Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ch. 1: I hold you closer than I ever knew I could do.

Law found himself knocking quietly on the door, Luffy’s laughs echoing from the other side.

“Hold up guys, Traffy’s at the door,” they hear from within the room, “Go take this moment to pee or something.”

The door clicks open a moment later and Luffy gives a big smile and picks up the kid next to Law, “Hey Chopper.”

Chopper looks up at him and he settles on Luffy’s hip, “Torwo said we can have pancakes for dinner!”

Luffy’s eyes went wide, “Oh is that so?”

Law just hums, “Tony has to pick a food to tell his class about and he picked pancakes. We’re heading out to the store to grab some stuff, need anything?”

Luffy thought for a moment before shaking his head, and turned his attention back to the small child who had started playing with the strings on Luffy’s hoodie.

“I’ll eat pancakes, but only if you’re the one cooking them, “ He leans in closer to Chopper and whispers, “Your pancakes are always fun shapes while Torao’s are so boring.”

Chopper just giggles as Luffy puts him down with a kiss on the head, and Law pretends that he didn’t hear what they’d said. He runs off to put on his raincoat and boots while Law ruffles Luffy’s hair, dragging his hand down until he is cupping his cheek. 

Law gives him a smile, “Have a good stream, we’ll be back in about an hour.”

Luffy blew a raspberry at him, “Always such a tease, be safe.”

He gives a pointed look before returning to the stream, hearing Law’s chuckle from behind the door. He sets himself back up at the computer, slipping his headphones back on and unmuting his mic before turning the camera back on.

He could hear the two hotheads bickering on the other end, “Alright losers I’m back.”

“ About time, ” Zoro gruffs out, “ We almost went on without you, you kiss your girlfriend goodbye or something? ”

Luffy’s eyes went wide, “Huh?!”

Nami snickers, “ Your face is bright red, I think you hit the nail on the head .”

“I hate you all.” Luffy states as he switches his screen back over to their usual minecraft server, “And for the hundredth time, Traffy is my roommate, you guys know this.”

Despite none of them voicing it on stream, Luffy could hear the disbelief through their silence. Torao never appeared on stream, afraid it would give him a bad rep at the hospital he’s doing his residency at, so he’d nicknamed him Traffy long ago. And while he’s never claimed Torao to be a female, his friends and fans took the name and ran with it, theories circulating about his roommate actually being his secret girlfriend that he was hiding from the world. 

While their history was slightly more complicated than that, Luffy didn’t mind the speculation, if anything he found it funny. Chopper on the other hand was never mentioned, not in passing, not accidentally, not anything. As far as his friends knew, Chopper didn't exist.

Letting out a small sigh, he realizes that his avatar was seemingly trapped in an enclosure that wasn’t there when he had stepped away. 

“Frankie, did you build a whole fucking house in two minutes?” Luffy exclaimed, looking for a way out, he knew better than to start destroying Frankie’s building.

Frankie lets out a loud laugh, “ Isn’t it suuuuuuuper? ”

“Well it would be suuuuuper if I could find the stupid door.” Luffy whines, only to turn a corner and see another avatar trapped with him.

“ I don’t think there is a door .” Zoro mumbles, walking away from him.

“ Zoro bro how did you even get in there?” Frankie asks.

Zoro just grunts before starting to forcibly mine through the walls.

The stream continues on for a bit longer, before they decide to wind down and read some reddit stories instead. The girls have a running series where they gossip and read ‘Am I the Asshole…’ stories, but every now and then they read a few to the boys to get their reactions instead.

“ This one’s pretty controversial, ” Nami begins, she loved narrating them, “ Am I the asshole for refusing to support my girlfriend and her pregnancy? ”

“ Oh this should be good ,” Sanji scoffs, “ Nami-swan I love it when you talk like that. ”

“ Oh shut up, curly. ” 

Luffy keeps quiet as the two begin to get yelled at to quiet down, stories like this always go two ways.

“ Me, 17 male, and my girlfriend, 18 female, have just entered our senior year of high school, when she told me that she was pregnant. I hadn’t believed her, so she brought over two other tests and took them in front of me. Both turned up positive, ” Nami continues, and Luffy began to shake his leg under the table as he couldn’t help but feel like this story was familiar, “ While she claimed the child was mine, there was absolutely no way it could be. On the few occasions that we did get intimate, I wore a condom and she had promised me she was on the pill. So when I confronted her about this and asked why she was here and not with the guy who knocked her up, she grew hysterical and started crying that it was mine and she never slept with anyone else. ”

“Sounds like he’s the asshole,” Luffy couldn’t help himself from interrupting her, but with Torao being a doctor, he knew the statistics of both failsafe methods failing.

Usopp chimed in, “ I mean does he have any proof that she was actually cheating? Her story isn’t convincing enough to actually be a lie. ”

He couldn’t tell who but someone muttered, “ You would know. ”

Nami continues before they got off track, “ So I decided to appease her and offer to take her to a walk-in clinic down the road and get it taken care of. She seemed hesitant so I even offered to pay for everything myself. When she started asking if I could see myself raising this child with her, I grew angry. Was she trying to ruin my life? The last year of highschool for the both of us? Sure we had talked about having a family but that was supposed to be years in the future, many years. She stormed out of my house that night and cut off contact with me altogether. I tried to talk to her at school, but she would ignore me. A mutual friend had told me that a few weeks later that she had gotten kicked out of her parents house after they found out, and she showed up at my house that evening, asking if she could stay with me for a while. Of course I said no, as she had refused my efforts to talk to her, and my initial plan to get rid of it. I did all I could. I didn't owe her anything else. She disappeared after that, but rumors say she went to live with her grandparents or something and had a miscarriage. So, am I the asshole? ”

Luffy felt himself freeze as a few started to sympathize with the guy and his decision to outcast his pregnant girlfriend. He pinched his knee to keep from speaking up, as he wasn’t stupid enough to see how that would end.

“ I mean they’re kids so that’s a hard decision for them to make, personally I think he could have been a bit more understanding in the beginning, but she ghosted him first, and honestly I have a few questions, ” Frankie starts, “ How long were they together? A few months, I can kind of understand, but if they were together for a year or two? Like damn that’s cold. ”

“ I mean, ” Sanji starts, before taking a pause most likely inhaling his cigarette, “ She obviously wasn’t faking the pregnancy if she took the tests in front of him, but I don’t understand why she didn’t just take him up on the offer, they both would have been better off and maybe they would have been able to repair their relationship. ”

Luffy’s hands began to shake as he remembered his own positive pregnancy test that he’d destroyed beyond recognition so no one would find it. The two of them hadn’t even been dating, which according to his stream, meant that the problem should have been his alone. 

“ While I’m not saying she did, there are a few different ways to fake a pregnancy test, ” Robin states, “I don’t believe she would have done that however, because if anything it would disrupt and derail both of their lives quite a bit. ”

“ Ruin their lives is what you mean to say ,” Brook starts, “ Maybe she was afraid they would break up after college and thought a fake pregnancy was the only way to make sure he stayed. The miscarriage feels like an important detail. ”

“ I don’t want to assume the worst of anyone, ” Nami sighs and he could hear Zoro snorting in disbelief, “ Losing a child can be hard for anyone, especially someone in a situation such as hers. However I can’t help but think that this all could have been avoided if she’d just taken him up on his initial offer .

He couldn’t stay quiet any longer, “I still think he’s the asshole. While they are still in highschool, they are old enough to make an informed decision and it’s hard to take her side when he's the one telling the story. If he was mature enough to sleep with her, he should own up and take responsibility. Even if he didn’t want to have a kid, he can’t put all the blame on her. And she came to him when she had nowhere else to stay and he just kicked her to the curb?”

The stream is quiet for a few moments, and Luffy feels the panic start to bubble up in his chest and waits for the rumors and allegations that he could have just started, but he’s been there , he knows what a shitty situation it is and to have everyone against him, it just… it sucks. 

He’s a terrible liar and he doesn’t go along with what others say, speaking his mind is why he liked having his platform. The world is full of shitty people, and he refuses to be one of them.

“ It’s like I said earlier, ” Frankie says, “ There’s too many questions here, honestly the fact that he even posted this story makes him an asshole. This should have been a private affair .”

Nami begins reading through the chat, since she has the power as one of the moderators, but Luffy has since tuned it out.

The stream ends not too long later, and they stay on the line and chat for a couple minutes longer before the others have to get back to their normal jobs, but Luffy stays quiet. A few of his friends call him out, but he says he’s just tired after the stream, and that he had to head out. 

He stays sitting in his chair for only a moment longer before throwing on a pair of running shoes and heads out the door, taking note of the rainboots on the mat which meant they had returned a bit ago. 

He headed out on his normal route, it was raining, but he barely paid attention as he dodged a puddle that was forming.

He couldn’t help but wonder, in his life, was he the asshole?

_________________________________________________________________

It had been a few weeks since the party, since everything happened, and Luffy was feeling quite a bit of regret. This is the third morning he’s thrown up after waking up to the smell of bacon. He loved meat, it was his favorite food group. Which is why it made no sense that the smell was suddenly making him sick.

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that his body was once again screwing him over. He didn’t want those parts anyway so it only made sense that they would take revenge.

His chest had started to become sore as well, and he would fight the discomfort while binding, refusing to acknowledge what was possibly going on. He glared at the package of birth control, knowing that that had failed him along with his body and that if he’d only had been born in the right body that none of this would even be considered.

He emptied the rest of the bile from his stomach and brushed his teeth, before heading out for his first day of school. 

He really was starting high school out with a bang. 

During his free period he snuck out of the building and down to the convenience store a few blocks away. He pulled his hood up and kept his head down as he grabbed a test and a bottle of juice that sounded good and paid before heading back.

He was relieved when the bathroom was empty and dropped his bag at the front of the stall. He didn’t bother to read the instructions, he just peed on the stupid stick and watched as a second line slowly started to appear under the very word he was hoping to be wrong.

“Fuck.” He whispers before bringing his hands up to his head and gripping his hair as the panic began to bubble up in his chest. He tried to catch his breath but all of the pieces came together a bit too conveniently and he couldn't help himself. 

By lunch he dragged himself out again and bought a few more tests, hoping to prove that the first one had been nothing but a fluke and that he could just forget everything.

All seven other tests were fucking positive.

He shoved them all into the bottom of his backpack planning on dropping them in a dumpster behind the school, but not before snapping them in half beyond recognition.

He never got the chance however, because his brother had been waiting for him to celebrate his first day of school, since Luffy had left without him that morning.

He kept a smile on and talked about the one class he could remember from that day and how he was excited. But his backpack felt like a fifty pound weight and his chest ached for more than one reason and his stomach growled because he’d forgotten to eat anything and he was a fucking idiot who found himself knocked up.

When they finally arrived home, Luffy snuck up to the bathroom where he turned on the shower and blasted music and finally let all of the emotions he’d been bottling up, free. He emptied his bag on the floor and shattered the tests into pieces and flushed them down the toilet.

It was as if they never existed.

And for a while he wanted to convince himself that they didn’t.

But he needed to tell someone, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his brother.

_________________________________________________________________

Law didn’t say anything as Luffy left for a run without a word, instead he kept an eye on Tony who was making a few drawing ideas for his pancakes that night. He picked up his phone and pulled up twitter, and searched up StrawHatLuffy to check on the end of his stream. 

And sure enough more than a few tweets showed up. He knows to take a lot of this not really at face value, as the internet tends to blow things completely out of context.

Strawcrewfan: Luffy really said y’all are assholes, didn’t he?

| NamiStan02: He’s never really gotten that heated over an AITA?? Why now?

Video Attachment

Law clicks on the video, it was a few clips together, and he was able to get the gist of what was going on. The comments had a few people speculating that he had someone who had this happen to them, most implying an old friend or such.

But he just closed out the app and made himself comfortable on the couch as he waited for Luffy to return. Law wasn’t pleased that he was out running in the rain, but he understood it. 

Letting out a sigh, he allowed himself to close his eyes for a few minutes and tried to fall asleep to the sound of Tony’s coloring.

_________________________________________________________________

The lunch bell had rung and Law had been prepared to spend his lunch smoking on the roof, away from the noise and the annoying kids. He knew that his solitude would be short lived, but he wasn’t expecting the short freshman to seek him out.

Luffy sat not too far away, far enough to not be near the smoke cloud Law was creating. They hadn’t seen each other since the party. 

Law smirked, feeling cocky, “Back for seconds?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Law feels himself drop the cigarette from his mouth, he swallows, “You sure?”

Luffy doesn’t look at him, instead tucks his legs into his sweatshirt to warm himself from the cold air.

“As sure as eight tests could be.”

Law’s mind was reeling. His first response he wanted to ask was if it was his, but with how nervous Luffy had been about the whole interaction, he’s not stupid enough to think that wasn’t his first time. The question is if he slept with anyone after, but the odds of that were pretty low as well.

So Law just says, “Alright.”

And with that Luffy gets up and leaves, leaves Law to come to terms with whatever the fuck had just happened. He knew that it was early enough that they had options but Luffy hadn’t made any demands, asked for any favors, nothing. Just simply informed him of their predicament and left. 

_________________________________________________________________

He awoke to the sound of the door some time later, Tony was no longer coloring, and Luffy was soaking wet.

However as he went to stand up, he noticed the slight weight next to him on the couch, which showed that Tony had fallen asleep next to him. Law carefully stood up, watching as Tony curled up into a ball, and Law grabbed a nearby blanket to cover him. Before going after Luffy who had taken off his shoes and headed to the bathroom.

The door opened a crack so Law poked his head in before making his way inside.

Luffy had discarded his sweatshirt, leaving his scarred chest exposed, but Law was more focused on the glassed-over look in his eyes. Without saying anything, Law started a warm bath while Luffy took a seat on top of the toilet seat.

His hair was dripping wet, “Did you take your medication today?”

Luffy nodded slightly. It put Law at ease to know that Luffy’s risk of infection was slightly lowered. But warming him up would still help.

“How was the stream?” Law asks.

Luffy sighs, “According to the majority of my friends, I’m an asshole.”

Law leaned against the opposite wall as the water rose slightly, “I’ve seen the tweets.”

He groaned, “Do I even want to know what they’re saying?”

Law hummed, “Nothing bad, they just think you had a friend who went through something like it.”

Law stopped the bath, and Luffy stood up, “I dunno I wasn’t going to say anything but…”

“I get it.” He replies as Luffy finishes taking off his clothes and gets in the bath, “You mind if I grab Chopper?”

Luffy shook his head as he relaxed into the water, “Nah, he needs to wash up.”

The three of them enjoy the silence as Tony played with the few bath toys he brought with him, before Luffy’s stomach began to growl and the bathwater had turned cold. Law had sent Tony to his room to pick out pajamas and Luffy walked back wearing sweatpants and one of Law’s T-shirts. He picks up the towel around Luffy’s shoulder and carefully dries his hair.

“Do you want to postpone the pancake party till tomorrow?” Law asks softly.

“No, it’s important to Chopper,” Luffy says, “I just have to do a little bit of work stuff, so you guys can cook without me.”

He stops drying his hair, “Alright, I’ve got the late shift tonight so I’ll head out after we eat.”

Luffy just nods and heads into his streaming room, where he hears Chopper cheering about the pancakes.

He’d been offline for a few hours and had quite a few alerts, most were twitter mentions which he chose to ignore.The group chat was filled with various memes, and random talk, but there were a few private messages he knew he had to respond to. 

Putting it off for a few moments more, Luffy began to select a few clips from his send to his editor, he added a note asking to keep the final segment out of any of the uploads. 

It was then that he was forced to confront his friends before he was summoned for dinner.

Zorororo:

You good?

If someone did something I’ll tell them off.

Especially if it’s the cook.

Or the witch.

Loof:

I’m good.

Zorororo:

You sure?

You were good until Nami’s story.

He felt bad lying to his best friend but it’s easier doing it over message than in person. This part of his life is just separate from everything else. It didn’t need to be brought up publicly, and even if he trusted Zoro not to blab, it’s a lot to just drop on someone and be like oh yeah I’ve been hiding this from you guys for years .

Loof:

Yeah the story brought up some stuff that I didn’t like.

Reminded me of an old friend.

I’m good.

Thanks :D

Torao had said that was what the internet believed anyway, so he decided it wouldn’t hurt to lean into it a bit. Regardless if he really was the asshole in his life, Luffy didn’t regret it. 

He heard Chopper call him, which meant it was time for the pancake party to begin. 

_________________________________________________________________

A few days after finding out, Law saw the familiar red hoodie rushing towards the bathroom. He made it just in time to hear retching as Luffy sits in front of the toilet. Law felt himself grimace at the thought of sitting on the bathroom floor, but he knew that wasn’t the problem here.

He opened the door to the stall where he saw the backpack in front of, Luffy just glared up at him.

“I hate you.”

Law shrugs, “Yeah, that’s fair.”

As Luffy throws up again, Law reaches into his own backpack to pull out a bottle of water, and hands it to the other.

The toilet flushes and once he’s sure there isn’t anything left in his stomach, he takes the water. 

The bell rang, and Law stood up before anyone could see him with a freshman on the bathroom floor. 

Biting back his own pride, he says, “I’ll be on the roof at lunch.”

He leaves Luffy alone, and lets out the breath he was holding.

Just his luck he’d get someone pregnant when he was only sixteen. He tried to shove that thought and the whole situation to the back of his mind as he headed towards his next class. But he knew they had to figure something out, they both can’t stay in denial forever.

_________________________________________________________________

Law clocked himself in at work, and grabbed himself a cup of the shit coffee that was left in the pot and mentally prepared himself for the shift ahead of him. 

“Hey Law, what do you think is more attractive on a woman, boobs or ass?” His idiot of a coworker asks, and Law downs the entire cup of coffee and pours himself a second one before he acknowledges the stupidity that he was too tired to deal with.

Penguin snorts as Law turns around and says, “You really have a death wish today, don’t you?”

He leaves the room, the two following like ducklings behind him as they start on their rounds, since he had a year senior on his two ‘friends’ he let them deal with the more problematic patients so he didn’t have to. That and because he wasn’t in the mood to deal with them, talking to the patients was always the worst part. 

It’s why Law wanted to go into surgery, at least then the patients were asleep and couldn’t talk back.

His companions however felt the need to talk to him. Constantly.

When Bepo clocks in a few hours later, Shachi bothers him with the same question, “I prefer a girl for her personality.”

Shachi just groans and goes on about how the two of them are so pointless, and Penguin just laughs along. 

It was around four in the morning when Law was doing his rounds again that he couldn’t help but think of Tony. One of his patients had been only a few years older and he was super shy, his parents speaking for him most of the time. 

To his coworker’s surprise Law had offered to take the kid’s vitals after he had been brought in for possible appendicitis. 

The kid took one look at Law and decided he was terrified, and burst into tears. Before Shachi could offer to take over, he was shocked by Law pouting at the kid and assuring him he was harmless. 

The patient didn’t look convinced but when Law started asking about the stuffed dog he had with him, the kid slowly calmed down enough for them to take a blood sample and insert the IV. He even humored the kid by grabbing a spare bandaid to place on the stuffed animal.

Shachi made sure that everyone on the hospital staff heard about how scary emotionless Trafalgar Law was, secretly a softie when it came to kids.

_________________________________________________________________

Law sat on the roof waiting, but refused to light a smoke, knowing that he probably shouldn’t be doing that around someone who was pregnant.

He heard Luffy approach, his converse quiet on the gravel. They sat in silence for a little while, and Law couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t eating.

Law skipped lunch pretty often, usually opting for a cigarette instead.

“Not hungry?” He tries.

Luffy just shrugs.

“I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure food is important, for someone in… y’know.”

Luffy laughs, “And what would you know?”

“My parents used to be doctors.”

“Oh.”

The silence found them once again. 

Luffy’s eyes closed, and Law sighed. For fucks sake sure neither of them actually wanted to talk about it but they really needed to get a plan before it was too late.

Before he could speak however, Luffy broke the silence, “Do you want to get rid of it?”

Law kicked at the gravel, “I really don’t think it should be my decision.”

He watched as Luffy sunk into the ground, pulling his knees to his chest and placing his chin on top, “I really don’t know what to do.”

Law sits next to him, long legs stretched out in front of him, this isn’t what either of them had wanted. They got a little tipsy at the party and they ended up here. If Law wasn’t high, he probably wouldn’t have slept with an incoming freshman, and he probably would have had at least one brain cell telling him to wear a fucking condom, but it was a little late for that now.

“Tell you what,” He starts, his mouth dry and he’s unsure of what he’s about to say, “Why don’t we go to a clinic after school so we can confirm whether or not this is real.”

When Luffy shoots him a look, he continues, “Are you on any pills or hormones?”

Luffy flushes slightly, “My grandpa didn’t want to put me on blockers yet so we got birth control instead. Obviously that didn’t work.”

The bell sounds out below them but neither makes any sign of moving.

“You should probably stop taking it.”

Luffy hugs his knees, “I already did. I never got my-- I never got any sign after I stopped so it’s probably not a good thing.”

It takes Law a moment to realize that he’d meant his period, which was just another nail in the coffin. He wasn’t going to say it outloud, as he could tell Luffy already hated everything that was happening inside his body. The way he was curled up, the shirt that was too big with a denim jacket layered over him, just in case anyone would ever doubt that he was a dude.

“Okay.” Law says calmly, getting angry wouldn’t help either of them, “I parked in the lot behind the field, the way back. Find me after class, I’ll take you to the clinic, after that we can evaluate our options.”

“Okay.” Luffy says, so quietly Law could barely hear it.

It was nothing like he was at the party, he was loud and rambunctious, and Law would deny it if he was ever asked, but he honestly preferred that to the solemn kid next to him.

“I’ll let my brother know,” Luffy says as he stands up and pulls out his phone to send a quick text.

Law stands as well, raising an eyebrow, “He go to this school?”

He nodded, “He’s in the year above you, Portgas D. Ace, do you know him?.”

Oh fuck. 

Yeah Law had heard of him, and the rumors surrounding him. 

If he wasn’t fucked before, he was now.

_________________________________________________________________

When Law got home around eight thirty, he was just in time to say goodbye to Tony and wish him luck on his important presentation. 

Luffy had greeted him with a large smile and leaned up to give him a quick peck before grabbing Tony’s hand and walking out the door.

There was a plate of breakfast waiting for him at the table, and Law let the tension fall from his shoulders.

At least until he opened up twitter and he saw his feed retweeting someone who said they knew Luffy in high school, and that he’d been hiding a baby bump.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Ch 2: I thought I’d recognize when love was true, but I’m confused.

Luffy returned home not long after dropping Chopper off at preschool, slipping off the worn pair of crocs at the door. He’d originally gotten them as a gag gift from his crew, but ended up liking them more than he’d admit.

Torao’s plate was placed in the sink, which meant that he would most likely be sleeping after his late night shift. Which meant that Luffy would wait to record and or stream until after he’d woken up.

Instead he decided to start on laundry, tidying up Chopper’s toys, cleaning the counters and such. Once he finished most of the stuff up, he finally sat down at his desk and scanned through his list of mentions and messages.

However, he decided to glance at the schedule for their upcoming streams. Luffy’s channel was kind of random, his streaming schedule was really whenever he felt like it. The schedule was more a reminder of when his friends were set to join him, whether as individual streams or group events. 

He was set to stream with Zoro the next day, but besides that he was on his own until early the next week. He tried to keep his weekends open as much as possible since Chopper wouldn’t be at school, but he knew the next weekend was their charity event that he’d be staying in an AirBnb with the rest of his crew.

He’d already planned it with Torao, who would be working extremely long shifts, so Chopper would be having a sleepover at Ace’s for the weekend. 

He’d closed the schedule and pulled up twitter, his name appeared to be trending a bit more than usual. 

TravTheMan: I thought @StrawHatLuffy looked pretty familiar-- and with the recent AITA clips I figured it out-- I went to high school with him. Pretty sure the rumor was he was hiding a baby bump.

| StawsHats: Huh? Gonna need some more info.

| LuffysShoelace: Sounds fake. 

His chest tightened as he read through the tweet, glancing through the responses. Most of the replies varied the same levels of disbelief, but a few people had pushed him for some more information, but luckily there had yet to be any follow up from the original post.

It had quite a bit of reposts however, which meant that more than a few people were considering it as a possible theory.

Luffy’s mind began reeling trying to decide if he should ignore it or if it would be better to just lie and claim it was fake. He didn’t want to deny it, since it was technically true, but as far as the internet knew he’d been born with a penis between his legs and pregnancy shouldn’t even be an option.

Which is why it’s weird that people were even entertaining it as a thought, but then again, he knew better than most that the internet is a weird place to be. He didn’t want to think about the amount of fanart and fanfiction that would be written because of this.

He refreshed his feed one last time, surprised to see Zoro’s name pop up on top.

Roronoa Zoro: I see y’all out there. Don’t start shit.

| ZoeeeeesCrew: I’d love to hear your questions. Is @StrawHatLuffy lying to ya’ll too?

| BBrooooke: Are you just jealous?

| ZoroxLuf4eva: Was the kid yours?

| Roronoa Zoro: Go back to science class, kid. I think you missed some important lessons. 

Luffy felt his leg start to bounce under his chair. More than a few were entertaining the idea of him being pregnant, and how they were speculating that Zoro had been the father of his ‘unborn’ baby bump. If this wasn’t so stressful Luffy would laugh. He hadn’t met the others until he’d started streaming, which was already way after Chopper had been born. He’d connected with Zoro pretty early on and a lot of the fans seemed convinced that the two of them had been secretly dating the whole time, which was wild.

His group chat chimed from his other monitor, and Luffy peeled his eyes away from Twitter for a few moments. He hadn’t had any DMs from his best friend, which seemed good. Maybe Zoro really didn’t think anything of the tweets.

He scrolled past the memes and good mornings until he finally found the recent texts.

QueenNami:

ZoLu fans be going crazy out there.

You really know how to rile them up.

Zorororo:

Wasn’t trying to.

People are fucking stupid.

And rude.

MrPrince:

Takes one to know one.

Zorororo:

It takes an idiot to know an idiot.

QueenNami:

Loof do you know the kid who started the rumor?

Obv they’re full of shit but did you even go to the same school?

OldManBrook:  

QueenNami I’d be happy to look into it if you compensate me with a few pictures.

QueenNami:

I will kick you out of the chat again. 

OldManBrook:  

Yohohohoho!

Zorororo:

Why does it matter if he knew the kid or not?

Captain doesn’t need to tell these idiots anything.

QueenNami:

Well duh.

I just wanna make sure he’s not getting targeted by some old asshole.

Loof I see you lurking in the chat, I know you’re online.

Luffy bites his lip as he thinks about what to reply. Honestly he had no clue who the kid was, and quite honestly it could have been anyone at his high school. He’d stopped going to school about halfway through his first year, but the rumors still spread. Ace had put a stop to them pretty quick, but he honestly hadn’t thought about that school in a while.

Loof:

I was homeschooled???

It wasn’t technically a lie. After he’d stopped going in person, he took online courses instead. The chat erupted with the newfound information that Luffy was homeschooled and how they thought it made a lot of sense. After all, he'd started streaming just before he’d turned seventeen and it was just something fun he’d done on the side until he’d blown up almost overnight.

After Chopper was born, it was too expensive to pay for daycare so Torao got his GED and got a job, and Luffy took care of Chopper while his body recovered from the horrible process that was childbirth. 

He lets the chat discuss things amongst themself and heads out to run a few errands before picking Chopper up.

_________________________________________________________________

The two sat in complete silence as they drove to the clinic. The radio hummed in the background as Law fiddled with the stations, before settling on an old classic rock station.

Luffy played with the button on his jacket, trying to stay as quiet as possible to not piss the other off. 

They’d pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later, but Luffy didn’t make a move to get out of the car.

Law sighs, “Listen I know it sucks, but you’d have to do this eventually.”

Luffy stays silent.

“If you want this could all be over today.” Law says, “No one has to know.”

He’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse, to be quite honest. He fucking hated everything that went on under his skin, being pregnant is hell. But he wasn’t sure about getting rid of it.

It was the smart, only logical answer. He’d be saving both their careers and reputations. He’d barely even known the junior who’d gotten him into this situation besides the fact that he has hidden tattoos on his chest and back. 

Law sighs again and opens his door, “God you’re such a child.”

And for fucks sake Luffy could feel the tears start to form behind his eyes. This wasn’t the time to get fucking emotional. Girls were emotional. And he wasn’t a fucking girl.

But here he was outside of a fucking clinic where he’d had a problem that only girls had.

He forces himself out of the car after Law opens his door, and the two make their way inside together. He writes his name on the sign in sheet and takes a seat, ignoring Law as he sits across from him.

Luffy avoids looking at him, and places his backpack on his lap, effectively hiding the invisible bump under his clothes. Even if it wasn’t noticeable, he still knew about the life growing inside of him, it was the perfect time to sort everything out before he’d start showing, before anyone else had to find out.

