A/N: Okay, so this is the beginning of the extended version of the Time!universe, which first appears, well, in "Time". This first chapter has many elements from that, and certainly similar scenes, but I have also tweaked some small stuff to fit better for a beginning of a story.
I don't know, how often I'll be able to update, though; university and part-time job keep me busy, and my health hasn't been the best as of late. (The second chapter is in the works, now, so, uh. Yeah. Might take a while.)
I hope you'll enjoy this.
Runaway Train
chapter I
neither here nor there
He was always cold these days.
It didn't have anything to do with the temperature or the weather; he knew better than to even try to blame the weather for the shivers that went through him each morning.
The cold reached his bones, the icy touch a constant reminder of the destiny his life was heading toward, the cold prickling sometimes the only thing that convinced him he was still living and breathing.
This morning, too, was no different.
He opened his eyes without a warning, his awakening as silent and sudden as it always as. No matter whether he dreamed or not, had good or bad dreams, he never woke with a start or to his own screams.
He took a deep breath, slightly shaky, and swallowed, mouth dry like sandpaper. Inhale — exhale — he repeated both actions for a few long moments before shifting his head, glancing at the alarm clock resting on the nightstand beside his bed. Too few hours of sleep, again, he noted with clinical detachment as he slowly tried to pull himself up into a sitting position.
He felt the weight of another pull him down again, and he nearly staggered as he tried to untangle himself from the arms draped possessively over his waist.
The little warmth the other man had offered him dissipated quickly once he was up, but the cold didn't bother him as much as the warmth of the other's body did. Trafalgar Law shuddered, skin crawling as he went to search for his boxers. For the time being, that would be the only article of clothing he needed — if only for the sake of remote decency.
He found his pack of cigarette, slightly disgruntled to notice the cigarettes scattered on the floor, and lighter. Picking them up, he went to the balcony, ignoring the pains in his joints and spine and other, less honorable places.
He halted at the door, hoping sincerely the ugly creak that had rung through the air as he opened it hadn't woken the other man up. Doffy was rather annoying in the mornings; not that Law was any better with three hours of sleep.
The cold breeze ruffled his already messy hair into an even bigger mess as he stepped into the freezing cold balcony. Law ignored the prickling feeling in his toes, and lit a cigarette as he gazed down at the city opening before him from the angle of a fourth floor apartment in a city of pretenses. Dull gray eyes focused on nothing in particular while a thin steam of smoke rose to the sky as he exhaled.
Cars honked their horns below in the city, some teenagers smoked god knew what, and someone was getting murdered if the sounds were anything to go by. Law wasn't bothered by any of it — it was the usual way of life in this corrupt city.
His eyes eventually stopped to stare at the edge of the park that started a little ways from his apartment building, noticing a furry blur he assumed to be a cat moving swiftly down the park side of the street — towards the scene of whatever crime was taking place.
Law assumed it was a robbery gone wrong, considering the police sirens that increased in volume each moment.
He hadn't even considered the possibility of Doffy even waking up to the sounds despite him leaving the balcony door open. That man could sleep through a third world war if he so decided, and for most part that worked well enough for Law, though it was troublesome to unlatch himself from the man's arms the morning after whichever night Doffy decided to drop by.
What an inconvenient bastard.
The arms that wrapped around him startled Law, nearly making him drop the cigarette from between his fingers and down to the street below the railing.
"You're always such an early bird, Law. Do I need to start locking you up so you won't fly away one of these days?" voice, rough from sleep, whispered against Law's ear, making him shudder for a different reason than the chilliness of the morning.
It took Law a little too long to his own liking to come up with a reply as Doflamingo's (Doffy being the goofy, idiotic name the man insisted to be used in private) warmth radiated to Law's bare back. It didn't come as a surprise when Law realized Doflamingo wasn't wearing any underwear yet, and Law noticed this with clinical precision and without any remarkable emotion. If Doflamingo wanted to freeze his dick off, it wasn't any of Law's business.
"Not even a caged bird will ever truly belong to anyone," Law said, voice clipped as he cleared his throat. "You ought to realize that, or else you will be in for a disappointment, Doflamingo."
"You'd be surprised by how few people want to disappoint me," Doflamingo purred, amusement clear in his voice as his hand crept up Law's chest, leaving goosebumps in its wake. "And please, cease the formalities."
"I really wouldn't," Law said dryly, awkwardly shifting around to dump the cigarette. "And once out the bed, the nicknames stop. That's the deal, isn't it, Doflamingo?" he emphasized the name almost softly to bring up his point. The way Doffy's fingers curled to clutch at Law's chest didn't go unnoticed, and Law felt nearly satisfied for that that reaction alone.
