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He had been so certain that Joker would kill him. Had hoped for it.
That had been the plan, after all, his last shot at everything he meant to do; to destroy Joker whether by his own hands or Kaido’s, to leave this world free of Joker’s grasp and to, more personally, leave it—
But Strawhat, ever unpredictable, ever setting his own pace and making his own choices, not slowed even by Law’s bark of our alliance is over, get lost, well.
He changes things.
It’s obvious, later, that Law should have known better than to think there was any plan he could call infallible (and it had been infallible. Who could survive Joker, after all?) with Strawhat involved. Strawhat is a master at breaking up plans and taking third options: the would-be pirate king charges in without looking and does it grinning, laughs as he fights and smiles when the enemy ranks send him flying, sends them flying in turn with blows that he rains down like missiles.
And with his determination, his unbelievable, impossible, world-defying luck; with the smile he gives Law that makes something wrench, hard, deep in Law’s chest; with his laugh and his recklessness, with his desire to fight and to win and to live, he ruins everything.
And Law, for all the blood in his mouth and the scrapes on his hands and the slug embedded deep in his side, doesn’t die.
Joker does. He ends with his eternal sick grin on his face and a fuck you on his lips, because he, of all people, he figures Law out; what Strawhat misses and Law’s crew never knew, Joker sees it without ever having to look.
Victory, even in death.
Law lies on the floor next to Joker’s gargantuan corpse and stares at Joker’s unmoving hands, frozen in the same shape he’d always used to play with people like marionettes, making him look like he’s simply holding still.
Behind him, Strawhat blows out a breath and sits down on the floor like his legs have given out (and maybe they have. Law’s lost track of the injuries they’ve both sustained, and he’s in no state to administer medicine). There’s a stretch of near-silence, the city battlefield below the only distant source of noise.
Strawhat laughs.
“We really did it, Torao,” he says, and he sounds so happy and Law can hardly process the words, “we really kicked his ass, huh?”
He means to say you did, to say something, but his throat is dry and tight and he thinks the blood he tastes ought to be excuse enough. It turns out not to matter, anyway: Strawhat chatters on, laughs and kicks his legs out to sit sprawled nearby, says, “He was tough! That was such a good move you did, though I was worried when you threw yourself in front of him he’d get you—”
The tear in his side screams protest when Law pushes himself up, and still more when he throws himself at Strawhat. It’s a pitiable lunge, no more than a lurch that ends in a stagger and him collapsing towards Strawhat like a gangly tree, but it’s enough: his fingers twist in Strawhat’s stupid jacket hard enough to tear, and he gets close enough to Strawhat’s face that Strawhat goes nearly cross-eyed with surprise. “You stupid bastard,” is all Law manages to say, and he can’t look Strawhat in the face because it’s too hard to keep himself upright, then, “you stupid goddamn bastard, I wanted him to kill me.”
Strawhat’s voice is oddly quiet when he says, “I know.”
“You,” Law says, stopped in his tracks. Even now Strawhat manages to surprise him, for all that he should’ve known: Strawhat isn’t stupid, isn’t unperceptive, only rash.
Surprise gives way to anger in mere moments. “You knew,” Law growls, “you fucking knew and you still,” and he’s shaking with rage and exhaustion both and they’re so close he can feel Strawhat’s exhalations on the back of his neck and the thrum of Strawhat’s heart in his chest, “you still saved me, why did you, I’ll kill you.”
“Torao wouldn’t do that,” says Strawhat with conviction, like he’s not even perturbed, and, “why should I do what you say?”
“Because,” Law says, “because, you idiot—”
“I don’t want you to die,” Strawhat tells him, “and it’s good to live when you’ve won.”
“You had no right.” His knuckles have gone white where he’s gripping Strawhat’s lapels, and he’s shaking hard enough with the adrenaline for his teeth to clack, and the effort it takes to pull himself up to meet Strawhat’s dark eyes feels monumental. “You had no right. Not to do that, it was my choice, I was going to die on my terms, and you took that away.”
Strawhat’s frowning, his real frown, not just the characteristic pout to be followed by a whine or complaint. “Why,” he says. “You didn’t say why, Torao.”
“Because I’m dying,” comes out of Law’s mouth before he can think, the first time he’s said it to any living soul, the first time he’s said it at all, and for once Strawhat seems to get just what he means. “Because I’m already dead,” and Strawhat’s gaze is hooded, now, “because dying here meant not going back to my crew, it meant not having them see. You saw someone you cared about die, two years ago,” and he drops his head again, anger giving way to profound fatigue, feels Strawhat tense, “and at least that was quick, not wasting, not weeks of suffering for the ones that watch and the one that lingers.”
Law has seen so many people die like that, slow and despairing, those around them almost wishing them gone and they expending all their effort just to breathe, to stay, to drag it out. He doesn’t want that, not for his crew, not for him—
“You’re a doctor,” Strawhat says above him. “you’re a great doctor, right? There’s nothing you can’t cure.”
“Not this,” says Law. Not metastatic cancer: not even with all the power at his disposal, not when it’s so late.
“No, you can. I believe in Torao—of course you can.”
“I can’t,” Law repeats, and his anger spikes again, “why don’t you ever listen, damn you, stop denying things you can’t change. I’m dying, and I can’t stop it, and pretending you can fix everything is for children.”
“I don’t believe you,” Strawhat says, and Law has never heard his voice so thin, so wavering, so strained with disbelief.
He had always hated this part, too, the pretending that everything would get better, the prayers and the hopes. The memory of that horrible anticipation is enough to bring it rushing back, raw and aching still, and here he is again: the villain, this time, the doctor with ill tidings and the victim all in one.
“You’re a liar,” Strawhat insists, quietly. “You lied a lot, before, about Mingo and you, about a lot of things. This is just like that.”
His hand is in Law’s hair, and that Law’s not sure when it happened is more startling than anything. Strawhat is a lot of things, but gentle isn’t one of them: he’s all full-body hugs that crush the breath out of the receiver, punches to the shoulder, leaping tackles, not this.
Law doesn’t apologize as a rule. He hasn’t said the words in years.
The apology falls out of his mouth all the same. “I’m sorry.”
And there’s Strawhat’s aggressive affection, because the next thing Law knows he’s being pulled up and forward, crushed into a hug that Strawhat executes with the same gusto he puts into everything else he’s ever done. His arms wrap double ’round Law’s shoulders, and he buries his face where his hand had been, and Law can feel him tremble, feel his chest rise and fall against Law’s own.
“But I don’t want you to die,” is mumbled into Law’s hair, and it sounds, he thinks, preposterously affronted.
Only Strawhat, Law’s sure, would find someone’s death a personal slight against him.
It’s foolish that he’s the one apologizing. It’s foolish that they’re still sitting here when there’s so much still to be done outside the palace, outside of this royal chamber, so many people Strawhat ought to be worrying over instead of him. Most foolish of all is this embrace, that Law’s letting Strawhat get so close, that he’s already let him too far past walls that should have stayed standing, that he’s let Strawhat make it so much harder to accept having to let go.
That had been the point all along, letting go alone, making it easy.
Still. He breathes in, and he says it again.
“Sorry, Luffy.”