When the darkness comes, we will be holding on
Oh no we're not afraid, we learned to chase the Sun.
-Made of Light (Mikky Ekko)
So Law and Luffy have been there at each other’s lowest points and... yeah. This song was practically written for them (especially the second verse for Law’s POV).
10 days of Lawlu! Day 7: Light/Dark Yin and Yang has been one of the few things that has always held my interest, so when it comes to these two I feel like it isn’t hard to think; “They are as different as day and night and yet they fit together so right.” I don’t know I suck at being deep 😅
Law thinks Luffy’s laugh is so much more blinding than any fireworks combined. It is an explosion of emotions, feelings, sensation of something he can't utterly describe that reaches the depth of his heart with a bang. It emanates a spark of warmth, love, trust, and serenity. It makes him at ease. It never ceases to make him feel good and he can't help but laugh along with his ray of sunshine, Luffy.
What Law realizes, eventually, is that the way Luffy destroys himself is nothing like the way Law does.
It's a mild night, no moon, and Law can't sleep. Luffy's gotten it into his head to keep Law company, as he does from time to time. He's sitting astride the taffrail, legs swinging idly, as Law leans one elbow on the smooth wood.
"You feeling better?" Luffy asks suddenly.
"Better than what?
"Than before."
Law rolls his eyes.
The silence settles back between them, thin in the scant light. Easily broken.
"It hurts sometimes, you know?" Luffy says, and turns to blink at him. He's limned by the starlight, like this, tan skin turned dusky and hair like twilit wisps of cloud. It's not true, of course. Law knows that hair is coarse. But it looks nice, just now.
It always looks nice.
"Torao," Luffy says. Firm, insistent. Not exactly gentle and not exactly impatient. Law slides back into focus and blinks back at him, unused to this liminality. Luffy is usually so... binary. But then Luffy grins at him, huge and wide and white. There he is. "There you are!" Luffy says, making Law dizzy. And the grin flickers off, brows drawing down. "I don't like it when people leave like that."
Law frowns, then finds himself chuckling. "You say that like it happens a lot."
"Shishisi. You'd be surprised." Then serious again: "You keep doing it though."
"I do what I like," Law huffs, looking back at the water.
"You don't like it though."
Law's gaze swings back around to meet Luffy's. The declarative certainty of that statement sits like a chill on Law's skin. "Don't I?"
"I don't like it."
This is less unsteady ground. "You said that already."
Luffy regards him seriously. "You didn't listen last time." He stares for a beat; two. Three. Then the smile blooms again, a slow unfurling that Law isn't accustomed to. It stinks of mischief.
There's a chafing edge of irritation stuck in Law's throat before a laugh forces its way past. "All right. You said it hurts sometimes."
Luffy nods firmly. "That's right. When Chopper fixes us up, sometimes it hurts more before it's fixed. Like this hurt, right?" And Luffy reaches out and puts his hand on Law's chest, like it belongs there. Right of center, not on his heart, but palm pressing precisely over the scar there.
It feels strange, warm and gentle but making his hackles rise, a shiver of heat chasing down his skin.
Law puts his hand around Luffy's wrist and removes his palm from his chest, then isn't sure what to do next. Luffy waits, watching him, and Law can feel the wingbeats of his pulse in his wrist, under Law's fingers, nothing like a normal human's hummingbird flutter. Big scooping swoops of wings, that pulse, like an albatross ascending, as Luffy's overworked heart heaves blood through his elastic veins. Law's other hand comes up to his own chest, half to catch the feel of his own heart and half tracing the other scar, mirror to the one Luffy touched. "That's different," Law says in the end.
"I know," Luffy says. "But you feel better now, right?"
"Yes."
"That's the important part then."
Law thinks of the years spent feeling wrong, and says, "You don't understand."
Luffy hikes up his legs and crosses them, leans an elbow on one knee and tips his head into it. "So tell me about it." His other wrist is still in Law's hand. Relaxed but not limp. Warm.
Law thinks about it. His own palm feels rough where he's pressed it against his chest, and he splays his fingers deliberately, then closes the hand into a fist. "No."
"All right," Luffy says, and stops staring at Law, turning instead to look at the water.
It gives Law a chance to swallow, and ease his own heartrate down.
