The threatening words Doflamingo had offered Anberlyn that night were like a key. They were inserted into the lock that held together the chains that Anberlyn had wrapped around herself, the chains that had been dragging her down to impossibly low depths. And now, that the lock had been opened, the chains had fallen without so much as a hint of resistance. She had felt so light, so free, so happy that she could have kissed Doflamingo that night.
And she almost had.
Anberlyn wished that she would have determined to bide her time an wait for the perfect opportunity to arise from the very beginning, that way she wouldn't have had to go through all of the headaches, the failures and upsets.
Almost but, not quite, for, because of all of it, because all of her stupid decisions and failures, she was a stronger person, not just in body but, in spirit and mind.
The accidental slip of his tongue seemed to resolve all of his problems named Anberlyn. The words 'don't change' had an almost magical effect on the woman, restoring Anberlyn to her former glory, bringing back the glow of her fire, the shine in her eyes and the ferocity she said and did most things with.
If Doflamingo had known that a simple threat consisting of even simpler words were what would do the trick, then he would have said them much sooner and have remedied his headaches long before they got the chance to settle in, long before Anberlyn got the idea to give herself amnesia. He didn't mind the assassination attempts, because like Baby 5, they were never close to even harming him.
But, that was all in the past.
As Anberlyn had pointed out that night, change was inevitable, it wasn't something that could be stopped or prevented. And, so much had changed since he had made that order so many years ago. But, Anberlyn was still more or less the same, she couldn't listen to save her life, or follow a set plan of action. Despite the great deal of things that hadn't changed, there were still a great many things that had not only changed but, had improved.
One of the things that had changed was the crew. Well, that was an ever changing part of Doflamingo's Family of pirates. But, instead of decreasing their numbers, they had been added to for once. Where Doflamingo had found the young man, Anberlyn couldn't tell you. Hell, he could have been there all along and she simply hadn't noticed until their fated meeting.
But, their first meeting was most definitely something Anberlyn remembered quite clearly.
Anberlyn was in the, all too familiar, infirmary, attempting to sew herself up because she had been thrown into a crate that had exploded upon impact, its splinters and pieces embedding themselves into and under her skin.
"If that's how you bandage yourself on a regular basis, it's no wonder your body's riddled with so many scars." A voice drawled as quiet footsteps approached.
With a crisp, white bandage held tightly between her teeth, Anberlyn looked over her shoulder to see a stormy eyed stranger standing just inside the doorway of the infirmary. "If you're insinuating that I need your help, I don't."
She asked her words hardly intelligible to even her own ears. She wouldn't blame him if he didn't catch a word she had just said. Anberlyn had been taking care of herself since her first trip to the infirmary. There might have been a doctor floating around the ship somewhere, but, they were never in the infirmary when she was using it.
"I'm not insinuating anything; I am telling you the reasons for your rather grotesque scars." He reached into his pockets and pulled out a pair of white surgical gloves in which he pulled taut over bony fingers and tanned hands.
"You will touch me only if you have a death wish." She growled, her good arm reaching for the handle of her katar. It might have been her fault that she had been sent flying, but, this stranger didn't have to know that.
With confidence that could rival Doflamingo's, he sauntered up to her, unraveled the bloodied bandage from her arm, picked up the pair of tweezers on the bed the maroon haired woman had so unwisely stood facing. If he had meant harm, she wouldn't have known of his presence in the room until it was too late, her back to the door and all. So, it was a damn good thing he hadn't meant her harm.
The woman stood tense, her dark, smoldering eyes watching his every movement. If he so much as twitched the wrong way, he was going to be down a body part, whether it be a finger or a limb, or just a lot of blood, he doubted the woman would care so long as she got the point across that he had done something wrong. And, in that aspect, she most certainly fit into the crew.
After several minutes of shallow breathing and silence between the pair, Anberlyn finally asked, "So, I take it you're not an enemy…" Even if he were, he had no obligations that would force him to confess.