Law keeps his hands in his pockets, staring at Luffy across from him. He’d had a death grip on his backpack, his leg bouncing up and down at a remarkable speed. Law felt for him, he really did, he felt like an asshole for even putting him in this position. But after this was all over the two would never have to cross paths again.

They get called back not too long after.

“I’ll be in the car.” Law says, leaving Luffy to face the nurse alone.

He knew Law was most likely trying to save him the embarrassment, and give him a bit of privacy, as he’s asked to pee in a cup before getting a blood sample drawn as well.

“So you came in due to a suspected pregnancy, correct?” The doctor asks, looking over the nurse’s notes. 

“Yeah.” Luffy croaks out.

The doctor places the notes down and turns to look at him, “Well Ms. Luffy both tests did in fact turn up positive.”

Luffy’s hands clench around himself as he hears the suffix used.

“With the date of conception being only about a month and a half ago, you do have a few options.” The doctor starts, “It is early enough to terminate, if that’s something you want to consider.”

Luffy stares at the floor, his chest felt as if he was fighting against an immovable force as he tried to keep his breathing steady. He didn’t know.

He just didn’t know.

Everything was happening so fast, too fast. 

Of course he wanted this fucking thing out of his body, that wasn’t a fucking question. But Law said the decision was up to him and there was too much riding on this one yes or no decision. But at the same time, he knew that if he walked out with this thing still in his body, he’d be all alone. He wouldn’t have anyone to help him, he’d be stuck with this thing for the next eight and a half months.

It was the only option.

“Okay.” Luffy says, no more than a whisper. 

The doctor gives him a sickeningly sweet smile, “Alright sweetie, I’m going to give you two pills. The first will halt your body’s production of progesterone, and the second will cause some cramping and bleeding to ensure that the process is complete.”

She unlocks a cabinet, and pulls out two bottles, and two small paper cups. After dropping the first pill in a cup, she hands the cup over to him.

“If you don’t have any bleeding in the first 24 hours, come back in, okay?” She follows up.

Luffy slowly reaches out to take the cup, staring at the small pill inside.

If he did this, everything would be behind them, he’d never have to talk to Law again. He’d never have to see his brother’s disgusted face as he found out, or hear his grandpa’s disappointment.

The pill made a tiny rattling sound as he felt his hand begin to shake.

He should be relieved. This was all about to end.

Instead he felt the bile raising in his throat, and for once he couldn’t blame it on the alien inside of him.

Why couldn’t he just take the fucking pill?

His breath hitched.

“Ma’am? Everything okay?” 

He faintly registers the doctor asking him, but instead he finds himself dropping the cup with the pill, grabbing his bag, and sprinting out. 

Down the hallway, into the waiting room, and out the door. 

Law, who'd tried to busy himself with a smoke, quickly dropped his cigarette and put it out before running after him. 

He grabs Luffy’s wrist, who tries to yank it out of his grasp.

“What happened?” Law tries, but Luffy just shakes his head as he gasps for his breath.

Law curses as he realizes that he was having a panic attack. He lifts Luffy’s wrist until his hand was on his chest, trying to get him to match his breaths to Law’s and getting him to focus on his heartbeat instead.

They’d stayed like that for as long as it took him to calm down, and Law loosened his grip, but kept his hand on his wrist as he led them back to the car. When the second the door was closed, Luffy began to cry. 

And Law just lets him.

He didn’t know what else to do, comforting people has never been his thing. He’d had no idea what had happened inside that doctors office, no idea why Luffy was having this reaction. 

The sobs begin to quiet down, but Luffy pulls his knees to his chest, curling up in Law’s passenger seat. 

“I’m sorry.” Luffy mumbles, and Law can barely make out the words through his shaky breath, “I couldn’t do it.”

Fuck.

Law’s jaw tightens as he takes in the meaning of his words before he promptly turns on the car and speeds out of the parking lot.

_________________________________________________________________

When Law wakes up from his nap, he finds Luffy on the couch with the TV playing some ridiculous reality show, while he is scrolling through his phone. 

It probably meant Tony was napping. 

“Get off twitter Lu.” Law says playfully, but they both knew the small underlying serious tone as well. 

He glances up from his phone and Law can’t help the small smirk that shows up on his face when he sees Luffy’s sweatshirt string fall from his mouth. 

Luffy rolls his eyes, “I wasn’t on Twitter, I was texting Zoro about our stream tomorrow.”

Law hums as he starts up the coffee machine, and places a pod inside to brew.

“Do you need the car tomorrow?” Luffy asks.

He grabs the creamer from the fridge, “My shift starts at 9:30, you need the car for something?”

Luffy sighs, “Zoro’s sister apparently bought 32 eggs by accident so he was wondering if we wanted to move the stream to his house and possibly have a baking competition or an egg fight.”

“It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow so you better not have an egg fight outside,” Law warns, “I’d rather not test the effectiveness of your medication.”

Law brews a second cup and continues, “He lives like 45 minutes away, right?”

Luffy nods, “Yeah, he lives over by the city, I can drop you off at work when we bring Chopper to school. What time do you get off?”

Law walks over with two mugs, handing the lighter colored coffee to him, “It’s a pretty short shift so I get off around 7.”

He takes the mug and whines, “Isn’t it a little late for coffee, Torao?”

Law chuckles as he takes a sip of his black coffee, “Yours is decaf.”

He watches as Luffy’s eyes light up a little as he takes a sip, “I’ll never understand how you drink this stuff raw.”

“Raw?” Law quips as he sits on the couch next to him, “I’m drinking the coffee black, not raw. I’m not just chugging the ground coffee grinds.”

Luffy texts Zoro back, saying he would be there around 10:30, so they would have to shift their schedule around a little bit and that gave them three hours to record before he’d have to leave. 

“I’m honestly surprised you haven’t had straight grinds before.” Luffy says, relaxing back against Law.

Law takes another sip of his coffee and looks down at Luffy, “Probably because I’m not straight.”

He feels the chuckles in Law’s chest and Luffy rolls his eyes, of course he would turn it into a fucking pun.

Chopper pokes his head out of the hallway, his favorite reindeer stuffed animal clenched in his hand while his other one rubbed at his eyes. 

“You okay, Chop?” Luffy asks, voice soft, he’d been planning on waking him up in a few minutes anyway.

“I gotta go potty,” He says, but stays where he is.

“Okay,” Luffy nods, sitting up as he notices Chopper still standing there, “Want me to come with you?”

Chopper nods, and Law laughs as he gets up as well to start on dinner.

Luffy follows Chopper down the hall to the bathroom, where he is handed the stuffed reindeer to watch while Chopper does his thing.

_________________________________________________________________

“What can I get for you?” The voice is filled with static through the speaker.

Luffy had stopped crying, instead sitting silently.

“Pick something.” Law says.

“Chicken nuggets and a milkshake.” Luffy mumbles as he hears Law repeat it to the worker, adding in a large fry as well.

Luffy unzips his bag to fish for his wallet, but Law reaches out a hand to stop him. 

“I got it.” He says, before handing a twenty at the window and waiting for his change. 

They get their food at the next window and he wordlessly takes the food from Law as they pull into a spot in the back of the parking lot.

Luffy takes a tentative sip from his milkshake, before finally asking, “Why?”

Law stared out the windshield, debating how to phrase his next sentence, “Because if you’re going to do this you need to eat.”

“Okay but why are we here?” Luffy’s voice gets louder, “Why didn’t you just let me run away back there? Why did you buy me food? Why aren’t you yelling about how I’ve ruined your life?”

Law just shrugs, “Should I?”

The two sit in silence as Luffy cracks open the box of chicken nuggets and eats a few, “I wouldn’t blame you.”

Eating a fry, Law asks, “What happened at the office?”

“I was given a few pills to take, but I freaked out and left.”

Okay, that’s a start. He stayed quiet so Luffy would continue.

“I didn’t like the doctor. She kept referring to me… wrong.” Luffy says, “I dunno, I just didn’t like it.”

“If it’s about the doctor, I can find another one to take you to.” Law offers.

They fell back into silence.

“I can’t do it.” Luffy finally says, “I don’t understand why I can't, but I just… can't.”

So they’re really doing this, aren’t they? Adoption or not, Luffy would have to endure this for the next eight months. People would find out.

“If we’re doing this,” Law starts, “We’re going to have to make a plan. Me and you are stuck dealing with this together for the next few months, so we are gonna set some ground rules.”

Luffy froze as he let those words sink in. Together, they’re doing this together. Law wasn’t cursing him out, calling him gross, or making fun of his situation. Instead, he bought him food and is sitting with him in a parking lot on a random Thursday, instead of doing what any other high school student should do.

He looked over at him, eyes wide, “Okay.”

Law let out a breath before beginning, “First, no more skipping meals, at lunch you need to eat. This is going to take a toll on your body and if you’re hungry you need food.”

Luffy deflated slightly under his stare, but he understood what he was saying. 

“Second,” Law continues, “We’re gonna need to find jobs, the clinic we went to today was free, but real appointments are going to cost money, and eventually we’ll have hospital bills to cover. Regardless if we give it up for adoption.”

Luffy nodded, “I can probably work under the table at Dadan’s.”

Law took a fry out and pointed it at him, “When do you turn fifteen?”

“May.”

Law did the math in his head, he’d still legally be unable to work until after this whole situation was over. That meant he’d also have to find a decent part time position, since Law was of age to work. 

“Third, you need to pay attention to your body. If you’re tired, you rest. If you have cramps, keep an eye on them, if anything goes wrong, let me know, okay?”

Luffy sips his milkshake, “I just have to focus on hiding it from Ace.”

Right, Ace. The same man who would probably chop Law’s dick off when he hears what he’s done to his brother. 

“And your parents.” Law adds.

Luffy shrugs, “I live with my grandpa, but he rarely comes home so it’s just me and Ace.”

“That makes things a bit easier.” Law adds, “I live alone.”

Luffy gave a curious look at that, but didn’t press any further. The food had really hit the spot, as it was probably the first real meal he’d had in the past few days. He ate dinner with Ace, but mornings were usually rough. 

He takes out his phone, and hands it over to Law, “Put your number in here, I’ll keep you updated on everything.”

As Law types the number in he rolls his eyes as he sees the name Luffy set for his contact.

“Traffy? Really?”

And for the first time that day Luffy lets out a little chuckle, “It’s a code name! We gotta be sneaky.”

_________________________________________________________________

He pulls the car into Zoro’s driveway. He’d been there a few times before, but he always is wowed by the size of the mansion. He’d shared it with his older sister and their father, but even so, Luffy had lived in small apartments his whole life.

He’d pressed the doorbell and a few minutes later his friend came to the door.

He went to take his shoes off at the door, but Zoro just shrugged and said they didn’t care about that stuff.

When they finally make their way to the kitchen, he sees the eggs set out on the counter for them, and Zoro’s vlogging camera off to the side.

“How did she buy so many eggs?” Luffy asks, laughing.

Zoro rolled his eyes, “She saw a sale, and bought them, before panicking and trying to figure out what the fuck we are gonna do with all of them.”

“Eat them?” Luffy asked, eggs were expensive.

“Or,” Zoro says with a smirk, “We try to bake a bunch of stuff from memory.”

Luffy pouted, “No fair! You’ve had time to prepare.”

“Sucks to suck.”

He goes to set up the camera and Luffy begins to brainstorm what he could possibly make. Before they start the stream, Zoro looks over, and hesitates before speaking.

“I’m not one to listen to rumors, but are you good?” Zoro starts, “It started with Nami’s segment and you seemed upset when that kid started the rumor about you.”

Luffy shrugged, “It’s just a rumor.”

Zoro stared at him, “Yeah but you’ve been almost radio silent in the chat. It’s weird.”

“I had some personal stuff going on.” He tries to deflect, “Everything is fine, I promise. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be here, filming with you.”

Sighing, Zoro lets the topic drop for the time being. He’s not stupid enough not to notice something with him has been off . And the rumor only made their crew realize just how little they all knew about Luffy in general. 

Besides the fact that he was homeschooled and his roommate is the mysterious ‘Traffy’, the only other thing they know is that he has an older brother named Ace. Even then, he’s only ever been seen twice by their group. 

They start up the stream, and once enough people have joined they introduce the baking challenge. 

“Unlike him,” Zoro points over to him, “I had some time to prepare so I’ll kick his ass.”

Luffy chuckles, “You seem to be pretty sure of yourself, but don’t forget that I’m the captain for a reason.”

Luffy had cracked the last of his eggs, starting to mix it together with sugar before the mixture turns a nice yellow color. 

“I took a cooking class in highschool, I know what I’m doing.” Zoro smirks, “Unlike you, Mr. Homeschool.”

Zoro’s mix looked awfully chunky, and he dumped in a whole bottle of beer, “Uh huh, because being homeschooled obviously means that I’ve never once stepped in a kitchen.”

Luffy had realized this was Zoro’s way of helping disprove the rumors, which he was grateful for but he still wasn’t going to let him win this.

“You know, growing up me and Ace had to cook for ourselves quite a bit, so I’d be more worried if I were you.”

Zoro scoffed, and the two continued to banter before they poured their mixes and shoved them into the double oven to bake. 

Luffy’s phone begins to ring, and he’s about to silence it but he takes a quick look at the ID and realizes it’s Chopper’s school. It was still early in the day, so he hadn’t missed picking him up, and he couldn’t ignore the call because Torao wouldn’t be able to answer at work.

“Hello?” He answers, and Zoro stops talking, watching him carefully. His eyes widened and he bit his lip as he listened to the nurse teacher on the other end.

“Okay, give me one second.” He takes the phone away from his ear and nervously glances at the camera before turning to Zoro, quietly saying, “Some stuff happened, I gotta head out I’m sorry. Everything’s okay! I just need to go do something.”

Zoro gives him a tight nod and before he could say anything Luffy is already running towards the door, leaving him to deal with the fans.

He turns towards the camera with a smirk, trying to forget about what just occurred, “Looks like Luffy just forfeited the battle, let me go see if I can get Perona to eat these with me.”

He pulls out his phone to text Luffy and his sister, leaving the fans with no explanation of whatever the hell happened.

_________________________________________________________________

By the time Luffy was at the end of his second month, Law forced him to go to a real doctor, one that specializes in this kind of thing. He’d let Luffy go in alone, unsure of how invasive the tests would be, and didn’t want to make things worse for the two of them.

Luffy walked out a bit later, not in tears and not panicking which led Law to let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. 

When Luffy took a seat in his car, he was fidgeting with a piece of paper, and after a moment he handed it over to him. It hadn’t looked like much, but his eyes widened when he realized he was holding the ultrasound picture of the clump of cells the two had created. It was blurry, but you could clearly see the outline of what was growing in there.

“Huh.”

Luffy nodded, “She told me I should be taking something called prenut vitamins.”

“Prenatal vitamins, I’ll grab some after my shift,” Law says, covering his chuckle, referring to the job he’d gotten at the local pharmacy. He wasn’t allowed to make the pills, but was in charge of handing them over to their customers.  

He goes to hand the piece of paper back to Luffy, but he just shakes his head, “I asked for two, so I already have one. You don’t have to take it if you don't want it but-”

Law shakes his head, slipping the paper neatly into his pocket, “Anything else?”

Luffy shrugged, “Not really. Everything is looking good, but…”

Law raises an eyebrow and after a moment he continues, “She says I’ll start showing pretty soon.”

Oh.

“Which sucks, because things are gonna get a lot harder, and my stupid pants are already tight so I’m gonna need to buy some new ones.” Luffy rambles, “She also gave me a list of local adoption agencies.”

Law’s throat went dry, “Good. Send me some later. I'll look into it.”

“Okay,” Luffy says, “Can you drop me at home? I know it’ll be cutting it close to your shift but my grandpa decided to drop by this morning. Last thing I need is to piss him off by not being there.”

_________________________________________________________________

Law had finished discharging his patient when Penguin appeared around the corner, “You busy?”

He sighed, “Depends on what you’re about to ask?”

“We’ve got a patient in room twelve that’s asking for you specifically,” Penguin says, “We need to get the kid’s medical history but the parent is refusing since they claim they know you’re on shift.”

He was already brushing past Penguin, who’d begun following him down the hall, “I’ll handle it.”

When Law reaches the room he finds Tony sitting on the hospital cot, cradling his arm, tears in his eyes.

“Torwo,” Tony says around his sobs.

Penguin had followed him into the room, and he knew what he was about to do would cause some speculation but at the end of the day he was Tony’s father and that would take priority over everything else. 

He walks up to the bed, brushing his hand through Tony’s hair and down his back in an attempt to sooth him, as he tries to get a peak at his arm. The wrist was quite swollen and a nasty purple bruise was forming on the skin as well.

“Hey Tony, you’re okay I’ve got you,” He says quietly before looking to Luffy who was on the other side of the bed, holding Tony’s good hand, “What happened?”

“His school called saying he got pushed off one of their toy slides in the room,” Luffy says, “I left as soon as she called but he’s been tough and fighting through the pain until I was able to get there.”

He gave Tony a kiss on the head before starting the documentation and taking his blood pressure, “He was pushed?”

Luffy sighed, “I’ll tell you later, apparently this isn’t the first time this has happened.”

Law clenches his jaw, but pushes the anger down, as this wasn’t the time for it. He finishes the digital paperwork and briefs Tony about the cool machine they’re going to use to see his wrist, and Law follows him to the room, only waiting outside when the X-ray tech takes the pictures.

As they waited for the results, Law brought out a few color samples of casting material for Tony to choose from, since he was all but expecting the bone to be broken.

“Pink.” Tony sniffles.

Penguin frowns, “Are you sure? We’ve got blue and green and re-”

“I want the pink one.” 

Luffy lets out a small smile, rubbing circles on his son’s back, “It’s his favorite color.”

Penguin goes to try again, but Law shuts him up with a single glare, and the doctor shows up not too long after to explain that he'd had a small fracture in his wrist, and he would need to be in the cast for four to six weeks. 

Luffy and Tony leave once they’ve set the cast and been properly discharged, and Law grabs himself a large cup of coffee as he readies himself for his last two hours on his shift, and the hundred questions he would be getting about why he dropped everything to help a kid with a broken wrist.

Shachi looks at him with a curious glance, “Where have you been?”

He drops his shoulders in relief when he realizes Penguin hadn’t said anything to him.

“None of your business.”

Chapter Text

Ch. 3: Am I ready for Love? Or maybe just a best friend.

Law sighs, readying the coffee machine. It was a lovely four am and he just got home from work. He was supposed to get off around midnight, but some stuff happened and now here he was. However before he could start the brew, two arms wrapped around his waist from behind. 

He rests his hands on top of the other’s, leaning back into the embrace, “What are you doing up, Lu?” 

The arms tighten around him, “Heard you come in.”

“I was trying to be quiet, sorry.” He says softly.

Luffy begins trying to drag the taller man away from the coffee machine before he could click the brew button, “Sleeeeeeeeep.”

Law sighs, not wanting to admit that sleep would probably be a better idea than coffee, but he’d had a long shift, some shitty stuff happened and he wasn’t in the mood to sleep. Still, he knew from past experiences that Luffy wouldn’t let him just chug coffee to deal with it. 

“Fine.” He relented, “I’m gonna grab a shower first.”

“M’kay.” Luffy mumbles as the two go their separate ways. 

He got out of the shower pretty quick since wasn’t really in the mood for it, instead he just focused on the basics, like washing his hair. Law heads into their room and grabs a clean pair of boxers from the drawer, discarding his towel on the floor in the pile of clothes that he knew he’d have to wash tomorrow. 

Luffy was sitting in bed, eyes squinting at his phone, which shone bright in the darkness of their room. The sun wouldn’t rise for a little bit. Law slips himself under the sheets, Luffy pulling up some TikTok videos to show him. They were mindless, usually just animals being silly or something they could both laugh at. 

This would happen from time to time, Law would have a relatively bad day at work and if he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to sit alone in the dark trying to push the day’s events out of his mind. Instead he would have Luffy waiting for him, distracting him from everything else. 

“What happened?” Luffy says, looking up at him from where he’d settled his head on the other’s tattooed chest. 

Law’s arm snaked around Luffy, pulling him closer, and closed his eyes before letting out a sigh. 

“People are just so fucking shitty,” He starts, “I don’t understand how people could ever lay a hand on their own goddamn child.”

Luffy snuggles up to him, and Law feels him shrug, “They just don’t care, my dad was the same way.”

Law’s arm tenses around Luffy, he sometimes forgets that he hadn’t grown up with Garp and Ace his whole life. That his shitty excuse of a sperm donor would treat him like crap whenever he felt like it. They don’t talk about it that often, but they’d promised long ago that they’d never ever lay a hand on Tony.

Sure Garp wasn’t the best excuse of a guardian, and Law had his theories that he’d used to slap his grandkids around as well, but Luffy’s father was… different. It made Law sick to think about.

“I just never want to see Tony have the same fear in his eyes,” Law says softly, “We’re his parents he shouldn’t be scared of us.”

Luffy lets out a small snort, “I don’t think he’s scared of us, Torao. He fell asleep laying on top of me in the middle of that nature docu series he really likes. And then I picked him up and you know what he did?”

Law felt himself let out a breath as he tried to relax, “What did he do?”

“Let out the smelliest fart you could even imagine.” Luffy giggles, “I was trying not to cough because I didn’t want to wake him up but I was wheezing. It was so bad.”

Law lets himself smile a little bit, “I’m surprised he didn’t wake himself up, that kid has a pretty sensitive nose.”

Luffy began to draw shapes on Law's abs, “He wanted to stay up to see you, that's why he fell asleep on the couch.”

“He thought he would be able to make it to midnight?” Law let out a small chuckle, “How long did he make it?”

“Nine thirty.” He replies back, “He had a long week so I figured I let him try.”

The two sat in silence for a few moments, it was the first time they’d really had time to talk just the two of them since Tony broke his wrist. That night they had been focused on making sure he was okay, and then Luffy was up most of the night running damage control on twitter and with Zoro who was relentless in trying to figure out just what had happened.

Then Luffy was up early the next morning to drive Tony to school and meet with his teacher and he’d only had a few minutes after he’d gotten back before Law had to leave for his shift at work.

Luffy breaks the silence, knowing Law wouldn’t be the one to ask, “Apparently some kids have been making fun of him for not having a mom. She thinks that the kid’s parents were talking about it over dinner or something and the kid must have picked it up.”

Law hardened his jaw, “These kids are four years old, why does it even matter?”

“This was just what caused the most recent accident,” Luffy continues, “His teacher admitted that the other kids stopped letting him play with them as well because of how ‘weird’ he is. They say that him being shorter than the others is contagious and that if they don’t want to end up short and without a mom, they shouldn’t play with him.”

They’d known Tony was shorter than a lot of the other kids, but he’d been born over a month early so it was to be expected. However, the fact that he was already experiencing judgment over having two fathers instead of a mother is concerning. 

“Why the hell did the teacher wait until now to tell us?” Law asks.

Luffy sighs, “She had wanted to try and talk it out between the students first, but things seemed to escalate too quickly. So she recommends that we switch Chopper to the other class for the last few months of school.”

Law let that mull over in his brain for a few moments, “I suppose that could work, however we should meet with the new teacher to set some rules in case the kids try anything.”

Luffy nods against his chest, closing his eyes, but Law speaks up again, “Did everything work out with Zoro?”

While it was still dark outside the sun would be rising soon, “Yeah I just said I had a family emergency but everything was okay, it’s the same thing I told my followers. I replied back to a few that were some outrageous rumors, but I’ve been ignoring everyone else.”

Law lets his hand slide under Luffy’s shirt, rubbing circles into the other’s hip, allowing a small content sigh to slip out as he closes his eyes. A few moments later Luffy’s breaths smooth out and Law lets himself focus on that until he falls into sleep as well, the thoughts of his shift tucked deep into the back of his brain.

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy lets the door close shut behind him, school was shit and he got sick because of the stupid axe body spray some kid had on, but Dadan claimed he needed at least one day off a week so he had to come straight home after school. 

He tossed his backpack on the floor, kicking off his shoes by the entrance, “Hey Gramps I’m back!”

Garp rounded the corner, he’d finally been allowed a few days off, and with Ace away for the night it was the perfect time to bond with his grandson.

“Put those shoes back on, boy.” Garp says with a grin, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Luffy raised an eyebrow at his grandfather, but slipped his shoes back on nonetheless, “Food?”

He was starving, unfortunately he’d thrown up his breakfast due to the axe incident, and after that he wasn’t in the mood to try and eat, so all he’d really wanted right now was any kind of edible food.

Garp lets out a hearty laugh, “Come on just get in the car.”

The two make idle conversation throughout the drive, before Garp pulls into a parking lot and Luffy feels his stomach drop, his heart pounding in his chest.

They were at the pediatricians. Luffy’s primary doctor.

His eyes widen as he looks over at his grandfather, what did he know? Why were they here?

Garp just beams at him, “I know you were upset that I haven’t allowed you to start your blockers, but I talked with the doctors and I was able to get it approved with our insurance. So I made the appointment as soon as I could!”

Luffy can’t bring himself to smile. He wanted this so bad, three months ago he would have been jumping out of the car, running up to the door, unable to contain his excitement.

But now… now meant that his grandfather would figure everything out. Now meant the end of the secret. It meant…

Garp blinks at him, smile dropping slightly, “I thought you would be more excited, Luffy.”

And then it happens, he can’t help it, the hormones in his body were wreaking havoc, the tears that were pooling in his eyes began to fall as he fought to catch his breath.

“I do.” Luffy starts, “But… I can’t.”

“Well then, why not?” Garp’s voice began to escalate before ending up yelling, “I’ve been on and off the phone for the past month trying to make this happen, you better have a good reason for-”

“I’m pregnant.” Luffy yells back, his eyes clenched shut so he wouldn’t have to see his grandfather’s face when he realizes just what he’d said.

The car fell silent, Garp’s fists clenched as he reached towards Luffy’s wrist, keeping him in his place but squeezing hard enough to bruise.

“Excuse me?” Garp whispered, his face turning red, “I have done nothing but support you your whole life! After my son dropped you off at my doorstep, I took you in with no questions asked, and now you go and throw it all back in my face?”

He continued, “I never once questioned that you weren’t a man, instead I pushed for you in school and fought against those teachers, and now? Now you go and spread your legs like a woman?”

Garp scoffed, as he saw Luffy’s eyes widen, the tears flowing down his cheeks, “I don’t care if you stay in that house, but as of right now, you are no longer my grandson. You did this, so you alone must suffer the consequences.”

Luffy took a shaky breath as Garp tightened his grip before unlocking the car, “Get out.”

“Gramps, I’m sorry I made a mistake-”

He all but throws Luffy out of the car, his body slamming against the closed door, “Get out.”

Luffy scrambles out of the car, which speeds away not even ten seconds after, leaving him alone in the parking lot. He’d left his backpack at home since he’d thought they were only going to grab food which left him with no money to call a car to pick him up.

He began walking in the direction of his house a few minutes later, pulling his sweatshirt around him to shield against the icy wind. Law would be at work all night and Luffy couldn’t bring himself to bother him with this as well. All he did was disrupt his life, and now this far into his pregnancy, he couldn’t turn back and undo everything even if he’d wanted to.

So he pulled his hood up over his head, and let himself cry.

_________________________________________________________________

Law was on shift with Penguin the next day, he’d had his few days of freedom, but he knew it would crumble soon enough.

A cup of coffee in his hands as a peace offering, Penguin walks up to him, “So you have a kid?”

Law glares, but accepts the well needed caffeine anyway, “Why do you want to know?”

“You wrote your name down in the patient's history as his father, you may call me an idiot but I know how to read, Law.” Penguin starts.

Law takes a sip, “Looks like you already answered your own question, then.”

He turned to walk down the hallway, but his coworker seemed to be far from the end of his questioning. It was a slow morning, which Law knew he’d be kicking himself for admitting, but he could use a distraction right about now. 

“Alright then I’ll just be blunt about it,” Penguin starts, waiting to pass the few people in the hallway before speaking again, “Why haven’t you told anyone here that you have a kid?”

Law doesn’t respond, just quirks an eyebrow.

“Yeah, sure, you’re a private person for the most part, but we went through college together. Me, you, Shachi, and Bepo, have been with each other for years, and I just found out that you’ve been hiding a kid?” Penguin says exasperated, but keeps his voice quiet, “When the hell did you even have time to raise a kid, Law? I’d like to think that we’d have at least noticed if something major was going on in your life.”

“Tony’s almost five years old, you do the math.” Law starts, “And if you need a reminder, I’m twenty three.”

Penguin goes quiet for a moment, “He was born when you were… seventeen? So you got someone pregnant when you were, what, sixteen?”

Law grips his coffee cup as he takes another sip before nodding. What was he supposed to do, deny it? He wasn’t trying to hide Tony as if he was some shameful secret, but the treatment he received at his school was already enough proof as to why he wasn’t more open about it. Even if Luffy didn’t have his small internet fame, they’ve been through a lot and it was just better off without the world breathing down the back of his neck. 