This feels strange until he realizes his thumb is pressing into Luffy's wrist. Their hearts are wildly out of sync.
He turns Luffy's wrist over, exposing the veins to the starlight. They're hidden by shadow and the shade of Luffy's skin, but Law can feel them under his fingertips as he runs his other hand over the delicate skin. High blood pressure. Extraordinarily high.
When he looks up Luffy's watching him again.
"I said it hurts sometimes, right?" Luffy says into the silence. "That's okay. But why it hurts matters." Luffy folds up the hand Law is holding; Law feels the tendons flex. "So you shouldn't hurt yourself anymore."
"I don't hurt myself."
Luffy gives him a look like he is an idiot. It makes Law bark a laugh.
He knows full well how self-destructive he gets.
"All right," Law says, and holds up Luffy's hand. Brings it nearer to Luffy's chest, until it's over his heart, Law's palm against Luffy's fist against Luffy's chest. He imagines he can feel that heart even through those barriers. Maybe he doesn't have to imagine it. "What about this, then? The damage you've done to your body."
"I know," Luffy says. "That's for saving people. And kicking people's asses. I'm gonna be Pirate King!" He grins, like he always does when he says that. Then he takes his other hand and pokes Law in the forehead. "Reasons, right?"
Law bats his finger away, after a moment spent in cross-eyed blinks.
Once Law's looking at Luffy properly again, Luffy's face has switched back to dead serious. "You were ready to die, you know? That's not the problem. And wanting to kick Mingo's ass. That's not it either."
Law frowns. "So what's the problem? I'm here, aren't I?"
"You didn't want to be. You went away like you weren't coming back. You should want to come back."
Law swallows something jagged. "You do not," he says very precisely around the splintered edges of spite, "get tell me what to feel."
"What you do is what you feel. Works other way around, right? So do like you're coming back."
"You don't get to tell me what to do, either."
Luffy grins at him, the unspoken echo of their repeated arguments about allies. But it feels less rough, this. Like climbing the slanted hill at the cliff's back, instead of the sheer face of it.
"That's what I meant when I said that's different," Luffy says, pointing at Law's chest this time rather than touching it. "That hurt, but you wanted to come out the other side. It wasn't down and down."
Law is familiar, of course, with the principle of destroying in order to heal. It had just never occurred to apply that idea to himself.
It hadn't felt like healing, at the time. Self-preservation, maybe; bitter stabs of it after Cora-san's relentless quest, after he forced Law's salvation on him. And that, in turn, let him rid his body of its poison. Several poisons.
Law takes a breath.
He takes Luffy's pointing hand again, less steady this time. Surgeon's hands aren't supposed to shake. "How about order for order. Doctor's orders. You take better care of yourself." He pokes Luffy in the forehead with his free hand; Luffy catches it, grinning. "Fight smarter."
The grin widens, and Law stutters out a chuckle. "Smart's your job," Luffy asserts easily. "So we trade, right? That's what allies do. I do smarter, you do— um." Luffy stumbles to an uncharacteristic halt.
"Living?" Law suggests. Happiness, he thinks Luffy means. That word doesn't make it past his teeth.
But it would be an abundant trade, from this one. Luffy lives fiercely, and freely, but the sheer joy in him would drown Law.
He's made for drowning, now.
Luffy seems to have spent the time in serious contemplation of this bargain, because he looks back up at Law now and says, "Not fair. Nope."
Law huffs an exasperated sigh. "What, then?"
Luffy stares at him, then settles his hands in a clasp with Law's, one and then the other, from where they'd been crossed in front of their bodies. "Nope," he repeats. "You decide. That's the trade."
"I have no idea what to offer."
"I know," Luffy says. Then he grins. "So tell me when you think of something." The grin curls up into a wicked smirk before Law gets the joke.
He laughs, helpless. Gives Luffy's hands a squeeze. "All right. I'll think of something," he says.
"Good." Luffy squeezes back, and untangles their crossed limbs, a very simple task for him as he just curves and snakes his arms back into order. Then he scoots closer to where Law's standing and leans firmly against him, pulling his hat up and over his eyes.
He's asleep within minutes, a warm weight against Law's shoulder as Law stares out across the silvered waters. It's a wide sky, out there. Wide seas for drowning in.
Law breathes the starlight in, lungs filling and filling and filling.
