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CH 1: Law Part I: Headed for a Breakdown

Trafalgar Law, was a Surgeon.

A Cardiothoracic Surgeon who specialized in open heart transplants, one of the best and most sought-after specialists on the continent. He was renowned recognized by the NWMA as one of the top experts in his field. This was not ego, this was fact. Also, a fact, he had more doctorates than any other Surgeon currently employed at North Blue Regency Hospital short of Board President Vegapunk himself.

He was only 26 by the time he was 21, he’d already been published in ‘The New World Medical Journal’. Twice.

And what did all of these facts add up to?

About forty-five minutes, spent calmly explaining that a having a pacemaker did not defend against double cheeseburgers and one diagnosis of Gastral Esophageal Reflux Disorder—AKA acid reflux.

Law mentally cringed.

Junk-food. Mortal enemy of cardiologists everywhere.

Processed foods and Trans-fats were truly the bane of Law’s existence. How many tired, morbidly obese patients had filtered through his office over the years with their coronary arteries clogged to death with fatty plaque deposits? Repeat offenders, that’s what those in the Medical field referred to them as. Law’s list in particular seemed to be a mile long lately.  Pearl Krieg had just been the latest example.

Law placed his latest repeat offender’s file firmly in the “seen” pile, but hesitated to pick up the next one, finger poised on the edge of the overstuffed manila folder.

Of course, all of this wasn’t to say that Trafalgar Law didn’t still love his job. Because he did.

Really.

Or, at least, it was sentiment that felt like it should’ve been true, had been true at some point, and undoubtedly if asked he would have testified that it still was.

But, then there were times like now. Days like today, that made him doubt his sanity in becoming Surgeon, and made it difficult to remember exactly why anyone would voluntarily suffer through years of medical school for an existence like this.

Overworked and sleep deprived, with nerves like shredded tissue paper— If Law’s morning went any further south, Satan was going to start charging him rent.

Law took his hand off the file, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples where he could feel a headache slowly throbbing away.

He hasn’t been home in over two days, surviving off shitty cafeteria food and the minimal rack time he’d managed to steal in the on-call rooms. He’d gotten out of two extensive back to back surgeries at three A.M. this morning and has been seeing patients one after another ever since.

The Surgeon fought to muster every last ounce of professionalism he had left, but with each step it was getting harder and harder to maintain his mask of clinical—but attentive—indifference.

Honestly, the only thing Law could think about at present was his desire to collapse on the nearest comfortable surface so that he could sleep for a week.

He could feel his expression slipping.

Turning his back on the patient’s files, Law made the executive decision that he needed to get off the floor. Stat.

He found himself detouring to the nurse’s breakroom rather than the doctor’s lounge (that would have required passing by the receptionist’s desk, which was a whole other can of worms Law had no interest in opening), not that it mattered. For Law, the designation itself was insignificant. All that really mattered was the full pot of hot coffee that would be waiting on the counter.

Caffeine was an essential part of every medical professional’s life support system.

If junk-food was indeed his mortal enemy, then coffee was Law’s best friend

Pushing open the door and entering what he’d initially thought was an empty room, he was momentarily disappointed to catch a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye—until he saw exactly who it was.

It wasn’t really all that surprising that he hadn’t noticed the man when he’d first entered. After all, Penguin had mastered the fine art of invisibility long ago.  Though he wasn’t much shorter than Law himself, his shoulders had a casual way of slouching forward that appeared to greatly diminish his presence. His appearance itself was completely, and utterly average. Average messy dark hair, unkempt and without sheen, the color of coal dust as opposed to Law’s own glossy blue-black. Average face with an average smile. In fact, the only thing that did stand out were his eyes, particularly their unique coloring.

They were a combination of blue’s, crystal shards of color that ranged from pale arctic to midnight, all of which were pieced together in an eerie stained-glass effect. Every time you thought you’d grown used to them, the colors would shift, like a living kaleidoscope.

If eyes were the window into one’s soul, then Penguin’s were like a window into your own.

Truthfully, it had taken Law himself some time before he’d been able to maintain eye contact with the man. Though there were still times when the other male’s gaze was a little too intense for comfort. Those same eyes, the ones he tended to hide behind cheesy novelty hats while not at work, were now following Law in unveiled interest.

But out of the two people he actually could stand in the hospital, Law was grateful that it was Penguin and not Shachi, because at least the Dietitian had enough self-preservation not to ask until AFTER Law got his coffee. Too tired to try and mess with the cream and sugar, he took it straight black, slouching back against the counter, taking cautious sips and grimacing at the sharp and bitter taste.

It wasn’t like he drank it for the flavor anyway.

There was one other thing worth mentioning about being alone with Penguin though.

It went without saying that Shachi and Penguin together was never a good idea, but at least Shachi was too bullheaded to be anything but straightforward—Penguin, the deceptively mellow one, had a sneaky, underhanded tendency to get into your head, until you were spilling your guts before you’d even realized that your mouth was moving.

Most conversations with the Dietitian were similar to a game of chess. Law sipped his coffee, calmly waiting for Penguin’s opening move.

“You look like shit.” And there it was, round one. Point blank.

“Your face looks like shit,” Law fired back without any real heat.

Penguin chuckled. “Have you SEEN your face lately?”

Law grunted, scratching his jaw at the annoying three-day old stubble, a constant reminder of how tired and overworked he was. He was definitely rocking the grunge look more often than not lately. He knew he looked rough. His skin had managed to achieve an unnatural shade of pale that was quite impressive—considering his natural complexion was more of a copper-tan. And even he had to admit that the dark smudges under his eyes–which were so often mistaken for eye liner—had grown undeniably deeper than usual.

“Who was it this time?”

Against his will the surgeon could feel the mask slowly slipping off, and it was like shedding an outfit that was dangerously tight, the relief of being able to breathe without constriction.

“Krieg,” Law groaned, melting into the chair opposite of the Dietitian. The same Dietitian who was currently hoarding monstrous sized bag of M&M’s—the kind normally reserved for children, teenagers and menstruating women. He even had the gall to tip the opened end of the bag in Law’s direction. The surgeon disdainfully eyed the bag filled with its little surgery coated artery cloggers. Really Pen?

Honestly, if cheeseburgers were at number one, then candy was a close second on the heart doctor’s shit list.

“So, Pearl’s back?” His friend smiled good-naturedly and took back the offering, popping another handful of the rainbowed candies into his mouth. “How much damage did our little bowling ball manage to do this time?”

“Twelve pounds.” Law complained, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. “Twelve pounds in two weeks! The man mistook indigestion for a myocardial infarction.” The surgeon sighed, “You’re going to have to talk with him again.” For what little good they both knew it would do. It was the unfortunate business of being a medical professional, you couldn’t save someone who wasn’t interested in saving themselves.

“Yeah, yeah,” Penguin replied flippantly. He’d get to it eventually. “Speaking of crazies, saw your stalker out there today.” His friend’s eyes were once again locked on Law’s, “Psycho-Sadie still giving you trouble?”

Law scoffed. He wished that was his biggest issue at the moment. While undeniably annoying, as long as he didn’t let himself get locked inside any storage closets with the woman, he’d be good.

“She’s harmless.” Mostly.

"Careful man,” his friend cautioned. “The way that woman looks at you—I can’t tell if she wants to screw you,” Penguin shook his head, “—or take you to church and spank you.”

Law snorted. “You’re just assuming it’s not both.” Simultaneously—If he had to guess. The Surgeon, sadly, had some personal experience in this area. Unfortunately, he hadn’t always been so particular about his bed partners in the past. The decision to go ‘Psychosocial’ back in college hadn’t exactly been Law’s most shining moment. Thankfully he’d been better about it in med school. Nowadays, he could always spot those special kinds of freaks in a literal heartbeat, and knew well enough when to keep it in his pants.

Law sighed, already feeling a headache coming on. "Why’s it always the crazy ones?” he asked, not even registering that he’d spoken out loud until Penguin was answering him.

“It’s the night-of-the-living-dead look you’ve got going man,” His friend paused, and seeming to think for a moment.  “And the tats,” Penguin snickered. “Definitely the tats.”

Law scoffed. Like there was anything he could do about that. The time for THAT intervention would have been back in high school when he’d gotten the damn things. Not that he regretted it. Even if, sometimes, having the words “DEATH” branded across your knuckles did make life a bit more difficult.

Especially as a Surgeon.

“But for real dude,” Penguin continued. “You look half-dead. I’ve seen bodies bagged and tagged that looked healthier. Seriously, when’s the last time you saw actual daylight?”

“You’re a damn Dietitian,” Law chose to ignore the dig about his appearance. So maybe he looked like a fucking zombie, so what? Not like he had anyone he needed, or wanted, to impress. “—where’d you ever see a body?”

“The morgue.” Penguin blinked, like, Duh, before tossing back a few more M&Ms.

Law rolled his eyes. There went Shachi abusing his doctors badge again. God. He was friends with such freaks. But then, maybe that just went without saying. Before he can start harping on things like morals, or common decency, Penguin headed him off. “Go home. Eat something,” his friend insisted, with an expression of genuine concern. “—sleep in your actual bed for once.”

“Can’t,” Law grunted. “I’m the only hospitalist on-call. Plus, I’ve already got an overbooked

schedule.” Which had little to do with short staffing and everything to do with Caesar being the one in charge of admissions and they both knew it.

“Just tell the assclown to shove it,” said Penguin between mouthfuls, looking exasperated—as if saying such a thing to your boss was the most reasonable thing in the world. “We both know your more than capable.” Which was true. It wasn’t like Law was in any way intimidated by the man. His friends knew that, if pressed, Law could go toe to toe with the devil himself, and Caesar Clown was nothing more than a bigoted, self-important, well… assclown.

Law gave his friend a flat look.

That was different though. This wasn’t just about Law’s ability to pick fights with any authority figure—regrettably, his two friends were more than well acquainted with this compulsion—that was the outside world. Work was work, and he had an obligation. An ethical responsibility.

He must have had that look on his face—or maybe it was because he’d spent so much time lately making the same excuses—because his friend seemed to have read his mind, waving him off before he could start.

“This is a hospital you know. There are other doctors here,” Penguin leveled him with a look that was unusually serious. Even though the Pediatrician wasn’t, in all likely hood, even on the floor—they didn’t get a lot of kids in the cardiac department—he could still hear the redhead being channeled through his normally more reserved friend. “You’re not going to be able to help anyone if you end up your own damn patient.”

The corner of Law’s mouth curved as he offered his friend a small, albeit a tad rusty, smile. “I thought lectures were Shachi’s area.”

Penguin smirked. “We’re switching it up,” Leaning back in his chair, the man folded his hands behind his head, looking completely unrepentant.   “—he says you never listen to him.”

“Well,” Law sighed, taking another sip of his coffee before muttering, “—he’s not wrong.”

X X X

Luckily, Law only felt like he was dying. Out there, only a few meters away and down the hall, there were plenty of people, sitting alone in the cold and sterile rooms—with real, potentially life-threatening illnesses—who might actually die if Law continued hiding out in the break room instead of doing his damn job. Thankfully this fact was still enough to give the surgeon the strength, and motivation he needed to put the mask back on and re-enter into the chaos that had become his daily routine.

Maybe Law wasn’t such a lost cause just yet. Even if he did hesitate in in the doorway, just for a moment, before gritting his teeth and stepping back out on the floor, shutting the door behind him.

Passing by the receptionist’s desk, he didn’t even glance across the counter—he didn’t need to see in order to feel the woman leering at him with that repugnant sneer. Personally, he’d take those looks any day when compared to ones she tossed his way when she believed no one to be looking. Those were the ones that tended to make his skin crawl.

Grabbing the thick manila file outside the door, Law had to keep reminding himself that his real work, his true professional obligation lay beyond the horrors of endless of paperwork and creepy judgmental receptionists.

No.

Laws real job–what he’d actually suffered through medical school, residencies, and internships for—was so that he could save fucking lives. Taking a breath, Trafalgar Law opened the door to his next patient under the belief that his day couldn’t possibly get much worse.

Apparently, the universe did not agree.

If there was one thing Law hated beyond the idiots who couldn’t be bothered to try and save themselves—it was the attention seeking, over privileged, self-centered sorts idiots he was too often forced to deal with.

The queen of said idiots—and current bane of Law’s earthly existence—Kalifa Powers, was now sitting before him, perched high and mighty on the exam table in her patient gown, with her six-hundred dollar Gucci pumps swinging off the side.

Law froze in the doorway, fighting the compulsion to back out and retreat back to the sanctity of the nurse’s break room.

“It’s about time,” The woman’s overly painted features scrunched together in annoyance. “I’ve already been here over an hour. Do you always keep your patients waiting like this? Did you know that no one has even come in to check on me? No one, not even a nurse. What would you have done if something had happened? I could have been laying out on the floor and nobody would have been the wiser. What sort of hospital is this? Do you even care about your patient’s well-being?”

God, did the woman ever breathe?

Law could feel his eye beginning to twitch. Against every instinct he had to walk out and slam the door behind him, Law instead stepped forward, cracking open the manila file to begin reading off the series of test results. Results he could have recited in his sleep by now.

“EKG’s clean, pressure and heart rate well within normal range, chest X-rays negative, blood tests say that all your cardiac markers are well within a healthy range.” Law calmly informed the woman, carefully making sure to let no emotion into either his tone or his expression. “You’ve been hooked up to leads that’ve been monitoring all your vitals, if you’d have been in distress our staff would have been immediately notified.”

“Are you saying that this machine is an acceptable substitute for an actual human being?” The woman scoffed. Law wanted to roll his eyes. Of course she’d feel that way, machines couldn’t give the same attention that people could—the attention she was seeking as opposed to actual medical assistance.

Keeping his expression relaxed became an exercise in self-restraint

“I’m saying that we take our patients safety as our top priority and that if at any point your well-being was at risk then an actual human being would have been here along with our rapid response team and a crash-cart.”

Not that that would’ve been an issue, considering this woman was perfectly healthy.

The one thing her blood tests had shown, was a decline in hormone levels. Taking into account her age and her symptoms—the hot flashes, night sweats, trouble sleeping, flushing, mood swings—the woman wasn’t having cardiac issues, what she was experiencing was textbook menopausal denial.

But no, rather than acknowledging that her biological clock was ticking, she’d chosen instead to parade around the hospital, playing victim to a cardiac crisis because—GOD—anything was better than an overprivileged socialite having to admit she’d struck middle-age.

Law sighed, wanting to rub his temples where he could feel a migraine building. “There’s always stress testing.”

“You mean making me run on a treadmill like some lab rat?” The woman made a haughty sound that had the veins in Laws forehead beginning to pulsate. “I don’t think so. Are you trying to kill me?”

Well look who’s been reading WebMD. Apparently, she’d missed the part where it said stress could be alternately achieved through drug induction, but who was Law to correct the little internet scholar?

Maybe if he hadn’t been so dog tired, he might have noticed the shifting of the rooms atmosphere, but as it was the woman’s next words caught Law completely off-guard.

Kalifa Powers was giving the surgeon what he could only assume was meant to be a coy look. “I was thinking, something along the lines of…” the woman arched her back as one professionally manicured nail tip slid down the neckline of her smock, “–a more hands on examination?”

Law froze.

Fuck-the-what-now?

This was new—new and fucking disturbing. The woman’s voice had a sickly-sweet lilt to it that did NOT bode well for Law’s mental wellbeing. The ridiculousness of anyone trying to be sexy while wearing a damn hospital gown was so insane he almost laughed.

The Surgeon warily eyed the shameless display of chest and could feel his gag reflex starting to kick in. The only way he was going anywhere near those monsters, was with a scalpel in his hand.

For surgical purposes, of course. Law after all, wasn’t the psycho here.

He was just the psycho catnip.

What was with these women? He was a damn doctor not some kinky sex toy. Was it some kind of—literally—crazy pheromone thing?

Maybe he should have himself checked out.

Otherwise the next scalpel he picked up really might not be for medical purposes.

“That would be completely unnecessary.” Law stressed the word, meaning every bit of it.

The woman’s expression froze, perfectly penciled brows scrunching together in disbelief, before twisting into a sneer.

“What kind of Doctor are you?” To Law’s relief, the venom was back in her voice. Really, anything was better than that disgusting saccharine attempt.

“Overly certified and in the wrong department,” Law could feel his irritation broiling just below his surface, which was what he’d later blame for the lack of impulse control that followed. “—what you need is a psychologist, not a goddamn surgeon.”

The words were out. And did he regret it?

Well, no, not exactly.

It was true. As an expert, Law could confidently attest that the woman’s heart was indeed perfectly healthy—It was her head that was the problem

She gasped, blood rushing to her face. “Excuse me?!”  

But Law ignored the woman, continuing to talk over her, because that was it. This woman needed some shock therapy, and that was something Law felt he was more than qualified to give.

“You’re unexcused,” Law smirked mirthlessly, “—but if you really feel like pushing this, there’s always option of exploratory surgery and I have a free table this afternoon, shall I schedule you in?”

His words seemed to throw the woman off balance. Good. But Law wasn’t finished yet.

“I don’t think that’s necess—“

“Let me explain exactly what it is I do here,” the Surgeon immediately cut her off, “—because you seem to be under some mistaken impression. This is the cardiac floor, I am a cardiothoracic surgeon, a specialist in open heart surgeries. If you really want to go down this road here’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Law closed the manila file, snapping it shut as he took a step closer into his patient’s space, his darkening aura causing the woman to unconsciously lean back and away.

“Once you’re under I’ll start with a lateral incision, dissecting your torso from the base of your neck to your naval, after which I’d be able to first peel back the upper and lower dermis—that would be your skin—once that’s been clamped back and out of the way I’ll be able to start retracting the layers of fatty tissue and muscle to get to the ribcage…”

The woman’s already pale complexion blanched even more until she was practically a match for the overly starched scratchy hospital sheets that were currently beneath her overprivileged—and more than likely surgically enhanced—ass.

“—from there I would use what you would call rib splitters, steal retractors with a manual hand crank, that’s how I’ll crack open your sternum to expose your vital organs, some of which will have to be shifted aside or temporarily removed if we’re to get to your heart, because that’s where you’re sure the problem lies right?”

Mrs. Powers turned impossibly whiter, skin now a sickly translucent color and started looking like she might just hurl. Or maybe pass out. The woman opened her mouth, probably to offer some sort of outraged protest, but the Surgeon wasn’t done with her just yet.

“Technically speaking protocol for open heart surgery is fairly similar to that of preforming an autopsy,” Law’s mouth curved in a sinister display of sharp teeth. “But don’t worry, unlike pathologists we always put our patients back together properly. If all goes well you’d only be looking at a recovery time of six to nine months, though of course as with any highly invasive surgery there’s always a low risk of infection. Now that can get ugly…”

The woman made a small choking sound, it seemed to take a moment for her to recover her voice. Her arrogance appeared to have drained out along with her coloring. “You can’t just—I… I mean y-you… “

“I’m sorry, does this mean you’ve changed your mind?” Law’s grey eyes went ice cold. “If so, then go home. Delete WebMD from your bookmarks, lay off the Gray’s anatomy, and quit wasting everyone’s damn time.”

X X X

He couldn’t suppress the slight, smug sense of satisfaction he was feeling. It’d been a good while since Law had intentionally frightened another human being, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the woman hadn’t deserved it.

The feeling lasted all of ten seconds before he realized his grievous mistake.

Unfortunately for Law, in his sleep deprived state, he had forgotten to shut the door when he’d entered. Thus, apparently leaving the entire hospital privy to his little outburst. Any other time he would have been appalled at his slip-up, (Doctors never forgot to close the door when giving a consultation, it was a clear-cut violation of a patients right to privacy) but right now he just couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn.

Stepping out into the hallway, Law was hardly surprised by the large audience that seemed to have gathered. Techs, Nurses, PA’s—all stood frozen in the hallways, rather than being in patient’s rooms as they should be. Some were loitering around the receptionist’s desk—Pyscho Sadie included.

Had he really been that loud?

Law took a step forward and that seemed to be the signal for them to scatter, faces ducked down, eyes cast anywhere but in Law’s general direction. In fact, only a certain Dietitian—leaning hip cocked against the hallways guardrail—was still purposely looking at him. Penguin, eyebrows slightly raised but otherwise unruffled, seemed to be the only one not shocked by the sudden turn of events.

Law went to shut the door behind him, but changed his mind, the damage had already been done. Besides, he doubted Mrs. Power’s would be staying long after his little demonstration. Hell, she was probably just waiting for him to leave so that she could escape without having to physically pass him.

He closed his eyes forcing himself to breathe in a pattern meant to foster mental clarity. The effort was ruined when he hears his name called out in what had to be one of the world’s most annoying voices.

“Doctor Trafalgar,” Caesar Clown, the bastard who rarely ever stepped out on the floor, seemed to have miraculously emerged from his office and was now standing at the reception desk, eyes bugging. “My Office. Now.” The man turned on his heel, white lab coat billowing behind him.

