Angel Down

by Aikat3rin3

Sanji's past was as haunted with demons as Zoro's own, demons that had finally caught up to him after years of living in the shadows. His very existence meant the hunt would never stop, but that hadn't stopped Zoro from falling for him and it wouldn't push him away now. Sanji was what was called a "negligible senescent porphyric humanoid." "Vampire" looked weird on medical records.

1. Killer

I don't own anything but my ideas.

DISLAIMER:

THIS STORY WILL CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS OF EVERY SORT (ALL THE WAY UP TO RECENT CHAPTERS), MATURE THEMES, EXPLICIT SEXUAL SCENES (FOR GAY AS WELL AS STRAIGHT PAIRS), HARSH LANGUAGE, ARTISTIC LISENCE, DARK HUMOR, ANGST, AND A PLETHORA OF THINGS CONTROVERSIAL! PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE AFFECTED BY ANY OF THESE THINGS!

Other than that, this story will long, it will be crazy, it will not be left unfinished (unless I die in some unexpected manner), and it will be a wild ride! Hope you enjoy~

Killer

Zoro sat silently in the backseat of Kid's old clunker, eyes locked on Kid's flaming red hair for any sign of movement from the older man. The air was thick—thicker than it had been at Kuina's wake, and it was making him sick to think of that. He couldn't come up with reason for why the air here would be thicker than at a ceremony for the dead.

He wanted to ask where they were going. He wanted to ask why Kid wouldn't say anything—especially when the older man normally cranked the loudest, raunchiest music when Law wasn't in the car and sang along with Zoro at the top of his lungs. He wanted to ask why Kid had brought him if he wasn't going to tell him anything. He wanted to ask why he hadn't brought Luffy and Ace too, even though he'd picked them both up after school. He wanted to ask why the air was so thick that it was hard to breathe.

Zoro slunk lower in his seat, pulling his heels up onto the old, ripped leather so he could hold his knees close. He wasn't scared. He wasn't. But that didn't mean he had to like the situation. Kid was always so much fun—crazy as fuck, as Ace would say—so what was going on?

Kid had picked him up from school that day—just as he did with Law every Thursday. He'd picked up Luffy and Ace at the school too and dropped them off at Shanks' house. Law hadn't been in the car today, but that wasn't strange; it just meant that Zoro got to listen to Kid's music and pig out on whatever he wanted in the apartment before Law got back from his residency at the hospital and put an end to it. Law played angry that Kid let it happen, but Zoro knew he never was. Playing angry with Zoro just meant that Law would have time to stick his tongue down Kid's throat—as Ace would say—after he chased Zoro out of the kitchen. Zoro always waited until they came to get him after that, because sometimes it would be a while before they were done doing… whatever. Ace hadn't answered that question. Then Law would work on his homework with him, either he or Kid would lend him a metal pipe from Kid's garade to use as a sword and kick him around the yard a little bit, and then they'd all pass out in front of the TV before Mihawk arrived to pick him up, or Shanks if they hadn't dropped Luffy and Ace off that day. If Mihawk couldn't come to get him, Law and Kid would just take him to school in the morning after they sparred a little. Thursdays were his favorite days.

Today the air was thick. Kid hadn't said anything to him when he'd gotten in the car. He was still in his school uniform—tie and all—so that meant he hadn't gone to their apartment before coming to get Zoro, which was odd because there was an hour between when Kid's classes at the university got out and when the elementary school got out and Kid hated his tie. Zoro thought the black of the uniform looked better than the weird giraffe pattern and the fur or whatever, but Kid was a badass so Zoro supposed that meant he could wear whatever he wanted.

Zoro knew enough not to press for questions, but after Kid finally noticed how antsy he was getting—about halfway through the car ride—he'd finally sighed and grunted, "We have to go do an errand before we get home; we'll make it back before your uncle comes to get you."

"…What kind of errand?" Zoro had asked tentatively.

"…We have to go pick up Trafalgar, he's not at the hospital though, and it's kind of a long drive. You can go to sleep if you want, I'll wake you up when we get there."

"…Oh. Ok."

And that had been it.

Zoro had tried to sleep; swore to everything he believed in he tried. He didn't like situations like this, if there was a sleeping out, he'd take it. But he just couldn't. The air was too thick. So he just held his knees close and kept checking to make sure the seatbelt was tight as he followed the whooshing blackness outside the window. It was late. They'd been driving for over an hour now—even if the sun did set early this time of year. He kind of wished he had Wado.

Zoro started as Kid yanked the wheel to the right suddenly and the car jolted, bouncing off of the pavement and onto gravel that crunched and dinged up under the car. Zoro gripped the door handle tightly, trying to find some purchase as he was shaken around like a loose paper in the wind.

"Kid…" he began, but the older man said nothing, so Zoro stopped and made himself take a breath. Mihawk trusted him with Kid, nineteen or not—and he trusted himself with Kid, screw his uncle—he wasn't scared and he wouldn't act like a baby and ask.

He really wanted to though.

The car drifted quietly to a stop. It had a subtle engine, despite how old it was. Franky's father had helped Kid fix it up because Kid was learning to work with metals. Iceburg said he would go far, but Zoro wasn't really sure what that meant; he just knew that Kid was good with cars, and he was pretty sure Kid made guns too but neither him nor Law had ever given him a straight answer on that.

Zoro took the moment of painful and awkward silence to take in his surroundings. They were beneath a tree, somewhere off the beaten road if the gravel was anything to go off of, but other than that everything was pitch black. Zoro wish he knew what time it was. Mihawk didn't come to pick him up some nights until after midnight, but he didn't want to be late either.

