AN/ Hello again! I'm back with another chapter sooner than usually and it's all thanks to you guys. I read your reviews and just couldn't help but write another chapter quickly, like I already told you in the reviews. Thank you for being there and giving me so much positive feedback and constructive criticism about this story! I can't really tell you in words how much it means to me, but I can assure you that if you guys weren't there, I would most probably have dropped this story in frustration a long time ago xD
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or any of it's characters. E. Oda is the man.
Answer to a review by a guest: You asked who the woman was, and the answer to that is in this chapter so I'm not going to spoil it by telling her name here. And yes. We are definitely going to see more smexy Doffy x Law in the future.
/
/
/
Doflamingo collapsed to his seat and crossed his long legs on the dining table to let his tensed muscles relax. His day had been a really long one.
He had gone through a long, tiresome meeting with Caesar Clown and a few laboratory assistants concerning the drug SMILE. There had been some issues with production and transportation but after he had listened to the laboratory rats blabbering and apologizing about it for nearly an hour, it had taken him only one sentence of death threats to fix it all. If he had known in the beginning of the meeting that it was so easy to fix, he would have done it right away.
After the SMILE meeting he had went to see a Chinese Triad boss who had came to discuss over-sea business all the way to Tokyo with him. Vergo had been there with him but the officer hadn't been helpful at all. The man had just spaced off and made himself look weird.
At least Vergo wasn't like Corazon, Doflamingo's deceased brother. He still remembered how bad it had been to have his brother as his right hand -man. Corazon had been so clumsy that he had stumbled on his own feet, not to even mention the corner of a carpet. If he would have been around today, Doflamingo would probably have lost it.
Last but not least had been the meeting with his subordinates where he had given orders about area supervision. He had added men to the borders of his territory in case that Crocodile decided to invade his land again. He wanted to be prepared for the bastard.
But who would have guessed that he had idiots as subordinates. One of his men had came too close to him, stumbled, and then spilled coffee on his new, white manpris.
Well, he had walked away from the meeting with brand new pants he had sent another subordinate to buy and the idiot who had spilled the coffee on him had left with less fingers. It was a win-win situation. He had gotten new, clean pants and the idiot had been allowed to keep his life, even if Doflamingo wasn't sure if that had been a wise decision. Maybe he would send one of the officers to end that man's life later tonight, just to make sure that there wouldn't be idiots amongst his men.
When he had gotten home, he had found a half naked Yuka on his bed, complaining about how he was late and how she had became bored waiting for him. He had shut the bitch up with a rough kiss and then he had fucked her brains out like an animal. He wasn't sure if the woman was willing to come back to him after this though. In pain and crying was an understatement if one was to describe the woman's state when Doflamingo had walked out on her after the act.
Well, at least his nerves had eased slightly after he had released some pressure from downstairs.
Speaking about releasing pressure, Doflamingo's eyes were now searching for the person with whom he would much more preferably have released it with, only to come into a conclusion that he wasn't present.
Ever since the night he had ended the relationship between him and the brat, he had thought about it several times. Mostly when he saw a glimpse of the raven hair in the corridor, or ended up meeting the gray orbs in the dining hall because his eyes just wouldn't stop searching for the brat.
Every time he saw Law, he ended up thinking about how great it would feel to fuck his smoking hot, tight ass. How arousing it would be to draw heated moans from his mouth when he writhed in both pain and pleasure from being fucked raw, and then choke him to muffle the erotic sounds coming from his throat.
What Doflamingo felt every time he looked at the brat was temptation.
Temptation he thirsted for so badly that it drove him crazy with sexual drive.
Temptation that almost made him lose his mind, if there even was one to lose.
There was just something about the boy that made him lose his mind over the urge to touch him, and at the same time, messed his head up so badly that he wasn't able to touch him, no matter how badly he wanted to. He just couldn't get his head around what the fuck that thing was.
"Did you hear what Law did?" The speaker who interrupted his trail of thoughts was Diamante.
