On a subconscious level Trafalgar Law knew he was dreaming.
There was too much light streaming into their foxhole. Kidd's hair was bright red, when given the time frame, would be wrong. Back then when they were barely teens caught up with a band of mercenaries in the war torn North, Kidd had dull grayish white hair supposedly from the trauma of watching his family slaughtered. Law had suspected that his friend's hair was natural but even then Kidd needed a certain amount of shock and awe surrounding him to feel alive.
And yet there he was, nuclear red hair of the present but on his growing mid-pubescent body, grinning beneath him, naked to the waist as Law dug into his shoulder with a scalpel made from a broken rifle assembly on the fly. The jagged, misshapen shrapnel so close to that major artery and even closer to the heart, had to come out now.
When this had happened in reality, Kidd was shaking in pain despite the 'fuck it' smile and Law's hands were steady because they had to be to save the life of his best and only friend, the boy he loved as a brother, and the future man he'd take as lover.
In this dream Kidd was solid and Law was shaking.
"Why so nervous? We're going to be together forever-"
The vibration of his phone on the nightstand woke him up before he could call Kidd a liar. A look told him it wasn't his alarm but the red headed demon himself calling.
"What do you want, Kidd?" He answered after sliding the touch screen on and tapping the speaker button.
"Damn it Killer! I said I wanted that paperwork ready! Oi Law, you there?"
It was nice hearing his voice again after a month of nothing but he didn't want to associate hearing his voice with any kind of feeling like that anymore.
"Yeah, What the hell do you want?" Law nearly growled as he repeated himself. He didn't appreciate being woken up before his alarm, either.
"I want to make sure you're headed to work - I got your anniversary present on the way." Kidd was smiling on the other end of the line, finding his tone unusual but amusing, he could tell. Wait, Anniversary?
Law swallowed as he allowed himself a moment of wide eyed surprise, leaning back into his plush pillows and pinching the bridge of his nose when the feeling passed.
"Kidd you finally remember the damn date and it's too months after you broke up with me? Seriously?"
"Did I?" There was a pause on the phone and Law closed his eyes as he pictured Kidd trying to remember the night in question when he had told his lover it was over. " Well you can't take that shit serious. Who else would I get to do my laundry?" Kidd joked with a hint of seriousness.
"There are plenty of other money launderers in the city." That wasn't the point of course. They both knew he would still launder Kidd's money for him, break up or no. They had history.
"None have your ass. Besides, you're the best. I couldn't have meant it, it's boring as fuck without you." That was damn near a love sonnet as far as Kidd was concerned.
"Maybe I don't want you back." He frowned into his phone.
"I've never been gone, but if you've really been happy just going from the hospital, grabbing take out, and watching Netflix on repeat without me, by yourself you don't have to come to work and get your present or have amazing make-up sex with me."
"Fuck, you're such an asshole…" But he was rolling out of bed to get dressed.
"And you love it." Kidd responded without missing a beat.
The call ended and Law sighed as he pulled on his more conservative clothes that he wore to the hospital. Being with Kidd was like holding a lit fire cracker. Dangerous but exhilarating. After the war it was harder to feel alive when someone wasn't shooting at you. Being with Kidd solved that problem, emotionally, and considering his rather illegal dealings, sometimes physically as well.
Still to break up without explanation and leave him hanging for months so casually…he better love his present.
The Trafalgar Heart International Hospital was his baby. Built on crooked money and the precedes from a few black ops in his mercenary days when he was no longer stuck in the North by his age but staying to fight by choice, the hospital was one of the best in the state and worked almost entirely on the up and up.
The only exception to that was that was almost everyone who couldn't afford their surgeries or treatment got them anyway via very generous benefactors. Benefactors that would pay the hospital cash into its charity fund with traceable money and get a refund when they over paid with perfectly clean, unmarked, and untraceable bills.
These people who made such charitable contributions to his hospital were given a blue sticker on their file and given another to place on a file of someone with in their employ they trusted to do business in their stead.