"Enemies don't typically start preforming surgeries on each other do they?" He asked, looking away from the wound still riddled with splinters, some of which breaking as he tried pulling them out of the gash, eyebrow cocked, a mocking expression in his eyes.
"Ok, then smart ass," Anberlyn snapped at him, none too happy that he hadn't taken her death threat seriously. Maybe he was looking to die. You didn't join Doflamingo's 'family' if you wished to live a long life. ", how 'bout we cut to the chase, who the hell are you?"
"I am Traflagar Law, the Surgeon of Death."
Dark eyes flicked from steady, bloodied hands, to a rather expressionless face.
"Well that's promising." Anberlyn muttered under her breath. She was letting a guy named the Surgeon of Death operate on her. "So, then what are my chances of dying Doc?" She teased lightly, wondering if he were going to play along or ruin her fun.
"It doesn't look too good at the moment Sweetheart-ya." He said a smirk upon his lips.
A light hand reached out, fisted in messy black hair and forced his attention away from the dark splinters and onto her. "For future references, my name is Anberlyn, nothing more, nothing less."
It was apparent now that the woman hadn't realized that he had been on the ship all along. He had been here since her first day. He had watched Doflamingo change her into something a lot more desirable.
For a man with a hand pulling at his hair, he was rather calm, not even struggling for her to release the hold she had on the dark strands. "So, what, are you? The Captains slut?" He asked as her hand slipped from his hair and allowed him to return his attention to the cut he had somehow found himself working on.
Their almost nightly activities, that weren't limited to the darkest hours, were far from secret.
How rude! She mentally shouted at him. She didn't dress that provocatively, and she didn't make it a mission to show off all of the little reminders of their time spend sweating together all over her body. She would have crossed her arms and glared at him, but with one arm in his grasp, she opted instead to just glare at him. "Not by choice Trafalgar."
"You know most people opt to call me Law." He nonchalantly told the woman, not caring one way or another.
And that's what he gets out of that! She mentally grumbled irately at the Surgeon of Death, some rookie that Doflamingo had picked up go only knew when.
After cleaning the wound of splinters, he reached for the threaded needle. "Did you try to sew yourself up already?" He asked noticing the dried blood on the needle and heading over to the sink.
"You see how well that worked." Anberlyn sighed heavily. Sewing was a two handed job, and impossible, as she had learned the hard way, to do on your own upper arm.
"Yes." He turned around, holding the now shining needle up and advancing towards her. His approach was rather unnerving, but, he was quite swift in sewing up her arm, and then pulling all of the other splinters out of her back and sewing up the other major gashes she had received. "Now relax." He ordered. She was still so tense even though he had done nothing but her job.
"How can I? You introduced yourself as the Surgeon of Death? I'm not ready to die."
Law laughed, a rather low, condescending noise. No one was ever 'ready to die', even when it was nothing short of inevitable. Some people didn't know how to gracefully accept death. But, despite his opinion of people and their obnoxious dying habits, he said, "I'm not about to kill one of the Captain's sluts."
He'd end up doing the job as soon as he got bored with Anberlyn's rebellion and rather erratic behavior. And even though she had lasted more than two years already, who was to say she was going to last even another day.
Anberlyn opened her mouth to argue, but, decided against it, decided that it wasn't worth it. He could have his opinion. She would correct it the next time he called her a slut, but for now, while she was under his thumb, she would let it go.
Once she was all bandaged, a pile of splinters and wood beside them, he gave her the ok to leave and she did. Anberlyn paused at the door, and before disappearing through it said, "Well thanks Doc."
Law nodded and gave her a lazy, two finger salute before turning to clean up the mess.
It was hard to form an opinion about Trafalgar Law, the Surgeon of Death. He was such a smart ass, opting to be sarcastic and rather mean most of the time that was spent interacting. But, when they happened to be in the infirmary at the same time, he always took good care of her regardless of if she limped, walked or dragged herself into the sterile room. He wasn't much of a conversationalist, but he talked back when she talked to him and that was all she could really ask of him. He also didn't disown her when they were outside the walls of the infirmary, not acting like a stranger on any other part of the ship.