Law sighed, well aware he’d just shot himself in the foot

On his trek down the hall, Law passed by Penguin, who coughed up a sound that sounded suspiciously like “Assclown” before giving him a meaningful look.

Law pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a slow deep breath before nodding his head once. “Right.” As he walked down the hall, the Surgeon couldn’t help but feel like a child who’d been called into the principal’s office.

X X X

The unit director’s office smelled like a mixture of hand sanitizer and black licorice stemming from the large dish of disgusting candies on his desk. He was always popping the revolting things into his mouth like some sort of addict.

“You insulted that woman,” Caesar Clown’s twisted, yellowed eyes lit up in barely concealed glee at the prospect of punishing Law. It was obvious that the man was ecstatic to at long last, finally have something to hold over the young Surgeons head.

“I did no such thing, I just stated the facts.” Law took a slow breath, and he thought that maybe he was trembling, but if he was, it was from pure, repressed outrage. “That woman is an ER delinquent that spends nearly as much time in this hospital as I do and by some godforsaken miracle always manages to find her way into my patient list.”

“That woman, Mrs. Power’s, is a highly valued client.” Law noticed not even Caesar was acknowledging the woman as an actual patient—client indeed. “Her husband is a huge contributor to this hospital; do you have any idea how much he’s donated this year alone?”

Law’s spine was stiff enough to snap.

There was a fine line between exercising one’s freedom of speech and a full blown mental breakdown, and right now Law knew, he was precariously balancing on the thinnest part of it.

“Well then, if her husband should ever come around I’ll be sure to thank him—but unless Mrs. Powers is requesting an STD screening, whomever her bed partner may be, is completely irrelevant to her treatment. Furthermore, that woman is a textbook hypochondriac. I’m not a counselor nor am I some kind of drug dealer, I’m a damn surgeon. She doesn’t need me, she needs a damn therapist.”

“Just because you’re the hospital’s board of director’s golden child—”

Law rolled his eyes, more like the golden goose. He couldn’t even begin to calculate how much revenue he’d earned this godforsaken place. He wasn’t just a cardiothoracic surgeon, he was a cardiothoracic surgeon who specialized in freaking heart transplants. People flew in from all over the country seeking his expertise, his reputation as one of the best brought in high profile, high paying patients who never would have stepped into this hellhole otherwise. This was not Law being egotistical, these were the goddam facts.

“I’m a goddamn cardiac transplant specialist, that’s my job, that’s what my contract says. I’m not here to deal with heartburn and head cases, that being said, I don’t mind helping with the surgical work load when necessary—but anything short of that is a goddam waste of my time and effort!” Law’s eyes snapped open widely as the words came out of his mouth, not because he regretted them but because they were so fucking true. It was like some higher power had reached down and flipped some internal switch and said ‘now let there be light’.

The realization hit him like a sucker punch to the face.

He WAS wasting his time—God, he wasting his LIFE. Why the hell had it taken him so long so realize this? How long had he felt this way? For someone who was supposed to be a genius Law felt like the world’s biggest dumbass, second only to the assclown on the other side of the desk.

Well fuck that shit.

Calmer than he would have though himself capable of, Law pulled back the lapel of his lab coat digging out the two little demon devices he was always forced to carry, and tossed both the hospital phone and his pager onto Caesar’s desk. “I’m done.”

Caesars face screwed up in an incredulous look. “What do you mean you’re done?”

“I mean I’m DONE.” It was like a flood gate had opened, just ditching those two items had made him feel so much lighter. Like a dog who’d been let off-leash. “Consider this me taking a personal day,” Law paused. “—actually, make that a week.”

“You can’t do that, you have an obligation to your patients—“

Law clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Not today I don’t. You’ve got a degree, don’t you? You deal with it.”

Caesar started rising up from his seat. “Trafalgar Law if you— “

Law finally snapped, stepping forward. “If it’s still not clear to you,” The younger, much taller doctor leaned over the desk until he was nearly in the older man’s face. He was pleased to see the older doctor cowering backwards, but the man was an idiot if he thought the desk between them would protect him from the Surgeon’s wrath. Law’s lip curved back in a wicked smile that was nothing but teeth.  “You can read my fucking lips,” His voice was low and calm, barely more than a whisper; he had no need to shout because the threat was blatantly clear in his cold, gray eyes. “I’m going home.”

It took a long, drawn out moment before Caesar managed to find his voice, which Law’s pleased to note, seemed to have risen several decibels higher. “Don’t dare think about walking out of this office…! “

But Law was already two feet out the door, with his back to the angry assclown. He stopped, and without turning around or so much as batting a fucking eye, he raised his right, tribal tattooed, arm high enough for the whole damn floor to see, and gave Caesar a bold, single fingered salute.

Almost everyone was staring now, including Psycho Sadie, her too wide mouth with its thin lips caked in firetruck red lipstick, hanging open as if appalled by his behavior—while somehow, STILL managing to give him that look that made his skin crawl, practically undressing him with her eyes, like she was imagining what it’d be like to trace his ink with her tongue.

Ah, hell, he was on a damn roll, so why the fuck not…

“And you,” Law snapped, jabbing a finger in the receptionist’s direction. “Yes—they are tattoo’s.” He held up the same finger now effectively cutting off the second most popular follow up question. “Yes—I DO have more of them. Would you like me to draw you a diagram,” he grinned in a humorless display of flawlessly white teeth, “—or should I just strip right here?”

The closeted pervert’s face turned a shade of red that was even deeper than her lipstick, looking like SHE might be experiencing a myocardial infarction.

Well, that would be too bad for her, because Trafalgar Law was so fucking out of here.

Finally, Penguin couldn’t hold it in anymore, bursting out in raucous laughter.

Law turned around, noting his friend’s fist which was held out to the side, Law mirrored the gesture as Penguin fist bumped him, before taking long purposeful strides down the hall towards the exit.

What should have been his walk of shame, was probably the most liberating experience of his year.

Hell—maybe even longer than that.

His only regret was the shitstorm he knew he was going to get from a certain Pediatrician, because Shachi was surely going to be pissed that he’d missed it.

Chapter Text

 CH 2: Law Part II: Two Thousand Miles

Law was a little surprised to see Shachi waiting at the door of his apartment. He must’ve taken the elevator, while Law always climbed the stairs. The fifth floor wasn’t that high up, and elevators, after all, were nothing but potential metal coffins for lazy people.

“Where’s Penguin?” Law asked, looking around to make sure the flightless bird wasn’t just going to pop up out of nowhere, as usual.

“He’s still at work,” replied the redhead, in a snarky tone. “—like I’m supposed to be.”

“And you’re here because?”

“Oh, well,” Shachi huffed, hands on his hips, “—that’s because I’m a Doctor, and apparently we Doctors can just up and do anything we want without telling anyone,” the redheads arms flailed out to his sides, “—including our BFF’s!”

Yup, Law confirmed. Shachi was definitely pissed that he’d missed out on Law’s little performance.

Law rolled his eyes and unlocking the door to enter his apartment, not bothering to look back at the Pediatrician trailing him. “Shachi for the last time, don’t use BFF. It makes you sound like a teenage girl.” It was bad enough the 28-year-old redhead was already ACTING like one. Law half expected him to start stomping his feet.

“I’m serious!” Shachi complained, groaning while collapsing face first onto the leather couch Law himself rarely had time to use, and looking damn comfortable doing it.

“So am I.”

“Law!” God the man was actually whining.

“Chi-chi.” Law sing-songed sarcastically.

“That is it!” Shachi’s head shot up, eyes narrowed and glaring at Law over the back of the couch because he’d used the forbidden nickname. “We’re breaking up.”

Law snorted. “Then it’s good that we’ve never dated.”

“Are you saying I’m not sexy?”

“I’m saying that that thing you’re wearing should qualify as a new form of birth control.”

“What?” Shachi blinked, looking down at his shirt which Law was disgusted to see had a giant picture of a llama, with the words ‘Ask me about my llama’ printed in large block letters. “Kids love llama’s.” Oh right, those smaller versions of human’s. Law sometimes forgot about his friend having to deal with those particular little nuisances all day long. “Don’t dis the llama’s Law,” Shachi frowned, “—and don’t try to distract me either!”

“Go home Shachi.”

Shachi scoffed. “And leave my best friend alone during his obvious mental crisis?” the Pediatrician asked, in such a way that had Law believing he was here for his own entertainment rather than out of concern for the Surgeons mental health. “I don’t think so.”

Law scowled at the redhead.

Dammit, couldn’t a guy self-destruct in peace?

“What you need is a vacation,” Shachi continued to grumble—No shit, Law wanted to reply—but it wasn’t long before his complaints started to fade out, his voice muffled by the decorative throw cushions on Law’s couch. The Pediatrician might not have been as overworked as Law but he’d been called in late last night on an emergency call. Turns out kids got sick at all hours.

The silence that falls on the apartment is almost eerie after so many long hours spent alongside beeping machinery, talkative patients and coworker’s gabbing his ear off. Complete, utter, silence. Not even his damn lights are humming, unlike the luminescent lighting of the hospital. Law almost wishes Shachi would start griping again.

Almost.

Looking around at the place that was meant to be his sanctuary, Law can’t help but frown. The air around him felt stagnant, as if it remembered that no one had occupied its space for days. The sleek black furniture with its clean lines and matching décor make the room feel colder. The place looked like an advertisement for Ikea—he can't honestly remember picking any of this shit out, couldn’t remember if it came with the apartment, or where the hell it had come from.

Signs of life, were few and far between, most of which didn’t even belong to Law, they were curtesy of his few friends. In some cruel cosmic irony, somehow his friend’s things had managed to infiltrate the sterile environment—some of Shachi’s magazines lay on the coffee table, a DVD Penguin had loaned him months ago lay unopened near the plasma t.v.—but the only evidence of Law’s presence in plain view, the only thing that he could say had belonged to him personally, was a goddamn Seven-Eleven Styrofoam coffee cup he’d managed to forget on a side table what must have been over a week ago.

There’s nothing personal.

No photo's, no memorabilia no actual tangible evidence that a real human being actually lived here. Sure, he had that shit, but ironically none of it had ever made it out of the cardboard boxes he’d moved in with. Doing the math in his head, Law was shocked to realize he’d been living here well over two years now, and somehow never managed to find the time to finish un-fucking-packing. Shit, the boxes themselves where probably still stacked neatly against the far wall of the second bedroom, the remnants of Law’s life, left packed away inside.

The silence is driving him fucking crazy, it’s like a damn empty void sucking up all the air and leaving him with his ears feeling like they're going to pop.

He’d been in other people’s homes, he knew what a home was supposed to look like, things it should be filled with. This apartment was not a home to anyone, especially not to Law. This cold, too quiet, sterile enclosure fell short in every meaning of the word.

Icey chills trickled down the Surgeons spine at the sudden realization that this place—this apartment—was just as much a prison as the damn hospital. And now that he’d so gallantly walked out on that, it looked like he was going to be spending a lot more time in this deafening silence.

Was this really an improvement?

Digging out his keys, Law flings them into the large ceramic bowl on the counter—another monstrosity he had no memory of selecting—using more force than necessary just to hear some freaking noise. Unfortunately, this action goes as well as to be expected when it knocks said stupid bowl off the counter, sending it crashing to the floor (luckily the carpet kept the damn thing from shattering, creating only a muffled thud rather than an actual crash) and along with it, a huge stack of unopened mail that had apparently been piling up, scattering across the floor.

Law sighed and rubbed his tired eyes with his fingertips. Well done Doctor Law, that was very mature of you.

Law fights the compulsion to kick the damn bowl across the floor—because surely THAT would make some noise—instead he leans over and starts gathering up the unopened envelopes of various shapes and sizes. It’s not too surprising that there’s so many of them, Law had always been absent minded about such things. It was why he was glad that his utilities and such were all included in his rent and that that was automatically taken from his account each month. Otherwise the Surgeon sure-as-shit would have ended up coming home to a sterile cell without either water or electricity.  

Sorting through it, most of it is junk mail pure and simple, advertisements for timeshare’s, menus for local restaurant’s, but there was one squared envelope that stuck out, not just for its shape but for its return address.

Sabaody.

Now there was a place Law hadn’t thought of in years. Curiosity had him placing the rest of the junk mail aside and staring at the unopened letter with scrutiny. Who the hell in Sabaody would be writing him? He hadn’t even been back there since Cora died, and that was going on—five years ago? God.

Grabbing his fallen car keys, Law slides the edge of one of the keys under the envelops seal, breaking it open and pulling out what looks to be a rather official document printed on thick parchment.

“Dear Class of 2007, we’d like to welcome you back to your alma-matter, Sabaody Regional High School for your seven-year reunion…”

Law’s eyebrow arched at that. Wasn’t it supposed to be like, a five-year interval event? Five-year reunion, ten-year reunion. Etcetera, etcetera.

Who’d ever heard of a seven-year reunion? Then again this was Sabaody he was talking about, so maybe in a strange way it made perfect sense.

“The event will take place Saturday July 1^st in our newly renovated gymnasium from 6 p.m. to midnight. We urge you all to join us in the celebration of this milestone. Please RSVP your attendance by return letter or by contacting our event coordinator, Sanji Vinsmoke at (555) 55….”

“RSVP hmn?” Law hummed, eyes scanning over the document once more, a habit, to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He wondered who had been possessed enough to send him an invitation. Law, despite being valedictorian, had barely attended his own damn graduation. That wasn’t even taking into account the travel time and distance…  

The Surgeon swiftly did the math in his head, his mind quickly calculating the distance from his current position—Sabaody was a little over two thousand miles to the south east. Just to get there would be at least four hours by plane, closer to fifty hours by car—it was practically half a continent away…

Far, far away…

Law tapped his fingers against the invitation.

X X X

A cranky Pediatrician awoke to the sounds of cabinets clacking open and slamming shut. Heavy footsteps where shuffling across the beige carpeted flooring.

“What’re you doing?” Shachi grumbled, seeming a little cross at being disturbed from his impromptu napping.

“Packing,” Law answered in a clipped tone.

“Packing?” Shachi moaned, knuckling the sleep from his eyes with a yawn, rolling onto his back. “Where the hell are you going?”

“To the airport,” Law waved him off with a vague gesture. “I’m going to rent a car.”

“The airport…” Shachi’s brows scrunched together, as he sat up.” —to rent a car?”  After almost three years of friendship, the redhead could safely say that Law was one of the most logical people he knew, but even he was having trouble following the Doctor’s train of thought this time.  “What the hell for?”

“To go to a Reunion.” Law announced decidedly. Not that he had actually planned on going to said Reunion until two seconds ago, but that was just semantics.

“Reunion…? What…” Shachi shook his head, confused. “Like—your high school Reunion? The high school you went to in freaking Sabaody? THAT Reunion?”

“No Shachi, the other one…” The Surgeon rolled his eyes. Jesus, what was this? Ask Law twenty-stupid-questions day? “—yes that freaking Reunion.”

The redhead’s eyes squinted as he appeared to be going through the same math Law had gone through moments ago.

“That’s two-thousand miles away!” Shachi’s jaw dropped, suddenly feeling much more awake, the redhead clambered up off the couch nearly tripping over his own feet.  “And you’re going to DRIVE there?”

Law shrugged. “I like driving.”

Shachi scoffed. “You hate driving. You don’t even own a car—you take the subway to work and use me like a taxi for everything else!” The shorter man trailed behind his friend desperately, trying to keep up with Law’s longer strides as the man started tossing his way throughout the apartment, grabbing things here and there. “Do you even know how to drive?” Shachi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you even have a driver’s license?”

Law made a rude noise as he started digging in through a side table. “Road trips are therapeutic,” Law pointed out, momentarily turning from the drawer he was currently excavating, before throwing his friends own words back at him “You said I needed a vacation.”

“I was thinking more like a guy’s weekend in Vegas or maybe New Orleans, Mardi Gras. Miami’s nice this time of year…” Shachi threw his hands in the air, sighing exasperatedly. “–and road trips are only therapeutic if you DON’T end up mangled on the side of the road!” the redhead groaned, eyes rolling upwards. “Seriously, why not just fly if you’re going to the airport anyway?”

“Because the reunions not till Saturday, which means I’ve got time to kill.” Not to mention airplanes were nothing but flying metal deathtraps. Law ran one trembling hand through his already disheveled hair—it really was getting too long, already curling up at the edges, giving it a wilder appearance than usual—raising the other hand in an attempt to stop the continued rant he just knew was coming. “I need to get out of here Shach—my apartments driving me crazy.”

Shachi looks at him, expression flat and deadpanned, “You’re crazy—you know that?”

Law laughed, though it was lacking any actual humor. “So people keep telling me.”

“Don’t expect me to come to your funeral when you die in a fiery crash in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“Don’t worry if that happens there won’t really be anything left for them to bury anyway…” Law reasoned, maybe a little too cheerfully.

Shachi sighed in resignation. If there was one thing about Law that never changed, it was once he’d gotten something into his head, it was damn near impossible change his mind. Like taking on Everest—in flip-flops. Then again, Shachi was one of those rare idiots who would’ve tried. “What about your job? You can’t just take off without notice.”

“Fuck it,” Law snorted. “Tell them I quit. Or better yet—don’t tell them anything.”

Shachi let out a pained noise. “You do that and you’ll never be able to get a job when you get back.”

Law clicked his tongue. “Who said anything about coming back?”

His legal contract had expired with the hospital a few months ago, honestly, he’d just been too busy to go through the motions of renewing it. So technically he could quit, walk away without any serious legal repercussions, just a black mark on his resume—and who the fuck cared about that? When you had the number of degrees and doctorates Law had, resumes were practically obsolete anyway.

“What about your apartment? What about your stuff?” Shachi was trying to remain diplomatic about the whole thing, but really, it wasn’t every day when a man’s best-most-logically-minded friend went off the deep end.

“Keep it, sell it, I honestly don’t give a fuck.” Seriously, he could take anything that really mattered to him in a suitcase. Law had never really had a bucket list, but his fuck-it list was starting to look a mile long.

Law had now made it to his bedroom closet. Jesus, did he own anything that didn’t require dry cleaning? Suit jackets, button down silk shirts, pressed dress pants—when had he become so married to his work that he’d abandoned fucking jeans and t-shirts?

Law growled in frustration. “I can’t wear any of this…” the Surgeon paused as he turned around and caught sight of Shachi down on his knees searching the underside of his bed. “What are you doing?”

“Pods,” Shachi replied, letting the bed skirt fall back down. “Obviously. Bodysnatcher’s always leave pods behind.”

Law abruptly fwapped his friend roughly in the head. No need to worry about brain damage, obviously it was already irreversible.

“OWcch!” Shachi griped, rubbing the back of his head with a sour expression on his face, apparently taking note of Law’s lack of clothing choices. “And what’s wrong with your clothes? I’d KILL to have your closet.”

“So then stop shopping in the Preteen department.” Shachi groaned something about high end retailers and social pressures exulted by salespeople.  Law crossed his arms, essentially ignoring the redhead, his right hand tapping its fingers against his bicep. “There’s no way I can wear any of this while stuck in a car for hours.” Not to mention, every single article of clothing in said closet stood as nothing but a reminder of just how much his career had controlled his life.

“So, what…” Shachi snorted “—what’re going to drive there in your lab coat?” 

Law ignored that, on the basis that it was so stupid it didn’t deserve a response. Going to his dresser he did manage to find some comfortable apparel; the only problem was that they were all workout clothes. Which, yeah, he could definitely wear those during the drive, but what would he wear to the actual event itself? Fuck the lab coat—the thing would be lucky if Law didn’t burn it in the fireplace he’d never used.

There was no way he was going to go through the pain of a shopping trip, he had no desire of experiencing that particular hell. Where the fuck were his old clothes? Where were the jeans, the t-shirts, the hoodi—Law stopped.

Shachi blinked. “Find something?”

“I think so,” Law murmured furtively, shutting the dresser without pulling a single thing out of it. Instead he left the room completely, leaving Shachi scrambling to his feet in order to follow, rounding the corner and nearly running face first into Law’s back as he stood in the spare bedroom, staring at a stack of cardboard boxes.

“...Which one…?” Law muttered to himself as he studied each box, before stepping forward grabbing one of the top boxes, setting it on the floor and ripping away the packing tape.

Shachi watched as the man tore through the box emptying its contents, various objects left strewn across the floor. The redhead’s eyebrow raised at the various occupants as they emerged—CD’s, mystery electronics’ cords, old anatomy books, what looked like a photo album, and…

 “A stuffed bear? REALLY?” Shachi picked up the fluffy white bear, eyeing it curiously before having it snatched away by a scowling Law.

“Bepo is a polar bear—the world’s largest land carnivore, who’d gladly eat your face off—thank you,” Law huffed, placing the fluffy carnivorous bear off his side.