Kid unclicked his seatbelt and let it slide lazily back over his shoulder. Zoro took the hint and followed suit, but didn't move aside from that. Kid sucked in a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair, mussing the disarray of spikes even more before he shifted the goggles on his forehead to a more comfortable position and hunkered down into his seat. Zoro watched as he pulled his phone from his pocket, and the little bright screen lit up the car before Kid almost instantly shut it off and set it in the cup holder next to him so he could see it. Just checking it. He did this three more times over the next fifteen minutes, flashing the light for just a moment to ensure that he hadn't missed anything, even though nothing had come from the phone. It wasn't until Kid let out a harsh grunt and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket that it suddenly hit Zoro across the face like a live cattle prod why the air was so thick.

If Kid was smoking, it only meant one thing:

He was scared.

Kid's lighter ticked, sparking multiples times before it finally flared to life and he sucked in smoothly, unrolling the window just a crack and letting the smoke drift out of the side of his mouth.

Kid never smoked. Never. Law hated it when he smoked. A cigarette sighting usually ended in a multi-hour lecture on smoking that everyone in the house was "invited" to. Zoro wasn't really creeped out by the black, shriveled lungs in a jar, but he didn't necessarily keep it on his list of things to have sitting in his lap more than once either.

Zoro swallowed heavily and fought to keep his breathing steady. Maybe Kid would just let him walk home. It wasn't that far; he could just find a phone and call Shanks or Mihawk or someone. It was a highway, a straight line, there was no way he'd get lost. And even if he did—

No. He wouldn't be a baby. Wherever they were, Kid wouldn't let anything happen. And Zoro could find a stick or a pipe too and help. Kid and Law were two of the weirdest, craziest people he'd ever known—and that was saying something—but he trusted them with everything. He told them everything. He asked them about everything. They were his family too. The brothers he'd never had, like Ace and Luffy. He'd trust them.

Kid chuckled suddenly and Zoro jolted, his eyes snapping to the front seat. Kid took another drag before he spoke.

"Don't tell Traf, 'k? He won't be happy."

Zoro wanted to tease him, call him stupid and ask him if he really thought he could hide it from Law, but the thoughts wouldn't form words for some reason, and by the time they had, he'd forgotten that he could connect them to his tongue.

"You're awfully quiet tonight. Didn't think it was possible for you to shut up."

Zoro could hear the grin in Kid's voice, but his tongue was still glued to the bottom of his mouth, and there was cotton or something in his lungs. Maybe from the ripped seats.

Kid sighed again let his arm drop to the side, a thin wisp of smoke trickling up from the end of the glowing cherry. He shifted suddenly and ground the tip into a crushed soda can lying on the seat next to him before tossing the rest of the cigarette out the window.

"It's out, ok?" Kid turned to face Zoro, and Zoro could do nothing but try not to grimace at Kid's pathetic attempt to look unperturbed. Was something wrong with Law? Was that why they were picking him up? Why wasn't he at the hospital? He never missed a day.

"Why don't you come sit up front? We might be here a while."

Zoro didn't answer, but he clambered up over the cup holders after a minute and joined Kid up front, burrowing deep into the passenger seat. The heat in the front of the car was better anyways. Kid sat staring straight ahead, obviously preoccupied, and Zoro wished he'd just left him in the back seat. He was more hidden back there—Kid couldn't scrutinize him at all.

Kid crossed his arms suddenly, laying his bright red fingernails across his grey sweatshirt where they stuck out like blood and sat back, closing his eyes. "I'm thinking of an animal."

Zoro shot him a look, finally finding his voice at the insult. "I'm too old for that game."

"Then you think of one."

"It's stupid no matter who thinks of one!"

"Whatever, you wouldn't guess it anyways."

Zoro huffed, looking sharply away and crossing his arms. Kid cracked one eye, watching the miffed little green head staring intently out the window. Kid grinned impishly and closed his eyes again. Three, two, one—

"Fine. Is it a mammal?"

"Nope."

"Reptile."

"Nope."

"Amphibian."

"Nope."

"Bird."

"You're not doing so good, shrimp."

"Shut up! Fish!"

"Nope."

"Insect!"

"Wrong again."

Zoro scowled. "You're cheating, that's all there is."

"You didn't guess monster."

Zoro blinked, grinning suddenly and shifting to sit on his knees and face Kid, who was now grinning back at him.

"Monster."

"There we go."

"Does it have wings?"

"Sometimes."

"Is it strong?"

"Yep."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Very."

"How many more questions do I have?"

"Ten."

Zoro crossed his arms and rethought his strategy. Kid had used up a lot of his questions with the monster category. He had to pick a couple of specific monster traits and hope it was one of them.

"Can it breathe underwater?"

"Nope."

"…Does it shape shift?"

Kid cracked one eye to watch him. "Yes."

"Does it have fur?"

"No."

"Does it come out during the day?"

"No."

Zoro grinned. "I know what it is."

Kid blew a raspberry through his lips and closed his eyes again. "This one's an easy one; you'll never get the next one."

"Vampire." Zoro said smartly, and Kid opened his mouth to reply in what was sure to be a snarky and totally inappropriate retort when his phone lit up suddenly and Zoro yelped, jumping out of his skin and smacking his head on the window behind him. Kid lunged for the phone, scanned the screen, and threw it back down an instantly later, slamming his foot on the clutch as the engine roared to life.

"Put your seatbelt on," he ordered quietly, and Zoro did just that, snapping his back to the seat and wrenching the buckle across his front. He'd completely forgotten he was in Law's seat, and fumbled frantically to get himself unhooked when he realized it, his heart pounding against his lungs. Zoro threw the seatbelt away from himself and grabbed the headrest to leap into the back when something flashing by out his window caught his eye. He stopped, staring in shock at the form of a boy just about his age racing barefoot through the trees, blond hair glowing under the moon like starlight, blood dripping freely down his naked torso and skin discolored with bruises, and then he disappeared into the black.

"Kid—" Zoro started, pointing to the trees, when the backdoor was suddenly wrenched open and Zoro gasped and fell back as Law literally threw himself into the car headfirst. Law's feet were pressed up against the ceiling and his hat was falling off of his head as he scrambled to yank the door closed behind him, all the while clutching a large brown burlap bag in his arms like his very soul was contained in the porous stitching.

