Windows

This is my third attempt at writing a fanfic for One Piece, this fandom is A LOT tougher to write than I originally thought. With all the characters and lore, it's difficult to keep up with. I scrapped my first two attempts (I wasn't happy with them) and started to try something different, to focus on my OTP in this fandom, which just so happens to be LawLu, so this story is about them. Now this is going to be a modern AU, probably similar to other fics in the fandom, but this how I view Law, Luffy and their relationship, in a modern setting. Having said that, please sit back and enjoy.

WARNING: I disclaim all ownership to One Piece, it belongs to Eiichiro Oda. Btw there's heterosexual and homosexual pairings in this fic!

Moving was always a pain in the ass, according to Trafalgar Law, he grumbled under his breath as he trudged box after box from the moving van into his new condo. The process of moving required more physical effort than he really had patience for, but there were three redeeming reasons which made moving worth it to Law:

Moving all his shit required help, so he could boss around his idiot friends without feeling bad about it.

He will have more space for his medical textbooks…and most importantly…

He will be as fucking far away from Dolflamingo as humanly possible (because FUCK that guy).

The condo was in a new building with at least sixty floors; it was modern and very spacious, exactly what Law liked. He held a couple boxes of dishes while Shachi, Penguin, Bepo and Jean Bart maneuvered his furniture through the hallways.

"I said left, you fucktards, are you deaf?" Jean Bart snapped.

"We are going left!" Shachi and Penguin yelled together.

"Sorry…" Bepo mumbled.

"SHUT UP!" The other three shouted in unison.

"You guys, better not ding my couch against the wall." Law reminded them with a lazy warning, as he opened the door to his suite.

"Yes, Captain!" They all shouted together. Law's nickname, "the Captain" had stuck over the years, because he was clearly the bossiest and the obvious leader of their ragtag group of jackasses.

Law's suite was a split-level loft with hard wood floors; the main floor included a kitchen, dining-room, powder-room and living-room; a metal spiral staircase led up to the second-floor landing, where the bedroom, master bath and office space were. The windows were big enough to allow lots of natural light into the condo. It was a nice place and Law was actually looking forward to living there; once he unpacked everything…sigh.

He placed the boxes down and directed the guys to put the couch in the living room. The whole process of moving took less time than Law originally thought it would, with him directing the guys, they were able to get all of his stuff out of the moving truck by midday. He sent his friends off with pizza and a couple of beers to allow himself to settle in. It wasn't until dusk when he took a break from unpacking and brought a cup of tea, his laptop, and some paperwork on the balcony. After moving boxes and furniture around all day, he had gotten fairly sweaty; so, he peeled off his shirt, exposing his tattooed chest to the evening air. Since he was starting his residency in the ER at Sabaody Archipelago General Hospital and finishing his third year of his PhD at Grand Line University, Law took it upon himself to look over some files.

Law ran his tattooed fingers through his saggy dark hair as he looked out at the scenery him…there wasn't much…If there was one thing wrong about this condo, it was the view from the balcony terrace, because it faced the apartment building next door. It was an older ugly building with orange brick, his balcony was level with his neighbor's window. He could see into their living-room…and apparently, some skinny guy dancing like a drunken giraffe with chopsticks in his nose.

"What the fuck?" Law squinted and leaned closer…Yup he was definitely looking at a kid (probably 16 or 17) in straw-hat dancing around like idiot with wild abandon.

Takes all types…Law thought as he shook his head, going back to work.

It took him another ten minutes until he felt a pair of eyes on him. He looked up to see the same straw-hat kid staring at him through the window, like directly at him. He was pressed up against the glasses-sans chopsticks-staring at Law with big brown eyes, he had a little scar under his left eye. Messy pieces of black hair stuck out from underneath the straw-hat; his round face lit up with excitement, when he realized that Law had caught him staring. Like seriously? What the actual fuck? Most people would at least have the common decency to be embarrassed when someone caught them gawking at them…but no…not this kid, he just kept going, the only difference was that a blush appeared on his cheeks.

Not to be put out, Law just went back to reading. But he was distracted again, by a flash of yellow could be seen out of the corner of his eye. Holy Shit! "Straw-hat" had pulled up a chair and had begun eating a bag of chips while staring at him. Law turned around to see if there was anything behind him, there wasn't, so Straw-hat HAD to be looking at him. And isn't that just fucking creepy? Now Law was not normally a self-conscious person; he was tall, had a lot of tattoos and piercings, so he was distinctive enough to be picked out from a crowd, but he never cared what people thought. This kid was staring WAY TOO LONG for it to be considered normal. So, Law responded in the only way he knew how, flipping Straw-hat the bird. The "A" on his middle finger was pronounced, which should tell people to back off.