“It has a name?” Shachi’s expression was dumbfounded until Law tossed a murderous glare over his shoulder, causing the redhead to hold up both hands in surrender. “Bepo it is then.”

Law turned back around, slowly, going back to his box, though he quickly realized he’d reached the bottom of it and went to grab another. “This would go faster if you actually helped.”

“Help what?” Shachi rolled his eyes. “You having a mental breakdown? Because let me tell you man, you’re doing a bang-up job all your own.” Law grunted and Shachi sighed, grabbing a box, though let it be said, with much less enthusiasm, tearing the tape off and slowly emptying its contents. “So, what are we searching for oh Manic One?” DVD’s, rolled up posters, an old cracked coffee mug…

Law was already on his third box. “We’re looking for—” the Surgeon paused, the corners of his mouth curving into grin that anyone other than his friends would have considered creepy. “This.”

Shachi looked up, and was more than a little surprised to see his friend actively stripping his top off, tossing it and his white lab coat aside, displaying a well-muscled back with rippling muscles the redhead couldn’t help but be jealous of, with a large smiling emblem tattooed in thick dark ink across his shoulders and thoracic spinal region.

“Uhh Law? What’re you…” As soon as the skin was exposed it was promptly covered in a black and yellow hoody, with an eerily matching smiley face, boldly printed across the back. Shachi scratched his head. “Err… Nice jacket?”

Law rolled his shoulders, tugging at the material that had been pressed flat and folded away ages ago. Even though it was stiff, and kind of smelled like an old box—it was still the most comfortable thing he’d worn in years. He truly hadn’t changed much body wise since high school—when he’d last worn the thing—it still fit perfectly.

Still grinning that slightly creepy grin—only wider—Law finished rummaging through the box pulling out what looked to be a fluffy, white and black spotted hat and along with a pair of ripped black denim jeans, which he held up to his waist.

Shachi immediately waved his hands in the air, forgetting the box he’s supposed to be going through.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out!” Shachi pointed out towards the hallway.  “Bathroom—THAT way!”

Law chuckled, shaking out the jeans as his silver eyes locked onto the Pediatrician’s own hazel pair. “What’s the matter Doctor?” he teased, “—afraid of a little ass?” Not like he’d actually planned on changing his pants right then and there—it was just too easy to rile the redhead up.

“Ass? No.” Shachi scoffed. “Best friend ass—hell yes.”

Laws eyes narrowed, mock offended. “I’ll have you know I have an excellent ass, thank you very much.”

"I'm sure there are a string of broken hearts that can attest to that,” Shachi grudgingly agreed, before waving one arm in a slashing motion out to his side, “—but you dropping trou two feet away from my face would be a clear-cut male BFF violation.”

Law snickered. “Relax Chi-chi, I wouldn’t dream of soiling your virgin eyes.” Folding the pair of jeans over his arm and going into the next box, Law’s pleased to see that this one’s full of clothing of the jeans and t-shirt variety. Perfect.

Just as Law’s about to draw back, something long, sleek and cylindrical, catches his eye.

Fuck. He knows just what it is, even before he’s nudging the boxes aside to get to the sacred object that’s poised against the wall—as if it were waiting.

Law takes a long slow breath as he pulls out the Japanese long sword that’s tucked safely within its scabbard. Kikoku practically hummed as Law gripped the Nodachi’s handle, carefully holding it up, and lightly running his fingers over the engraved, blackwood sheath.

Shachi watched the display, wanting to crack a joke—something about swords and cosplaying—but finds the words to be stuck in this throat because something about the way the Surgeon is holding the antique weapon—almost devotional—is just… natural. In a completely, otherworldly sort of way. The redhead is finding it way too easy to envision the Surgeon as some sort of twisted, medieval samurai, a harbinger of death just like the black inked lettering across each of his knuckles suggested.

Shachi shakes his head to dispel the vision. “Uh, Law?”

“Mhhm?” Law hummed as he reflexively slid the blade out, visually inspecting the blunted edge and the dull sheen of its body. How long had it been since he had properly cared for the Nodachi? Corazon would have thrown a fit if he’d seen this…

“Nice toy,” the redhead comments, proud of himself for finally getting around that knot in his throat.

Law slides the blade back in, with care, before slipping its leather strap over his shoulder, letting the long sword rest against his back. “It’s a Japanese Nodachi,” the Surgeon replied, slowly going back to gathering clothing from the open boxes. “Corazon gave it to me.”

“Ah,” the redhead nodded. And that was the end of that. BFF’s they might be, but even Shachi, with his bullheadedness, knew a ‘No trespassing’ sign when he saw one. There were few topics to be avoided when speaking with the tattooed Doctor, and anything that revolved around his deceased foster father, was one of them.

Law crouched over and began repacking the boxes, this time with more care. “I take it back,” he said, holding his carnivorous bear, debating whether or not Bepo was going back in. “Do you think you could store these boxes at your place for me?”

Shachi’s brows furrowed. “Since when did my place become a storage locker?”

“You can have anything you want from my closet.”

The Pediatrician’s eyes narrowed. “Including the black Armani jacket?”

Law half-shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

The redhead practically beamed, clapping both hands together. “Mi casa es tu casa!”

Law rolled his eyes at his friend’s newfound enthusiasm. “Great now help me put this stuff—”

Just then the doorbell rang. Laws face scrunched up as he stood up, dusting imaginary dust from his knees, wondering who that could be. He then realized that that was a stupid question to which there could only be one answer.

Making his way through the apartment, Shachi practically skipping gleefully behind him, he opened the door to find the missing member of his trio.

Penguin stood at the threshold, typical novelty hat atop his head, holding two large paper bags. Law eyed the one he held to his chest with its distinct grease stains marring the brown paper.

“Penguin,” Law leaned against the door frame, arms crossing over his chest. “—so help me, if those are greasy cheeseburgers…”

“Relax Doctor Douche,” the Dietitian smiled good-naturedly, mellow as ever. He knew better than to try and make it past the door with that sort of contraband, instead he shook the grease stained bag cheerfully, announcing, “Fish taco’s.”

Law let out a long breath, closing his eyes before standing aside and allowing the shorter man entry. At least they were better than cheeseburgers.

Penguin walked inside, still grinning, but raised his brows when he saw the mess that had been left in the wake of hurricane Law. “Are we redecorating?”

Shachi hummed, obviously still in his own delightful bubble. “Law’s going on a trip.”

“Really?” Penguin drawled, though to Law he didn’t look even the slightest bit surprised.

The redhead nodded, before adding, in a slightly less chipper tone, “Say’s he won’t be coming back.”

Law rolled his eyes.

“Uhh-huh,” Penguins mouth quirked, his eyes find Law and giving him that annoyingly omniscient look of his. “Well then,” the Dietitian gently jostled the second larger paper bag he held at his hip, the contents clanking together in a conspicuous manner, “—I guess it’s a good thing I brought Tequila.”

“Tequila!” Shachi chorused, still riding on that wave of happiness. Law shook his head.

Penguin full out grinned, and the Surgeon couldn’t help the small short laugh that escaped him.

Well then, he supposed he could consider this his going away party. Shachi danced around the living room still chanting about tequila as Penguin headed to the kitchen to sort out Law’s rarely used shot glasses.

He could already tell tonight was going to be one of those nights—with free-flowing liquor, wild rehashing of old stories, nostalgic reminiscing, a few table top dances and most certainly ending with wasted friends and horrendous hangovers.

All and all, Law thought, it wouldn’t be such a bad send-off.

Around 9 p.m. Law was halfway in the bag when he made the call.

X X X

Meanwhile, the next day, 2000 miles away in a Sabaody convenience store, a 19-year-old boy choked on a chocolate bar.

A green haired man slapped him soundly on the back to clear the poor kid’s airway.

The boy coughed and sputtered. “He’s WHAT?!”

“You heard me,” the moss-haired man grinned like the Cheshire cat himself. “Torao’s coming here, in person.”

“Oh...” the dark-haired teenager groaned, collapsing against the counter, the remainder of his chocolate bar still clutched in his hand, “—fuck-me-sideways.”

The greenhead only chuckled, “If you’re lucky.” Then promptly had to dodge the incoming candy bar.

X X X

Chapter Text

Luffy awoke to the shrill sound of an air raid siren.

Approximately 105 high-def decibels of noxious, rippling trills assaulted his ear drums without mercy. It might as well have been a lullaby for all the luck it would have getting Luffy out of bed. The teen didn't even bother opening his eyes, just grumbled, tugging his comforter higher, nestling down deep into his blanket's warmth, until only wild tips of his ink-black hair were visible.

Luffy always clung to the bed as long as possible, and when awake he tried to stay awake as long as possible. Sabo liked to say that Luffy was the walking example of inertia. When at rest, he remained at rest, and when in motion, he stayed in motion, so this was all of course, fairly routine—also, why Luffy's cell phone was currently hooked up to his computer speakers halfway across the room.

Right now, it was an air raid siren, but up next would be the dulcet tones of car alarms.

This would be followed by the soothing sounds of ambulance sirens.

All of which, would eventually end with the peaceful chorus of wailing fire alarms.

The list was actually a lot longer than that, but he never ever really made it past the fire alarms before one of his brothers came in to do the job manually, using various methods. If it was Sabo, and he was in a good mood, sometimes he'd use bait in the form of fresh hot breakfast foods. If, on the other hand, it was Ace, and he was in a pissy mood from being woken up—well, his go-to method was typically icy, cold, and wet—and it usually came in a bucket.

Though there was that one time, when he'd felt the need to be an overachieving prick by hoisting the garden house through Luffy's window.

Man, Sabo had been pissed at both of them for that one.

Ace for starting it of course, and Luffy for rushing into the bathroom because he'd decided the detachable showerhead would make for a good return fire.

As punishment, not only had they both been made to mop up the mess they'd made, but Sabo had confiscated all the cords to the Xbox and hid them for a whole week. And if you were dumb enough to think you could go looking for them whenever the blonde was at work—which was practically always—then you were dumb and deserved what you got.

Sabo's room was like the Fort Knox of off limit objects—this included things like birthday or Christmas presents, or whatever he'd chosen to hold hostage when he decided his brothers needed to be taught a lesson—just because you knew where they were, didn't mean you had any chance in hell of actually getting them and getting out alive.

One time, Ace had gotten his butane zippo taken away for accidently sitting fire to the living room curtains—he'd tried to get it back, even managed to pick both the door's regular lock and the dead bolt, only to get electrocuted when he'd tried turning the knob. Sabo had taken about 40 D-cell batteries and some copper coiling and turned the doorknob into a giant Ace sized bug zapper.

That was when the two youngest brothers started knocking before trying to enter Sabo territory.

After two minutes of ear assault, a brief moment of reprieve was granted as the speakers went silent.

Luffy sighed, snuggling deeper into the comfort of his blankets—right before the car alarms started in. The teen grimaced, clutching the pillow tightly around his head, wanting badly to throw something at the infernal device, but unfortunately, he knew better. Last time all it had gotten him was a broken desk lamp and a lecture from Sabo—plus it still hadn't silenced the stupid thing.

Nope, the only way to do that was to get up and do the job manually.

And maybe if there was something to tempt the little raven out of bed, something along the lines of delicious hot pancakes with crispy greasy bacon—maybe then if wouldn't be such a hassle getting out of bed. Unfortunately, this was not the way the universe tended to work for Luffy, who knew too well that his blonder brother was currently at work therefore unable to offer such bribery. No, the only thing that awaited him was a job at the Archipelago Gas Station—or a cold wet bucket if he took too long getting out of bed.

Luffy swore under his breath. He didn't really feel like an icy bath this morning. With an uncharacteristic scowl the raven tossed back the blankets, kicking them grumpily to the end of the bed so he wouldn't get tangled in them and end up kissing the floor. That too, was unfortunately, a common morning occurrence.

The teen stretched out his limbs languidly, like a lazy housecat, scratching his head, mouth opening into a jaw popping yawn. The lanky youth, despite being unhindered, still managed to stumble on his way from the bed to the desk—most likely due to the debris piled high across the floor. Clothes, magazines, skateboard, manga's, some stray dishes which may or may not have been growing things… Luffy really should see to that.

Later.

Silencing the damn phone and pocketing it, Luffy managed to get to the door and into the hallway without incident.

Flipping the light switch on in the bathroom, the teen was at first confused when nothing happened, flipping it off and on again the teen groaned before checking the switch in the hallway with the same result.

Dammit. Ace…

Luffy swiped a tired hand over his face. Sabo—a local defense Lawyer, who mostly did pro-bono work—had been working a lot of long hours and was barely home lately. This of course, left things like bills to be paid in the hands of his freckled older brother—and it looked like, once again, Ace had forgotten to bay the electric bill. Cursing under his breath, Luffy tried to faucet in the bathroom and was only slightly relieved when water actually came out. Well, thank god for small favors.

And later, when he wasn't late for work, he'd be thankful that his speakers ran off battery power. Much later.

Rubbing his face tiredly, Luffy barged into his older brother's room, no need in knocking since the door was wide open anyway.

"Ace," Luffy tripped over a pile of laundry and nearly face planted. "Dammit! ACE!" The teen finally made it to the bed and shook his brother roughly. But no matter how hard he jostled the sleeping male, the man did nothing but continue to drool into his pillow.

"Augh," Luffy gave one last shove for good measure. "Crap…"

With a sigh Luffy gave up, letting Ace sleep, knowing that nothing short of hot greasy food or an act of God could rouse his brother when he was out like that. Sadly, the teen was short on both. Oh well. The freckled male probably needed all the rest he could get now anyways, it'd be awhile before he saw his own bed again.

Ace had a two-day shift coming up at the fire station, he'd probably be gone by the time Luffy got home from work. They were going to be doing some controlled burning in the nearby groves before the dry season set in, and the teen knew from past years that it was grueling work. At least he'd get to use the drip torch—basically fire in a can—which should put his pyromaniac brother in a good mood.

After high-school, Ace had gone into the construction business. He'd been pretty good at the demolition part of it too—just not so much the actual building aspect. It really didn't help that his brother also just so happened to suffer from narcolepsy. After a few minor incidents—that may or may not have involved falling asleep with a nail gun—Ace had been let go; for his own safety, they said. Luffy very much doubted this—none of the nails had hit him after all.

Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of living in a small town like Sabaody, meant that Ace had pretty much been blackballed from any vocation involving potentially dangerous machinery after that. That pretty much eliminated most outdoor manual labor jobs, and his brother, was much like Luffy, in the way that he couldn't tolerate the idea of being stuck indoors, day after day for hours. (Luffy barely tolerated his job at the gas station—viewing it as a necessary evil if he wanted to enjoy any personal luxuries. You know, like eating.)

After that, since it became widely known that his brother was an insurance nightmare, that no licensed contractor would touch, most of Ace's work had been strictly under the table. Work came in lulls, sometimes there was plenty, and sometimes the freckled male was left rotting on the couch for weeks at a time. It was during one of these lulls that Ace discovered a new-found hobby—to both of his brothers' eternal regret.

In an effort to remain useful, the older raven had taken up learning how to cook. Which would have been great—if he could've done so without literally poisoning them. After a weeks' worth of manslaughter attempts, both Luffy and Sabo had tried to kindly convince the older raven that his cooking wasn't necessary. These attempts of course had failed miserably.

The worst part of it all was that Ace loved to cook. It never ceased to amaze the younger boy, how anyone could watch that many cooking shows and still manage to fail so spectacularly. Just another one of the universe's mysteries. Luffy could only conclude that it was some sort of gift—which only served as a lesson to all, that loving something and being good at it were two completely different things.

On the bright side, Ace wasn't the only one who had learned new things, thanks to his newfound hobby, Luffy had learned a whole new slur of words and definitions.

Word's like botulism and salmonella—definitions Luffy had learned shortly after Ace discovered his fondness for cooking and all three boys hand landed in the hospital with severe cases of food poisoning. Luffy became fairly leery of his brother's culinary creations after that. Especially the meat dishes. After all, just because he loved food, didn't mean he was okay dying by it.

See how complicated this whole love thing could be?

Thankfully Sabo had discovered a way to literally save their bacon—at least most of the time—by suggesting that Ace fill his empty hours by volunteering at the local fire station. This of course had immediately captured the little firebug's attention and Luffy could only wonder why none of them had thought up this solution sooner. Though the fire captain, Marco, had his reservations about having a narcoleptic firefighter, it was on a volunteer basis, so the man couldn't legally turn Ace away.

After a couple of months, Ace's enthusiasm—and the fact that he hadn't been barbequed—won out. Marco, being the good guy that he was, accepted Ace onto the payroll as an actual firefighter. Luffy had a theory as to why Ace's narcolepsy, which was still in full swing at home, was noticeably absent while he was on the job.

Adrenaline. Pure and simple. Ace's love of all things hot, bright, and flammable kept the little pyro's adrenaline levels so high that they negated the narcolepsy. It kept his brother from becoming a crispy critter and allowed him to be one of Sabaody's elite firefighters. A Hotshot. One of the men on the front lines of the action when serious shit went down. Ace couldn't have been prouder, and his brothers couldn't have been more thankful having him out of the house on a more regular basis. Even if it did often come at 48 hour stints, at least it saved them from Ace's cooking.

Luffy sighed. It looked like the young raven was going to be getting that ice cold wake up after all. At least the water bill seemed to have gotten paid, so there was that. The teen pursed his lips and resigned himself to a frigid shower and cold strawberry pop-tarts for breakfast.

Hopefully when Sabo got home—eventually—he could get the whole power thing sorted.

Fifteen minutes later, the tips of his hair still dripping onto the collar of his shirt, Luffy emerged, and attempted to make his way through the living room, which currently looked like a 3-D episode of hoarders. Sabo had been doing a lot of overtime lately—unpaid overtime of course—and he and Ace weren't exactly the best house keepers.

Making his way through the clutter he made mental reminder to grab a trash bag later, and clean some of it up so poor Sabo didn't get stuck with the whole mess. And he'd be damned if Ace wasn't going to help too. Because those weren't all his pizza boxes, he didn't even drink energy drinks and those sure as shit weren't his boxers currently draped over the lamp shade—seriously Ace? What the hell?

Finally managing to make it to the kitchen, he grabbed two pop-tart packages from the snack cupboard, opening up the shiny foil and popping half of a pastry into his mouth as he checked the fridge—which luckily was still cold. He'd have to remember to bring some ice home from work to make sure it stayed that way, so what little there was in there didn't spoil.

Just one more thing to the to-do list.

Stuffing his face with the rest of his breakfast, his stomach temporarily full but in no way satisfied—Luffy sighed, his job at the station might suck, but at least there would be some hot food. Pizza sounded pretty good for breakfast. Maybe a hot dog or two if Charloss wasn't around. His boss was a real dick. Literally. The prig liked to pretend he ran the world, when in reality he was just the owner of the shitty little stop-and-go Luffy was currently indentured to. If his brothers, or even his friends knew half the shit that beer-gutted bastard tried to pull—well, he wouldn't have much to worry about. From the afterlife.

The space behind the counter was a little narrow sure, but that wasn't an excuse for the sleazy manager to try and play grab ass with the teen every time he just HAD to pass by.

Luffy liked to use this same excuse every time he stomped down hard on the man's instep in retaliation.

That was usually when Luffy was sent to clean behind the coolers. Sometimes it really sucked being small. Cleaning behind the coolers was a disgusting, degrading job that involved climbing down on all fours to get behind the industrial sized behemoths, wiping up fluids that smelled so rank, it was like something had crawled in there and died. It wasn't so bad as long as you held your breath—and if you had to breathe, it was best done through your shirt. The first time Luffy was sentenced to the dirty work, he hadn't known the shirt trick and had come out lightheaded, and ended up coming down with a sudden respiratory infection soon after.

That had been fun.

Luffy's brothers had often tried to talk the teen into quitting, over protective as they were, but as shitty as Luffy's job was, at least it did get him out of the house and away from the stifling 24-hour surveillance of older brothers. On the bright side, at least Luffy's boss was so lazy that he rarely ever showed up, leaving the opening and closing to Luffy, so the teen only had to put up with Saint Fat-butt once in a while.

With a sigh Luffy plopped down on the one clear end of the couch, before remembering that, duh, no electricity meant no T.V.

It was turning out to be a great morning.

And it wasn't even 7:30

"Crap…"

X X X

"Double-Crap!" Luffy swore as he tried once again without success to get the hot-tray on the counter to work properly. So much for pizza. Dammit. He'd have to phone Charloss to let him know the thing was on the fritz again—something he was not looking forward to. He'd tried his best to fix the damn thing, but so far all he'd managed to do was make the thing smoke and electrocute himself. Luffy sucked on his sore fingers swearing internally that the day couldn't possibly get much worse.

And of course, as per usual, Monkey D Luffy was dead wrong. Because worse of course chose that moment to walk in, in the form of a green haired P.E. teacher.