In fact, out of all of the people on Doflamingo's ship, the first person she was able to rely on, to talk to, was the young man. He was a good listener, often listening to her complain and bitch about Doflamingo and his antics, though he could have been lost in his own world of thought for all she knew. But, now that she had given the idea of escape up, Doflamingo was all that she really ever had to complain about. He was quite gifted at distracting, at moving the conversation away from their captain and having intelligent conversations about whatever was new in the world of medics and technology or otherwise. Like Doflamingo, he liked keeping up with politics, keeping an eye on Marine and World Government's activities and of course budding pirate crews and promising pirates that were arising from the Blues.
He was over all a good kid and it was such a shame that Doflamingo had managed to sink his claws into him and drag him down into the darkness, though he did have a shining star and that was Corozon, another guy she didn't really know but had seen around. And, even it meant that through the tainting of that young man she was able to make a friend, she didn't mind.
It was a rare thing to dock on an island and to be turned over to do whatever they wanted. Usually, if they docked it was for a brief period of time and it wasn't worth stepping foot off the island unless it was to load the crates of supplies, but, usually Doflamingo made the locals do that, it was their labor and in return there would be no burning down of their town and homes and everything they held precious. It was a rather crooked deal, but, it prevented her or the crew from having to do the work.
Anberlyn was always the first one off of the ship, leaping over the side of the ship and landing the dock below, a manuever she had perfected. To say that she was eager to leave Doflamingo's sight for even a moment, was an understatement. Anberlyn was always elated to have a change of scene, even if she was out and about far more than the other captives of the pirate ship. As she took off, the gangplank was lowered and she turned to watch the hordes of men and women flood off of the ship, Trafalgar among the first. Since he wasn't too far behind, she decided to wait for him to catch up and see if he had anything in particular he wanted to do.
When he reached her, that playful little smirk of his curling up only a single side of his mouth, bearing not a single tooth, Anberlyn fell into step next to him, stretching and verbally rejoicing. "Aaahhh, it feels so good to be off that accursed ship."
"Says the one who's gone every other day." He so kindly inserted the needle of cynics into her bubble of happiness.
"Yes, well it's a few hours I get to be Doflamingo free and that's something to celebrate."
He gave her an 'oh really' look. And she nodded to confirm that was the only thing to do when she was free.
"You know, you make it sound as though you never wanted to be here to begin with." He made it sound like a bad thing.
"I didn't." Anberlyn grumbled.
One day Doflamingo left the ship and the next he returned with a rebellious woman in his arms, a woman who so clearly didn't want to be there, not with the people Doflamingo had surrounded himself with. And, having never heard the story from either party, he began satisfying his growing curisoity.
Being the curious young man that he was, of course he began prying. He wanted answers and when you refused him, he bothered you in the most subtle of ways until you surrendered the information that he originally wanted, so, it was pointless to deny him the answers to the onslaught of questions, as Anberlyn had eventually learned.
"Then how did you end up here?"
By here, he meant the ship, as Doflamingo's…whatever she was…there was no love in what they did, so lover wouldn't be a fitting word but she wasn't only there to satisfy his sexual needs either. If you were to ask him what she were Doflamingo would simply say that she was just a member of his crew, a very special one, whatever that meant.
"Kidnap, how else?"
Trafalgar shrugged.
Most people called him Law, like most people called Doflamingo Doffy or Young Master, but, she liked the rich ring Trafalgar had against the short, clipped and rather plain taste Law had on the tip of her tongue. It was one of her quirks she supposed.
"I doubt he saved you from one of the villages he was in the processes of ravaging. So, that begs the question, how did he find his precious little slut?"
Anberlyn reached out and slapped him. He still hadn't dropped calling her that from time to time and she did not appreciate being referred to as nothing more than their captain's slut.
