My motivation and ability to do anything productive are still wreaking havoc on my brain, and I’ve been feeling really restless because of it, BUT I had the chance to make some little illustrations for Ryo’s Lesser Mink Law AU, and I really wanted to create SOMETHING.
Yeah and I thought if I could finish them, maybe I could post it too?
So here it is:
the story, and my drawings for it!
In my defense, I haven’t drawn in a very long time… 🙈🙈
Synopsis: A hasty jolt awake had your body and mind racing and panicking. Where you once sensed danger, it was all washed away by your lover and his attempt at making something festive for you and the teenager under your care.
Themes: Corazon x gn!reader, holiday themes, kissing, established relationship, found family, flirting, love, romance.
The crackle of the flint striking caused your slumber snap to an abrupt halt and body to jolt awake in a fright. Despite you understanding the exact sound and remembering where you were and who you were with, your body treated the sound like the ignition of gunshot and processed it immediately. Jolting upright, your first thought was to the scrangly teenager in the rolled mattress beside you.
Panic ebbed the longer you heard the strikes of flint and stone outside the canvas tent. The scent of tobacco-ladened smoke filled your nose despite the tent itself being closed tightly shut. Slowly moving your vision to your side, you noticed the hat he topped his head with had slowly moved to shroud his eyes and cover half of his face. You shook your head and slowly moved over to his bedroll and moved the hat backwards while adjusting his blanket over his shoulders to keep him warm.
“Lami-ya?” Law mumbled in his sleep, slowly stirring and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. You hushed him, tucking him firmer into the bed roll and covering him with more of the gathered blankets.
“Just me, Law. You’re safe. Go back to sleep,” you smiled down at him. Despite your body longing for sleep just a few minutes longer, your heart pumped with that adrenaline of the initial shock. Gathering your jackets over your travelling sleepwear, you placed your shoes on your feet and stepped outside of the smaller tent. You slid your index finger along the seam and tugged the folds aside to emerge into the ice and snow.
A familiar large figure sat hunched over bundled sticks and continued to strike against the flint to ignite the smaller kindling. There was no flame found in his hands, yet one smaller frustrated bloom of cinders enclosed in his lips and sucking away at the ashen smoke.
“What are you doing, Corazon?” you asked as softly as you could. Despite your caution, Corazon jumped and dropped the striking stone amongst the twigs and cursed at the loss. As he cursed, he toppled forward into the bundles and landed on his chest, legs bent and ass waving in the air.
“Ouhf-!” Corazon murmured in pain, “Well, shit.” He narrowed his eyes on the bunches and attempted to salvage the stone despite being in pain against the sticks. His lengthy fingers fished within the bunch, dropping his cigarette from his lips and it landing in a pile of fallen snow.
“Hold on, let me help you,” you chuckled to yourself, leaning down towards him and slowly pushing him back onto his knees. He groaned as he made his way back to sit on his calves and closed his eyes tightly shut.
“I didn’t wake you both, did I?” Corazon asked behind closed eyes. Letting out another groan, he slowly fluttered his lengthy blonde eyelashes to counter the falling snow dropping onto his painted, porcelain face. You reached up your hands towards his cheeks, thumbing over the snow melting on his skin before swiping at his chest to relieve his emerald-moss coloured pullover from twigs and soil.
“No,” you smiled sweetly, “Just me.” Reaching into his tight pant pocket, you retrieved his flintlock lighter and handed it to him with that same smile never falling. Corazon looked at the lighter, then back at the twigs, then down to his dropped flint, before back at the lighter once more. You released him from your grip and slowly began restacking the wood in a neat pile.
“Why was I trying so hard to light it like that?” Corazon moved his head side to side in defeat, hanging it lowly on his neck and chuckling softly down at himself. You turned back to face him, still offering him that smile you were so used to hiding back in Dressrosa that it still felt foreign on your face.
“Because you haven’t slept properly in months, years even,” you nodded slowly, fixing the last of the kindling and rising to your feet, your form barely towering over Corazon’s as he remained kneeling in the snow, “You’ve been hiding yourself for so long that you don’t know what to do aside from completing this self-appointed mission to heal the boy. I know you, Rosinante.” You cupped his cheeks once more and gazed down into those red-tinted chocolate eyes you fell for so long ago, “And what I know about you does not include… an iron skillet and some… are those chestnuts?”
“I picked it up at the last town that I… Well… That we are no longer welcome in,” he blinked quickly while biting his painted lip to fight back the smile rising on his cheeks. You arched your brow and pursed your lips as you wound your fingers around the iron handle and took it from him.