The chimes rang out above Zoro's head as he entered, quickly spying the teen still sucking on his injured fingertips. "Heater broken again?"

Luffy rolled his eyes. Such a stupid question. "Of course it is."

"Ouch, snarky," Zoro tsked.

Luffy sighed. "Sorry, its just—one of those days," he relented. "Ace forgot to pay the power again, Sabo's been working non-stop…" the teen just shrugged, because, what're ya gonna do?

Zorro shook his head, feeling for his smaller, younger friend. "Well, you can always stay at my place for a few days if you need to."

"Thanks, but I'll rough it out somehow." Luffy hated feeling like a burden to his friends. And it wasn't like no electricity was such a bad thing. It was just, kind of like camping. Indoors.

Luffy gave up on the heating tray and went to collapse against the front counter while his friend lounged against the other side. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"Nah," Zoro shrugged. "It's Kendo club, Kuina's got it covered."

Luffy grunted. Kuina was Zoro's female counter-part, and Kendo club was practically their baby—Luffy still questioned the wisdom in giving a bunch of teenager's bamboo sticks to whack at each other with—which begged to question exactly why the master swordsman himself was gracing the teen with his presence.

"And you'd be here and not there—why exactly?"

"Can't I just drop by on a friend, at his crappy, minimum wage job?" Zoro smiled cheerfully. Zoro also happened to be a member of the "Luffy quitting" club.

"No." Luffy replied flatly.

"Ooookay, so I might be here on a little side-errand—"

"No," Luffy cut him off knowing exactly where this conversation was headed. A side-errand was right.

"Oh come on Luff, it's just a couple of hours—"

"No. I said no before and I'm saying it now. N-O." Sanji had been bugging the teen for weeks trying to get him to help out with his newest catastrophe in the making. Some seven-year Reunion thing that was just a disaster in the making. The greenhead looked like he was ready with another counter argument, Luffy raised his hand in refusal. "No way, I didn't even go to school half of the time I was in it. What makes you think I'm going to volunteer to go back there now?"

"Because you love me," Zorro replied, even having the nerve to batt his eyelashes.

Luffy snorted. Nice try.

"I thought Sanji was in charge of recruiting suckers."

"He is," Zoro sighed "—but there's a serious lack of volunteers making this whole thing a nightmare," The greenhead scowled. "–And because he's Sanji, he's got to make it miserable for all of us."

That sounded just like Sanji, Luffy loved the guy, really, but he could be so damn anal over everything.

"So you expect me to join up and be miserable with the rest of you?" Luffy made a rude noise, "I might be dumb, but I'm not that stupid."

Zoro faked his disappointment, all the while hiding a grin because he knew going into this that he'd already won. He had one major trump card, one that Luffy could never resist, one that practically guaranteed victory.

"Come on Luffy…It's the class of '07"

"You're point?" Luffy watched cautiously as the greenhead's face swapped to a smirk.

Zoro tried not to roll his eyes. Okay, he should have expected that, after all, numbers had never been one of Luffy's stronger points. "Think Luffy, class of 07, that's seven years ahead of us. That would have made them SENIORS right around the time we were in, I don't know…" Zoro gave Luffy a sly underhanded look "EIETH grade?" he stressed.

Luffy's head snapped up, and there it was. That was the look Zoro had been waiting for. Gotcha.

"Ahh, now I've got your attention,"

Luffy quickly looked away, completely avoiding eye contact while pretending to reorganize the candy display. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? Then you wouldn't happen to remember a certain tall, dark, tanned—tattooed senior?"

Luffy shook his head in denial, ripping open a chocolate bar taking first small bites, then much much larger ones, before shoving nearly the entire thing in his mouth.

Zoro threw the teen a measured look. "Luffy, you're stress eating."

"Mrahm narwt!" the teen shook his head fervently.

"Chew. Then swallow. We've talked about this," Zoro's eyes narrowed. "Really, what would TORAO think?"

Luffy choked, sputtering and gasping, "I WAS TWELVE!" the teen coughed. "You know my brains all wrong sometimes!"

Torao was the secret nickname he'd accidently given Trafalgar Law after misreading his name. His guidance counselor had called it dislecta, or something like that. Letters and words had never been one of his stronger points either. They were even worse than numbers. It wasn't all the time, but every once in a while, words and letters liked to play tricks on him. Sometimes certain letters would sort of fade out or even flip themselves backwards. It was one of Luffy's greatest embarrassments that his stupid brain had chosen that exact moment he'd read Law's name to act up.

"But Torao is such a cute nickname," the greenhead chuckled, Luffy gave his friend a look of pure homicidal intent, reaching for another candy bar, holding it up threateningly. "Fine," Zoro relented, hands held up in surrender. "Law will be there."

"And why should I care?" Luffy's eyes narrowed as he lowered the potential chocolate projectile—he was really only half bluffing.

Okay, so maybe he was still harboring some lingering…interest, in the upper classman. It'd been his first crush, those kinds of things tended to leave lasting impressions. And maybe he would have been mildly interested if he actually believed for one second that the man would actually show up.

Law didn't do things like public gatherings. That had included things like school dances, pep rallies, sporting events, etcetera. Luffy was fairly convinced the guy would have skipped out on his own graduation if he hadn't been forced to attend because of his valedictorian status. That had been one of the shortest graduation speeches in history.

No. No, absolutely no way would Tora—er, Law, would ever show up for something as cheesy as a reunion. Satan would be sitting on icicles first.

Luffy grabbed another candy bar, shoving it half in his mouth while still managing to pout. "Eben iph I drid carh," the raven swallowed, "It's not like the guys actually going to show up."

"You sure about that? Huh…" Zoro tapped his nails against the stucco countertop, Luffy rolled his eyes. "—I wonder why he'd bother phoning in his RSVP then." the green head casted a tilted look at the raven, "—You know, since he's not going to show and all."

The air suddenly felt like was frozen in the teen's lungs. Luffy choked, mouth falling open widely, silently gagging, turning dark red. Zoro actually had to smack the teen hard on the back—as soon as his windpipe cleared Luffy took in a huge gasping breath, looking like a damn goldfish, before squawking, "He did WHAT?!"

"You heard me," the moss-haired man grinned like the Cheshire cat himself, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Torao's coming here, in person."

"Oh..." Oh shit… Suddenly it was like all of his joints were loose and he'd become almost like a marionette with its strings cut. The dark-haired teenager groaned, collapsing against the counter, the remainder of his chocolate bar still clutched in his hand, "—fuck-me-sideways."

The greenhead only chuckled, "If you're lucky." Then promptly had to dodge the incoming candy bar.

The teen ran one hand through his messy black hair. When the hell had this happened? Sanji was in charge of invitations, and he was just well aware of Luffy's history with Torao as Zoro was.

Zoro seemed to read his mind. "Hey, Sanji just got the message this morning. Apparently, Law called the school to confirm his attendance just last night," Zoro half-shrugged. "Guess he got his invitation late or something."

Luffy wanted to deny it, wanted to hold fast to his disbelief—it couldn't have been Law who'd called—but not even Luffy could come up with a plausible excuse as to why anyone would possibly have reason to call up the high school, and impersonate the man, over something as ridiculous as a high school reunion.

So, if it wasn't some freaky, lamo impersonator—and if Zoro was telling the truth… that meant…

Law was really coming back.

Luffy banged his head against the counter.

Torao was coming back…

"So," Zoro laughed, "Where should I sign you up at?"

Luffy groaned. "I fucking hate you so much right now."

"See, it's funny—the words are coming out of your mouth, but all I can hear is Thankyou Zoro, you're such a great friend Zoro. How will I ever pay you back?"

Luffy sometimes felt like his friend really liked the sound of his own name.

"Ohhh… piss off already."

"Right, right," Zoro turned to leave "It starts at 6—be there by 4:30 to help set up." Zoro gave one last backward glance at the teen. "And do yourself a favor—lay off the chocolate. That shit causes breakouts. Wouldn't want Torao seeing you all covered in zits like a kid." Then as an afterthought the greenhead added "And don't try drowning your sorrows in the slushy machine either!"

Luffy growled, and Zoro dodged another incoming, half-eaten, chocolate missile, still laughing at the teen's expense, as he exited with the chimes clanging above the door—almost as if they too were laughing at the teen.

Luffy reluctantly emptied his pockets, putting the chocolate bars he'd stuffed in there back on the shelf, instead walking over and grabbing a bag of super spicy Doritos and tearing into them. At this rate, he was going to eat through his next paycheck by noon.

And Luffy did not drown his sorrows in the slushy machine—he merely took them for a little swim.

Grabbing two bags of jerky, another bag of chips, and a giant cherry/coke Icey, Luffy collapsed into the single chair wedged behind the counter.

Two days, that was how long he had until the reunion. Two days until he saw Torao again. God, how long had it been since he'd even thought of the man?

The man—who if truth be told—was the only person who had ever interested Luffy in THAT way...

Munching away on his chips, Luffy still remembered the first time he'd seen the tattooed teenager…

~x X x~

Twelve-year-old Luffy sighed, legs dangling from the landing, face pressed between the rungs of the banister. He'd been banished to the second floor because Ace was having some fancy tutor over to help him with his dumb science homework. Luffy didn't understand why that had anything to do with him. It wasn't like it was his homework, why couldn't they just study or whatever in the kitchen? Why'd it have to be in the living room where the Xbox was? The preteen huffed, kicking his legs back and forth.

Stupid Ace. Stupid Homework. Stupid Tutor…

What was so special about this guy that Luffy had to vacate the area? Curiosity demanded answers, therefore Luffy found himself camping out by the staircase, perched against the railing, with a clear view of both the front door and the couch, waiting impatiently to get a look at this guy.

By the time the doorbell rang and Ace finally opened the door, the little raven thought he was well prepared to hate this guy's guts. As usual, he couldn't have been more wrong.

Luffy's first impression of the guy was that he was tall—like, freakishly tall—he even dwarfed his older brother who was no shorty himself. He had to be well over six feet tall.

His hair was dark and unkempt, and was the same glossy blue-black of an actual raven's feathers, velvet midnight highlights lit up by the fading light that was filtering in from outside.

His skin was dark, but it wasn't just tan, it was smooth and rich, like melted chocolate ice cream. Luffy licked his lips, thinking of the creamy treat.

And where those tattoo's?

They were—and they were all over his hands and what Luffy could see of his arms, the preteen couldn't help but wonder how high they went up—the thick black tribal's only made the man that much more…interesting?

Was that the word Luffy was looking for?

Maybe.

He was, at the very least, intriguing to the young boy, but that was until pale eyes glanced up from beneath dark lashes.

Quicksilver eyes, the exact same color as that fun stuff you're not supposed to play with inside of thermometers—mercury, that was it—his eyes were the exact same shade of silver.

Luffy wished he could get a closer look, because far too quickly the man's eyes were once again downcast and hidden from the preteens view.

Normally the preteen would have been down the stairs in two-seconds flat, banishment order or not, once Luffy found something or someone who interested him there was no stopping the preteen from further investigation. Usually.

But instead of flying downstairs, the preteen found himself pressing further into the railing trying to get a clearer view as the two older teens started setting up their stuff on the coffee table. Luffy pondered this strange new feeling, this hesitance.

What was it about this guy that made him somehow different? Different, in that the idea of going downstairs made the preteen's stomach feel like an empty hollow and had his heart going ba-dump ba-dump in his chest?

It wasn't fear, not that Luffy had experienced that particular emotion often, but he'd had enough experience with his grandfather's "Fists of love" to know what fear felt like. And this wasn't it. It was… similar. But not in a bad way.

More like an exciting way.

Almost like the way it felt to pull off a really good trick, knowing how much trouble it was probably going to get you into if you got caught.

But Luffy hadn't done anything—well anything recently—and the stranger certainly hadn't done anything, all he'd done was walk in. So why…

Luffy had never been so confused in his short life as he stayed up there on the landing, uncharacteristically quiet, observing the two—well the one, boy as he and Ace did whatever it was they were supposed to do. Instead of barging in, Luffy for once in his life, just listened.

It was quiet from the distance, but if he strained he could just make out the tattooed teens voice.

It was deep, like his brothers, but unlike Ace whose voice was rougher, the strangers tone was smoother, almost smoky. It really was hard to pick up from all the way upstairs, the individual words tended to blend together, but that tone, that deep, smoky resonance, easily carried from the living room straight to Luffy's ears.

Luffy must have sat there well over two hours just listening to that voice. Yet another first for the preteen who rarely sat still for anything that wasn't food.

All to soon the afternoon turned into evening and the senior with the black tattoos had gone, leaving the preteen with a strangely foreign, and very disconcerting, sense of loss. Curiosity drove him down the stairs and into the empty living room, but instead of going straight for the xbox controller, he found himself looking at a particular set of notes that had been left abandoned on the coffee table. It stood out from all the others because, unlike the careless chicken scratch that was his brothers handwriting—this writing was small, neat and perfectly precise in a way that, even with Luffy's dislecta, was still was pleasant to look at.

At the very top right corner, in its stereotypical standard position, was a name.

Damn. It was long too…

Even with his vision gradually making the letters go all tilty, he could tell it was a name he'd never seen before. Scrunching his eyes shut, trying to focus and sharply biting his tongue, Luffy counted to five before he attempted looking again. It was a little better, but some letters were still off kilter.

The back door swung shut, and Luffy could hear the heavy footfalls of Ace's black shitkickers coming back.

"T—Ta…Trah… Tro…? Argh!" Luffy shook his head hard and brought the word right up to his face until it was practically on his nose. "Tor….Tooroo…." Dammit Ace was almost there. "Toora—Tora—o?" Suddenly Luffy grinned in victory because he'd finally gotten it. "Torao!"

Holding the name carefully in his head, Luffy dropped the notes, and had just enough time to grab the controller and turn the Xbox on before Ace walked in. The freckled teen collapsed into the couch like he'd been zapped of all his lifeforce—school work of any kind tended to do that to Ace. Luffy's mouth was still split in a wide grin as he revived his brother with the magic power of the second controller.

Torao. Such an interesting name. Luffy wondered how many other Torao's there could possibly be in the world. He bet there weren't any.

There couldn't possibly be another Torao—just like there were no other Luffy's either. He and the senior both similarly unique beings in a world filled with too many endless copy's.

It suited the older teen perfectly. And the best part came, when Ace began complaining that from now on, he was going to be stuck with tutoring—every, after, noon.

And so began Monkey D Luffy's newest, most favorite hobby—Torao watching. Every day, up high on his landing, he waited and watched for Torao to arrive, to walk in, and sometimes even glance up at Luffy, before settling down on the couch and spreading out more and more notes for him to read and explain to his work resistant student.

But then Saturday came—and Torao did not.

Luffy should have guessed that the Senior wasn't going to show up on the weekend, but it was still a bitter disappointment. So instead of hanging out on the landing, Luffy found himself hanging out with his two best friends, back propped against the couch, Xbox controller in hand as he and Zoro did their best to avoid enemy fire.

Well—Zoro did his best anyway.

Luffy on the other hand—rather than focusing on the game and his rapidly degrading kill ratio—was instead recounting the highlights of his week to the greenhead and a certain blonde who was lunging sideways in the recliner, lanky legs dangling off the arm of the chair, cigarette in his mouth, sending lazy puffs of grey smoke wafting up towards the motionless ceiling fan.

Sanji had to be the only thirteen year old in Sabaody with a chronic nicotine addiction. Luckily, Ace and Sabo were both okay with this—so long as Luffy himself wasn't partaking. Chain-smoking back to back the contraband menthols he'd lifted from his dad's stash, Sanji took full well advantage of this green-card. The blonde was nose deep in a cooking magazine, though he did make the occasional thoughtful noise, humoring the preteen as Luffy continued to chatter, quickly warming on his newest favorite topic which was unsurprisingly centered around a certain tattooed Senior.

Zoro on the other hand, fed up with being a one-man team, groaned after being taken out, yet again. "Awe come on," the greenhead groaned, waving the controller in a disgruntled gesture before turning on the little raven. "Damn Luffy, are you even playing over there?"' he scowled.

"Huh?" Luffy's train of thought derailed as he glanced down at the untouched controller in his lap. "Yeah, uhm, my bad." The preteen picked up the controller and tried to focus on the game, but was seriously lacking in enthusiasm.

"Torao, Torao." Zoro chuckled, making another kill shot, fingers rapidly entering combo after combo. "If I didn't know better I'd say you like this Torao guy," the moss-haired teen teased.

Wait. What?

Luffy's brain felt like someone had slammed on the metaphorical brakes, leaving him in a disoriented and shocked silence. Whiplash—definitely felt like whiplash.

The preteen's head jerked up, forgetting all about the controller in his hands as he looked at the greenhead sharply.

Like? As in, like-liking someone?

Was that possible?

Luffy wasn't sure—he'd never actually like-liked someone before. How was it people could tell these sorts of things?

And of course, since Luffy had no brain-to-mouth filter, that was exactly what came out of his mouth less than two seconds later. "How can you tell if you like-like someone?"

Zoro paused, blinked, controller held loosely in his hands, barely registering when his avatar fell over dead on screen.

"What do you mean, how can you tell?" the greenheads face scrunched up. "Are you—do you really think you like this guy?" It wasn't said in a debasing manner, more like, just plain stunned.

Even Sanji's attention had been dragged away from his cooking magazine. "Seriously?"

Luffy suddenly felt like a dog stuck in a tutu at the circus with everyone staring at him like he was about to start preforming tricks.

Well, woof.

"I don't know, if I knew I wouldn't be asking." Luffy frowned, lips pursing and cheeks slightly inflated.

So maybe he like-liked someone, was that such a big deal? People did it all the time. Heck, Sanji like-liked at least five new girls a day.

So why were they staring at Luffy like he'd grown another freakish alien head?

Zoro's eyebrows furrowed as he ran a hand through his spikey hair. "Well, you—I mean, usually you just kind of…" Zoro blew out a huff of air, eyebrows rising, eyes blinking as he appeared to be contemplating his answer. "You see it's—"

"Hold it, stop right there Marimo," Sanji smacked Zoro in the chest with his now rolled up magazine "let me handle this one before you butcher it." Zoro started to argue, but this time he was rewarded with a bony elbow to the ribs instead of a nice soft magazine blow.

"Alright Luffy, now I know you slept through most of health class but I need you to try and pay attention now okay?" Sanji's tone had a coddling note to it that did not sit well with the raven.

"Is this an answer, or a lecture?" Luffy's eyes narrowed skeptically.

Sanji took a quick hit off his menthol before dousing it out in an old soda can. "For you?" the blonde expelled a drawn-out huff of smoke. "Both. Now shut-up, and use those brain cells of yours to pay attention." Well, at least he was back to snarky Sanji. The blonde leaned forward, arms balanced on both knees. "Okay, now I want you to think about this Torao guy—what's the first thing that comes to mind?"

"Chocolate ice cream," Luffy said without hesitation, paused, then added "with gooey caramel on top."

Zoro barked a laugh, which quickly multiplied as he nearly fell over. Sanji's brows knotted as his mouth dropped open.

"Why would—you… Augh." The blonde closed his eyes and his mouth, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Do I want to know...?"' the blonde muttered seemingly to himself before shaking his head. "Right—okay." Sanji sighed, before reaching over and punching Zoro in the leg, which didn't stop his laughter, but it did slow it down. "Frozen desserts aside, what else comes to mind," Before Luffy's mouth could even open, Sanji held up a hand, "—something non-food related."

Luffy's brows furrowed. What was wrong with ice cream? Sanji was so weird, Zoro too. Why were they always acting like it was Luffy who was strange? In Luffy-logic, chocolate ice cream made perfect sense, it was sweet and yummy and a perfect match for Torao's skin, and if he was standing in bright light, his complexion warmed like golden hot gooey caramel.

Well whatever. If Sanji wanted to be difficult then fine. It wasn't like that was the only thing special about Torao.

"Fine then. Silver. His eyes are silver." Luffy crossed his arms. There, let the two dorks try and find fault with that.

The corner of Sanji's mouth twitched. "Now you're just describing him," Sanji tilted his head just a fraction. "Alright let's try this a different way. Try thinking about how being around this guy makes you feel."

Sanji watched Luffy curiously as the teen's face scrunched up and he chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. Even Zoro seemed to be interested in the raven's answer, sitting up, still red in the face and wiping away the moisture from his eyes.

Luffy scratched his head. How did being around Torao make him feel? He hadn't really thought about it, and he'd never been the type to sit and think about such things. Luffy was a creature of instinct and impulse. Thinking and self-analyzing stuff like that just wasn't his forte.

"I don't know," Luffy frowned, and gave a half-shrug. "I guess—I just like being around him?" Even if technically he'd yet to even be in the same room as the tattooed teen. "I mean, I think he's really… interesting."

Zoro raised his brows, looking like he might start snickering while Sanji waved a hand gesturing for the raven to go on.

