Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to Oda-sensei. I'm just borrowing some characters here.
Summary: Slightly time travel-ish semi-pocket universe for a prompt combo for Cora Week! A mishap leads a certain young Marine recruit to cross paths with an angry pirate he doesn't yet know. Hopefully this will go better than expected...
Corazón Week, Day 6 & 7 combined. The prompts are Teenage and Hope.
Decided to combine 2 days' prompts b/c Roci finally talked to me again since day 1, & it all ended up flowing so well together, I just couldn't split it up. xD
Happy birthday, Roci! Love you, ya big lug. :D
Rocinante had just barely been allowed to officially join the Marine corps by Sengoku. He'd turned fourteen earlier that summer and (as his adoptive father worried about him) wasn't quite allowed on missions yet.
Yet here he was. He'd tripped over his own feet (again? — he'd begun growing at a surprising rate a little over a year ago and was stuck in a constant state of "getting used to it" for the foreseeable future) and somehow ended up in a town he didn't recognize.
Despite his typical luck, he decided to take his chances wandering while figuring this out.
The general climate of the town told him it was safe to assume that he was still in the North Blue, but what island he was on, he didn't know.
Unfortunately, he'd neglected to note very many things within a certain range in front of him. He knocked into someone, accidentally taking them down with him in the process when gravity claimed him as its victim once again.
"Captain!" He heard three male voices call.
Rocinante cringed. His forehead stung some from the impact with whoever this "captain" was. Opening his eyes after a minute, he met a pair of annoyed (if tired), but not completely readable amber orbs glaring at him from an oddly colored but equally annoyed face. He blinked. This was this group's captain? He was clearly a teen himself, and definitely not a Marine... Were they pirates? Bandits?
This other young man's eyes weren't his only interesting feature. His visible skin seemed to be two-toned — it was almost like he had spots! Although they were faint, so maybe not noticeable from a distance. He wore a round white hat with dark spots decorating it in that Northern fashion, and a dark cloak over an equally dark shirt. His pants were a light enough grey to show off a similar spot pattern to the hat. A statement? Or weird camouflage?
No time to figure any of that out, as the spotty teen had a dagger out a second later. He forced Rocinante to almost scramble backwards off of him to avoid the blade.
The blond ended up on his rear with his arms up in a defensive position while the other teen had moved to crouch. Both paused for a beat.
It felt like the hat wearer was scrutinizing him... he was definitely staring. It was making Rocinante a bit uncomfortable.
For the spotty teen's part, he was shocked and confused. This kid (could he call him that, though? They really weren't that far apart in age.) was dressed like a Marine, but pretty much felt like a civilian.
Moreover, blondie here looked far too similar to an important person he'd lost. Something had to be up.
He stood and put his dagger away upon deciding that this Marine wannabe was no threat to them. "Relax, guys. He's just clumsy."
Rocinante looked up then, and what he saw surprised him. With this teen were three others, one of whom had to be a mink, although the latter looked more like a plush toy than anything else.
Then what he said registered. "Hey! Rude..."
"...and...?"
Rocinante grumbled as he got up. "I'm sorry I bumped into you, okay? ...I'm actually kind of lost..." He rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.
The young captain simply raised a brow. Rocinante could tell that that expression was asking for an explanation. It reminded him of Sengoku's questioning looks when he came home injured from training... it made him a bit nervous.
"I... don't really know how to explain it... never mind. Sorry for the trouble!" He grinned apologetically before turning and running off.
Trafalgar Law stared after the Marine insignia on the back of the blond's shirt as he ran down the street (and luckily managed to keep his footing the whole way) without looking back at them. That interaction puzzled the young pirate quite a bit.
His three crew members also stared after the odd, lanky mystery teen for a minute from their positions behind Law before turning their confused and slightly concerned gazes on him.
"Captain?" Bepo started. "Um... do you know that guy somehow?"
Law was silent for a brief moment before shaking his head slightly and turning around to face his still small, but damn loyal, crew.
"Don't worry about that. Do we have everything we need?" he asked, wanting them to focus on their jobs again.
They all blinked at him a couple times before snapping to attention.
"Aye aye, Captain!"
Rocinante got a fair distance down the street before stumbling to a stop, leaning on his knees. "Haah..." 'What the heck was with him? Those eyes... he can't have been much older than me, right? What could've happened? ...don't tell me it was something like what happened to Father...'
He shook his head at that to clear his thoughts. Then he returned his attention to figuring out where he was.
Before he could get far, however, he tripped over something — maybe even his own feet again, he thought with mild annoyance — and then everything went black.
