~

Luffy peeked from behind the kitchen counter then ducked when he saw Law put his phone on the side table with a bit too much force, the younger gathered Torao wasn’t too happy with the conversation he had with his friends. Luffy took the two mugs of milk tea and went to sit beside his boyfriend, keeping a distance of at least three feet between them, putting Law’s mug on the table instead of handing it to him like usual.

“Can you believe those guys!” Law whined and took his mug of tea with a scowl on his face. “I’m not a ten year old that needs to be reminded about his epi-injection restock- even as a ten year old I was more careful than those idiots are now!”

“You sometimes do forget to update your stock.” Luffy pointed, recalling that one incident a few months ago when someone needed an epinephrine shot in an emergency on the road and Law thought he had one, and he did, but it was expired because the older never had to use it on himself.

“Because I never have to use it.” The doctor defended himself, sounding like a broken record.

“And that makes you careless.”

“You’re the last person who can lecture me about carelessness.” Law scoffed.

“Just saying Torao, your friends are only looking out for you, don’t get mad at them.” Luffy shrugged and started sipping from his tea to signal the end of conversation from his side.

Law stayed silent as well, sipping his tea and eyeing the distance the younger had put between them with sadness. This awkwardness between the boyfriends started after the incident the night after their date. However valid their reasons were, Luffy felt ashamed of himself and Law felt disappointed in himself.

“How long are we planning on maintaining this distance?” Law asked in a whisper, somehow he was afraid that if he raised his voice even a little, the distance would increase, so he needed to be as gentle and careful while treading this dangerous path as he could.

Luffy didn’t say anything. The younger just curled in on himself a bit more, bringing his knees to his chest a little harder and tightening his arm around himself a little more. Since that night, Luffy had felt rejected. The younger knew it was stupid and wrong to think like that but he really felt like his Torao didn’t trust him enough for other activities and that made Luffy a little distant.

“Luffy.” Law called, trying again to get some answers from his boyfriend because the younger had been quiet about the issue the entire time but his actions were so loud, it was suffocating Law. When Luffy didn’t say anything else but turned his head away, Law sighed and got up. “Fine then, I’m going to bed.”

Luffy bit his lip and decided to speak after all. “You’ve been having bad dreams since that night. I feel responsible for that Torao.” Guilt. That was another thing that had been eating away at the younger and making him feel sick to his stomach.

Law turned around at the voice and sighed. The doctor sat back down on the couch, close to Luffy and patted the younger’s back. “I have bad dreams all the time, you can’t possibly hold yourself accountable for them all.”

“You started having the really bad ones after…”

“You have been keeping this in all this time?” Law asked, sad and feeling heavy in his chest. “Luffy, there are reminders of that time every day and everywhere, I can’t run away from that forever or for good, and if I get nightmares from it and you happen to be around, that doesn’t mean it happened because of you.”

“But these ones…” Luffy started and sighed heavily, he knew what Torao was trying to do, the older was trying to make Luffy see that whatever was happening to Law was not the younger’s fault.

“The ones I’ve been having recently have more to do with Flevance burning down than being assaulted.”

“Really?” And for the first time in a few days, Luffy locked eyes with his boyfriend.

“Yes. That and Cora-san, he’s there most of the time so it’s really not your doing.”

“Still, I’m sorry.”

“If it makes you feel better, I forgive you.” Law offered and welcomed the hug his boyfriend threw him into with equal passion.

~

After a few days when the boyfriends were feeling comfortable around each other again, they decided to go out again, during the day time to explore some sights around the underdeveloped parts of Goa that Law hadn’t seen yet. They were meeting at an agreed upon point so Law was preparing for that.                                                                                                                                           

“No weapons today too, I suppose.” Law noted and put Kikoku aside. “It’s a date, what could possibly go wrong…”

Earlier in their days, both the boyfriends had decided that they wouldn’t take weapons with them on their dates because those evenings were supposed to be safe and for them, and so they would also actively avoid any danger if it would bare their fangs at them. Luffy didn’t carry weapons so Law had to leave his nodachi and gun back, he would never part with his hidden scalpels, no. Law had the younger convinced that the scalpels were purely for medical use so Luffy had allowed the older to carry those.

Another rule or agreement the two had between them for dates was no casual use of their phones, which Luffy was flouting all too casually by getting his ear chatted away for the past ten minutes. Law rolled his eyes and looked around at the stalls that were in the area. Nothing much was interesting him and he was looking forward to spend a few peaceful hours with his boyfriend but the said guy apparently had no regard for those fragile feelings.

“Who was that?” Law asked tentatively once Luffy finally put his phone away. Law raised an eyebrow when Luffy evaded his eyes and the question and took Law’s comparatively thinner wrist in his hand, and started dragging the older behind him.