Luffy blew out his cheeks. Feelings Luffy, feelings. What kinds of things did Torao make him feel? "Being around him is, I feel, I don't know, excited maybe? Whenever he's around things just seem kind of better—like, even the boring stuff feels interesting. It just, it feels like he fills up the whole room, and things just feel exciting for no reason." Luffy looked up, "Sometimes it even makes my heart beat faster till I can hear it in my ears, and it feels like something really awesome is about to happen."

Zoro wasn't laughing now, instead he cleared his throat and made a strange face that was almost identical to the one Sanji was currently wearing.

What? What? Now what'd he say?

The blonde's eyebrows furrowed as the corner of his mouth tugged down. "Okay…" the lanky older teen seemed to hesitate. "Alright—well… Does he—I mean" Sanji scratched his head "—does your body do anything else weird? Something unusual other than your heart beating faster?"

Luffy cocked his head to the side and tried to recall any other weird reactions he'd had. "Well, I mean, sometimes my stomach starts feeling kind of weird, like everything's all twisted up—but also really empty at the same time, accept I'm not hungry." The preteen pursed his lips. "And sometimes it gets really hot, like my insides start to feel all warm and mushy-like."

Luffy looked up and almost laughed at the expression on Zoro's face. The greenhead's face seemed to be stuck somewhere between frowning and gawking, which was actually kind of hilarious. Sanji on the other hand, was looking rather serious, his brows dropped down low, pale blue eyes blinking curiously as he cleared his throat, wetting his lips with his tongue before replying a little too calmly.

"Well I guess that pretty much sums it up then," the blonde concluded, falling back into the cushioned recliner, looking rather resigned. Zoro shook his head slowly, face still looking a bit stunned and all Luffy wanted to know was what the heck had been summed up—because he was still lost.

"Wait, what?" Luffy looked back and forth between the older teens feeling completely left out of the conversation. "What's summed up?"

Zoro groaned. "Geeze Luffy, I mean, it's about time but—did you have to pick someone so old?"

Excuse him? Who picked what now?

Sanji smacked Zorro roughly with a cushion to the back of his head nearly knocking the other teen over. Admittedly, they owned some pretty damn heavy, lumpy cushions—which were crap for comfort but made for excellent assault weapons.

Zoro hissed, giving the blonde an ugly look. "Oh what—like you weren't thinking the same thing," the green haired male scowled as he rubbed the back of his head, before jabbing an accusatory finger in the blonde's direction. "And don't you even fucking start with your whole 'love knows no boundaries' spiel, or I swear to Christ—"

Sanji sucked his teeth. "I think the moss has finally taken root and gone to your brain Marimo—you're starting to act like a neurotic mother hen with an egg wedged up its ass."

"Oh, I'll show you hen you goddamn ballerina!" Zoro growled.

"HEY!" Luffy nearly shouted, ready to pelt both of them with cushions—really, really hard cushions. Repeatedly. Dammit, he was really freaking tired of being left out of the conversation—especially since it was a conversation about him in the first place.

Zoro froze, crouching halfway to his feet, arms raised, looking like he'd been ready to literally jump on the blonde—also paused mid-poise, Sanji, in return already had one long leg curled back, ready to mule kick the greenhead if he was stupid enough to get to close—Luffy mentally sighed. For fucks sake, those two were like soda and pop-rocks. Both the boys were wearing near matching, comically startled expressions as they finally focused on the ticked off raven—like they had just now remembered he was still in the room.

Gee. Thanks guys.

Luffy wanted to roll his eyes—but didn't for fear that loss of eye contact would result in the two jerky bastards deciding to follow through with throttling one another. Well too freaking bad—they were just going to have to try and maim each other later. Luffy was not waiting another half hour, while Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dipshit went at it, before his questions were answered.

"What the hell are you guys even talking about?!" the dark-haired boy snapped, arms flailing high, totally fed up, and demanding an explanation.

Sanji was the first to snap out of it, letting out a sigh, rolling his shoulders and letting his leg drop—though he didn't let it uncurl it entirely, keeping a watch on the Marimo from the corner of his eye, ready to defend should the mosshead try anything. Reaching into his shirt pocket the blonde took out a fresh menthol, clamping the cancer stick between thin pressed lips and lit it without preamble, taking a long deep, drag.

Once the blonde seemed to deem his lungs to be adequately flooded with minty-scented toxins, he let out a slow, drawn out breath, muscles visually relaxing, as the smoke exited from both his mouth and his nose in a thick grey haze.

"What me and the walking algae farm are trying to say is congratulations…" The lanky teen gave Luffy a pointed look while Zoro cursed, "My fucking ass…!" but Sanji just continued talking over him, taking his cigarette and tipping it in the raven's direction. "—you my young friend have gotten your first crush." The blonde offered his young inexperienced friend a lopsided smile. "Mozal tov."

A crush? That was like, a physical attraction to someone, right? It was something Luffy had never really paid much attention to before. But once he started thinking about it—the little things about Torao that were so appealing—he quickly realized that there was definitely an undeniable level of attraction going on. Like of magnetic proportions. Whenever he was around Luffy's eyes found it difficult to look away, because everything about Torao, was just plain nice to look at.

And yeah, while Luffy might have been a little slow, even he knew enough to realize that his first crush being on another boy wasn't exactly normal. He also knew, that a lot of people would have disapproved, maybe even been disgusted, by this personal development.

But Luffy's two friends were nothing like that—because Luffy's friends were awesome.

Neither one had even thought of suggesting Luffy was weird, or that maybe he should try liking girls because that was what normal boys did. Nothing between the three of them had changed, except for Sanji's new habit of pervy teasing—in an approving sort of way—and even though Zoro wasn't exactly happy about it, his only issue was the seven-year age gap between them.

Luffy himself didn't really care one way or the other. He couldn't imagine any girl ever being able to compare to Torao. Girls were nice, but, Torao made his heart go ba-dump.

Sanji carelessly waved off Zoro—was still grumbling to himself since no one else was listening—offering Luffy a few more wise words of warning before returning to his magazine. "Just—maybe don't tell your brothers."

Luffy rolled his eyes.

Yeah, well duh. Even he could've figured that much out without being told.

While Luffy loved both his dumb brothers dearly—they did have a tendency to get out of hand when it came to the people they allowed in Luffy's life. Sabo and Ace could be worse than demons when it came to them trying to keep Luffy as sheltered as inhumanly possible.

If they found out Luffy had actually had a crush on someone—it would be fire and brimstone and probably involve house arrest until he turned thirty.

And he wasn't just being metaphorical or exaggerating—he actually meant the fire part quite literally. When Luffy had first started school it'd been quickly discovered that he had a learning disability. His inability to read simple words became a source of endless teasing, and one extra bratty-little-jerk-face, who'd been fat and full of himself and at least twice the size of the little raven, had taken it a step farther and actually hit Luffy.

Of course, Luffy, small as he was, had sucker punched him right back, fighting ensued—and when he came home with the start of a black eye and a fat lip, his brothers had gone postal. The next day Ace found out where the kid lived, and at only ten years old, committed his first official act of public arson, when he literally burned the kids tree house to the ground.

As a nice follow-up, the emerging pyro delivered the face to face warning that next time he burnt a house down, it was going to be while the kid was in it. And unconscious.

Sabo on the other hand, at a much more mature age of eleven, hadn't been quite so flashy—but whatever he'd done had been ten times more effective, because after he'd paid one brief visit to Luffy's classroom—no one, not one single kid, dared to so much as snicker at him after that, no matter what he did, or how he messed up. Actually, most of them just started to avoid looking at him all together.

Between the two, Luffy was fairly sure Sabo was scarier.

Honestly, it was worse than having two overbearing, sociopathic moms—because at least moms did stuff like bake cookies. And usually avoided things like arson and widespread sinister espionage.

Luffy wished he could say that they had mellowed out as they'd gotten older. But that would be lying, which was one more thing Luffy sucked at.

But since Luffy decided he liked Torao best while still in one solid piece, somehow the teen was just going to have to learn how to be sneaky—a skill that usually worked about as well for him as baptizing cats.

Oh well, if it was for Torao's own safety, somehow he'd manage.

The next time Torao came over for tutoring Luffy didn't really do anything differently. Well, accept for becoming a little more aware of his own body's physical reactions. That weird stirring of warmth deep down in his gut, was that what it felt like to be physically attracted to someone? He noticed it was something that seemed to get stronger the longer he spent around Torao, and decided that maybe it was—and maybe, that he liked it. Because it actually felt…kind of nice.

If this was how all those girls made Sanji feel, it was no wonder his blonde friend was always so crazy. If Luffy the same way about that many people as he felt for Torao he'd probably go crazy too. As it was, more and more, it felt like the senior was all Luffy could think about. Hell, he'd even caught his thoughts wandering while he was eating—and that was just mind blowing. Who would have ever thought he'd find someone who was more interesting than food?

Talk about world altering.

That following week was great—better than great. Luffy's new found self-awareness made everything feel like sunshine, puppies and rainbows. Every afternoon, Torao came over, and every day, Luffy sat on the landing, smiling to himself, and enjoying this exciting new feeling.

And unless his kitchen magically morphed into a never ending all you could eat buffet—Luffy couldn't see how life could get any better.

Unfortunately, that was when the universe decided to give the teen a painful reminder, that life was NOT, in fact, made of puppies and rainbows, but was more often than not—it was a real bitch.

It was on a Monday—as Luffy sat on his perch, fidgeting with excitement at the prospect of seeing Torao again after two whole days of his absence—that Life decided the joke was over and Monkey D Luffy needed a reality check.

After two hours of waiting, Torao never showed up.

Confused and disappointed, Luffy briefly wondered if somehow, he'd managed to mix up his days—he'd lost them before plenty of times, but this disillusion was quickly discarded because he knew for a fact that he'd gone to school that day, so it had to be a weekday—so Torao should've come. So why? Where was he?

Had he may be forgotten? Could he have gotten his days mixed up too? Or maybe he was sick? Luffy hoped it wasn't the later.

Luffy was rather proud that he'd lasted a whole fifteen-minutes before asking Ace why his tutor hadn't shown up.

"Tests over, and I passed." Ace replied, a bit smugly, while grabbing a cherry coke from the fridge. "So, no more tutoring."

Suddenly, Luffy's body became stiff and cold. "So… Torao's not coming back?"

Ace, popped the tab on his drink and was giving his little brother a confused look. "Torao?" he blinked, then suddenly laughed. "You mean Trafalgar. Geeze Lu, your dyslexia," Ace shook his head, still chuckling while Luffy felt like nothing was ever going to be funny again. "I swear, you come up with the weirdest shit. Anyways," his brother clapped him cheerfully on the shoulder. "—now we can go back to playing Xbox whenever we feel like it, and Sabo can't complain. Isn't that great?"

Great… Yeah, that was…great.

So great, in fact, that Luffy's entire stomach spontaneously bottomed out, splattering blood, guts, and organs across the cracked linoleum floor.

At least that was what it felt like, and it would've perfectly matched with his face's stunned, pale, and contorted features.

Ace of course, with his typically oblivious personality, failed to notice any of this and was still smiling to himself as he left the kitchen with his soda.

Trafa-what'd Ace say?

…So Torao wasn't Torao… just another hilarious screw up by Luffy's stupid broken brain.

He'd just been calling him some random, made up thing all this time—hell, even now that he knew better he still couldn't remember how to say the senior's real name. God, Luffy's brain was so freaking useless sometimes!

In a moment of desperation, Luffy briefly wondered if he started feeding Ace's homework to the neighbor's dog if that would drop his grades enough to bring Torao back…

…Unfortunately, though, this plan was quickly voided when he remembered that Ace never did his homework anyways. Dammit! How the heck could he possibly be passing, and why'd he have to choose now—now that Luffy's world had become so much better— of all times to strive for freaking self-improvement? And okay, maybe he was being a little selfish, but he couldn't help it, he wanted his lazy brother back dammit.

Not wanting to ask the freckled male, and unwilling to risk using his own eyes a second time, Luffy waited until Ace was busy to dig through his brother's book bag, purposely pulling out all his science papers, until he finally found a few that were written in the familiarly neat, and precise script he was looking for.

The next day at Zoro's, he swallowed his pride and asked Sanji to read out the name for him.

The blonde didn't say anything, taking the papers, brows furrowing, studying what was written for a moment before reading out aloud.

"Trafalgar Law," Sanji pronounced, slowly and clearly, before frowning. "Damn—what a mouthful. No wonder you butchered it Luff."

"Tch," Zoro blew through his teeth, making a rude noise. "I think I liked Torao better."

Secretly, though he'd never admit it, Luffy couldn't help but agree. Even if it was wrong, it felt weird calling the senior anything else.

If wishes were fishes—well, then Luffy probably would have lived on sushi. By some stupid miracle, Ace's grades stayed up, and Torao never came back to the house.

Sometimes Luffy would pretend to surprise Ace by waiting for him when he got out of school—even if he had to run six blocks to get there in time—just so he might get a chance to see the tattooed senior; even if it was from a distance. He even started tagging along with Ace to things like football games, and pep rally's—until he realized Torao never showed up to any of those.

If Ace thought Luffy's sudden clingy ness was odd, then he must've written it off as a case of big brother idolization, because he never complained or tried to stop him from tagging along.

Then finally, three whole months went by without a single sighting, until at last Luffy couldn't take it anymore and had to ask.

That was when Ace told him that Law had finished with his high school courses, and was already taking college courses at the local university until the term ended and he graduated.

Ace's graduation had been the last time Luffy saw Torao, watching him, trying his best to memorize exactly how he looked, burning it into his memory, while still carefully listening, and hanging on every word as he gave his valedictorian speech—before getting his own diploma, and disappearing into the crowd.

With more than enough awards and scholarships, Law could have chosen any college he wanted, and the one he had chosen, happened to be far, far away from Sabaody.

That summer, was probably the worst, and most miserable of Luffy's short life. At first, he thought that maybe he was sick, because there were times when all of his energy felt like it'd been drained out of him and all he wanted to do was sleep, and eat, and sleep some more. Sometimes his chest would feel tight, and his eyes would become red and irritated. It stung, and it was irritating, and it made him unusually short tempered with everyone.

Sanji called it heartache. And Luffy fucking hated it.

But eventually, even the horrible summer passed. Time had gone on and it had taken Torao along with it. And at thirteen, now a high school freshman himself—Luffy sometimes felt this strange, unexplainable sensation of loss, that made him think that maybe the senior had taken something with him as he left…

Most often, it would happen on the few occasions when he'd been flirted with by a classmate—usually it was girls, once or twice a boy—though really, it was the same either way…

Because Luffy, never felt a thing…

~x X x~

Seven years, four-and-a-half chocolate bars, three bags of super spicy Doritos, one extra-large package of sour gummy worms, and five sticks of beef jerky later—scrambling around the counter, mentally compiling every profanity he'd ever heard, Monkey D Luffy barely managed to make it to the toilet before he hurled.

Dammit.

If he'd known this morning that he was going to hell, he would have at least packed a fucking toothbrush.

X X X

Chapter Text

X X X

Law swore for the umptieth time as tried shifting into second, reassuring himself that yes, the clutch had been pressed fully to the floor, and no, he had not shifted to early—so why the hell were his eardrums being assaulted by such hellish noises?!

If cars could talk, the Charger would have been wailing—and probably accusing him of attempted homicide.

The grinding of the gears, which could not be drowned out by any level of stereo, were painful to listen to. Law actually found himself pitying an inanimate object—which probably meant he’d been spending far too much time alone.

But regardless, all irrationality aside, Law did love the car—mostly. Even if it did have more gizmos than a bypass machine. The Dodge SRT Hellcat was a beautiful, candy-apple-red, with rich matching red and black leather interior, and top of the line navigation system—it looked like something straight out of one of those over budget Hollywood street racing films.

But the real selling factor had been that fact Corazon would have absolutely adored it. The muscle car was something his foster father would have instantly been drawn to, and thus so had been Law.

The man at the rental center had made the comment that the car had real personality. Law laughed at the irony—what the man had failed to mention was that personality just so happened to be Satan—all hail the automotive dark lord.

Now, maybe most men would have taken the service rep’s advice—after the ninth stall—and chosen a more convenient automatic. Those men would be fucking quitters, Law had never quit anything in his life (Except for smoking—but that was a habit he was strongly considering picking back up, so that didn’t count. He also refused to count walking out on his job because, in Laws opinion, that still felt like a win.) He was an over achieving fucking prodigy, a literal goddamn genius with an I.Q. higher than most people’s credit scores.

So it obviously wasn’t Law’s fault. He was doing everything the man at the rental center had told him to do. He was not an incompetent driver—no. The blame lay with that goddam devil-pedal.

Ambidextrous, and an artist with a blade, he now apparently had two left feet that couldn’t choreograph in sync to save his fucking life. Obviously, the goddamn devil-pedal had placed some sort of dark whammy on both of his feet turning them both retarded.

Nothing less than demonic possession could have explained the numerous ways in which the clutch had tried to kill the surgeon in the last forty-eight hours.

Stalling in traffic, rolling forward towards busy intersections of its own free will, Law had lost track of how many times he’d nearly been slammed into by other drivers because the devil-pedal—along with its partner in crime, which Law had aptly dubbed Satan’s Stick—had apparently decided he would make a great road pancake.

It also didn’t help that he may, or may not, have gotten slightly turned around… somewhere… along the line.

But that hadn’t necessarily been his fault either—because since when had Sabaody’s two-lane main strip turned into a goddam four-lane highway? Who’d turned all those streets downtown into one-way only jigsaw puzzles? Where the hell had all of these cookie-cutter overnight popup suburbs come from? The kind where you couldn’t spit out your own window without hitting the neighbors nearly identical—though of course differently colored by one of the other ugliest colors of the goddam rainbow—overpriced housing unit.

Laws stomach rolled. He’d rather gouge out his own eye with a tongue depressor.

And as a man of science, it wasn’t as if Law was opposed to change. Advancements were wonderful things—as long as they were actually fucking improving something. This? This mess was not improvement. This shit was wonderland with traffic lights and street signs.

When he’d first hit the turnoff coming in, he hadn’t been too concerned with trying to figure out the GPS, after all, he’d lived in Sabaody for almost five years, it’d been a small town—hell that was half the reason Cora had chosen it to settle down in, in the first place. Law had just ignorantly assumed that factor would still be as relevant today as it was back before he’d left for college.

As it turned out, he was only half right—while the other half seemed to be hopelessly turned around.

It wasn’t that Sabaody had actually grown any, it was just that everything seemed to have become more compact. What were empty lots were now shopping plaza’s, small businesses were now crushed between chain stores like Seven-Elevens, Walgreens and Family Dollar—hell he’d already counted two McDonald’s and a Walmart on his way in.

By the time he stuffed his pride back in his pocket and took out his cellphone, he was soon to discover—he didn’t know shit about Navigation or GPS. What the hell use had he ever had of knowing such things? He’d only ever had to worry about getting on the right subway line, getting off at the right stop—or preferably just ordering Shachi where to go and leaving the navigation BS to him.

Two rolled stop signs, three dead ends, one wrong one-way, and an almost accident later—Law was pleased to find, he was sort of getting the hang of this steering-while-following-directions thing. Especially after figuring out how to make the nice computer lady—who lived inside the cars central dash screen, and for some reason came with a British accent that Law felt made her sound extra competent and knowledgeable—verbally direct him to his preferred destination.

At least now he could keep both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road—thus helping to avoid such traffic causalities like other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, trees, traffic signs, mediums, curbs, light poles—all of which had an annoying fucking habit of popping out of fucking nowhere as soon as Laws head was turned—because apparently the rest of the world was also in cahoots with the devil-pedal and Satan’s Stick, therefore was also determined to turn the Surgeon into a doctorate certified road pizza.

And of course, one of his first stops had been to the house he and Cora had shared, which had done absolutely nothing for his already sour mood. He should have known better, but he’d been driven by his own morbid curiosity to see how the old two story colonial had faired after the towns commercial mutation.

What had once been a spacious street with several empty lots—lots that had almost been like fields, with their tall, knee-high switchgrass, wild bushels of pink and gold lantana, white clusters of Spanish needles, splashes of red Indian paint brush, and the occasional birch or oak tree, branches strangled and camouflaged in valentine creeper vines—were now cut down, plowed over, and covered with city regulation green turf-lawns, and occupied with cinderblock houses.

At least they weren’t of the cookie-cutter variety, otherwise Law might have puked. But they still seemed to clutter the street, and took away that illusion of open space and the feeling of separation from mainstream city life that Law used to find so comforting.

At least the house itself was still relatively the same—if he ignored all the stacked random clutter on the porch, and the carnage of primary colored, hard plastic preschool-esque toys that appeared to have exploded all over the front lawn…

Were they running a freaking day-care center or something? How many children did these people have?

And why the hu1zkiikell did he even care?