"Drive!" Law roared to the front seat, the door barely shut and his hand still on the handle, and Kid took off, tires screaming against the dirt. Zoro yelped as he was thrown against the door, and then pitched forward onto the floor, the car tearing through the blackness. Zoro clutched at the glove box with everything he had, fingers raking the plastic for purchase as the car was thrown everywhere on the beaten down road. The car jumped, flying over a rock, and Zoro cracked his head on the dashboard, losing his grip momentarily and getting ricocheted back under the seat.

A hand grabbed his shoulder out of nowhere, and Zoro was heaved into the backseat the next time the car hit a rock hard enough for him to leave the floor. He crashed heavily down on top of Law, but Law only gripped him tighter, one foot jammed into the headrest of the front seat and one foot against the ceiling keeping them balanced. His other arm was still wrapped like iron around the burlap bag.

"Turn the lights on!" Law yelled, and Zoro looked up in horror to see that Kid was flying through the night without even the moon to guide him with all of the trees overhead. The only thing he could take in from outside was the sound of the road as pebbles and rocks shot up around them, pinging off of the car and cracking against the windows dangerously.

"I know where I'm going!"

"Eustass, turn the lights on!"

"I know where the road it, Traf!"

"Eustass! Turn the fucking—!"

The car leapt violently again, soaring through the air as the engine revved and Zoro's breath stopped, Law's arm locking around him and pulling him and the bag into his front in what was sure to be—if Zoro knew how Law's brain worked at all—the place in the car that would take the least impact from the crash, and then the car crunched against pavement, metal grinding and sparks shooting up from the driver's side, and the sound of whirring road against rubber filled the car. Kid flicked the lights on instantly, his foot slamming hard against gas pedal and Zoro flew backwards, cracking his forehead against Law's chin as the car took off like a jet down the road, but Law hardly seemed to notice at all.

After Zoro's momentum had caught up to the car's and he'd stopped shaking enough to lift his head out of Law's sweatshirt, Kid's voice came from the front seat. "We're ok."

"…We're not ok until we're home," Law answered after a moment. "We don't know if they saw the car."

"They didn't."

"Eustass, we have to make sure—"

"They didn't see the goddamn car, all right?! I made sure! Why do you think I was parked so fucking far away?!"

"…Don't take the highway, I don't want—"

"I know, Traf! Fuck! Just buckle Zoro in, I know how to drive the fucking car!"

Law closed his mouth, and Zoro sat there in his arms, letting himself be stunned for a moment. Everything today, and now Kid and Law actually fighting?

Law nodded to himself after he tired of staring at the back of Kid's head and pulled his cow-print hat further down over his eyes. He untangled Zoro from his side and placed his feet back on the floor before sitting Zoro in one of the seats and pulling the seatbelt over his small torso. It was the only time Zoro would ever be ok with someone treating him like he was an invalid. He wasn't sure he could do it on his own right now.

"Law," he choked out suddenly, his voice high and weak. "What's going on?"

"…It's nothing, Zoro. I'm sorry there was no one else to watch you today; we'll be home soon and you can sleep. Your uncle will be coming soon."

Zoro sat silently as Law pulled his sweatshirt up over his head and draped it across Zoro's front, tucking it in behind his shoulders. It was Law's favorite, the one with the yellow smiling sun that Law had told him was supposed to look like a virus embroidered on the front and "Corazon" on the back, and the fact that he was giving it to Zoro meant that he was as shaken up as Kid was. Zoro shivered and dipped his face down behind the hood, suddenly very aware of how cold he was. He swallowed heavily, opening his mouth a few times and changing his mind before he finally asked.

"Are we ok?"

Zoro's eyes shot open as Law unsnapped Zoro's seatbelt and threw it way from him, yanking Zoro into his arms and holding him tighter than he ever had. Zoro couldn't even remember the last time Law had held him. It might have even been Kuina's funeral. Tears pricked at his eyes, taunting him, and he buried his head in Law's shoulder, Law's t-shirt crumpling in his fist as he yanked on the cloth to pull the older man closer.

"I'm so sorry, Zoro," Law whispered. "I'm so, so sorry. We're ok. I promise we're ok, and no one is going anywhere, ok? I promise, everything is ok. We're all ok."

Zoro couldn't stop the tears after that. He could only be grateful that no one—not even Kid—said anything and just let him sob into Law's shirt.

The silence was painful, especially because the only sound that ever broke it was an occasional sniffle that Zoro couldn't swallow. Zoro wished that Kid would put on some music or something, anything to break up the thick air, but something told him that any extra noise or light that could draw attention to them was dangerous.

"You smoked," Law said suddenly. Zoro had never heard him so blasé. He was so passionate about the subject.

"…Sorry."

Law didn't answer, but from the lack of retaliation, Zoro knew that he wasn't angry about the situation. This day needed to end. It was too weird.

Law didn't make him sit in his own seat the whole way back, which almost made it worse considering how strongly Law also felt about seatbelts, but because of it, by the time Kid pulled the car into the parking spot for their apartment building, Zoro had been able to calm his body's nervous wracking down to pitiful hiccups and wipe the last traces of his stupid tears off. Law pushed the car door open with his foot and climbed out awkwardly, keeping Zoro hidden in his arms the whole time. He draped his sweatshirt across Zoro's back and head and kept Zoro's face turned into his shoulder. Zoro gladly let him. He didn't care how old he was; Law was strong enough to carry him, end of story.

"He's still out?" Kid asked after a moment, closing the car door far too gently, and it took Zoro a moment to realize that Kid wasn't talk about him, but the burlap sack in the back seat.

"They gave him a lot," Law murmured. "We got him out just in time, another couple of days and his body would have given out. I'm going to draw some blood for him tonight."

