Well, here I am with the Law-centric story I've mentioned a few times. I intended to post it yesterday for Law's birthday, but I had a pretty chaotic day and couldn't even get anywhere near my computer, so I'm posting it today. The story is complete (though I intend to revise the last part, so the final length might vary a little), and it will be updated every Friday :)
I originally started this story because there is something that always bothered me in the manga: people insist on how Law was just like Doflamingo as a child, and Law himself says more than once that Cora-san was the only reason he didn't become like Doflamingo. While I understand Law believing it, I think that if Law had truly been a mini-Doflamingo, no amount of influence from anyone would have changed him to the point of being the man we've seen in the manga. So here is my exploration of Law's journey as a member of the Donquixote Pirates.
I hope you like it ^^
Chapter 1
There was a shriek and Doflamingo, along with Gladius and Jora, stood from the meeting room's table and ran out of the room. That was Baby 5's voice.
"LAW!" they heard Baby 5 again, and yes, there was Law's presence with her, along with Buffalo.
Doflamingo was the first to reach the hallway, where he saw a distressed Baby 5 kneeling on the floor and shaking Law —who was breathing heavily and clearly unconscious— while Buffalo stood behind her and looked at the scene..
Doflamingo approached and knelt next to Baby 5.
"What happened?"
"I don't know!" Baby 5 answered frantically, and she only stopped shaking Law when Doflamingo took her by the shoulder.
"We were talking, and then he dropped, just like that," Buffalo explained. "It was almost like he'd died!"
By now, half of the Family had gathered around them.
"And just when we've got news of the Ope Ope no Mi," Trebol observed. "This kid is really unlucky," he laughed, but Doflamingo wasn't paying attention.
He reached out a hand and placed it on Law's forehead. He was running a high fever.
"Hey, Jora, get something to break his fever. I'm taking him to his room."
Jora hurried to obey, and Baby 5 moved out of the way when Doflamingo reached out to lift Law in his arms. Not for the first time, he noticed how small Law was, looking more like the ten year old they had first met instead of the thirteen years old he was now.
Law's room was close, the same organized chaos of neatly classified notes, scattered books and messy bed covers as ever, and Doflamingo moved those covers out of the way before laying Law down on the mattress and covering him.
"You've been hiding the symptoms, haven't you?" he asked, though there was no way he could receive an answer. Doflamingo knew enough about the Amber Lead Syndrome to realize that it didn't escalate so suddenly, which could only mean Law had been dealing with his worsening condition without letting anyone notice.
Doflamingo shook his head. Law hated to show any weaknesses, and he was incredibly stubborn.
Reaching out, he lifted Law's head to take his hat off and placed it on the nightstand.
He hoped Law's stubbornness would hold. Three weeks, that was all they needed.
Oh, Law had been very skeptical when he had been told about the Ope Ope no Mi and its properties, but he had shrugged and said that he didn't have anything to lose by trying it anyway.
"Is it true that there's a trade for the Ope Ope no Mi?" Rosinante asked right away, and Sengoku immediately started to cough on the other end of the line. He had probably been eating.
"H-How do you know that?! It's supposed to be a secret!"
Not a very good one, given the amount of information that had been leaked, Rosinante thought.
"Doffy got news of it this morning. Very detailed ones. Everything from the parties involved in the exchange to the time and place for it."
Sengoku cursed and stayed silent for a moment.
"He's going to go for it, isn't he?"
"That's the plan." The entire morning had been taken up by preparations for the operation, with orders to gather as much information as possible on the Barrels Pirates and the island where the transaction would be done.
"...Very well. Get out of there as soon as you can. This wasn't supposed to happen, but we'll use this chance to stop the Donquixote Pirates. I don't want you anywhere near them in three weeks' time."
"Understood."
Rosinante had, since he returned to Doflamingo's side, been ready to disappear at a moment's notice. He had accumulated many belongings over the past four years, but few of them truly mattered to him, and he always carried them on himself. Doflamingo had what could almost be called an obsession for owning many material possessions, and buy them for those he called his family. It was, honestly, one of the few things Rosinante could understand about him.
Rosinante had passed Senor Pink and Lao G, who had returned to the ship carrying large suitcases, and had seen Diamante and Macvise leaving. This morning, amongst other things, it had been decided they would finish their business at this island as soon as possible and head back to their base of operations. Doflamingo had said they would move it after they had the fruit.
Rosinante would slip away right when the ship left the island. He had everything ready.
Before that happened, he wanted to see someone.
The door was open, and Baby 5 was sitting in a chair next to Law's bed, her legs swinging restlessly in the air.
Law was still unconscious.
Baby 5 turned her head when she heard him enter the room. Her eyes widened and she jumped to her feet, placing herself between Rosinante and the bed.
"You can't bully him today, Corazon!" she exclaimed, even though they both knew she wouldn't stand in his way if he decided to attack Law. Or maybe she would, because she was stupidly loyal like that. "The Young Master said Law needs to rest."
