I'm rapidly closing in on a point where I don't want to post much more of this to tumblr so that it hits harder in context but hhhhhh I desire attention and dopamine so here's a little cheeky bit! At 37k, I'm almost done with chapter 4, which was fairly murky going into it so I'm glad to have figured it out, but 5 is gonna push me to the limit, I already know. But then it'll be done!
masterpost
Rocinante should’ve expected that escaping from Dressrosa would be the same kind of chaotic bullshit that his departure from Impel Down was, courtesy of one Monkey D. Luffy, and yet he’s taken by surprise.
Much like the escape from Impel Down, he doesn't see it coming. Rocinante wakes up with Law in his arms-- his new normal, apparently-- and a cramp in his left calf-- less normal and overwhelmingly painful. “Sonofabitch,” he hisses, trying to twist to prod at it without disturbing Law and mostly failing at both.
“Cora?” Law says, muzzy.
It’s a good thing Rocinante is currently suffering from a charlie horse that demands his entire attention, or else he’d have a brain cell to spare to think about that rough voice first thing in the morning and oh, great, the greed is awake too. Rocinante bends himself as far as he can manage to stick his thumb deep into the muscle, but it doesn’t help.
“Cramp?”
Rocinante gives a strained grunt of acknowledgement.
“Stand on it.”
Law gives him a shove up and a shoulder to hold so he can balance on one foot without going ass over teakettle, and surprisingly, it does help. The muscle releases enough that Rocinante can breathe and think again, though it’s sure to be sore and give him shit all day today. “Thanks.”
“More potassium,” Law says in lieu of a normal thing people would say like you’re welcome or good morning.
Rocinante flicks the bill of Law's hat with unbearable fondness. “Bossy brat.”
“Good morning, Sir Rose and Sir Law!” a too-loud voice greets. Rocinante and Law turn as one to find both Wano samurai walking through the field bearing enormous sacks. Kin’emon continues, overly jolly, “We have returned from our mission to fetch sustenance, and look! You’ve awakened just in time! Perhaps you should join us in the cabin, or else Sir Luffy will consume all of your portion of the day’s food.”
“Stop announcing we’re here if you don’t want the Navy up our asses.” Any hint of a good mood that Law had has officially evaporated.
“Oh! My apologies, Sir La-- that is, uh. My apologies.”
“Just get inside.”
Rocinante trails after Law without instruction, ducking inside just in time to see Luffy descend on the additional provisions like a one-man pack of wolves. Careful hands snatch up their own share of the food, braver ones wandering closer to Luffy’s ravenous mouth and more cautious ones sticking to the items that have rolled to the perimeter of the table.
Law evaluates his options before plucking a pair of avocadoes from the pile. A knife appears in his hand, and Rocinante watches with no interest whatsoever as his long, clever fingers plunge the blade into the dark skin and run it around the long perimeter. He twists the halves apart, carefully pits it with a sharp slap of the blade and a twist, and whacks the knife on the edge of the table to send the pit tumbling off.
“Here,” he tells Rocinante, offering both halves. “Potassium and magnesium, both good for muscle cramps.”
Rocinante takes them with indescribable tenderness bubbling up in him. One of Robin’s disembodied hands wave a spoon at him, and there’s salt and pepper carefully kept outside of Luffy’s reach but well within his to put on top, and then the skins are empty and Law’s swapping them for the other two halves he’s prepared. He’s clearly been paying attention, because these ones are sprinkled with salt and pepper already.
It reminds Rocinante of a tiny Law, looking like a furious mushroom and brandishing a ladle as he yells get up, oaf, breakfast is done! This grown-up Law doesn’t bluster to try to cover up the vulnerability of caretaking. His shoulders are relaxed as he steals food out from under Luffy to feed Rocinante. He takes a tax for himself along the way, which is good, because Rocinante would have to throw a fit if he didn’t.
Speaking of throwing fits, there’s a back-and-forth going on outside of the little bubble between them. As the tension climbs thanks to the oppressive weight of Luffy’s sour mood, he tunes in to the argument. “Who would make up some dumb crap like that?!” Luffy’s saying.
