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After Corazon's death, Law doesn't grow any more flowers.
It's not that unusual. He knows that. He's read the literature and has given the same old speech to patients himself. Enough trauma will do that to anyone.
Still, it's considered off-putting in a culture that values flowers as much as theirs.
A flower marks any strong emotion, positive or negative. For many, it expresses a sense of closeness. Parents, children, partners, best friends, and sometimes enemies. Lots of people could be considered a walking garden. It's a source of pride.
Law will never be one of those people. The four he has sit on his skin awkwardly. They itch, feeling like they should be more.
A bundle at the back of his neck for his family: impatiens for his mother, a large cornflower for his father, and crocus, for his little sister (motherly love, strength and health, youth and joy). All of them relating to medicine in some way, an ointment for an illness if used properly, a call-back to his family's history as doctors, he's sure.
Then blossoming large in the middle of his throat, a white lily (a flower popular with funerals and silence). The last is a flower he doesn't count, one he's angry that it's even there. Clematis, a toxic flower that means ingenuity, wrapped around Corazon's white lily, choking it.
Snuffling it out, just like Doflamingo had done to Corazon in life.
When he starts his crew, they're quick to catch on that Law doesn't want to talk about flowers. Even with his so prominently displayed (it's difficult to hide his throat after all, especially with how hot it gets in the sub), he shuts down every time the conversation steers in that direction. Whenever Penguin or Shachi explain a flower to an interested Bepo, who, like all minks, can't grow them himself and turn to Law expecting a comment or question or even for him to add something himself, he turns away.
After a while, they stop and it's a relief.
So really, it probably takes Law longer than he cares to admit to realize the reason behind their 'uniforms'.
When Penguin, Shachi, and Bepo had first posed together, covered from the neck down, Law had taken one look and said flatly, "I'm not wearing that."
"You don't have to, captain!" Shachi was quick to reassure.
"Yeah, it's just for the crew, what do you think? Fashionable, right??" Penguin added.
Law raised a skeptical brow. The white coveralls didn't seem that feasible for a submarine which would require a lot of mechanical work. Something Law figured would be awfully messy but that wasn't his area and honestly, he didn't really care what they wore. "Why is Bepos orange?"
"Orange is my favorite color!" Bepo stated proudly.
Penguin sighed. "We couldn't convince him to wear white."
"My fur's white! It blends in!"
The argument spun out from there and Law largely ignored it. Whatever they wanted was fine with him, he didn't have to wear it so it didn't impact him one way or the other.
It isn't until they add a few more members and go ashore on some island that Law finally puts the pieces together.
He's teaching the newest members about how exactly to do a medical supply run, what supplies they need this time, what's the best quality for things, etc. They want to be doctors like him and Law is a firm teacher.
They pass some islanders who are loudly discussing a newly grown flower. Automatically, Law's hackles rise as he expects the crewmembers that surround him to immediately jump into their own conversation about their flowers.
Though Law hasn't overheard the discussion on the Polar Tang, this is such an easy opening, it's more startling when none of them take it. Not one person comments or asks the other about their flowers or their meanings.
Although he's relieved, Law is more than a little confused. Flowers are the topic of conversation, as commonplace as the weather, easy small talk.
What flowers do they have, who they're for, what do they mean?
Law is still stuck on it hours later, the oddness of it, when awareness suddenly blasts through him.
It's for him. The coveralls that cover their skin from the neck down, the large black boots that fully cover their feet. The only flowers that are exposed are the ones on their face or hands. And, Law is suddenly realizing, many of the crew wear gloves.
Tears burn in his eyes and he takes a deep breath, covering his face with his hands, thankful he's alone in his room. There're no words for what he's feeling. Overwhelmed? Yes. Happy? Maybe. Bitter? Perhaps.
Intensely grateful ? Without a doubt.
Getting his own tattoos was as much of a protest as a remembrance.
A tribute to Corazon in the smiling face, so similar to another pirate crew's but not crossed out, not taken out.
But they're also a protest against the entire system of flowers in general.
Tattoos are rare to get. Many are too worried about accidentally covering future flowers to bother with them.
No one knows when a flower may form or where. Most tattoos are tiny things. The Whitebeard Pirates are the only group of people that Law is aware of that showcase tattoos so easily. Two different ways of expressing their loyalties. The Sun Pirates notwithstanding, theirs are to cover up a wrong, the Celestial Dragons having no regard for other people's flower marks and what their slave brand might cover up.
(Privately, he wonders if, in the Whitebeard Pirates case, it's for the crewmembers who can't get flowers themselves—an act of love, for anyone to feel included. Then he stamps out the thought.)
It takes forever to find a tattoo artist, then even longer after that to find one that is willing. But finally, Law gets an old man who, after he shows him the ideas and the designs, eyes him with an understanding pity in his eyes before gesturing at the chair.
He wants to snarl at the expression but takes a seat. Law needs this.
And when he leaves the shop, torso burning so many hours later with all the work he's gotten done, he's sore and in pain but he's happy seeing all the dark black lines covering his body.
He feels like himself, comfortable for once in his own skin.
None of his flowers were touched (except a few lines of the heart on his chest go over a little bit of the clematis vine and that feels like a victory) but he's accepted by this point that he'll never get another. It's okay. He's got his loyalties displayed for everyone to see.
Law doesn't need flowers to do it for him.