If Doflamingo had said that, then she would attack Rosinante if she thought she had to. She was too fixated on following orders for her own good.
Rosinante approached her, grabbed her by the top of her head and threw her out of the room through the open door. He pulled out the pen and notepad he always carried on himself and scribbled a quick note. He showed it to her.
'I don't beat unconscious people'.
She hesitated, biting her lower lip. He wrote something else.
'Now get lost'.
And that was it. Baby 5 couldn't resist a direct order. With a worried glance at the bed, she left.
Rosinante closed the door and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. He created a bubble of silence around them so nobody would be able to hear anything.
"I'm sorry," he said, aware that there was no way Law could hear him, unconscious as he was. "Doffy really intends to use the Ope Ope no Mi to heal you, but the price we'd all have to pay if he gets his hands on it is too high."
He placed a hand on Law's damp forehead. His fever had broken, at least. Not that it would matter for long.
"I'm not going to lie to you: I don't know who intends to eat the fruit in the marines, if anyone does, but I doubt they'd want to heal you. Even if they did, they wouldn't be allowed to do it. The other kids will be given leniency, Sengoku promised me that, but you..." He rubbed a hand over his face. Even though he worked for the government, he sometimes hated their methods and their people. Some of them weren't so different from Doflamingo. "You're a survivor from Flevance. Many will see that as too much of a risk: you could ruin the good image they are trying to uphold. That the first thing you did when you escaped was join Doflamingo will only make you appear more dangerous in their eyes. And you want to be like him. Sometimes you are so much like him you scare me."
Rosinante buried his face in his hands.
"I'm sorry, Law," he whispered, "but stopping Doffy means you will die."
It didn't matter how much he told himself this way he would stop another Doflamingo, someone Rosinante could already see had the potential to be very dangerous, from being unleashed on the world in a few years' time. The truth remained he was taking away a thirteen year old boy's only chance of survival.
Law's death would haunt him forever.
Law grew slowly aware of what surrounded him, rising to consciousness so progressively that he couldn't tell, exactly, when he had woken up. Making his eyelids obey him took far more effort than it should have. His body felt heavy, even heavier than it had felt lately, and it was harder to breathe. He didn't bother to try to raise his head.
There was a loud gasp next to him, and a dark shadow appeared above, taking up most of his field of vision. It was Baby 5, he recognized a moment later, her features dimmed by the faint light that came in through the window.
"You're awake!" she exclaimed, smiling at him.
Law blinked up at her. Last thing he remembered, he had been walking down a hallway with Baby 5 and Buffalo, but now he was here. He must have lost consciousness. He didn't remember fainting, but he had to admit he wasn't surprised it had happened.
It had been just a matter of time.
"How are you feeling?" She asked, probably realizing he wasn't going to say anything.
"Wonderful," he answered dryly, but his voice came out weaker than he would have liked.
"Do you need anything?" Baby 5 asked, unfazed by his reply. Almost every kind of unfriendly responses, except for the outright aggressive ones, bounced right off her.
Painkillers, Law thought bitterly, but he wasn't going to say it out loud. He refused to admit to such weakness. Besides, the pain was still bearable. It wouldn't be for long, that Law knew too well. He had seen enough people suffer and die from his same symptoms to know exactly how the illness would worsen.
"No," he answered instead.
"Really? Aren't you hungry?"
"No." Not at all. It was something else that had started to affect him: during the last two months, Law had been slowly losing his appetite. Nobody had noticed, but for the last week he had been basically forcing himself to eat.
"...Oh," she breathed, taking a step back from the bed. "You should eat, you've been asleep almost a day."
Law snapped his head to the side to look at her more directly.
"A day?!"
Baby 5 nodded.
"We're almost ready to leave now."
Law sighed.
"Alright, bring me something to eat." He didn't want it, but he had to try to maintain his strength.
Baby 5 grinned brightly at him and turned around.
"I'll tell the Young Master you're awake!" she announced before dashing out of the room. She had opened the door with such strength that it bounced on the wall and slammed shut after her.
Law closed his eyes.
Doflamingo... Earlier —no, yesterday— he had told Law about a devil fruit they had received news on, one that allegedly could heal any illness. The Ope Ope no Mi. Law was very skeptical about what he had been told: it sounded too much like something out of a fairy tale. He had long since accepted his death, and he wouldn't allow himself to think of a future now of all times. If it worked, wonderful, but Law wasn't going to hold on to any kind of hope that it would.
He was too tired for that.
They had left the port. Preparations had been a little hurried, and maybe they hadn't done everything they had intended at this island, but the Ope Ope no Mi took precedence over everything else.
Alerted by his haki, Doflamingo stood from his seat by the main mast and headed inside the ship. Sure enough, he encountered Law halfway to the mess hall, dragging his feet with obvious effort and supporting himself with a hand against the wall.
"Shouldn't you stay in bed?" Doflamingo asked him. He had tasked Baby 5 with checking on Law periodically and bringing him food. If Law wanted anything, he just had to wait for her next visit and ask.