Zoro piles on as Rocinante goes back over half-remembered exchanges. There was something about… a rumor in town? About the one star gladiator girl’s father being a prince from a foreign land. The general response to this is displeasure, for some reason. There's nothing wrong with it to Rocinante; she's the granddaughter of the deposed king, after all, so a prince for a father makes good enough sense. Once again, Rocinante curses his lack of intel. He really should’ve asked Law for some key details at this point.
“I was the person who got that rumor started,” Kyros says from his stand by the window. This markedly does not improve the mood in the room. “The only ones who know the truth are some of the royal family, and those of the Donquixote Family who dug into my past. The kingdom knows her mother, but little more than that.” Luffy’s chewing with the fury of someone who has been deeply wronged, which sends Rocinante’s stomach sinking towards his feet. The last time he saw Luffy angry, he escaped an inescapable prison. It’s not clear what the consequences will be this time, but with a full Navy detachment and an admiral still on Dressrosa, it could get messy. Fast. “I spread that story before they could find out that Rebecca is my daughter.”
Shit. Rocinante feels a scowl crawl onto his face. Maybe the mood in the room was correct.
“But why?” Robin asks, her tone impressively neutral compared to everyone else's disgust.
“It’s because of my past. I was a criminal, and someone of my low breeding could never marry royalty. This is better for her.”
Rocinante goes from scowling to seeing red. Luffy beats him to it, though. “No, it isn’t! Does Rebecca know about all of this stuff?”
Kyros glances sideways at the room. Guilty. “She must have read my note. I told her the honest truth about my whole life. Because of what I did, Rebecca suffered for a long time. I want her to live in the light forever, and that means she can’t have anything to do with me. It’s the only way I can make amends by failing as her father.”
“Bullshit,” Rocinante snarls. Heads whip around to stare at him, and even Kyros fully turns in his shock. Rocinante hasn’t said much of anything to anyone other than Law since he arrived at the cabin, but he can’t stay quiet at this. “Running away is a punishment, not an apology.”
“Who are you to say--” Kyros starts, heated.
Rocinante cuts him off. “Unlike you, I didn’t have a choice. I was dragged away and locked up in Impel Down for eleven years. Do you know what I would’ve given for the chance to stay? And here you are, willingly turning tail on someone who needs you for no reason other than you’re chickenshit, and you can’t even admit that to yourself, either.”
Law’s gaze bores into the side of Rocinante’s head. He’s too angry to notice much beyond that. Maybe he’ll regret saying all this later. Maybe Law thinks it’s private, their business and no one else’s, and will take Rocinante to task for revealing it. Too late now.
“You don’t understand my situation. She’s still a child, and I won’t let her life be ruined by a temporary fit of emotion.”
Rocinante unfolds himself, standing tall so he can glare at Kyros almost eye-to-eye. “The only temporary fit of emotion is whatever the fuck is going on right now. Eat your pride fast, or else it’s going to eat you first. Nobody wants to be abandoned. Nobody. And it’s bluesdamn cruel to say it’s for her good when I bet she hasn’t asked for this, and maybe even has begged for you not to leave her.”
Kyros’ expression is hardening. Rocinante grins at him, ugly and begging for a fight, and then--
Purupurupurupurupuru. The tension between them snaps as Kyros picks up the snail. Rocinante’s ass thumps back down on the floor as a voice comes through. “Captain! Uh, I mean, Sir Kyros. It’s me, Leo!”
SLAM! “Mister Zoro!” A clown of some sort has appeared at the door. Green hair, fangs, harlequin print pants. “Mister Luffy! Miss Robin! Mister Franky! Mister Usopp!! What an honor! How’s your morning?” He cringes, holding up his hands like something inside the cabin glows bright enough to blind, and then collapses to the floor with a stream-of-consciousness mumble as he writhes there.
“Would you please just say what you came here to say?” Zoro barks.
Law’s hand wraps around Rocinante’s wrist. He looks down at it, tracing slim fingers and dark ink with his eyes to calm down, because if he looks Law in the face right now, he might say something he doesn’t want an audience to hear.