"I'll have you know that I do more than just…that…" Her face blazed red at the verbal confession that she was screwing around with the captain. And even though everyone knew, she had not down-right told anyone and it was rather embarrassing to admit.
"Oh?" Trafalgar challenged. "Then what else do you do?"
"His greatest weakness is that he cannot travel into a cloudless space while traveling with his strings, or so I've gathered. So, I make the clouds appear when he needs them." Anberlyn explained, hoping he'd gotten the answers that he had wanted.
"You didn't answer my question." He pointed out, causing Anberlyn to scowl at him.
"I'll spare you the details, but, he was admiring the colossal success of his human auctioning business on Sabaody when I stumbled across the stage and caught his attention." Anberlyn shrugged her shoulders. "I guess you could say that he liked the glint in my eye and decided that he would be the one to break my spirit."
At that, Law laughed.
As far as breaking and taming had gone, Doflamingo obviously didn't know what he was doing, because the most powerful woman on his ship still had all of her fire, she defied almost every word he said and contradicted his desired plans with plans of her own that got the same result in the end. Doflamingo had only managed to train Anberlyn the fierce, nothing more, nothing less.
To break such a strong woman would be to devastate her and leave her in ruins, and there would be no fun in the final result of her taming, even he knew that.
"What are you still doing here? Don't tell me you have Stockholm Syndrome."
Anberlyn snorted. "As if." Then, decided to change the subject. "Why don't we get a drink and celebrate our freedom?" Only in Anberlyn's eyes was their time off of the ship, away from Doflamingo considered freedom.
Their freedom had been short lived.
And it was oddly disappointing when Anberlyn woke up on the ship, with not a clue as to how she had gotten there. When she had awoken, the light stabbed through her eyes and perpetrated the war drum like pounding that was resounding through her skull, a nauseated feeling rising from her gut to her throat and threatened to spill over.
Anberlyn, in her half conscious, ungroomed state, stumbled down to the infirmary, her short hair sticking up in every direction, her eyes half lidded with big bags under them, her clothes wrinkled and reeking of sweat and alcohol.
Rubbing her sore shoulder, Anberlyn stumbled into the infirmary only to see that she wasn't the only one in such a terrible state. Trafalgar was lying on the operation table, an arm thrown over his eyes, his chest slowly moving up and down, clothed in nothing more than his boxers and his shoes.
"Law." She meant to snap, only for the words to come out as they would if they were trying to talk to each other underwater. He grunted to show that he was not only alive, but also awake and listening. "What happened after we went to the bar?"
He hadn't denied her suggestion to drink on their few hour long freedom, so they had gone into a little bar and ordered some drinks. Obviously, they had a few more than a few drinks, but Anberlyn couldn't tell you how many they had consumed, or even what they had consumed.
In response he lifted his arm away from his side to reveal a black design that went from his pants line all the way up the side of his ribs.
She squinted at his side and drawled, "You got tatted?"
"From what I remember, so did you."
With as much speed as a hung-over person could muster, Anberlyn began searching her body for any strange anomalies, even going as far as looking down her crop top and lifting her skirt so that she could search her legs, thighs and feet for the inking Trafalgar claimed she had gotten alongside him.
To be honest, Anberlyn couldn't remember much of the time that followed entering the bar and ordering the first few rounds of drinks. She knew that they had a good time and that it had been Doflamingo free, but, that was about all she could say for certain. There were flashes of random, hazy images and sensations that didn't make a lick of sense.
"Where?" She managed, double checking her body for the tattoo he claimed that she had inked into her flesh.
Slowly, Law sat up, bracing his arms on either side of him, his fingers curling around the side of the bed as he blinked away the irregularities from his sight. Once he could see somewhat straight, he lifted a hand and made a circular motion with his hand, indicating that she should turn around. At that, she began turning in circles, like a dog chasing its tail, as she tried to get a look at her back. Finally, the proud woman went crashing to the floor.
At about the time she fell down, a mirror was thrust into her face. If she had been thinking straight, she'd have been mad at him for making a fool out of her, but, they weren't in their right minds, so, she couldn't be too mad because he couldn't have derived too much pleasure from her chasing her own tail.