“Come on, let’s go this way.” Luffy said, his words quick and sharp. The younger was being evasive and Law was not having that so he dug his heels in the soft dirt and halted their movement.

“Tell me what’s going on.” It came out more like a command and an order than a statement.

"You didn't bring your gun by any chance, did you?" Were the words that came out of his boyfriend's mouth and left Law even more confused.

"No... We have a rule and I hate them and I know you hate them when we are out...like this..." Law trailed in the end catching the urgency in Luffy's eyes and his question and their current location, under the open sky. "Is someone tailing us?"

"Me." Luffy corrected then continued, "an old gang we put away. They got out and Nami said they know where I am and that she sent Zoro and Robin too by tracking my phone so we'd be safe and have backup if the gang catches up to us but-" Law noticed Luffy's breathing and saw him starting to go into panic.

"Hey hey, breathe, come on. It's us. We’ll be alright." The older patted Luffy's back to help ease his breathing and get him to calm down.  "Come on, let's find a hiding place-" Before Law could finish, a bullet whizzed past him and made its place in the ground. Ok so shit was serious. From the angle and trajectory of the shot, Law quickly judged the approximate location of the shooter and bent down to pick up loose dirt, throwing it in the general direction of their tail to give them both some smokescreen so the shooter wouldn’t know which direction the boys ran to.

Seeing Law being so brave and mentally present, Luffy got his shit together and took charge instead. While Law was looking for momentary hiding places to wait till their attackers showed themselves so the two could handle the situation face-to-face, once Luffy started leading, the younger was only looking for places where he could hide his Torao, so if or when the gang caught up, they wouldn’t see the older with him because if they did, it would only be a matter of time before they would connect the dots and spread the information, making a lot of other bad guys go after Law separately just to get back at Luffy.

In that moment, Luffy understood why Law opted to end the life of the people who were attacking him, not that Luffy agreed that murder was right, he was just seeing and understanding that different point of view in the thick of the situation he had gotten both of them into. Shaking his head, Luffy noticed he had led Law into a small clearing with a few old and empty houses, perfect for hiding.

“We can wait for them here.” Law suggested and Luffy nodded. “I still have my scalpels and these houses might have some tricky corridors that could provide shelter again bullets.”

“Yeah, let’s go inside that one.” The younger still had the doctor’s wrist in his hand and pulled him along.

“If they have guns, do not engage in a direct combat.” The older reminded his boyfriend walking inside the house and coming to the living room that had a lot of empty closets lined up against the wall. Law had plenty of trauma with idiots going against guns, for whatever reasons, and Law was not going to let Luffy add himself in the list of those people that Cora-san headed.

Law’s attention was pulled towards all the wood that he was surrounded with and that he needed to keep himself mentally strong to get triggered if a fight broke out inside the house. The older was preoccupied with his thoughts and that was why it was Luffy who noticed the loud footsteps of the people who had been tailing them both, their trademark laughter only confirmed Luffy’s suspicions about the identity.

Luffy looked between Law to the entrance of the house, the older hadn’t noticed the approaching people yet so Luffy took the decision that was in the situation’s best interest and chose a sturdy looking closet and shoved his boyfriend inside it, closing and locking the door by putting a stray log between the handles.

"Sorry Torao but stay there for a while, I can’t have them see us together." Luffy said in a loud enough voice so only Law would have heard him. The younger quickly took out his phone and sent a ping to Nami to let her know what his location at the moment was and that he was going to be staying there and facing the gang.

It took Law by surprise when Luffy took a hold of his arm and pushed him inside one of the closets, the older thought it was a joke, but when Luffy shut the door and Law couldn’t open it by pushing, that was when he knew what had happened.

“Luffy! Let me out, I can fight!” Law pounded on the inside of the door a few times. He couldn’t hear anything that was going on outside, Law assumed that Luffy had taken the fight somewhere else, so he pushed and hit against the wooden door with all his might, trying his best to keep the memories down and to get the door open but it wasn’t budging.

The pounding, the wood beneath his fists, the uncharacteristic strength of the wood that wouldn’t budge, it was all too familiar and in just one second, Law was taken back to that horrible, horrible night when Cora-san was taken away from him. The memories were suddenly vivid in his head, how he was all too similarly shoved in a wooden box that he had hit and hit till his hands had started bleeding, wanting it to open so he could help Cora-san or offer himself instead to save a more precious life. The similarities of the past and the present coincided too well for Law to distinguish and that set the path for a panic attack.