“Right! Sorry.” The clown quits whatever his interpretive act is. Rocinante definitely doesn’t get it, and he even used to be clown-adjacent. Standards really have been dropping everywhere, haven’t they. “There’s been some movement over at the Navy tents. I think they might come this way! Vice Admiral Tsuru is with them, and the old Fleet Admiral Sengoku, too!”
Rocinante’s breath catches. His right hand fists in the same second Law’s grip tightens on his left wrist. Sengoku is bad enough, but Tsuru too… He doesn’t remember it, but he knows Tsuru had been the one to find him on Minion Island. To save him. If she gets her hands on him, she’ll surely dress him down so hard that he’ll long for the good old days in Impel Down.
“Tsuru and Sengoku?” Franky says skeptically, and it jars Rocinante out of his thoughts. Right. The Strawhats have no idea about his connections to the new players, and even Law is likely fuzzy at best on the details.
Usopp wails as Law’s chin dips down to shield his eyes behind the brim of his hat. Rocinante’s skin prickles at what little he can see of the expression on Law’s face. Scratch this situation being messy due to Luffy; this could go sideways in a whole new and terrible way he wasn’t expecting.
“Oh, the Navy’s getting ready to attack you!” Leo says at the other end of the denden.
(Roci survives but is officially marked dead and chucked into Level 6 to rot. Luffy breaks Roci out and takes him along to Marineford. Roci has no goddamn clue what's happened for the past eleven years, so he yoinks Law's file and a few other key items out from Marineford while everyone is kung-fu fighting and makes a run for it. Got it? Cool.)
masterpost
Navy dossiers on pirates followed a standard order: copies of wanted posters in reverse chronological order, high level summary, all relevant incident reports, additional pictures for identification, pictures of known craft, and pictures of known associates. In Law's file, there’s just the one wanted poster with a relatively recent date of issue-- kept a low profile for a while, smart-- and Rocinante blows past the type-heavy pages with the intent to go right to any photos of known craft, but is stopped fully in his tracks by the first picture, a full body shot on what looks to be Sabaody going by the tree trunks and iridescence.
There’s a roaring in Rosinante’s ears, and his vision spins dizzily. His body goes numb and then cuts out like a bad denden signal. Is there seastone touching him? No. His wrists are light. There’s nothing dulling the world for him now. He’s taking it all directly into his veins, and it’s going to kill him, because there’s just-- there’s-- there’s just Law.
Rocinante swallows hard enough that his ears pop. He covers his eyes with trembling fingers, chokes on an attempt to take a deep breath, drops his hands to pound his chest as he half-coughs up a lung, and then looks at the photo again. Nope! He squeezes his eyes shut. He definitely needs to pray, but he’s not sure for what. Death?
When Rocinante’s heart finally slows from its frantic tattoo, he cautiously slits open one eye. Maybe if he only just barely looks at it, it won’t burn.
It burns.
Law, confident and tall and smirking and tattooed and full-grown and quite possibly handsome. Carrying on his chest the worst and best thing Rocinante has ever seen in his life. Only a bad spy lies to himself, so he can’t deny that he instantly knows exactly what that symbol on Law’s yellow hoodie is.
Who. Who that symbol is.
Rocinante.
It’s Rocinante smiling the last smile he ever gave to Law, to anybody. It’s unmistakable. It’s unendurable.
(Rocinante: only bad spies lie to themselves
Rocinante two sentences earlier, sweating profusely: i mean I guess you could say that Law might be somebody that other people could call handsome BUT I WOULDN'T HAHAHAHA)
Cora and Law have made it to Kyros' house and are currently undergoing interrogation, Strawhat style. It's going... about as well as anyone would expect.
masterpost
“Oh, I get it! Torao is your special person, isn’t he, Rosey?”
Fuck Luffy and fuck his uncanny perceptiveness. Now is not the time for this. Rocinante looks at him, pleading with his eyes not to push any further in front of such a large audience of strangers with curious, beady eyes. He nods once, short, in hopes of just getting it all over with.
