Beta'd by: psychotriton
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
When Law was six, he had the strangest dream he has ever had. Before then he had strange dreams, one about a mink bear as white as snow surrounded by elephant knick knacks and another about a large sword beckoning him by the name of 'master' beside an operation table.
This dream broke the other dream's records in half.
He remembers waking up in a white fog. After dusting himself off, he glanced around his surroundings. Nothing was in sight.
Law looked down at a trail of neat cobblestone beneath his feet. He looked up at the sky, it felt like the fog surrounded the whole area. He wasn't afraid, but he wasn't comfortable either; there was an uneasiness— a dread coiling in his stomach.
The place had a sense of being frozen in time. A year beyond him was carved into a large rock beside the path, the fog cleared momentarily to show him the year's numbers, month and day for some odd reason.
He decided to follow the path, unable to will himself awake from the dream realm he found himself in.
Law followed the tan path, rubbing his arm at the sudden goosebumps that weren't due to cold.
He wanted to call for his parents but he couldn't speak. When he opened his mouth, nothing would come out.
Red caught his eyes. A beautiful rose had sprouted from the path, its stem from a crack in the cobblestones.
Law reached down to touch it, upon his touch the petals scattered away on a strange gust of wind which came from nowhere.
"Hello?" he tried, the words tumbled from his mouth—surprisingly, he could speak unlike before.
Nothing answered, only another strange howl of wind. Another rose bloomed steps ahead. He followed.
Each time, after passing by them, the rose petals would scatter and the spring colored green stem would wilt.
Law continued to observe his surroundings, in the distance he could then see thousands—if not millions—of sunflowers on either side of him.
Something far ahead of the path was beginning to clear, the outline of something in the distance which resembled a castle.
He heard a horse nay from ahead; the fog too thick to see anything. He quickened his steps in hopes of seeing the animal which would show this had a semblance of reality.
"Hello?" Law called again, seeing something buck and having gathered enough evidence, deemed it as a horse. He approached it with cation.
The horse stopped, looking back at him before its eyes sparkled and it offered its hoof. Law remembers his father telling him about such an animal and how an offered hoof is a universal sign of trust among animals.
Law smiled, gladly reaching out to take the hoof when the horse swayed clumsily. He laughed at its downcast eyes. "You're clumsy. But don't worry, so was I," His smile widened at the shocked creature, "but mother said I would grow out of it, and I did." Law petted its nose, "So you will too!"
The horse looked surprised, before it bowed its head. The name Rocinante stood proud on its brown—and fancy—saddle. Law watched with wide eyes as it retracted from his touch and bound away further into the fog.
Another rose bloomed on the path. He looked after the creature sadly but continued to follow the roses.
He doesn't know how long he followed the path, but Law's legs ached as he watched while the path expanded and the rubble of a castle stood in the center, its entrance was covered in thick white fog.
Looking closer, he saw a dark red dress used for dancing salsa or tango—mother admits to not knowing how to dance, but she enjoys it nonetheless. Law smiled at the thought of his mother's smile as she danced clumsily with his father.
The pretty red dress was laid over a stone road mark labeled 'Dress-', the other half was covered by the red dress.
He reached down to uncover it before a strange laugh echoed distantly.
"Who's there?" Law asked, approaching the castle with hesitant footsteps and a clinging fear creeping up his back which he struggled to will away.
"Me!" a voice called back from inside the castle. Law paused.
He swallowed nervously before stepping closer, what greeted him caused him to gasp in surprise and stumble back slightly.
Pink strings crisscrossed at the entrance, gleaming dangerously. Law didn't doubt that they would cut upon touch.
"Hey! Aren't you coming? I can't wait for you to be my nakama!" The boy's voice called.
Law had scrunched up his eyebrows at the strange word that he heard pirates mention before. Only in newspapers, because Flevance may welcome them, but they usually never visit the city—he didn't understand why and his mother and father only smiled with false reassurances.