It wasn’t like Law was sentimental, or had illogical, irrational, idiotic attachments to a material space, just because it was the space he and Cora had spent the longest stretch of time in.

Four whole years.

For an army brat that was practically a lifetime. But Cora had been determined that Law should have a stable long-term environment during his high school education. His educational record up till then had been splotchy at best. Most colleges and universities would frown upon spontaneous lessons, erratically given by a squad of typically volatile, battle hardened marines—with admittedly questionable moral compasses. Personally, Law felt he’d already learned and experienced more than any public-school system could ever offer—but unfortunately his opinion hadn’t mattered much.

Bottom line, if Law wanted a real chance at becoming a surgeon, he had needed a solid, officially documented academic record.

So Cora had withdrawn himself from active duty, and chosen a nice, quiet town with a low population, limited corporate fingerprint, and a decently reputable public high-school. (If Cora could have seen all its strip malls and suburbs now—he would have gagged right along with Law.)

And that was how they’d come to Sabaody.

But that was then. So what the hell was Law doing here now?

And that was maybe at least half his problem—he still wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing here. Two days alone in a car gave man an uncomfortable amount of time to think. What was he doing here?

His only real connection to this place had been Cora, and Cora was gone.

Sure, yeah, the Reunion—but that was more a lame excuse than anything. During that uncomfortably long period of reflection, Law found himself thinking back and coming to the disturbing realization that he couldn’t even remember a single name of any of the classmates he’d shared those four years with. There were one or two that felt like they might be on the tip of his tongue—but in the end, he still was drawing blanks.

His teenage years, the time in his life before he learned the value of social mannerisms and passive civility—back then, he hadn’t just been socially reclusive, he’d been actively socially repellant.

Sure, of course one could say that any average teenager was bound to project their own level of angst and fair share of awkwardness—but Law had written the fucking book. A tome the size of which dictionaries everywhere would envy.

Law had never seen his fellow classmates as potential friends or even potential enemies, for Law they were simply living organisms that just happened to be occupying the same space—nothing worthy o0f interest. If his past, and his upbringing as an army brat, had taught him anything, it was that people—other people—were just temporary coincidences. And it was highly irrational to become attached or involved with coincidences.

Because they were only temporary. Life and time were always in constant transition, people—relationships—it was all ephemeral. Nothing stayed. Nothing was permanent.

Except for Cora. He’d been the only one—the only constant, the only presence Law truly acknowledged and the only voice that had ever mattered.

Law thumped his head back against the headrest, squeezing his eyes shut so that he was no longer staring at the old house. Because all the rationality, all the foreign clutter and toddler toys in the world couldn’t keep his subconscious from expecting Corazon to miraculously walk out the front door. He’d sit down on the steps, smile crookedly, blonde hair half curled and messy in his face, and light up a menthol cigarette and ask Law how his day had gone.

Shitty. Shitty was how Law’s day had gone. Fuck, he’d give anything to tell him. How tired he was because he’d spent the night tossing and turning on a too-hard hotel mattress, with cheap generic scratchy sheets that were probably microbe infested. Almost gotten himself killed on the highway more times than he’d care to count because his more-than-likely-possessed rental car had decided to mutiny. Then to top it off, gotten lost in the one place he should have known best, only to find their house, their sanctuary, swallowed up by society and industrial civilization, looking like a clusterfucked Toys-R-Us yard sale.

And fuckdammit—Law couldn’t help but feel like something important had just been snatched and shattered, smashed and stomped into the ground, and there was no way to ever fix it even if he tried because the most important piece would always be missing.

Cora was dead. And Law was stupid.

Temper slipping, Law slammed his hand against the wheel before he let off the brake. Easing down on the clutch, he took the shifter in a white knuckled grip putting the hostile hellcat back into first, miraculously without stalling, and left without looking back. Probably a lot faster than was necessarily legal.

A blinking fuel light on the dash informed him that unless he wanted to become permanently stranded, he was going to have to find a gas station. Which shouldn’t be too hard, seeing how the town was now infested with chain establishments. He just needed someplace close, someplace with food—because last night’s dinner—three beers and a Caesar salad of questionable origin from the hotel diner—had been at least sixteen hours ago.

Rubbing at his eyes which were red from sleep deprivation, Law was debating turning on the radio for a distraction when his phone began to ring. In fucking Chipmunk voices…

‘What time is it where you are?

I miss you more than anything

Back at home you feel so far

Waitin' for the phone to ring

It's gettin' lonely livin' upside down

I don't even wanna be in this town

Tryin' to figure out the time zones makin' me crazy’

“Oh my fucking god…” It was a new ringtone, but that didn’t matter, there were only two assholes who would dare to mess with his phone, and only one of them was retarded enough to select THAT ringtone…

‘You say good morning

When it's midnight

Going out of my head

Alone in this bed

I wake up to your sunset

It's drivin' me mad

I miss you so bad

And my heart heart heart is so jet lagged

Heart heart heart is so jetlagged

Heart heart heart is so jetlagged

So jetlagged’

Oh, Law was going to kill him. That little redhaired freak was so fucking dead. And Law most certainly wasn’t smiling as he answered the phone.

“When in the fucking hell did you find the time to fuck with my phone?”

X X X

It was the sound that drew the teens attention, a horrible, painful, groaning and grinding, that had Luffy staring out the window into the parking lot where his eyes became fixed on what had to be a brand new, cherry red, Dodge Charger.

Watching and listening as the engine choked and died, and he had to wonder—dear god, what poor, lucky bastard, was making that beautiful car make such offensive noises?

…Until said bastard stepped out of the car and Luffy must’ve died on the spot, because suddenly, he was having an out-of-body nightmare experience.

Because no-no-no, not here, and definitely not now—this couldn’t possibly be happening, it had to be his nerves at long last hitting their breaking point and making him hallucinate—because he still had at least five hours until doomsday and there was no way his luck could be this horrible.

Closing his eyes, squeezing them shut as tightly as he could to rid himself of the horrific mirage, Luffy hesitantly opened them again, praying to a deity who obviously wasn’t listening—because right then, right there, less than twenty yards away in the Archipelago parking lot stood a man whose distinguishing, bold and elaborate, black tattoo’s Luffy would have known anywhere.

Oh, fuck him sideways.

Steeling himself—and swallowing his natural instinct to bolt like a jackrabbit hopped up on amphetamines—Luffy tried to quell the his rapidly climbing body temperature, before he did something embarrassing, like discovering a brand-new spectrum of red and having it brilliantly displayed all over his face.

Shit it was hot.

Double-shit—what if he was already color-changing? Was there a way to tell? It wasn’t like he had a damn mirror so how the hell would he even know…?

Okay, so maybe Luffy might have made a small sound of distress—but dammit, distress was well-fucking warranted.

It was like one of those horrible nightmares where you were stranded out in public in your underwear... oh triple-shit—was Luffy even wearing underwear? He couldn’t remember if he’d put any on this morning--dammit this was even worse than a random underwear stranding, if this really was a nightmare Luffy was going to end wearing nothing but the sorry skin he was born in with his naked ass on display for the world—and Law—to see…

Wait. 

Ass?

Naked?

Why was he thinking of naked? And why the hell was he thinking of UNDERWEAR? Oh god, Luffy’s brain was experiencing a nuclear meltdown, wasn’t it? Any minute now grey brain matter was going to start oozing from his eyes and ears, probably spilling out all over the floor just in time for Torao to waltz through it.

Fuck-shoes-dammit! Was it too late to flip the close sign?

But then he’d have to make it to the stupid see-through glass door—and what would be the fucking point of flipping the stupid sign when the whole world would be able to see him doing it?!

He could always duck down behind the counter—he was pretty small. Maybe if he…Augh! No dammit! No hiding! That was just fucking stupid. Monkey D Luffy did not fucking hide—not even from the Angel of his nightmares. No sir, he was just going to have to take his trauma like a man.

He just… needed a minute—needed to take a breath—while he got his shit together.

Dammit, he needed more time. Or a fucking tranquilizer dart delivered post-haste straight to his potentially bare-naked ass—and shit-piss-fuck!—why?! Why was nakedness the only thing he could think of in a time like this?!

 For the love of all things not-naked and holy Luffy needed to get it together fucking ASAP because the fucking door was opening--the chimes above jangled and clanged together like a death omen, a portent of horrendous, unending doom (and potentially mortifying, lifelong embarrassment)—and frick-frack-friggity-fuck—Luffy nearly choked on air because in walked Trafalgar Law.

Luffy’s pupils blew to the size of industrial dinner plates, until it was nearly impossible to tell what his actual eye color was because all of it was currently being swallowed up in a vast the sea of endless black.

At least he wasn’t on fire anymore—no, now it seemed like his blood had decided to spontaneously freeze itself inside the raven’s own vessels, like he’d been dipped head to toe in random liquid-fucking-nitrogen. His joints and muscles felt too fucking stiff and frigid, he was amazed at his own ability to still be breathing. Well done Luffy, that’s it—in and out. Keep it up, you can worry about frostbite later.

 As he tried to swallow around the arid wasteland that was currently taking up residence in his mouth, he almost laughed at the irony. How the hell was it that his body could manage to host the arctic in his veins while also housing a fucking desert in his mouth simultaneously. What sort of geographical fuckery was that? Luffy bet his not-naked ass they didn’t cover this shit in National Geographic.

With his luck, the endless depths of the goddam ocean would be coming up next—because of course Luffy couldn’t fucking swim—not even a basic dogpaddle. Nope. All Monkey D Luffy could do, was flail, flounder and sink…

Kind of like what he was doing right now.

Dredging up the shattered remains of his dignity, Luffy fought off the icy chills and literally shook himself to try and clear his head, determinedly latching onto the reins of his own ridiculously, manic subconscious, in an attempt to riel in his own neurosis.

Dammit, this was absurd—worse, it was freaking embarrassing the way that he was letting himself get so worked up over one man. And that was all Law was—just a man—a normal man, in a gas station, chatting away on his cellphone while browsing the local selection of snack foods.

Another customer, just like the countless others Luffy waited on daily. A complete, and total stranger. At least from Law’s perspective.

There was no rational, earthly reason for Luffy’s extreme—and quite frankly degrading—reaction. He wasn’t twelve years old—he was nineteen, he wasn’t just a clueless kid anymore, he had no reason to feel nervous around this man. History was called history for a reason—It was all part of the past. It was the stuff you learned from, over and done with.

Maybe if he just looked at the man—really looked at him, and saw him through the eyes of the fully-grown adult that he was—maybe that would help shake off the image he’d held onto as a young kid, who’d barely even come into his own sexuality. It had been that image, seen through young, inexperienced and naive eyes, that had somehow managed to elevate this man to near godlike status.

But Luffy wasn’t a just a punk kid anymore. He’d experienced life—admittedly not so much the sexual side of it—but he knew what physical attraction was. He’d seen dozens of other guys who’d been just as aesthetically appealing—and maybe it hadn’t been with the same youthful intensity—but there had been a few who’d managed to turn the raven’s head.

Even if Torao was considerably enticing, that didn’t make him any different from any of those other guys.

Luffy was sure that if he could just get a good look, then he’d be able to see things more realistically, and then surely this fictional idealized version he’d had in his head all these years would be dispelled.

But before he did that, Luffy gave into one last neurotic compulsion—eyes briefly darting up to make sure the older man wasn’t looking—and quickly tugged down the waistline of his jeans just enough to confirm that, yes, he was indeed wearing underwear, navy blue boxers, if you wanted specifics. Pulling them back up just as quickly, Luffy let out a short, mildly relived breath of air. Well, at least that concern had been cleared away. It also made one less irrational fear to be dealt with. So now, with his underwear present and accounted for, all Luffy had to do was use his eyes to look, how simple and easy was that?

Eyeballs Luffy, use your freaking eyeballs.

Taking a deep breath, hands tightening into fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms, Luffy lifted his head and forced himself look, determined to observe the man with a calm, cool sense of detachment.

Eyes fully focused, Luffy fought to swallow past the tight knot in his throat.

Well—he’d been right about the cold part at least.

A frigid chill seemed to dance its wat down Luffy’s spine—it was both foreign and all too familiar—but then, he remembered, that was something that had always seemed to happen whenever Law was near.

Still standing, practically god-sized at what must’ve been at least six-foot-three or more, Trafalgar Law was an undeniably dominating presence. Dressed almost indecently in a thin, black cotton shirt with a deep, V-cut neckline that clung to a noticeably lean, well-muscled upper body—and below that, even more provocative, was a pair of faded, white-washed jeans with stylishly ripped out knees, that hung low on sharply cut hips and fit like a comfortable second skin.

Dear god, this must’ve been what the seventh layer of hell felt like. What else could explain the fact that despite seven years passing, the man was still an exact mirror image of his younger self—right down to the gold hoop earrings and spotted white fuzzy hat atop his head, which HAD to be the same damn hat because how many fuzzy spotted hats could possibly exist in the world? Luffy bet not many, he also bet that Law probably owned each and every one.

Jesus, why did he have to look the exact same as he did in back in high school? Couldn’t he have at least grown warts or something? Maybe gotten horribly fat, or premature balding, a terrible haircut—anything. But no, apparently Trafalgar Law was a walking body frozen in time, a living fucking time capsule, still completely fucking perfect.

He was all gooey caramel on top of melty rich chocolate ice-cream…

Luffy groaned internally, dammit, he wasn’t ready for this.

He had thought he was ready, but that was until the man had to waltz right in, completely unexpected, still looking abso-fucking-lutely amazing, while Luffy was decidedly stuck on the opposite side of the counter, hair and face a wreck, with pizza stains on the front of his yellow shirt.

Why? Why did Life hate him so much?

Luffy looked at the tall slender man, his glossy blue-black hair had grown longer, the ends slipping out from beneath the rim of his hat had a slight curl to them, with his bold tribal tats and goatee—hey now, that was new—he could have easily passed for some kind of Rockstar.

He really was everything the teen remembered.

And when sterling quicksilver eyes flickered towards the teen, that was when HE turned melty—like mega hot-flashes ‘holy-bejezzus-batman!’ puddle on the floor, please watch your step for slip and fall—because seven-freaking-years’ worth of previously absent hormones had now apparently decided to flood the inside of his small body.

Fingering his phone in his pocket, Luffy had never in his life had such the strong desire to take a photograph. Did that desire make him a stalker? Or did one have to actually follow through with the desire before earning that classification? Either way, didn’t it still make Luffy creepy for wanting to do it in the first place… ?

But fuck—he couldn’t help it.

Watching Torao move down the aisle in long, leisurely strides, there was just something about him that was both compelling and irresistible. It was also a little bit frightening. The teen had never known anyone like him. He was alluring in a way that defied Luffy’s best abilities to explain.

It didn’t take long for some things to become blatantly obvious to the teen. And for him to finally realize how deeply and incredibly fucked he actually was.

His eyes, while taking in every detail of the man, had finally started making the visual connection between the few guys he’d found attractive, leaving Luffy at long last realizing what it was about them that had drawn him in to begin with.

Though they were pale imitations that had quickly lost interest to the teen, the root of that interest was now blatantly obvious—whether it was a pair of light gray eyes, or a compelling dark rich skin tone—they had each shared some type of common, physical trait with Torao.

Fucking hell. He really was going to die a fucking virgin wasn’t he? The universe fucking hated him and he was doomed to live out the rest of his pathetic life fucked over in every kind of way except for the way that ended in a fucking orgasm.

Because now that he consciously knew what it was he’d been seeing in those guys he’d never be able to blissfully ignorant again. How could he possibly hook up with a guy knowing that the only reason he found them attractive was because of some goddamned shared resemblance with another man?

How incredibly pathetic was it that this single man had potentially managed to ruin the teen’s already nonexistent sex life forever—while the man himself still wasn’t even aware of Luffy’s fucking existence?

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the blood rushing through Luffy’s ears had slowed down enough that he could actually focus on the man’s voice—still reverberating in that same low, smooth tone that was so familiar—even if his words were currently making no sense.

“What do you mean Psycho’s got a diorama inside her locker?” Law snorted into the phone.  Luffy’s own fingers began to itch, sliding restlessly back and forth over his own phone—and was he really, really considering this? “Shachi you’ve been hitting the tequila again if you expect me believe you’ve seen the inside of a woman’s anything.”

While Law was occupied with the contents on the shelf, Luffy finally gave into the impulse—because shit, yes, apparently he was doing this—quickly raising his phone and snapping a photograph of the man’s profile. The teen flinched, nearly dropping the device and internally swearing at how loud the distinct, giveaway-shutter-noise, was in the dead silence of the practically empty store.

The tattooed man turned suddenly, undoubtedly because of that same damn sound, but Luffy, with his heart beating like a freaking kickdrum, had already hidden the traitorous device and was pretending to be deeply interested in one of the many rag magazines they kept stocked at the counter. 

“No, this is me communicating from beyond the grave—of course I’m still in one piece you asshat.” Law clicked his tongue against his teeth at whoever was on the other end of the phone. “Are you ever going to let the license thing go?”

“I’m so going to hell,’ Luffy thought, as the man seemed to shrug off the sound and went back to browsing. Yes, he was definitely going to hell, but at least he’d have a souvenir to take with him.

God, he really was a stalker now wasn’t he? Now that he had the photographic evidence it had to be official—and why was he not as upset with that fact as he felt he should be?

Law had stopped in the middle of the isle, looking increasingly aggravated. “Calm your tits Mother-goose,” he huffed, “—and put the stupid-flightless-bird back on.”

Luffy blinked curiously. Bird’s and gooses? Was he talking about people or pets? And what kind of lame, retarded bird couldn’t fly?

“You,” Law growled accusingly, in a way that made Luffy grateful he wasn’t the one on the other end of the line. “—you gave it sugar, didn’t you?” Rolling his eyes, the man continued down the aisle, occasionally picking up packages and reading the nutrition contents—something Luffy can’t remember ever having done in his life. Eyebrows dropping, Law paused, crossing his free arm across his chest, and started tapping one foot.

“Dammit we talked about this, he’s not some—” Law’s mouth fell open, “What do you mean coffee?!” Luffy couldn’t help flinching as Law practically shouted, then paused, “Actually coffee sounds pretty good right now—no, not you, are you fucking insane?”

The man shook his head irefully as he made his way to the hot coffee on the far back counter, grabbing the largest cup available and filling it to the brim.

“Oh no.” Law snorted, shaking his head as he putting the lid on his coffee. “No-no-no, see this is not my problem, this,” the man waved a hand, gesturing as if the person he was talking to could see him. “—this is Penguin’s problem, because Law is no longer in the same zip code,” he chuckled smugly, walking back and grabbing a bag of baked sun chips from the shelf. “Time for you to reap what you’ve—he did?”

Luffy frowned as Law bit his lip, listening and obviously not liking whatever it was the other person was telling him.

“Seriously?” Suddenly Law’s expression fell, then screwed into a grimace. “Oh for fucks—” The man took in a long, deep breath, “—look just…” Law closed his eyes pinched the bridge of his nose, “—put him front of the T.V. and find him some bugs bunny or something—No I don’t remember the channel!”

Luffy was trying desperately to control his facial expression, putting the magazine (who’s title he didn’t know) back on the rack as Law slowly walked towards the register, his ear still pressed to the phone.

“Use the damn guide and call me in a couple of hours.” Law let out an irritated sigh. “Yeah. Yeah—look I gotta go.” Luffy tried to distract himself by watching as each item was carefully placed in front of the register.  “And this time try to remember not to feed it after midnight,” Tapping the screen, Law gave the phone one last ugly look, as if the device itself had personally insulted him, before slipping it back into his pocket.

Suddenly Luffy was met with a pair of swirling silver eyes and he began to wonder if it was humanly possible for someone to swallow their own tongue, because it certainly felt like it had happened. Once again, Monkey D Luffy felt like he’d been reverted back into an awkward, scrawny twelve-year-old, hiding up on the second story landing of his own home, creepily eyeing the object of his affection—only this time, instead of it just being one-sided, the someone he was staring at was now decidedly staring right back.

Luffy waited in fearful anticipation for any small glimmer of recognition—and couldn’t tell if he was more relieved or disappointed when nothing happened, except for Law raising both eyebrows expectantly as if to say “What ARE you doing?”

Luffy shook his head.

Jesus, fuck-dammit—what was he doing? Acting like a complete star-struck, retarded lame-for-brains, that’s what.

Heat flooded the teenager cheeks and he could only pray that they weren’t as red as they currently felt. It was only a year’s worth of experience that got him through the mechanical motions of ringing up the man’s purchases and giving him the total—more than half surprised when his voice actually worked. Swallowing tightly, he watched as the older man dug out his wallet and pulled out a twenty, which Luffy took by the tip with hands that he hoped weren’t noticeably shaking.

Biting the inside of his cheek Luffy took longer to count out the change than should have been necessary—and would have been faster if his brain would’ve cooperated instead of acting like a computer whose heatsink was melting down into goo.