Zoro flinched as another pair of hands found his back—suddenly terrified that it was his uncle—that his uncle would see him crying—but Law stepped back and drew him away from them, even though he'd realized they were Kid's.

"You take him? I'm going to try and get Zoro to sleep. And bring my medical bag into the kitchen."

"'K."

Zoro tipped his head up as Law's boots clicked against the pavement, taking him into the building where Zoro's skin greedily drank in the heat that rushed over him. The door swung shut behind them, but not before Zoro watched Kid take the sack out from the back of the car, holding it as tenderly as if it were another child. Zoro swallowed and hid his head back in Law's shoulder, counting the steps to distract himself as they traveled soundlessly through the lobby, into the elevator, up fourteen flights and into Law and Kid's apartment.

Law flicked the light on in the kitchen, but didn't put Zoro down even when Zoro shifted and pulled away slightly from Law's hold, carrying him instead straight into the guest bedroom where he lived on Thursdays. He placed Zoro carefully onto the bed and immediately went to pick out a pair of pajamas from the small suitcase of things he kept in their apartment.

"…Law?" Zoro tried after he'd pulled off his tie and jacket.

"Yes, Zoro?"

"Was there… a person in that bag?"

Law paused before resuming his selection, and then stood to bring Zoro his change of clothes, dropping them on the bed and peeling Zoro out of his shirt.

"Yes, there was."

Zoro waited as Law busied himself with changing Zoro, but Law never continued.

"Is he ok?"

Law nodded. "He will be. He was in trouble, so I had to get him away from where he was living, and Kid was my only ride so we had to take you unfortunately. We tried to find somewhere else for you to be today, but we couldn't tell anyone what we were doing and everyone else is always busy on Thursdays. That won't happen again, Zoro."

He stopped for a moment to put Zoro's uniform out next to the bed. "Also, it's pretty late, but if your uncle picks you up tonight, don't say anything to him, ok? We're not going to hide what we did today, but Kid and I want to be the ones to tell everyone."

"Will they be worried because of me?"

"I should think so."

"…Angry?"

"I think your uncle might want to remove a limb or two, but he'll get over it. I could sew it back on anyways, so it'd just be a waste of time." Law smirked at him.

Zoro couldn't find the energy to return the gesture. He waited again as Law pulled the covers up over him, but the surgeon seemed to be done with talking. Zoro's adrenaline, however, wasn't ready to let him sleep yet; his mind was still buzzing with everything that had happened.

"What's his name?"

Law blinked at him, confused at the question before he realized who Zoro was referring to and let out a tired chuckle. He sat down quietly on the bed and took a moment to look out the window.

"Would it be better if I told you tonight instead of in the morning?"

Zoro nodded eagerly. He was tired—really tired—but there was no way he was going to just sleep after all that happened this afternoon. He hadn't even had a chance to tell Law that he'd gotten a 93 on the test that Law had helped him study for today.

"A while back," Law started, running a hand tiredly over his eyes, "when I was just starting my job at the hospital, I came across some very interesting files on a couple of children. I was being moved up quickly in the ranks from part-time to actually helping in clinical trials and people were confused on what I was privy and not privy to, so I was given the wrong files for a clinical study."

"You didn't just give them back?" Zoro had always been taught that looking through other peoples' things wasn't polite, and that you could make people very angry if you didn't respect their privacy. Mihawk was hell bent on that rule. The man held everything as a secret that he'd given his word not to speak of again.

Law just shot him a devilish smile. "Now where's the fun in that?" he asked innocently and Zoro smirked, finally starting to really relax.

"So I skimmed through the files, but I couldn't find anything on the location of the children, so I forgot about it. It was interesting stuff—a blood deficiency gene problem I've never heard of—but I had my own study to work on so I put them back in the filing system and got the correct files. I didn't bother mentioning it to anyone because file mix-ups happen all the time anyways and I'd figured out the code to the room and the filing cabinet the week before. Then, after two weeks or so, I found the same file out on the desk in one of the offices and decided to look through it again, to see if they'd made any progress, only to find that one of the children had died."

Zoro's mouth fell open with a small pop and the air left his lungs.

Law nodded. "Just like that. He'd been perfectly fine two weeks prior. There was no info in the file on why they had died, only the studies leading up to that and the time of death. I hadn't even noticed the first time reading it that the file only said a child study and they hadn't put the kid's ages in there."

Law pushed his hat back on his head to play with his bangs and closed his eyes, leaning sideways on the bed to get more comfortable. "I was nervous that they were doing studies on orphan kids again like some hospitals had a couple of years ago—ones that didn't have parents to protect them, especially if the file had no ages taken down—so I started looking for more information, but there was nothing in the hospital. I didn't find anything else until I overheard some of the doctors talking about the same case and I followed them after they left the hospital to an old, rundown warehouse-turned-haphazard-hospital with a makeshift"—Law waved his hand flippantly, obviously displeased—"operating room, I suppose, stocked to the brim with military equipment."

Zoro took Law's next pause—occupied with a yawn that he knew Law used to collect himself so as not to show any anger—to scooch himself deeper under the covers.

"So going to the police was out if the military were in on it," Law sighed, "and there was one dead kid on their hands already. I stayed there that night to look through some things without anyone there to bother me."

Zoro remember that night very clearly. Kid had nearly broken all of the dishes in the apartment with how nervous he was that Law hadn't come home, hadn't called, and hadn't been seen since he'd left the hospital. He'd smoked that night too.

"I got everything I needed from the warehouse and left the next morning, working on how to get this to someone who could help the two kids left, but two days later I heard the same doctors talking about how the second one had died the night before."

"Traf."

Zoro and Law looked up to find Kid in the door, leaning tiredly against the doorframe.

Kid nodded towards the living room. "He's starting to wake up."

Law nodded before turning back to Zoro. "Clearly they weren't doing anything beneficial to the children. So I told Eustass last night, and we couldn't find a place for you so we brought you and got him out, the end." Law stood to leave.