"Deals are made to be broken."
"That one of your business mottoes?"
"How did you know?"
Law snorted and didn't bother to stop the other when Doflamingo's fingers snatched a cigarette from the case. "I'm not an idiot, regardless how naive you find me for my youth."
Doflamingo's shit-eating smile was audible in his voice. "Your backtalk, at least, is as cute as ever even when you're not."
"You wouldn't fuck cute things."
"Ah, touché."
They lapsed into silence after that, and Law lit another cigarette for himself and then Doflamingo's as well. The blood-curling screeches down near the park had disappeared by now, along with the police sirens. The only sounds present were their breaths and the distant car honking. Law's eyes searched for anything else to stare at, but found nothing they weren't used to seeing — the once-beautiful arches of the bridge connecting eastern and western parts of the city, the top part of the university, the towers of the medieval castle the city was known for; none of this wasn't anything remarkable once a person's eyes had settled on them a thousand times before.
The only thing vaguely impressive — or rather, the only person — was pressing himself against Law's back currently, and turning to stare at him would have been just… incredibly humiliating. As if Doflamingo needed a bigger ego.
"If you want to smoke, you can do it elsewhere rather than next to my ear," Law eventually commented, a ring of smoke slowly rolling out from his lips.
"I was wondering when you were going to say that," Doflamingo laughed, pulling himself back and thus taking away the warmth from Law's back. Despicably enough, Law felt his back tingle with an unfamiliar, unsettling sensation, but he ignored the feeling like he ignored so many other things.
Doflamingo settled to lean onto the railing just like Law, looking at the scenery with interest appropriate for people that didn't see it too often. The ridiculously shaped shades made it impossible for Law to hazard a guess on what Doflamingo was thinking.
"You're going back to Dressrosa today?" Law inquired after a while after finishing the cigarette. "I'm not a good cook, but if you want to have something, I have some bread I really need to get rid of."
Doflamingo let out a barking laughter. "Should I have you taste it first in the case of cyanide, Law?"
Law's lips twitched. "That might be the smartest thing to do." He gave a shudder as he pushed himself back up. "I'm going inside anyway." He glanced down, noting that Doflamingo was, indeed, as naked as Law had assumed him to be. "Should I lock you out?"
Doflamingo snorted, quirking a brow at him. "If you wanna play games, Law, you'd better prepare yourself for the consequences."
"Yeah, yeah," Law tapped his foot on the balcony floor. "Get inside, it's freezing. And dump that fucking cigarette."
It was still too early for Doflamingo to depart, and Law silently cursed that fact as the familiar morning restlessness came to him. He wasn't used to guests, no matter how many times Doflamingo came visit him, and Doflamingo could see it too if that amused smirk was anything to go by. God, I hate you, but fuck if you're not good in bed. Law instantly erased that thought.
Law scowled, but made no effort to usher the other away — at this point, it was a battle of wills that Law didn't want to lose.
Nonetheless, it felt pointless for Doflamingo to hang around. Law had no television or anything remarkable, asides from the medical books that decorated his bookshelves and which Doflamingo had noticed before much to Law's discontent.
"We could always go for a round two," Doflamingo broke the silence eventually, lips high up on his face and fingers idly playing with the feathers of the pink coat he wore no matter the day. Frankly, it was the most colorful thing Law had seen in years — Doflamingo himself, as well. The man was a colorful person, both literally and figuratively: a cocky attitude and a smile that should have broken that jaw, all combined with the clothes of each rainbow color, and that summed Donquixote Doflamingo up fairly well.
The biggest pain in the ass. Quite literally too, but that was a little more pleasurable than this.
"No," Law said strainedly, tugging at the collar of his shirt in disgust. He hadn't yet showered, and he felt disgusting, but he never took a shower before Doffy left. It was a rule he had made at some point. "I have places to be at today. I'd rather be able to walk."
In response to Doflamingo's ever-growing smile, Law quickly retorted, "That was not a compliment."
"Sounded like one to me."
"Well, it was not— and as you can see, I can walk perfectly fine currently." Law's lips pulled into a tight but challenging smile whilst anxiety prickled at his insides.
Doflamingo just shrugged as he leaned back on the old, much used sofa, long legs crossed. Law could see, sadly, the bare shins and the leg hair.
When surrounded by dull black and white colors, Doflamingo's presence itself was much more pronounced. Perhaps that was what made Law feel so uneasy.
"Strip tease and prove that you're in control," Doflamingo mocked as he spread his arms over the back of the sofa, wiggling his fingers expectantly. "Come now, I don't have all day, Law."