And hearing Penguin refer to Luffy as ‘someone’ just pissed him off even more. He wasn’t some clingy girl that he’d knocked up who demanded child support or was absent from Tony’s life. Luffy was there for everything . He went through the hell that was pregnancy, and then the shit show that is childbirth. He was the one who had to deal with being misgendered at a handful of doctors, the one who had to make decisions on how they were going to raise their kid with barely any money to their names.

Yeah Law made a mistake, but so did Luffy. And they stuck through it to raise a great kid.

“Shit, Law.” Penguin says just above a whisper, “Does… Does anyone else know?”

“At the hospital?” Law scoffed, “No.”

Penguin opens his mouth to protest.

His eyes narrow as he looks over, “And I’d prefer it if we keep it that way.”

Penguin doesn’t respond, he’s pulled away by one of their superiors and Law lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He’d asked less questions than he was expecting, which was a good sign, but it also meant that the other two in their group would find out at some point, since Penguin was horrible at keeping secrets.

Shachi however appears from behind him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, “Hey Captain you got a minute?”

Law grits his teeth, he very much was not in the mood for more people at that moment and quite honestly he was ready to fight Shachi if he overheard even one sentence, but Bepo followed behind with his normal expression, meaning it couldn’t be too bad. But when he looked at Bepo and he immediately started at the ground, Law knew it would probably piss him off to some extent.

“You get approximately forty five seconds before I finish my coffee,” Law states.

He lets out a large shit eating grin, “Well, you know that blonde, Lauren, from the day shift in the pediatrics wing?”

Law just stares back, “For the sake of speeding this up, sure.”

Shachi sighs, exasperated with his friend, “Word is she thinks you’re pretty cute, she asked me to give you her number.”

Law hands him his now empty cup of coffee and walks away, leaving Bepo to follow as he has actual work related topics to talk about.

“Trafalgar-”

He tunes Shachi out.

He makes it to their lunch break before Shachi tries again. He holds out a piece of paper to Law, who took it before remembering their conversation from earlier that morning. He doesn’t have to open it to know what would be inside the folded piece.

He hands it back, “I already told you, no.”

Penguin looks between the two with a confused expression.

“Lauren from Pediatrics asked me to give Law her number, but he refuses to accept it.” Shachi says with pleading eyes at his partner in crime. 

But Penguin just looks away awkwardly and shoves his lunch into his face to keep from saying anything. Law would kill for Bepo to be there, but he can't take his break for another hour at least.

Shachi’s eyes narrow, “You know something.”

Penguin shakes his head, “Nope.”

“What are you not telling me, bro?”

Law evaluates his options. The first one, is the most obvious, just come clean to Shachi about Tony. He’d probably back off for a day or so before coming back with a million questions and girls who are interested in single fathers.

Except that didn’t apply to Law and was a lose lose situation.

The other option is to just let this play out and watch as Penguin crumples under the pressure of his best friend and shares Tony’s information without his consent.

So Law goes with the third option. The truth.

“He knows that I’m gay, Shachi.” Law sighs, not expecting the day to result in him outing himself to his friends, but continues to shut down the rumor that would stem from it, “And no, I’m not gay for him. I have a boyfriend, that is not Penguin, and no I will not be asking out this Lauren girl.”

The two of them stare with wide eyes.

He leaves them there with that information before grabbing his lunch and leaving them at the table. 

_________________________________________________________________

Ace sighed, letting the other person follow him inside before closing the door behind them. Luffy’s shoes were discarded at the entrance which meant he’d probably skipped school again. He’d been acting off for the last week or so, but despite all of his efforts he refused to talk to Ace, besides making small talk. 

They would joke and say hi, but the second Ace would ask what was going on, Luffy would go radio silent.

“You can just drop your shoes off wherever, gramps isn’t here so I really don’t care.” Ace gestures before plopping himself down on the couch.

The other kid just follows him, sitting on the opposite couch and pulls out his notes and laptop, “You better not be planning on taking a nap.”

“Unfortunately no, I’m not tired enough for that right now.” Ace puts his phone back in his pocket, “I was just letting my brother know I was home.”

Before they could start their work, the quiet sound of footsteps is heard from the stairs and Luffy is seen wearing an oversized sweatshirt and rubbing at his eyes. He takes one look at the other student next to Ace, and immediately freezes before trying to back track up the stairs. 

“Not so fast, Lu. I haven’t seen you in three days get your ass down here.” Ace scolds and Luffy takes a seat on the bottom step, “Did you go to school at all today?”

A pause, but Luffy stares at the other student.

Ace rolls his eyes, “This is Trafalgar Law, he’s a junior, we have this stupid Anatomy project to do, ignore him.”

Luffy wrinkles his nose, “You take anatomy, Ace?”

He glares, “I needed an extra science credit since I failed chemistry.”

Law stares at him for a minute, before nodding, deciding that that made a lot of sense.

Ace raises an eyebrow, “School, Luffy?”

Luffy shrugs, “I was tired.”

His stomach lets out a loud noise and Ace glares harder, “Did you eat?”

Luffy just gets up and attempts to make his way back up the stairs, “Luffy.”

He goes back down the stairs and into the kitchen where Ace hears the stove click on after a moment. He lets out a tired sigh, “Let's just get this shit over with.”

Luffy hadn’t indicated that anything was wrong with Law, hadn’t even told him that he had been skipping school. Instead Law was fed some lie that he was studying with a teacher during lunch or had to go right home after school with his brother. It was quite obvious now that he was lying.

Law still had his attention turned towards the hallway that Luffy disappeared down, but forced himself to focus because he needed a passing grade, “You have the pictures on your phone, right? Email them to me and I’ll upload them into the slides.”

Ace agrees and begins to scroll through his phone to find the photos, but he begins to smell the scent coming from the kitchen and his nose wrinkles, “Lu, what the hell are you making in there?”

Law couldn’t deny that it didn’t smell great, but nothing was on fire so Ace didn’t seem too worried. He adds the pictures into the slides, labeling each accordingly before pulling up the rubric. Luffy walks back out of the kitchen and takes a seat on the floor next to Ace, who raises an eyebrow but ruffles his hair regardless, not wanting to scare him away back to his room.

“Is that grilled cheese?” Ace questions, squinting at the sandwich on his plate, when Luffy nods he continues, “Okay, then what the fuck is the brown stuff on top of the cheese?”

Luffy takes a large bite, and replies, “Chocolate.”

The two upperclassmen just blinked at him a few times, but Luffy just held the sandwich up to his brother as if offering a bite. Ace looked disgusted and shook his head, but Luffy shrugged and took another bite.

“This would be better if we had whipped cream.”

Law couldn’t help but relax slightly at the scene in front of him, sure the food combination seemed quite gross, but when it hit him he let a small smile appear on his face. 

Luffy was having cravings. 

Luckily with how Ace seemed to be doing in anatomy, Law wasn’t concerned he would catch onto anything, but it was just another reminder that soon enough things would change, and he wouldn’t be able to hide it from his brother anymore.

Luffy finished his sandwich quickly, and Law could tell he wanted a second but instead his phone lit up with a notification and he disappeared back up the stairs. Right when they were going to continue working on the project, the freshman appeared once again wearing a few different layers, the original sweatshirt missing. 

Ace stops him, “Where do you think you’re going?”

He continues putting his shoes on, lacing up his converse, “Dadan’s. She needs extra hands tonight.”

Ace stands up, “So you’re going to work but not to school?”

Luffy ignores him, grabbing his backpack and a bottle of water.

“What time will you be back?” Ace questions, Dadan’s was a small store a few blocks over. They sold random stuff there that was quite well known, so they opened a cafe in the back where Luffy likes to pick up shifts and help with whatever is needed.

“Probably around twelve, I’ll be quiet.”

“I’ll be up, if you’re not home by twelve thirty I’m going out and looking for your ass,” Ace threatens, then adds his voice much quieter, “You know every day you miss school, they call gramps, right?”

Luffy pauses, glaring at the ground before opening the door, “Trust me, he doesn’t care.”

The door closes behind him, and Law busies himself on his laptop to make it seem like he didn’t overhear anything.

Ace’s eyes look cold but Law doesn’t comment on anything. Instead, Ace sits back on the couch and Law quickly sends out a text of his own.

To Mugiwara:

Your ass better be in school tomorrow.

Don’t think we aren't talking about this.

From Mugiwara:

Cant.

Got a second job, working mornings now.

To Mugiwara:

You’re supposed to be resting. 

I’m sending my address, if you aren’t at my place by the time I get out of class I’m telling your brother you got a second job.

They both know it's a bluff, mainly because telling Ace is a death sentence on its own, but Luffy replies with a quick ‘k.’

Law turns his phone off before actually getting started on the project.

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy stays on the couch, waiting for his brother to walk through the door, making full use of the spare key they gave him for emergencies that he has only ever used to brag about his spare key privileges.

They made plans to fully walk through Ace over the proper care of Chopper’s injury to ensure the cast doesn’t get wet in the bath, and how to keep it from getting injured further. However, he’d mentioned to his crew that Ace was coming over and they all but cornered him into convincing Ace to join them for a few sessions of games and bonding.

Ace was a popular guy, and with all of the random events happening in Luffy’s life his crew was trying to pry and find out just what else they don’t know about him. His brother was one of those large questions, since Ace was never shown on camera but rather is always conveniently just out of frame or sits behind the camera.

So, here they were.

“Wassup?” Ace says while barging into his brother's apartment.

Luffy just rolls his eyes, sitting up, sending a quick text to his chat saying Ace had arrived, “You’re late.”

Ace just chuckles, “My bad, I fell asleep but Marco kicked me and reminded me to get my shit together.”

He shrugs off his jacket, hanging it up, leaving his short sleeved shirt to show off his one arm. The other was left as a stub, barely poking out under the sleeve. The scar tissue was fully healed a while back, and Ace has long since adjusted to his new way of life.

“Tell him thanks for kicking some sense into you.” Luffy replies.

“Am I going to be on camera this time?” Ace questions and Luffy just shrugs, “You know I genuinely don’t care, Lu. It’s always been up to you, if you want to deal with the questions and the possibility of your chest being revealed.”

Luffy stands up from the couch, proceeding to stretch his limbs, “Are you sure you’re ready? You’ve made a name for yourself under Whitebeard’s corporation and the internet could air out all your dirty laundry.”

His brother snorted, following him over to his streaming room, “You think Pops isn’t already aware of that?”

“I’m one of his models, Luf.” Ace sighed, “I’ve been dealing with this for years, the only difference is you don’t want your fans to make that connection.”

When he puts it like that Luffy can’t help but feel a bit guilty for the implications. He’s not embarrassed by Ace or what he does for work or his arm, but if people start looking into the incident, it’s only a matter of time until more than one secret of his is revealed. 

And while he’s not upset by his own injuries that resulted from the incident, it wasn’t something he wanted made public. He didn’t want to deal with all of the questions that would inevitably come from it, and the judgment that would come for both him and his brothers. 

Which fuck. There was another issue.

Sabo.

That incident was the one that brought him back into their lives after he was taken away by his own shit ass father when they were younger. And now, Luffy’s kept Sabo out of everything public about his life since he works for the FBI. They rarely get to see him anymore as it is.

But Sabo worked with Luffy’s own father, which god forbid any of that information got leaked. Luffy isn’t sure how he would deal with that. 

And if anyone looks into the hospital he was treated at surely that would come across one of the residents named Trafalgar, which would sound just a little too familiar to his roommate Traffy . 

But everything came back to that incident.

Ace snaps him out of his crisis by placing his trademark hat on his head. It was a gift given to him by an old friend who would help him out back when he lived with his dad. It was a sign that not everyone in the world was some shitty person who was out to get him.

“I don’t mind being off camera, I get it.” Ace gives him a small smile, “If I’m off camera though, I’m stealing snacks since they can’t see me anyway.”

Luffy just gives him a nod before he starts messing with his setup, keeping his camera off as he joins the call with his friends and starts the stream.

Ace joins him back in his room not too long after and once he is safely out of frame, Luffy turns his camera on, continuing to make small talk with his crew as they slowly filter in. 

Loud chewing fills the stream as Ace places on the headset.

“Who is that?” Nami demands as her story she was telling was drowned out.

“Heya, Nami.” Ace says around his crunching, “Snacks are my form of payment.”

“Barbarians, all of you.” She grumbles.

“You love us,” Luffy says cheekily, “What did you guys decide on today?”

Nami’s face lights up, a devilish smile on her face, “I found a site that lets us play Never Have I Ever.”

“...Okay? What’s the catch, witch?” Zoro says, there is always a catch with her.

She snickers, “You have to tell the story behind whatever embarrassing event you’re asked about, like if you have to put a finger down.”

“That’s boring. I was hoping for booze.”

Sanji pipes in, “That’s because you’re a debilitating alcoholic.”

“You’re the one who’s gonna have lung cancer before the age of thirty, curly.”

“Yeah you both suck,” Luffy interjects, “But what is Never Have I whatever game?”

Ace snorts, “You guys forgot he was homeschooled. Luffy it's a game where you start with ten fingers and have to put one down every time you’ve done something someone else hasn’t.”

Nami shares a link to a site that allows them to have virtual fingers so it’s easy for the viewers to follow along.

“Alright, I’m up first.” Brook says, “Never have I ever had a broken bone.”

Luffy sends a playful glare at the camera before putting down a finger. They share a few laughs as the other’s reluctantly follow, only outliers being Nami and Usopp, who claimed breaking his nose didn't count, but eventually lost that fight.

A few funny stories later they’d moved on to the next question. It wasn’t until a few questions later that Luffy froze.

“Alright, you’ve all been keeping this easy but I know I’ll get a few of you out with this wonderful line.” Usopp claimed, “Never have I ever had sex.”

Before he realized what he’d done, he’d put a finger down, and the chat blew up.

“No way Luffy, stop lying.” Usopp exclaims, “Put that finger back down, join me in the land of virgins.”

Luffy let out a nervous chuckle, “Sorry Usopp, I can’t do that.”

Luckily his interrogation was put on the back burner when they were forced to share their embarrassing stories.

Frankie chuckles, not embarrassed at all, “My eighteenth birthday party, we decided to play seven minutes in heaven, but let's just say it was a little more than seven minutes for me.”

He winked at the camera.

Ace scoffed, “I can beat that, I was sixteen when I slept with our neighbor. They let me do whatever I wanted with them, until their dad caught on and chased me out with his shotgun.”

Luffy rolled his eyes, “You’re forgetting that he actually shot you, the bullet grazed your shoulder. Gramps had to take you to the hospital to get stitches.”

“Lu we’ve been chased with guns for half our lives. It happens.” Ace said nonchalantly.

There was silence for a moment before Nami spoke up, “You guys do know that’s not a normal thing, right?”

Luffy shrugged, “It’s normal for where we grew up.”

“Alright we’re coming back to that later, don’t think you’re getting out of this question Captain. But stupid cook, I’m willing to bet I lost it before you did.”

Sanji lights a cigarette, “Alright, I’ll take that bet. I was seventeen when I snuck out to a party and lost it with a girl named Veronica.”

“Hah!” Zoro exclaims, “I was sixteen when I was at a kendo tournament and snuck off to the bathroom with the person who lost to me. Well they lost more than the match at that point.”

They start to bicker about who was lying or not, but Nami steps in.

“Well I only lost it a few months ago to a friend of mine,” Nami says casually.

Robin chuckled, “That surprises me slightly, but I gave it all to a friend in college around the same age.”

“I would love to hear more about that later. Yohohoho.” Brook says, “I was unfortunately in my twenties when I had a few one night stands with fans of my band.”

The call goes silent, expecting Luffy to step up but he just shrugs.

“Nope, you’re not getting out of it that easily.” Usopp claims, “Either join me or fess up!”

“It’s because he is lying.” Zoro says in a bored expression.

“Am not!” Luffy sighs, “I had sex at a party.”

“Uh huh, sure buddy.” Frankie laughs, “How old were you?”

“Does it matter?” Ace spoke up, this was one of the things his brother really didn’t want on the internet.

“Don’t cover for him, Ace.” Nami said, “How old were you?”

Luffy took a deep breath, “I’d rather not disclose this to the two million people that are watching.”

“Don’t be such a sore loser, captain.” Sanji took a drag of his cig, “Just admit that you were lying and we’ll only tease you a little bit.”

“This wasn’t part of the deal, you all got to be somewhat vague with your answers as well.” Ace said more sternly, “Nami only said it was to a friend, so why doesn’t that apply to my brother?”

“You don’t get to talk about Nami like that.” Sanji seethes.

Luffy sees his brother start to get upset, so he speaks up before anyone else has the chance to argue.

“I was fourteen, at a highschool party. I snuck out and followed Ace to it, since it was only a few blocks away.” Luffy states, “I was a lightweight and the other person was really high, and we made a dumb decision. Thanks for making that immortalized on the internet, guys. Any more questions?”

_________________________________________________________________

Ace sucked up his own pride when Trafalgar left and decided to look through Luffy’s bathroom. He’d texted his grandfather asking if anything had happened between the two of them, and he was left on read, while Luffy seemed to be quite upset about something for days.

He didn’t have to be a genius to realize that something had to have happened.

He opened up Luffy’s medicine cabinet where he expected to see the normal small white pill packet that his birth control was kept in. 

They usually stayed out of each other's stuff, since these pills were something Luffy never talked about, and because Ace had stash of pot that Luffy pretended to not know about. Garp never let them have privacy as kids, so now they cherished whatever small amount they could get.

He was about to close the cabinet when he noticed the date printed on the pill sheet, last filled on August fifteenth.

He picked it up rereading it a few times, he should have run out back in September but they were well into December at this point.

Okay.

So Luffy went off his birth control, that could pertain to several different things. 

He picked up the bottle of vitamins next to it, dropping the packet of birth control almost immediately when he read the name of the gummies.

Prenatal vitamins. With the tagline under it, “To ensure healthy growth of your baby.”

Fuck.

The fight between him and Garp, the weird chocolate on grilled cheese, the new clothes he kept buying, the baggier sweatshirts he wore, the extra shifts at work. 

He wished there was any other explanation, but there wasn’t.

Luffy, his kid brother, was pregnant.

He closed the cabinet before putting his fist straight through the mirror.

Chapter Text

Ch. 4: Should there be a difference, do you have instructions?

“So,” Law starts, taking a deep breath, “Two million people know that you’re not a virgin?”

Luffy nods.

“Alright,” He continues, “And, they know that you lost it to me at a party when you were fourteen years old?”

Ace chimes in, mouth full of food, “Not with you specifically, Traffy, just that the person who took it obviously can’t handle their high.”

Law just glared in response, he’d been home from work only one hour and everything had gone to shit even before he stepped in the door. Chopper had already been asleep when he’d walked in, but of course Ace had to stick around to see his reaction.

“Okay, Ace, I get that you’re still upset that he got me pregnant but I think you’re about five years too late for that.” Luffy says, “Chopper is here and not going anywhere.”

Ace points at him with his fork, “The fact that the two of you made an angel like Chopper is a miracle in its own.”

Luffy sticks his tongue out at his brother and Law asks, “How’d everyone else take the news?”

He shrugs, “Honestly most people still think I lied about the whole thing.”

Law scoffs, “Unfortunately we have an entire child as proof of the whole situation.”

“They just can’t believe that their innocent little captain would have been deflowered at such a young age.” Ace says, mockingly.

Law wrinkles his nose, putting his fork down, appetite slightly lost, “Don’t fucking phrase it like that you make me sound like a pedophile.”

Ace shrugs, “Well-”

Luffy kicks him in the shin under the table, “Shut it. We were both kids, and you know we both paid the price so leave it.”

Ace ignores him, “So, Traffy , when did you lose it?”

Luffy’s eyes narrow real quickly, “Ace.”

Ace shrugs, “I just think it’s only fair that he airs out his dirty laundry too.”

Law exhales a long breath watching as the two brothers bicker.

“We’re not touching that.” Luffy ends the conversation.

“Do you even know, Luffy?”

Luffy shoves a bite of food into his mouth, making Ace wait until he was finished to answer.

“I do. I’ve known for a while, I just don’t see why it’s any of your business.” He turns to Law with a tight smile, “How was work?”

Law puts his fork down and crosses his arms, “Well, Penguin confronted me about Tony and seems to think I knocked someone up in college, and then was pissed he didn’t know. The guy fucking sucks at math.”

Luffy finishes the food on his plate, “He was the one we met the other day, right?”

Law nods.

“However, he can’t keep a secret for shit. And fucking Shachi was trying to give me one of the nurses numbers from the pediatrics wing, and Penguin looked constipated so I was forced to come out to them instead.” Law turns to Luffy.

Luffy, who had taken a sip of water, was now coughing since he’d accidentally inhaled it, and his loving brother was laughing at his misery.

Ace lets out a low whistle, “Damn dude, quite a way to come out if you ask me.”

“If it gets them to stop setting me up with women, I couldn’t give less of a shit.” Law says lightly, but keeps an eye on Luffy who was struggling to catch his breath, grabbing lightly at his chest.

The conversation turns into silence as Ace watches as well, both tense, as if waiting for the moment to step in just in case he wouldn’t be able to catch his breath.

Taking another, more careful, sip of water, Luffy breaks the silence, “I would have taken him to the other clinic but he was asking for you.”

Law snorts, “I don’t care what the idiots think of me.”

“I think it’s more of a sign of their intelligence that they didn’t see the signs on their own.” Ace muttered.

“It’s the muscles and the tattoos.” Luffy says, as he gets up to take the plates.

Law stops him in his tracks, beating him to clearing the table, “Ah yes, because gay people can’t have muscles and tattoos.”

“To be fair, even back in school there were never any rumors of you sleeping with guys.” Ace adds.

Rinsing the dishes, Law replies, “That’s probably because before Luffy, I didn’t.”

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy quietly opened the door, slipping off his shoes, and wincing as he felt the sharp pain in his back after being on his feet all day. A yawn slipped out of his lips as he headed towards the stairs, but instead he stopped when he noticed the shadow sitting alone on the couch in the dark.

“Ace you didn’t have to wait up.” He starts up the stairs again, “Night--”

“When the fuck were you going to tell me?”

Luffy stops, even in the dark he could see his brother’s sharp eyes staring back at him. He covers up his winces as he heads back down the stairs.

“About the job?” He asks, “Gramps doesn’t care so I didn’t think it would be--”

Ace scoffs, “Does he know, then?”

Luffy goes to answer but Ace beats him to it, “It’s not about the goddamn job, Luffy!”

Just like that the two fall into silence. Luffy’s grip tightens roughly on the banister, staying on his feet instead of taking a seat.

“Then what are you talking about?”

Ace stands up and flips the light switch before heading towards him. His right hand is covered in bandages, but Luffy could see the little dots of blood peaking through. 

“I’m talking about the fucking child growing inside you’re body!” Ace yells and motions with hand, “Fetus, baby, fucking alien whatever the fuck you want to call it.”

Luffy opens his mouth to answer but no words come out and instead Ace takes that as his sign to continue. 

“You’re fourteen, Lu.” HIs voice breaks, and he takes a moment before continuing, louder, “Who the hell would you even sleep with? Why the hell would you let this happen, how fucking stupid do you have to be to let this happen to you?!”

He raises his arm for effect, unable to contain the anger in just his voice. But instead he just watches as Luffy, his younger brother, flinches away from him.

Luffy clumsily hits into the wall behind himself and slowly falls to the ground, wincing at the pain shooting down his spine.

Once he catches his breath again, he forces his eyes open and looks over at his brother. Ace was standing, wide eyed, anger gone and face pale. He took a step back and opened his mouth a few times before muttering.

“Did you think I was going to… hit you?” Ace questioned, his voice sounded tight.

Luffy stayed where he was and rested his arms on his knees, and shrugged.

They were brothers, of course they would rough house with each other it’s just what they do. But never had Ace ever sought out to hurt Luffy just for the sake of violence. Especially not in situations like this. 

Then, in the smallest voice Ace had heard come from his brother, “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did.”

And just like that Ace’s would crumble.

Fuck.

He stood still for a moment, before making his decision. He walked towards the stairs, and Luffy stiffened for a moment before realizing what Ace was doing. His older brother took a seat on the floor next to him, reaching an arm around him.

“I’m sorry.” Luffy starts.

“How did this even happen?”

A moment passes, but he doesn't push.

“I followed you to the party a few streets over before school started. I had a couple of drinks, and met Traffy and we went a bit farther than we should.”

Ace felt his blood freeze, “Traffy?”

Luffy stared down, “Trafalgar Law, he’s the junior you’re working on the anatomy project with.”

He grit his teeth, “You let me bring the man who assaulted you into this house?”

Luffy’s eyes widened. 

“When I get my hands on him I’ll make sure he’s never able to stick his dick anywhere else--”

“He didn’t rape me!” Luffy yelled, “I made my choice that night. I may have been a little drunk but I knew what I was doing. He was high but he gave me several chances to back out, even in the middle of everything.”

“I just…”

Ace struggled, but he kept quiet, knowing he just needed to let Luffy speak. And he should know better than to make an accusation like that.

“I didn’t realize it was that easy for this to happen. I guess I always thought you had to be ‘trying’ to make a baby.” Luffy says, “I was on the pill too, so it didn’t even cross my mind until school started and I was getting sick.”

“Gramps knows, doesn’t he?” Ace says quietly, “It’s why he’s letting you skip school all the time, right?”

Luffy looks away, eyes staring into the ground, “I had to tell him. He finally got my blockers approved by insurance.”

“What’d he say?”

Silence, and then, “As of that day I am no longer his grandson.”

Ace’s arm tightens around him, then he remembers how hard Luffy flinched. That couldn’t be a coincidence, Luffy wasn’t one to flinch at much after the childhood he’d had. Garp better stay the fuck away from this house or Ace would make him regret it.

_________________________________________________________________

Law parked the car in a spot near the end of the lot, it was a nice place he and his friends commonly ate at. Luffy was seated in the passenger seat, loudly singing along to the song on the radio causing Law to let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

They meet eyes and Luffy gives him a large smile as he belts out the final verse and Law can’t help the hand that slides up the other’s neck before resting on his jaw, dragging his thumb across Luffy’s cheek.

Luffy laughs at him, “You look like you’re about to kiss me.”

Law licks his lips slightly, “And since when has this been an issue?”

He tilts his head and looks at something behind his boyfriend, “Mm just now, only ‘cause your friends are watching us from outside the car.”

Letting his hand quickly fall, Law whips his head around only to see his three assholes he called ‘friends’ standing in the empty parking lot. He drops his head to hit the steering wheel.

“I’m gonna fucking kill ‘em.” He mumbles under his breath.

Luffy just chuckles again and rustles his hair slightly before getting out of the car, Law following after with a loud sigh.

“Next time a patient shoves something strange up their ass I’ll make sure you guys are the one’s assigned to it.” Law glares.

Shachi rolls his eyes, “You don’t have the authority for that.”

“You think I don’t have favors to cash in?” Law smirks.

Bepo, the large man, tries to hide behind Penguin, “Don’t worry I promise I didn’t see anything.”

“That’s probably for the best because the world would end if the news got out,” Luffy giggles as he walks around the other side of the car, “I can imagine the headline now-”

He cleared his throat dramatically, throwing an arm around his boyfriend, “Trafalgar Law caught having eye sex with another guy.”

Law just raises an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed, “Eye sex, really?”

“Mhm,” Luffy nods, “Nami told me about it, it's some sub-text thingy that actors use or something, maybe?”

He sighs again and just places his hand on the small of Luffy’s back and begins to lead him towards the restaurant, ignoring the three others and leaving them to follow. 

He walks up to the podium where a lanky blonde haired man is hunched over what appears to be a seating chart.

The guy doesn’t look up before speaking in a dull tone, “Hello and welcome to the Baratie where we can’t keep any waiters and my talent is wasted on small talk, my name is Sanji how many of you I have to deal with--”

The guy looks up and an unlit cigarette falls from his mouth, “Luffy?”

Luffy, the man in question, was too busy joking with his new fast friends to have heard his name called. Bepo however had picked up on eyes bearing into him and nudged him gently towards the waiter. It only takes a moment for Luffy’s attention to change. 

“Sanji? You work here?” Luffy’s head tilts as if he were trying to figure out a puzzle.

Law grimaces slightly at the connection that had just been made.

“Unfortunately,” Sanji shakes his head, “I didn’t know you knew Trafalgar and the hooligans behind him.”

Luffy ignores the statement and turns to Law, “How come you’re not considered one of the hooli-whatever?”

Law smirks, “Because I’m just better than them.”

His boyfriend snorts at him in disbelief. He’s got way too much blackmail on him to even consider him to be more sophisticated than his friends.

Sanji collects menus behind him as he mutters, “Or because he actually tips the staff.”

Rubbing his neck sheepishly, Luffy lets out a small laugh, “That’s my fault.”