Luffy chortles like those little bright jungle birds that flutter around Sabaody, inordinately pleased with himself. “That’s funny, last time I saw Torao was right after I met you!”
Law goes stiff in Rocinante’s arms. He lets go of his death-grip and slides down Rocinante’s legs to hit the ground with a stagger. Once he finds his feet, he turns on Luffy to bum-rush him into the wall. (That’s-- that’s Rocinante’s title and smile on the back of his coat. Oh, Law…) Luffy goes with an expression of pleasant confusion as Law hisses, “What the fuck does that mean!” His arm is across Luffy’s throat, and Rocinante knows he won’t hesitate to strike, but the Strawhat crew is remarkably unconcerned about their captain being threatened. “You’ve met Cora before and you didn’t tell me?!”
“I dunno who Cora is,” Luffy complains.
Law raises a bloodied, shaking hand to point behind him. Rocinante lifts his hands in a conciliatory gesture as eight pairs of eyes swivel to look at him and then back to Law, like they’re watching ships exchange broadside volleys. “That. Is Cora. Now tell me. Have. You. Met. Him. Before.”
“Rosey already said we met at Impel Down, weren’t you listening? He was on Level 6 in the cell next to Jinbe. He wanted me to let him out so he could go save his special person, and his special person is you, and now you’re saved!” Luffy beams like he’s just figured out the real One Piece was the friends they broke out of turbo-jail along the way.
Law leans in with a snarl. Rocinante knows the signs of an incoming tantrum when he sees it and decides it’s time to intervene. He gets behind Law and reaches for his head, then rethinks it; Law’s probably a little too big for that, these days. Instead, Rocinante hooks his hands under Law’s armpits and says in a bright tone that's calculated to be perfectly irritating to Law, “Upsie-daisy!”
Law makes an undignified noise, kicking wildly as Luffy laughs so hard he falls over. “Cora! Put me down!”
Two long steps later, Rocinante obeys, placing him firmly into a chair at the table. “You get so cranky when you haven’t eaten. Robin went to all that effort to save food for you, so eat it.”
“You’re welcome to eat as well, Rocinante,” Robin says. She goes to vacate her seat but he waves her back down, uninterested in barking his shins off the table every five seconds. Instead, he carefully folds himself like origami to sit on the ground across the table from Law.
Law stubbornly resists, exactly as bratty when he’s in the wrong as Rocinante remembers. He remembers how to break through it, too: by ignoring it, humming as he picks out a few things for himself. It’s not like he got to eat much yesterday, and he's not about to say no to a spread full of all sorts of fancy fruit and cheeses and cured meats of a caliber that he hasn’t been able to afford since he got out of Impel Down.
Finally, they’re no longer the most interesting thing in the tiny house. Quiet conversations spring up around them, and Rocinante feels his shoulders sink down from where they were around his ears. He’d never much liked being the center of attention, and the attention of Luffy’s crew is formidable. Law also seems to relax, finally reaching out to pick up a significant wedge of a hard cheese. He used to complain vigorously about how footy soft cheeses smelled, so apparently that hasn’t changed. More for Rocinante, then.
Luffy sidles across the room to buzz around the table like a hopeful fly. Under Robin’s watchful gaze, he doesn’t actually touch any of the food, but he’s got puppy dog eyes for days. His intense stare follows every morsel as it travels from Law’s plate to his mouth, and he’s clearly wishing for a piece to suddenly swerve his way under the power of his begging alone.
Law doesn’t crack, apparently impervious to this gawking, so Luffy shifts his eyes to look at Rocinante. “Torao called you a funny name. What was it?”
“You don’t get to call him that,” Law says, at the same time Rocinante says, “Cora.”
“Cora?” Luffy squishes his face up consideringly, and then beams. “Cora-o! Like Torao!”
“I will slice you into a thousand pieces and leave each one on a different island,” Law says tonelessly.