"What's his name?"

Kid blinked, not sure exactly what the question was about, but Law gave Zoro a gentle smile.

"He doesn't have one. He's just about fifteen months and he can't really walk or talk because no one ever taught him. But he's going to be around for a while, so we'll have to do something about that name, right?"

Zoro nodded, blinking as he remembered something just as Law reached his door.

"I saw someone there," he called out and Law paused, turning back to look at him confusedly.

"I saw someone when we were waiting to pick you up," he explained. "Out my window, it was a boy, running. He looked hurt."

Law cocked his head slightly, thinking to himself, and then shrugged. "He might have just lived around there."

Zoro shook his head. "He didn't have a shirt or any shoes, and he was bleeding a lot."

Law let out a slow breath, thinking again before he nodded and thanked Zoro for letting him know. Zoro nodded and watched as the door closed, Law and Kid murmuring their goodnights to him before the darkness swept the room. He turned over in his bed and pulled the covers over his head. Kuina wouldn't be scared at all.

Law followed Kid into the kitchen after checking the pulse of the infant sleeping on the couch just for paranoia's sake. The amount of sedatives he'd been receiving from the IV worried Law, but already he seemed to be making a recovery. Law pulled the infant's file—nearly a ream of paper—from his medical bag where he'd stashed it and started combing through it for a third time. The infant was a fascinating creature; Law could hardly blame the military for wanting to experiment on them. It didn't disgust him any less though that they had.

The baby was skinny and his muscles had atrophied from so much time spent sedated. His skin was pasty and greying, and bones were even starting to show through from the color difference. The only normal attribute he seemed to have was that fact that his hair was still coming in blond with seemingly no loss of color—though it was a little thin—and long enough already to cover his eyes. Even in the dull lighting, Law could see the "abnormal growth," as it had been labeled, of the infant's canine teeth, where they sharpened into points just behind his lips.

"Hey," Kid laid his hand on Law's forearm and Law closed the file, leaning back into Kid's chest where the taller man held him like a vice. He reached up after a moment and rubbed Kid's hands.

"I'm sorry I made you smoke."

Law breathed in deeply as Kid leaned down against the top of his head, nibbling nervously on the cow print hat. He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, finally accepting that if someone had suspected it was him, a swat team would have broken down their door hours before they'd even gotten home.

Kid was right; they were ok. He just needed to accept that there wasn't much more they could do in this situation. The insane quota had already been filled tonight, even by their standards.

"…Mihawk called while you were in there with Zoro, asked if the runt could stay the night."

Law nodded and looked into the living room where a tiny arm twitched a couple times before stilling again. He pursed his lips. "Then what are we going to do with you…?" he muttered to himself before tipping his head up to look at Kid. "Is it too late to go out and buy a couple bottles and a crib?"

"Probably not. Whatever's is always open. Not so sure about cribs though. I can run out and see."

"We probably should have thought of this sooner."

Kid snorted. "Ha. Who does that?"

Law smirked and stood up to kiss him deeply, wrapping his arms around Kid's shoulders and letting himself be engulfed in his partner's larger frame. "Grab diapers too? And some clothes, anything is fine, but the smallest size. We'll make it work. I'm going to pull a pint of blood while you do that. We can get non-necessities tomorrow."

"All right," Kid kissed him again. "I'll be back soon."

Law nodded and let Kid kiss him a few more times before the flaming red hair disappeared through the front door. He dropped his hat on the table and ran his hands through his own hair before opening his medical bag and taking out an IV bag and a decent sized needle. Better to do it before he wakes up. Who knows how long it had been since the poor kid had eaten, and if he was too loud the neighbors might get curious.

Law sat back and tied the strip around his arm to find the vein, going over what Zoro had told him again as he poked at his inner elbow. Was it possible there was another child? One that hadn't been on the file for whatever reason. Maybe a different case study.

Well, they'd never find him at this point. He was either miles into the woods or caught and under much stricter surveillance. Law looked up as a tiny cry alerted him to more movement coming from the infant and stuck the needle into his arm, trying to hurry. He'd have to keep an eye out for things coming through the hospital and watch closely for another kid.

Oops. He'd never asked Zoro if he was hungry. Damn.

-oOo-

The phrase "easy, killer," became a staple in Kid and Law's apartment. At least, after Mihawk allowed Zoro to grace them with his presence again. A ridiculous three months after the incident had happened.

Zoro was angry. He was angry that he'd lost his norm, that he'd lost the two people he could tell everything and trust with everything, that he wasn't even allowed to see them, that he didn't know what had happened to the baby they'd pulled from the claws of death, that there was nowhere else to go on Thursdays, which meant him being forced into the after school program unless Shanks could take him with Luffy and Ace.

Sometimes Ace would bring him along to friends' houses, but Ace was too old for him and Luffy—and often told them so, even though he was actually only one year older than Zoro. Luffy could barely get Sabo to convince Ace to let him tag along, let alone Zoro. They liked Zoro well enough, but it was an older kid thing, as Ace said. Sabo just had a soft spot for Luffy, but they kicked Luffy out all the time just liked his alone time with Sabo, and Zoro could understand that. Ace and Sabo had grown up together in a foster home before his grandfather Garp had located him again after years of searching and placed him in Shanks' house with Luffy—who was suddenly his younger brother. Zoro wasn't really sure on Sabo's story, but he'd been brought back to his own home after that—his real home, if the way he talked about hating his parents said anything—but he still felt more at home with Ace and spent as much time as he could with him. Zoro got like that with Law and Kid sometimes, especially after having to stay over at Mihawk's, so he was fine to let Ace and Sabo run off and just play with Luffy, but when Luffy ran off with them he was alone again and left at the school in the afterschool care program.