"What?" Doflamingo asked, coming back from his thoughts, the elite officer's words having gone on deaf ears.
"Law. He's getting more than a bit too familiar with that woman." Diamante sounded frustrated as he spoke.
The blond man dropped his fork with a clang and turned his piercing, intimidatingly mad gaze towards his elite officer.
"What woman?" Suddenly, Doflamingo's face was the embodiment of violent rage when he rumbled the words through gritted teeth, the vein on his forehead threateningly close to exploding.
Diamante flinched and then leaned back with a slightly intimidated expression. He was glad that his boss had dropped the fork because the last time he had been stabbed by the man was still clear in his mind, but that was pretty much the only positive emotion in him right now.
Or not. Diamante was also enthusiastic about the family head's rage, knowing that Law was going to be in deep trouble from head to toes. Or probably 5 meters below the ground, buried in dirt. No-one who had made the infamous yakuza leader this mad, was in the books of the living today.
What Diamante didn't know though, was that Doflamingo actually had no idea what he was talking about. The only thought in the mad blond's head was that someone was getting too close to his possession, and he wanted to know who that fucking suicidal bitch was.
"How familiar exactly, Diamante?" The bitch's identity could wait for one more question. First the yakuza leader wanted to know just how much torturing she needed before losing her head.
"Well," The brunette started, leaning closer to the taller man like if he was gossiping, already picturing Law's punishment in his mind. "he bathed her, gave her clothes and let her eat food from our kitchen. Now he's refusing to let anyone else take the hostage from-"
"Diamante." Doflamingo interrupted with a confused tilt of his head. "Are you talking about the woman we took in as a hostage?"
The brunette nodded.
"And are you saying that Law getting 'too familiar' with her is equal to him giving her food and clothes?"
The brunette nodded again, enthusiastically like he almost couldn't wait to see what his boss would do to the cocky brat.
"Why didn't you say so immediately?" Doflamingo said, his trademark smile crawling back up to his lips as he crossed his ankles on the table again.
Diamante looked confused. This didn't make any sense. The man had been mad as hell just a second ago, and now he suddenly was calm as a cow. This didn't make any sense at all.
"What should we do?" He asked, still having his hopes up about the possibility to see Law's torturing.
"About what?" Doflamingo asked, now in a perfectly good mood, knowing that no-one had touched his possession.
"About Law and the hostage."
"Let them be."
Diamante's jaw dropped.
"For whatever reason Law has decided to play the part of the good Samaritan, shouldn't you be satisfied?" Doflamingo spoke as an answer to the elite officer's bafflement.
"Why would I-"
."Fuffuffu, would you rather look after the hostage yourself?" Doflamingo asked, raising his eyebrow in an amused manner.
The elite officer rolled his gaze away, back to his food plate, and settled for staring at it in silence.
"Fuffuffu, thought so."
/
/
/
It was the day after that when the woman opened her mouth for the first time. Or well, technically it was the second time, but first time she did it face to face with Law. Her handcuffs were gone now as Law had pretty much stolen the key and opened them. He didn't feel comfortable dragging around the woman in the end of a chain.
They were both still waking up, lying on their beds, - or Law was lying on his bed and the woman was on a mattress on the floor beside his bed – and staring at the ceiling of Law's room.
"Why are you kind to me?"
Law was so shocked to hear the woman speak that it took a while for him to come up with an answer.
"I'm not being kind. I'm just treating you like a humane person should." And that was true. He didn't do kind. Not with his family, not with strangers, not with anyone.
"But why? That woman from yesterday said it too. I'm your enemy, so why are you showing me kindness?" The woman continued, her voice deeply thoughtful. She didn't sound grateful or anything like that. Only thoughtful.
Law sighed in frustration and turned to his side so that he could see her face. For the first time, the woman let him look at it instead of turning her gaze away like she had done for the whole day yesterday.