"Please wait! I can't get past the strings!" the voice didn't answer and he struggled to push against them.
Law reeled back, a long cut stretching up his arm and dripping with blood. It didn't cut deep enough for stitches, he observed, but it did need ointment, disinfectant, and a band-aid.
"Sorry sorry!" the voice apologized sheepishly.
Law frowned, sniffling back tears and huffing. He crossed his arms, "I'll just leave then."
"No!" the voice called back, pleadingly, "I'll help you!" Law wanted to retort—something his mother wouldn't approve of—when the strings snapped and faded away.
His eyes widened, before he stepped inside, nobody was around. "Hello?" he asked quietly.
"Shishishi~ You say that a lot!"
Law looked around, "Where are you?" he asked, rubbing the goosebumps on his arms and observing his surroundings.
The castle's layout was of grey stone and a smiley face crossed through the middle decorating every inch of wall available on flags. The place was cold.
Ahead, he saw a fireplace crackling away with a happy and sad face necklace dangling above the flames, until it dropped into the fire which caused a spit of fire to fly up and embers to crackle until it became kindling. The rug stretching to the fire, leading him, was deep velvety red.
Footsteps scampered somewhere, Law's breath hitched as he looked around. When he looked back, a straw hat sat untouched in front of the fire, away from the fireplace and its destroying flames.
He approached it slowly, before reaching down and ghosting his fingers against the red wrapped around its straws.
"Hey! Don't touch my hat." The voice said childishly, seeming to pout.
Law hesitated, looking back and chewing his lip while remembering his mother's lessons about manners. "Sorry."
The voice laughed again.
"It's okay! It's not my hat yet, but it will be!" he quirked a brow but decided not to say anything and shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
When he focused on the fire, the boy's voice snickered causing him to look back down at the straw hat.
A little boy, shorter than him, with a scar under his eye and big, dark, owlish eyes with a wide smile stared back. Law stumbled back, landing on his backside with a groan.
The little boy snickered, before reaching down and offering a hand. Law looked up with wide eyes and an embarrassed blush on his cheeks while casting his eyes down before he took the hand offered to him.
"Thanks," he muttered, avoiding the boy's eyes.
The boy grinned.
"Thanks Torao!" the boy opened his eyes at Law's shocked expression and smiled fondly, "you'll be great."
But before Law could ask, the boy faded away with a laugh and it made desperation swell within him for a reason he didn't understand.
He didn't want to let the boy with a bright smile go.
"Don't worry! I'll see you again Torao!" Law felt his heart clench, reaching up as the walls faded and fog broke through, enveloping him.
"N-No!"
It was a dream Law wouldn't remember until after he saved Straw Hat's—Monkey D. Luffy's—life, sitting in his own room with the exhilaration of performing his greatest surgery still in his veins and the white gloves thrown into a waste basket back in the surgery room while staring at the walls of his submarine in awe.
"Luffy!"
Luffy throws his head back in laughter, his eyes half-lidded in joy and gleaming. Usopp scowls, berating him for something from beside the railing, their fish poles forgotten beneath their feet as their clothes drip with sea water from the other's careless action of trying to reel in a fish larger than the Sunny itself.
When the rainbow colored fish emerged from the water, whiskers like a cat fish and eyes like a snakes, it spewed water up at them angrily before snapping the line and diving back down angrily.
Which didn't deter the teen, who wanted to pursue it for 'meat!' until input from the archaeologist revealed that he couldn't eat it because it was a rare species and highly poisonous. He still wanted to follow it, unsurprisingly, before the navigator told him that it would put them off course and she would have meat banned for a week if they followed it. The argument was over quickly after that.
The Straw Hat pirate captain was pouting afterwards, until the sniper promised to tell him about his greatest adventure yet which included meat, and 'lots of it!'.
Law observes this with curiosity, trying to evaluate his new allies' motives. It sadly comes up to nothing.