The mirror revealed a horrific image that was inked into the flesh of her left shoulder blade.
First of all, it was a black smiley face with a cancel sign slashing across its face. Secondly, not only were Doflamingo's signature glasses covering the Jolly Roger's eyes, but pink feathers surrounded it. The worst part was she had no recollection of getting the damn thing, or of even entering a tattoo parlor.
"Get it off of me."
"We can't make rational decisions like this." Law explained, crouching down so that he wasn't looking down on the distraught woman. It was very clear, if not exaggerated, that the last thing she wanted was that tattoo on her back.
"I don't need rational; I need this thing off of me now! It needs to disappear before Doflamingo sees it and gets the wrong idea."
Law scrubbed a hand up his face and then back through his hair. "I'll just bandage it until-"
"No. Get it off of me now."
"I can't remove a tattoo Anberlyn-ya." He didn't want to be the one to tell her the grim truth; after all, he had a bizarre design etched into his side, so he too wanted nothing more than to undo their trip to the dingy little hole in the wall that claimed to be a tattoo parlor. Law had spent the entire morning, glaring past the haze of his hangover and the throbbing headache that made it near impossible to think; in order to piece together the night alcohol had fragmented.
So far, he had made very little progress.
Refusing to take that as an answer, Anberlyn staggered to her feet and over to one of the drawers. She rummaged through it until what she was looking for was gripped tightly in one hand. Once it had been found, she returned to Trafalgar's side and said, "I don't care if your devil fruit can't remove it, it's only skin deep, nothing a little bit of scraping can't fix." And with that, she pressed the scalpel into his hand and turned around.
Had she been thinking straight she would have realized that she could have used her own devil fruit to run the ink and draw it out of her skin.
"It'll scar." Law tried. He was trying to deter her from making him do this. He didn't want to be the one to scar Doflamingo's precious little slut.
Scars were the least of her problems; she still had a bit of that scar cream left. And when it was gone, she was returning to that island and getting many, many more little boxes of the magical cream. "I don't care."
"I don't have anesthetics." There would be nothing to numb the pain of him literally scraping a tattoo off of her back.
"I've been through worse." Anberlyn confessed.
"Sit down." Law instructed, gesturing to the table he had just gotten up from. Surprisingly enough, she obeyed. He sat behind her and with none too steady hands, he began scraping the tattoo off of her shoulder blade.
To say that he was impressed was an understatement. She hardly made a sound other than uneven breathing and slight whimpers, but, he was literally scraping the skin off of her back. Not that he knew by experience, but, it wasn't exactly a painless process to go through. Not only that, but she was probably sore for getting the tattoo and the injection of a needle and ink into her flesh.
When Law was done, he bandaged her up nice and good and told her that she probably shouldn't move around too much or use her arm excessively to avoid further complications like the reopening of the semi self-inflicted wound or heaven forbid infection.
Taking his instructions a bit too literally, Anberlyn lay down on the table and closed her eyes, listening to the sound of Trafalgar moving about and cleaning up the mess and discarding all of the bloody, inked skin, the bandages and then cleaning his hands and the scalpel.
"So, have you been able to figure out what happened last night?" She asked, doubting it.
"I have a few ideas." He confessed.
"Yeah, so do I. But, do you have any facts?" She didn't wan't ideas, she wanted to know for sure exactly what it was the alcohol had made her forget.
"Are you asking me to share what I've got with you?" He teased lightly.
"However did you gather that?" Anberlyn sneered at him, resting her head atop her folded arms.
And with that, Trafalgar filled in her splotchy memory.
Not twelve hours later, after Anberlyn had forced Law to scrape the tattoo off of her back, did she realize that all of that pain had been unnecessary. She even offered to remove the tattoo from his side. Though he would never show it, Law was greatful that scraping the skin off of his side wasn't going to be necessary.