It had been a challenge, trying to act normally in his own room when there was a silent stranger observing his every move. A person who didn't talk or look at him. After hours of tense wandering around the room and pretending to do something, he had made the woman a bed on the floor and occupied himself with his books. The day had went by quickly ever since then.
Quickly until the night had come, at least.
His sleep had been full of nightmares, as usual, but they hadn't been as bad as he had thought they would be. Seemed like sleeping with a stranger next to him had done miracles and taken his thoughts elsewhere from the naked woman in Doflamingo's room.
"Like I said, I'm not treating you kindly. I just think that it's inhumane to make you walk around naked and let you starve." He said, ruffling his hand through his raven hair. "And second, you're not my enemy."
The woman gave him a suspicious glance that suggested he had lost his mind.
"My family's enemy, yes, but not mine. I'm not a yakuza."
The question about why he was there, in a house full of yakuza when he himself wasn't one, was written all over the woman's face, but she didn't ask.
Law decided it was time to get up. He put his clothes on, went to the toilet and brushed his teeth, and even had the time to go for his morning smoke before the woman spoke again.
"Isn't your family's enemy yours too?" She asked, sitting on her mattress – that she had made perfectly by the way – in full clothing – which reminded Law that he had to get her a change later that day -, staring at Law with a curious raise of her eyebrow.
Now that Law had the time to look at her face, he had to admit that she was a real beauty. She had large, hazel brown eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes. Her nose was thin and refined, and seated right in between of her graceful, high cheekbones.
Her face combined with her voluptuous but still thin body and long limbs made her look like a supermodel. Law had rarely in his life seen such a beautiful woman.
"What do you mean?" Law asked after he had paced out for a long while. He threw his pack of cigarettes to the table, but only after offering it to the woman and receiving a silent shake of head for reply.
"Well normally, if someone wants your family dead, you would consider those people your enemy too."
"Well, we aren't normal then."
"We?" The woman irked an eyebrow.
"Aren't you here chatting with me casually even if you're my hostage? Doesn't seem like you consider me as your enemy." His tone was sarcastic.
The woman stared at him deadpan for a moment before a faint gesture, closely resembling a smile, tugged at her lips.
"True. "
/
/
/
"Care to explain me why in hell you've kept ignoring my texts and calls for the past three days, and when I came by your house, no, your FRIGGING mansion today, I was sent away from the gate, told that no visitors are allowed?" A certain blond cook roared to Law's ear via phone, obviously pissed as hell.
Law's eyes wandered around the room, fixing on the reason of his communication disconnect with the world outside the gates of Dressrosa.
Nico Robin – the woman had introduced herself this morning when they had been eating breakfast in his room – was lying on her mattress, reading a historical book that she had taken from the massive library of the mansion earlier that morning. After breakfast, Law had asked her if there was anything she liked to do on her free time and her answer had been reading historical books. That's why Law had taken her to Dressrosa's library, which regrettably was rarely used by anyone else in the family other than Law himself. Yakuzas weren't the smartest people on earth you know.
Law had been more than surprised when the woman had shared her unlimited knowledge of ancient Egypt's hieroglyphs and the information they held in during their way to the library. It had been a nice change compared to the dull conversations he normally had with his family members around the dinning table. Heck, it was a nice change compared to any conversations he had lately had. Other than Sanji, his friend circle mostly consisted of idiots. Chopper was the only person to share his interest with medicine and to show above average intelligence, but that was all they had in common.
Discussing literature with Robin – even if she was more interested in history than medicine – had been - what he didn't want to admit to himself because he wasn't supposed to start liking his hostage – kind of nice.
"HEY ASSHOLE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" The loud screaming in Law's ear reminded him of his mad friend hanging in the other end of the call, and it also drew the black haired woman's attention away from her book. That's how loud Sanji's voice was.
"Ow fuck. Yes, I can hear you just fine so stop tearing my eardrum apart." Law hissed, grimacing as he pulled the phone far away from his ear..
"I'm still waiting for your explanation and it better be good for your own safety."
