy seemed to enjoy the experience.

“You don’t,” Sabo said mildly, “but you’re not going to get a choice. Take emergency rations and as many medical supplies as you can fit into your suitcase.”

Luffy made a face at his brother. “Sabo! You can’t take food camping with you! Half the point is that you have to catch your own food. And build your own fire.”

“Next you’re going to tell me I have to build my own tent out of raw materials,” Law said dryly.

“Don’t give him ideas,” Sabo warned. “And don’t give Ace any either. He’s mean enough to those kids in his charge as it is.”

“I am not mean!” Ace protested from the kitchen.

“You’re either mean or you’re turning them into feral, wild children!” Sabo shouted back. “Neither of those are good things!”

“You’re just a wuss!”

Sabo waved dismissively in the direction of his brother’s voice. Luffy laughed. “It’ll be fun, Torao, promise. I’ll teach you how to fish.”

Law wrinkled his nose. “Sounds disgusting.”

Luffy nodded enthusiastically. “It is!”

Sabo burst out laughing. Law rolled his eyes, but eyed Luffy warily; he had the uncomfortable feeling he had not heard the last of this ‘camping’ idea.

Dinner was, as it always was when Luffy and his brothers were in attendance, loud and chaotic, but it wasn’t the sort of chaos Law felt swept up in. It whirled around him, and if he wanted to ignore it and focus on eating his food without taking someone’s eye out with a fork, he could. That had been the key component of it, he realized. He didn’t mind the noise, or the recklessness, the crowds, or any of that in and of itself. He only minded being expected to join it, to enjoy it fully, to choose that over a night at home.

His and Luffy’s relationship was simple, when it came down to it. He was himself, Trafalgar Law, head surgeon of Heart Hospital, genius, depressed, prone to nightmares. Luffy was also himself, Monkey D. Luffy, vine star and parkour champion, reckless and hotheaded. Their relationship ran on one simple rule: neither of them tried to change the other.

It was neither as complicated nor as difficult as Law had always feared it would be. It was just Luffy, simple and happy and sometimes incomprehensible, but always genuine and somehow just the right fit.

Law barely thought about the name on his arm now. Ace had been right. The mark had led him where he’d need leading, and now that he was there things just… clicked. Simple and complicated and messy and perfect and his.