At last, taking a deep breath, Luffy held out the proper amount small bills and coins, completely unprepared for the sudden feeling of warmth as Law’s fingers brushed against his, striking the teen with an incredibly electrifying rush—which unfortunately, resulted in his hand spazzing out, making him drop the man’s change on the floor.

At least to his credit, Law said nothing, and doesn’t laugh at the teen as he crouches down

Inwardly cursing, Luffy can feel the heat of his cheeks spreading all the way to the tips of his ears as he bends over to pick up the change, coming back up and smacking the back of his head soundly on the still open metal drawer of the register. “Shit!” he cursed, then realized what he’d said and tried futilely to backpedal. “I mean….Erhm… ”

“No, no,” Law reassured the teen, dismissing his concern with a wave. “I think shit would be perfectly applicable under the circumstances.”

“Sorry,” Luffy mumbled, rubbing the sore spot on his head that was undoubtedly going to turn into a nice knot.

“You just cracked your head on a cash register,” Laws brows furrowed, seeming genuinely confused, “—why are you apologizing to me?”

The teen shrugged halfheartedly, handing over the collected change, carefully this time. “Cause knowing me, I probably did something dumb to deserve it.” Like taking secret photographs—karma had sure worked fast on that one.

Law’s mouth quirked. “You’re a weird kid, aren’t you?”

Luffy snorted, then without thinking fired back. “Your hat’s weird.” And then clapped a hand over his mouth because, holy-shit, what the heck did he just say!?

Oh god, if only he could blame his stupidity on a concussion.

Law’s brows furrowed as his lips pursed. “And what’s wrong with my hat?”

“Nothing.” The teen ducked his head before mumbling nervously, “It just—may or may not… resemble a stuffed animal on your head.” Luffy rubbed his neck, looking up and smiling sheepishly, before apologizing and trying his best to explain. “Sorry, its just—I have this thing—where it’s like—I don’t really know what’s going to come out of my mouth until its already out there?”

Law’s eyes narrowed as he leaned back thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not to be offended. “Which is why you apologize in advance.”

Luffy sighed, shoulders drooping. “Pretty much.”

“That’s interesting though.” Law looked perplexingly at the teen, “So, you pretty much just answer anything someone asks you without having any sort of thought-filter?”

“Unfortunately?” Luffy blinked.  The teen wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. Not that this whole freaking conversation wasn’t already surreal in the worst way imaginable. At least he didn’t sound angry.

Law tilted his head to one side. “What’s your name?”

“Luffy…”

Law leaned one tattooed arm against the counter. “What do you think of your job?”

The teen shrugged. “Can’t stand it.”

Law raised one brow. “What’s your favorite color?”

“All of them.”

“What color are your underwear?”

“Blue—” Luffy’s eyes snapped open. “HEY!”

Law chuckled and lightly tapped the counter. “THAT was for my hat.”  The man was smirking in a way that made Luffy’s stomach feel slightly tipsy.

“It’s rude to ask someone’s name without telling them yours first you know.” And at that moment Luffy could have gladly killed Sabo for all those hours of etiquette lessons he’d drilled into his head as a kid, right after he bit off his own tongue.

“Fair enough,” the man replied, the corners of his mouth still curving, making a light sound that might have been a laugh. “It’s Law,” man finished easily, completely unaware of the significance those words carried to the young raven, who forced himself to nod dumbly.

Gathering up his purchases, Law hung the bag from his left hand while holding onto his hot coffee in his right, “Now that we’re even, would you happen to know where I could find a hotel?”

Taking a breath, Luffy bit his lip and scratched his head thoughtfully, not really thinking to ask why the man didn’t simply use a GPS. “There’s a nice best western just off the main drag going out by grove seventeen,” the teen suggested. “Do you know it?”

“Yeah, yeah I think I remember. Seventeen—Didn’t there used to be a…” Law, shifted, the plastic of the bag on his wrist crinkling in complaint as he snapped his fingers trying to recall the name. “—a Party’s Bar out there?”

“There still is, they just changed the name.” Luffy grinned, explaining, “Now it’s Akagami’s—the hotel is only about a quarter mile past that.”

“Okay,” Law nodded, looking thoughtful. “—sounds easy enough…” he paused, brows lightly knotting together for a moment. “This place sure has changed.”  Tapping his nails against the counter he looked straight at Luffy with those quicksilver eyes, swirling like liquid mercury, and the teen couldn’t help the exhilaration he felt knowing that this time, the man was actually looking at him, as a real person. “Well, thanks,” Law gave a kind of half-smile—not a smirk, but something softer—that made Luffy’s insides start to feel like wriggly jelly all over again. Turning to leave, the man called out one last time, lifting his coffee and using it to gesture towards his head. “Hope your day gets better.” And then he was gone.

Luffy thought of the upcoming Reunion, and again almost laughed at the irony. “Somehow I highly doubt it.” He was still looking at out the door—watching as a certain red charger grumbled to life after a few complaints—when he realized. Holy. Shit.

Holyshitholyshit.

He’d just had an actual conversation with Torao—with Law—managing to use actual words and sentences and everything and now the man actually knew his name.

H-o-l-y-s-h-i-t…

Suddenly the teens heart started popping and backfiring in his chest in a crazy, fibrillated beat, not unlike the kicking and revving of the red muscle car that was currently pulling out of the parking lot.

And Luffy had to really, really wonder—was this a good or a bad thing? Either way, when he inevitably ran into Torao five hours from now—there was no longer a question of whether or not the man would recognize him.

Which by all means—should have been a good thing…

So why did it feel like this could only end in disaster?

X X X

Chapter Text

Almost four hours later, Luffy found himself in the high school’s gymnasium, balancing precariously on a rather tall ladder, his extreme hygiene session before showing up pretty much gone to hell—because a certain blonde had them all sweating their asses off like the slave driver he was. It was a well-known fact, that Sanji should never be put in charge of ANYTHING, because it inevitably turned the normally easy going blonde, into an Anal-Nazi.

Luffy was hanging balloons near the bleachers on the side of the gym opposite of the buffet table—and had been expressly forbidden to cross over by threat of execution at the hands of the blonde Hitler himself—when Zoro joined him, nearly collapsing against the bottom bench.

“What’s up?” asked the teen, eyeing his friend, carefully descending the ladder before taking a seat himself.

“Hard dicks and airplanes,” Zoro grunted, pulling the dark green bandana off his head and using it to wipe off the sweat beading across his face, “—and Sanji’s blood pressure.”

The two men watched as across the room, Sanji began unconsciously patting down his pockets, searching for an imaginary pack of cigarettes that weren’t there because he’d forgotten that he since he was at the high school, nicotine was temporarily off the menu.

Zoro clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I think the bottled-blonde has finally gone to his head. Peroxide poisoning.”

“Careful,” Luffy frowned. “I heard him earlier in the bathroom humming the chorus for defying gravity.” The two shared a similar look, they both knew that once the blonde started reciting Broadway musicals that shit had gotten serious.

The teen shrugged. “At least you’re getting paid for this,” Luffy reasoned.

“There isn’t enough hazard pay in the world to compensate for this.” Zoro groaned, bending backwards to stretch out the sore, stiffening muscles in his back and shoulders. “I feel like I’ve just been fucked—except I didn’t even get a free meal out of it first.” The greenhead had been hauling in everything from tables, to chairs, and even a set of massive loud speakers that probably each weighed more than he did.

“Cheer up,” Luffy clapped his friend on the shoulder, “—maybe next time he’ll buy you dinner and call you pretty.”

“He’d fucking better,” scowling, Zoro reached over and gave the raven’s cheek a hard pinch and pulled, “—and my ass ain’t cheap neither.”

Luffy chuckled, smacking his friends hand away.

“So, two questions,” Zoro smirked, leaning back to rest his elbows on the bench behind them. “Firstly, how’re you holding up—and secondly,” the green head’s toffee colored eyes narrowed in on the teens bulging pockets knowingly, “—how many calories are you packing?”

Luffy rolled his eyes, fidgeting slightly. “Dude, that could be taken so wrong.”

Zoro shrugged unrepentantly. “Question still stands.”

The teen’s hands drifted guardingly towards his stuffed pockets, hating that his friend knew him so well. “A few,” the raven tried shrugging nonchalantly. A few just so happened to be three packages of beef jerky, a package of Oreo cookies and a half-eaten bag of salt and vinegar potato chips—there’d been more when he first arrived, but he’d gotten nervous. “And I’m totally cool,” Luffy lied through his teeth.

“Right” Zoro drawled, raising one eyebrow. “Well, try and take it easy, yeah?” his friend chuckled, “Don’t need you blowing chunks on the guy when he does show up.”

God, if only that wasn’t a real possibility.

There was no need for names, and maybe it was out of some form of mercy that Zoro had left it out to begin with. He knew that his younger friend was a giant ball of nerves already—and he wasn’t even aware of the surreal encounter at the store that morning, mostly because Luffy still wasn’t sure what he thought of the whole incident himself…

Of course Sanji picked that moment to zero in on the two slackers, shouting at them from across the room, causing Luffy to nearly fall off the bleachers.

Zoro let out a long, aggravated groan while the teen’s heart tried to dislodge itself from his throat as he scooted back more firmly on the bench—dammit, he’d been jumpy all afternoon.

“I need a damn drink,” the P.E. teacher grumbled and swore, staggering to his feet, looking like he’d be all too happy dismembering a certain blonde dictator with his swords. Luffy mouthed a “Heil Hitler,” to which the greenhead gave a half-mocking salute before wandering off.

Needing something to hydrate himself, Luffy made his way over towards the stage where there were coolers filled with ice cold water bottles specifically for the volunteers. Taking one out, he pressed the chilled plastic to his own sweaty forehead, indulging in the cool relief, before opening it up and chugging nearly half of it in one go.

Taking a moment to look around at the decorated gymnasium that would soon double as a dancefloor, Luffy was once again grateful that his brother was still working and hadn’t been interested in coming to begin with. There hadn’t been much of a point since Ace saw most of his old high school friends on a weekly basis around town anyways. Not to mention dances weren’t really his thing—he had inherited the same two-genetically-left Monkey feet as Luffy.

His brother had been hell on the football field, but put him on a dance floor and you’d better watch your toes and feet…and ankles…shins…kneecaps—okay, basically everything below your waist, because it was all at risk.

No, it was definitely better that the freckled male was away, currently waging war against some inferno because that was infinitely safer. Less risk of bodily harm for all.

Not to mention the fact that having Ace and Torao in the same general vicinity could only spell disaster. Over the years, unfortunately, due to Luffy’s inability to keep a secret—both of his brothers had become aware of Luffy’s little…crush. Law’s own ignorance was probably the only thing that had saved the tattooed male from being hunted down and interrogated by Luffy’s own two personal demons.

No—having Ace far, far away from Law was definitely the safest option.

Tonight was going to feel awkward enough without Luffy having to worry about his hothead brother, and what physical damage he might try and cause to his first-time crush.

Luffy was just grateful that Ace was the type whose memory tended to lapse when it came to certain things—like the fact that Law had graduated the same year he had and therefore had been invited to the same Reunion.

With a sigh, the teen crushed and tossed the now empty water bottle into the nearby trashcan and went back to work before Sanji decided to hang him from the ceiling.

X X X

Forty-five minutes, and three-dozen red and gold balloons with matching streamers later, and Luffy’s clothes were really, really starting to stick in some very uncomfortable places. Looking around, thanks to everyone’s effort it seemed like most of the job was done—to the point where not even the Nazi could possibly find fault in the work—and Luffy wondered what the chances were that he could possibly duck out and drop by his house for—he cringed—another icy shower and a spare change of clothes. But then he remembered the fact that he’d gotten a ride here from Zoro in the first place, and that there was no way Sanji would tolerate both of them disappearing so soon to ‘show-time’—not unless they were both dead and on their way to the morgue anyway.

Luffy groaned, he could have walked, or rather ran—but then he also remembered the fact that he was pretty much wearing his last decent pair of clean clothes—which, sweaty or not, were still better than the rest of his wardrobe.

Luffy gave a resigned sigh. Oh well, it wasn’t like he was likely to actually get close enough to Law for the man to be grossed out by his smell anyway. The gas station incident had been different. It had just been him and Torao, and he’d basically been forced into conversation with Luffy after his brilliant display with the register… and that stupid hat comment. Dammit, was he ever going to learn how to keep his mouth shut? Not that Law had seemed particularly offended at the time, but still. How many idiots would call their crushes obviously favored hat stupid three seconds into their first conversation? Probably only the really special kinds of idiots, which Luffy obviously was.

The teen shook his head. Even if Law recognized him—which hello, how could he not after the teen’s spectacular performance?—there were going to be about a hundred other non-idiots for him to talk to. People he went to school with, people he had things in common with, people his own age…

Why would he choose to talk to some kid he’d barely met? Not that Luffy was exactly a kid, but that was just the way everyone seemed to perceive him. He just had one of those faces—hell, he’d probably be carded till he was 40. And his height didn’t really help. Not that he was short, but when you had friends like Zoro and Sanji, well, it was easy to fall into the ‘vertically challenged’ category. And Law was even taller than them!

Luffy kicked his foot against the ground. Dammit, this wasn’t like him. Monkey D Luffy did NOT have issues with body image. He was NOT a self-conscious person. If anything, he was impervious to such thoughts, never before had confidence been an issue—until now. But why? If he could just figure that out half of his problem would be solved. What made Torao different—other than the obvious physical attraction?

Maybe it was because Torao was the first person whose opinion felt like it mattered… The first person whose disregard would actually feel painful.

“Damn dude, you look like hammered-shit.” A gruff male voice practically announced his inner thoughts as his green-haired friend crashed, back against the wall, sliding in right next to the teen with an audible sigh of relief.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Luffy gave Zoro a long, sideways look. “Well, fuck you very much.” Like the greenhead looked any better. If anything, he looked worse. Hammered-shit runover. Like, roadkill hammered-shit. Hammered-shit on the side of the highway…

Luffy was still coming up with adjectives in an attempt to restore his own self-esteem when Zoro clapped him on the shoulder, nearly sending him forward. “Yeah yeah, why don’t you go take a shower? We’ve got sometime before this disaster officially starts.”

Luffy narrowed his eyes, shifting back to get comfortable once more. “And how and where do you propose I get this magical shower you speak of?”

“Uh, hello?” Zoro rolled his eyes, as if it were obvious. “Gym coach? Locker-rooms? That place you avoided in high school?” Zoro’s mouth quirked at the corner. “Hot shower access, all day long.”

Luffy blinked. Okay, so maybe he should have thought of that but—

“What’s the point?” Luffy raised his shoulder in a half shrug, absently toeing the ground. “I’d just be putting back on the same sweat stained cloths.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Zorro smirked mischievously, earning him an odd, scrunched up look. “Trust me, goldilocks has it handled. Left you a little care package on my desk.” Luffy still looked dubious. The greenhead tipped his chin before nudging him forward with his shoulder. “What are you waiting for? You wreak.”

Luffy started forward, giving one last scrutinizing look over his shoulder. Any other time he might have argued on principle alone. But there was something about the expression on Zoro’s face. And that something had him walking down the dim lit hallway, even if he did do it with a scowl.

“Soap and shit’s in the cabinet!” Zoro called out, and Luffy could have sworn he was chuckling by the time the raven turned the corner.

X X X

Luffy’s nose scrunched up at the nostalgic scent of the boy’s locker room. Despite the fact that it had basically been gutted during recent renovations, it seemed that the ancient smell of sweaty socks and moldy old jockstraps had been absorbed the bones of the building itself. That, or Zoro really needed to get onto these kids about hygiene.

Bypassing the rows of benches and steel mesh lockers, Luffy was momentarily hesitant to enter the coach’s office, which was practically a replica of the old one. Back when it had been a strictly off-limits zone. Their old coach had been very old school. Translation, he’d been a real sadistic prick. His idea of a good time was kill-or-be-killed dodgeball, or forcing them into running laps until someone puked.

Driving the man batshit crazy had been nothing short of a pleasure for Luffy and his friends.

Obviously, they’ done a real thorough job of it too. The man had taken to early retirement as soon as the monster trio had graduated. And not a day earlier—as if he loathed the idea of giving the teens the satisfaction of knowing they’d driven him to the breaking point.

They’d figured it out anyway, when the local newspaper did an article capturing the man’s permanently constipated face and splashing it all across page D4 announcing the memorious event.

The boys of course had thrown their own celebration. Complete with beers secretly commandeered out of Zoro’s dad’s stash. Knocking the tyrant off his throne had been a sweet victory.

Apparently, the boys had left more of a lasting impression than even they were aware of, because two years later, the post was still being filled by hesitant substitutes, allowing Roronoa Zoro to slip in to permanently fill the position.

Even knowing the space was currently occupied by one of his best friends, it still felt kind of weird stepping into the coach’s office. The décor was mostly the same—which was basically a whole lot of slate gray. From the mammoth sized metal desk, to the tall locking metal cabinet, even the ancient metal fan that stood, continuously oscillating back and forth causing all the fliers on the bulletin board to flutter and struggle against the thumbtacks holding them in. Gray, gray, freaking gray. Could they have gone any more prison-themed? Maybe added some bars to the already miniscule windows?

And of course, there were the standardized anti-drug and anti-drinking posters—along with the stereotypical STD warning that was apparently a requirement in locker-rooms around the world, year after year, misleading teens into believing that sex automatically equaled herpes, or some other rare venereal disease that would inevitably end with your dick falling off—tacked up on the walls like the ten commandments. Everything was pretty much the same, except for the pile up of wooden bamboo practice swords cluttering the far corner—and the actual antique Katana mounted in the honorary position above the coach’s desk.

Luffy briefly wondered if his friend ever worried about student theft—then quickly discarded the idea. He chuckled to himself. One Look at Zoro, and no student would ever dare.

Speaking of desk, the top surface of the giant, metal beast was suspiciously clean—as if someone had purposely cleared away the clutter—further calling attention to the folded materials left neatly in the middle.

Chewing thoughtfully at his lip, Luffy carefully lifted the top garment off the pile.

The teen took a moment to admire the shirt—it was a sophisticated looking button-down front, with three-quarter length sleeves, dyed the dark lush color of red wine. The rich silky material was cool to the touch and way nicer than anything that could’ve come out of Luffy’s closet. Luffy carefully set it, and the simple black undershirt that went with it, aside, picking up the black denim skinny jeans and holding them to his waist line.

The shirt might’ve been Sanji’s but there was no way in hell the pants were—they were too short. Plus, the deep dark wash, and still crisp denim material, looked to be brand-new.

Checking the tags on both he was pleased to see they were both in his size. He shook his head. Honestly. Sanji had a freaky clairvoyance when it came to clothes. The blonde could accurately guess someone’s size based on sight, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that he knew Luffy’s.

Now Luffy really owed the Nazi.

The opening of the cabinet revealed a bottle of combination shampoo and body-wash and two white, less than fluffy gym-issued towels. Not that Luffy was in any way picky—after all, he did wreak.

Grabbing all the above Luffy headed for the showers, grateful the new renovations had included the installment of personal stalls rather than sticking with the classic trauma of group showers. Something about the PTA being concerned with a teenager’s rights to privacy. Luffy wanted to know where the hell these concerns had been when HE was in high school. Back when he’d learned the hard way that P.E. did NOT stand for ‘Physical Fitness’—he didn’t give a damn what the class schedules said—it was a blatant acronym for ‘Public Embarrassment’. Ask anyone. There were few things more perilous in high school than a boy’s locker room.

Double checking the lock on the stall, Luffy hung both his towels over the door before quickly turned the shower handle on all the way to hot. Letting the water heat up he popped the top on the soap in curiosity. The shampoo slash body-wash had a crisp minty scent that was almost sweet. Nothing like the citrusy stuff he knew Zoro preferred, and it made him wonder if his friends had gone as far as to pick out a special kind just for him.

It wouldn’t have been surprising—after all, the Nazi was a stickler for details like that.

After sparing a moment to appreciate the first hot shower he’d had in days, Luffy took care to scrub himself down head to foot—pleasantly surprised by the icy tingling feeling the soap left across his skin—sudsing himself up before dipping back under the heavy stream of blissfully hot water, thoroughly enjoying the rivulets of warmth as they sluiced down his body washing away all the trails of sweat and BO he’d accumulated over the last hour and a half.

It would have been perfect if he could have gotten over the paranoia of someone coming in behind him. But he supposed there were just some things about locker-rooms would never change.

He dried off, maybe a little quicker. and less thoroughly, than he should have—a decision he would soon regret as he stood in Zoro’s office, jumping and hopping up and down, trying to get gravity to help him out when it came to actually getting into his new skinny jeans. And damn, they definitely were living up to their name. Luffy wasn’t fat, or even chubby by anyone’s standards, but he still felt like he needed to lose a few pounds by the time he finally managed to button up the denim-deathtrap. Apparently breathing was an optional thing. Who knew?