Corazon chuckled down into your palms, tilting his head into your grip on his cheeks and pressing a soft kiss against your hand. He wriggled out of your grip and reached for the skillet and sheepishly handed it out to you to take.
“The town where you burned down a hospital? That one?” you scolded him softly, “The one with patients inside?” You reached for his lighter and moved closer to the kindling, flicking the light down onto the smaller sticks and blowing on the small flame. The fire crackled and popped, the flames smoking more than the ignition due to the falling snow on the twigs. Just as the flame swelled into a soft fire, you placed the iron skillet atop the fire and unpacked the chestnuts and oil into the bowl of the metal pan.
“There was no one inside. Just pretentious doctors who refused to help a sick kid out,” Corazon snarled, “Assholes who just want a cash-grab and repute for their pristine portfolio, not to actually help people. Fucking pricks who see a life worth savin’ and decide to turn their backs on someone who actually needs them. Who’s worth them. Who’s worth everything-!”
“-As much as I love how passionate you are about Law, Cora,” you turn to face him in a sudden rise once more, “And I love him as much as you do, which is why I’m here with you and not continuing to be with Doflamingo and serving as his ‘glorified nanny’ to the other children,” the distance is closed swiftly between you as you hastily swoop down towards his fallen kneel, “He needs to sleep. So hush that thought and let him, why don’t you?”
“You were never a ‘glorified nanny’,” Corazon used your name, moving his hands down to collect your hips, “Not to him. You were family to him, and he will continue to hunt you down and kill you for leaving him, just as I did.” His hands firmed themselves around your hips, tugging you softly into his chest and looking up into your eyes, “You are family to me too, you know? I mean… Not… Not the same way that asshole sees you. You mean… You mean everything to me.”
Looking down at the man on his knees with little regard for the ice bleeding dampness into his knees, you slowly moved your hand down to collect his face and thumbed over the apple of his cheek. Tilting his head up at you, he nudged your grip on his face and his lips immediately found their purchase on your neck. Mouthing at your throat, you couldn’t help but laugh at how his tickly hum vibrated against your throat.
“Corazon, the chestnuts are going to burn,” you paw at his head, tugging at the hat covering his head, “Let me go so I can move them on the pan.” Despite your best efforts, the many kisses continued to decorate your skin and send shooting tingles from the point of impact down your body to your toes.
“Let them burn,” he whispered huskily against your skin, “I have you in my arms. That’s all I could ever want. All I could ever need-...” He halted his whisper and assault of kisses as soon as the soft flap of canvas folded open and a large yawn interrupted you. Corazon moved his face over to the teenager on the threshold of your temporary home and froze like a deer in the headlights.
Thinking on your feet, you turned in his arms and began to move the chestnuts on the pan to halt their smoked scorches from impacting the flesh on the inside. Corazon’s hands found themselves on your hips and cheek pressed into your back while you cooked, finally meeting his eyes with Law’s while the younger scrunched up his nose and upper lip in mild disgust.
“What are you doing out here?” Law asked in a deadpan tone with sleep still gripping at the edges, “I smelled burning.”
“Just one side of chestnuts, Law,” you hummed softly to him, “I was distracted and they got a little toasty. The meat inside should still be good, though.” Corazon slowly attempted to move himself far enough back from you to stand, immediately to then slide and plant his face into your back and jolted you forward.
The simmering caramelized nuts in the pan rolled easily in your skilled motions. The scent of burnt impurities and imperfections caused you to click your tongue and roll your eyes, but the contact of the face in your back eased your tension and your stress melted away into the warmth covering your body.
It was then you truly realised that despite the circumstances you found yourself in, you were surrounded by the two people you truly loved. Similarly to the chestnuts you began to peel and feed to one another in the cool morning with fallen snow, your life didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to be yours, just like the tall blonde at your side, and the sickly teenager huddled together around the fire for warmth.
You were as much theirs as they were yours, and that’s all the three of you needed paired with those chestnuts Corazon found for you right now.
If you would like to join in the festivities, feel free to decorate my tree with encouraging words, support me on ko-fi, or check out my other worlds with words on my multi-fandom Masterlist. Happy Holidays 🖤
Works well as just canon, but this is based word for word off a comment I got on my Cora lives fic from @starwarsbookwyrm, along with a new chapter here! Thank you for the comment, it literally fed the new chapter and this doodle!