When anyone one with a blue sticker on their file entered the hospital they were assured the best care from either Bepo or himself and if while they were there they wanted to drop off a donation or do any other business that would be fine too.
As he rolled up to the hospital in his custom yellow coup he could tell something interesting was going on by the sheer number of press being kept at bay outside. Only one ambulance at the entry bay though, a high profile patient?
As he walked in the back entrance Bepo was at his side immediately.
"What's that all about?" He asked his first in command as he took a few sips on the coffee he had been handed.
"Blue marked file, Someone blew up the flagship Baratie. Zeff…THAT Zeff, is in a coma and his adopted son Sanji is in room 123 with burns and shrapnel in his leg, you should probably see him first. Zeff is stable but unconscious."
The surgeon looked at his coffee. It was no question that Zeff was practically the shadow mayor of this town. Mayor Fullbody was rumored to be terrified of him and while he and Kidd had been fighting in the North, Zeff had been one of the most terrifying criminals in the world and racked up the reputation of such. Something happened within the last ten years though and the man seemed to have gone on the straight and narrow and opened a chain of highly established, first class restaurants.
An adopted son, huh? He supposed that could clean up someone's act, but then again if he was using the services of a money launder not everything could be on the up and up.
"Why didn't he use his own restaurants?" He asked out loud in curiosity as he flipped through the files Bepo had handed him. With his own legitimate businesses he shouldn't need his services.
Bepo shrugged.
"I find the fact that it's another restaurant that we're providing the service for more strange."
"Huh?" Law looked up and Bepo pointed into the space in the file. Pinbone. He had been there with Kidd before. A really cool place for the younger mover and shakers in the city, also a place where presenting the right colored key card (which both he and Kidd had)got you entry into a secret underground fighting venue.
It was a cool place. Great food, good music, specialty drinks, great fights, and even better eye candy. For Law that was the mysterious masked MC that always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Long blond hair, a mask that covered his eyes, and a perfectly tailored suit with old timey but fashionable flair. Smoothly breaking up a brawl here, buying a customer that looks lonely there…okay maybe he was spending these last few weeks at Pinbone and not on the couch with a movie like Kidd had suggested.
Last night he had been sulking into his drink, trying to find the courage to put the only man who was there when his damn childhood came to an end in a hail of gunfire behind him. He sensed someone next to him and as he turned, the MC was there, handing him a drink with a smile. Before he could stutter a response, the man was walking away. The drink was delicious and he found himself thinking more about the bizarre kindness of the MC's actions for the rest of the night instead of his temperamental ex. He had spent a good deal on trying to guess who it was. His money was currently on Hawkings, Zeff had catered an event for him not too long ago if he recalled.
"Old Zeff manages that place?" Interesting. "I'll go take a look at Sanji and see what we have."
Bepo nodded and handed Law a clip board as took off toward his new patients room.
"He's Mr. Zeff's proxy, he'll need to sign this in case we need to operate and he's not available."
Law nodded and waved an arm to signal he got the message.
When Law walked into the room he noticed the thin, blond was on his cell (against hospital policy) placed against his handsome face and short golden curtain of hair. He was familiar. A moment later he recognized him from one of the times he, Kidd, Killer, and Bepo had gone to Baratie. Just a quick glance of him from the dinning room, why he still remembered him he wasn't sure. So this was Sanji.
"Damn it, Marimo…I'm telling you he did it. No I don't have proof but the timing! No he wasn't with him. I don't think he's involved. Yes, I'm sure. What's that supposed to mean, asshole? My eyebrow doesn't affect my vision! You're in Interpol, right? Get your shitty ass in gear and get the bastard!"
Sanji clicked end. And looked up at Law in surprise.
"Trafalger Law himself. What did I do to earn this treatment?" He asked as he slipped his phone away.
"You don't know?" Shit. Bepo should have told him if this guy was just an innocent relative of the old man. "I like to check in on all my patients who've suffered an explosion. I grew up in the north so I know how rough it can be. See everything ripped away in the blink of an eye."
