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“Mugiwara-ya I need you to understand that I have no qualms about skewering you with a fork.” Law says with a deadly calm. In response, Luffy makes an ugly face at him as he’s shoving another piece of meat in his mouth. Law’s jaw sets firm.
With a precision none of them honestly expected, Law throws a knife straight at Luffy’s face who dodges just at the last second. It’s dead silent as everyone tries to process what just happened and before any of them can worry about this possibly being the end of their alliance Luffy makes a counterattack with a nearby spoon which goes sailing right over Law’s head but it’s apparently enough to make him jump out of his chair and vault over the table to lunge straight at Luffy’s throat.
Shouts of “Captain no” and “you promised” get lost in Luffy’s indignant squawk as they both go tumbling down to the floor. Everyone jumps out of their seat, already grabbing for any nearby weapons, prepared for the worst when Luffy starts to laugh.
Nami and Shachi peer over the table to where their captains are… wrestling. Somewhere along his journey over the table, Law has grabbed a piece of broccoli that he’s now trying to shove into Luffy’s mouth who is using the opportunity to have a go at Law’s fingers, snapping his teeth shut with enough force to crush a tree trunk.
In between trying to divest Law of a few of his fingers and dodging the offending vegetable he keeps letting out this ridiculously happy sounding laughs and even Law has a grin on his face, eyes alight. For some reason, they keep hurling insults at each other.
Shachi shares a look with Nami, then Penguin, then Bepo who somehow was one of the only ones who were unmoved by the whole display alongside Zoro, and decides that he’s had quite enough of today.
—
“Alright I’m drunk enough to give a shit now.” Zoro says as he plops down next to Law, a giant pitcher of beer in his hand. Law lifts one eyebrow.
“How’d you get it?” Zoro says, tapping Kikoku lightly with one finger where it’s lying across Law’s lap. “And why can’t you be without it?”
The second question makes Law’s grip on the sword tighten and puts a frown on his face.
“You don’t like leaving your swords either.”
Zoro tilts his head and then gestures to his hip, sash void of all but one sword. “I don’t have a codependent relationship with them. I keep’em around because we get attacked all the time and sure I don’t want them stolen from me but I don’t lose my mind when they’re not in immediate grabbing distance.”
Law huffs. “Well, I get attacked frequently too so-”
“Law.” Zoro says, extraordinarily serious for someone drunk off his ass. He locks eyes with Law and then very slowly says, “I saw you when you got your sword back on Dressrosa. That wasn’t the look of someone glad to be armed again.”
The thing is Law knows what Zoro means. He’s been figured out.
“I got it on some small island.” Las shrugs. “It kept being returned and it just caught my eye. That’s it.”
For some reason, Zoro grins. “‘Caught your eye’ huh? Don’t gotta pretend with me, Luffy already told me all about how you’re a big softie. So you felt bad for a sword huh? Figured you’d take it with you to see the world or what?” It’s clearly said as a joke and Zoro bursts into laughter but Law has become still next to him.
There’s silence and then-
“...No shit? You felt bad for the sword?” Zoro sounds astounded, but not mocking. He’s still grinning. “Oh I gotta tell Luffy-”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Law hisses and grabs the man when he tries standing up. “Obviously that’s not the reason so you can stop laughing.” Law can see that his arguing is not convincing Zoro, or even himself if he’s honest because-
Yeah, okay, so he’d bought a sword no one wanted, sue him, it worked out perfectly for him anyways. Not that he’s gonna tell Zoro the rest of the story now, that ass is still laughing.
—
Long after Zou. All the way in shitfuck Wano, Sanji comes up to Law. Casual in a way that Law instantly recognizes as a trap. He narrows his eyes.
“So,” Sanji says in a voice that makes Law want to punch him on principle. “Marimo told me that Usopp told him that Luffy told him about your super special attack you two idiots came up with.”
Law bristles at the word ‘idiot’ and then backtracks what Sanji said just so he can figure out what he’s talking about.
“Wait you mean-”
“I mean your little stunt where you let Luffy swing at you full force.”
Law scoffs. “So what? It was an effective surprise attack. Even if we didn’t take Doflamingo down with it.”
Sanji blinks at Law and very slowly says, “Yes, but do you do that shit with everyone you just met a week ago?”
“What do you mean?” The way Sanji is starting to look incredulous is seriously ticking him off. “What?” He says a second time, but meaner.
“You’re kidding you don’t even know why that’s ridiculous.” Sanji runs a hand through his hair, looking in desperate need of a cigarette but they’ve yet to be able to procure any so joke’s on him. “Did your little captain brain ever go ‘maybe I shouldn’t let this guy I barely know come at me with the intent to kill’? Or do you put yourself in life threatening situations for fun.”