“If your mouth is empty enough to talk, it’s empty enough for another bite!” Rocinante interrupts cheerily, brandishing a lumpy fruit that looks like the unfortunate child of a strawberry and a bruise. When Law opens his mouth for an inevitably pissy retort to Rocinante’s deliberately annoying behavior, Rocinante pops it in, careful to hang on to the stem. “Go on, bite!” Law glares but obeys. Rocinante smiles encouragingly. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”
Law chews and swallows, a shocking display of manners, before he says, “You’re on my shit list too.”
Oh, that little punk. Rocinante pushes up onto a knee so he can lean over the table until his lips are nearly at Law’s ear. “You think you’re the only one with a shit list?” he whispers, falsely sweet. “I know this was a suicide mission, Law. Wanna talk about that?”
Rocinante splutters as a hand lands on his face and shoves it back across the table. Yeah, that’s what he thought. Law’s flushed as he hunches over his plate, apparently embarrassed by being called out. He may be sullen, but he steadily eats, so Rocinante doesn’t hassle him any further, no matter how fun it would be.
rocinante: he he how cute Law is still so embarrassed when I don't buy his bullshit he's still so easy to annoy too this is great i'm going to have so much fun
law, desperately hard from nothing more than cora whispering in his ear: shit shit shit shit shit shit act natural be cool don't freak out this is fine you're totally fine
Law and Cora have temporarily escaped the House of Many Occupants on Dressrosa to talk in private for the first time since Law's freakout that morning. Cue: Cora's turn for a freakout.
masterpost
Law came here on a suicide mission, and when he so improbably survived, he apparently went to finish the job and the only thing that saved him was that Rocinante was in the right place at the right time. Rage comes roaring up, mixed with something sharper and meaner. “Did you come to Dressrosa to die, Law?”
Law looks down at their joined hands. “I came here to finish what you started.”
Fucking infuriating. “I finished what I started when you left the birdcage safely. Why the fuck would you waste your life chasing Doffy? That wasn’t the point! The point was that you would be free.”
Law’s hands tighten, and a muscle in his jaw twitches. Good. That’s the Law he remembers, hot tempered and not afraid to fight back. “You gave up your right to have an opinion on how I lived my life when you left me on my own. When you died.” He says it like it's still true.
“So what? You decided you’d die too?” He jerks his hand free of Law’s to reach down to his boot. Law isn’t the only one with an emergency knife on him, and Rocinante wraps his fingers around the hilt with no thoughts in his head, just the red hum that usually precedes acts of arson or homicide. He’s still got enough sense left to know he’s clumsy when he’s this angry, so he pulls it out still sheathed and flips it at Law.
Law deftly catches it, mouth open for an angry retort, but Rocinante cuts him off. “Then kill me first, because I’m not letting you die on my watch. Suicide mission to take out Doffy, suicide walk in the moonlight when he didn’t succeed in killing you, whatever, it’s not happening while I’m here. Kill me, and then you can do whatever stupid-shit thing you want.” He doesn’t mean it, not really, but he kind of does, too.
Law’s hands spasm around the sheath. When he looks up at Rocinante, there’s no fury in him anymore. He looks lost and confused, more like a child than he did when he was ten and powered by spite, and it just makes Rocinante angrier. “No. No! Cora, I won’t.”
“Chickenshit, huh? Do it!” Mocking always works with Law, and it feels shamefully good, too.
Law’s expression cracks open further. The knife drops from his fingers, and he sways before falling down to his knees. His head drops to hide in his hands. “Don’t you get it?” he says, the words thick with tears. The tower of rage comes crashing down; oh, Rocinante has fucked up. “The only reason I wanted to die was to see you again! That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and if it meant I had to die, so be it. But now… Now you’re here. It’s a miracle.” He looks up at Rocinante with a tear-streaked face that glistens in the starlight. Desperate. Pleading. “Please, Cora, I’m sorry. Whatever you want me to say, I’ll say it. Whatever penance, I’ll do it. Just-- please, please don’t leave. Please let me stay with you. I’ll give you anything you want. Money. The Polar Tang. My heart. Just-- you said you’d still be here tomorrow too, you promised--” Law’s shoulders shake as he snivels.
