Chapter Text
His whole body aches, seawater seeping into his clothes, dragging his down, fatigue eating at his measly as they are energy levels, his mind lost in turmoil – he failed, he failed, again, he was too weak, he lost his family again, why does this keep happing, why can’t he ever manage to keep hold of those shards of happiness he manages to gather for himself, instead they cut at his hands, at his soul, shatter before he manages to truly protect them. Bepo is carrying both their weight, cutting the waves with unwavering dedication, useless platitudes falling from his lips – They’ll be okay, you’ll see Captain, trust in our friends, trust in our crew, we survived the North Blue together – and he wants to believe him, truly, desperately, wants to cradle that hope that his navigator still holds, that he had lost a long time ago, wants to make it his own, but he can’t, not until they reach land, not until he can take out the small pieces of paper sewn in his jacket and number them, see with his own eyes they had not burned to ash, check each piece of his crew’s vivre cards and content himself with the knowledge that although they may not be free, they are still alive somewhere.
And he will get them back no matter what.
Reaching the Thousand Sunny is not something Law expects; he had not been paying attention to the direction Bepo had been swimming towards, had not noticed the small piece of paper leading his navigator forward as truly as a log pose would, their destination the one place where they would be helped without question, where the little sham they had played out on the beach in Wano would be forgotten – as if Lu-ya would ever accept them being enemies, as if he would ever let got of one of his treasures. However, his love’s new status as Emperor of the Sea demanded that he kept his secrets close to his chest, out of the eyes of the World Government. Not to mention neither of them truly trusted Eustass-ya not to blab; the man had no filter on a good day and worse when he was enraged.
And yet, there she was, getting closer and closer with each stroke Bepo struggles to make, swaying softly on the waves as if waiting for something – for what he does not know – and for a moment his heart lurches because he remembers the Tang, his home of more than a decade and Blackbeard’s disgusting Zehahaha, the laughter ringing in his skull, making his migraine flare, the destruction of his beloved submarine effectively burned on his retina.
“You don’t even have a ship anymore, can’t even call yourselves pirates,” the bastard had laughed as he sunk their ship, laughed as his men struggled in the depths of the Sea, laughed as he drew blood and made Law cough, copper in his throat, in his mouth, the feeling of defeat, of failure, a noose around his neck getting tighter and tighter even as Bepo used his Sulong form and dove in the sea, putting as much distance between them and the Blackbeard pirates as he could.
He struggles to stay awake, to keep his eyes open, listening to Bepo’s promises – almost there captain, we’re almost there -, but the pain is too much, the blood loss makes spots dance on his vision, darkness courting him at the edge of consciousness and he slips away into oblivion before they can get close enough to the Sunny. Perhaps it is also the fatigue settled in his bones claiming its due, the ache that makes his entire body shake, the dehydration kicking in. Or perhaps it is just the feeling of safety he has come to feel wherever his love's ship was close by, the trust that nothing ill will befall him, the knowledge that Lu-ya would tear asunder anything that threatened those dear to him. Luffy is home, is warmth, is safe and with that knowledge Law allows himself to slip away.
Darkness surrounds him. He dreams. He's drowning, water clogging his airways, pulling him down, down, down, encompassing nothingness bracketing him on all sides. His lungs scream in agony, almost as if on fire, like before when the amber lead clogged them until each breath was a raspy gasp. He wants to struggle, but his limbs feel like lead, there’s a noose around his throat and he’s choking, gasping, dying.
He wakes but doesn't. The dream changes. He's covered in flames, everything burns around him, the echo of gunfire shrill in his ears, Lammy's voice a haunting scream as her body turns to ashes. He dies and wakes. There's snow everywhere, as far as the eye can see, tainted with red, soaked in blood, Cora's body lying on the white expanse, his body still in death as it had never been in life.
He falls. He screams. He wakes.
Consciousness slips at the edges of his mind, a half state of slumber and alert that allows Law to smell the sharp smell of antiseptic and sea salt. A heart monitor beeping close by lulls him in a fake sense of familiarity that makes it seem, for a brief moment, that everything has been merely a nightmare he is finally waking up from. Perhaps he had fallen asleep in the med bay once more, sleep deprivation catching up with him, unable to keep it at bay even with the unhealthy amount of caffeine he consumes daily. It’s a fantasy he wants to indulge in at least a little longer, allow it to wrap around the tattered remnants of his soul, around his bleeding heart - for it is merely a fantasy, his rational side had long cataloged all the differences this med bay had in comparison to the Tang, had pinpointed where he was as soon as his eyelids first fluttered open - but be cannot, not when his entire body is sore like it had been after Dressrosa, his arm flaring in phantom pain. Not when his hand is almost crushed by a tight grip - oh so familiar and loved, well-known callouses rubbing against his skin, an off-tune melody echoing in the med bay, Bink’s sake the only song Luffy could ever sing without sounding like a particularly shrill kettle - and his vision is half obscured by a hat not his own - straw and well-worn, a balm to his soul whenever he felt despair take over, Luffy's hands placing it gently over his head while at the same time stealing the spotted hat that Lammy had gifted Law long ago, gone now together with his crew and the Tang, sank, sank, sank.