Zoro's grades started to drop without Law's tutoring, and his progression with his swords slowed to a disgusting standstill, making him more and more volatile. Mihawk tried to get him a new sensei to teach him, being that he was too busy with government work and his own swordfights, and even bought him two new swords, but Zoro would have absolutely none of it. The fact that Mihawk expected him to give up Kuina's sword for some cheap practice sword Mihawk himself never would have used was insulting, and then he had actually insulted him by insinuating that if he didn't move on from Kuina then he would never go anywhere. When Mihawk saw him practicing with all three one day—the one day he'd been home in close to a week—Kuina's beautiful, white sword gripped between his teeth, he'd just given Zoro a look and said nothing. If that wasn't enough, both Law and Kid were better than the moron Mihawk had sent to teach him, and only one of them had any real experience with sword fighting. Zoro was spiraling downwards. He was losing everything important. There was no way he could beat Mihawk when he was older if idiots were teaching him.

Zoro couldn't sleep. He refused to eat Mihawk's food because his cooking was terrible—even compared to Law's—but he cooked because Zoro got so disgusted with take out every night that he had refused to eat that after a couple of weeks.

It wasn't long before acting out in school became the norm for Zoro. It was the biggest stress reliever of his life. He could piss off anyone, and prided himself on making his teachers fume, but they would never get physical with him. So he found the physical side in other kids his age—picking fights, chasing off anyone that tried to help him, yelling and screaming at everyone that looked at him wrong. His teachers all tried talking to him, and then quickly gave that up, following which he'd beaten up two kids so badly that he'd been suspended. Even Luffy and Ace hadn't been able to get him to calm down, and Zoro had bitten Sabo's head off when he tried to talk to him later.

That was when Shanks had finally gone to Mihawk. Zoro had pleaded for weeks to see Kid and Law, doing everything from throwing tantrums like he was three years old to refusing to speak for days on end, but Mihawk hadn't budged, even though his schedule had recently become so crammed and sporadic that Zoro essentially lived at school with the morning and evening programs and then with a different babysitter every few nights. Mihawk told the babysitters that Zoro was a foster child and kind of "rough," and they always promised they could handle him, but none had lasted more than a few nights.

Weeks, Zoro had tried to get Mihawk to let him go back, and one dinner with Shanks and suddenly Kid was waiting for him on Thursday, standing in front of the beat up old car with the stupidest grin on his face while Zoro stood frozen at the front of the school, gaping with the black eye and split lip from his most recent suspension.

"Come on, runt!" Kid bellowed suddenly, climbing back into the car and threatening with a loud roar from the engine to drive away if Zoro didn't get his butt in gear, and Zoro took off like a rocket. He leapt over three kids while jumping down the stairs, ignoring the screams of all his teachers and nearly knocking down four different parents in his frantic scramble to get into Kid's car. And before the door had even shut, Kid took off like a bat out of hell, tires screaming against the pavement as he cranked music Zoro knew for a fact that he wasn't allowed to listen to and began screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs. Zoro was so preoccupied with smiling that it didn't even occur to him to join in.

Kid screeched the car to a halt in his parking space, and Zoro bounded into the building, tripping someone coming out with his backpack as he ducked between their legs. Zoro heard Kid bark something at him, but he had already shut himself in the elevator, repeatedly drilling the button for the fourteenth floor as if the machinery could understand his desperation and would fly him as fast as possible up to the apartment that he still considered more of his home than Mihawk's house.

Zoro threw open the door to the apartment, cracking it sharply against the wall as he skidded into the kitchen, where he finally lost his momentum at the sight of the tiny, blond human sitting at the table, motionlessly staring at him from behind a curtain of thick hair that completely obscured his eyes. His mouth was hanging open, two bottom teeth poking out over slobbery lips, a spoon gleaming with spit clutched tightly in its tiny fist. Zoro blinked, suddenly entirely unsure of what to say or do.

"Hey, Zoro."

Zoro's eyes snapped up to the stove behind the table, and a huge grin split his face at the sight of Law's devious smirk, like the sadistic surgeon was getting more enjoyment out of the fact that this was upsetting Mihawk than he was at seeing Zoro. And Zoro was totally ok with that. It just made being here all that much more wonderful.

"Jesus," Kid snarled from behind him as he stepped into the apartment and kicked the door shut harshly. "Mrs. Arlen bitched me out for an hour, like everything you do is fucking my fault," he cuffed Zoro upside the head as he said this and sent him stumbling a few steps to the side and out of Kid's pathway.

"Oh, also," Kid rounded on him again and smacked the other side of his head, sending him tumbling into the other wall, "thanks to your recent stunts we have several meetings with your teachers and I have to drag you along to the shop for two weeks because you're suspended. So here's the deal, you ever pull this kind of shit again and I will personally remove any limbs that you could potentially injure someone with!"

"You hungry?" Law asked, disregarding Kid's small outburst, and Zoro dropped his backpack on the floor, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs and clambering up to the table. The baby screeched suddenly at the apparently very welcome company and laughed, banging the spoon with sharp clangs against the table. Zoro just stared. He'd never really interacted with a baby before.

"You'll get used to it," Law told him with a wink and set a plate of crackers and cheese down in front of Zoro, pulling back to ruffle the mop of blond hair and the baby squealed again, tiny arms flailing as it tried to grab onto Law's hand and capture the offending assailant.

"Do you have homework for your suspension?" Law asked, oblivious to the burbling gnashing the baby was inflicting on its suddenly remembered spoon and Zoro nodded, cramming a few crackers into his mouth.

"Jus' a 'iddwe."

Law yawned hugely and slouched back in his chair. "We'll do that later," he muttered flippantly. "Homework is so useless for kids your age."

Zoro paused, and then grinned hugely again, stuffing some cheese in his mouth before he resumed his attack on the crackers.