"You do enjoy being proved wrong, don't you, Doffy?" Law murmured, giving into Doflamingo's attitude that contrasted his monochromatic world in too many ways for it to ever fit in.
Doffy tilted his head back. "As much as I enjoy the sass, less talk and more action, boy," he purred, wiggling his fingers invitingly.
Law smiled thinly. "Good things come to those who wait, Doffy."
Doflamingo's shit-eating grin now showed his sparkling white teeth, the smugness now radiating off of him. Nevertheless, Law's hands reached the hem of his own shirt, pulling it up and over his head.
Law tried very hard to forget that Doflamingo saw the white blotches that swirled and spread across his stomach and up to his chest, the pure white pronounced against the dark brown skin.
Luckily, Doflamingo could, if he so willed, make Law forget many things.
It was 9.30 am when Doffy finally left, and by that time the anxiety inside Law had grown into a tight lump around his throat. Doffy had the tendency to fuck up his morning routines, which Law had grown accustomed to and even dependent upon, and this time had been no different.
Law scowled as he gathered the clothes scattered on the dirty white floor. He didn't bother putting them back on anymore, seeing how dirty they were and just went to throw them into the basket in which he kept dirty clothes. It was a fairly large one too — its height reached Law's elbows, and the diameter was somewhere between three or four basketballs — yet it was already three fourths full of the clothes Law had haphazardly thrown into it.
Law ignored the basket after that and instead went to take a bath; showers were quick and efficient, but baths helped to ease the soreness radiating off his limbs and joints.
The silence reigning after Doffy's — Doflamingo's, Law reminded himself — departure was deafening, and Law hated the blond for that, too: for disturbing him enough to make the silence anything less than comfortable.
Law leaned back in the tub and stopped to consider his daily plans. He hadn't eaten yet, but he only had shitty bread in the fridge. Maybe some pea soup if he was lucky — if not, that meant going out to shop and going out meant… Law thoughtlessly rubbed at the side of his neck from the part he knew the blotches of white were slowly spreading.
His fingers couldn't feel any difference on the skin, but Law knew it to be there. He checked every morning — today he hadn't because of Doflamingo, but he would.
It was starting to spread faster, he had noticed a week or two before. Not much faster, but that kind of change was prone to be bad.
Even the relaxing effect the bath had on him didn't remove that truth from his mind.
His time was running out.
But not fast enough.
The pale gray scarf hid the patches of white on his neck and throat as Law sneaked down the stairs. The elevator had been broken for a long while, and no one had bothered to fix it — no matter, Law loathed the cramped space and the mirror on the back of the damn thing.
The silence from his own apartment followed him down the stairs; his steps echoed off the cracked walls and those were the only sounds he heard.
Once outside, his world was filled with sound again; police sirens, sounds of foot steps, people cussing, cars, et cetera. All in all, everything was better off ignored; ignorance was a bliss in this city, which had once, ironically, been known as the City of Knowledge.
It was at the far end of the block, some ways from the building he lived in, where he met with his dealer.
The transaction was simple and efficient as always. Hand in cash, get the goods. Exchange one-word comments about the weather that seemed always to stay on the chilly side. Wave. Leave. That was pretty much the entirety of Law's social life during most days — well, whenever he didn't have any of the "good stuff" left. Which was most days.
Law stuffed the drugs into the bag he always carried with him — an old medical bag, inherited from his father — and shuffled slowly back home to get prepared for the day's work of cleaning toilets at a nearby gas station.
Well, he only needed to throw the bag back into his apartment, grab a sandwich (ew) and cover the white spots on his neck with more than just a scarf, and then leave for the shift.
Before that, however, he quickly checked his messages when he had set the bag and its contents to the usual corner in his bedroom. He had been expecting Penguin to message him for a few days now — the only thing worth truly looking forward to in this hellhole.
Law smiled softly to himself when he saw that yeah, Penguin had messaged him — right around the time Doflamingo had left Law's apartment a little earlier.
You haven't been around the usual sites for a while. You okay, Cap'n?
Law's smile widened, if only a bit, at the message. He could always count on Penguin to make him feel better with only a few words. Maybe that was why the other was his (only) friend; Law hadn't felt so at ease talking to someone in a long time.
He quickly conjured up a some sort of reply to ease Penguin's worries before he'd head off to work, a slight smile lingering on his lips at the playful nickname Penguin had given him for one reason or another which Law didn't care for, but the affection attached to the name was something Law appreciated.
Doflamingo visited me. No worries over here. Just the usual shit. You?
Law put the phone back into his pocket, and went to work with a smile on his face for once.