The waiter actually stops for a moment, and pauses, “You’ve worked in service?”

Luffy hummed, and even Law’s co-workers listened in since Luffy was such an enigma to them. They’d first believed Law’s boyfriend to be a made up rumor, but the bit in the car felt way too natural to be a lie.

“I started working there in middle school I think? It may have been earlier, me and Ace would put in time to get a few extra bucks for food.” Luffy paused, not revealing any more and stuck his hands in his hoodie pocket, “I worked there on and off until I met you guys.”

Shachi leans over and puts his arm around his friend, “Does that make Law here your future sugar daddy?”

He’s cut off with an immediate wheeze after Law shoves him off with a nice shoulder jab to the gut. Sanji looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm after what he had just said but Law pays no attention.

“Idiots, all of you,” Law rolls his eyes, “Luffy makes more than me.”

Luffy smiles, “For now! Just wait until you can actually cut people open.”

“Yeah, whatever the hell that means. But Luffy if you actually listened to Nami she could triple your money if you just accept the sponsors.” 

“Sponsors are stupid, it’s just lying to people. Besides, half of Nami’s sponsors are just sex toy companies.” Luffy shrugs, “Oh, now I understand why Robin was so shocked about her losing her virginity only a few months ago.”

Shachi and Penguin are now wheezing behind Law, who just sighs and throws all hope of this lunch going uneventfully out the window. Luffy wasn’t technically wrong, Nami is quite well known for her recommendations and is very open about that on the internet. 

Sanji looks around quickly to ensure none of the other customers heard that and then gets in real close to his friend, “We don’t speak about Nami like that, she is an entrepreneur.”

Luffy squints his eyes, “Speak like what? It’s the truth, that's literally what she does.”

Sanji goes to poke Luffy’s chest aggressively, but is interrupted when Law steps in front of his boyfriend, “Can we just get a table, Black-Leg?”

He grits his teeth, “It’s still so fucking weird to hear you talk about this stuff so casually, captain.”

Sanji leads them to a secluded part of the restaurant, which is for the better when Luffy asks, “You mean sex? I’m an adult, I know what sex is, why is that so weird to you guys?”

They are seated at a table, Sanji sighs, “I guess you probably learned about it from your boy toy over here.”

Luffy grits his teeth, a smile falling from his face slightly, “Sanji can I talk to you for a sec?”

Sanji just raises an eyebrow, but sure enough agrees, yelling to the kitchen he would be taking a smoke break and leads Luffy out the back door. It’s only after his cigarette is lit that Luffy starts speaking.

“Why are you treating me like a child?”

Sanji lets out a puff of smoke, feeling slightly bad when Luffy wrinkles his nose and turns away. He instead opts to let the cigarette simmer between his teeth. Luffy was over a head shorter than him, his body almost swimming in the baggy sweatshirt he was wearing. He has his scar under his right eye, and freckles dusted on his face and just enough baby fat left on his cheeks.

“Because you are one.” He states, “You’re not even legally allowed to drink in some countries.”

Luffy glares, “You’re only two years older.”

“Yes,” Sanji starts, “But that’s still two whole years. The rest of us have already delt with our fuck ups in life and we’re trying to keep you from making the same ones, I guess.”

And really, Luffy can’t help the sharp laugh that bubbles from the back of his throat. Oh if only they knew the half of it. 

“Is this why you all refuse to believe I had sex when I was fourteen?” Luffy asks, “Because that’s far from the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”

And he meant that.

If the past week had proven anything it was that.

Chopper was the most important person in Luffy’s life, and he would bet on Law's too. If Luffy called that night a mistake, it felt like he would be calling Chopper one too.

Sanji runs his hand through his hair, “So is Trafalgar a new thing in your life then?”

Luffy just shrugs, “Not really.”

And isn’t that the truth. Torao has been there since all this shit happened. Stuck through all of Luffy’s decisions during pregnancy and even stayed when they were just two broke teenagers with an infant. Which was…

That was before they were even dating.

First there was Law’s occasion hookups when he was in college, and then there was Luffy and-

Luffy and Boa.

Which then lead to the panicked call to Ace and the truck--

And then Luffy hunches over, Sanji watching in slight horror as his small frame is wracked with rough sounding coughs. The cigarette falls from his mouth as he watches Luffy take a labored breath and let out a few more wheezing noises before finally settling down. 

“Alright what the actual fuck was that?” Sanji stomps on his forgotten cigarette.

“Just some asthma, I'm fine.” Luffy lies.

And Sanji just squints at him. They’ve met up a few times over the years and Luffy has never shown any issues to his smoking habits, even when he’s a shithead and smokes inside.

“...Right.” Sanji sticks his hands in his pockets, not wanting to light another one.

“I should get back to Torao and his friends,” Luffy turns to him, “Just don’t tell the others about Torao, he can’t get involved with anything in case it upsets his job at the hospital.”

Sanji just gives him a small nod before leading him back to the table, and hiding himself in the kitchen for the rest of his shift. It wasn’t like Luffy to lie to others, but lately it seems like they don’t know him at all.

And he wasn’t an idiot, Sanji knew there was more to all this than Luffy was letting on.

_________________________________________________________________

Ace hadn’t shown up to anatomy today. That should have been the first red flag.

The first time Ace went missing from class, it was right after he’d discovered Luffy was pregnant, and they’d never actually resolved that at all.  Which was also over two months ago at that point.

And while it could have been chalked up to an episode of his narcolepsy, neither him nor Luffy had answered his messages in the past two hours.

Which was red flag number two.

So, when Law’s phone vibrated off his desk halfway through anatomy, he’d grabbed his books and excused himself, his gut telling him he wouldn’t be returning to class. 

“What happened?” Law asks as soon as he picks up, his voice echoing through the empty hallway. 

“Luffy passed out this morning after he noticed some bleeding from his, y’know.” Ace stutters off, “So I took him to the hospital. Sorry I know we had a lab today but--”

Law pushes open the door to the school parking lot, “I couldn’t give a fuck about that right now. Luffy. Is he okay?”

“Yes.” Ace immediately answered, “It’s what the doctor claimed was the best case scenario. He’s anemic and underweight, which will be an issue if it continues, but right now all that matters is Luffy and the baby are okay.”

Law let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and relaxes somewhat in his car, “I’ll pick up some iron pills and grab some protein drinks to increase his daily intake--”

Law pauses when he hears shuffling on the other side, the slight sound of a door closing.

“Listen. I know Lu doesn’t want to tell you this kind of shit, but our gramps has been a goddamn asshole with everything right now and is refusing to pay for Luffy’s food anymore so he’s stuck with whatever he makes from his jobs.” Ace grits out, “However I know he’s lying to me about wanting to look into adoption.”

Law’s hands grip the steering wheel as he begins driving to the hospital near their house

“We’re already in contact with an agency, we have an appointment next week to finalize everything--”

“I found a stash of cash under his bed with the sono-whatever pictures of the baby.”

And Law slams on the breaks, the car almost hitting him in the back.

“Fuck.”

_________________________________________________________________

“So,” Shachi places his hand dramatically on Luffy’s shoulder and stares into his eyes, “What are your intentions with our precious Law?”

Law, the man in question, just scowls at the others and digs into his food before Luffy could try and steal it.

“Obviously I’m just here for the free food.” Luffy snickers as he shoves a fork full into his mouth.

“I accidentally put a plate of food out one day and he just keeps coming back.”

“Hey I’m not a stray cat!” Luffy argues and Law lightly taps his hand as he attempts to steal a bite, “Besides its been like five years good luck driving me away.”

Law rolls his eyes, ignoring the silence the others at the table fall into, and especially ignoring the pointed look from Penguin who apparently compared that math to Tony’s age.

“Five years?” Shachi exclaims, “You’ve been hiding this for five years ?”

Law glances at his boyfriend before answering, “We only seriously started dating in the last two years, before that was… on and off.”

“Never took you as someone who would be into casual sex, Captain-” Bepo cuts himself off after he realizes what he said, “I’m so sorry ignore me I’m not even here.”

Penguin and Shachi snicker at their friends dismay.

Luffy takes another bite, “What’s up with everyone and sex recently?”

That’s when Penguin remembers, “Oh right, the waiter mentioned you turn down sponsors, right? What exactly do you do?”

Shachi’s eyebrow rises as he pipes in, “It’s not porn right? I know you guys were talking about sex toys but I never thought our sweet summer child Law would be into something so kink-”

Law shoves a roll of bread into Shachi’s open mouth, “Shut it, right now.”

Paying no attention, Luffy turns to Penguin, “I’m a streamer, I’ve got the most views in my group at the moment.”

Penguin’s eyes widen, but he keeps his voice low at Law’s sharp glance, “That’s where I know you from! You’re that Straw Hat guy, aren’t you?”

Luffy nods.

“I’ve watched a few of your streams-” His mouth opens and then closes with a smirk, “Traffy, straw hat’s mysterious girlfriend, is Law isn’t it.”

Law sighs in his misfortune of ever introducing them.

_________________________________________________________________

Law ends up at their house not too long after Luffy is discharged from the hospital. He’d gone shopping in the time he had and was throwing a bunch of stuff into the blender and all but shoving it at the kid he knocked up.

Ace, with the small amount of tact he has, excuses himself upstairs to let the two of them talk. 

Luffy, however, stays silent as he sips on the drink given to him.

“You’re supposed to tell me these things.” Law states flatly.

He places the drink in front of him, “I’ve survived on a lot less food before so I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Law just stares unimpressed and glances at the noticeable stomach through the thin shirt he’d put on when he got back. Luffy has the audacity to look away.

“While I agree, that’s not what I’m referring to.”

And god Law wishes he didn’t find it cute when Luffy tilted his head slightly to the side, eyes wide as he took another sip. And besides that’s what got them in this predicament in the first place. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to keep the baby?”

And Luffy, who decided to take another sip, was currently coughing up a lung as he realized what he said.

And for fucks sake, why did Luffy look at him like that-- Like Law was going to hit him just for saying it.

Law sighs, “Your brother found the box under your bed.”

He continues when Luffy wraps his arms around his middle, as if to hide it, “I’m not here to fight, we just need to talk about it.”

They sit in silence. Law sits himself on the couch across from the other, placing ample amount of space between them. Luffy keeps his gaze directed at the wall.

“It’s not practical, I just need to get over it.” Luffy lets out a bark of a laugh, “I’m a goddamn child who can’t even take care of himself! How can anyone trust me to take care of a child? I’d probably accidentally leave it to starve to death or take out my anger on it and whack it around like my dad, right?”

The palms of his hands press into his eyes in an attempt to hide the stupid tears from the other. It’s all his stupid body’s fault for all these stupid changes going on and for growing a baby inside of it. He shouldn’t even be considering this as an option. This is his last way out. He’d already declined the abortion, he can’t decline adoption as well. This baby will go to a loving family where they don’t have to worry about finding a place over their head and free from the judging looks they would surely get if Luffy raised it.

Not like any father in their right mind would stick around after this, so why would Law be any different?

Rubbing his eyes Luffy looks at the other, “Don’t worry I’m not making this your problem as well.”

And Law just stares back, “You think I’d walk away after all of this?”

“You’re a nice guy, but even this is too much for someone to stay and help raise their son.”

Law freezes, “Son?”

And for the first time that day, Luffy gives him the smallest of smiles, “They accidentally told me at the hospital.”

And so Law reaches into his bag and hands a small object to Luffy.

“A key?”

“Pack your shit,” Law says standing up, “Ace said your shitty grandfather is coming home in three days, and I’m making sure you’ll be out of here before then.”

“But where am I even going to stay? I don’t have much saved up and I can’t ask you to-”

“I’m not asking you idiot. Until we decide what exactly the plan is, you’re staying with me.”

And Law leaves it at that. He shares a look with Ace who gives him a small nod from where he was hiding on the stairs. 

He doesn’t have the heart to tell Luffy this was Ace’s plan to keep him safe.

Chapter Text

Ch. 5: Maybe I’m stuck on what I saw on TV

“Ayo Luffy’s here!” Usopp exclaims. 

The door closes loudly behind him as Luffy fully makes his way into the house he’d be spending the next few days. Zoro blinks open his eye and gives him a quick smirk before returning to his mid day nap, while on the opposite side of the room he could hear and smell something being cooked up, which he could only assume was Sanji.

Nami and Robin were seated at the table just outside the kitchen, Nami’s laptop open between the two of them and Luffy assumed they would be finalizing the schedule for this weekend. They both gave him kind smiles.

Frankie popped his head out from one of the guest rooms down the hall, “What's up bro? I’m just finishing up the beds for us guys, Nami was able to get us cots this year so we won't be sleeping on the floor.”

Usopp grimaced, “However she left out the fact that all seven of them would need to be assembled.”

Nami just shrugged, uncaring, “What good are you men if not for physical labor?”

“I keep telling you all she’s an evil witch but you never believe me.” Zoro mumbles.

A water bottle lands harshly on Zoro’s abdomen after Sanji chucked it from the table, where he appeared with refreshments and snacks for the ladies. He gives Luffy a quick nod, but leaves it awkwardly at that.

The two hadn’t had a chance to talk about what happened at the restaurant a few days prior, but this weekend was work, so whatever it was would have to be solved at a later date.

Luffy takes off his crocs by the door and shuffles his way open to the open chair next to Zoro, dropping his backpack and suitcase on the floor. He lets it recline, pulling up one knee to get into a more comfortable position. 

The Air B&B was only about a thirty minute walk from his house, so Luffy decided not to trouble Torao for a ride. Law wasn’t pleased with his decision, since he had to walk through a few not safe streets, but Luffy just rolled his eyes and told him he would be fine. He and Ace grew up in a not great area and learned pretty quickly how to adapt. So, he kept his headphones on, his head straight, and a tight grip on his belongings.

However with the events going on, Chopper was having a rough time accepting that he’d be spending the weekend with Uncle Ace instead of his parents. It wasn’t like he didn’t like Ace, but he’d been having a tough time between breaking his arm and switching his class at school. His life was going through a lot of changes at the moment and it was a lot for a four year old to handle.

Luckily Chopper eventually agreed, with minimal crying, once Ace bribed him with cotton candy.

And while Ace did offer to drop him off, Luffy wanted to let Chopper adjust to him leaving inside of Ace’s house, and not leave him to drive back home with a crying toddler. 

They weren’t set to start until that evening, so it gave everyone time to settle in and get ready for their long hours of constant streaming. It was their nonstop seventy-two hour stream where they raised money for whatever charities the viewers helped decide this time.

Usually these streams happen once every year, however recently with the rise in fame they’ve received, this is the first stream on their new six month schedule. 

He took out his phone to send a quick text to Torao and Ace to let them know he’d gotten there without dying. Ace liked the message almost immediately, but he wouldn’t be expecting a response from his boyfriend for at least a few hours later when he is forced on his break. 

It’s always weird spending a few nights away from Chopper, but these streams were important to Luffy. He’d never expected to gain internet fame like he did, and while he was incredibly grateful to be able to make a living from something that allowed him to be at home with his kid and have flexible hours, he’d preferred to do events like this that actually helped real people out there. 

Out of everyone in their group, he was the one who would do charity streams the most. About once a month he would plan a special stream to raise as much as they could for the local children's hospital, and he’d go there and donate gaming systems and toys for the patients to help distract them from all the chaos in their lives, hopefully bringing a bit of happiness into the bleak hospital.

After all, Luffy spent a bit of time in that very hospital, recovering from his accident which was only a few months before his seventeenth birthday. He knew how boring and suffocating those walls could be and he wanted to help regardless of what those kids were there for.

He was broken out of his thoughts as a “Yo ho ho” is heard from the otherside of the door before Brook enters with a violin case in one hand and his belongings in the other. Brook lets out a raspy cough before joining the others.

Pocketing his phone, he joins the other’s around the table, taking a seat next to the musician, who fails to cover yet another cough.

Sanji rolls his eyes, “You better not get the ladies sick, you pervert.”

“It’s just allergies, I was recently given some flowers from a piano student.” Brook says, and goes to continue but is cut off when Nami commences their pre-stream meeting.

_________________________________________________________________

“This is where you’ll be staying.” Law says as he leads Luffy into the one bedroom in his apartment. 

Luffy sets his one bag of belongings down, “This is your room.”

Law just stares back down at him, “It is.”

“Where will you sleep?” Luffy questions, as if that was the biggest concern in their life at the moment.

There hadn’t really been much to pack from Luffy’s childhood room since he and Ace lived with very few belongings of their own. Most of his clothes didn’t fit him anymore and he couldn’t take any of the furniture with him since it all belonged to his grandfather. 

So, by the next day Luffy had been as ready as he could to go move in with the father of his unborn kid. Anything of importance that Luffy owned was being kept by Ace for the time being since he didn’t want to bring anything extra with him.

“The couch in the living room is a pull out.”

Luffy crossed his arm, “Then why don’t I take it?”

Law rolled his eyes, “Because I didn’t pull out and I’m not going to let a pregnant person take the crappy bed.”

After a moment, Luffy’s eyes widened, and he let out a smile, “Did you just make a joke?”

Law chuckled as he went to clear out some space in his closet, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Luffy took that as his invitation further into the room, and plopped himself onto the full sized bed against the wall. He let out a yawn as he nustled himself into the soft fabric. 

“This place is really nice.” Luffy sighed.

Law scoffed, “I wouldn’t really go that far.”

He looked up at the other with curious eyes, “How come you live alone?”

The older teen paused, before forcing himself to continue his task, “My parents passed away a while back and then so did the guy who adopted me not too long after.”

Law kept the story at that, refusing to say anything more.

“So how do you afford it?” Luffy asked.

He’d looked into apartments like this in the past few weeks and he knew rent could be pricey, especially for a previously unemployed highschooler.

“The government pays for it.” 

“Oh,” Luffy says, “That’s nice.”

“Yeah sure, they didn’t want a kid like me contaminating all the perfectly good adoptable children so they isolate me here rather than a group home.” Law states bitterly.

Luffy sits up, crossing his legs on the bed, and quietly observing the other, “I spent some time in a group home once.”

Law barely peered over his shoulder.

“My dad dropped me off there when I was almost five, and I was there for an entire school year, I think.” Luffy begins picking at the hem of his shirt, “It was a load of crap though, he’d told me I would be there for a week or so while he was off on a work assignment or something, but I think he forgot about me. I hated it there.”

Law finished up in the closet, instead taking a seat at the desk chair across from him, and asked in disbelief, “Was your brother placed with you?”

Luffy shook his head out of his thoughts, “Nah I hadn’t even met him at this point. He lived with Gramps his whole life.”

Law crossed his arms, “Why not with your dad?”

Luffy gave him a confused look and then laughed, “Oh, me and Ace aren’t related.”

“Oh.”

And in all honesty that did shock Law a bit. He hadn’t spent too much time around the siblings but it was clear how much Ace cared for Luffy, and if someone had just met the two no one would assume they weren’t related. They looked similar enough.

“So how’d you end up living with your grandpa?”

Luffy hummed, “Gramps picked me up from the group home after the countless calls he’d received about my behavior.”

“No shit,” Law let out a chuckle, “What’d you do?”

“Tried to sleep in the boys room.” Luffy stated, and Law’s smile turned into a grimace, “My dad wasn’t cool with the whole trans things, and he’d made it very clear when he’d dropped me off that I was a girl. So I’d try and steal the boy’s clothes and school uniforms. The girls hated me for being weird and the boys would kick the shit out of me if I so much as showed my face around their space.”

Luffy leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes, “Gramps picked me up after I’d ended up at the hospital and dropped me right back at my dads.”

“Gotcha.”

The two fell into silence. And Luffy tried to lighten the mood.

“It wasn’t all crap, I had this really cool neighbor. His name was Shanks Akagami.”

That got Law’s attention, “You mean Red Haired Shanks?”

Luffy tilted his head, “You know him?”

Law spluttered, “I mean most people out there know who he is.”

Luffy smiled, “He’s great. I miss him. He used to help patch me up every now and then, and used to let me steal food whenever my dad would leave for a bit.”

Luffy lets his eyes shut for a moment before opening them, “If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.”

“Do I wanna ask?”

Luffy chuckled, “Due to my dad’s job, he has a lot of enemies. So they thought the best way to get back at my dad was to go after me. Except my dad was never home so he didn’t even notice I’d gone missing. Shanks used to have this pretty well known gang in the area, no one really dared go after him, and I’d been lucky he’d noticed.”

Law just stared at him. The more he described his childhood the more he couldn’t deny the shit upbringing the other had had. It was sounding more and more like his own, which he’d locked away and hidden in the back of his brain.

Luffy gave him a tight smile, “I got the scar on my face that day, the guy was video taping to hopefully gain the attention of my dad, and he’d given it to me as motivation. I was a cry baby back then too. I don’t really remember all too much but the guy ended up waterboarding me to try and gain information of where my dad was, but he wasn’t too smart and I ended up practically drowning. Shanks and his crew showed up and called the emergency line and had to be instructed on giving CPR over the phone. Or at least that’s what they told me.”

And if that didn’t make Law feel a million times worse.

“I ended up with Gramps after that. My dad thought it was too much trouble to keep me around.”

Luffy got up and shrugged, “I never got to thank Shanks for saving me. Anyways, where is your bathroom? I really have to pee.”

Law is shocked out of his stupor just enough to reply, “First door on your left.”

Luffy flashed him a thumbs up before disappearing. 

He’d returned back not too long later, with a bag of chips he must have found in Law’s cabinet, “Can I eat this?”

Law rolled his eyes, noticing that he’d already had several chips in his hand, “Go for it.”

They sit in silence once again and Law even begins to pull out his school laptop, opening up the document for his English essay, but found himself stopping, remembering a far more important conversation they should be having.

“Is this why you’re against putting the kid up for adoption?”

The sound of crunching stops, “I mean, probably.”

“And you really think we could do better?”

“I think,” Luffy starts, “That we can at least make sure no one ever lays a hand on our kid. That they won’t be treated like a burden in their household and that at least someone will treat them with the love they deserve.”

And with that, the conversation ends. Law can’t bring himself to reply, instead he forces his attention to the essay in front of him, and when he turns around a little later he finds Luffy asleep, curled into a ball, on his new bed. 

Law wasn’t really sure what would be best for their kid. He himself wasn’t really the best candidate for a parent. But when Luffy put it in such simple terms, he could almost see it. The two of them ensured that this kid never struggled the way they were forced to. 

However, Law wasn’t stupid enough to believe it was that easy.

_________________________________________________________________

They were all seated around the living room on their phones, mic’s clipped on to each shirt as they tapped away on their phones. 

“My bet’s on Luffy being the imposter.”

Luffy lets out a loud gasp, “Rude, Nami, just rude.”

“Let’s not forget how shitty the kid is at lying.” Sanji says, “You just have to ask him straight up.”

Sanji’s avatar calls an emergency meeting.

Nami looks Luffy dead in the eyes, “Luffy, are you the imposter, yes or no?”

He averts his eyes and bites his lip, “... No?”

Sanji sighs, “Yeah, it’s him.”

Luffy pouts, “You guys are so mean.”

Frankie drapes a large arm over him, “Don’t worry one day you’ll learn how to lie like the rest of us.”

Nami keeps her gaze on him, pocketing her phone, deciding this segment of AmongUs has gone on long enough, “Does this mean you really weren’t lying about having sex?”

Luffy almost gets whiplash when he turns to look at her, he was hoping no one would mention it this weekend, but they were already starting strong on night one. It was well after two in the morning, he and a few others would be taking the first shift of sleeping at around four, but after midnight their content was allowed to be a bit more mature for the adults who were awake. It was a shock for Luffy who almost always kept his content pg-13 due to the toddler who would occasionally be in the other room.

His face scrunches up, “Do we really need to talk about this again?”

“Yes.” Nami stated.

“Well I don’t wanna.” Luffy crosses his arms. 

A loud cough interrupts the two, and Luffy finds himself leaning over the chair he’s in to distance himself from the musician.

“Shut it, witch.” Zoro spits out.

Nami ignores him, “How large of a donation do we have to get for you to admit you were lying?”

The room falls quiet as they all see the look in Nami’s eye as she gets a good money making idea. However no one pipes up at that, even Sanji just looks away and bites on the unlit cigarette in his mouth.

“I was a kid, why do you want to know so bad? That’s gross.” Luffy states.

Robin places a hand on her shoulder, “Maybe we should just leave it.”

“Tell you what,” Frankie says with a smirk, his eyes peeking out from over his glasses, “Why don’t we spice things up with a good ol’ game of truth or dare before the kids go to sleep?”

Zoro sits up, “I’ll grab the booze.”

Luffy just rolls his eyes. 

Nami sighs, but rolls with it anyway, “Alright for anyone new here, these are the rules. You have to pick truth or dare, and if you don’t want to answer, you take a shot. Then you ask someone else.”

“Unless you’re me.” Luffy says with a smile, “I don’t drink.”

“You’re nineteen now, why don’t you join us?” Usopp tries, “Plus now we know you drank when you were in highschool.”

Luffy shrugs, “I don’t like the taste.”

Frankie ruffles his hair, “Stop trying to corrupt the kid, we’ll be doing the strike system for you again. Three strikes and you’re out, you have to answer.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Luffy rolls his eyes, “Just stop calling me a kid.”

Zoro places a bottle of vodka on the table between them all, “So, who’s up first?”

Nami assigns them all a number and asks her phone to pick one, “Alright number three you’re up.”

Robin gives a sweet smile, “That would be me.”

She takes a moment to think before turning to her first victim, “Sanji, truth or dare?”

“Truth, I have nothing to hide from you my dear.”

Robin lets out a chuckle, “Have you ever lied to get out of a bad date? If so, what was the lie?”

Sanji lets out a snort as he takes a drag of his cigarette, “Alright, the worst was most likely this very pretty lady a couple months back, I’m not going to share her name.”

A mutter of, “That’s cause she’s fake.”

Ignoring him, he continues, “We were on a first date and she started listing all of her weird turn ons in a relationship. We were in the middle of a fancy restaurant and she started listing what kinks she’s tried out and what she was expecting from me. I got pretty freaked out after she started going into some shit I’ll never repeat and started quoting the bible at her and left, leaving money for the food.”

“Oh good lord.”

“Literally.”

They dispersed into laughter, Luffy spoke up, “Why can you just quote the bible on command?”

Sanji shrugged, “It was something my sperm donor ingrained in my brain a while back. I didn’t know I still could until that date.”

_________________________________________________________________

Law looked over from his school work when he heard the door shut, it was almost one in the morning.

Luffy yawned, “Why are you awake?”

Law just stared back as Luffy pulled a tub of ice cream from the plastic bag he was holding and sat at the kitchen table with him after disappearing to get a spoon.

“I’ve got an anatomy test in the morning, I need to know these definitions.” He said flipping the paper around towards the other.

After eating a spoonful, Luffy flips the paper back around, “I don’t think Ace has ever studied for that class before. I didn’t even know you had tests for that.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t really surprise me.” Law says, turning his attention back to the paper.

“Why do you care so much about it? It’s just a test.” Luffy says, mouth full of food.

Law sighed, “Because I want to be a doctor, and this class is important for that.”

Luffy puts his ice cream down and sticks his hand out towards him, “Can I help?”

Holding back the laugh, Law just stares, confused, “And how would you do that?”

He shrugs, “I’ll ask you questions for the word or the meaning. Sab-Ace used to help me when I was younger with that.”

Deciding he was too tired to call him out on the slip of the tongue, Law hands him he paper, “You get five minutes.”

_________________________________________________________________

They go around for a little while before they land on Robin again, “Luffy truth or dare?”

“Dare.” He says, a smirk on his face.

“I dare you to let us go through your photos and post a picture of our choice to twitter.” Robin says with a light smile.

Luffy grimaces, “I’ll use my first strike.”

Silence.

And then chaos.

Frankie leans down, a shocked look on his face, “Bro what are you hiding in there?”

“Yo ho, got any spicy lady pictures on there?” Brook adds.

His face turns grossed out, “Ew, nothing like that. Just… family stuff.”

Sanji gives him a small glance before turning away, assuming the stuff he was hiding pertained to his ‘secret’ boyfriend. Which wasn't too far off, but still.

Zoro nods at him, “Alright the captain forfeits his turn, Robin, ask someone else.”

_________________________________________________________________

“Is that my shirt?” Law asks, blinking a few times to make sure he wasn’t imaging it.

Luffy glanced down, as if he forgot what he was wearing, then shrugged, “Mine don’t fit.”

Sighing, Law says, “That doesn’t mean you can just take mine.”

“I just need it for when I work, so Dadan doesn’t catch on.” He paused, “And for the mornings at Makino’s Diner.”

Law watches as the other struggles to bend down and tie his worn shoes, “Why don’t you just buy new clothes?”

“Clothes are expensive.” Luffy says, slightly out of breath.

Law thinks for a moment, then says, “Alright, I’ll leave out a pile of old clothes for you before I leave for work later.”

Luffy just gives him a smile.