However, this just made Straw-hat grin wider.

That smile…it's just like Corazon's…

He snickered (which was muted by the glass) behind his hand, before fogging up the glass and writing: HI MY NAME'S LUFFY! WHAT'S YOURS?

Law's eyebrow twitched, he couldn't be serious? He thought about not responding, but before he knew it, he grabbed a piece of scrap paper and wrote: TRAFALGAR, I JUST MOVED IN.

Straw-hat or Luffy, smiled again and replied: THAT'S COOL! WHERE YOU FROM?

Just as Law was about to answer, a freckled man with wavy black hair came into view and dragged Luffy by the scruff of the neck and away from the window. He took a second to scowl at Law before shutting the blinds. Law couldn't help but feel interrupted…but what was "Freckles" interrupting? He was just writing stupid messages with the weirdo next door, it didn't mean anything…yet.

…

Monkey D. Luffy had been living in the same apartment with his two foster brothers for three years now, ever since Ace was old enough to actually adopt him. Being an adult now, at the age of nineteen with his twenty-two-year-old brothers was great, like living in a frat house…most of the time…Both Ace and Sabo had protective streaks in them; they wouldn't let Luffy do anything that they considered "dangerous", so he often had to sneak behind their backs to do anything crazy…Like training to be an Olympic boxer…but he won't get into that today.

Because today was one of the rare days in which Luffy had the whole apartment to himself; since Ace was at work and Sabo had a "study date" with his girlfriend. He had the day off from his job as a busboy at his friend's Sanji's restaurant, the Baratie, he didn't have any work from his summer course at Sabaody Archipelago Community College in kinesiology, and his training session with his coaches, Jinbei and Rayleigh got cancelled. So, he had the whole day to blast his music, eat junk food and dance to his heart's content!

And that's exactly what he did, after spending most the day stuffing his face and playing video games online, Luffy blasted Ace's radio and danced around the apartment like an idiot. Luffy knew he was a shitty dancer, (his brothers and all his friends told him so), but who cares, when you're having so much fun! The only problem was dodging all the crap that he and Ace left around the house; despite living in a three-bedroom apartment, their stuff somehow always leaked into the common area and Sabo had long given up on cleaning up their messes. Somewhere along the way of shaking his ass, Luffy had picked up a pair of chopsticks, from a half empty Chinese food container and stuck them up his nose, just because it's HILARIOUS!

As he danced with reckless abandon, Luffy noticed a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye, from the living-room window. He stopped dancing and turned to see where it was coming from…and his breath got caught in his throat, when he saw him…the light was coming from a reflection of sunlight bouncing off the gold earrings worn by the coolest (hottest) guy Luffy had ever seen in his life!

He was sitting on the balcony of the new condo building, that was next door, Luffy vaguely remembered Sabo telling him that a bunch of new people would be moving into the new building today, since it was finally finished. Luffy hadn't been listening though, since it was a fancy new place, and fancy places, meant snobby people, and from his experience in life snobby people were assholes. But not this guy…he was AWESOME…Luffy couldn't help but stare at him (not realizing that the chopsticks had fallen out of his nose), he was just sitting around shirtless, typing away at his laptop.

Now Luffy was pretty used to shirtless guys, it was a win when him and Sabo convinced Ace to wear pants, let alone a shirt, but this different. His light brown skin was adorned with intricate black tattoos that weaved their up his arms and across his chest…so cool…Luffy thought tattoos were awesome and always wanted one, but his brothers always said no, even though Ace has a huge one on his back, and hell, even his friend Nami had one on her arm…so not fair…Luffy quickly snapped a pic of his awesome new neighbor with his phone and thought about sending it to Usopp and Chopper, since they would get a kick out of his sick tats. But something stopped him, he didn't want to share this picture with anyone, the grumpy scowl on the guy's face as he glared down at his laptop did things to Luffy, it made him feel…hungry?