Law could almost see how his friend was now squeezing at the phone, knuckles white, hoping that it was his throat instead of a smart-technology device.
"It's a family thing."
"Is that all?" Sanji asked, unimpressed.
"Yeah, I can't say anything else." Law said, genuinely sorry. Not only sorry to Sanji but sorry for himself too. He could really have used the best listening ear he knew to get some of this shit out of his mind. It would have been so much easier if Sanji had been a part of the family so he wouldn't have had to keep secrets from him. Maybe he would persuade the blond cook to join the Donquixotes.
Or not. Sanji as a yakuza? Not gonna happen.
A loud, screech -noise came from the other end of the call, probably produced by the blond's hardly together gritted teeth, and Law could tell that he had just made his friend even angrier.
""It's a family thing." Sanji repeated Law's words back at him in a tone that closely resembled an annoying, weeping toddler. "FAMILY THING MY ASS! It's no excuse for completely ignoring your best friend for three FUCKING days!"
Law slid his hand through his hair and inhaled deep to swallow his irritation. No matter how much he disliked being yelled at in such a degrading manner, he was in no place to get mad at the blond. Sanji, on the other hand, had all the right in the world to be mad at him.
"It's a yakuza thing. If I tell you anything more, someone will come to cut your throat open tonight." And that's how you tame a hungry lion. A quiet "Oh" was Sanji's only reply.
"So I haven't been able to contact you because of this thing going on in my house." Law continued in the most apologizing tone he could provide.
"Mansion." Sanji corrected, and that's when Law knew his friend had really calmed down.
"Whatever." He smirked.
"Well, if I promise not to ask you anything about that yakuza shit, would you like to join me and Zoro for drinks tonight?" Sanji asked, his tone completely different now.
Law glanced at the book reading woman before he answered.
"Not tonight. Maybe some other time, okay?"
"I really won't. Not like I'm not dying to ask, but I promise not to." Sanji tried to persuade him, bringing a smirk up to Law's lips.
"Sure you won't, nosy jerk, but I really have to pass this time. I'm too busy with stuff today."
"Alright then. But you will buy the drinks when the time comes, boring asshole." Sanji challenged, making the raven haired boy roll his eyes. Not like he could see it though, and better that way. If the cook had seen that gesture, it would have been the beginning of a new fight.
"Whatever shitty cook, see you." Law hanged up before the cook had a change to throw another insult at him. He then placed his phone on the nightstand and picked up the medical book he had been reading before Sanji had called him.
"Too busy with stuff or too busy babysitting me?" The woman asked nonchalantly, not taking her eyes of the book.
A lazy smirk tugged at the corner of Law's lip but he said nothing and just opened the book from the page where he had left on earlier.
"You lied to him." Robin spoke again, her voice still as uninterested as ever, and Law knew she was right.
But it wasn't just so simple. If he had went and met Sanji when he was in a situation like this, he wouldn't have been able to hide his nervousness from the best Law-connoisseur in the world. Then Sanji would have pestered him to no end until he would have accidentally slipped that `My family is keeping a hostage, and I'm spending time with her to make sure that she doesn't get treated like shit´. That would have been bad.
So yes, he had lied to his friend that he had been too busy with his "family stuff" for the past three days to even pick up his phone. Gladly he didn't have to lie anymore. The cook had promised not to ask him any questions, and Law was sure that even if he was `dying to ask´, he wouldn't. Getting his throat cut open wasn't exactly the number one amusement park ride on Sanji's list.
"Why won't you just leave me with one of your family members and go see your actual friends? It must be boring to sit in your room and read medical books all the time."
Now Law was seriously wondering if the woman tried to rub him the wrong way on purpose.
"Don't ask stupid questions and shut up already. I'm reading." He snapped.
"There is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers. And yours was a really stupid one. The book is upside down."
Law's ears pinked and he quickly snapped the book shut. Then he turned his piercing gaze – which was closely resembling a glare - at the woman.