_________________________________________________________________

They land back on Luffy not too long after, “Alright kid, truth or dare?”

Luffy looks up at Frankie, “I guess, truth.”

Frankie rubs his chin, thinking, “How long were you homeschooled for?”

Luffy visibly brightened when he was able to answer this one, he’d used his other two strikes already. 

“It wasn’t really homeschooling, I just took online courses to get my GED after I dropped out freshman year.” Luffy though for a moment, “I guess I did that for about a year? I got my GED before my sixteenth birthday. Then I started working full time.”

He looked around, seeing various levels of shock on his friends' faces, “... what?”

Frankie looked at him, concerned, “You dropped out of highschool when you were fifteen?”

“Fourteen, why?”

The older members shared looks with each other, as if they were trying to figure out how to breach the question, but no one really knew where to start.

“Why did you drop out?” Brook asked, a surprisingly soft tone to his voice.

Luffy shrugged, trying to figure out how to phrase it, “I needed the money after I got kicked out.”

Which was close enough to the truth despite his Gramps never formally kicking him out, but rather Ace making him leave out of necessity. 

“Do you ever regret it?” Someone asked, Luffy was too lost in his thoughts to figure out who.

Which, god, why does everyone keep asking him that. Say yes, and he’d regret doing what he had to to keep Chopper safe and happy. Say no, and he’d sound like an ungrateful child who would be promoting other kids to drop out of school, which goes against everything he and Torao have done to have Chopper live the life they’ve never had.

“I don’t know.” Luffy says, “I mean it was necessary at the time and I’d never have started streaming and gotten to meet all of you guys, but it was a shitty period of my life and I wasn’t really thinking about the long run.”

They sat in silence for a few moments before Nami spoke up, a tight smile on her face, “Why don’t I go through some of the donations we’ve gotten?”

“Sounds like a great idea, Nami-Swan.” Sanji agrees, “It’s almost time for the first watch anyway.”

Luffy watched with a raised eyebrow, unsure of the change in mood in the room. His teenage years weren’t really that bad when he thought about it. Everything really could have gone so much worse. He’s here now and between him and Torao they are no longer struggling with their finances.

Besides, Ace dropped out not too soon after him and he’s an incredibly well known model who’s able to live a comfortable life with his what-ever-the-hell relationship he has going on with his co-worker Marco.

“And our next donation is from, ‘LuffyAnswerYourDamnPhone’ for two dollars.” Nami pauses, “That seems too specific to be a username, Cap do you have any missed calls?”

That grabs Luffy’s attention as he pulls out his phone from his pocket and he lets out a curse when he realizes he’d accidentally turned his ringer off and had eight missed calls from his brother. 

He wastes no time picking up the next call, “Hi I’m sorry-”

But he pauses when he hears the sniffles of his son in the background and immediately sits up.

“What happened?”

Ace sighs, “I didn’t want to interrupt but he had a bad dream, you got a minute?”

He reaches into his backpack and grabs a pair of headphones, and quietly asks, “Would a video call be better?” 

Luffy fumbles with the headphones as he tries to shove them in his ears, but his crew seemed to pick up on him needing an out for a few minutes, so Usopp quickly disabled and took his mic away, while Nami continued to read out the donations to do damage control with the viewers before the questions could start.

“That’d be great if you could,” Ace says, and Luffy could hear him quietly moving around. 

Sanji grabbed his crocs from the front door and chucked them over towards Luffy so he could successfully slip out the back door. 

Luffy mouths a thank you to his friends before making his way to the far corner of the backyard where there was a small patio with a few chairs. 

He wastes no time switching the call to video, and immediately his phone screen is filled up with the face and torso of his brother as he juggles the phone and the crying toddler in his arms.

“Hey Chop, I’m here.” Luffy says quietly and watches as his son’s eyes focus on the phone in front of him, “You okay?”

“Are you at hopistal?” Chopper makes out around his sniffles.

Luffy tilts his head, “No I’m staying at my friends house, remember? Torao’s at the hospital, but he’s doing his job there.”

“You no sick?” Chopper asks with a wobbly lip.

And Luffy just shakes his head as his breath catches in his own chest. Unfortunately this has happened a lot in the last couple years after the accident and Luffy’s various infections he’s suffered before they started him on his dose of daily antibiotics.

They explained it to Chopper as best they could, and reminded him of it when needed, but with his recent visit to the hospital and both parents out of the house it probably made it pop back up.

“Nope, I’m all healthy.” Luffy says with a small smile, “I promise.”

Chopper shifts on Ace’s chest, “You pwomise?”

Luffy raises his pinky, “Yup I pinky promise.”

They sit in silence as Luffy lets Chopper accept that everything is okay. Eventually once Chopper has fallen back asleep on top of his uncle, Luffy hangs up and calls back without the video.

“Sorry he woke you up.” Luffy mutters.

Ace snorts, “You really think I was asleep?”

Luffy feels himself roll his eyes, “You should be with all the sleeping spells you’ve had lately.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try and nap tomorrow when he does.” Ace sighs, “Law called on his break to make sure Chopper was okay so I was awake from that.”

Luffy hums, “Did he say anything specific?”

“Not really,” He hears Ace shift, most likely to accommodate the toddler sleeping on top of him, “Apparently his hospital buddies have been teasing him about you.”

Ace continues after a moment, “They’re jealous of how soft he is with you.”

Luffy snorts, leaning back in the chair, “He is not soft with me.”

HIs brother scoffs but Luffy hangs up abruptly right after he hears the back door shut and he notices Zoro making his way over to him. 

He sits in the seat next to him, and Luffy sees his own phone light up with a text from Ace just saying “Rude gn :P”

“You good?” Zoro starts.

“Mhm, Ace just needed help with something real quick.”

Zoro looked unimpressed, “He needed help at four in the morning?”

Luffy shrugged.

His friend sighed, relaxing into the seat, “Did something happen between you and the cook?”

Luffy straightened up in his seat, “What do you mean?”

“Exactly that,” Zoro’s eye glanced up at the dark night sky, “Usually he showers you with food, but all he’s done so far is ignore you.”

Luffy shrugs again, playing with the hem on his sweatshirt.

“Don’t take what everyone’s saying to heart.” 

Luffy turn, confused.

“About the virginity shit, whether you’re lying or not we shouldn’t have made that crap important on stream.” Zoro crossed his arms.

“I mean it’s not exactly a secret, and it’s in the past so who cares.” Luffy sighs, “I just don’t get why everyone seems so stuck on it.”

Zoro just hums.

“I ran into Sanji at his restaurant the other day.” Luffy states, “He kept bringing it up in front of the friends I was with, really hammering in the fact that I was a kid.”

Luffy looked over at his first real friend, “Like I get it, I’m the baby of the group you all tell me this. I really don’t care about that. But I’m nineteen and I’m not a child . So it doesn’t make sense to me why you all get so bothered by it.”

Looking back over at him, Zoro finally responds, “I’m not going to talk on behalf of all those idiots in there, I couldn’t tell you what the fuck is going through their heads.”

Luffy deflates.

“But,” Zoro starts again, “From what I can see, you keep so much private and you’re the most popular out of the group so it seems a lot like you haven’t been tainted by all the same shit that we have, and I at least want it to stay that way.”

Pulling his legs to his chest, Luffy inhales, “That’s what Sanji said, too.”

Zoro mutters a curse under his breath, “And then you share shit like losing your virginity when you were fourteen, and we all sit here wondering if you were forced into it.”

Luffy laughs, “That was what Ace first thought too. I wasn’t just so you know. It was just unfortunate timing with everything.”

“Is that why you don’t like booze?”

A cold breeze flows between them both and Luffy turns his gaze back up towards the sky, “You aren’t mic’d up right?”

“You think I’d do that to you?”

“No.”

Luffy’s phone vibrates again, lighting up with a text from Torao saying his shift was over and he was taking a nap for as long as he could in the staff room. He texts back a “sleep well :)” before turning it off.

“I have this ex. I was sixteen at the time, and she was twenty-eight.” Luffy starts, ignoring the sharp intake in his friend’s breath, “Whenever I didn’t want to stay the night or get intimate with her, she would get me to drink with her instead, waiting until I would become more ‘agreeable.’”

“Fuck, Cap.”

Luffy rests his chin on his knees, a serious look on his face, “Yeah it was a crap situation. I really don’t want to get into it anymore than that. But yeah, I don’t like the feeling when I drink because it reminds me too much of her.”

He hasn’t been able to finish a drink since. 

“Alright.” Zoro stands up, “I’ve got your back the next time they ask about it.”

Luffy flashes him a bright smile, standing up as well, “Thanks, Zoro.”

His friend throws an arm over his shoulder, “If anyone tries to question you about the schooling shit, let me know I’ll take care of it. It’s time for us to take a nap anyway.”

Looking at his phone Luffy let out a curse when he realized it was almost five at that point.

Zoro leads him to the door, “I saved the cot next to mine in the corner so you’d be able to grab at least a few hours without their questions.”

And while Luffy hated thinking of Boa and that time, he could feel a weight lift off his shoulders when he talked to Zoro. The way he didn’t question him further and just accepted it and how it was, it was… nice. It was something Luffy wasn’t used to in those besides the obvious. 

As they make their way back into the house, saying a good night to those still awake, Luffy doesn’t even bother changing before he passes out.

_________________________________________________________________

“Traffy wake up.” Luffy whined, shoving Law slightly with his leg, “C’mon.”

Law groaned at the abrupt wake up, “Are you or the fetus dying?”

“No, but it feels like I am.” Luffy says, plopping himself onto the bed with the other.

Rubbing his eyes, Law turns on the lamp next to him. So much for a nap before work.

“What the hell does that mean?”

He watches as Luffy fidgets and mumbles his response as he looks away.

“If you woke me up for nothing I-” He cuts himself off with a sigh and forces himself to be patient, “Just tell me.”

“Can we have sex?” Luffy blurts out.

Law just stares back at him, “You… what?”

“I just really need to, I dunno, do something about it. I thought you could help.”

He squints at him, “What do I have to do with you being horny?”

Luffy crossed his arms, “I looked it up, it's the cause of this baby you put inside me.”

“Well yes, hormones can do that. But you can take care of that yourself.” Law said unamused.

Muttering, Luffy says, “I tried but it didn’t help.”

“I’m not having sex with you.”

Law rolled over but Luffy wasn’t finished.

“Why not?” He asks, “You slept with me before, obviously.”

Law abruptly sits up, and laughs, “I slept with you because I was high out of my mind. I’m not a fucking faggot like you.”

The air stills between them. 

Luffy scoffs and slams the door to the bedroom, the click of the lock sounds out, leaving Law to sit in horror to take in just what he’d just said to the man he’d knocked up.

Lifting up his shaking hand, Law forces it into a fist and slams it into the wall beside him, not even flinching as he hears a painting fall from the wall and the angry yells from the neighbor.

But that’s what he really was, wasn’t it?

The same thing he’s been trying to chase out of himself all these years.

However, the proof lies in front of him, over five months pregnant, the man that he’d slept with, trans or not.

But at the end of the day he was the same as the kid he’d knocked up.

Gay. Homosexual. Fag. Whatever you want to call it.

He forces himself up and grabs his keys, deciding he needs to run, get away as quickly as he can. Outside of this stupid apartment where no one knows the truth. 

He quickly ran down the stairs, the elevator was too slow and had a mirror inside. He didn’t need to look at himself to know that he was a hypocrite.

That he was truly no different than the man who he’d turned to after his parents died. 

It’s not until he’s in his car that he realizes he can't breathe.

Chapter Text

6. I thought that birds would sing and sparks would fly. But it’s just quiet.

When Luffy woke up on the third day, he wheezed suddenly, struggling to catch his breath. Grabbing at the scar underneath his T-shirt he tried to take deep breaths, but quickly realized that only made the sharp pain worsen. 

Fuck .

Using his foot he quickly kicks it as hard as he could into Zoro’s body next to him, who groans, but quickly blinks his eyes open once Luffy kicks him again. 

His eyes widen as he sees his best friend struggling to breathe. 

“Backpa-” Luffy tries to croak out but is cut off when his small body is wracked with crackling coughs.

Zoro wastes no time shooting up and out of bed, rushing into the filming room and on camera, despite being in nothing but a pair of boxers. 

He rushes back in with a frazzled Sanji following behind, “Oi, mosshead you can’t just-”

His eyes widen when he hears Luffy let out another few coughs. 

“Do you have an inhaler in your bag?” Sanji quickly asks, remembering Luffy’s ‘asthma’ reaction only a few days earlier.

Luffy nods and Sanji quickly starts digging through the bag, pausing only when he pulls out an orange prescription pill container. He takes a glance at the younger one, freezing as he watches Luffy’s eyes widen in fear, realizing that he was screwed.

He’d forgotten to take his medication.

Which shouldn't be too much of an issue since he’d done it before, unless he was around someone with an obvious infection.

And for fucks sake, it seems Brook didn’t just have allergies.

Luffy knew at this point his inhaler wouldn’t do anything, since he was struggling to take deep breaths. The medication wouldn’t be able to help. And he hadn’t brought his nebulizer because he hadn’t thought he’d need it on a three day vacation only a few towns from his house. 

He’d felt a tickle in his throat yesterday and some minor discomfort in his chest but brushed it off because he could usually handle a stupid cold, when he was on his medication.

Zoro tries to get his attention by putting the inhaler in front of him, but Luffy just shakes his head and tries to stand up, only getting extremely lightheaded and would have fallen on his face if he wasn’t there to catch him. 

“Shit, cook, grab your car.” Zoro starts, and before Luffy could protest another set of coughs wracks his body and when he pulls his hand away, he freezes when he sees it red with blood.

Slinging an arm over his own shoulders, Zoro quickly leads Luffy out of the room and down the hall, pausing whenever the other’s wheezing would increase, keeping his eye trained on his friend's face. 

Nami cracked open the door to the girl’s room, concern clear on her face, but he paid no attention as they finally reached the filming room. 

The stream was set to a break screen, all of the mics muted when Usopp tries to help Zoro but decides to open the door instead, “Dude what happened?”

Sanji’s car is on and waiting on the street in front of them.

Zoro’s jaw tightens, “I have no idea.”

He takes Luffy and places him in the back seat with him, careful to buckle him up, afraid to leave him alone. 

Sanji starts to pull out of the neighborhood, passing his phone to the back seat, “What hospital does he work at?”

Keeping one hand on his aching chest, Luffy grabs the phone with the other, typing out the name of the hospital.

Zoro helps hand the phone back to Sanji, asking, “Who?”

Sanji doesn’t answer, he just steps on it. 

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy walked in after his morning shift, the apartment quiet since the other was still at school. He let out a sigh as he took off his sneakers, catching his breath as he stood up, grimacing at the pounding headache behind his eyes. 

His stomach churns at the thought of food and decides to take a shower instead, having a few hours before he’s due at Dadan’s. 

Law wouldn’t be home for another three hours, leaving him with free reign of the apartment until then. They’ve been more or less avoiding each other for the past two weeks, however it allowed Luffy to get in a few more hours of work in, especially since he’d entered his third trimester.

He’s been trying to keep Law’s words out of his head but it was a futile effort. He’s been called slurs before, this was far from the first time. But, he’d thought they’d finally reached a point of understanding with each other, that there was a possibility of raising this baby together, rather than throwing them in an orphanage or with some random family.

But like most things in his life, Luffy was wrong.

He’d turned off the water after washing his hair, blinking away a black spot in the corner of his vision. However, before he could think about it the pressure in his head just increased.

Barely throwing on a pair of shorts and a random shirt from the ground, Luffy collapses in the bed, wishing for sleep to take him. 

And at some point, he wakes up, a stabbing pain in his stomach, his hand wasting no time to feel for the baby’s kicks, relieved when he feels movement. Then, his stomach churns and he finds himself sprinting as fast as he could to the bathroom. 

Unfortunately after he threw up, the pain only seemed to increase. 

Alone, he curled up on the cold tile floor.

_________________________________________________________________

Law was taking a twenty minute nap in the on-call room, enjoying the little sleep he could get before he had to do his rotations again. However, the day had other plans when he was awoken by a sudden shaking of his shoulder. He groans and rolls over.

“Luffy’s in room 13.” The voice says, shaking continuing.

He shoots awake, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as fast as he could, “What?”

Penguin grabbed his arm pulling him out of the cot, Law pulled away once they were in the hallway, “Monkey D. Luffy was admitted due to sudden chest pain, bloody coughs, and what we assume to be fluid in his lungs. He has a fever of 104.2 and a BP of 80/50.”

When he got no response from his coworker, Penguin looked over, seeing the most worried look he’d seen on his friend's face before. Not even when his son was brought in for his broken arm was he this worried.

Law just quickened his pace, down the hallway, cursing as he checked his watch seeing that he’d only had ten minutes left in his break. 

“You were listed as his emergency contact so we figured you would be able to help with his medical history since his two friends don’t seem to know anything.” Penguin says quickly as they appear at the door. 

When he walks in, there's a nurse taking a blood sample through a placed IV in Luffy’s arm and his two friends sitting like watch dogs next to him. There’s an oxygen tube attached to his nose to make sure he’s breathing, but Law knows that’s the most they’re going to do until they get a chest CT scan and the blood test results.

Luffy looks at him relieved and tries to give a small smile, wheezing, “Sorry.”

Ignoring the looks of the green headed guy, Law just walks up to him, running a gentle hand through his hair, “Hey, what happened?”

“Don’t touch him.” Zoro states, glaring, “Pretty sure that crosses a professional line.”

Luffy grimaces and goes to answer, but is cut off by a small coughing fit, and Law places a light hand on his chest. 

“That’s his boyfriend.” Sanji fills in, still watching with a sharp eye, brow furrowed. 

Zoro scoffs, a retort on his lips but he stops when he sees a serious expression on the cook’s face, “Wait, actually?”

Law ignores him, turning back to his boyfriend once the coughing subsides, and the nurse finishes setting up his IV fluids, leaving with the vials of blood. Penguin looks at him from the computer, waiting.

“Any ideas on what’s going on?” Law tries again, a soft tone in his voice.

Luffy takes a deep breath, and frowns, “Forgot to take my medication.”

Law nods, “He’s on Penicillin 250 milligrams, twice a day. Have you taken any since the stream started?”

Luffy looks away, and Law sighs and turns to the others, “Is anyone sick in your group?”

No response.

“Think, is anyone coughing, sneezing? Especially someone he’s been around? It would have had to be someone in that house with you guys.” Law tries again.

Zoro gives Sanji the side eye, and Sanji says, “Brook had a pretty raspy cough the first day but he claimed it was just allergies.”

Law turned to give a glare at Luffy, “You should know better.”

Luffy’s shoulders deflate and Zoro gets up and glares at the other, “Listen, he doesn’t need this shit from you right now. He’s sick, that’s not his goddamn fault.”

Law glares back, rolling his eyes, “It is his fault when he had his spleen removed two years ago and takes that medication to prevent situations like this from occurring.”

The others just stare in shock as Penguin gets fed up and says, “Trafalgar, patient history.”

Sighing and restraining his frustration, Law puts on a tight smile, “Thank you for bringing him here, you guys should head back to the house and start damage control. I’ll make sure to have him keep you updated.”

Sanji joins Zoro standing up, “You’re kicking us out?”

Law stares back, unaffected, “Yes, I am. I don’t need to explain his medical history in front of you, you’re not emergency contacts or family.”

“This is ridiculous, do you want us to leave too, Cap?” Zoro tries again.

Luffy guiltily nods his head. 

Zoro takes in the words before turning for the door, his face falling, “Right.”

Sanji heads after him before he gets lost, “Do you need anything from the house?”

“I’ll pick it up after my shift ends, or whenever Ace can get here.” Law says, “Make sure your buddy doesn’t tell the whole internet, Blackleg.”

Sanji glares back, muttering, “He practically worships your boyfriend. I highly doubt that he would, even if he is an idiot.”

The door clicks behind him and Law lets out the breath he was holding, taking a seat in the now unoccupied chair next to him.

_________________________________________________________________

When Law returned home after school, he was shocked at the sneakers by the door, Luffy always seems to be out at work these days.

However, before he could discard his own shoes, he noticed the door to the bedroom was open. He dropped his backpack and cautiously walked to the room, seeing it completely unoccupied.

“Luffy?” Law called over his shoulder as he turned back into the hallway, the light was on in the bathroom, the door was open a crack. 

“Luffy? Are you there?” He tried again, ignoring the panic rising in his chest. 

Biting back his pride of walking in on Luffy possibly on the toilet, he poked his head in the room, the door crashing open when he saw Luffy passed out on the floor, with what looked to be vomit smeared on his lips. 

Thoroughly panicked now, Law wastes no time bending over, checking for a pulse, and relieved to find one as well as steady breathing. 

Luffy’s eyes cracked open, surprised to find the man who seemingly hated him, cleaning his face with a damp towel.

He groaned as another sharp pain shot through his abdomen.

“Shit, alright, we’re going to the hospital.” Law grunts as he picks the younger kid off the floor, cradling him bridle style, feeling tears start to soak through his T-shirt.

_________________________________________________________________

“Alright, let's start with the basics, list of medications, besides what you’ve told me.” Penguin starts.

Law shuts his eyes, hating that he had to out his boyfriend under these circumstances, “He’s on testosterone, and an albuterol inhaler as needed.”

Penguin takes it in stride, not even pausing as he types it in, and Law feels his body relax just slightly at the thought of his friend not immediately turning against Luffy. 

Watching the stats flash on the multiple screens by his bed, Law grabs his hand rubbing soft circles onto the back of it. He really hated seeing Luffy like this, dependent on others, in pain, unwillingly sharing his information, really any of it.

He knew Luffy could share this himself, but Law knew it would only cause more strain on his chest and breathing, and Luffy seemed more content to rest his eyes as best he could at the moment, before the other testing began.

“List of surgical procedures he’s had?” Penguin asks.

“He had a C-section when he was fourteen, and then two years later he had emergency surgery after getting in a car accident. It’s what resulted in him losing his spleen, they also had to do open heart surgery after having several shards of glass in his chest cavity.” Law sighs, “Then he had reconstruction surgery to lessen the scar tissue and take out the infected breast tissue after the accident.”

That causes the typing to stop for a moment, but just slightly, “Anything else? Wisdom teeth? Bottom surgery?”

Law shook his head, “No.”

Luffy begins coughing, before starting to wheeze heavily, and Law abruptly helps him into an upright position, grabbing tissues once he notices the blood quickly staining his partner's hand.

Penguin finishes up on the computer, and enters in the information displayed on the few screens and signs, “I’ll see if any of the other’s can pick up your rotation, do you want coffee?”

And Law forces himself to speak up, “I’ll be fine for-”

“You’ll be keeping an eye on him in the meantime, and besides having you work right now would only cause distraction.” Penguin looks him in the eye, “Coffee?”

“Please.” Law croaks.

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy forces himself to keep his eyes open despite the pounding in his head.

There’s nurses around him, feeling his legs and taking his blood pressure. He faintly registers the prick in his elbow as they set up an IV, but he’s more focused on trying to figure out what the fuck was happening.

“How many weeks along are you?” Someone asks, smearing goo on his stomach and quickly finding the heartbeat. 

Luffy blinks trying to remember what today's date was, but all he could think about was the fact that there was still a heartbeat. 

“Twenty-five weeks.” He hears Traffy answer. 

Right. He’s here.

The doctor appears at some point after, “We believe you have preeclampsia, I’m going to give you something to lower your blood pressure to see if it helps.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Law asks.

The doctor takes a moment, after injecting the medication through the IV, “Let’s just focus on lowering the blood pressure for now. Many of her symptoms-”

“His.” Law interrupts.

The doctor sighs, “The symptoms seem to correlate directly to the raise in blood pressure. If we can get that under control then we’ll assess how to ensure her-”

“His.” Law says sharper this time. 

“She is currently at risk of-”

“Get him another doctor.” Law states.

Luffy watches from the bed and mutters, “It’s alright.”

“No.” Law grits his teeth, “It is not.”

Addressing the doctor again, “He needs another doctor. Make sure this time that it’s someone who isn’t a transphobic piece of shit.”

The doctor leaves, and Luffy just stares.

_________________________________________________________________

When Penguin returns with a cup of crappy hospital coffee, Law is in the room alone. He assumes Luffy is out for a CT.

“Thanks.” He mutters.

He takes a seat next to his friend, sitting in silence.

“Listen,” Law starts, staring at his cup, “You can say whatever shit you want to me, but if you dare try and start shit with Luffy while he’s sick. Just…”

He sighed, taking a sip, “Just treat him like a man.”

Penguin raises an eyebrow, “What else would I treat him like?”

“You know.”

The two sit in silence, and Penguin just stares, watching the muscles tighten in his friend's jaw. He hated the way it looked as if he was tightening up to get punched on the jaw.

Penguin sighs, straightening out his legs, “He’s the one you got pregnant, right?”

“Yeah.” Law mutters, listening as his friend curses under his breath, “Like I said, say what you want. Just wait until he’s out of this hospital.”

Silence, and then he says softly, “I just… I need him to be okay.”

“Law I’m going to be completely honest with you,” Penguin starts, and Law freezes, “I genuinely couldn’t care any less that he’s trans. It’s not my business or Shachi’s or Bepo’s. I really don’t think they’d care either.”

Law takes another sip, listening.

“If anything, the only thing I’m mad about is that you didn’t tell us before.” He says, “You don’t have to do everything in this world alone, you know.”

And Law can’t help the chuckle that grows in his chest, “He says the same thing.”

“You should listen to him more.” Penguin gives a small smile.

“As if.” Law mumbles.

The door opens, Luffy giving him thumbs up as the nurse wheel’s him back in and Law gets up to help get him back into the bed. Penguin claps a hand on his shoulder before leaving to continue his shift.

_________________________________________________________________

The next doctor that walks in greets the two of them before taking a minute to look at his chart.

“Right, so it appears that you seem to have high blood pressure due to preeclampsia.” The doctor continues, “It’s been a while since the medication was administered, how are you feeling?”

Luffy takes a breath, glancing around the room, “My head hurts less.”

“Alright,” The doctor walks up to him and begins feeling his ankles and calves, “The swelling appears to be lessening as well.”

Law glances at her, “Meaning?”

The doctor gives him a small smile, “That this is the best case scenario we were hoping for.”

She takes off her stethoscope and starts listening to his lungs, “Deep breath now. And again.”

Listening to a few other points, she places the instrument back over her shoulders, “Good. There doesn’t seem to be any fluid build up in the lungs either.”

Then she sighs, “Usually with cases of preeclampsia the best case option is to deliver the baby. However, it would be dangerous and most likely fatal to deliver the baby this early.”

Luffy’s face drops from the slightly hopeful look on it, and he slides a gentle hand onto his stomach, “What can I do to help?”

“Well,” She starts, “You’ll need to follow up with your OBGYN to discuss your treatment plan more in depth, but right now our focus is on keeping you, the father, safe, and ensure your life isn’t in risk.”

Law feels his shoulders relax at the wording.

“But what did I do to cause this?” Luffy asks, looking down, “What did I do to hurt the baby?”

“There really isn’t any direct cause that you could have prevented,” She says softly, “One of the factors that may have contributed is that this is your first pregnancy and your young age. But this could happen to anyone who is carrying a child.”

Law watches as Luffy wraps his arms protectively around his middle, as if trying to shield his stomach. 

“I’d like to keep you here for observation for another hour or so, just to make sure your blood pressure doesn’t spike again, but I’m going to write you a prescription to keep that under control.” She clicks a few boxes on the computer, “The second item I’d like to follow up on, is your baby’s development. Everything seems to be okay at the moment, however I’d like to try and expedite the progression slightly, since it’s likely you won’t be able to carry the baby to term.”

She uses her key to unlock a cabinet, “This is a type of anti-inflammatory medication that will help speed up the development of your baby’s lungs.”

Pulling out a syringe and vial, she quickly measured out the dose, “You’ll need to receive a second dose within the next twenty four hours. If you are unable to meet with your OBGYN within that time come back in.”

_________________________________________________________________

At around eight in the morning, Law watches Luffy’s phone light up with a message from Ace. But he quickly moves it off the hospital bed to keep from waking Luffy up. 

Grabbing his own phone, Law makes his way into the hallway to call him.

“That’s scary timing, Law, I was just saying good morning to-”

“I know.” Law cuts him off, pulling down the mask he was wearing in the room, “He’s with me at the hospital.”

A crash is heard from the otherside, before he hears him call Tony over for his breakfast, then his voice lowered, “What’s going on?”

Law sighed, “He has pneumonia. One of his friends was sick and he forgot about his medication.”

“Wonderful.” Ace says sarcastically, “How is he doing?”

Before he could begin to spit out medical terms, he takes a breath, reminding himself that his shift ended two hours ago and this wasn’t work.

“He’s uncomfortable but okay.” He starts, “They started him on antibiotics a few hours ago, but they’re keeping him here because of his fever and bloody mucus. I’m not sure when they’re going to discharge him, they’re waiting to see his response to the medications. If he starts getting fluid in his lungs or his fever stays then he’ll be in here a bit longer.”