"...Roci... Roci, are you okay?" A familiar voice called to Rocinante. He felt a pang in his head as he tried to open his eyes. After a moment, the blond's vision came to focus on Sengoku's worried expression.
"...ah... Dad? What...?" Rocinante looked around, a bit confused. 'How did I get back...?'
Sengoku helped his son sit up as he looked him over. "Are you alright? You're not hurt, are you?"
"I..." He flinched slightly. "My head hurts a bit. But I think I'm okay?"
Sengoku hugged him then. "You disappeared yesterday! Where the hell did you go?"
"Uh... wait, I was gone a day?!" He blinked up at the large man.
"Yes. Now answer my question."
"I..." Rocinante thought for a minute. "I don't know how to explain it..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Tsuru as she came over, offering him a canteen of water.
He took it, taking a small sip from it. "Thanks... it feels like it was a dream..."
"What does?" Sengoku pressed.
"Yesterday! I tripped and was suddenly in a different place," Rocinante replied.
"That makes no sense," Tsuru chimed in.
Sengoku could practically hear Garp's comments. Thank goodness he was on a mission.
"I know... couldn't even figure out where I was before I tripped and I guess hit my head." The young recruit smiled nervously even as he looked away from both adults.
Sengoku sighed. "Really, Rocinante... what am I going to do with you?"
Tsuru gave her friend a look. "Train him harder. And don't let him trip so much."
'That might be a bit easier said than done...' Sengoku and Rocinante happened to think at the same time.
The two then got up and Sengoku pushed Rocinante lightly in the general direction of the infirmary. "C'mon. Let's get you checked out to be on the safe side."
"Okay, Dad."
Rocinante still remembered that mysterious day quite clearly. In fact, because of it, he'd tried to do a bit of Devil Fruit research when he could during his training and later between missions. (Of course, it helped that Sengoku had easy access to certain things.)
But as was typical of his luck, he'd botched his first Devil Fruit related mission. Retrieving it wasn't the problem... No, in transit back to base, Rocinante had mistakenly been given guard shift when they decided to move it to a more secure part of the ship after a minor incident on a restock stop.
He tripped while carrying the chest due to the ship having suddenly lurched while leaving port, and of course accidentally swallowed the thing following it flying towards his face.
He'd gone home trying to act like nothing was different, but of course Sengoku knew.
At this point in his life, however, he was a successful Marine spy. Against Sengoku's better judgment and protective instincts, Rocinante had been assigned to join the Donquixote Pirates undercover to gather intel on them and his brother's plans.
All of that changed when he met a small, spotty boy upon returning from an errand Doffy had sent him to take care of.
Yes, to keep up his act, he threw the boy out the nearest window and into a trash heap below. And yes, he later allowed the same boy to get away with stabbing him... then covered for him discreetly because he saw no point in getting the new kid in trouble.
He knew those eyes. From the second he'd met the boy in Doffy's base, he just knew this was the pirate child he'd met as a rookie. He had the same angry amber eyes — except that they were angrier than he'd ever seen them. The feelings were fresh, then.
The spots on his skin made sense, now, too. He was from the White Town.
'Of course,' Rocinante thought, 'I had no way to know that before. I was never told much about that island.' He'd never needed that information before. He kind of wanted it now, though. He didn't know what exactly had happened to this kid, and on some level resigned himself to the fact that he may never, but he felt a need to help him. This hateful little pirate reminded him too much of his brother when they were children, and he didn't want another following that path if he could help it.
Rocinante was dying.
But he'd gotten Law his Devil Fruit! And, if that strange day back then was really this same universe, Law was free! His self-imposed mission was complete. He would've laughed if he wasn't in so much pain.
The unclear light in those amber eyes that day finally made sense to him. Yes, he'd noticed it. He didn't react to it back then because he hadn't known what it was... but he did now. The soon to be "Captain" would continue to be good at hiding his emotions, but he'd been confused to see Rocinante again after Minion Island. Never mind as young as he'd been.
He'd always used to wonder if that day had simply been a concussion-induced dream... but no longer.
He now knew for sure that Law would live.
No, he would survive.
And Rocinante had high hopes that Law would do at least some good with his life (if the living teddy bear and other friends were anything to go by).
Rocinante died (ironically) like a D.: Wearing a hope-filled smile in spite of his own fate.
...which is why I'm very sorry to do that ending to you. But that's just the way it flowed... I'm sorry! Really; I hadn't planned to kill Roci both times for this week... DX
& I chose to try out a different visual description for Law from my other stories. Partly b/c I've never focused my writing on any version of young Law before.