Rocinante’s stomach drops out through his feet, all anger forgotten. “Fuck,” he swears explosively. He drops down, then wraps his hands around Law’s upper arms to drag him in. Law makes a choked-out sob from the force of the motion, but he scrabbles desperately for Rocinante in return. They cling to each other bruising-tight. “I’m sorry, fucking-- I shouldn’t have-- I’ll be here tomorrow, Law. I told you I would, and I will, and as many days after that as you want--” Rocinante says, raw. Law’s answering wail is so piteous that it draws out Rocinante’s tears, too.
When the storm has mostly passed, Rocinante pushes Law just far enough away to drag his shirt cuff over the mess that’s left behind. He tries to be gentle with it, using the fabric wrapped around the side of his thumb to trace from the corner of Law’s eye down in a sweeping arc along his cheek. Terribly, this only makes Law’s chin wobble and more tears spill forth.
“Stop it,” Rocinante scolds. Gently, so gently. “You’re gonna set me off again if you don’t quit it.”
Law chuckles wetly. “I only ever remember you crying when you were drinking,” he says.
“Yeah, I’m a real downer half a bottle in,” Rocinante answers absently, focusing intently on not inadvertently poking Law’s eye out, and then-- “Hey! I always waited until you were asleep to drink!”
Law gives him a sly look. “And sometimes you forgot to cast a Calm, dumbass.”
Aw, shit. Rocinante’s stomach squirms. Which of his drunken, sobbing rambles had Law been privy to? He drops his head until his forehead bonks softly into Law’s. For a long moment, they share air as Rocinante hides in their proximity. Then Law’s hands push Rocinante to overbalance with a yelp.
Law falls on his back into the grass next to him, their heads close by and their bodies radiating out like the points of the blue star Corazon wore. They stare into the sparkling night sky with shoulders brushing, and Law’s questing hand grasps at Rocinante’s elbow, the hand too far away.
The stars tonight are beautiful. Rocinante looks to his left to see their reflection in Law's eyes. Yes, beautiful.
i've officially hit 25k and therefore the terrible, sloggy middle portion of this fic, pray 4 me in my hour of need etc etc etc the real problem is I have two chapters to go and nothing but vibes left so we're gonna be holding onto our butts and writing from whole cloth here on out and hopefully it will work out. in the name of yaoi amen.
masterpost
Rocinante’s nose is cold.
He grumbles, barely awake enough to know he’s awake. Why’s his nose cold? It should be stuffy verging on hellacious with eleven adults putting out body heat into one tiny cabin.
A fresh night breeze tickles across his cheek, just as he realizes his nose is the only cold part of him. He’s lying outside in the field and Law’s in his arms, warm skin pressed against his. A blanket improbably covers the parts of Rocinante that aren’t in direct contact with the furnace of Law’s body. Where did it come from?
Doesn’t matter. He has Law. Blanket or no blanket, cool summer-island-winter night or raging bonfire inside the cabin, whatever. As long as he has Law, he’s content.
Law’s fluffy hat has fallen off in his sleep, revealing wispy black hair. Rocinante had always thought it was so thin and delicate because of the illness and Law’s youth, but perhaps not. Even though it’s still baby-fine, there does seem to be more of it at least, no more too-pale scalp showing through. It curls at the ends, too, nearly playful as it dances in the breeze.
Rocinante can’t resist: he presses his nose into the crown of Law’s head and takes a deep breath. Gone is the childish smell dulled with illness that he hardly remembers, replaced with something musky and warm and totally Law. There’s a spicy amber edge that suggests he has a bit of a vain streak with his shampoo.
When Law shifts in his sleep, it’s only to push closer against Rocinante, and Rocinante willingly attempts to pull him in even tighter, despite the fact that there’s no more closer left to get. He could stay here forever, and he will, because there’s nowhere else in the world that he should be except for next to Law. Eventually, Law will wake up and go wherever he wants, and Rocinante will follow, will do his bidding, will cradle him close, will care for him, will demand nothing more than the first right of refusal to provide anything Law needs or desires.
A chill dances down Rocinante’s spine. This… he knows this. It’s greed.