Sanji reevaluated Law for a moment.
"I'm from the North too. The war was mostly over but I ended up nearly starving to death until the old man found me. Shit! The old man…Is he going to be okay?"
Law moved closer to the bed and placed a hand on Sanji's shoulder.
"He's in a coma but he's stable. I haven't looked at him yet but his chart looks like he's not going to be able to talk due to the smoke and fire damage to his thought but we're just waiting for him to wake up." Law handed Sanji the clipboard and pen. "If you could sign this, just incase we need to take immediate action…"
Sanji swiped the pen across the paper without even looking at it, too busy sighing in relief.
"Thank god! I would have never have been able to live with myself…"
Law began to move around Sanji, examining his toned but lithe, burned body.
"Why would you blame yourself?"
Sanji grumbled a 'never mind' and the surgeon began to take notes on the more serious burns and a few places where shrapnel would be needed to be pulled out of the blond's thigh, with a small grin at the man's stubbornness. Oh well. Didn't matter if he didn't tell him.
"I'll be right back. I just want to see what your x-rays have to say." The doctor headed for the door.
"Oi!" Law turned back and saw his patient frown as he fidgeted with the ties to his drab hospital gown. After a moment he looks away. "The sunsets were incredible though. By the north sea…no matter how bad it got, right?"
Suddenly Trafalgar Law was remembering himself during the worst of it, before he had been rescued by the mercenaries or even heard of Eustis Kidd…when he had to run out of his cover, what had been his ruin of his house, and dig the lead bullets out of the men he had killed to try and reshape and salvage them into ammo for the inevitable siege the next day. He was digging into a mans stomach, the smell awful, the blood sticky, and flys dive bombing him, and then looking up to see the most miraculously beautiful, red, orange, purple, and gold sunset.
He had forgotten those sunsets. The beauty of the water. The things he hadn't remembered when he gave a big 'good riddance' to the north to follow Kidd's wanderlust.
His eyes were still glazed over at the strangely bittersweet memory that in turn evoked dozens of others.
"Are you single?"
That snapped the doctor back into focus and on Sanji. The man was looking more confident, apparently seeing something in Law's reaction he liked.
"Maybe." Well he was still undecided if he was going to take Kidd back, despite showing up for work. "But I don't date patients." Or anyone who was so pure they would freak out if they knew my past or how this hospital got it's funds.
"That's fine. Until you know for sure, I'm still not ready to pursue you, anyway."
Law had to laugh.
"What makes you think I go for men?"
Sanji smirked.
"It's not a question of men, there is only one of me. I think if I appreciated who you are and treated you how you deserved to be treated you'd have no choice but to fall for me."
"Heh. I think you don't know what you'd be getting into with me. I'm not interested in playing with some jailbait wanna be playboy who doesn't know a damn thing about me. Or the world."
Sanji frowned at the insult before slowly letting out a chuckle.
"You've got me wrong, but that's okay. Like I said. Until I know for sure, I'm not going to pursue you anyway."
Law gritted his teeth and left the room, letting the door slam behind him. He wasn't sure why he was letting the damn brat get under his skin. He was so irritated when he saw Bepo crossing the hall in front of him he yelled at him.
"Why didn't you tell me he didn't know about our business?"
Bepo tilted his head.
"Because that wouldn't be true. In fact, the only person I ever met on business was Sanji. Hell! He's the one that set up the account for Pinbone for Zeff."
"What?" Law's mouth dropped open slightly and then things were clicking into place fast, so fast it was a race as he rushed back into Sanji's room.
He burst in so violently, the blond flinched. Law wanted to shout at him but suddenly that didn't seem like the right reaction. Or maybe he couldn't just think of anything worth shouting that wasn't going to make him seem like an idiot. When he caught his breath he tried again.
"You cut your hair."
Sanji beamed.