Just as he looked up from his phone, he caught his new neighbor looking back at him and their gazes caught. Oops, Busted, Luffy thought as he felt a rush of excitement run through his body, his grin widens and blood rushed to his cheeks. From a young age, Luffy loved danger, he was a shit disturber and always got into situations that got him into trouble. In elementary and middle school, he would tag along with his foster brothers to explore forests and abandoned buildings. In high school, Luffy, Zoro and Sanji would get into fights with kids from other schools…but now that they were in college, they would get into bar fights with pretentious douchebags, who thought they were the shit. Every time he did something crazy, stupid or dangerous (or all three at once), he would get the same feeling he got now, that unexplainable feeling of excitement that meant there was danger and intrigue around the corner…looking at his new neighbor seemed to like a new adventure just waiting to happen.

Luffy was about to wave at the guy, but he just went back to typing on his laptop. Not one for being, daunted, Luffy pulled up a chair and grabbed a bag of chips. If this was anyone else, they would feel like a creeper, watching a complete stranger from the window, but this was Luffy, he did whatever he wanted, when he wanted to. But staring out the window reminded him about something his grandfather used to say (stupid Gramps):

"Eyes are windows to the soul…"

Wait that didn't sound right. That's stupid, how could eyes be windows? That doesn't make any sense…

"Windows are windows to the soul…"

There much better.

Looking out the window, made Luffy feel like he was staring into this guy's soul. From the way, he was hunched over his laptop, the tips of his saggy black hair just brushing the screen of his laptop, told Luffy that he was obviously a hard worker and deeply obsessed with whatever he was doing. Hard working people impressed Luffy, since he was a dreamer, it was admirable to see people who cared about what they were doing in life. Luffy smiled softly as he reached up to touch his beloved straw-hat; he hadn't felt this instantly drawn to someone, since Shanks…

As if sensing his presence, the guy with the tattoos looked back up, and glared at Luffy. The Straw-hatter stared back at him, his breath fogging up the glass on the window. All of the sudden "Tats" flipped Luffy off, with his pronounced middle finger. That's fucking hysterical!

"Shisshsishishshi…" Luffy snickered behind his hand. This guy was DEFINITELY his people.

He fogged up the glass even more and used his index finger to write: HI MY NAME'S LUFFY! WHAT'S YOURS?

He wasn't expecting a response, but then "Tats" held up a piece of paper that said: TRAFALGAR, I JUST MOVED IN.

Traf-al…Taf…That's too confusing, I'll just call him Taoro or Traffy…Luffy thought before replying: THAT'S COOL! WHERE YOU FROM?

From behind him, Luffy heard the front door open and then slam shut, "Luffy! What the Hell are you doing?"

Luffy turned to see Ace come rushing through the door, still in his firefighter uniform, grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and pulled him away from the window.

"Hey! I was just saying hello to our new neighbor!" Luffy snapped at his older brother. Ace glared in the reflection of the window before shutting the blinds.

"I don't care! What did I tell you about talking to strangers?"

Luffy rolled his eyes, he wasn't a kid anymore, "He's not a stranger! Since he's going to be living next to us, I thought we could friends!"

Ace trudged off his firemen's jacket and hung it up on the coat rack, revealing his white t-shirt and red suspenders from his firemen's pants. He pulled off his boots noisily, before turning back around to cross his arms at Luffy, "You have enough friends, you don't need him."

He threw his hands up in anger, "Oh COME ON! You don't even know him, Ace! Hell, neither do I, SOOOOO can you NOT make this a big deal?" Luffy snapped.

Ace sighed and scratched the back of his head, "Look, I know I'm over protective. But let me give you some advice…in my experience guys who look like that…" He waved in the direction of Taoro, "And live in expensive places like that, are bad news, Luffy…He's obviously a drug dealer…so stay away from him!"

"Oh, my god!" Luffy growled, but before they could enter a full out screaming match, Sabo walked through the door.

"Hey guys, I've got some really good news!...Ah oh…what are you guys fighting about now?" Their blonde brother asked, looking between them.

Ace slapped a hand over Luffy's mouth, before the younger one could answer, "Nothing…it's not important…So what's your good news, Sabo?"

Sabo narrowed his eyes suspiciously for a moment, before brightening back up, "Well Koala agreed to go with me to Dadan's cabin this weekend! I going to bring the ring with me! I'm finally going to ask her to marry me!"

Just like that, the negative atmosphere in the room dissolved and the three brothers exploded into fits of cheers. Hugging each other in one big puppy pile (of grown ass men), Ace and Luffy congratulated their brother and soon a bottle of sake was opened to celebrate.

There you go the first chapter. I want this fic to be mostly light hearted with some deeper undertones. If you like it read, review, favorite or even PM me with feedback!