"You're pretty annoying for a hostage you know?"
"You don't have to look after me if I'm so annoying you know?"
Law rolled his eyes, secretly thinking that it was actually kind of fun to have this small rag-competition with the woman. It reminded him of his and Sanji's playful verbal showdowns.
He shifted on the bed so that he was now lying on his back, and fixed his eyes on the marble ceiling above once again. The ceiling that he had been staring at for an awful amount of hours during the past few days.
"I don't want to think badly of my family, but when I see how they treat you, it makes me think that they aren't human." Law spoke after a while, raising his other arm to lay on his forehead. He had thought about it a lot during the past few days and for the first time he said it aloud to someone.
He cared for his family, he really did. He loved his family members, with some exceptions who clearly thought as much of him as he did of them, but still. He did love his family. The problem was that seeing the people you love treat another person worse than they would treat a pet dog made you see those people in a whole new light.
Shock, disbelief, sadness, anger and even disgust. Law had went through all those emotions when he had seen how his dear family had treated this innocent, kind woman. And he hated it. He didn't want to think badly of his family, but he had no other choice if he saw them treating the woman like if she was some lowly animal.
And the reason why he was saying it out loud to this stranger who was a hostage and an enemy in his house? He had no idea. Probably because the woman emitted this mature, motherly aura - despite not being over ten years older than Law – that he felt relaxed enough to open up to her.
Law had been 9 when his mother had died, and a traumatic loss like that wasn't something a child could ever get over. Ever. Maybe Robin's mother-like personality messed with his head because of that.
How twisted. Finding resemblance between his dead mother and his hostage. Fucking twisted.
"So you're doing this for your sake, not for mine?" The woman asked softly after a while, pulling Law away from his thoughts.
"Yeah, so I'm stuck with you now." He spoke after recollecting his mind, forcing a sting of sarcasm into his voice. Rolling back to his stomach, he picked up his medical book again, this time the upside up though.
The woman stared at him for a moment longer before she went and turned her attention back to her book.
They both flipped pages and started to read at the same time, with the difference that Law was only pretending to read. In reality he was looking back to his childhood when he had still lived with his biological family. Mother, father and his little sister. Lami. And now they were all dead.
Law forced his thoughts away from the painful memories, burying them somewhere deep into his mind without even the slightest idea of what horrors the next night had to offer him.
Horrors in the form of nightmares about the day his family died.
/
/
/
Law was in his father's office, his elbows resting on the worktop and his jaw leaning to his hands. He was staring at the artificial organ inside an electronic, glass-walled device on the desk. He had been following his father's research program since day one from two years ago, when his father had came up with the idea that it was possible to create and grow artificial nerves. The research had been a success, and right now Law was staring at it's results with eyes full of excitement and admiration.
Law had decided it years ago, around the time he had learned to walk and speak, that he was going to become a doctor and a surgeon like his father when he grew up. Every day he was closely observing his father's work at their family clinic which was inside their house, enthusiastically learning something new about medicine every day. The best days in his life were those when his father took him along to the operating room and let him observe the surgeries.
Today his father had taken Lami, his younger sister by two years, to the operating room with him. That's why Law had no other choice but to pout in his father's office and stare at the artificial nerves growing in jars. It was the second best thing after being in the operating room.
`Wait, no. Something isn't quite right.´
Law wasn't a 9 year old kid anymore, nor was he in one's body. He was standing on the other side of the worktop, staring at the younger version of himself.
`This must be a dream.´
What drew both his and the raven haired kid's attention away from their thoughts was his mother's agitated voice.
"Wait sir, you can't go in there!"
Law could remember hearing that sentence before, but only when the raven haired kid ran out of the room and down the stairs, did Law realize which one of his memories this was.
With his heart leaping up to his throat, Law ran after the kid, tailing him closely until they were in the doorway to the clinic's reception.
His mother was there, standing in front of the door leading to the operating room where his father and Lami were, and in front of her there was a short, middle-aged, skinny man in a worn out jacket and jeans.
