He has no idea how he’s come to rely on this giant of a toddler man except that he has. And he does know Corazon has risked the wrath of Doflamingo, weather, authorities, and long stretches of time when Law isn’t quite there [too many miles behind buried in piles of bodies and the crumbling foundation of his heart, fevers that scorch him to the bone if he’d just let them, if just for Corazon’s stupid stubbornness]. He relies on this man…and right now this man is relying on him to make them dinner out of the meager scraps they’d managed to get in town this time.
“No, you’re not helping,” Law recites for the 20th time in the past half hour, dutifully ignores how Corazon hovers just behind him, looking unsure of what to do. Then he gives the stew a little stir, doesn’t even grant the man a glance. What he hopes is a potato bobs cheerfully up to the surface.
“Look, I just had my hand over the flame for a minute—I had to see if it was hot! I wasn’t going to catch on fire. Science doesn’t work that way.” The big man is rather defensive for a person who’s fallen into fires more times than he’s fallen into bad role models. Or maybe that’s just Law.
The boy finally cuts him a glance, golden eyes hard and unrelenting. “I’m not using the salve on your burns when you go up like a rival pirate’s ship in a battle.”
He’s lying, he’ll absolutely still bandage and grumble and fuss over Corazon no matter how many stupid things he does like put his hand into the flame and stare off for what felt like two minutes.
Speaking of muttering Corazon gives a tiny, quiet huff [quiet, like most of what he does, even when his sound isn’t sidelined by his nagi nagi fruit] and makes himself useful by spreading their sleeping bags out.
Things are peaceful and maybe it’s foolish on Law’s part to get so focused on the task at hand, the yummy aromas from the simmering little pot, the clear, darkening sky—
There’s the telltale whoosh and crackle of something going up in flames, and he flips around so fast his hat nearly falls off—
“What the hell are you doing!? Why didn’t you just put it out in the dirt!?”
Corazon, upon finishing his task, has settled down to consult his maps, flicking the ash of his cigarette towards the rusty coffee can next to the stack—and has set his papers alight instead.
On his knees in the dirt, Corazon’s already mostly got the fires out. Scorched paper is a better scent than flesh, after all [he knows, his heart shudders for one split second], and he has the audacity to give him a thumbs up, smile shaky but large.
“I didn’t want to start a forest fire! It isn’t good for the soil unless it’s burning fields. Or so I’ve heard.”
Dinner’s going to be late because Law has his foot in Corazon’s nose. “I’m gonna kill you where I sit!”
On the long list of things Corazon’s good at that pisses Law off is….being so welcoming and wholesome. He risked his reputation and the ire of the Family for him, he just can’t wrap his head around it, and then on nights when Law can’t sleep—he’s too cold or too hot or too shaken from nightmares of a little girl waiting, waiting, waiting for him to return but he nev—
“Can’t sleep? You only had to ask, you know. C’mere.”
He opens his arms wide and, when Law won’t [can’t] move on his own, curls long fingers into the collar of his shirt, tucks him close. His bangs tickle Law’s cheek, and he can feel that little laugh tucked just as closely to his heart where they’re pressed, his hat squashed.
“So what if Sora had an eagle instead? That’s less annoying than the seagull, not to mention reliable and noble.”
“He’s not there to be reliable, he’s there to be comedy relief. He’s lame, but Sora-san’s cool!”
Cora-san smiles as Law’s eyelids get heavier and heavier, as he stops trying to stifle the yawns that tumble from his open mouth. He thinks of two little boys curled together like a perfect circle [a beast that eats itself over and over again, a never ending chain that even 6 bullets couldn't finish, in the end], cold and frightened and so alone save for each other.
But Law is warm and alive in his arms. And it all works out. It will, or he’ll burn down another 100 hospitals until it is.