Corazon Week Day 6: Family / Love / Sacrifice
Another town, another hospital, all a bust. Why couldn't these people just try to help this kid? Why were they so insistent that he was contagious? Rosinante's been with the kid for nearly three years, and he's fine! No spots, no fever, no shortness of breath!
So he burned the hospitals before he left. Not the patients' rooms, but the offices where the doctors keep all that important paperwork. He hopes it takes them years to replace it all, the assholes. “Contagious my ass,” he muttered as he marched down the street, heading for their boat docked just outside of town. “There's gotta be a doctor somewhere out there that uses their brain! We'll find ‘em and then they'll fix you right up!”
Law, whom Rosinante held in his hand, just lay still and said nothing. It broke his heart knowing the kid had just given up, ready to accept death with open arms. None of this was okay. Not the lies the government told, not these ignorant people with their inability to think for themselves, and certainly not how this kid who is almost 13 is okay and ready to just kill over any day.
“You'll live past this, you'll see,” he told the boy once they were sailing away. “You'll grow up and have friends who will be your new family and I bet you'll even fall in love with someone! Maybe even a couple of times; you are still young after all.” Law looked at him like he was some kind of idiot.
“You will!” Rosinante said, pointing a finger at the kid. “Girls will line up just to be with you when you get older!” At the look of disgust, he quickly backtracked. “O-or boys! Either works!” The look didn’t go away and now he felt awkward. “Or maybe you're just one of those who don't date. I never did either, honestly.” Pulling out a cigarette and lighter, he wondered if he was one of those, too. He never tried to date anyone; his mind had always been focused on becoming a marine, so that everything else was pushed aside and labeled as ‘not important’.
He lit a cigarette, glad when nothing caught fire, and continued. “Ah, who needs that kind of love. I knew a guy who was always bending over backwards to impress a girl who turned out to be married. Who wants to deal with that anyway? Besides, the best kind of love comes from a found family. Sure, family by blood is one thing, but a chosen family? That is something that most won’t experience, a group of unique individuals all choosing each other. People who have seen you at your worst and still love you.” He might be rambling at this point, but Law no longer looked disgusted and instead looked thoughtful.
“Like Doflamingo's crew?”
Rosinante thought about it for a moment before nodding slowly. “Technically yes. They're not the healthiest example but they are an example. Most found families don't expect anything from you or torture you when you laugh at one of them. I mean, they might hit you on the head, but it's loving and doesn't hurt.” At the skeptical look, we went to explain. “Like once when I tripped and fell into a fountain. My adopted father hit his best friend for laughing, but it didn't hurt him since it just made him laugh harder.”
He smiled at the memory, remembering how Garp laughed so hard he fell into the fountain himself, and then Sengoku was laughing at him. Miss. Tsuru had been the one to help him out of the fountain and she took him to get ice cream while Garp pulled Sengoku in with him. “When you find friends or just people that love you and understand you, they become something like family. I had lost my parents, and while Doffy gathered his crew and made them his family, I found my own family. One that didn't hurt or kill each other for fun.”
Law looked thoughtful now. That was better than indifference. With a smile, he placed a hand on the kid's hat. “You'll find friends who will become like family to you one day, and you'll know what I mean. I'll even be there to say ‘I told you so’.”
With a roll of his eyes and a smirk that spelled trouble, the brat said, “With how you smoke? I'd be surprised if you made it to your 40s.”
He grabbed his chest as a wounded sound left him, the boy laughing at him as he did.
You'll live, Law. Live a long and healthy life with people who love you.
Thirteen years later, when the Heart pirates are celebrating their victory in Wano, Rosinante watches a red-faced Law talk with one of the pirate captains he's allied with, Strawhat Luffy. He watches as Law gets redder the more he talks while the other man begins to look more and more serious.
Beside him were Penguin, Shachi, and Bepo, all of whom were watching the interaction alongside him.
“Think he'll do it?” Penguin asked.
“Nah, Cap will back out before Strawhat realizes it's a confession.”
Bepo shakes his head sadly, “Captain is too good for Strawhat anyway.”
Rosinante smiles as he watches Law begin to back away, but stops when Luffy grabs his hand. “I think you should give Luffy more credit,” he says as he watches the man pull Law into a kiss. Penguin cheered, Sachi was gaping like a fish, and Bepo gasped like it was some sort of scandal. Rosinante laughed at the three, quickly turning them away to give the other two some privacy. He'll tell Law ‘I told you so’ tomorrow.
Day 2/3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