Straw Hat's eyes meet his, the teen's smile widening causing Law to grit his teeth at the incoming "Torao! Play with us~" whined with a pout.
A presence settles beside him, Straw Hat's dark eyes flicking to the presence with a frown before attacking Usopp with rubbery limbs and demanding to know the story.
Law sighs in relief before he opens his eyes, "Miss Robin," he addresses.
"Traffy," she nods back, leaning against the ship's railing beside him. Her manicured but unpainted nails glisten while wrapped around the rails and facing the sea.
Law almost understands the woman, not her motives, but her person.
It's why he visibly relaxes and watches her for any hostile movement without appearing suspicious while he turns his back on Straw Hat and his nakama (—he didn't want the little boy with the bright smile to go—). He shakes his head at the thought, before sighing and resisting the urge to trace the dark circles under his eyes.
When he flicks his eyes to her, daring to observe the Demon Child, Law notes the amused look dancing in Robin's blue eyes that appear as haunting as the sea.
She stares back at him with a small smile gracing her features.
"Any strange dreams, Traffy?"
Law freezes as his eyes widen and breath hitches while internally swearing. He tries to remember if he ever sleep talked while stealing a few hours of precious sleep on the Sunny's deck.
"I've had very strange dreams in the past," Robin admits, eyes leaving him to gaze at the sea with a wistful smile.
Law swallows calmly, silently hoping that his adam's apple didn't bob noticeably. Robin glances at him from the corner of her eyes and he swears at himself internally.
"Dreams are irrelevant things our minds create to distract us from the dark abyss of sleep, Miss Robin, as you most likely know." Law nods to her, she only smiles back with her secretive eyes.
"That's a very black and white way to look at things, Law." She says softly, eyes trained on the waves in the distance.
Law deducts her reaction and tries to speak before Robin speaks once more, "When I was younger, before I... went out to the sea," she hesitates with a gleam in her eyes, "I had many strange dreams, many of them alluded to the future, my future now." She meets his eyes and the Flevance survivor feels the familiar prickle that he experienced so long ago and tries to convince himself otherwise.
"And among them," she continued, gazing out at the sea, "one was of a little boy wearing a straw hat sitting in the center of my... place of birth, and calling me his 'nakama'."
Law grinds his teeth, clutching his nodachi and listening to it calling his name in a whisper like in his dreams from long ago. Robin meets his eyes with thinned lips.
"Quite the coincidence," she continues and a strong gust of wind blows, blowing his trench coat and her blue top in the wind. Vaguely, Law can hear the cyborg and skeleton stop conversing as the sharpshooter comments on the wind from nowhere.
"Don't you think, Law?"
He swallows. He can't speak as she turns back to the sea.
"It's quite strange. Strangers that we've allied ourselves with," Robin smiles fondly, "or those Captain has befriended in the past, always have shocked expressions upon meeting him." Robin smiles.
"A normal reaction," she admits. "But, they always gain this strange gleam in their eyes."
Robin opens her eyes, a frown on her lips.
"I've also dreamed of a strong man, a replica of the little boy but without his straw hat, behind oppressing walls with the governments flag," (—Law couldn't open the shackles, fingers scratched and pinched from the effort. He frowned desperately at the shirtless man with mismatched bruises littered from his midsection down to his legs and familiar dark eyes accompanied by the same smile. The man smiled anyway.)
Law frowns, grip on his nodachi shaking as he closes his eyes and breathes shakily.
"Dreams are very terrible amazing gifts from an unknown source other than our minds, and it's a thing to be feared." Robin says quietly.
Straw Hat smiles at him again, and Law's chest clenches, "I couldn't agree more, Miss Robin." The sea roars with the laughter of a familiar little boy on the wind.
(—The man's smile widened, pulling him down by the neck of his shirt and pressing his chapped lips against his, lips in a grin with specks of dried blood. Law sobbed against him—)
It aches.