Ace just listens, “Alright, want to switch out?”

Law blinks, “What?”

“You’ve been at that hospital for over a day, dude. You need to go home and sleep. And probably shower. I’d bet money that you stink.” Ace says.

He pauses, waiting for the people in the hallway to pass, “I don’t want him to be here alone, he doesn't do well in hospitals.”

“Well duh, that’s why I would come and sit with him. Make sure he’s okay, keep him company and all that jazz.”

He gets a few stares from coworkers that know him, so he lowers his voice, “Tony can’t know-”

Ace sighs, “Trafalgar, you seriously need sleep if you think I don’t know that. We both know that this isn’t my first rodeo with all this. I’ll get Marco to watch him while you go home for a while and take care of yourself, and grab anything Lu may need.”

“Don’t bother Mar-”

Paying no attention, Ace says, “Right see you in an hour.”

Law rolls his eyes as he is hung up on and pockets his phone. 

Shachi catches his eye from down the hall, a confused look plastered on his face as Bepo follows behind, “What are you doing here, your shift ended two hours ago, go home dude.” 

“Don’t worry I will be once Luffy’s brother gets here.” Law leans against the wall behind him.

“Luffy?” Shachi questions, “Is he… alright?”

“As alright as someone could be with a missing spleen and pneumonia.”

The two flinch as they realize what he said, Bepo pipes in, “You’re not on the schedule anymore today right?”

He shakes his head, “No this weekend of hell is over, thank god. His brother is forcing me out to get some sleep but I’ll be back later.”

Shachi pauses for a moment, “Wait, is this the mysterious brother no one’s seen before?”

And Law freezes, forgetting that Shachi and Penguin used to watch Luffy’s videos in the breakroom together. It also means that they could add to the fuck load of problems and damage control that has to be done.

“Don’t even try and tweet about anything or anyone you see in that room.” Law glares, his eyebags quite apparent on his face.

And Shachi looked hurt at that, “You really think I’d do that to you?”

Law doesn’t respond, instead he presses his palms into his hands, “I don’t know at this point, there's a lot going on.”

“First off, fuck you Trafalgar for thinking so low of me.” Shachi states, “Second of all, if I really wanted to do that don’t you think I would have outed him online already?”

Shachi and Bepo get called away not too long later, telling Law to come get them if Luffy needed anything else. 

Taking one last breath, he pulls his mask back over his face and enters the room. Honestly he wasn’t really worried about catching anything from his boyfriend, but the doctor mentioned it and Luffy glared at him until he agreed.

The bed was still set up in a more upright position to help with the coughing and he’d finally fallen asleep after his first breathing treatment. Law walks up to him quietly and starts to softly rub at his hair. Luffy nestles slightly into the touch and Law bends down to place a soft kiss to his head.

Seeing Luffy in the hospital never gets any easier. It wasn’t the first time, and unfortunately he doubted it would be the last. Luffy was strong, after everything Law never doubted him for a second. Regardless, his body constantly puts him at a disadvantage, and Law always fears the possibility that there is a day he has to return home to Tony and tell him his dad wouldn’t be coming home from the hospital.

And Law supposes that all he can be grateful for is that today isn’t that day.

Removing his hand, he picks up Luffy’s phone and opens discord to the Straw Hat Crew chat.

Loof:

Luffy is doing okay. 

He’s currently sleeping.

This is Traffy btw.

And within twenty seconds three people begin typing.

Queen Nami:

Can you give us any less information?

Mr. Prince:

When will you be here for his stuff?

OldManBrook:

Please pass on my apologies, I never wanted him to get sick.

Zorororo:

When will he be back?

Law rolls his eyes before answering.

Loof:

1. Luffy can decide later on what he wants to tell you guys. Not my problem.
2. Ace is coming by the hospital at around 9. I’ll head over then.
3. Whatever old man, make sure it doesn’t happen again.
4. Hopefully he’ll be out of the hospital tonight, but probably tomorrow morning.

Queen Nami:

What should we tell the viewers?

At first, Law wants to tell them all to go fuck off, that this isn’t something to be trending on twitter like he knew it was. That it wasn’t some form of entertainment, that it was private. 

But unfortunately he knew better. He also knew that Luffy wasn’t nearly as jaded as he was.

Loof:

Tell them he’s doing fine, and that he’ll update them when he can. 

Say he’s sorry for the cause for concern.

And then, tell them the truth.

He had his spleen removed a few years back so he’s more susceptible to infection.

If you want anything more than that you’ll have to wait for him to tell you.

And Law knew Luffy would be a bit upset at everyone finding out about the missing spleen, but out of all his procedures it was the least problematic to share.

Putting the phone back down after that he allowed himself to try and close his eyes for a few minutes until Ace arrived.

_________________________________________________________________

“So,” Luffy’s OBGYN starts, “The ideal goal is to try and get you to twenty-eight weeks.”

She pulls out a vial that Law recognizes from the hospital, preparing the injection.

“That is going to give us the most realistic date and best opportunity for your fetus.” She says, “I’d like you to come in once a week until then, just to make sure you and the baby are okay.”

Luffy nods, eyes squinting in discomfort as the needle pokes through the skin.

“However, if you start feeling any of the symptoms again, call us immediately or go to the hospital.” She discards the syringe, “I’ll give you another dose of this in two weeks if you haven’t had the baby by then. Once we get to the goal I’d recommend going in for a C-section.”

She sighs and Law listens, “That being said, you both should finalize your plans for the baby very soon. We’re going to think positive here, so either get that nursery ready or set up a family for adoption.”

Luffy pulls his shirt back over his stomach, “Right.”

She ends the appointment not too soon after, and Law thanks her before heading back to the car with Luffy.

The two sit in silence until they reach their apartment parking lot. However, before Luffy could get out, Law speaks up.

“I’m gay.”

Luffy freezes, hand on the door handle, slowly turning to look at him.

“I’ve known I was gay since I was a kid.” He continues, “My parents passed away with my younger sister when I was ten. The government set off an experimental disease in my city a few decades back and it slowly killed all of the residents.”

Closing his eyes, Law avoids looking the other in the eye, “I was supposed to die there too, but I got caught up in this well known gang, hoping to live my last few days getting revenge on the people who took everything away from me. The leader, Doflamingo, essentially was grooming me to be his second in command.”

He scoffed, “I was a kid, I didn’t know better. His brother was named Corazon. He’s the reason I didn’t die from that disease. He was the only good thing that came out of my choice to join them that day.”

Luffy just sits in silence listening, not even fidgeting. And Law can’t remember the last time he saw him like that, but he forced himself to continue.

“This disease had a known treatment the whole time. The government just never wanted us to know.” Law breathes out, rambling, “It was pure luck that Cora used to be a marine and had ties with someone who was in upper command, someone who was able to get his hand on the treatment. He saved my life.”

Law gripped the steering wheel, “Once he was sure I wasn’t dying anymore, Cora had plans to give up all the secrets of his brother to the marines so he could get me out of that life. But, the marine I’d gone to for help one day, turned out to be working for Doflamingo. And that same night, Cora left me with the one marine he trusted with his life, and went to talk to his brother.”

“The next morning I was called into the police station to identify his body.”

Law tried to get the courage to look at the kid next to him, but he saved him the trouble.

“This Doffy guy sounds like he’s a shithead.” Luffy says plainly.

And Law can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in his throat.

“Oh he’s horrible.”

“But,” Luffy starts, “I’m confused, what does this have to do with you being gay?”

And Law does not respond for a minute.

“I mean I’m happy you’re talking to me again and not shutting me out-”

Law cuts him off, “Doflamingo saw me kiss a guy when I was thirteen.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, he’s gotten this far he can just finish it off, “He told me that it was the most disgusting sight he’s ever witnessed, and that he needed to fix me. So he grabbed another one of the kids in the group, we knew her as Baby 5. She was a few years older, and he set us up to get rid of the misinformation in my head.”

“She was more than happy to have her way with me,” Law stated, “The entire time she made sure to tell me that this was the right way, the only way.”

“So he made her basically rape you?” Luffy bluntly asks.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Luffy says, “I’m sorry.”

And out of everything he could have said, that was far from what Law was expecting. He was expecting yelling, cursing, blaming him, but having Luffy apologize for the people of his past, that wasn’t it.

“Then,” Luffy paused, “Do you see me as a girl?” 

Law whipped his head around so quickly, and Luffy flinched, “Why the hell would I see you as a girl?”

Luffy just gestures to his lower half, “That’s why you slept with me, right?”

“Actually no,” Law gives him a tight smile, “I let my guard down a bit too much that night and slept with you because I knew you were a guy. I didn’t realize you were trans until we were starting to go at it. For the obvious reason.”

Luffy let out a small laugh, “Yeah that happens.”

They sit in silence for a few moments before Luffy speaks up again, “I really want to raise him.”

Law looks at him in disbelief, “Really? Even after how fucked up of a person I am you really think this is best?”

He gives him a bright smile, “If anything it’s more reason why we should. To make sure he lives his life far away from those terrible people in the world. If we give him up, there are too many what ifs. I don’t want him to be abused or bullied or fear he won’t be accepted. He’s a baby, he doesn't deserve that. I want him to grow up knowing what love is.”

And Law’s breath catches in his throat.

“Alright. Then I guess we’re having a baby.”

Chapter Text

Ch. 7: Am I cruel? Or am I ignorant?

“You look like crap.”

Law wakes up from his slight nap, blinking his eyes open to the sight of Ace standing over him, a tight smile on his face that looked more like a smirk. A bag of food is lightly dropped on his lap as he sighs and sits next to him.

“Sure, I’ll hold your food for you, Portgas.” Law rolled his eyes and prepared to stand up, but the other just threw his arm around him.

“It’s for you to eat, dumbass.” Ace glared, looking him in the eyes, “I’m willing to bet you haven’t had anything to eat in the last fourteen hours or so, and Lu would kill me if I let you starve yourself while he’s in here.”

Removing his arm, Ace sighs, continuing, “Have you heard from the others on his crew?”

“Kind of. I was messaging them from his phone earlier. I more or less just appeased them until he’s able to answer himself later on.” Law says, opening the bag of food, terrified for what would be inside.

A bottle with the words Whitebeard Agency printed on the outside was transparent and held some kind of pink shake inside, as well as a few misshapen pancakes and sliced banana pieces with chocolate chips. It smelled better than any of the food he’s had that entire weekend.

“Chop helped, he said he picked out all the best pancakes for you. And they’re gluten free, don’t worry.” Ace says with a hint of amusement in his voice. 

And Law couldn’t help the smile that filled his face, as he imagined his son pointing out the shapes to him, “He always does.”

Without wasting any more time, Law picks up the fork and dives into the pancakes, and the two sit in silence for a moment.

Ace leans his head against the wall behind them and sighs as he glances at the ceiling, “How bad was it this time?”

Law finishes chewing and takes a swig of the shake to avoid answering. It was strawberry.

“I saw the clips online, they didn’t show much. The green haired one frantically ran into frame, grabbing his backpack, and then the stream cut off quickly after, and when it came back they didn’t really say much.” Ace finished.

“I didn’t see him when he was checked in, my coworker came in and woke me up once he saw the name.” Law starts, “But they got him here in time, I don’t think too much damage was done.”

Ace nods, glancing to the side, “I saw you also told the crew he doesn’t have a spleen.”

Law rolls his eyes while chewing, “There weren't any better options. If I say nothing, then people are just going to start digging into his past and he doesn’t want that.”

“You couldn’t have asked him first?”

“Don’t act like your brother is an invalid.” Law glares, “He was there when I told the two that brought him there. Roronoa looked ready to explode after I implied this was Luffy’s fault for forgetting his medication.”

Ace scoffed, “I guess it is. But then you could have at least asked if he wanted them to leave.”

Law shoves another piece of food in his mouth, angrily chewing, “I did you asshat, before sharing the rest of Luffy's history, they have no idea about his chest.”

Before the two could begin to bicker with each other, the door opens slightly, Shachi enters with Bepo trailing behind.

Shachi opens his mouth a few times, taking nervous glances over at the sleeping Luffy in the bed.

Ace snorts, “I wouldn’t worry about him waking up, I swear he could sleep through anything.”

Law rolls his eyes, knowing that to be true, however he had a knack for waking up whenever it was important. Like when Tony was an infant and needed to be fed, or when Tony had a nightmare, or even when Law would have a rough shift.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Bepo says, quietly still, “We’re just here for his numbers.”

Law nods, “They’ve been pretty consistent-”

Shachi ignores him, “You’re not on shift, dude, I don’t need to listen to you.”

Blinking, Law turns to Ace, “If I replace the fork, can I stab him with it.”

“Luffy would be disappointed in you if you went to jail.” Ace jokes, “But only because you did something stupid without him.”

Law just grumbles.

“It’s true, at least take me with you, I’m always down to commit crimes.” Luffy gives a smile from the bed, “Don’t stab anyone though, I like them, especially the bear.”

And Law just sighs, “I thought I told you not to call him that to his face, people are going to think you mean something else.”

Bepo looks back and forth, Shachi tightly gripping his arm as he fails to hold back the laughter, “Should I be offended?”

“Lu,” Ace starts, looking just as tired as the man next to him, “This is the same as when people call you a twink, it’s just weird.”

Luffy shrugs, wincing at the IV in his arm, “It’s just ‘cause his white hair makes him look like a polar bear, ‘specially when his hair is fluffy like that, it looks like ears.”

Law finishes his pancakes and focuses on the smoothie, tilting his head slightly to look back at Bepo, “Y’know, I can see it.”

Shachi just snickers and stands behind Bepo, puffing his hair up even more. Bepo swats him away before taking the stethoscope off his neck and placing it on Luffy’s chest.

“Deep breath,” The room silences, “And again.”

Luffy relaxes again as Bepo starts to type back at the computer, “The doctor wants to take one more chest X-ray to make sure you haven’t gotten worse and then you should be good to go. They’re most likely going to tell you to follow up with your normal doctor, to which I assume you have a specialist already?”

Luffy nods, “Any medications I should worry about?”

He knew the drill by now, they’ve been here a bit too many times.

Bepo continues, “The doctor will handle that as well, but I’d assume you would be getting a script for a strong dose of antibiotics.”

Shachi makes his way to the other side of the bed where he starts to disconnect a few wires from Luffy, bringing up the rails on the side of the bed, “Alright, let’s get this X-ray so you can go home.”

Law rolls his eyes, standing up, “Watch out, it’s a crime that this man was able to get his license.”

Luffy smirks but Ace beats him to it, “Wouldn’t be his first car accident.”

Law whacks the back of Ace’s head.

Ace glares back, “Isn’t this domestic assault?”

His face sours, “I’d have to be dating you and that’s gross.”

“You’re dating my brother, close enough.” Ace turns to the two residents on shift with wide puppy eyes, “Look Doc you gotta help me, just look what he’s done to me. The bastard took my arm!”

Ace gestures wildly to his stump and Luffy even lets out a little cackle from his bed.

Bepo’s eyes widen as he glances between Law and Ace back and forth, and Shachi just drops the blood pressure cuff he was holding.

Law just whacks him again, “Enough of your shit, I’m heading out to go grab Luffy’s stuff.”

Ace rolls his eyes, “Don’t spill any more shit to them either.”

Ignoring him, Law turns towards Luffy, gaze softening slightly, “You know what they know, I’m not saying anything else.”

Luffy nods and then says, with a pointed glare, “Don’t be too mean.”

He shrugs. Ace turns towards him, “Swing by Marco’s on the way back and we’ll meet you back at your apartment.”

Law gives him a nod, kissing Luffy on the top of the head before heading out.

Once Law is out of sight, Shachi snickers, turning to Bepo, “I told you he’s soft on him.”

_________________________________________________________________

Law listens as a loud cry fills the room, and he can’t help the large smile that lights up his face and the tight grip he gives Luffy’s hand as the doctors work on stitching him back up. He watches Luffy’s wide eyes search waiting for a glimpse.

After wiping the baby down, a nurse appears holding their child, and Law felt his heart squeeze as he realized just how small he was.

Careful not to disturb the curtain shielding Luffy from seeing the procedure, the nurse carefully places the baby on Luffy’s chest, letting him have his moment.

Luffy carefully lets go of Law’s hand, instead reaching to lightly place his hand on his son.

A soft smile lights on his face, “He’s so small.”

Then Luffy panicked, whipping his head at the nurse, “Is he supposed to be this small?”

The nurse gave him a smile, “It’s normal for babies to be this size when they’re premature, it’s why he’s going to stay here in the hospital until he’s a little bit bigger.”

Luffy nodded, remembering what their doctor told them not too long ago.

“I’m going to take him back now,” The nurse says as she lifts the baby off of Luffy’s chest, placing him on what Law assumed to be a scale, “2.3 pounds.”

Once they take all the measurements they need, the two watch as their baby is placed in a plastic crate, hooked up to a small feeding tube in his nose and various wires attached to him. 

“Would you like your child to stay with you for now, or we could take him over to the NICU so you could get some rest, Luffy.” The nurse had turned her attention back to him after the surgeons had finished stitching him back up.

Law stayed silent, he hadn’t even gotten to hold him yet, but at this moment he wasn’t stupid enough to believe his wants were more important than Luffy, who just had a major surgery.

Luffy frowned, “You’re taking him away?”

The nurse gave him a sweet smile, wheeling the baby close to him, “We don’t have to just yet. The little guy just needs to be monitored in the incubator for a while and we like to give the parents the option so they can focus on healing themselves as well. Having a child is a big deal.”

Luffy insisted, “He can stay.”

“Of course.” She secures the incubator next to Luffy’s bed and lifts a controller from the side of the bed, “This is for the TV if you get bored, and for the bed. If you need a nurse, for either you or your baby, hit the red button and help will be on the way.”

The nurse bids them farewell for now, assuring them she would be back in a few hours to fully walk through everything with them. For now Luffy should focus on resting and picking out a name for their son.

Which, didn’t that sound surreal?

Luffy had quickly fallen asleep once they were alone, Law rubbing circles into his hand and watching their son next to him as well. 

He softly released Luffy’s hand and walked over to the sink in the room, rinsing his hands before he made his way back over to the bed. His hands hovered just outside the opening of the box, debating if he was really about to do this.

Up until that point, everything had felt like it would end. That they wouldn’t get to this point, between Luffy’s health risks or they would end up giving the baby away, regardless no matter what Law did, he could never picture it.

He’d turned seventeen a few months back, and now on Valentines Day, he found himself rushing to the hospital with Luffy after his blood pressure spiked. Even then, Law prepared himself for the worst. But here his son was, alive and breathing.

And he knew they weren’t out of the woods just yet. He’d done his research and knew that it would be around two months until their son would be able to leave this hospital, and he knew the chances of complications. 

But for now, he had to allow himself to indulge in this moment. Luffy had made it through surgery and Law had kept himself by his side the entire time. He knew it would be better if Ace had been there, but he’s been gone since Luffy moved out. 

Something happened. Law had no idea what that was, but Luffy had woken up to a call from his brother one day, and they haven’t been able to get a hold of him since. 

Law took a breath, grounding himself back to the present, and allowed his hand to reach into the box, and rested his hand on top of his son. His hand was ghostly light in the way his thumb caressed the child’s chest. 

The baby shifted, and Law felt himself panic slightly until the baby calmed again. His small hand reached over and gripped onto Law’s thumb.

And Law couldn’t help the tears that pooled in his eyes.

_________________________________________________________________

Law knocked on the door. 

It was only a moment before it was open and he was staring at the face of the blonde one, “You’re late.”

He just glared, “Yeah sorry ‘bout that, I’ll be sure to tell Ace to let me starve next time.”

He could see Sanji’s eye twitch before letting Law inside. 

Roronoa was sitting on the couch, Luffy’s bags on the floor next to him, almost as if he was guarding them. His gray eye is cold, keeping his gaze fixed on Law as he walks.

Law steps in just far enough to allow Sanji to close the door behind them. 

After a moment, he realizes just how quiet the house is, “Where are the others?”

Sanji sighs, shoving an unlit cigarette between his lips, “We had them leave before you could get here.”

Raising an eyebrow, he stares back at Sanji. He knew that they usually spent the day after these streams just hanging out at the house, relaxing after the nonstop cameras on them.  

Roronoa shifts, picking up the backs and walking towards the other two, dropping the bags at Law’s feet, a glare showing from his eye. He levels his stare, despite Law having a few inches on him. 

“Luffy doesn’t owe them any more answers than he owes us,” Roronoa grunts, “And if he doesn’t want us to know he’s involved with a man like you, then it’s none of their business to know.”

Law stares back, tightening his jaw to keep from rising to the bait, “I’m assuming you believe I have different opinions on the matter?”

“You revealed yourself quite quickly at the hospital,” He spit out, “Then you said the shit about his spleen, which paints a different picture.”

Law sighs, rubbing his eyes. He’s had less than six hours of sleep in the past two nights, and his boyfriend was currently in the hospital, while his son was being taken care of by Luffy’s brother’s… whatever the hell relationship he has with his ‘friend’ Marco. Now, he had to deal with Luffy’s friends/co-workers accusing him of betraying his trust.

As if after everything they’ve been through, trust wasn’t the most important thing between them.

“You mean to tell me that you and Blackleg would have left without any kind of explanation last night?” Law scoffs, “You two barely left even after Luffy told you to leave.”

“You didn’t give him the chance to speak for himself, did you?”

“Everytime he spoke he would start coughing, I’m so sorry for not letting him cause more damage to his infected lungs,” Law starts, “And don’t act like he’s some invalid in the bed, he was awake, he heard what he said, and if he had any issues with it he would have stopped me. He’s not exactly a docile pushover now is he?”

Sanji steps between the two, “So you mean to say that it was a coincidence that you brought Luffy to the restaurant that you knew I worked at?”

“I don’t watch his streams, you know?” Law rolls his eyes, “I have a job and years of schooling I had to complete to get this far.”

And in between they were busy raising a child together .

So he continues, “I didn’t realize that his Sanji and Blackleg here were the same person, and besides I’ve only met him a few times briefly since he’s usually not in the front of the restaurant.”

The other two just stared back, so Law just picked up the bags, “Don’t you think if I was trying to out Luffy to his own friends it would be a lot easier? I could just barge in during a stream, or talk over the mic, or call him while he was on mic?”

Law continues, “Or even post on social media about being this mysterious Traffy or put into the minds of your fans and hint that maybe Traffy wasn’t a girl at all? Maybe even steal his phone and text in your chat?”

The two others just glare.

“I don’t know what fucking relationships the two of you have ever been in over the years, but in my experience decisions are made together, that I know what Luffy’s boundaries are after all this time and I know which ones are more important?” Law slings the backpack over his shoulder, raising his voice again, “But truly if I didn’t care about him, do you think I would spend my night in the hospital with him after being there for over 24 hours straight? That I wouldn’t keep him company because I couldn’t be bothered, right?”

Law scoffs, turning around towards the door. 

“How old are you?” Roronoa asks.

And Law pauses.

“You’re a doctor so you have to be old.”

Law reaches for the door handle, “I’m a resident, and I’m 22.”

He slams the door behind him.

_________________________________________________________________

The car ride from the hospital was almost silent as Luffy rested his eyes in the passenger seat. Neither truly knew what to say as they processed having to leave their son at the hospital for the next couple of months.

It was a Sunday, so Law would go to school in the morning, leaving Luffy alone in the house to rest. Their son didn’t have a name yet, and they didn’t have any sort of nursery set up yet, no baby supplies ready at all. They never thought they’d get this far.

Despite his doctors saying to think positively, they both knew that there was a chance their son wouldn’t make it, or even that Luffy would change his mind about keeping the kid.

The sound of Luffy’s ringtone interrupts the silence, and Luffy groggily blinks himself awake, answering the call without looking to see who it was.

“Hello?” Luffy says as he rubs his eyes.

“Hey Luffy.” The voice responds.

He quickly sat up, wincing in slight pain as the seat belt tightened around his abdomen.

“Ace?” Luffy exclaims.

Ace chuckles, “You sound like shit.”

Rolling his eyes, Luffy relaxes back into his seat slightly, ignoring the slight glance Law gave him after he heard who it was.

“You try having a baby cut out of you, then.”

“You- You had the baby? Are you okay? Is… is the baby okay? This is, it hasn’t been nine months yet, right?” Ace questions.

“Law’s driving us home right now, I’m okay I guess.” Luffy says, “The baby is still at the hospital, he’s gotta stay there for a little while until he’s strong enough.”

Ace goes silent on the other line as Law pulls into the parking garage and Luffy thinks the call disconnected until Ace speaks up again.

“I missed all of it, didn't I?” He says quietly, “Why didn’t you, I don’t know, call me? Text me? Lu, I didn’t want you to go through that alone. I thought I had a bit more time.”

Luffy shifts, trying to get more comfortable once the car is parked, and Law reaches over  to unbuckle the seatbelt so it wouldn’t be rubbing against the incision spot anymore. He gives Law a small smile in thanks, and Law leaves the car on, but exits, standing right outside, giving him a moment of privacy.

“Ace, you left.” Luffy whispers, “I moved in with Law and then you just stopped answering your phone. I even stopped by the house and all your stuff was just gone.”

Silence.

“Lu, I-”

Ace stops himself.

“I had to get out of that house, just away from everything.”

A beat, Luffy answers, “You wanted to get away from me.”

He hated crying, his body should be readjusting soon, it better, but there were still just too many stupid chemicals messing with his head. He wrapped an arm around his stomach, before stopping. It was a habit he’d picked up on after finding out he was pregnant, but there was nothing left to protect inside of him anymore. 

He plays with the hem of his shirt instead.

“I never wanted to leave you, Luffy.” Ace insists, “Gramps buckled down on me after you left and insisted I enlist into the marines early, so I had to get out for the last few weeks before I turned eighteen.”

And Luffy understood that, but, “You’re still a major asshole for not telling me.”

“I’ll let you have that one.” Ace says, “So, when can I meet the munchkin?”

_________________________________________________________________

Law never picked up Tony from Marco’s. 

Instead he decides to pick up groceries, meeting Luffy back at their apartment. Ace offered to watch Tony for another day until it wasn’t as obvious that his brother was sick. 

Balancing the groceries in one arm, Law opens the door with the other. Luffy is rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, but quickly makes his way over to the door and holds out his hands. Law goes to hand the bag of groceries to Luffy, but Luffy simply steals the baguette and begins eating it right there instead. 

“Y’know, I thought you were going to take the bag from me,” Law says lightly.

Luffy shrugs, taking another bite, “I’m hungry. Hospital food is shit.”

“Trust me, I know.” Law chuckles as he slips off his shoes, making his way towards the kitchen to start putting everything away, “You’re sounding better.”

Luffy nods around the bread, “They made me do another treatment before we left.”

Seemingly bored of the bread, Luffy peaks around his boyfriend, looking for other food he could steal. His eyes light up as he sneaks a hand into the bag, grabbing a pint of ice cream, but Law just slaps his hand away.

“Mean, Torao!”

Law just sighs and puts the ice cream in the freezer, “No ice cream before lunch.”

He hears Luffy grumble under his breath as he grabs the baguette again.

“Your bags are in my car,” Law starts, “Your two guard dogs weren’t too keen on letting me leave with them.”

Luffy grabs the keys and leaves to grab his bags, when he returns he asks, “Were you mean to them?”

Law just scoffs, but pauses before answering, “Does Roronoa know about Hancock?”

Luffy follows him over to the couch, baguette abandoned, “Kind of. What did he say?”

“He asked how old I was,” Law starts, stretching his arms on the back of the couch, but Luffy doesn’t immediately go to sit next to him, “I figured he could just be a protective asshole, but he was a bit too focused on that fact.”

Sitting next to him, Luffy pulls his knees to his chest, “I just told him why I didn’t like to drink. That and her age at the time.”

“Ah.” Law says, feeling Luffy’s hair tickle his jaw, “I told him my actual age, which is going to be an issue if Blackleg fact checks me with the others.”

He feels Luffy nod against him.

It was a small detail that he let his friends believe he was a year older than he actually was, since they’d met in college and it was better just letting everyone believe he was eighteen, rather than seventeen. People were less likely to treat him like a child that way, and it kept them from holding back in front of him. 

And unfortunately he’d stuck with the group he’d met and the lie just continued.

“Look, if I said too much to your group, or revealed something you didn’t want, I’m sorry.” 

Luffy looks up at him, “If I had a problem with it I would have said something back at the hospital.”

Law sighs, “I figured as much.”

“Everyone is just really stuck on this whole sex thing, I really don’t get the big deal,” Luffy says, annoyed, “I don’t see why it matters so much. Sex is a normal thing, isn’t it?”

Luffy stares at the wall, “They’re all so quick to brag about how early they lost their virginities or whatever, so what right does that give them to judge me for when I lost mine?”

