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Rosinante finds the little tube of makeup by accident.
He’s looking for something else entirely, though all thoughts of his original goal are swiped clean as soon as he recognizes what the tube is: the lipstick he used to wear when he was Corazón.
Rosinante remembers, clear as day, waking up in agony, Doflamingo’s strings holding his flesh together to stop him from bleeding out as his head spun with questions. He was in and out of consciousness for what felt like weeks, never managing to stay awake for long before the world went dark again. At some point, at long last, he had recovered enough to officially become a secret prisoner of the Donquixote Family, shackled and hidden away under the Royal Palace in Dressrosa.
The lipstick tube was one of the only things Rosinante was allowed to keep, and he always figured that was more his brother’s idea of a cruel joke than a genuine act of kindness. Even if he’d wanted to forget about his role as Corazón, he wouldn’t have been able to, not with the little tube in his possession.
Rosinante suddenly finds himself sat on the edge of the bed he shares with Law, cautious hands turning the lipstick this way and the other. He uncaps it and twirls the end, watches it rise from its casing, and muscle memory has his fingers stopping at the exact same spot they used to more than a decade ago.
Fuck. Was it really always this sickly, ugly dark shade of red? Why did he think it was a good idea to paint a smile on his face in the color of dried blood?
The door to the attached bathroom opens, and Law walks out from a cloud of steam, towel-drying his hair and clad in his favorite set of pajamas. His mouth opens, but before he can say a word, his eyes fixate on the tube of lipstick in Rosinante’s hands and soften almost imperceptibly.
Law sits down beside him, and the warmth from his body makes Rosinante move closer to him without thinking until their shoulders are pressed together.
“Do you miss it?” Law asks quietly.
Rosinante quirks an eyebrow. “Being Corazón? Not really.”
“The lipstick, idiot,” Law clarifies, nudging Rosinante with his elbow. “The makeup. The whole… deal.” He sighs, a frustrated huff that has Rosinante’s lips curling upwards. “I guess it does sound like I’m asking if you miss being him.”
“Well, my answer is still no,” Rosinante chuckles. “Although I do miss the makeup sometimes, just a little.”
“So why not start using it again?”
Even the mere suggestion sends a shudder from Rosinante’s head down to his feet, and not the kind of shudder he feels in Law’s presence.
“Too close to the mask, I think, since I only ever used it as Corazón,” he says, grimacing. “I wasn’t all that interested in it before, and I never felt the need to put it on afterwards, either.”
Law reaches over to take the lipstick tube from Rosinante with gentle, delicate fingers, even as he glares at the uncapped end like it personally offends him. The sight is so adorable, Rosinante can’t help but let go of some of the tension on his shoulders.
“The color’s tacky as shit, isn’t it.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Law snaps in a tone of voice that makes his unspoken opinion about the dark red shade perfectly clear.
Rosinante holds his hand palm-side up, and the weight of the lipstick tube on it once Law returns it is… lighter than he thought it would be, but also heavier than he would like it to be.
“I should get rid of this, shouldn’t I,” he mutters, not entirely a question.
“Do you want to?” Law replies softly.
“I don’t know,” Rosinante confesses, which is a revelation that sits uncomfortably in his chest. He should want to get rid of it, right? It was part of a disguise he took in order to carry out his life’s mission, and then he was forced to keep that disguise for thirteen years, and if he were to wear it now, it’d only return him to Spider Miles, to Minion Island, to that cell in Dressrosa.
But it’d also return him to the six months he spent with Law, searching for the cure that would save his life.
To hearing Law start to call him Cora-san.
To thinking he would die, and being perfectly content with it, because it meant Law would live.
“Is it weird that there’s this fucked-up nostalgia attached to it?” Rosinante laughs without humor. “I don’t wanna throw it out, even though I know I’m not gonna use it again.”
“Then don’t,” Law says, easy as anything. “You don’t need to explain your reasons to anyone, least of all me. And if you’re ever interested in trying other kinds of makeup, we’ll get you some. We’ll dock at an island, make a day of it, just you and me.”
Giddiness at the thought of spending a whole day with his Law’s full attention for himself has Rosinante grinning like an idiot. If he didn’t know any better, he would go as far as calling it a date. “Sounds good to me.”
There’s that glint in Law’s eyes, the one that Rosinante would kill for, and Law purses his lips in a way that spells nothing more than trouble. Before Rosinante can even blink, Law has swung himself onto his lap and settled there, his arms wrapped around Rosinante’s neck and his fingers caressing the blond locks on the back of Rosinante’s head.
For a second, Rosinante imagines what Law would look like covered in lipstick kisses, and a possessive little thrill rushes down his spine, makes heat pool low in his belly. Perhaps the makeup is an idea worth revisiting at some point in the future.
Law rises slightly on his knees, using his grip on Rosinante’s hair to tug his head back so he can lean down and press their open mouths together, his tongue already sliding alongside Rosinante’s and his teeth nibbling on Rosinante’s lower lip. Rosinante can do nothing other than tug Law even closer and give back as good as he’s getting, and soon enough, all thoughts of the ugly, dark red lipstick are gone from his mind.