Law thinks back on his life and then wisely doesn’t recount all the stunts he’s pulled that made Shachi and Penguin go white as sheets and cause Bepo to pull his fur out in clumps.
“I’m competent enough to pull it off so what’s the deal?” Law says instead of all that and watches Sanji visibly restrain himself from shaking Law by the shoulders.
“I get that we’re all a little stupid about trusting our captain, we’ve been through a lot. It just felt weird, when you showed that same trust after such little time.”
Law feels his eye twitch with the accusation and also feels something in his chest swoop as he realizes just what exactly it is Sanji is trying to get at. Before he can even open his mouth to say- well, anything, Shachi chimes in.
“That’s just our captain.”
“Huh?” Sanji blinks at the man who seems to have appeared out of thin air but has actually been here the whole time, witnessing this trainwreck of a conversation.
“You see, after you’ve been around him for a while you find out he has a ridiculously big heart and-” Law cuts Shachi off with a room and shambles, dropping him halfway down the mountain.
Sanji blinks.
Law, who can’t help himself and also because this will fuck with Sanji for sure, murmurs: “Some head of PR, we just built my reputation to be terrifying.”
Sanji, who has excellent ears, says “You what? Head of what?!” and then Law shambles himself halfway down the mountain so he can go beat Shachi up for real. That shit is classified.
—
“This is how you go out trying not to get recognized?” Sanji says, appalled, the second he sees Law in his outfit. Law frowns.
“What about it.”
“This is a terrible disguise!” He says and someone snickers. Law is too offended to look who it is.
“It’s a great disguise.” He says and watches a vein appear on Sanji’s forehead.
“It’s terrible and you’ll be discovered immediately.”
“Hey you just did your hair differently, at least I made an effort.”
Sanji sighs at Law’s outrage. “I’ve been thinking this since you put on sunglasses and a mustache on Dressrosa and called it a day but you have no idea do you?”
“About what.” Law bites out.
“I am a blond man in a suit and my most recognizable feature are my eyebrows. A new outfit and hair will do it for me. You on the other hand,” and here he gestures at Law, rudely, “have your whole chest out displaying your very distinct tattoos, your outfit has your jolly roger on it - I don’t even know how you did that-”
“I can use room to-”
“And,” Sanji bulldozes over whatever Law was about to say because it was most likely absolute bullshit, “you carry a sword that is about as long as you are tall and worst of all,” he points to the helmet, “that.”
Law scowls at the tengai. “Kikoku is not that big. Also what’s wrong with that. It’s not weird for someone to wear that here.”
“It isn’t.” Sanji agrees, very patiently. “But in conjunction with the rest of your ensemble it is so painfully obvious that it is meant to hide your actual hat which is also as recognizable as Luffy’s. I’m begging you to think about this.”
Law sniffs. “My outfit is perfect.”
“The second someone who has seen your wanted poster sees you like this they’ll know it’s you.”
“I bet they wouldn’t.”
Sanji narrows his eyes. “Okay,” he says slowly, “bet.”
—
One night in Wano, when the stars are shining bright and their intelligence gathering is at a standstill, Law finds Sanji outside having a smoke. And boy was it a day when they got access to some tobacco. It was a day for Law because the cook had been intolerable without his nicotine.
He’s quiet now, sitting on a log and staring up at the sky so Law decides to join him.
Sanji breathes out some smoke with a sigh and turns his head as Law sits down.
It’s silent, for a while, and Law appreciates it. Most Straw Hats, without Luffy in their immediate surroundings, are surprisingly mellow. The silence doesn’t last, though, and maybe that’s why Law chose to join Sanji in the first place.
“So, you’ve been in a bad mood for a while.” Sanji says it offhand, not accusingly. Not that Law would get upset, because he’s right. Still, he wouldn’t be himself if he’d just take it.
“I’ve been perfectly pleasant.”
Sanji lifts the one visible eyebrow and eyes him up and down. “Uh huh,” he says, “and you were snappy with everyone today because…?”
“Because everyone’s been insufferable today?” Law tries. Sanji snorts.
“Everyone’s insufferable every day. Your guys, too, so don’t even try.”
Law’s shoulders drop. Okay so maybe he has been ruminating on something. Something he can’t really talk to Bepo, Shachi or Penguin about, no matter how close they are. Maybe because of how close they are. Because it’s something ugly.
“I guess I’m still angry.”
Sanji looks at him. “Angry at who?”
Law snorts. Why are all these Straw Hats so intuitive? “At myself”, he says and, when Sanji just sits in silence, elaborates. “That I ever… That I looked up to him.” He doesn’t need to say who.
It’s hard for Law to admit, but Doflamingo was a savior to him. Back then with his mind and heart trapped in the all consuming hatred and helplessness and the knowledge, the certainty that he would die soon, Doflamingo had been someone godsent for him. He’d taken all of Law’s terrible parts and forged them into something even worse, but he’d also tried to save him. Even if it was for selfish reasons.