“Law,” Luffy’s voice hitches next to him, watery, the single word stuttered through a hiccup and oh, Law knows he had scared him, knows he had probably brought back to life demons Luffy had long fought to exorcise, to put to rest, because it is so rare to hear his name uttered out loud outside the confines of their bedroom – here, on the Sunny, and whenever in the presence of the Strawhats he is Torao, a nickname he had initially abhorred, but ultimately came to love, one that tied him intrinsically to the madcap crew that became his second family, because no one could replace the Hearts – no one would try – but that did not mean Luffy’s crew didn’t do their damned best to make him one of their own, if only unofficially.
“Lu-ya,” Law found himself whispering back, voice hoarse, the two syllables no more than a broken croak as his fingers tightened in the other captain’s hold and the tears that he had kept at bay since he had lost his crew and his ship finally broke through the damn he constricted them behind.
***
The newspaper is brought to him late in the afternoon by one of the jailors Doflamingo has managed to get under his control. Clasped as he is in seastone he has no access to his fruit, but that does not mean manipulation does not come to him just as easy as breathing. After all he had honed it on his sweet Corazon, twisted and broken his little brother's fragile soul until there was almost nothing left to recognize, a perfect doll standing in his place, a perfect executive, one that he would have turned into a masterpiece if Law had not corrupted him. The jailors attending to him are nothing more than a farce, a pilgrimage of unimportant faces that he barely pays attention to, familiarity unnecessary when he can make them sing to his tune with the simplest of words – of threats, of promises. Where it not for that bitch Tsuru he would have long been out, but the hag keeps changing them, too fast for him to actually make the effort to break free. After all, it hadn’t been worth it.
Not until now.
Not until the newspaper makes him laugh manically, loud fufufu echoing in his cell, the hilarity of the situation too much to fathom, the news about the brat he had once claimed as part of his family a beautiful joke that he can almost taste.
Law. The child he had once aimed to fashion after himself, to have him as the successor to the Corazon seat. The child his fool brother had stolen - made him weak, pathetic, a failure - the same child that allied with that Mugiwara brat and landed him in prison.
The child who thought himself strong enough to escape the demons of his past, to avenge sweet, dear Roci - who had died like a dog, bleeding out in the snow for a whelp that did not deserve his devotion, betraying his family – betraying Doflamingo – the same way their useless pathetic father had betrayed them in their youth.
And now, if the headlines are true, Law is broken, crewless, defeated by Blackbeard, and left behind a husk of himself. Wasn't that a beautiful irony? Faring the same fate he had inflicted on Dolflamingo himself – or at least, he thought he had inflicted. There are too many secrets the former Warlord knows, too much power he holds over the would-be gods ruling their world. A slip of the tongue, a little whisper, and their castle of cards will come crumbling down.
"Fufufufu, perhaps I should prepare to give Law a little family visit."
After all, the marines are fools to think Impel Down can hold him captive longer than he wants. And no timing can be better than now – with Kaido dead and out of the picture, no longer gunning for his blood and with little Law broken and alone in the New World, desperate and all too easy to manipulate. Perhaps even biddable enough to convince him to perform the Eternal Youth Operation on Doflamingo – after all what point is living anymore when you have already lost everything you held dear, when no matter how hard you fight life shows that you are nothing more than a loser.
Putting his plan into action is easy. Those foolish enough to think Impel Down was unbreachable, a fortress unable to escape from – well they surely hadn’t paid much attention to Mugiwara two years back and learned absolutely nothing ever since. Escaping is child’s play; a few threats here, a slip of a tongue there, a threat to bring to light the secrets of the Celestial Dragons and before long he finds himself in a ship sailing away from the impenetrable prison – to be moved to a more secure location is the official reason that absolutely no one believes if the glare leveled at him is anything to go by -, a thin seastone bracelet the only protection they have against him, the marines tending to him quacking in their boots as they take him to the last island Law had been seen on in the New World.
He can't keep the laughter contained - fools, all of them fools; as if he won't bathe the innards of the ship red with their blood as soon as he gets to his destination.
As if he won’t do the same with little Law, break him until there’s nothing left, until that damned stubbornness and disrespect flees from his eyes and all that is lesft is an empty husk. Too bad Law had given up on the alliance with that damned Mugiwara brat. Breaking him under Law’s eyes would have been an even more amusing endeavor.
“Fufufu, ready or not Law, here I come.”