Law tried to time his breaths to keep himself calm, to try and trick his brain into not giving in, he was having a hard time but the sound of a single gunshot silenced everything in the doctor’s brain. One second it’s quiet in his head and the next, as Law heard something big fall against the door of the closet he was in, something that sounded an awful lot like a human body, it broke the last piece of the dam that was holding everything bad. Law tried to free himself again but made the situation worse for himself because adding to his shouts and pounding, were now the sounds of gunshots and occasionally a body hitting wood, sometimes his own closet, rattling him inside, just as it had happened when Cora-san was shot and thrown against the small wooden chest he had put Law inside of.

Law couldn’t deal with it. He slid down and cradled his head in his hands, trying to will the images away, Law tried to control his breathing but everything hurt like it did on that day and he wasn’t sure if he was seeing wood or snow anymore, and suddenly Law realized and became aware of the fact that the last time when he was in a similar situation he had lost his adoptive father and with everything happening much the same way, he might very well lose Luffy this time around, and in the same way too.

It was too much.

Everything was just too much.

.

Luffy dodged bullets and swerved and lunged and swung metal chairs on the bad guys in front of him, they outnumbered him by six, still the younger had managed to disarm them so he could deal with them according to his specialty, that is, punches. Five minutes of fighting the gang and Zoro and Robin arrived for backup and the situation deescalated quickly.

“What do you want to do with them?” Zoro asked his captain, a sword at the neck of the gang leader, Robin keeping the rest in check.

“I dunno, make sure they can’t move, drop them somewhere and tip the marines or something.” Luffy said quickly because once he was no longer fighting, he remembered he did a stupid thing locking his boyfriend in a wooden closet of all things and he had been knocked against it quite a lot of times so there were definitely the sounds that Law hated. So once Zoro and Robin started acting on Luffy’s orders, the younger moved to unlock the closet doors and let his boyfriend out. “Tora-“ Luffy stopped mid speech when he saw Law all curled up in himself, his nails digging into his skull. “Stop! What’re you doing!” The younger pulled his boyfriend’s hands away from his head and tried to assess the damage.

Law looked so broken and scared to Luffy but the older quickly pulled himself together seeing the younger’s face. Law got out of the closet as soon as his senses kicked in and stood up with wobbly legs.

"Torao are you ok-" Luffy tried.

"Do not ever do something like this again. Ever." Law spat. Luffy gulped at the anger, hatred and fear in Law's eyes and voice and wondered if it was directed at him. Law was looking at him with the worst scowl Luffy had seen on his face and he knew it was bad and that this was not something the older would let go even if Luffy showed him his best puppy eyes. Luffy gathered this ran deep into trauma and conflict they were both trying to avoid. Guess their luck ran out today.

"Torao I-"

"Job done Luffy. You ok?" Zoro asked coming back and diverting Luffy’s attention. The tension in the air was choking all the words in Luffy’s throat. He couldn't speak for the fear of disrupting anything else and making the situation heavier. "Luffy." Zoro called again.

"Yeah-yeah I am ok. Just a few bruises. Nothing big." Luffy answered in a breath and Zoro raised his eyebrows.

"What about you Law?" Zoro asked turning his attention to the other man who had walked to the side to sit down on the floor, his head resting on his arms on his knees and the nails of both his hands digging in his upper arms, drawing a steady stream of blood.

Robin passed Luffy some water who wasn’t looking at Law. She silently shook her head at Zoro as if to tell him to leave the matter alone for now. But Zoro was extremely thick sometimes to these things and he blurted out, "oi Luffy your boyfriend's acting strange." Robin sighed as Luffy gave himself whiplash turning so quick to see what Zoro meant.

"Torao stop it!" Luffy ran to Law and pulled his hands away from his arms. The older shook himself free of Luffy and stood up.

"You stay away from me until I've sorted this all out." Law said with a glare so intense that despite himself, Luffy obeyed.

Luffy wanted to cry. It hurt. It hurt so badly. The younger knew he had made a mistake. "Let me stay and fix it..." That didn’t stop Law from walking away. "I'm sorry, I didn't want you to get hurt!" Luffy called and began running but Robin stopped him. She shook her head telling Luffy to give Law some space for the time being. And so he did. Reluctantly, guilt and regret eating at him again.

When Law got back to his house, he was calm. He had breathed himself into a false sense of peace, he knew he was pushing the bad situations down again and that it would come out really ugly when he wouldn’t be able to keep it down anymore. But for now, that was ok. The few hours it took for the sun to start setting, Law was ok but once the skies started getting darker, so did the doctor’s mind.

The lone mug on the living room table was the first to be attacked. Law picked it up and smashed it against the living room wall. He was raging, he was angry, how dare Luffy treat him like he was weak and couldn’t handle himself. How dare he even think that Law was weak! Law punched and broke things until his brain had gone numb and he had forgotten what he was actually angry about.