“They’re all so dead set on wanting to ‘protect me’ but I can protect myself. I have for this long in my life,” Luffy finishes.

Law sighs, wrapping his arm around to the other’s waist, slipping his hand underneath, allowing his fingers to dust across the faded scar on his lower abdomen. 

“I don’t know them as well as you do, Luf,” Law starts, “But, I know that this is bothering you. So, I have to ask.”

He looks back up at Law, slightly curious.

“Do you regret any of the choices that they’re worrying so much about?”

Luffy smushes his cheek further into Law’s shoulder, “This is stuff that I haven’t thought about since before the accident which is why I’m so annoyed it keeps getting brought up now . It’s in the past, and even though things were shitty then, things are okay now, that’s really all there is to it.”

And Law knows that’s always been Luffy’s opinions on stuff like this, he’s always been the kind of guy that keeps looking forward rather than back. So, he could understand why it was becoming such an issue that his friends are so stuck on the past.

Luffy scrunches his eyebrows, wrinkling his nose up at him, “Are you seriously trying to get in my pants right now?”

Law can’t help the laugh that escapes him at that, “Obviously, I am because there’s nothing that turns me on more than my partner almost dying from pneumonia less than a day ago.”

He continues rubbing circles into the other’s hip and Luffy lets out a small laugh of his own, “I always knew that was your secret. It’s the only reason you put up with me, after all.”

Luffy nuzzles into his shoulder again until he deems himself comfortable.

“Mhm, that’s the only reason of course. No other reason at all, nothing to do with our child or anything, or how good you are in bed.”

Law hisses in pain as Luffy pinches him, hard, “You’re a dick.”

He pinches him again, “What was that for? I didn’t even say anything that time.”

Luffy squints up at him, “It’s for whatever dick joke you were about to make.”

Law looks away, chuckling and grabs the remote, switching on a random show in the background, settling his head on the other’s and pulling the blanket over the two of them.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Chapter Text

8. Or was I fooled? By the stories I knew.

The cool breeze ran through his hair as he made his way down the sidewalk. Luffy bobbed his head to the music playing through his airpods and drummed his fingers to the beat inside his sweatshirt pocket. 

It’d been about a week since he’d been discharged from the hospital and Chopper had come back home only a day after that. Torao had a few days off after his long weekend, so the three of them had been mostly just resting up, catching up on random chores around the house and spending the rest of the time with their son once he would get home from school. 

They’d finally been able to have a full conversation with his new teacher, in which they’d set several boundaries stating that they needed to be immediately aware if any of the previous behaviors returned with the new students. 

The meeting itself had gone pretty smoothly, the new teacher assuring them that even though her students were young, she did uphold the zero tolerance for any kind of bullying. Luckily as well it was the beginning of February so there were only a few months left until the end of the year.

The song changed and Luffy was brought back to attention as he pressed the cross button on the street and waited. He glanced across the street at The Baratie where he agreed to meet Sanji and Zoro after everything that happened last week.

They hadn’t really talked too much, as Luffy was taking time off streaming while he was recovering and while Zoro had reached out several times to check on him, they’d exchanged very short words with each other. He didn’t really understand why things would be that different after everything, but they wanted to talk, and Luffy wasn’t going to turn them down.

The light changes and Luffy makes his way across, taking out his earbuds before he tries to enter the restaurant, but instead he finds the doors locked. 

He pulls his phone out to text Sanji, but the door opens before he has the chance. 

“Luffy, right?” The guy asked.

Luffy nods and the man opens the door further, allowing him inside. 

“Sanji’s with the green haired one over there,” The man gestures and Luffy makes eye contact with Sanji at a table in the back corner. 

After thanking him, Luffy makes his way to the table.

“Am I late?” Luffy asks as he takes a seat, noticing Zoro already seated next to him.

Sanji just huffs, “No, this idiot showed up two hours early because his sister had class and didn’t trust him to not get lost on the way here.”

Considering this, Luffy nods, “That makes sense.”

“I hate you both.” Zoro mutters, taking a sip of the beer in front of him.

Luffy blinks for a moment. It’s ten a.m.

Sanji grimaces before sighing, “We don’t technically open until noon, but I prepared some food for you, if you would like.”

Luffy’s eyebrows shoot up, “There’s food?”

Sanji lets out a small chuckle as he gets up, ruffling the younger’s hair before he quickly returns back with a few plates of food for the two others, “We’ve got omelets and pancakes, help yourselves. Actually wait, no. Luffy, these are yours, do not eat his.”

He finishes with a glare at the younger boy as he gives each their designated portions. 

Luffy wastes no time shoving a bite in his mouth before saying, “Thanks, Sanji!”

Sanji relaxes back into his seat slightly, “Yeah well I figured it was the least I could do after asking you to come all the way out here.”

Luffy nods, taking another bite, before he could speak, however, Sanji cuts him off.

“When are you planning on picking your schedule back up again?” He says, crossing his legs and placing an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

Swallowing, Luffy says, “Probably in the next day or so. My doctor gave me the all clear yesterday.”

Zoro raises a brow, “Is Traffy your doctor?”

Luffy shakes his head around another bite, “He’s still training. I have a special doctor for this stuff. Not Traffy’s thing anyway. He wants to be a surgeon.”

At that he watches Zoro’s eye look to the side, catching Sanji’s gaze, the two of them share a look. 

Zoro stabs his pancake, taking a large bite. 

“I’ll be blunt.” He starts, talking around the food in his mouth, “We want to talk about Traffy.”

Luffy feels himself pause, putting his fork down on his plate for a moment, “Okay. What about him? I did ask him not to be too rude to you guys, but I know he was tired. But he’s always grumpy with people.”

Sanji and Zoro glance at each other again for a moment before Sanji takes over, “We were comparing what information we have about you and some stuff just isn’t adding up.”

Not feeling as hungry as he was a moment ago, Luffy’s bright mood deflates a bit, “You guys can just say whatever it is you’re skirting around.”

“When did the two of you start dating?” Zoro asks, leaning forward in his chair.

Luffy pauses, thinking, “Somewhere around two years ago, I guess.”

Sanji considered this for a moment, “Which is right around the same time you started to become more well known.”

It’s quiet for a second as Luffy takes in his words, and then he promptly lets out a slight cackle.

“You think Traffy is just using me for my internet fame?”

Lightly, Sanji presses, “It’s just a likely possibility with the timing of everything-”

“To- Law has never shown any sign of that to you, where is this even coming from?” Luffy cuts him off, still slightly amused.

The other two sit quietly so he continues, “Sanji, you know Law’s friends, the others from the hospital, they come here all the time, and he never flaunts my name to them either, they only found out I existed a few weeks ago, anyway.”

“So, he was hiding you?” Zoro’s eye flicks dangerously to him.

“ We were hiding each other . We keep this kind of stuff private.” Luffy bites back, he had no idea where all this shit was coming from. 

Zoro scoffs, his jaw tightening, “And what makes you so sure he isn’t hiding a mistress from you?”

A mistress, huh? Which is interesting because why would they automatically assume that Torao would be hiding a woman behind his back? Why not assume another man?

Luffy crosses his arms and glares directly at his best friend, his voice hardening slightly, “You do not get to accuse him of that.”

Zoro just crosses his arms, showing no sign of backing down. 

Rolling his eyes, Luffy continues, “I get that you guys are mad that I never told you about him, but you can not just invite me here to accuse my boyfriend of cheating on me. Are you forgetting that I also kept him a secret? Does that make you think I’m cheating as well?”

Sanji fiddles with his lighter, “All we’re saying is that it’s a possibility. Secrets stem from each other and if he could lie about this, then who knows what else he could be lying about? We don’t want to see you get hurt from him being an asshole-”

“Sanji stop.” Luffy bites out, the glare on his face showing such anger, it wasn’t one the other two have seen him wear before. 

Zoro blinks, taking in what just happened, “Luffy-”

“No.” Luffy spits out, “I don’t care if you all hate me for having a boyfriend, or that I dropped out of school, or that I hide stuff from the group. But, you don’t get to drag him into that. You guys have met him twice, you don’t get to act like you sudden’t know everything about him.”

These were supposed to be his two best friends, he’d defended them from Torao just a few nights ago after hearing about how they initially confronted him. All they’re currently doing is proving him right.

He takes a moment to breathe before balling his hands into fists, using a finger to point at them as he speaks again.

“Since I’ve learned that this shit is so fucking important to you guys, I’ve lived with him for the last five years after I all but got disowned from my grandfather . We’ve seen every single side of each other. We’ve literally lived as two dirt poor teenagers trying to get enough money to keep food on the table.” Luffy huffed, catching his breath.

He glares at Sanji who flinches.

“Cap, do you not hear how sketchy that sounds?” Zoro calmly states, “You moved in with some random guy when you were a child?”

Luffy angrily munches on his forgotten pancake, “I don’t have to tell you guys anything else about that. If it really pisses you guys off that much, just know this. Ace was the one who arranged for me to live with him.”

Sitting back with a huff, Luffy lets the other two take that in for a moment. He really didn’t see why this mattered that much to them. It doesn’t affect their streams or his career, they’ll never have to interact with Torao again if they didn’t want to. Therefore, he couldn’t see why they keep pushing this. 

Sanji stares in disbelief, “Your brother let you move in with a man who was three years older?”

He rolls his eyes, “Two years older, he was a junior, I was a freshman.”

“See, I asked his two buddies about his age and they said he was a 23, which is different than what you-”

“If someone thinks you’re younger than them, they treat you like a child.” Luffy says bluntly, staring Sanji right in the eyes, “So, if somebody enters college a year early, would you want everyone there to baby you?”

Zoro sighs beside him, “Jesus cap, just how many lies are there?”

“Just the ones that are necessary.”

“Then lying to us is necessary?” Zoro asks.

Luffy swallows, “If this is how you’re reacting to Law, then yes. They are.”

They stare at each other, the table going silent except for the sounds in the kitchen behind them. 

A hand claps down on Luffy’s shoulder and Zoro stares at him, he’s pissed, “Why do you make it so hard for us to protect you?”

He shrugs his hand off, staring back, “And has it ever occurred to you that I don't need your protection?” 

“We just don’t want to watch you get hurt.” Sanji cuts in, “You could lose everything you’ve worked for.”

Luffy can’t help the dry laugh bubbling in his throat. 

As if he didn’t know that . 

He gets up, pushes in his chair, and walks out of the restaurant.

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy walks with Ace through the hospital, leading him into the NICU. They showed their visitors badges before being led to a room with his son. 

Ace stands by the door once the nurse leaves, unsure on where to place himself. He watches Luffy wash his hands roughly and diligently for once before making his way over to the plastic box surrounding the infant.

Swallowing, Ace makes his way over to the sink, being extremely cautious when he scrubs his hands clean. He goes to stand next to his brother who gives him a wide grin.

“This is the little guy.” 

Ace snorts, he can’t help it. Only Lu would introduce his son as ‘the little guy.’

“The nurses say he’s been doing really well. He’s a little chopper with the way he’s chopping down the competition.” Luffy says, his eyes crinkling as he speaks, he places a hand inside the box, his thumb sitting in his hand, “Which like, no surprise look at his arms.”

Luffy waves his arms around slightly, “He’s like a little lumberjack.”

Unable to turn his gaze away from his nephew, Ace swallows, “His name is Chopper?”

He hears his brother chuckle beside him, “Law would kill me. I’ve just been calling him that for now.”

Ace blinks, “He doesn’t have a name yet?”

Luffy shrugs.

“Lu, it’s been a month.”

Chopper stretches, “Naming a baby is hard, Ace.”

The infant blinks up at Luffy, “Like what if we get it wrong? It’s not exactly something you can change.”

He giggles softly, “Lu, you changed your name.”

“Well yeah,” He says, “That’s ‘cause Lucy isn’t a boy's name.”

Ace hums, “If Chopper ever wants to be a girl, would you let him?”

Luffy boops his son’s nose, “Well of course I would. Who am I to stand in his way?”

He removes his hands, turning to his brother expectantly, “He’s awake right now if you wanna say hi. The nurse should be in soon to help me feed him.”

Luffy shrugs off his bag and pulls out a small lunch box.

Ace raises an eyebrow, “You brought breast milk in a pirate themed lunch box?”

“It’s gotta stay cold,” Luffy states as he gestures to the ice pack in there as well.

“I didn’t really think that’s something you’d be doing.” Ace says, his hand hovering outside the box.

“The powdered stuff is expensive.” Luffy takes both bottles out, “Besides I have to pump anyways, or it hurts pretty bad.”

Setting the bottles on the table next to them, Luffy raises an eyebrow at his brother, “Are you scared?”

Ace retracts his hand, flushing red slightly, “I’m not exactly around many babies, Luf. What if I hurt it?”

Luffy snorts, “He’s not gonna break that easily.”

He hears Luffy call him a coward under his breath and glares at him before slowly slipping his hand into the box, 

He lets his hand rest on the baby’s abdomen, and his heart melts as Chopper’s eyes blink open again. They’re a dark brown just like Luffy’s. 

“Hey, kid.” Ace mumbles, letting his thumb run across his chest, “You’ve gotta get strong soon so I can spoil you.”

He hears Luffy laugh behind him.

“I’m gonna be the best damn uncle you could ask for.”

_________________________________________________________________

Ace groans, blinking his eyes open as he hears his phone vibrate on the desk next to him.

Shit. He fell asleep at his desk again. 

A private message lights up at him.

Mr. Prince

How much do you know about Traffy?

Ace takes a moment to rub the sleep out of his eyes before dealing with whatever that message could mean. 

Aces

Plenty. 

And hello to you too.

He puts his phone down, turning his attention back to the paperwork in front of him. He’d had an early morning photoshoot, but still had to deal with the behind the scenes stuff since he was pretty high up in the company.

He’s worked at Whitebeard’s Agency for around five years, since he’d got scouted just before his eighteenth birthday and started as one of the agency's commanders only a year or so in. 

It was just after his promotion that he’d lost his arm.

His face was pretty well known in the world, since he booked a crap ton of gigs when he first started out. Once the accident happened he’d stayed out of the public eye, but he’d worked closely with the first commander, Marco, in order to make his appearance something he was comfortable with again. 

He wasn’t in hiding anymore, but he’d gotten used to working behind the scenes so his career adjusted a bit. 

Firefist Ace would still be a model for shoots, but he wouldn’t travel nearly as much as he used to to participate in runway walks. Instead he’d participate in local shoots, and work on managing a smaller group of the business side, which would focus on budgeting and planning trips for the models in their agency that would need. 

Signing off on the paper in front of him, he quickly staples the packet together before his phone lights up again.

Mr. Prince

Luffy told us you were responsible for them living together.

Just fact checking.

How reliable of a partner do you believe him to be.

Aces

Extremely. 

And Ace would never say that to his face, but the facts were there. If that had been him in their position, having a freshman getting pregnant, Ace doesn’t know if he’d have handled it nearly as well as Law did. 

Ace wouldn’t go as far as to say he likes the guy. The man has death tattooed on his fingers and is part of the reason that Luffy’s whole life changed that day, but he is acceptable. 

He’s great with Chopper and has proven how much he cares about Luffy time and time again. Even back when they weren’t together and were simply just raising a kid. 

Mr. Prince

Then I suppose you’re aware of him keeping Luffy a secret?

Or that he lied to his coworkers about his age?

Aces

I am.

Mr. Prince

You don’t think he could be hiding things? 

Or someone.

Ace snorts as he reads the last message. Law’s been in love with his brother long before the two finally got together. The thought of him cheating is actually laughable. 

Aces

No chance he’s cheating.

Then Ace paused.

Aces

You told that to Luffy?

Bad idea.

Mr. Prince

We realize that now.

Aces

We?

Mr. Prince

The mosshead and I.

Aces

Wow.

That was stupid.

Mr. Prince

You don’t think it’s suspicious how protective he is of Traffy?

I’ve never seen him this angry.

Ace raised an eyebrow at his phone.

Aces

If your two closest friends confronted you and accused your bf of cheating how would you feel?

And.

No.

Not suspicious.

Texting me behind my brother’s back?

That’s suspicious-Sanji.

Ace disregards his phone after that, not expecting a response. If Sanji texted him looking for solidarity and for Ace to spill every single one of Law’s secrets to him, he was barking up the wrong tree. As shitty as it is, this is exactly why Luffy kept this side of his life a secret from the others. 

_________________________________________________________________

“Can you pass me the drill?” Law reaches out his arm, holding the two pieces of the crib together with his other hand.

Luffy glances around before he finds it, handing it over before returning back to his task of sorting through the various infant supplies they’d bought earlier in the week. The nurses gave them the green light, letting them know that their son would be ready to go home by the end of the month, so the two of them were rushing to get everything set up.

He paused, setting the pile of clothes on the floor, looking towards Law.

“He needs a name.” Luffy breaks the silence, “If he’s coming home, he needs a name.”

Law sets the drill down, settling back on the floor as well.

He considers Luffy’s words, “He does.”

“What do you think?” Luffy asks.

Law raises an eyebrow, “You don’t have any picked out? I find that hard to believe.”

Luffy leans back against the bed on the floor, “I’ve just been calling him Chopper. You know that.”

“Right.” Law chuckles softly, “And fine. I guess I have thought about it.”

Luffy just stares back waiting.

Law hums, “We knew that having him is something that is going to get a lot of judgment, us being teen parents and all. So, in light of that, I came across the name Tony. It’s usually short for Anthony or Antonia, but it is said to mean ‘highly praiseworthy’ and that they are said to have an ‘unquestionable worth.’”

Luffy sits up, his eyes wide, “Chopper does have worth.”

He smiles back, “Exactly, so why not give him a name that allows him to never doubt his place in the world.”

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy stands by the brick wall of the school, waiting a few more minutes before he could go inside to pick up his son. Torao has the car, so he and Chopper will be taking the scenic route home.

He puts his phone back in his pocket before following the rest of the parents inside. 

He signs Chopper out before hearing his kid’s footsteps running up to him.

The two make their way out of the school and head back towards the house, heading down the same street Luffy had crossed through earlier.

Chopper was babbling about his day to Luffy, who would giggle along with him as he talked about the new kids in his class. They stopped at a crosswalk, Luffy momentarily letting go of Chopper's hand when the toddler’s backpack slipped off his back and went to push the button to cross, when he heard his son’s voice.

“Daddy! A bunny!” He says, “There’s a bunny!” 

However, blinded by his excitement, the toddler runs towards the rabbit, straight through the middle of the road.

Luffy immediately goes to run after him, only to be stopped by a loud blaring of a horn and a car swerving.

“Chopper!” Luffy yells, his breath catching in his chest, looking for any sign of his son. 

Car horns squeal angrily, snapping Luffy’s attention to the cause, only to find a large green haired man standing in the middle of traffic, his entire body sheltering the small form of a child.

And Luffy runs . He runs as fast as he possibly could.

Ignoring the various angry drivers, and the large man, Luffy directs all his attention to his son.

He wastes no time lifting his son into his arms, one hand grasping behind his head, and Chopper begins sobbing into his shoulder.

“It’s okay, shhhhh.” Luffy starts, “I’ve got you, you’re okay.”

Later, Luffy would have a stern chat about why you can’t run off, especially into traffic. But for now, he simply was focused on the fact that his son was safe .

“Daddy, I’m sorry.” Chopper cried out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He continued to shush him, when Luffy felt a large hand wrap around his arm.

“C’mon Cap, we’ve gotta get out of the street.” A deep voice said.

And Luffy froze, his feet slightly stumbling as he glanced up at the man who was leading him out of traffic.

And holy shit it was Zoro.

Once they're safely on the sidewalk again, Luffy forces himself to get his shit together. Readjusting the toddler on his hip, he flashes a large smile to his friend.

“Thanks, Zoro.” Luffy says, “I really owe you, I dunno what I would have done if-”

He leaves the sentence there, tightening his grip on his son, his smile wavering slightly. He’d process this all later, when Torao would get angry about his recklessness.

Zoro’s eye stared down at him, he opened his mouth twice before landing on, “Is he okay?”

“Does anything hurt, Chop?” Luffy asks gently.

Chopper lifts his tear stained face, still blubbering as he shakes his head, “He saved me. It was so scary, daddy. I’m sorry.”

Luffy gives him a kiss on the head, cringing slightly as he knew his secret was out, but the thought of his son being safe is so much more important than anything else. He was so close to losing him, he didn’t give a shit about the secret if there was nothing to protect.

“It’s okay, buddy. We’ll talk about it later with Torao, okay?” Luffy says, while Chopper continues to grip Luffy’s shirt in his fist.

Zoro just watches, glancing to the side, then says softly, “Do you want hot chocolate? I’ll pay.”

Luffy’s eyebrows raised slightly, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting from his best friend, but that wasn’t it. But, he did just save his son's life, and he was offering to pay.

“Mm.” Luffy says, “There’s a place about a block from here, if you want.”

Zoro nods curtly, and Luffy starts to lead them, only stopping when he sees Zoro bend down to pick up Chopper’s forgotten backpack on the ground.

Luffy just gives him a smile.

They reach the cafe quickly, and get on the relatively short line. Once they're up, Zoro gestures for Luffy to start.

“Could I get a kids sized hot chocolate, please?” Luffy asks, “Extra whipped cream if you wouldn’t mind.”

Hell his son had a rough day he needed the extra sugar as a treat.

“Of course, what else can I get you guys?” The barista asks, and Zoro just gestures at Luffy again.

With a glance between Zoro and the barista, Luffy continues, “Could I get a medium chai latte with a shot in there? Thank you.”

The barista nods and Luffy shifts Chopper to be able to grab his wallet, but Zoro just continues, “A small latte with cinnamon on top.”

And before Luffy has a chance to do anything, Zoro has already paid for everything and is handed his receipt.

They wait in silence as their drinks are made before making their way over to a secluded table in the back.

Zoro places their drinks on the table before taking a seat and Luffy finally lets go of his son and gets him situated in his chair before taking his own seat.

He takes a sip of Chopper’s hot chocolate, making sure it wasn’t too hot, before handing it to him. 

“Do you still have his backpack?” Luffy breaks the silence.

Zoro hands it over to him, and Luffy unzips it to grab the pack of crayons and the coloring book they always keep in there as well as headphones that the preschool makes every kid have for in case a kid has a bad day.

Chopper’s eyes light up as he tastes the sugary drink, a small smile on his face.

“Thank you, Mr. Green Man.” Chopper says quietly.

Luffy snickers slightly as he sees a slight blush adorn Zoro’s face as he just huffs in response. 

Plugging the headphones into his phone, Luffy places them on Chopper’s ears and opens up a new page in the booklet.

Once he’s sure Chopper is comfortable, he turns to Zoro.

“I-” Luffy starts, “Thank you.”

Zoro’s eye focuses on his face, “Don’t thank me. He’s a kid, I’d do it for anyone.”

They sit in silence before Zoro continues, “But he’s your kid, isn’t he?”

Luffy looks at Chopper, “Yeah, he is.”

“He’s Traffy’s too, isn’t he?”

And Luffy finds himself freezing, realizing that Zoro really has figured out everything.

Zoro nods to himself and sighs, “I guess it makes sense why you’re so protective of him now.”

“How did you know?” Luffy turns his gaze back to him.

“Your voice,” Zoro starts, “Back when you first started streaming, I figured that’s what it was and I really didn’t give a shit to look any further. And, you never take your shirt off.”

And Luffy grimaced slightly at that. He wasn’t able to go on testosterone until after he was done breastfeeding, and then there was a period of time after the accident that he’d had to go off it. 

“No one else knows.” Zoro relaxes into his seat, “If you're worried about that.”

Raising a brow, “You didn’t tell anyone?”

Zoro scoffs, “It’s less of their business than it is mine.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

Zoro watches the kid color, “How old is he?”

Luffy takes a sip of his drink, “Just about five, his birthdays in a week or so.”

And Luffy watches the grimace that fills his friend's face, “Wait.”

The eye focused on Luffy again, “So when you lost your virginity at the party, you…”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence.

“I’m sorry for not standing up for you.”

Luffy tilts his head, “Huh? Why would you-”

Zoro sighed, “You were obviously uncomfortable about the whole situation, and even Ace tried to step in, and we’ve all just been throwing it back in your face.”

He shrugs, “It’s in the past. I was more upset with how everyone’s been acting about it.”

Nodding, Zoro sighs, “We acted like it was a bad thing, but, that’s also acting like he’s a bad thing, right?”

Luffy sips his drink and nods.

Zoro opens his mouth, but Chopper starts poking Luffy, “It stopped.”

Glancing at his phone, Luffy sees that Torao is calling and picks it up, unplugging the headphones.

Chopper starts to rip the page out of his book, but is struggling.

“Can I help?” Zoro asks softly.

Looking between the book and Zoro, Chopper pushes it slightly towards him.

Once the page is ripped out, he goes to hand it back to the kid. Chopper just shakes his head in response.

“I made it for you!” Chopper exclaimed, “‘Cause you saved me.”

Luffy hangs up the phone just in time to see Zoro having the dilemma of accepting a gift from a four year old. Giving in after a moment, Zoro accepts the gift.

“Thank you.” He says.

Chopper nods, closing his coloring book.

“Tor-Traffy’s on his way back from the hospital, I asked him to pick us up on the way home.” Luffy says, “Do you need a ride?”

Glancing at the drawing again, Zoro noted how carefully the kid seemingly tried to stay in the lines.

He clears his throat, “No, I’ll call Perona.”

Luffy nods, packing up Chopper’s belongings.

“Can I ask his name?” Zoro says after a moment.

Chopper looks up at Luffy, who quietly asks his name, “I’m Tony Tony Chopper.”

Zoro lets out a light chuckle, “You can call me Zoro.”

Chopper gives him a large smile as he repeats the name under his breath,

Standing up, Zoro glances back at Luffy, “What’s the story there?”

“His name is Trafalgar D. Tony.” Luffy rolls his eyes playfully, “Chopper is a nickname from back when he was in the NICU, and when he was a baby Tor-Traffy would call him Tony Tony. So it became a thing.”

He was still repeating Zoro’s name as he walked in circles around Luffy.

“He took Traffy’s name?” 

Luffy shrugged, “Carrying on my family name doesn’t really matter to me.”

His phone lights up again, “C’mon Chop, Torao’s outside.”

He turns to Zoro, smile dropping slightly, “Could you not tell the others ab-”

“I won’t say a word.” Zoro promises solemnly, then turns towards the toddler, “Chopper make sure to hold on to your dad’s hand tight, okay?”

Chopper grabbed Luffy’s hand, nodding quickly.

Luffy walks towards Zoro, balling his hand into a fist, and solidly placing it in the center of Zoro’s chest.

“I don’t want to think about what would have happened today if you weren’t there.” Luffy says quietly, “So, thank you, Zoro. I’m glad you were there.”

Luffy lowers his hand as he turns away, but a large hand lands on shoulder and Zoro stares intensely at him.

“Anything you need, I’ll be there no questions asked, okay?” Zoro states, “I don’t give a shit anymore about whatever else it is you’re hiding. I’ve got your back, it’s a promise.”

Luffy gives him his bright smile, leading them out the door of the cafe. Law is parked out front, and Zoro watches as Chopper gets buckled into his booster seat. 

Glancing back at Trafalgar in the front seat, Zoro matches his gaze and nods before turning away to call Perona.

After sending that text, Zoro opens up a new message.

To: Mr. Prince, Queen Nami, OldManBrook, Robin, SuuuperMan, God Usopp

Once adding everyone to the chat he types:

Zorororo

Lay off Luffy about the sex stuff. It’s weird. Don’t forget everything he’s done for you. 

Witch- How he helped you out of your crappy family vlogging whatever the hell that was.

Usopp- How he alone helped raise money for your friend's hospital bills.

Shitty Cook- How he stood up to your shitty father when he tried to ruin your career.

Robin- How he told everyone to fuck off about the rumors and helped prove they were wrong.

Frankie- How he helped you gain enough followers to launch your prosthetic business. 

We were wrong to doubt him. 

He is an adult.

It’s his life.

But-

So he’s had shit happen to him.

We can’t change that.

The past is the past--don’t bring it up.

We can make sure to protect him from shitty stuff from now on.

Don’t fuck that up.

He goes to put his phone away, but the chat instantly blows up.

Queen Nami

What did you find out?

Mr. Prince

That’s a bit hypocritical don’t you think?

Robin

I agree. 

He’s bound to make mistakes, you’re all young.

We can ensure the fallout isn’t catastrophic.

God Usopp

Understood.

Have I ever told you all about the time I stopped a world wide scheme to bring down this person's image? 

I can’t say the name, though, NDA’s and all.

SuuuperMan

Absolutely man.

You can count on me.

Mr. Prince

You changed quite quickly from this morning.

Bit unfair.

Queen Nami

You’ll cave, you always do.

We’ll always have his back.

But secrets always come out.

I’ll remember that you kept this.

Zorororo

Believe what you want, Witch.

What you think doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.

Luffy isn’t a dollar sign. 