Greed, the foremost trait and cardinal sin of the Donquixote family. Homing was greedy for the only thing unattainable to a Celestial Dragon: the positive regard of lesser creatures. Doffy was greedy for every scrap of power that wasn’t his-- in the form of riches, attention, obedience, admiration, or hate, he wasn’t overly picky-- and jealously guarded every bit that was.
For a long time, Rocinante had assumed that Doffy had stolen all of his greed to add to his own. Rocinante had been unusually passive from the beginning, and there’s something satisfying about imagining Doffy leeching off the hereditary evil from him and leaving a blank slate for Rocinante to form. One that was no longer a Celestial Dragon, for lacking their core vice.
As Law fidgets in his sleep and Rocinante tenderly, devotedly runs a gentle hand over his side until he settles, the truth becomes clear. Rocinante’s greed is as great as Doffy’s is. But rather than being spread across the entire world and all people contained within it, every drop of that terrible, covetous hunger is focused down on a single point.
Rocinante is greedy for Law.
Law’s happiness is obviously the greatest jewel of the hoard, but it’s not the only one. Rocinante’s greedy for the way the light catches Law’s golden-sharp eyes, and the shitty attitude he wears like armor, and the soft heart underneath it all. Every inch of Law, from the utterly transcendent to the completely depraved, Rocinante wants to hold. No, that’s not enough. He needs to clutch it close so it’s his alone.
For all that the Heart Pirates are named after Rocinante, the truth is that Rocinante’s heart belongs to Law. It’s all ass-backwards from the way it looks from the outside, and Rocinante is the butt of this particular cosmic joke.
Law sighs out a hot breath against Rocinante’s throat. It sends goosebumps racing up his arms and down his back, and the greed consumes this too and grows a little bit bigger. A lot hotter. Law’s happiness matters, yes, but what about his pleasure? A decadent new world of possibilities yawns wide in front of Rocinante, and he wants to leap in head first. His mind frantically scrabbles from one thought to the next-- how would Law kiss, confidently taking what he wanted or patiently waiting for Rocinante to take care of him-- what kinds of sounds would he make-- would he flush red down his chest into his heart tattoo-- oh, tattoos, are there any tattoos that only Rocinante would get to see-- the weight of Law’s cock in his hand, the taste of it on his tongue--
Stop, Rocinante tells himself firmly. He can feel the fine tremble of excitement in his own limbs, and he needs to stop thinking about this right now or else he’s going to go careening over a cliff that he’s not sure Law wants to go over, too.
Because that’s the thing: it doesn’t matter how much Rocinante desires. If Law doesn’t want this flavor of devotion, then Rocinante will leash it. The greed will consume endlessly if he lets it, and he’s not going to let his insatiable hunger ruin the second chance he’s gotten to love Law. However that love looks, it’ll be enough.
It takes a long time for Rocinante’s blood to slow in his veins and for sleep to come back to him. He fidgets, agitated but unwilling to stop touching Law. Eventually, Law wakes up enough to make a noise of discontent, then shoves him onto his back and crawls atop him. Rocinante barely breathes, afraid of sending Law tumbling off his chest, so it’s hard to tell if he falls asleep or passes out, but eventually, he’s out.
So a fun thing about personal saint is that it originally was going to bounce back and forth between POVs, because there were a couple scenes I had very clearly in my mind from Law's perspective. It was causing more trouble than it's worth and tbh I think the tension is better without seeing it, so I removed it. But! It means I do have a little bit written from his side, and I want other people to read it and suffer with me.
Originally, it ping-pong'd back and forth between their POVs through the lead up to reunited in the night, and below is Law's side (you haven't seen Cora's side yet! He's having a little sit and think right before reunited, which is what this was interspersed with). You know that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night and you believe something so deeply that you can feel it in your bones, and when you wake up the next morning, you're like... lmao wtf the deep state is NOT sending coded messages with crickets. That's the kind of night Law is having.
masterpost
When Law wakes up, it’s to utter quiet. So calm that he can’t tell if he’s dreaming or awake. His heart leaps with hope for a moment as he looks around frantically-- No. His heart settles. No, this isn’t that kind of calm, because Cora isn’t here. If Cora isn’t here, he isn’t dreaming.