“Because of him I caused so much more pain than I could have alone, but…”
“But without him you would have died.” Sanji finishes for him. Law nods and swallows past the lump that’s suddenly in his throat. He grips Kikoku tight.
“I was going to die anyways but without him it would have happened much sooner.” Law blinks up at the sky. “I thought he was the only person who understood me. I thought I understood him as well, that we were the same.” He puts a hand on his hat, holding on to it. “But I never really knew who he was. I never really knew who Cora-san really was, either.”
There’d been so much to them that he didn’t know. So much that he still doesn’t, will never know.
“And is that bad?” When Law looks over, Sanji isn’t looking at him, just at the dark of the forest in front of them. “Jeff didn’t know who I really was when he took me in and I didn’t know everything about him either. He knew who I was, though. To you, Doflamingo was something bad that happened and your Cora-san was something good. Beyond that, what does it matter who they were?”
“It matters because they knew me, in different ways.” Law says and thinks about how Doflamingo knew the hate in him, the anger and the rage. How Cora-san knew the good; the sad little child all alone and dying. How they both saw the pain, how they knew parts of him but never the whole of him. Maybe they never saw Law at all, just what was similar to themselves.
“And I- I knew them both, in different ways. Not wholly, but I recognized parts of myself in both of them and-” it haunts me, Law doesn’t say.
It haunts him, that he still finds himself looking for similarities, that he still wonders if what they saw in him was not themselves but the other. That, when Cora-san looked at him he didn’t see Law at all, just a version of Doflamingo he could actually save. That he still has parts of Doflamingo in him to this day.
“Don’t overthink it” Sanji interrupts his thoughts. When Law stares at him he shrugs. “Listen it just sounds like a hassle to overanalyze the guy who tried to turn you into a mini version of himself and also hurt you and it sounds extremely foolish to overanalyze the guy who seemed to really love you.”
Don’t try to find a reason for somebody’s love. Sengoku had said to Law. It had shaken him then but hearing it again in a different way from someone completely unfamiliar with anything… It eases something in Law. Sanji says it with certainty, too. Like he knows. And so Law doesn’t just see himself in Doflamingo and Cora-san. He sees himself in Sanji, in Nico Robin, in so many of the Straw Hats. The parts of him that are ugly, and the parts of him that someone might think are beautiful. Kikoku sits warm in his hands and Law breathes out slowly.
“Just remember them however you want to.” Sanji adds and puts a hand on Law’s shoulder. Embarrassingly, it helps ground him.
It sounds simple, Law thinks and looks up at the stars.
—
Late into the night, Nami sighs into her drink. “I wish our captain was as rational as yours.” She looks up to see multiple heads swivel to her with matching expressions of disbelief.
“Rational?” Shachi says in a tone of voice that she herself has adopted multiple times when confronted with Luffy’s newest fans.
She considers the absolutely ludicrous request he’d lobbied at her on Dressrosa before hanging up on her and amends. “Alright, maybe not rational, but he at least thinks things through before acting.”
As if on cue all Heart pirates members around her snort and start laughing.
“Captain?” Penguin wheezes out as he’s holding onto Ikkakku’s shoulder. “Thinking things through? I suppose he does.” He continues and looks around like it’s some sort of inside joke. Going by the other’s reactions it is.
Shachi waves the hand with his beer at her. “That’s the frustrating thing about him, Nami-san! He thinks and he thinks and then he still does whatever insane thing he’s set his mind to!”
“He’s an idiot!” Someone chimes in from a few seats away and everyone else nods.
“He’s called the Surgeon of Death and he keeps trying to make plans - not that we can get Luffy to follow them - so…” Nami says skeptically and flinches when Penguin lets out a wail of anguish.
“Yes, he is! And do you know how hard-fought that title was?! Huh?” He stops and stares into the middle distance as if reliving multiple traumatic experiences.
Shachi slams the krug down, near tears. “We worked hard for Law’s reputation okay? We did PR.” He wails and Nami blinks at them, taken aback.
“That guy,” Penguin chimes in, pointing at Law with his thumb, “is a fucking softie. He’s lucky none of his thoughts ever show up on his face-”
“Except for petulance and stubbornness.” Shachi sighs.
“-and that smile that he has when he’s being a little shit.” Penguin continues. “Anyways when I asked him what he wanted to be, before all this pirate stuff, you know what he said?” Penguin stares at Nami until she shakes her head and casts a glance at Usopp, who just looks concerned.
“What did he say?”
“He said he wanted to be kind!” Penguin and Shachi yell at the same time and Nami sees Law’s head snap up at the sound. Wide eyes quickly narrowing and promising murder. A room forms.