Chapter Text
The only reason he was doing this was to make his father happy.
It was his dying wish after all. What kind of person would that make him if he ignored it?
A horrible one, which he wasn’t. He thought he was one at least. So of course, he was going to do it. Even though everything in him was telling him not too.
What was he going to do, you ask. Well, he was going to become a foster parent.
His father was one, that’s how they met in fact.
He a small thirteen-year-old orphan with a fatal illness, and the other a twenty-six-year-old single man who wanted kids but no partner. They found each other by chance at an adoption fair. He sitting in the back corner of the gym the orphanage rented, glaring at anyone who got close. It worked to keep everyone away, he didn’t want a family. Already giving up on life and not waiting to leave anyone behind. Ready to join his parents and sister wherever they were.
But Donquixote Rosinante was not like everyone else.
Not in the slightest.
Six foot two and lanky legs similar to a giraffe. The oddest fashion sense of anyone he knew, with clown like makeup and an enormous feather coat that dwarfed the man somehow. He took everything in him not to look at the man that stood out like an eyesore. But the other man saw him in the back and smiled. Got closer despite his murderous glare. Sat down next to him and ignore the boy’s protest.
A match made in hell, is what they could be described as such.
It was almost hilarious of how much they contrasted the other. But in the end the older man convinced him to live with him, to give him the temporary home he didn’t think he deserved. Then the blonde man surprised him, suddenly taking him to doctors hours away from their little house in the suburbs. Taking medicine insurance didn’t cover and that he worked extra hours to pay for. Procedures to lessen the pain that he begged surgeons to give him.
Law didn’t understand why the man went to the length he did for a stranger. The two even after months of living together, barely said a word to the other.
Then one day, when he was too weak to stand. The pain burning every bone in his little body and making him too six to eat. Rosinante rushed him to the hospital, got him admitted. The doctor’s told him to say his goodbyes to him.
And he cried and told Law he loved him. He picked him up, swaddled him in the sifted blankets Law had ever felt and cradled him to his chest. Hugging him and giving him the affection, he had lacked his entire life.
And somehow, he lived. He got better even though everyone, except his father, thought he was done for. So, when he was finally discharged weeks later he made a decision.
He asked the older man to be his father and adopt him, which made the blonde happier than anything.
For years, it was them against the world. Through thick and thin. Father and son.
It was like a dream sometimes with how lucky he was just to have his father in his life. Sometimes having to pitch himself to convince him that this was real. And every time the act stung, reaffirming him again and again.
He thanked the universe every time.
His father helped him get caught up with schoolwork when he was cleared to go. Worked nights and days at times and still managed to eat breakfast and dinner with him daily. Cheered for him at his high school graduation and cried when he was top of his class in med school.
Which led him too now…
It was that night in fact, of his med school graduation that is. The two of them walking home from a celebratory dinner at a fancy restaurant they normally wouldn’t go to due to having limited funds. However, the other wanted to splurge and spoil his son. They were stuffed full and slightly tipsy, smiles on both their faces.
It was a good day, until it wasn’t.
They turned a corner, standing at a cross walk waiting for the light to give them the go-ahead to continue on their way.
“Rochi?” Someone said startling the both of them, they turned to see who spoke. The blond gasped and pulled his son behind him.
“Dad..?” Law asks confused.
The other growled, surprising him since his father never did that before.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered. “No matter what happens, stay behind me.”
“Well, what do we have here?” The stranger asked. He was dressed in head to two in pink and wore sunglasses despite it being almost three in the morning. His hair blonde…
Just like his fathers…
“Doffy,” he hissed. “What are you doing here?”
The odd man laughed; bitterness filled Law’s gut for reasons unknown.
“Paying you back of course,” he replied as the grin turned into a frown. “For everything you did too me. To your own flesh and blood!”
Before his father could reply, three gunshots rang through the air. The sound ringing throughout his ears making him dizzy momentarily.
Then the unthinkable happened.
His father coughed and he then fell to the ground. The strange man ran away into the night and Law rushed to try to help the man that meant everything to him. He dropped to his knees, turning the other to his back so he could assess the damage. His white button-up was now covered with red. There was no way he was going to be able to minimal damage with what he had, so he covered the wounds as much as he could while yelling for help. Yelling for anyone even though the streets were bare of people. He prayed, one who never done that before, prayed that there was something that could be done.
“L…aw?” His father whimpered in pain. The man touched his cheek, even while dying he tried to soothe his son.
“Save your strength Dad,” he said as tears poured from his eyes. “Help is on the way. You’re going to be okay? Okay?”
The other just smiled, the same one he gave him the first time they met.
“It’s not Law,” the man admitted sadly. “This is it, so you have… to listen to me… okay?”
Law shook his head over and over again. Denying that the scene in front of him was real. That his father’s blood wasn’t covering his hands. That they never stopped and just ignored the light, they both already home in their warm beds. Safe and sound.
“You.. can’t do what I know you will when I die..” He said through the pain, his world getting darker by the minute. “Don’t… isolate yourself… I did that for a long time… Spent years alone….. Wasting years working…. And drinking myself to sleep…”
His face clenched in pain as his breathing started to slow down.
“That’s… not a life…” He told his son. Shaking the boy slightly to show him how serious he was in his final moment. “The… best thing…. I ever did was walk… into the adoption fair that day….. I… I… Did it on a whim… Then I met you… and the rest of my life… was perfect…”
He started to fade away, his head wobbling slightly.
“Find…. your own…. family…” He told his son. “Find… someone who… will make… your life…. have… meaning….”
And he was gone. Just like that.
He buried his father a week later. Under the cover of rain fall and a sea of people he didn’t care to remember dressed in black. All of them telling him how sorry he was and some crying for a man they barely even knew.
The next day he got up dreadfully. He cleaned his house top to bottom, to the point it was sparking. He dressed in his best cloths; a business suit and his leopard printed hat. He grabbed his wallet and keys and left.
He got in his car, drove for what seemed like hours but was only minutes really. He parked in a empty lot and looked at his destination. He gripped the wheel tightly, taking a second to get his thoughts in order. He took a deep breath and he got out of the car.
Then he knocked on a wooden door, similar to the color of his father’s casket.
“Hello,” A woman with green hair asked moments later. “Can I help you?”
“Yes ma’am.” He said while nodding. “My name is Donquixote-Trafalgar D. Water Law. I would like to become a foster parent.”
“To take in the children no one else will.” He told her. “The ones who need someone the most.”