He’s awake, and this silence is nothing more than the exhaustion of a peaceful night after battle. Even Luffy and the swordsman are too tired to snore. Nobody stirs as he levers himself up off the floor using his left arm and picks his way through the scattered bodies and out the door.
There’s something otherworldly about moonlight so strong that it casts shadows. Silver limns the edges of ordinary things until they’re sparkling with promise. It stabs into Law’s heart like a gamma knife. There was only one promise he’d banked on: have one last final, terrible day, complete Cora’s mission, and then reap his precious reward.
Law was supposed to die. He didn’t.
Law was supposed to see Cora again. Now he won’t.
---
Law was supposed to be dead by now. The moon reveals all secrets, and that’s his biggest and worst. He’d never, ever intended to survive this day. Unease twists through him. It’s not-- right. Cora’s absence burns, overwhelmingly sharp and near and painful like he’s thirteen again. The cold white of moonlight becomes the cold white of snow and if he just turns around, he’ll see Cora’s corpse waiting to embrace him--
He turns. The only thing behind him is Kyros’ house.
---
Maybe-- maybe Law isn’t dead because his death was intended to have a different purpose.
The lone eye of the moon watches as Law evaluates this possibility. He could walk back inside that house, wake Luffy up, and perform the eternal life surgery. Then he could go to Cora without any guilt at all, knowing that his final gift of life went to the most worthy person he knows.
Then Law remembers that the average half-life of a plan in the vicinity of any given Strawhat is approximately ten nanoseconds. Five if it’s Luffy.
Yeah, fuck that. He’s had enough plans ruined by Luffy for a lifetime.
---
Luffy will be fine without Law. Law won’t be fine without Cora. Eternal life surgery or not, Law was never meant to see the sun rise on a world without Doflamingo, and it's up to him to fix this grievous error.
There’s always been a contingency plan for such developments, of course. Law is nothing if not practical. There’s a very robust list of situations he expected and planned for in his long siege for revenge, and some of them were so dire that the only way out consisted of a secret scalpel and medical knowledge of the quickest methods for exsanguination.
It’s not that Law longs for death. Why would he? It’s been his constant companion, never more than an arm’s length away. What he longs for is to be reunited with Cora. There’s only one way to do that, he knows, and only one place.
Law is going to kill himself in the sunflower field.
---
A terrible joy overtakes Law as he makes the long trek from Kyros’ house towards the plateau. It trembles through his fingers as a wild grimace wholly unlike a smile curves across his lips.
He’s going to see Cora. After so many years of loneliness, of fear, of determination to repay the love he never earned, finally, he’ll see Cora again. When his feet drag with exhaustion, they speed up at the memory of Cora’s smile. One step at a time, he gets closer and closer to the only goal that ever mattered.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Title: Saint Corazon
Luffy breaks Rocinante out of Impel Down. It’s been eleven years, but there’s only one thing that matters now that he’s free.
Objective: Find Law.
Corollary: Stop him from doing anything stupid about Doffy.
Corollary: If he can’t be stopped, do the stupid thing for him, at any cost.
The canonization of Saint Corazon--celestial martyr, blessed miracle-worker, and patron of greed--by his devoted servant Trafalgar Law. (Or: a character study of an officially dead ex-marine chasing after the only thing that matters to him and fighting his hereditary greed along the way, even though he really doesn't need to.)
In this chapter you will find:
A peek into life in Mariejois
Rocinante living on a prayer (he is, however, more than halfway there, though he doesn't know it yet)
Rocinante's opinions about Crocodile, another character that haunts the narrative, and more than one Strawhat
Luffy in his role as the eldritch being of chaos
Several panic attacks and an understandable crash-out
Intelligence gathering by an ex-Marine spy
Ships passing in the night (during the day)
A failed attempt to inoculate against a hoped-for reunion
This chapter includes these snippets: prologue, First look