"What did you do this time?" The stormy eyed, black haired, young man asked, his bloodied, gloved hands working the needle in and out of her flesh, slowly closing up one of the many wounds Anberlyn had obtained earlier that day.
Even though he hadn't been on the ship long, she had the privilege to see him almost every day of the week. The poor boy hadn't been on the ship for an hour, he hadn't even been able to move in or acquaint himself with the infirmary wing, before his skills had been called upon, or so Anberlyn thought. She had yet to learn that he had been on the ship all along and simply assumed that he had gotten there sometime when she wasn't paying attention.
After their first meeting, they had been seeing a lot more of each other. It wasn't always because she was injured, however, sometimes; Anberlyn opted to see the young man of her own volition.
"Just sew me up and I'll be on my way Trafalgar." Anberlyn irately snapped. Today, she wasn't in the mood to deal with him, at least not at the moment she wasn't. When she got fed up with Doflamingo, she'd be back in here, reveling in his…attitude.
A strange, almost sinister, smirk curled up a single corner of his mouth. "We're all friends here Sweetheart-ya." He sneered not only Doflamingo's pet name for her, but the rest of his sentence.
She glared sharply at the young man and with a warning in her tone, snapped, "What have I told you Trafalgar?"
"Oh, my bad. Captain's slut-ya."
At that she reached out and slapped him across the face. "One more chance Trafalgar?"
"Or what?"
She merely glared at him. They both knew that she couldn't put the only useful surgeon on the ship out of commission.
"Just shut up and do your job." She grumbled. How come she could never win? It didn't matter if she was up against Doflamingo or Trafalgar, she always lost.
"Are you going to answer my question?" He hummed as the sewing process suddenly got rough and rather jerky. After a few moments, she caved in and said,
"I got caught up in something I shouldn't have. But, what's new."
"What was it this time?"
"I followed Doflamingo to one of his business meetings and was eavesdropping. Turns out they knew I was there all along…all of them and before Doflamingo could save my sorry little ass, they did quite a number on me, if you can't tell."
"If you hate the man so much, why are you still here?" He suddenly asked. All Anberlyn the ferocious really ever did was gripe and groan about Captain, every other word out of her mouth was his name and she never said it with endearment or joy. No, it was always in anger or disgust that she spoke of the man she so often slept with.
"Do you think I haven't tried to escape? To take his life?"
"You've failed so many times that you've given up huh?" That didn't sound like Anberlyn at all. But, what did he know, maybe she only wore her ferocity like a costume, and when she was alone behind closed doors, she shrugged it off, hung it up and revealed her true nature where no one could see.
"I'll have you know that if you ever become Doflamingo's enemy, if you ever decide to vie after his life, you will have to go through me first because I will be the one to take his head, you just wait and see."
At the time, Trafalgar Law had been foolish enough to laugh at the vicious statement.
He would forget this conversation until he was handcuffed with seastone cuffs, on the back of a bull named Ucy, caught up with the Strawhat Pirates and their foolish captain Monkey D. Luffy, and all of the men from the Coliseum who were all after the same man's life.
A/n: Gosh, I hope I've gotten Law in character. I get that he was probably different as a younger man…but I didn't want to get it too wrong, so I tried to stick with what we know so far…
Guest 2: No, no, you're exactly right. I needed a catalyst that would in essence 'fix' Anberlyn and move things along or else the story would be a never ending cycle of Anberlyn trying to kill Doflamingo, Doflamingo hurting her and her hate growing…and who wants to read 10 more chapters of that? By the way, I love Law too, so I've dedicated this chapter to establishing their relationship. Admittedly I don't have much planned out but, there's going to be problems in the future with him aiming to kill Doffy and Anberlyn determined to be the one that kills him. Thank's for your input, even if you are blinded by love. I'd ask my friend, buutt she hates that I'm writing this fic cuz she hates Doffy.
Review please. I would be delighted to hear your thoughts and opinions. Please, if you think that I have gotten anyone OOC, tells me. Thank you much for reading and I hope to see you next chapter.