Law recognized the man. His wife had been a patient here on his parents' clinic for two years and roughly about a week ago, she had died on his father's operating table. The cancer she'd been living with for years had finally spread to every organ in her body and there had been nothing Law's father could have done to save her.
"I should have never agreed to open her up. If I just had known better she would still have had two weeks to spend with her husband." Law could remember his father muttering under his breath as he had put the scalpel down in defeat. It had been the first time Law had seen his father fail in a surgery. His father had been devastated.
Law's thoughts trailed off to reminiscing his father's emotional break down over his first and last failure during his whole career, and only came back from them too late. Everything that happened next went forward in fast speed.
His mother wouldn't bulge when the man tried to get past her to the operating room. The man fumbled in his pockets nervously before drawing out a shiny, black object.
Law could see how his mother's face grimaced in fear and panic when she turned her eyes to the raven haired kid standing in the doorway.
"No, mom!"
"Law! Run!" She shouted right before a loud bang echoed through he room and then her body was falling down like a rag doll. Law stared in horror as the crimson red liquid started to paint the front of her dress and soon flowed out of her mouth under coughs.
He tried to run, but couldn't, so he turned his eyes to his younger self standing next to him. Just when he was about to shout at the kid to go and help their mother, he saw how the kid's big, shiny eyes were wide with horror. He was shaking and unable to move.
Law felt the paralyzing fear transfer from the boy to himself and suddenly he could remember perfectly and clearly how afraid he had been back then. It had been the most horrifying experience in his whole life, and the feelings still stung him like physical pain.
If it hadn't been for his mother's second, cough-filled scream, neither he or the 9 year old kid next to him wouldn't have been able to move.
"Run! Law, you have to run! Run for your life!"
Wait. No. His memory was tricking him here. His mother hadn't been able to say so many words. Only "run".
Law watched as his younger self ran out of the house as fast as he could and panicked.
"Wait! Don't go! Lami is still inside! You can't leave her!" He shouted but his words went through deaf ears. A second later, a loud gun shot reached his ears and his head jolted to the operation room's direction.
"DADDY!" It was Lami, screaming.
Before Law had a change to react to his sister's voice, the shooter suddenly came out of the room. The man transformed into a massive, blond man with a pink feather coat hanging on his shoulders.
`This is just a dream. This is just a dream. Come on now, wake up. Wake up wake up wake up.´
Despite his pleads, Law couldn't wake up. He could only stand still, bind to the ground by black threads of his nightmare, and stare as the oh so familiar, blond man started to walk towards him in a slow motion. In a painfully slow motion.
By the time Doflamingo had reached him, the man had already drawn his pistol and pointed it at Law's head. Law wanted to speak but he couldn't. No voice came out of his mouth when he tried to talk.
"You should have died in her place." The man spoke with his low, baritone voice, pressing the cold gun barrel against Law's temple. The younger male shook his head violently.
`No! Lami is still alive! She is!´ He still couldn't speak.
And like magic, his baby sister ran out of the operating room, her brown twin-ponytails and horrified face splattered with blood.
No. That's not how he remembered her. He remembered her as a happy, cheerful girl who was always smiling, no matter what. Why wasn't she smiling now?
"Lami!" Law shouted but his sister didn't hear him. Why did no-one hear or see him when this was his own dream for fucks sake?!
He watched as his little sister knelt down next to their mother's body and touched the bullet wound in her already lifeless, motionless chest.
No. This wasn't right. This part never happened either. Law had been outside. He hadn't been able to see what had happened inside the house at this point.
Law shook his head and turned his eyes back on Doflamingo, who now had a wicked grin on his lips, pointing the gun at his own temple.
"You should save her while you still can." The man whispered, and an eardrum-tearing second later, his dead body fell on the floor, painting the wooden planks with crimson blood.
"No! No, no, no, no, NOOO!"