"Would you?" Law asked back, and Doflamingo chuckled.
No, he wouldn't. Law really resembled him in many things. Doflamingo hadn't been wrong in his first impression.
Walking up to Law, Doflamingo scooped down to grab Law around the waist and continue walking to the mess hall.
"Oi, put me down!" Law yelled at him, indignant, but Doflamingo ignored him.
The last thing they needed now was for Law to unnecessarily waste energy. He had to rest and hold out for three more weeks, and if that meant they had to carry him around because he refused to stay in bed, then Law would have to deal with the indignity.
It wasn't until a few hours later, when most of the Family was eating dinner, that Doflamingo realized there was something wrong.
"Where's Corazon?" he asked the room at large.
"Dunno, haven't seen him since breakfast," Macvise was the first to reply.
"He was loading some boxes around mid-morning," Lao G added.
Then, when nobody else spoke, they exchanged some looks across the table. They had set sail before lunch.
"Has anyone seen him since we left?" Doflamingo asked, already guessing the response.
Headshakes all around the table.
"You think he got lost or something?" Diamante asked with a laugh, but threw a worried look at Doflamingo as soon as the others were distracted with ridiculous speculations of whatever accident might have caused Corazon to stay behind.
Doflamingo really hoped it had been an accident.
He had had his suspicions about Corazon for around a year now, but no real proof to cement them. He had shared them with his other three executives and kept them hidden from the rest of the Family. There was no reason to worry everybody. Yet.
"We're going back," he announced.
Doflamingo really hoped they would find Corazon panicked at the port and trying to hitch a ride, because it wasn't fun to suspect his own brother of treason.
They hadn't found Corazon. Law could gather as much looking at everybody's faces as they returned one by one to the ship. Doflamingo was the last one to come back, announcing grimly that he had run the skies all over the island and hadn't sensed Corazon's presence anywhere.
Law wondered if this meant now Doflamingo would share with the crew whatever secret message had been passed between him and Diamante last night after they had discovered Corazon was missing.
He did.
A traitor. They suspected Corazon was the reason the marines found them so often.
Law wasn't sure what to think about it. Corazon was an idiot. Then again, idiocy was a very good cover if one wanted to be underestimated.
If Corazon was really a traitor, he had to be long gone by now. Everybody in the crew knew the price of betrayal in the Donquixote Pirates, and Law doubted even the most stupid person would risk that by staying around.
Corazon's disappearance meant that they had to change their plans for the Ope Ope no Mi. Not only the preparations to retrieve it, but also for their posterior use of the fruit. After all, Doflamingo's original plan had been for Corazon to eat it.
The door to the sitting room opened —they were back at their soon-to-be former base of operations now— and Gladius and Senor Pink walked in, just as Doflamingo had requested.
"Did you call?" Gladius asked, and Doflamingo nodded, gesturing for them to take a seat.
Senor Pink's eyes traveled to Law, curled up in one of the couches and covered with a blanket, before going to sit down next to Gladius. It had become clear early on that Law wouldn't just stay in bed like a good little patient —Doflamingo had once heard doctors made for the worst patients, and now he was seeing just how true that statement was— and they had reached a compromise: Law could be here and learn how things progressed as long as he stayed lying down. Not that it mattered much where he was, because Law spent more time asleep than awake by this point. Just as he was now.
"I have a mission for the two of you. A very important mission," Doflamingo told Gladius and Senor Pink.
Baby 5 pushed the chair across the floor until it was pressed against the lower half of the bookcase, then climbed on it and started throwing the books on the upper two shelves to the bed, careful not to damage any of them in the process.
They were leaving the base earlier than they had originally planned. The Young Master had said that they couldn't risk to stay here, because Corazon knew this location as well as their objective to steal the Ope Ope no Mi, and it was possible that the marines would show up here to stop them rather than give them a chance to take the fruit.
Baby 5 still couldn't believe that Corazon was a traitor. He was very violent, that was true, but Baby 5 liked him. He let them prank him and, while he hit them for it afterwards, he had never forbidden them from doing it or had them tortured as punishment, not even after the biggest pranks. His clumsiness was funny, and he never got angry at them when they laughed because he had fallen down or set himself on fire.
Baby 5 was going to miss him.
She jumped down from the chair and went to the bed, where all of Law's books were piled now. Law had asked Baby 5 to pack all the stuff he had in his room at the base, and Baby 5 was going to do her best to prove Law had made the right choice in asking her.
Law was feeling worse.
He tried to cover it up because he was too stubborn and prideful, but everybody had noticed that he could barely walk now. He didn't eat much either, and whatever he did eat cost him a great effort to swallow.
Law hurt so much that he was taking painkillers now.
Baby 5 didn't want Law to die.
She went outside and brought two empty boxes back to the room. These books were important; Law needed them to become the crew's doctor, and he would kill her once he was better if she forgot any of them.
To be continued