Then the memories poured into his brain again, all of them, from losing Cora-san, to the feeling of helplessness and guilt he felt at being the reason for losing Cora-san, to Luffy being so sweet and kind and giving Law hope again, but being so stupid and horrible that he made the older relive his worst night. Law was angry again and with nothing to break in his sight, the doctor set his mind outside of his house. Law was so angry, he was barely thinking when he took Kikoku and pulled on a coat and a mask, and stormed out of his house to the holding station he knew the gang from earlier that day was being held at.

Law took advantage of the late night hours and knocked out the few dozing guards there were at the marine office. The doctor took the keys from the latch so plainly in sight and unlocked the cell of the six people who were the reason Law was led to be so angry. Law hid himself and watched as the men ran loose, and followed them out through another route, eventually cutting their path by appearing ahead of them in an alley behind the station.

"Oi! What's up with you?! Get out of our way!" One of the guys yelled and took out a tiny knife in a threatening manner.

"Who do you think you are?!" Another barked.

"Doesn't matter. But you, you're going to be an example." Law said and smirked. He unsheathed his nodachi and the shine from his blade made the thugs take a step back but he was already moving, backing them up against the dead-end wall of the alley.

When Law struck the first one down, the remaining five understood the threat to their own lives was as real as the blood pouring out of their fallen comrade’s open neck. And then began the begging.

“The weak don’t get to choose how they die.” Law said and his words echoed in his head but in the voice of Donquixote Doflamingo, whose words the doctor had quoted. Law laughed to himself at the irony of the situation, he strived so hard to stay out of that bastard’s shadow but he was mirroring all of his actions and words. The world was a cruel place indeed.

Law took the sun rising as his well-earned break and stole a truck from a nearby store. He had slow-tortured the gangsters all night to see if they had any worthwhile information but they were really just idiots and fodder for the bigger, worse predators. The doctor took advantage of the still sleeping town and took his time stuffing the maimed and mutilated bodies in the back of the truck. Once that was done, Law checked the time on his bloodied phone and drove to the edge of Grey Terminal through the back route, he knew a Monkey D. Luffy would be there.

The truck made a lot of noise and that alerted all the residents of the Thousand Sunny, the entire crew was present because Luffy was very sad and didn’t want to be alone, Robin had taken care to relay the matter to the others as delicately as possible. Luffy was sitting by the window in the crow’s nest and rubbing at his eyes, he had been crying a little and not sleeping at all, he was tired. The sight outside the window made the younger jump out of his seat in an instant though.

"Torao!" Luffy called running to the truck he had seen the older jump out of, but stopped when he noticed all the blood. "Are you ok?"

Law didn't say anything and went back to the truck, using a lever to unload the contents inside the container on it. One by one the bodies began falling out of the truck, some rolled a little towards Luffy’s feet, who was standing close to Law. The younger was shocked still at the sight, he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Luffy could recognize the faces of the men Law had thrown out of the truck, even with how bloody and mangled they were, Luffy realized these were the thugs from the day before, the ones who had attacked him.

“Torao what-“ Luffy started but was cut off by Law kicked one of the men especially hard in his stomach which made the man groan.

"Left one alive to tell you what happened." Law said and his was low, too low for Luffy's liking. The younger had a voice in his head that was telling him that his boyfriend had hurt these people but Luffy refused to believe it.

"I won't question him..." Luffy muttered still looking horrified at the bodies at his feet. Law shrugged and brought out Kikoku and put it through the man's skull. “What…”

Look took the steps forward needed to be closer to the younger and grabbed Luffy by the collar. "Do not insult me again thinking I can't handle a fight."

"I wasn't-" Luffy was tired and exhausted from having been unable to sleep, he was hungry because he couldn’t keep anything down from all the weird emotions he was feeling, Luffy wasn’t himself and Law being so brazen was setting the younger off too.

"You forget, I can and do kill when I want to. I don't need your protection. Don't put yourself on that pedestal."

In the back, Zoro who had just arrived was glaring at Law for manhandling his captain like that and was just one second away from cutting Law's arm off but Luffy gestured that Zoro stay behind. Luffy just kept looking at Law, saddened and a little disturbed that he really did kill these gangsters in cold blood just to prove a point. He knew going into the relationship that this was something he won't have any control over but it was still bad.

"And don't try to control me either Mugiwara." Law let Luffy go and sheathed his sword. With one final glare, Law turned his back to the Strawhats and Luffy and walked away. The air that was moving against Law’s direction carried his words to the already very conflicted Luffy and hurt him more. “I will see you if I want to.”

~

Ay ay!
Happy Birthday Law
but uh oh, this wasn't very happy

Anywho, I posted some pictures of my figures for Law's birthday on my twitter (@Itachi_Warrior) so do check those out!

AND HOLY HELL CHAPTER 1094!!
ODA WATTTTT EVENNN!!
I love One Piece so much!