Cook you can go shove it up your ass. 

Maybe you’ll find your head up there.

He closes his phone after that, carefully folding the drawing and placing it in his pocket.

Chapter Text

9. Am I ready for love? Or maybe just a best friend? Part II

Steadying himself, Zoro raised his hand and rang the buzzer on the outside of the door, with the label next to it reading Trafalgar . 

After a second he removes his finger and waits. Watching his breath fog up in the cold air, he fiddled with the gift bag in his hand. 

The door clicks, and he opens it heading into the complex. He heads up one small flight of stairs, and before he could try and figure out which one was correct, the door to his left flings open, showing Luffy with a large smile and a party hat on his head.

“Zoro!” Luffy opens the door wider.

“Hey cap,” He says somewhat quietly over the loud noises coming from inside.

The sounds stop once the door closes behind him and Zoro finds himself awkwardly shuffling off  his shoes in the doorway, ignoring the few pairs of eyes focused on him. Luffy takes the gift bag from his hand and disappears. A moment later he looks over to see Chopper standing in front of him with a smile on his face, giggling slightly.

“Mr. Zoro! You came!” Chopper says excitingly.

Zoro flashes him a soft smile and ruffles the kids hair, “Of course I came, kid.”

Chopper reaches up and grabs his hand, or more specifically half of his hand, and leads him further into the room directly to Trafalgar. Law stares for a moment, smirking at the sight of the man being led around by a child and puts his hand out. Zoro gives him a quick shake and goes to open his mouth but is quickly interrupted.

“Torao, he’s here now. Is it present time?” Chopper asks, jumping up and down slightly.

Law chuckles quietly, “Not yet, Tony. Presents come after the cake.”

Chopper pouts, letting go of Zoro’s hand and walking closer to his dad, “When is cake?”

Law bends down slightly, picking up his son and positioning him on his shoulders. He keeps a cautious grip on the kids legs, letting Chopper’s hands play with his hair.

“Not for a little while, buddy.” Law starts, “But I’m sure Uncle Ace and Uncle Sabo would love to play some Mario Kart with you, what do you think?”

Chopper seems to think about it for a few moments, making Law’s hair stand up all fluffy, before patting it back down and repeating.

“But what would we play on?” Zoro turns his head, recognizing the voice as Ace, who had a fake innocent look on his face, “Last I checked Chopper here doesn’t have a switch.”

The kid giggles, patting his hands on his dad’s head.

The blonde one walks up, standing behind Ace, Zoro would assume that would be Sabo.

Sabo gasps, “Don’t tell me you got a switch and you didn’t tell us.”

Chopper just continues to giggle.

Sharing a look with Ace, Sabo walks behind Law and reaches up slightly to grab Chopper, and Law lets go once he’s sure Sabo has a good grip.

Ace shakes his head with his hand on his hip, “I can’t believe you would hide something like that from us.”

The two bring Chopper over to the couch.

“You know what, Ace? I think I know what we should do.” Sabo shared a serious face with the other.

When Ace turns to look at the blonde, Zoro realizes that his other hand wasn’t in his pocket. The man only had one arm . Which, he guessed, was the reason Ace was never on camera.

He wasn’t able to dwell on it for too long, since, by the time he realized what was happening, he’d missed the last part of what Ace had said and the two were relentlessly tickling the child. Chopper was happily squealing, but when Luffy returned from wherever he came from and saw the tickle pile, he gasped.

The two freeze, looking at Luffy who wears an angry face.

“You dare attack the birthday boy at his birthday party?” Luffy stage yells, “I cannot allow that. I must save the birthday boy so he can have his cake later!”

He hears a deep chuckle from beside him Law, who nods towards the kitchen. Zoro follows him there.

“You didn’t have to bring a present, you know.” Law says.

Zoro shrugs, “I dunno kids too well. But even I know you don’t show up to a party without a gift unless you want to see the kid cry.”

And he does. It’s happened at least twice. Perona has since hammered it into his head, that if you’re going to a child’s party you have to bring something for them. It’s just plain rude if you don’t.

Law looks at him for a moment before shrugging, “You don’t owe us anything. Especially after the other day.”

Zoro realizes after a moment that he’s referring to when the kid ran into the street.

“I jumped in because he was a kid. I didn’t do it for favors or any of that shit.” Zoro states bluntly.

“Still,” Law stares at him, “You saved Tony, and from what I hear, you didn’t even give Luffy a hard time about any of it. People don’t do that kind of stuff without wanting something in return.”

His eye narrows, and Zoro rests against the kitchen wall behind him, “I’m Luffy’s friend.”

“Best friend.” Law states, “The same best friend who confronted and yelled at him only hours earlier, about… Hm what was it again? The fact that you and Blackleg thought I was not only using him, but cheating on him with a mistress? Was that it?”

Zoro crossed his arms, jaw tightening, but let the other speak.

Law chuckles for a moment, his eyes sharp, “Which, he also told me you’ve known about his gender stuff for a while. So that combined with the mistress' comment-- I need to confirm something with you.”

“And that is?” Zoro bites out.

“That you think of Luffy as a woman. Or you and Blackleg are just homophobic as hell.” Law shrugs, “So which is it?”

Sticking his fists in his sweatshirt pocket, Zoro forces himself to calm down and not start a fight at a five year old’s party.

He took a deep breath, “It’s neither Traffy. Luffy is Luffy. I couldn’t give a shit about anything else. He’s a man. I can’t speak for the shitty cook, but I think it’d be a bit hypocritical of me to judge someone if I’m the same.”

“Right.” Law stares after a moment, “Well then, I’d like you to keep looking after them.”

Zoro looked confused.

“Tony and Luffy.” Law starts, “Tony kept saying how he’d wanted to have you here for the party and after a few days, Luffy caved. He doesn’t keep this shit from you guys for fun. He keeps it from everyone to protect those he cares about. He’s had too much shit happen to him to allow stuff like that to happen to his son.”

Zoro just listens.

“However,” Law considers, “He forgets that he’s allowed to have people looking out for him as well. It took years for him to allow me that.”

Zoro stays quiet.

_________________________________________________________________

Law stands outside the door, sighing. 

He’d gotten through the full eight hour school day and then pulled a four hour shift and drove the twenty minutes home. His boss had eyed him suspiciously, and Law knew it was due to his bloodshot eyes to which his boss had most likely thought he was high. 

He wishes he was.

Instead, Tony had been restless all night and Law had an english paper due that morning, and they were running low on cash since Luffy was taking care of Tony most of the time which meant their only source of money for the time being was him. So they were currently living off cup noodles and whatever else they could get at the dollar store.

He turns the door handle and immediately flinches when the sound of loud crying hits him right in the splitting headache he’s had all day.

He throws his bag and shoes by the door, heading towards the bathroom. Once he returns, he heads into the bedroom where he sees Luffy desperately trying to shush Tony while bouncing him gently. The younger boy’s hair was a mess. It was extremely greasy, there was spit up on his shirt, which Law was pretty sure was his own shirt. 

He grimaces as he steps closer, “You stink.”

Luffy gives him a glance, “Haven’t exactly had the time to shower.”

Law stares at the crying child in his arms. Normally he would offer to help, let the other take a shower and shit, but he just… wasn’t in the mood. It had been a long day in a long week in a longer month. 

So, he nods, turning his way out of the room and back into the living room, where he promptly throws himself on the pull out bed, throwing on a pair of earbuds and pulling the sheets over his head.

_________________________________________________________________

“Enough of this heart to heart crap,” Law sighs, “You want a beer?”

Relaxing slightly, Zoro scoffs, “Was that a question?”

He paused slightly, was it okay to drink at a kids birthday party?

Meh.

Beer was beer.

Law opens the fridge, taking one out of the pack, and using a bottle opener before handing it to him, “Luffy said you weren’t picky so we just had Ace pick. We don’t have beer too often.”

Zoro takes a sip, “You don’t drink either?”

He shrugs, opening the fridge again, “Not as much as I used to, I guess. Can’t really drink at the hospital.”

Zoro just nods. 

Law grabs another beer, cracking it open. However before he could take a full sip, Ace comes around the corner, grabbing the beer from his hand.

“Oh, thanks so much for the beer, Trafalgar.” Ace says cheekily, taking a quick sip.

Law scoffs, “Of course, Portgas. I hope you have fun with the herpes.”

Zoro chokes on his drink but the others pay him no mind.

Ace chuckles, “Herpes? Damn, who’s gonna let Lu know?”

Cracking open another bottle, Law takes a sip, “Who do you think gave it to me?”

Damn was this really the guy who Ace let Luffy live with when he was a teenager?

Scoffing, “Sure, and where would he have gotten it from? If not you then surely it wouldn’t be from Ha-”

And then Ace freezes, eyes flicking over to Zoro, then back to Law, to whom he shares a look with.

“Whatever. If I get herpes I’ll just show up at the hospital and make your life a living hell.” Ace finishes.

And the three of them just sit in silence for a few minutes. 

“What happened to Mario Kart?” Law asks, the mood awkward.

Ace sighs, resting his hand on the kitchen counter behind him, “Chop was asking Sabo stuff about work.”

Law nods, “Luffy as well?”

He nods, “Yeah. I’ve already heard most of the stuff from Koala.”

Law turns to him, eyebrows pressed together, “And just what are you doing talking to your brother’s girlfriend, Portgas?”

Sabo was their brother as well?

Is Zoro allowed to ask about that?

“Well y’know when I’m not at Marco’s I’m free to talk to whoever I please, Traf.” Ace shrugs.

Law snorts under his breath, “You don’t have that much game, but sure let’s indulge you in this little fantasy.”

Ace glares, “Anyway. Koala calls as least three times a week to complain about all the stupid shit Sabo’s gotten himself involved in or screwed up or something.”

Zoro has no idea what that could mean, but Law nods along, “All three of you are menaces in your own way.”

“Lucky for you,” Ace says in a cheeky smile.

Taking another swig, Ace turns to Zoro as if just remembering he was there, “Zoro, how’ve you been?”

He shrugs.

Ace nods, “Welcome to the chaos.”

Law rolls his eyes, “You are part of the chaos.”

“You three are brothers, then?” Zoro gestures to the living room with the bottle.

“Mhm.” Ace says, “Lu’s the youngest and Sabo’s like me.”

In what way?

The hell did that mean?

“Why isn’t the other one in any videos?” Zoro asks. 

Glancing over to the living room, Sabo’s dressed somewhat casually, an unbuttoned long sleeve shirt with a white T-shirt poking through. He’s got one arm holding Chopper on his lap, while the other arm waves around as he talks. Luffy’s sitting next to them with one leg bent towards his chest and the other flat on the floor. They’re both sitting with smiles on their faces. 

“‘Cause he’s a spy.” 

The guy didn’t exactly look like a spy. He’s got a burn scar over one eye, kind of like that reminds Zoro of the cartoon Perona forced him to watch, something about an avatar.

Law rolls his eyes, “Ignore him. He works for the FBI, it wouldn’t be good for his job if he was too well known.”

Zoro draws his gaze back to the other two, almost feeling as if he was intruding on a moment between two brothers. 

Ace waves his stump, “See, I could have been a spy too, but y’know.”

Snorting, Law lifts the bottle back to his lips, “Be real Portgas, you wouldn’t have the restraint to deal with Dragon on a daily basis.”

“I mean I’d deal with him,” Ace smirks, “Enough that he’d never be able to work again.”

Luffy joins them, immediately chuckling when he overhears Ace’s last sentence. 

“Yes, but then you would be in jail.”

Ace takes the last sip of his drink, “Yeah Lu, but that’s only if they could catch me.”

Luffy walks to stand next to Law, who reaches into the fridge to grab a large bottle, Zoro has a similar one he uses for his pre workout. Law shakes it before handing it to the other.

Luffy’s eyes light up at the drink and takes a large sip, “You’re not sneaky enough to be a criminal.”

Ace grabs another beer, “Yes, but you’re missing the point. What are they gonna do when they catch me? Handcuff me? I’ve only got one hand.”

Luffy rolls his eyes at his brother as he places the beer on the counter behind him and does a jazz hand.

“Torao and I aren’t gonna bail you out. Sabo definitely wouldn’t.” Luffy shrugs.

Zoro notices Law shift, switching his beer into his right hand while the other snakes its way behind Luffy, landing on his hip. It’s still weird to him. Less than two weeks ago, Law was cold towards him and the cook, barely saying more than he needed to about the whole relationship. Now, he was invited to their son’s birthday party, meeting his mysterious brother Ace, and the secret brother Sabo. And on top of that, Law asked him to continue looking out for Luffy. 

“Yeah, you all suck.” Ace points, “But Marco would.”

Law mutters, “And I wonder why that would be.”

Luffy starts to chug the drink, and Ace starts repeating, “chug, chug, chug,” pointedly ignoring Law.

Law looks at him with a pointed glare and Luffy reluctantly lowers the drink. Taking another tiny sip after. 

Luffy turns his attention back to Zoro, “I’m really happy you’re here.”

Zoro’s ears turn slightly red, “Yeah.”

Ace snickers to his left, “Chopper’s got him wrapped around his finger already.”

Zoro opens his mouth to retort, but Law beats him to it.

“You know,” He drawls, “Tony told me he colored in the reindeer page for you.”

Ace whistles, “Damn, I thought he was saving that one.”

Zoro doesn’t have the chance to answer before the kid runs in.

_________________________________________________________________

Law isn’t able to fall asleep. Instead his headache gets worse and the crying continues.

He throws the covers off his body and goes to stand up. Luffy peaks his head out of the door.

“I’m sorry, he’s running a-”

Law cut him off, walking past him into his own room, grabbing a hoodie out of the closet and stating, “I’m heading out.”

He hears Luffy start to say something but he slips on his shoes and heads out of the apartment. Once he’s in the elevator he takes out his phone and sends a message to the guy from his homeroom who he overheard talking to another about the rail line.

The ‘Rail Line’ was the common place for the kids to hang out when they wanted to get wasted. It was an abandoned train station on the edge of town, which didn’t have any direct roads leading to it anymore so it was fair game for illegal activities. 

Law picks his wallet out of his pocket, double checking he still had it in there before putting it back in and rolling his shoulders. This, this was what he needed. Just one night away from everything.

It’s about a fifteen minute walk from the complex, but Law could tell when he was getting close based on the laughter and chatter. Turning his phone off, he makes his way into the crowd, and up to where the drinks were kept. Law thought he vaguely recognized the guy from his P.E. class but he couldn’t be bothered to care, so he pulled out his wallet and gave the guy a five dollar bill, and was then promptly handed a plastic cup filled with whatever was in the giant cooler. 

Law looked the guy in the eyes, downed it, and then gave him another five dollar bill.

Two cups later, Law felt a bit more relaxed at the buzz flowing through his system. He’s nursing another cup when he recognizes the guy from his homeroom.

“Trafalgar! Haven’t seen you at one of these ages, dude.” Drake says.

Law just shrugs.

Drake laughs, throwing an arm around Law. He’s about to throw the other off of him when Drake leans in close, “Come with me, I know just what you need.”

Law lets himself be led over to a few of Drake's friends that were sitting around in the surrounding forest. 

It’s then that Law’s eyes focus on the joint being held in front of him and he feels the smile lighting up his face. He borrows a lighter from one of the others and wastes no time lighting up. He feels his body relax significantly as the familiar feeling washes over him.

“Damn, guess he’s no rookie then.” A girl with vibrant green hair pats the seat next to her.

Taking another hit, Law takes a seat next to her. She smells like cheap perfume and alcohol. But he couldn’t give a shit at that point. Her tank top was low cut and tight, as well as the shorts that covered almost nothing.

Law stares at her as he takes another drag.

The girl leans closer as he exhales, “So, got a name, rookie?”

“Depends why you’re asking.” Law shrugs, finishing his drink.

The girl giggles, a bit too forced and high pitched, and pulls a flask from her back pocket, “I’ll let you share this if you tell me.”

Law raised an eyebrow, taking another hit. 

After one more, she dangled the bottle in front of his face.

Exhaling, he reaches up to take the bottle, “It’s Law.”

Popping open the lid, he takes a long swig, passing it back to her, “And you?”

“Monet.” She giggles as she takes a sip.

_________________________________________________________________

“Cake time!” Chopper exclaims, “Cake time, cake time, cake time.”

Luffy finishes off his shake, looking up at Law, “What do you think, Torao, can we have cake?”

Chopper tries to climb up Luffy, who just bends down to place him on his hip. Law looks at the two of them and sighs. And Zoro wasn’t sure how he missed it earlier, but the kid was sporting a bright pink cast on his wrist. 

Law gently shoves the two away, “I guess it is time for cake.”

Luffy and Chopper cheer as Luffy walks them out of the kitchen and to the small table. Zoro was sure they wouldn’t fit, especially since there were only five chairs set out.

Chopper takes his seat at the chair with the giant ‘5’ balloon hanging off the back of it. Luffy doesn’t go to take a seat, instead standing behind his son, making Chopper giggle every time the balloon would knock into Luffy’s hair making it stand up straight. Ace abandons his drink in the kitchen, but takes one of the seats next to the kid, and Sabo takes the seat next to Ace.

“Zoro, you can sit next to Sabo.” Luffy says, pointing to the further chair.

He nods.

Luffy runs around, shutting off all the lights before making his way back over. He shares a look with Law before loudly starting, and everyone but Zoro joins in, “Happy birthday to you!”

Chopper squeals with excitement as he watches Law walk in with the decorated cake with five candles on it. 

Law joins in, “Happy birthday to you!”

Gently placing the cake in front of his son, Law watches as Chopper’s eyes light up at the cake.

Sabo nudges Zoro with his elbow as they continue, and Zoro notices that he is recording everything on his phone.

“Happy birthday to Chopper,” They say, even Law who just rolls his eyes at the nickname, “Happy birthday to you.”

The song finishes and Luffy bends over the chair slightly, “C’mon Chop you gotta make a wish, and remember don’t tell anyone or it won’t come true.”

Chopper turns slightly, eyes wide as he nods. He thinks for a second before taking a deep breath and blows out the candles. He misses one, so he pouts but blows it out a second later.

They all cheer and Luffy kisses Chopper on the head as Law ruffles his hair affectionately.

“C’mon get close for a picture!” Sabo says, and Law and Luffy pose with their son.

“Cheese!” Chopper exclaims.

_________________________________________________________________

Law has long since lost track of how many hits he’s had. But Monet is over him with an arm draped over his back and the other feeling up his shirt.

She pauses for a moment to grab the flask, only to pout when she realizes it's empty, “Aw Law you finished it. I was supposed to have the last sip.”

He looks at her, licking his lips slightly, “I think I could make it up to you if you wanted.”

She giggles, standing up a moment later, taking him by the hand and leading him away from the party, over to where a bunch of the kids parked their cars.

They stop at an old SUV, which she unlocks, “One sec, I promise.”

Law stands, watching as she lowers the second and third row of seats. After she’s done, she looks at Law and tilts her head. He climbs in the car, closing the door behind him.

She drapes herself on top of him, pouting slightly at the wallet digging into her thigh. Law shakes his head as he remembers. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the condom he’d checked for earlier.

God.

That's a mistake he could only make once.

_________________________________________________________________

Chopper has frosting smeared all over his face as he asks for his second slice.

Luffy goes for his third.

Law just shakes his head, talking to Luffy, “He’s gonna be so hyper later.”

Luffy snickers, nodding towards his brothers, “That's a problem for them.”

Ace quickly swallows his bite, “Mhm, Chopper are you all packed?”

Zoro looked confused, but bit his tongue to keep from asking.

Luffy nods, “Everything’s all ready.”

Glancing back at Zoro he continues, “Chopper has a sleepover at his Uncle Ace’s apartment for his birthday and Uncle Sabo is staying there, too.”

“Have you picked out a movie yet?” Sabo asks, taking another slice.

Zoro noticed Law was still only working on his first. Jesus. Their appetite must run in the family.

Chopper nods excitedly, “Baymax movie!”

Law chuckles, “Big Hero 6. He’s taken quite a liking to Baymax.”

“He’s a Doctor, just like Torao!” Chopper exclaims, a huge smile on his face.

Zoro notices the fond smile on Law’s face as he picks up a napkin, wetting it slightly, before cleaning the forgotten icing off Chopper’s face.

Chopper reaches up with his hands and Law helps him off his chair, before the kid walks over between his uncles. 

Luffy looks back over to Law, and Law reaches out, swiping off the icing off his cheek with his thumb, before bringing it to his own mouth to eat. Zoro quickly turns his gaze away, focusing on the conversation happening next to him.

_________________________________________________________________

Law is feeling significantly lighter as he opens the door to his apartment. He wasn’t even bothered by the crying. He stumbles as the door shuts and he attempts to take off his shoes. 

“Law- You’re-” Luffy stopped mid sentence, nose wrinkling.

He just flops on the pull out again, happily sighing.

He doesn’t flinch when the door is loudly shut to the bedroom, instead dozing off slightly.

When Law comes to a few minutes later, he hears someone rushing around, frantically talking. He scrunches his face, blinking his eyes slightly.

“--I’ve tried that already, nothing’s working! I haven’t been able to get him to eat anything all day. Or I mean he has but then it just come right back up--”

Law pushes himself up slightly, taking in Luffy throwing on a sweatshirt, and packing what was designated as their ‘diaper bag.’

Luffy sighs, “No he can’t drive us. He’s… High? Reeks of pot. I dunno he could just be drunk--”

“What's going on?” Law says, feeling himself slurring slightly.

“How far away are you?” Luffy pays him no attention, “We will be right there.”

Law forces himself up, stumbling over the sheets a bit, “Luffy what’s-”

He watches as the younger boy’s jaw tightens before turning, “You would know this if you actually talked to me earlier. But-”

He says with a pointed glare, picking up Chopper, “Chopper’s sick. Has been since last night. His fever is too high, Ace is taking us to the hospital.”

Luffy wastes no time closing the door in Law’s face. 

The realization washes over him like a bucket of ice water. While he was out getting laid, his son’s health was declining. 

He feels his breath speeding up.

Law barely makes it to the bathroom before he throws up.

_________________________________________________________________

When Law walks in to work the next day, he takes a cup of the cheap coffee and joins his co-workers in the rotations. He meets up with Penguin not too long after, the other two hooligans nowhere in sight.

“Hey there, Captain.” Penguin starts, and a mischievous smile on his face and Law has half a mind to just turn away from him.

Instead, he forces himself to take a deep breath as he enters one of his patient’s vitals into the system. 

“Did you do anything fun for valentines day?”

And Law chuckles to himself slightly as he realizes he has the opportunity to ruin his friends plans entirely. He’d obviously come over here to get juicy details about his valentines day, but Law was probably the worst person to ask for that.

So, he shrugged, “We celebrated Tony’s birthday.”

He hears Penguin drop the files he was holding, a string of curses leaving his lips. 

Law pays no attention to him as he logs out of the computer, returning to his work, paying no attention to Penguin trying to get him to come back.

Chapter Text

10. Should there be a difference? Do you have instructions? Part II

After leaving Penguin in the dust, Law clocks out for his break, grabbing his lunch and sitting at an empty table in the corner. Once he’s seated he lets out a heavy breath allowing his hands to come up to his face, pressing lightly into his eyes. He knew he'd eventually have this conversation with Luffy’s brothers, but based on Ace’s attempted light hearted taunt, he knew that he’d have to step in before he messed up and said something like that in front of him.

Luffy was doing better. He never really let himself fully process everything that had happened with Hancock.The accident had happened and by the time Luffy had woken up and started the slow process of healing , he ended up just leaving it at that.

But, Law realized, Luffy never told his brothers what happened. While he knew the other had done that purposefully, it seemed to the two of them that she was just Luffy’s ex. Nothing more to it.

Especially since Ace technically was the reason they’d met in the first place.

Taking his head out of his hands, Law slides his phone out of his back pocket, opening up his messages. For a moment he debated if this conversation should instead happen in person, that way he could keep Ace from committing a felony, but with their schedules it proved more difficult and by then he could say something worse to his brother. 

Law

Got a minute?

He watches as the bubbles pop up and disappear. Twice.

Portgas 

Not sure if I wanna say yea.

Law rolls his eyes.

Law

It’s about Hancock. 

Don’t mention her around Luffy.

The text screen goes silent for a moment. His phone turns off for a moment, so Law takes a bite of his sandwich. 

Portgas

Lu isn’t the type to care about ex gf and all that shit.

What is going on?

He takes another bite, debating how much to say without spilling all of his boyfriend's private information. 

Law

He didn’t tell u or Sabo earlier to try and keep u both out of prison.

So, it isn’t a good idea to bring her up unless he does first.

Law was the exception to that, if it was just passing questions . Like when he asked if Roronoa knew anything about her. Luffy wouldn’t have a mental breakdown over something like that, but if you start pushing, his mind gets a bit lost in thought and far away.

If Law shared his medical opinion, occasionally it led to Luffy dissociating for a little while, but he would be okay a bit after. It would just bring up some unpleasant memories. 

Portgas

Ok. I won’t. 

But.

You gotta give me more to work with.

How bad r we talkin?

Law abandons his sandwich momentarily, he’s most likely going to have to say the basics just to get Ace to back off, otherwise he’s going to keep asking until he finds something out. Which pissed Law off to an extent, but Ace’s protective trait of his younger brother was quite strong and sometimes stuff like this is necessary for the long road.

Law

To put it lightly.

And vaguely.

She used alcohol as a means to get into bed with him. 

If he said he wasn’t in the mood? 

Then some wine would be brought out, they’d watch a movie and she would keep refilling his glass until his opinion changed or he was ‘pliant.’

To start.

And god, Law always forgets how much he actually hates that woman until he’s forced to remember what she’s done. He’s not one to forgive easily, but he’s too close to Luffy to ever consider forgiving her. 

Portgas

That’s a pretty fucked statement Traf.

Law

You don’t think I know that?

Portgas

U said there was more?

He pauses, debating what else he could say. There's a bunch of shit that would suffice and prove his point, but some of them were worse than others. He didn’t want to reveal everything, it wasn’t his place to say.

Law

She would manipulate and blackmail Luffy.

To keep him from going home to see Tony.

She wanted to build a new life with him.

Trying to make his old life fade away.

Law would be the first to admit that it is a bit weird to tell someone that you’re living with the father of your two year old son, but Luffy was freshly sixteen when he’d started going out with her. She, on the other hand, was a full adult. He doesn’t doubt that Hancock knew exactly what she was doing the entire time. 

But, it was common knowledge that Boa has never publicly been with anyone . According to Luffy, she hadn’t been lying about that either. Which makes her first relationship being with an underage boy even worse. And Law knew how much worse the story got from there but he wasn’t saying anything further. If Ace were to know anything else, it would have to be from his brother.

Portgas

That adds up.

I forgot how much he wasn’t around that year.

Law goes to respond but he sees the bubbles pop up again.

Portgas

I’ll deny this if u ever ask about it.

But.

I still have nightmares about the frantic and desperate tone in his voice that night.

It always leads to the accident.

But I picked him up at some random bus stop. Not her house.

It was pouring, he was soaked.

The clothes he wore were feminine. 

I never want to see him like that again.

Law abandons the rest of his sandwich. He remembers the clothes Luffy was brought into the hospital. He made sure to throw them in the dumpster before Luffy was released. Seeing him that day was seared in his brain as well, The gaping hole in his chest that Law watched as he was on the operating table. Law was just an unpaid intern at the time, doing nothing but behind the scenes work. He’d heard the hospital prepping the surgeons for two people from a car accident, claiming one of them wasn’t expected to make it through it.

He was organizing files when one of the reception nurses walked up to him, saying he was listed as the emergency contact of one of the patients from the car accident. And even before he could ask which person he was in the accident, Law’s stomach sank as the nurse started saying that he most likely wasn’t going to make it and he should get his affairs in order.

Law quickly stuttered out asking what room he was in, but the nurse told him he’d already been sent to operating room B. He wasted no time running through the halls, across the hospital, to make it to the room.

He was stopped when he came face to face with with Ace who was----

His phone buzzed again. 

Law wrapped up his sandwich, knowing he wouldn’t be finishing it after all. Remembering the accident was always a horrifically traumatizing event, and he truly didn’t want to linger on it anymore than he had.

Picking up his phone, he expected to see another message from Ace, but was instead a message from Penguin asking what time he got off work that day.

Law

It better be 6pm.

Penguin

I get in at 5:30, I’ve got something for your kid. 

I’m leaving it in the break room.

Do

Not

Forget

It

More presents? Tony was gonna be ecstatic.

_________________________________________________________________

Luffy didn’t answer his phone for seventeen hours. That's how long he was at the hospital with Tony. Law had texted, and called, asking for updates, for anything. Only to get radio silence.

He had no idea if it was something serious, if Tony had been brought to the hospital in time, if Law could have gotten him there earlier if he didn’t act like a massive shit head to the other father of his son. His parents were doctors, he knew the statistics, he’s seen what can happen to infants in such a small period of time.