-oOo-

It took Zoro a lot longer than he would have liked to settle back into himself after regaining Law and Kid in his life, even if Mihawk had agreed to let Zoro stay at their apartment whenever he wasn't at his house, which was almost all the time. He still snapped easily, at what seemed like everything, and the fact that he didn't have control over his anger upset him like nothing else and he was ashamed for the way he'd acted. It was so stupid and embarrassing. And he was suspended and stuck at the garage with Kid and the garage was cool but Kid couldn't spend time with him because he had to work so Zoro had to sit for hours and try and keep everything inside of him from boiling over. He'd see Ace, Luffy, and Sabo as much as he could—and had apologized to all three the first moment he had been able—but they had school so the amount of energy he could expend on them was limited.

He'd tried to get Law to let him stay in the apartment instead of at the garage, offering to do chores and everything else, but Law had given him some very vague responses about the baby's health and some tests and a bunch of other crap that Zoro didn't understand. Basically, staying at the apartment had been out.

And so the phrase, "easy, killer," became a staple in Kid and Law's apartment. Kid would grab his wrist with frustratingly fast reflexes just as Zoro lashed out, before he could get the chance to break anything, murmuring, "easy, killer," and not let go until Zoro was calm enough not to want to sink his teeth into Kid's skin and could just storm off and slam his door instead of laying waste to some of the more expensive things in the apartment. Which would have been exponentially more wonderful in the stress-relief department. But they'd taken everything breakable out of his room except the bedframe, which was iron because they'd stolen it from one of the dorm rooms at Kid's college. Zoro was fine to kick the thing and slam it into the wall as hard as he could, which had helped, but after he broke his finger the need for that physical release in the form of destruction started to slowly wear off. He couldn't hold his swords correctly with his finger broken.

The baby was very different. The thing bit people like his life depended on it. Always. When he was happy, or laughing, or crying—even in his sleep he'd gnawed on Zoro's hand once and made him bleed really badly. Law had to tell his teachers that they had two new cats at the house to help Zoro settle into the changes to keep them from setting up a meeting with Mihawk or calling child services. Both Law and Kid were covered in little curved rows of pinpricks that dotted everywhere from their hands and arms to their necks and cheeks from when they picked the baby up, and "easy, killer," became the normal response for him too.

It took Zoro a while to settle into the crying and the biting and the fact that he was woken up every night he was over at three in the morning because the stupid thing couldn't sleep through until morning. Memories from his time at the experimental facility, as Law explained, and Zoro understood that fear, so he just put up with it and did his best to fall back asleep when he was woken up. The baby smelled too, and Law and Kid still hadn't picked a name, which Zoro thought was really stupid because he couldn't even use good insults when the only thing he was directing them at was "the baby." Because he was nine and he was upset at a baby and it was a stupid baby and he couldn't be upset at a baby for crying. So he just grumbled to himself when it woke him up and waited for Law or Kid to wake up and hold it or feed it or whatever so he could go back to sleep.

One night that Law hadn't come home until 1 AM after work and Kid had dragged both Zoro and the baby around all afternoon buying groceries and scraps of metal and everything else for a new project of his, and trained with Zoro and done his homework, and then forced Zoro to help him give the baby a bath (in which they all took one too because the stupid thing kicked and loved splashing so much), that when the baby did wake Zoro up at 3 AM, screaming like there were demons in the crib with him, neither Law nor Kid woke up. Zoro laid in bed for ten minutes, trying to smother himself under the pillows to get away from the stupid screaming. It made him think of all the nights Law had comforted him after Kuina died, and he hated remembering those nights.

Zoro gritted his teeth, crunching himself further into a ball and trying desperately to become one with his bed as the baby's screaming somehow got louder and more frantic, and Law and Kid somehow still didn't wake up.

Zoro wrenched back the covers suddenly, glaring at the door to his room, closed but apparently not impervious to the stupid baby.

"Stop!" he screamed in its general direction, as if the wood could help. "Stop crying!"

Zoro growled again, tears pricking his own eyes as the darkness around him suddenly started to feel incredibly heavy and constricting, and Zoro threw the covers away, storming out of his room and down the hall into the makeshift nursery that had been thrown together with a crib and a shelf for baby supplies. Law and Kid didn't have the money to spend on something nicer looking.

"Stop crying!" Zoro yelled, barging through the door and glaring at the mop of blond hair poking up over the top of the bars of the crib. The baby swallowed its next sob, hiccupping pitifully and shaking like a leaf as it clutched at the crib, tears and snot and spit and everything else soaking through his onesie as he stood there, shaking and staring at Zoro, and just as unsure of what to do next as Zoro was. Zoro wasn't the one that normally got him in the middle of the night.

Zoro shifted uncomfortably and looked back over his shoulder. Should he get Kid? Law was so tired… Zoro had only been back in the apartment for three weeks, and he'd never even held the baby—any baby actually—

The baby hiccupped violently, and then the screaming filled the room again, its tiny body jerking up and down, holding onto the crib for stability and shaking it with sharp squeaks that only made the noise worse. Zoro grimaced, knowing without a doubt that if he left, the screaming would get worse. He remembered how alone he'd felt. If Law or Kid had walked away from him when he was like that…

Zoro swallowed and steeled himself, marching up to the crib and popping open the latch that held the bars up. The baby fell back at the sudden loss of his support and landed heavily against on the thin mattress. The wailing doubled and he sat there in anguish, shaking his tiny fists and scrubbing them futilely into his face in an attempt to get rid of what Zoro knew to be the irritation from the salty tears.

"Easy, killer," he murmured, reaching in and hoisting the heavy lump out of the crib. Zoro dropped to the floor the second he had the baby in his arms, not even trying to hold up his weight with how tired he was. He pressed the shaking body as gently as he could into his own, rubbing gentle circles into its back. "Come on, you're ok."

The caterwauling slowed to the pathetic whimpers and body-wracking hiccups again as Zoro swayed slowly back and forth in an attempt to mimic what Law always did to calm him down.

