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Law knows that he is just a mere apparition, brittle and fragile; to be handled with utmost care and caution.
And it won’t be long before cracks start to form, and everything that he protects with this weak form will start seeping through the gaps, till there is no longer anything to keep safe, and the ones he shields rendered vulnerable yet again.
——
Amber Lead was torturous. Having an incurable disease slowly spread through your body, infect every single cell till nothing was left, was as agonising as the notion was.
He grew weaker each day. The disease had plagued his hometown, the one thing that his family of medical practitioners had attempted oh so desperately hard to seek out a cure for. But the town was eradicated, the diseased and uninfected alike murdered in the incident, and the disease deemed under control as the source of the sickness had been blown off the charts.
Flevance was gone. His mother was gone. His father was gone. His sister, Lami was gone. Only he remained.
[A crack stats to appear, just a thin line along the blue apparition. A drop of red leaks out and trickles away, dripping to the floor.]
——
Law had to watch on, horrified and holding back tears, as he sits in silence, his screams muffled by the deafening quiet of Rosinante’s powers.
He’d promised he wouldn’t get hurt, that he would escape alive because his brother had treasured family a bit too much, and would most likely want to keep the remaining family he had alive, or at least breathing the stale air that engulfed the surroundings.
So Law had only naturally felt betrayed and concerned out of his child-sized mind when he heard the loud bang of a gunshot, one loud, ricocheting noise.
And he knew what had just happened. The elder brother had shot the younger one. Although very much alive, he was losing his life force rapidly, Laws sobs growing increasingly audible with every passing minute.
The man who had taken on the role as Law’s new father figure when no one wanted to. The one who relentlessly tried to aid him in seeking treatment for the inevitable infection of Amber Lead’s poison, choosing strangely to not shun him away like the infectious child he was. The one who, at the cost of his life, was willing to give up his own brother’s wishes and instead promise him with a future he never had the chance to even dream of.
Now he was bleeding out, a bullet in his body, struggling to stay alive to cover Law’s presence for just a little while longer, suffering through all the pain and damage sustained.
The tears make their way out of the corners of Law’s eyes, rolling down the side’s of his face so frequently it streams down his cheeks, as he struggled to wipe them all away with the back of his palm.
[The small line fractures even more, a web starting to form, shards hanging on precariously as they stick themselves firmly in place, despite appearing like they could slide off at any given moment. More droplets of red deep through the gaps, a stark contrast to the apparition of blue.]
——
Most of Law’s life pass in a blur, each day undersea or on land, fighting and fighting over and over again. The information he received wasn’t even new; he’d heard it all before. He was sick and tired of hearing the three words “I don’t know” over and over again from every terrified souls he chose to torment.
Being part of the Worst Generation also had its many disadvantages. He would now forever be grouped in with the immature attitudes of the rest of them, who all screamed bloody murder as they mowed down every living organism in their path. Such pastimes Law was not an avid fan of.
But such is life. He sucked it up, and he moved on. Simple as that.
[The cracks grow, the chips and shards falling off, a greater and significantly larger web pattern over the abdomen and creeping towards the legs and neck, the stream of red pooling from the holes that had eroded away after the many years of hardship, now staining the previously pristine blue with lines of red.]
——
Doflamingo had gone down. Caesar had gone down. The oppressive Vimsmokes of the North Blue had gone down. The Big Mom Pirates were suppressed. The Beast Pirates were overthrown. Kaido was taken out. Big Mom was taken out.
Law rejoiced, sharing beers with Kid and his crew mates, making sure to distance himself around Luffy, for he was going to be led away and forced to join his crew if so.
Law leaned against a shoulder much bulkier and muscular than his ever would be, sipping his new bottle of beer. He let the hand brush over his shoulder, hug him closer, letting the red fingernails slide against his skin.
S.M.I.L.E. was gone. S.A.D. was gone. Dressrosa was free. Wano was free. Two Emperors were defeated. Warlords stripped of their title and being landed in jail when caught. Of course, being one, he would have to be on the run, but it would be no different than how he regularly spends his days.
For the time being, he let himself partake in the festive mood, letting the hand stroke his shoulder affectionately as he basked in the moonlight. It was a good day.
Not everything was over, but it was over. He closes his eyes, and smiles ever so slightly, as he always tried to do before.
[Rolls upon rolls of gauze and bandages wrapped around the fractured parts, holding the figure in place, cementing the azure apparition, temporarily binding the cracks, absorbing the red that still dared to seep out through the cracks that had been forced tightly shut with the biding of the bandages. It wasn’t repaired, wasn’t mended. But it was still whole, and was on its way to restoration.]
They’d worked together in Wano. They’d met up in the two years of Straw Hat’s absence. They’d done many things together.