About a month later, while the Hearts are having fun after a small skirmish with a no-name pirate crew who were clearly too big for their britches, Law drops down onto the seat next to Rosinante and holds a little tube wrapped in bright-colored paper out towards him.
“Here,” Law says. “For you.”
“A gift?” Rosinante glances at the small object. “We’re not even close to Yuletide yet. What’s the occasion?”
“Does there need to be one?” Law snarks back with a raised eyebrow. “I saw this at a market stall on the last island we docked at and thought of you.”
Rosinante’s heart skips a beat. He didn’t even notice Law had bought anything, much less anything that might appeal to Rosinante. His Law is always so sweet and thoughtful, no matter how much he tries to deny it.
“I wish I’d known,” Rosinante says as he takes the gift and begins to unwrap it. “I would’ve liked to get you something in re… turn…”
The little tube, once Rosinante has carefully taken off the paper, turns out to be a tube of lipstick. When he uncaps it and twirls the end, he notices that the shade is a brighter red than the one he used to wear as Corazón.
“I know you mentioned not being all that interested in makeup anymore,” Law starts, his voice going into that slightly higher pitch that betrays his nervousness. “And this isn’t meant to push you into using it again if you don’t want to. But if you do want to try it, I thought you could start with a shade that’s similar enough to what you were used to, to kind of ease you into it, but not enough to trigger any of the bad memories attached to the other one. And if you’d just rather throw the whole thing out the porthole—”
“Law,” Rosinante cuts him off, barely managing not to jump out of his skin. His blood is boiling over with an excitement he never imagined he’d feel, not for this, and now he needs, almost desperately, to try the lipstick on. “Law. Sweetheart, I— Will you come with me and wait till I put it on?”
Law’s gaze brightens, his nervousness replaced by hope. “You wanna?”
Rosinante nods, unable to speak.
The little smile Law gives him is one of the biggest blessings in Rosinante’s life.
“Yeah,” Law mumbles, holding out his hand right as Rosinante reaches out to grab it. “Yeah, I’ll come with you.”
Applying his new lipstick is strangely soothing. Its quality is much better, for starters, and the color makes his eyes pop in a way Rosinante finds quite alluring. More importantly, however, Law was right: once he’s put the makeup on, Rosinante sees only himself in the mirror of the bathroom attached to Law’s private cabin.
He’s still… him. Rosinante. A member of the Heart Pirates.
Law’s Cora-san.
His mouth curls up into a smile. He really hopes Law likes it as much as he does.
The moment Rosinante steps out of the bathroom, Law straightens where he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. Rosinante can tell the second Law notices the lipstick, because his eyes widen and his lips part.
“Cora-san,” he exhales, all gravelly and breathless. “You… You look… fuck.”
Rosinante preens. Leave it to his lovely Law to be eloquent. “I was about to ask what you think of it.”
“I think,” Law starts, standing on legs that quiver just enough for Rosinante to catch the motion, “that I should’ve gotten you a dozen more lipsticks.”
Rosinante can’t help the delighted giggle that comes out of him.
“Well,” he says as Law crosses the minimal distance between them and wraps his arms around Rosinante’s hips, “we can always go back to wherever you got this one and buy more.”
Law hums, nodding, but his eyes are fixated on Rosinante’s mouth, almost as if he’s entranced by the sight. Rosinante decides to have mercy on him and leans down to kiss him, and Law sighs into it and pushes harder against him, and Rosinante grabs Law by his ridiculously tiny waist and tugs him closer and drops a path of kisses from the corner of Law’s lips to his jaw, down to the side of his throat. Law—sweet, darling, precious man that he is—throws his head back to give Rosinante more space to work with, and Rosinante rewards him by kissing the spot where Law’s neck joins with his shoulder.
When Rosinante pulls back to look at his artwork, a moan rips itself from his vocal cords. Law’s eyes are half-open, hazy and glassy with pleasure, and his parted mouth is slick with spit and red with Rosinante’s lipstick, and the kisses he left on Law’s skin look nearly perfectly painted on, and Rosinante can’t stop himself from painting even more kisses all over Law’s face and neck, marking Law as his and only his. He belongs to Rosinante. Rosinante is the only one who can leave an imprint of his mouth wherever he wants on Law’s body… and Law will let him.
“Ngh!” Law lets out a little yelp as Rosinante picks him up and throws him on the bed. “Cora-san…?” But then he takes one glance at Rosinante’s face, and whatever he finds there makes his frame relax and melt against the mattress, makes him throw his arms around Rosinante’s shoulders and pull him down on top of him. “Should’ve known this’d get your motor going.”
All Rosinante can do in response is sigh and tilt Law’s head up to mark the rest of his throat. He still has a long way to go if he’s going to cover every single inch of Law in his red lipstick, but luckily for him, he’s got a brand new tube to help him.