It was definitely a strange sensation to be wearing pants in his actual—or so they claimed—size, instead of his usual baggy, belt-required, attire. He ran a hand through his still damp hair, flattening it as best as he could, purposely avoiding the full-length mirror on the wall. Damn. His nerves were starting to come back to him.

His stomach was starting to feel all tight and twisty again—and he really wished he could blame it on the pants that were currently constricting his guts, and everything else, below his waist. The lie might have worked if not for the voices, that were definitely not of pant-constricting-origins.

As a creature of impulse and instinct, Luffy’s mind, as a general rule, was a pretty quiet place. Generally. But of course, not tonight. No. Tonight for the first time he could remember, Luffy was hearing actual voices in his head. Really loud, bossy, bitchy voices at that. Saying things like “Why care how you look? It’s not like he’ll be looking anyways.” Or “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, you’re still just you underneath, anyone can see that.”

Luffy growled, his face screwing up as he roughly tugged on the black undershirt before reaching for the dress shirt and attempting to put it on while he was mentally straining to beat his own subconscious into submission. Stupid nerves. Stupid voices. They should all just shut up and—

“How’re things—what the hell?” Sanji’s mouth fell open, it was a good thing he hadn’t been smoking at the moment, otherwise his cigarette would have fallen straight to the floor. “What did you do?”

Luffy blinked, following the blonde’s wide eyed, arctic-blue gaze to the complete mess he’d managed to make out of the front of his shirt. The teen flashed his friend a sheepish smile.

Sanji’s brow wrinkled in confusion before scoffing at the hopeless sight before him. “Jesus Luffy, my senile arthritic grandmother can dress herself better than you—and she’s got claws for hands.” The blonde shook his head before walking over and literally taking things into his own hands. “Seriously, how did you manage this mess? Button one goes in the hole for button one—not button four; button two’s not even IN a hole…”  Sanji continued to grumble as deft fingers patiently undid the mess Luffy had made out of the shirt’s button down front, separating the lapels before carefully lining them up and re-buttoning them in proper sequential order.

Something Luffy normally could have managed to do on his own, if his hands weren’t currently shaking at a level 4 on the Richter scale.

Straightening the collar, and giving a few coordinated tugs to straighten any wrinkles in the rich crimson material, the blonde tsked. “There. Now that you don’t look like you belong on the short bus,” his friend stood back, looking the teen over with an appraising eye, “—let’s see if we can do something with that damn hair of yours.” Sanji pulled out a small metal compact that could easily have been mistaken for a pocket knife, but was in actuality, a flip-out fine-toothed metal comb that the blonde was rarely ever without.

Luffy raised his hands to his head protectively, fingers digging into the thick inky black mess, eyeing the blonde warily. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

Sanji crossed his arms, tapping the fine-toothed metal comb against his bicep. “Would you like a list?”

Okay, so maybe his hair was a little on the wild side. Luffy couldn’t help it if it was permanently dialed to bed-head settings.

Sanji raised one curled brow, his one visible icy blue eye staring the teen down flat.

Luffy slowly lowered his hands, then blew out his cheeks and scowled. “Fine,” he huffed. A word he would soon regret.

Luffy hissed between clinched teeth as Sanji stood behind him, attempting to dreg the fine-toothed metal comb through his unruly damp hair, tugging and pulling to the point Luffy felt like his head had been caught in a blender. He knew he should be grateful that Sanji was using his own sacred hair taming device—but all he really wanted to do was slap the blonde because that shit HURT!

“Ow… ow… OWW!” Luffy glared as best as he could while wincing in pain. Now he understood why girls always went for the hair. “Not so hard!”

“Suck it up” Sanji grunted, giving a particularly rough tug. Luffy could’ve sworn he felt something rip. “It wouldn’t hurt if you’d hold still and quit doing the Macarena!”

“You’re being too rough!”

“I’m almost done.”

Zoro came in through the swinging door hauling a large helium tank, one hand held over his eyes, as if to protect his own delicate sensibilities “If you guys are in the middle of raunchy locker room sex—warn me now before I go blind.”

Sanji clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Don’t worry, we wouldn’t want your optic nerves to burn out in envy.”

Zoro dropped his hand, set down the tank near the desk, and blew out a rude noise. Luffy continued to fidget as his head was snatched to the side by a particularly rough tangle. “Geeze, if you wanted to give him bald spots, congratulations—I think I see scalp.”

“What?!” Luffy yelped. Sanji wouldn’t really do that…would he?

Oh great.

One more thing to be paranoid about.

“He’s yanking your chain, stop squirming. And You!” Sanji pointed the metal comb at the PE teacher as if it were a weapon—which, from Luffy’s tender-headed point of view, it might as well be. “Algae farms are not allowed to comment!”

Zorro sucked his teeth, rolling his eyes as Sanji finally finished—much to Luffy’s eternal relief—and spun the little raven around so that he was facing the full-length mirror bolted to the office wall. “There, you’re done.” The blonde gave a nod of approval, placing both hands on his hips, seemingly admiring his own work. “Take a look.”

And Luffy did.

Holy cheeseballs.

The shirt looked amazing, Luffy was shocked to discover that there was something about the cut of the smooth, formfitting material and the deep wine-red coloring, that made him look more mature. Put-together, like an actual adult instead of the nineteen-year-old that he was. Sanji had left it untucked, but the raven found he preferred it that way. It transformed the silky top into something more casual, disguising effort and creating a laxer style, one that Luffy was surprisingly comfortable with.

And the pants…

Damn.

The pants left little room for the imagination—or sadly, snacks (Those he’d had to store in Zoro’s desk for future emergencies). Hell, shimming into them, Luffy had been half convinced he was going to have to go commando just so he’d fit into them. (Luckily that hadn’t been the case; a guy could only worry about his underwear so many times in a day and still maintain his sanity.) The dark denim stuck to Luffy’s body highlighting all the right places—Ace and Sabo would have had kittens if they’d seen Luffy in these pants. All the more reason for the teen to love them. Turning around to check out the back, Luffy was shocked at the way they hugged his ass—revealing that, damn, Luffy actually had a really nice ass…

When the hell had THAT happened?

Though in his defense, it was hard to notice such things when most of what you wore were your brother’s two sizes too big hand-me-downs. Baggy jeans didn’t exactly highlight a guy’s rear ass-pects.

The entire outfit felt like it was made for him, it was a rare, and awesome, feeling.

Zoro whistled low under his breath. “Damn, check you out Cinder-fella.” A loud expulsion of breath signaled the deliverance of an elbow to the ribcage, curtesy of a certain blonde.

Luffy narrowed his eyes at him through the mirror. “Bite me,” he replied, though he wasn’t able to stop the corner of his mouth curving upwards. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Zoro and Sanji being the equivalent of his own personal fairy godmothers. He snickered. They would just love that inference. But for all Zorro had been joking, there was a lot of truth behind it. His friends really were always there for him, even when he hadn’t known he’d needed them. He wondered if it would be too mushy to say as much. But then figured, yeah, it probably would be. So he kept quiet, and just kept smiling.

Because damn, he really did look good.

“You’re no paper bag material, that’s for sure,” Sanji came up behind him slinging an arm around him as he rested his chin on Luffy’s shoulder. “You look good.”

The teen put on his best, smuggest look. “Of course I do.”

Sanji smirked, giving the teen a good shove forward, and muttering “You little shit.”

Luffy stumbled forward, snickering. “Maybe,” he grinned, looking back over his shoulder at his friends with narrowed eyes, “but I’m a HOT little shit.”

Zoro snorted, barely containing his laughter. “You hear that blondie? Now he’s hot shit.”

“And you’re still a shit head, shithead.” Sanji shook his head as he stepped over to the desk, opened the bottom left drawer, pulling out a magical pack of Menthol cigarettes. Zoro’s jaw dropped as the blonde lit one up, taking a long drag, completely ignoring the greenheads look of disbelief.

“Smoking?” The gym teacher’s expression fell flat, “In the boy’s locker room?”  The Home Ec. Teacher completely ignored him, eyes half shuttered in a purely satisfied look as he exhaled a large plume of smoke. The green heads lips pursed as his eyes narrowed. “Really?” Zoro waved at his monster desk that apparently had been created for the sole purpose of hiding contraband. “And just when the hell did you stuff those in there?”

Sanji waved Zoro off as if it were all just semantics. “Well?” He raised one curly brow, his icy blue eye locked onto the teen. “You’re sure-as-shit not wearing those pants for us.”

Luffy looked to Zoro, eyebrows raised questioningly, his friend shook his head. “I gotta make sure Smokey the blonde bear doesn’t to blow up the helium tank.”

“Right, well. I guess I’ll just OMPFH!” Luffy’s face met the door when he tried to push his way through a pull only exit. When both his friends snorted and snickered like the damn trolls they were. The teen held up one lone finger as he rubbed his nose, which had almost gotten flattened. Stupid damn door. That had to be different. When they’d done the renovations, they must have switched the door around because Luffy was damn sure he’d never walked into it before.

This was not an omen. There were NO SUCH THINGS as omens.

Yanking it open, with a lot more force than was necessarily needed, Luffy stepped out into the hall.

The lights were off, and the sun was almost down. Summer nights always came late. With a deep sigh, he almost ran his fingers through his hair, until he remembered the pain of Sanji’s comb and quickly dropped the appendage before it could do any damage. He settled instead for leaning back against the door. Just for a minute. Just to clear his head.

He really hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.

“You remember that summer before high school?” Sanji’s voice came through the crack in the door jamb, taking in a long breath in what Luffy assumed was him taking another drag off his cigarette. “If Torao ends up fucking with his head again like last time, I don’t care if it’s an accident or on purpose, I’m kicking him in the face.”

 “And I’ll punching him in the dick.” There was no hesitation in swordsman’s response. There were few things the blonde and the greenhead could agree on. The quick and painful dispatching of anyone who thought they could mess with Luffy, was one of them.

He couldn’t help the small smile that broke out across his face, but also couldn’t help when it quickly fell. When he’d worried over whether Ace would attend the reunion or not, somehow, he’d managed to forget how big brother like Zoro and Sanji could be.

He loved that his friends cared enough about him to be so overprotective—he just wished they would stop seeing him as someone who needed protecting. As much as he appreciated their support, somehow, he was just going to have to show them that he was capable of handling things on his own.

He wasn’t twelve anymore, he wasn’t going to let anything that might, or might not, happen go to his head like he had back then.

Torao was not the center of Monkey D Luffy’s universe. He had a life, maybe not one he loved, but he didn’t hate it either. Maybe he hadn’t gone all the places he’d wanted to go, or seen the things he’d wanted to see. But crappy gas station job aside, he had amazing friends, and the world’s best brothers who’d do anything for him. (Including murder if they caught him in these pants.) And after tonight, Torao or no Torao, he’d still have those things. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Feeling a little better, a little more like himself, Luffy pushed himself off the door and walked down the dimly lit hall towards the gymnasium where he could already hear the base from the speakers thumping loudly. The night had just started. His nerves, what were left of them, were just going to have to shove it. He was here, he looked great, maybe even better than he ever had, and he was going to have fun no matter what stupid tricks his hormones might try to pull.

Luffy took a deep breath.

For better or worse, it was time to face the music.

Pushing his way through the singing doors he had to pause a moment in appreciation of the atmosphere that had been created. Old radio hits from 07 (And yes, just specifically from that year. Sanji had created a playlist which the DJ had been ordered not to deviate from.) boomed through the massive speakers, strategically placed around the gym until the music seemed to echo down from the ceiling itself. The ceiling, which was filled with red and gold matte balloons, perfectly coordinated with matching papier-mâché streamers that looped and cascaded across the stage, down the walls and corners.  The rows of halogen lights overhead had been shut off, replaced with rotating multicolored spotlights and LED lights that had somehow been hooked into the surround sound and were pulsating and timing their rotations to the beat of the music.

And damn. There had only been about fifteen people when he’d left—there were sure a lot more now. Not sweaty volunteers in shirts and jeans, but men and women—some with very familiar faces—standing around beneath the magic of the lights in their tailored shirts and dress pants, slinky sequenced haltered and spaghetti strapped dresses.

It was like time traveling back to some long-forgotten homecoming dance. And hell, if that didn’t make the butterflies in Luffy’s stomach turn cannibal—because he could swear they’d started eating each other and were growing larger every minute—the thought of being at a homecoming dance with Torao.

In fact, as Black Parade faded into Fergalicious, it was far too easy to imagine himself as a clumsy, knobby kneed twelve-year-old.

Dammit, he could do this. But why did it have to be a dance? He’d never even gone to his own. He and Zoro had just skipped and stayed home playing x-box. That was something he was good at. Video games. Junk-food eating contests. Grinding his skateboard down the handrails at the public library. Riding his bike off the roof and into the pool in the back yard…

Okay maybe not so much the last one. That one had kind of sucked—but the rest, those were all things Luffy could do, better than anyone else.

But this?

This whole dancing, dressing up mess? It was on a totally different list, titled: ‘Welcome to hell—don’t forget the sunscreen!’

Luffy wiped the sweaty palms of his hands on the very empty front pockets of his jeans. He could really use one of those snacks he’d left behind right about now. His fingers were still twitching, the music pumping through his ears as a large hand clapped his shoulder, startling him out of his own head. 

Zoro leaned against him, surveying the crowd for himself and drinking from a mysterious red cup he didn’t have before. Sanji wasn’t far behind, walking in with his hands buried in his pockets, pushing the door open with his foot. Standing next to the him, the teen could easily smell the scent of menthols that was coating the blonde.

Sanji opened his mouth to say something but then something else seemed to catch his eye because suddenly his eye widened and his mouth dropped open and—yep. Luffy knew THAT look. Hitler was back in the building.

“I TOLD that idiot, red and yellow shades only for the damn lights! What the hells with all the goddam rainbow madness?! Blue green red—the goddamn floor looks like a fucking Christmas tree and I—” Sanji’s voice faded as he stomped his way through the crowd.

Zoro face palmed. “Goddam it. Ugh.” The PE teacher sighed, taking a sip of his drink before pushing it into Luffy’s hands. “Here, hold this. I need to go do an intervention before Hitler fire’s the light tech and we all end up in the fucking dark.”

The greenhead was quick to take off, easily cutting his way through the small crowd disappearing for a moment before reappearing up near the staging area.

Luffy sighed, swishing the liquid in the cup back and forth, the eyeing the buffet table and wished he’d asked Zoro to grab him a drink. His mouth was currently recreating the Sahara Desert. Looking down he inspected the drink in his hand and gave it a tentative sniff. It looked and smelled like fruit punch. He gave it a tiny sip, and while there was something off about the bite of it, it still tasted cold and sweet and was a wonderful relief to his dry mouth.

Across the room, Sanji was waving his arms in grand dramatic gestures, and apparently being anal again—at least that’s what Zoro’s hanging, shaking head suggested.

Tired of watching the Nazi flail and wave his hands at the poor volunteer light technician, Luffy took another sip and let his eyes wander. That girl used to be a cheerleader, he remembered her from Ace’s old football games. That guy he’d seen over at his house a few times, talking with Ace and having a beer. He knew that person too. And that chick. So many familiar faces. As he began to recognize more and more his expression began to drop, and he began to take much deeper sips.

Because. Jeezus.

Did NO one ever get out of this town?

 He might not know all their names, but almost every face present was one he’d seen through town over the years, even if it was just in passing. He’d only just finished school himself. In seven years, would he still be stuck, floating around in the glass bubble that was Sabaody?

Law had been lucky, the exception to the rule, he’d gotten out and hadn’t looked back. And Luffy honestly couldn’t blame him. His eyes continued to search, but Torao was nowhere in sight. Maybe he wouldn’t even show up. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d skipped out on such things.

One last swallow and Luffy realized he’d emptied the whole cup. He half shrugged. Because, whatever. Zoro could always get another one. Maybe he’d even be nice enough to bring Luffy a plate of snacks. Honestly, he didn’t really trust himself so close to that much free food. Sanji would skin him alive and use him as a hat. The teen hummed, tipping the empty red plastic cup back and forth, his mind inventing new and more creative ways the Nazi might try and punish him with. Like forcing him to listen to show tunes. Luffy snickered, not exactly sure why that was funny as it was—because he actually really hated show tunes.

But the more he watched the lights, with their swirling and twirling and pulsating, now with Fall Out Boy’s Thanks for the Memories, he soon realized that everything seemed just a bit more…funnier. Luffy’s lower lip jutted out as he realized his cannibal butterflies had somehow disappeared without his noticing. His nerves felt perfectly fine now. And maybe—just a tad bit—giddy.

Walking over to the garbage can he tossed the empty cup. Glancing around once more, the teen found himself with a new fascination for streamers, a lot of which he’d hung himself and hadn’t felt nearly as interested at the time—but damn. They really were kind of pretty. Like tiny red and gold waterfalls trickling down the walls… He’d really have to compliment the Nazi on those later.

Luffy squinted his eyes. But wait. Was that one crooked? Or was the wall crooked? The teen tilted his head to a near 90-degree angle. Oh yeah. Definitely. That one was definitely crooked. Shit, the Nazi would have a fit over that. Damn, was that one of the ones he’d hung? Luffy blinked. It might have been. For some reason his memory was suddenly a little fuzzy on the details. It might have been one of his—either way he could already hear the blonde griping….

Well. Couldn’t have that now could we?

Luffy shook his head, a half crooked, mellow smile tucking its way against the corners of his mouth. Luckily he spotted one of the ladder’s still propped up against the wall, so, this situation was entirely correctable. Walking over to the side, he noticed his feet felt a little heavier than they should have. Was that making him walk funny? Felt like it. Felt a little like maybe he was crooked now.

Luffy snorted.

Right. Like people could just go crooked. That would be crazy.

Luffy snickered, finally making it to the wall, crooked, funny walk and all and pried the ladder open, giving it a good shake to make sure it was stable. Safety first. See? He was a perfectly capable grown-up. He could unfold a ladder, he could climb the steps, he could fix a crooked streamer.

Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back just as he was making his way back down, when suddenly a chill made its way up his spine, Luffy’s shoulders bunched up as he shook his head.

I’m bringing sexy back.

Them other boys don’t know how to act.

Movement off to the side, wide blue gym doors swinging open and shut suddenly had his fully attention. From his height, a good eight feet up and above the crowd. Luffy watched, utterly mesmerized as Torao walked in. Dark and foreboding, it was like an aura that clung to his skin. Suddenly people were shuffling to the side, from Luffy’s point of view it was almost like watching the red sea itself parting. Faded pale denim, form fitting jeans hugged him from his hips down to his black shitkickers.

The only thing that separated them from the glove tight pair he was wearing earlier were a series of black spots winding down from his waist, spiraling down both legs. They weren’t quite Dalmatian—they were more…cat. Not cheetah… Maybe leopard? Luffy found himself transfixed by the twisting trail of spots, following the pattern from the bottom to the top, all the way to the cut of his hips. Yeah. There was definitely something leopard-y about them.

Which led him to the bright, eye catching short-sleeved, yellow hoodie with the black steampunk looking smiley dead centered on the tattooed man’s chest. Speaking of tattoo’s, Luffy couldn’t help but admire the tribal gear-looking ink displayed across his forearms, and as he walked closer the low cut of the hoodie coupled with Luffy’s newly acquired height advantage gave him an intriguing view of the nape of the man’s neck, where blue black locks brushing against chocolate ice cream skin and lower… wait was that.. another tattoo?

I think its special what’s behind your back

So turn around and I’ll pick up the slack.

For Aladdin it was a lamp, for Alice is was a white rabbit in a waist coat, for Monkey D Luffy it was the bold curve of black ink sweeping along the top of a deliciously tanned back. Curiosity drove him up another step and had him going up on his tiptoes as he leaned out, just a bit, trying to get a better look…

What was that? From the thickness of the line it was big—Luffy wondered how big it could be. If that was on his back, did that mean there was more? Maybe on his chest, or even his legs? Just how much ink did Torao have? It was definitely a question worthy of pondering. And imagining.

Law was directly below him now, Luffy stretched his neck out as he leaned just a bit farther, tip-toed just a little higher.

Take ‘em to the Chorus!

What the…? Oh. OH! SHIT! One rubber soled converse slipped, ripping down the steel traction lines of the ladder’s step

“Shit!” Okay. Now. NOW Luffy was definitely crooked! The teen jerked back trying to correct himself, tried lifting his dangling his foot back on his step, but his foot was feeling heavy again, like it’d been cast in a cement shoe, all it would do was drag against the steps edge, the weight was throwing him off balance, white knuckled fingertips tried to cling tight to the metal supports, but then. Oh…

“Shit-shit-shit!”

Now the entire ladder was crooked. Tipping! It was—ah shit he was tipping! The whole thing was going to—!!!

“SHIT!”

TH-U-U-U-N-N-K!!

CRASH!

…Fall