They’d defeated Big Mom side by side, although he had been crippled by a force which Law only later learned was the bastard bearing the name Basil Hawkins, doing some gruesome voodoo shit with his fantastical fortune teller powers or whatever.
They’d spent time together on various islands, both intimate and friendly interactions. For all the idiot acted, he could be shockingly mature and understanding of other people’s situations if they hadn’t pissed them off. Which he wasn’t surprised no one knew this side of him, he got ticked off way too easily.
Law had told him his fair share of hardships, and in return, Kid had shared his own. He’d learnt a lot from the red haired man. The struggles the both of them had went through were incomparable, for where one thrived the other suffered. They were alike in all the wrong ways. They were different in all the right ones.
Yet Law still felt rather strongly about Kid. The way he had rashly got his arm sliced off and built himself a replacement limb, without even checking if the blood vessels in his arm would properly respond to the metal of he were to properly attach the arm with the wires. He hadn’t even checked the wound for infections.
He’d gotten his face and chest scarred, his eye somehow coming out unscathed and not blinded in the slightest. Kid had gotten a lot of Law’s reprimanding the day he visited, only to find Kid injured and working on a design for his arm.
They’d shared some times together, his lips stained red after every meeting, which he had to hastily rub off before anyone spotted the colour. Strong hands that circled his waist, those fingers adorned with red polish that he simply adored. He enjoyed hurting him too, in ways that some may find strange.
He couldn’t bear to see him suffer under the hands of anyone but him. So when he received the call he wasn’t expecting anything, till he heard a voice on the line mutter something bout Kid.
He asks whoever is on the other end to speak up. So they do. Kid had been stupid again. Had. Past tense. He’d picked a fight he couldn’t win. And he’d paid the price. He was dead. And would be dead from then on. And they had let him know, that they were there at an island god knows how far away, with their captain no longer living, or breathing.
Law hangs up, slamming the transponder snail away from him, into the farthest possible corner before the person on the other line could even start a fresh new sentence. He crumples to the floor, burying his face in his hands. He doesn’t know why he does this. Kid is just another person. Another live he could torment, manipulate, end.
So he does not know why he feels like he wants to squeeze tears out of the eyes that had been dry for a long time, that he does not even remember them being that moist ever since the fateful day of Corazon’s undeserved and untimely departure.
He lets the droplets of salty liquid trickle down from his tear ducts into his palm, or into the wooden floorboards. Gone were the memories made, that he never cherished till then. A fatal flaw. Each tear for each memory made, wasted and uncherished before the news had struck.
[The bandages and tape keeping the figure together have been stripped in one swift motion. The harsh movement forced the pre-existing cracks to further deepen, going halfway through his torso and creeping up his neck, down his thighs, gushing red liquid in rivulets, as the new fierce and bright colour of injury takes over the calming and peaceful blue.]
——
[The red seeps through the cracks that have gone completely through the neck, and were now penetrating the face and feet, every square inch of blue replaced with a fresh coat of watery red. at he crack were so big they were indescribable, just huge huge fractures that went through the entire body, as if the apparition were a statue that stubbornly hung on despite being forced to crack and split open many many times.]
No one else but him knew yet. But after a minuscule part of the sorrows had been washed away by the tears shed, he was already dialing.
The line had gone through surprisingly fast. His voice was still shaky from all the quiet sobbing, but he could manage to articulate the words he needed to solemnly announce.
“Hey Traffy!” Luffy’s voice eagerly sounds, followed by the parroting of some others also present. By what he could piece together, Zoro, Nami, Robin and Sanji. Not the ideal crowd, but one he was going to have to work with.
“… Eustass-ya’s dead.” he manages to say, and the other end goes quiet. After some back and forth, the Straw Hat pirates decided to get into contact with whatever remained of the Kid pirates now they’d lost their leader.
Law decides that he doesn’t want to know anything more about how Kid died. He just sits there, devoid of all emotion, even after having broke the unfortunate news to someone else, hoping it would lessen the burden. It did not.
He’ll never get to refresh the bright colours on those lips or fingernails again. He wouldn’t have anyone else to fuss over or worry about to take his mind off of things. The presence in his life now completely erased, the ambiguity of whether the presence was co-dependent or romantic was something he’d now never be able to find out, ever. For he was gone.
[The painful memories are too much to bear, and the apparition cracks one fianl time, a lone going straight down the face, before breaking apart, the red now engulfing everything in sight, no longer seeping, now just a reminder of everything that he had lost, everything he failed to save, and failed to do. It flows out on pools, and it no longer seeps through the cracks. Gone is the blue.]
All whom he loves are gone, and he is fractured beyond repair, guilt and anguish seeping through the cracks.