Law fisted his shaking hands, filling them with his own hair and screamed from the bottom of his lungs. Only to realize that the voice didn't come out of him, but his younger self's mouth. He looked around him, realizing he was now outside of the house, standing next to his 9 year old self who was fighting against and held back by one of their neighbors.
`Why is he holding-´
Law dropped the thought before even really starting, his face dead pan when he tore his gaze away from his younger self and let it wander on their house. Their bright, collapsing and burning house.
Law's heart started to race in his chest and the second he heard his baby sister's pained scream, he jolted forward.
Lami was still inside.
Law ran and ran, sweating under the heat the burning house emitted, but he never got closer to it. Lami cried for his name, begging for him to come and help her when she was obviously in pain, but Law couldn't reach her. He couldn't help her. Why? Fucking WHY?!
"Lami! Lami!" Law yelled his sister's name so loud that it ripped his lungs apart, and only then did he realize that he was back into being a 9 year old kid, held back by an adult who he couldn't overpower, unable to run back to the burning house and save his sister from being burnt alive.
"Let go of me! My sister is still inside!" He screamed, trying to fight his way out of the strong arms holding him still. When he couldn't, he bit to the living flesh of what he believed was the adult's hand and felt blood gushing into his mouth. He managed to escape from the hands, only to be tackled over and held against ground by another pair.
"Law! Help me!" His sister was crying in pain, her voice full of terror when it reached his ears.
Law cursed under his breath when his struggles were proved futile, but never stopped trying to get up from the ground. He fought and fought, with all his strength, but it just wasn't enough. It had never been enough.
Something wet started to run down on his smooth cheeks. Something that felt like tears.
Droplet by droplet, all that wet reached his jaw and splintered to the ground below his face.
He was crying.
"Lami!" He screamed, trying to shake off the big body on top of him but in vain. He could only lay there, let his heart be torn apart by the cries of his baby sister who was slowly being burned alive by the flames and wish he hadn't ran away. Wish he had stayed there and saved his baby sister. Wish it was him in there instead of her.
"Lami." He tried to yell but nothing except a pathetic, quiet noise from the back of his throat came out.
After seconds – which each felt like an eternity to him – the screams from inside the house ceased, and his eyes shot wide open.
"LAMI!"
He was panting, scanning through his surroundings with his eyes to search for the flames, but all he could see was darkness. He had sweated so much near the fire that it was all now running down on his skin as salty droplets, leaving wet trails behind in their wake.
He realized that the sweat must have gotten to his eyes and blurred his vision together with his tears, because he could see nothing.
As seconds slowly went by, his eyes became adjusted to the darkness and he started to see the outlines of his surroundings. At his left was a shelf full of medical books and on his right there was the nightstand he used to keep his cigarettes on. Under him was his bed and the blanket he was clutching onto so tightly that his hands started to feel numb. Or probably they felt numb because his nails were drilled to his own flesh through the soft fabric.
He was in Dressrosa.
There were no burning flames and no Lami. Just him, his own heartbeat and his mouth that was gasping for breath in a panicked manner.
Law looked down to his trembling hands and carefully massaged both his wrists to make sure that no-one was keeping them sealed behind his back anymore. Then he burst into tears.
"I'm sorry Lami, I'm so sorry." He repeated those words, waving himself from side to side, his face buried in his hands. His quiet, desperate sobs muffled in his mouth where they escaped from as irregular bursts, shaking his whole miserable, curled up body.
"I should have died in your place. I should have been there… I should have... I'm so sorr-" The rest of his words were cut off by another burst of uncontrollable sobs and he fell on his back. He threw his arm over his face, fisted the other around his blanket and kept on saying "I'm sorry" again and again.
A touch so gentle it almost hurt was placed on Law's arm, and he jolted up in surprise. He wiped away his tears before rolling his gaze over to the stranger. Even if her features were slightly blurry in the dark, she was still easily recognizable. And she was the only person sleeping in the same room with him too.