"No I didn't. The rescue workers had to because it was pinned under a shitty 500 pound stove! If they didn't cut it I would still be in the smoldering mess of the shitty old man's dream."
"You blame yourself, because you figured out the only reason someone would target Zeff was to try and pressure him about Pinbone."
"There's back room betting on the fights. Pinbone makes 100 times more than all of the Baraties put together in a week in one night. High stakes."
"Zeff doesn't know you own it?"
"No. I'd be surprised he knows anything about it…or how I have to coniously threaten the mayor to keep him and his goon off our back. The old man's happy to just cook and I promised I'd stay and help him, but…I have a dream to go back. There's a place in the north sea I want to find and I needed money to do it…and I'll admit, some excitement. I have boat and everything now…just…not the nerve to ever tell him I wanted to leave."
"And me?"
"I've noticed you. Liked you."
"You never made a move."
"You were with the psychopath. Or still are?" Sanji raised a curly brow. Law felt himself wavier on the response to that but luckily the blond saved him. "Weren't you getting my x-rays? This shrapnel hurts like a son of a bitch. If we could get it out soon?"
"Yeah. We'd already be done if it weren't for all the cloak and dagger stuff."
Sanji laughed.
"You know, you're not really made to follow the criminal career path. I'm just saying."
Law had to agree. That's probably why he's relied on Bepo and occasionally Kidd for this stuff.
As he walked back down the hallway to grab the x-rays he was suddenly yanked into a patient room.
Kidd's lips were all over him and he found himself kissing back before he could get a hold of himself.
"Damn it! No! You broke up with me, damn it!"
Kidd grinned at him like Law was crazy.
"I left you for a little while but I came back. No big deal. I was working on a project for us! For you!"
Law was doubtful but he supposed they had been together so long for a reason.
"Let's hear it."
Kidd stepped aside to reveal Zeff, unconscious in the bed behind him.
"There is a place that can make us as wealthy and as powerful as we want. We only need to drop a microphone in the right booth at the right time or know who's wagering what on who. This man had the keys to that castle and right now, an innocent little heir a few doors down with power of attorney will sign just about anything from the ever charming Dr. Trafalgar Law himself who's pledged to help his only family survive.
You like that place right? Pinbone? It's moments away from being yours. With such a powerhouse in our empire we're going to rule the place until we get bored or die! Happy Anniversary."
Law felt his hands tightening into fists. Sanji's phone conversation came back to his mind.
"You blew up the Baratie? And now you want to send me to flirt with another man, so he would unknowingly sign over my favorite bar?"
"It's going to be a nonstop party for us now." Kidd's eyes fell on the clipboard Law was holding. "HA! You already got his signature on it without even knowing the plan." Kidd pulls off the top layer of the paperwork to reveal the legal document he planted there earlier.
"You were at the Baratie before it blew, what about witnesses?"
"The kid might be suspicious but he only knows me as a red haired guy who stiffed him on the tip."
He would if he wasn't also the MC of the very place we've gone numerous times, Law realized. And with his connections to the underworld of betting and the fights, he had to have known who they were by name and reputation.
Sanji knew exactly who had blown up that Baratie and still was considering pursing the bastard who had been the psychopaths lover.
"Besides, now that we got that we can kill them both."
Law pulls Kidd in close for a kiss and smashes his head into the wall instead. He yanks the paper away and immediately burns it. It had been useless really since Pinbone wasn't Zeff's to begin with but it was the point of the matter.
As he was about to leave a strong arm grabbed him.
"Where's eggplant?"
Sanji looked up as Law entered again without x-rays. He was going to make a remark on that when Law spoke instead.
"You knew Kidd did it, why didn't you tell me?"
Sanji shrugged.
"You had to decide what you wanted on your own."
"Zeff is awake. He said you could take a break, maybe go on that trip while they rebuild the Baratie."
Sanji started to grin in amazement when Law stopped him.
"Call your Interpol friend and have him come here. If you want company, I'm single."