Work Text:
He’d been waiting. His back to the dock, face facing the fresh air rolling off the turquoise tinted waves. He awkwardly had to decide which way to face at first- was it normal to greet a person face to face? Or would that seem too forward? In the end (and because he decided he needed something to do to pass the time) he’d decided to look out over the ocean and think about everything the waves had tossed in his way.
Loss, tragedy, burning, hatred, loss, a hundred pairs of shackles and a thousand strings tying him down, family, loss, a storm-tossed boy wearing a straw-hat, a certain brand of retribution with a smattering of redemption.
Meeting up again was a test of fate – or was it a twist of fate? He’d said his goodbyes long ago; some more permanent than the rest, some with a lack of finality, and some he’d had to take back entirely. So it was a surprise to learn they’d see each other again, but also a promise meant to be fulfilled. He wasn’t in the habit of making promises, unlike another captain he knew. They were too easy to break, and with a past like his what honor did he have to fall back on? In his world of kill or be killed (once upon a time for him it was kill and be killed but those times had passed now, mostly) who would ever trust a promise?
But strawhat was a man of his word and his word was worth trusting. A strange subject: trust. He’d never had enough of it in his life and here was a physical embodiment of the word. So here, Law was waiting.
Time slipped by him as it always did – he was never quite in the present and never truly out of the past. One foot in the door and one foot in the grave. A hat poking into his back surprised him, he always forgot how small strawhat was in real life when his spirit was so overbearing.
“Torao! You’re here! I’m glad, I thought I’d lost you!”
Arms wrapped around him and Law struggled to turn the alarms off in his head: proximity alert, touch overload. He shrugged into the embrace. He needed time.
He didn’t mean those words, not really. What he’d probably meant what that he’d missed Law, or been worried that Law would have gotten lost on his way to the meet-up, or possibly he’d been thinking that they would never have been able to meet at this point in time. Something simple and asinine, it had to be.
It never was.
Law can’t help but think of what those words, in that order, mean to him.
I thought I’d lost you.
I thought I’d lost you.
Because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that one man is capable of dredging up the past with a spring in his step and a sparkle in his eyes. It’s not fair that Law is connected to one person who is capable of making him feel but not hurt. Or, alleviating some of the pain from the past. It’s not fair that Law lives with this burden only to have one person capable of shouldering it as well.
(That’s probably what Law liked best about strawhat – he could shoulder almost anything you threw at him, and he’d do it with a grin. If only Law had wider shoulders).
Because strawhat was worried about him. And Law stood simultaneously in wonder at the thought that someone was worried about him in particular, and in shocked horror that he would be the cause of someone else’s pain that didn’t deserve it. If there was anything… he couldn’t... no, wouldn’t burden strawhat with endless worrying about someone as hopeless as him. There was relief there as well, another person who could care for him; broken, tortured, insecure Law, the man who would just as gladly rip someone’s heart out than admit that he had something to live for. The relief shifts sharply into pain when he remembers the one other person in the world who had bothered to care.
It’s a testament to Law’s inability to see things clearly, his tendency to ruminate over the unspoken words and things left undone that causes him to shut down. He pushes every thought out of his head (his damned head that screams in moments of silence and puts a thick white fog over everything before him). He wants to run, he wills the earth to swallow him so that he won’t have to face the void in front of him.
Stop. Turn back.
quit now quit now Quit Now QUIT NOW. Turn around, don’t look back, returning was a mistake that will hurt more in the end. everything you love turns to dust
“Smile, Law.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
It’s the word ‘lost’ that leaves him pausing.
Lost implies not physically knowing where he is. Lost implies something far more personal.
Law was lost when the white town was destroyed and he was left among the burning embers. Law was lost when he ran away consumed by raging hate. Law was lost when his rescuer was shot left for dead, betrayed on the side of a mountain. Law was lost when he was lying broken amongst the ruins of Doflamingo’s palace. Law had been running his life-lost in direction, lost in thought, lost in feeling, lost in the translation of a new era. But here, Luffy thought he had lost him?
It’s not fair because the situation was completely reversed in Law’s head. He thought he had lost strawhat after Marineford, when the body of a small and broken boy lay tethered with wires in the sickbay. He thought he’d forever lost the bright eyes that had singled him out and said ‘fuck it’ to every rule and convention Law had ever had time to consider. And then Law was sure he’d lost him for good when they said good-bye at the island of women – but then at least he’d left with a memory of a smile that was brighter than it had any right to be.
He’d found him once more on an island where he wasn’t expecting it, of course. He had never expected strawhat. And then at the end, more broken than whole but still standing, Law had said good-bye with no hope of seeing him again. He yearned for it, but it was a matter of heart and promises; the two things Law could carry but never own.
What hurt worse, was thinking he’d lost part of the person he was when strawhat was around. The kid (because he was certainly younger than Law, but maybe not all the less worldly or wiser… if anything it was because Law felt aged beyond his toil filled years on earth) had made a mark on him. It wasn’t the kind that could be seen easily, like his tattoos that covered up more sinister spots, but something deeper and longer lasting. With distance, space, and time Law had found himself slipping back, back to when he could feel the warmth of the sun on the ocean, back to when he remembered what the sound of his laugh sounded like, back to when there was something on this goddamned ocean that was worth living for.
Law sighed in resignation, because with strawhat there is only acquiescence. There is no swimming against the stream, only floating along. He doesn’t say the words because he doesn’t have to.
I thought I’d lost me too.