"Easy, Killer," Zoro whispered again, wiping some of the snot off of the baby's face with his own sleeve, which he then scrubbed on the floor before the wetness soaked through to his skin. "It's ok."

It felt like forever that he sat there on the floor with Killer, rocking him gently and tussling his hair every once and a while as both Law and Kid did, and finally Killer's erratic hyperventilating slowed to even breathing and he settled into Zoro's shoulder, content—what it seemed—to sit there in the safety of the older boy's arms. With the noise gone, Zoro felt himself drifting again, and his head started dropping to the side as the darkness welcomed him into sleep again.

He jolted awake at the remembrance that he was holding a very distraught baby that was likely to go off like a bomb at the slightest upset and grunted, hoisting both him and Killer off the floor. He cast one look at the crib before rolling his eyes and turning away from it, dragging the baby down the hallway, struggling under the extra weight only a tiny bit more than he would have liked to. He was still getting back into training with Kid and Law and Killer was almost a third of his size, but he made it back to his room and half threw, half shoved Killer up onto his bed, which he then climbed up into and set to work rearranging the covers he'd uprooted. Killer sat quietly and watched him through the whole thing.

Zoro sighed and pushed gently on Killer's shoulder, laying him back on the pillow like he'd seen Law do—making sure to keep Killer between the wall and himself so he couldn't fall off the bed—and pulled the covers over the both of them. Zoro snuggled down into the pillow and laid his hand over Killer's middle in one last half-asleep-paranoid attempt to keep him safe in a bed with no bars on the side, and then just his snoring filled the room.

-oOo-

Law yawned hugely, frowning at the strange light filling the room before he suddenly realized what it was and shot up in bed. Ambulances. He yanked back the curtains to check what had happened outside that could possible explain the number of emergency vehicles and lights filling up the room like only the sun could do, when the blinding light of the actual sun caught him straight in the eyes and he dropped the curtain, snarling quietly at the jarring annoyance waking him up much faster than he was used to.

Law ground at his eyes with one hand, scrubbing sand from his eyelashes and looking around the room, unable to quite put together why…

Kid was asleep next to him, his flaming red hair splayed across the pillows with his back turned up to the ceiling, displaying the multitude of impressive scars, tattoos, and burns marring his skin, most of which Law had fixed of himself. That was normal.

The room was bright, way too bright for two in the morning when the baby usually woke up, and the clock glowing on the bedside table explained why. 7:02. That wasn't normal.

Huh. Law let out a deep, curt sigh and looked over to the door. I guess he slept through the night.

But still, the amount of hours the baby had slept through after waking up every single night since he'd been here (almost four months now) had Law pushing back the covers even though the slight chill in the room bit uncomfortably at his skin, and he pulled on a pair of pants and a t-shirt that had been discarded the previous night. He passed by his hat, as he normally did before showers, too asleep to ever care how muddled and cartoonish his hair looked in the morning, and pulled open the door to their room, padding quietly to the baby's room. Law blinked at the open door and pushed it open cautiously with two fingers, leaning around to see into the tiny room.

Law's tongue jumped down the back of his throat, and the door cracked sharply against the wall as he threw it open, leaving a hole in the thin plaster where the doorknob hit. Law couldn't breathe for a second, couldn't do anything but stand in the doorway with his jaw hanging open and his eyes popping out of his head.

Crib empty. Bars down. Door open.

"Traf?" he heard Kid grumble from down the hallway.

Law tore back out the door, his first instinct to find the goddamn lock on the fucking front door and make fucking sure that the piece of shit fucking worked—

He ground to a halt suddenly though just after passing Zoro's open door. Zoro never left his door open. Something was either seriously wrong or…

Law backed up a few steps and pushed Zoro's door open, standing immobile with his hand on the cheap wood as Zoro scowled up at him at the rude awakening of the other door slamming, blinking heavily and trying to remember how to see properly. The baby was asleep next to him, more calm than Law remembered seeing him since the fourth night of being away from the hospital, after it had really seemed to click that he wasn't going back to that horrible place. Zoro yawned, leaning his head back like he was howling his good mornings to the sun before clambering out from under his covers.

"Killer woke me up last night and you slept through it, so I brought him here," he said as he stretched, and was about to get off the bed before he suddenly seemed to remember said baby and turned around to cover him back up, even though the jostling had shaken the baby awake and he was now swiveling his head around the unfamiliar surroundings of the room.

"…Killer?" Law managed finally. Zoro had never seemed to show any interest in the baby…

Zoro just gave him a look before sliding down off of the bed and walking past him toward the kitchen. "Well if you aren't gonna call him something, I will."

Law watched him go before turning back to the baby and walking over to help it out of the bed before it fell. He set the small figure on his hip and shrugged after a moment, following the sleep-clogged voice asking where the milk was into the kitchen. It wasn't like he had any better ideas, and this kept him and Kid from having to discuss which name to actually pick. Kid's name choices were so arbitrary, ridiculous, and stupid that it almost made Law wonder why he was with him. And somehow he was sure Kid wouldn't mind "Killer" at all, though it would make for some interesting paperwork come the time when Killer entered the school system. Well, they could always blame the name on the inept parents Killer had been taken from before they adopted him.

Inept indeed. Just the reminder made him scowl.

"The milk is in the fridge, Zoro, just like it has been for the past three years. Ever since we moved in, conveniently enough."

"Well, it's not there," Zoro returned curtly.

Law sighed.

-oOo-

As always, review for us poor, emotionally starving artists! Hope you enjoyed and want to continue!

-As a side note, I swear I came up with the title Angel Down myself. I was thinking of Blackhawk Down and Angel Down popped into my head and I loved the sound of it so much that I googled it to make sure someone hadn't already thought of it because it sounded that awesome to me so obviously it would sound awesome to someone else, and I thought I was in the clear but then I found that some band named their album Angel Down so damn! But this version of Angel Down I didn't steal! Just incase anyone is wondering :p