Law had completely forgotten about the woman, Nico Robin, who was giving him a soft, worried look.
"You alright?" She asked, her voice as gentle as her touch earlier.
Law didn't trust his own voice enough to use it so he settled for nodding. He forced his face and body to relax and tried to collect his composure. He didn't want to show his weakened state to the woman he barely even knew.
He took in a deep, shaky breath through his nostrils and turned his gaze to the clock on his nightstand, away from the woman's too emphasizing gaze.
03.47
Fuck. It wasn't even nearly the morning yet. He didn't know what to do until it came, but he knew for sure he wasn't going to sleep anymore tonight. Not with the nightmares haunting him.
The bed shifted when the woman stood up and stretched her limbs.
"You fully awake now?" She asked with a yawn, obviously knowing the answer already.
Law cleared his throat before he answered.
"Yeah." He wiped the wet trails on his cheeks to his blanket and got up from his bed, utterly embarrassed and prepared to go for a smoke.
"I know something better that will make you feel good." The woman halted him, stepping in between him and the balcony door.
Law narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Enlighten me." He said, crossing his arms on his chest, peeking at the balcony door over the woman's shoulder. He still wasn't completely recovered from his earlier breakdown, but he felt like himself enough to use sarcasm in his voice.
The woman stretched both her legs, earning a look from Law that implied she was weird as fuck, taking her time before replying. Law was almost ready to push the woman aside and step to the balcony when she finally gave him a reply.
"Exercise."
This time Law's look implied that she had gone insane.
"I know what you are thinking," The woman chuckled. "But trust me, you will feel like a whole new person after some running." She had now moved on to stretching her arms, making funny postures in front of Law and therefore making it harder for him to take her seriously.
"And I should trust you because?" Law irked an eyebrow, still not buying it.
"Because I'm older." The woman said with a wink, taking Law by his hand and already dragging the involuntary raven hair out of the room.
"But we can't-" Law tried to persuade her to drop the idea but it was futile. The woman wouldn't let him.
"Go out of the mansion's gates. I know that, but aren't we lucky to have an enormous, steady yard as a running field? And it's even inside the gates!" She clearly exaggerated the enthusiasm in her voice, not giving Law a change to interrupt.
Law had no other choice but to let himself be dragged out of the house, put on some running shoes and run after the crazy woman who desperately tried to make him forget his nightmares.
`Easier said than done.´
/
/
/
"I lied" Robin said, sitting on the edge of Law's bed, drying her after-shower wet hair.
They had went running on the mansion's yard and slipped on the wet grass all the time.
Too stubborn to give up, Law had ran the whole yard around five times when the woman had stopped at three and a half. Thinking about it afterward like this, they should have stopped before they had even started.
"Huh?" Law asked, filliping a piece of grass from his bruised shoulder. Apparently he hadn't showered well enough.
"I lied. I never run to make myself feel better. I bury myself under a warm blanket with a cup of hot cocoa and some good historical book." The woman said, rolling the towel around her hair into something that in Law's opinion closely resembled a pile of shit.
Law shot his narrow-eyed glare at the woman before putting a shirt on.
"I knew it." He hissed as he stretched his sore muscles that had been in a tensed state ever since he had ran the first lap.
"But it worked, didn't it?"
"If you call being sore and bruised from head to toes a success then yeah, it worked." Despite his sarcastic choice of words, Law had to admit that the running had seriously worked. His nightmares from roughly two hours ago now seemed like a distant memory, just like they should have.
"Again tomorrow?" Robin asked with a smirk and Law made a face.
"Never again."
"Yeah me neither, it was one of the most horrible experiences in my life." She smiled shortly with a noise.
"As horrible as being dragged around naked in handcuffs?" Law suggested dryly, releasing his leg from a stretch that had looked a lot like the positions you make in the game called Twister
"Worse." The woman replied, bringing a smirk up to her own lips before it affected the raven haired boy's lips too.
Law picked up his pack of cigarettes from the nightstand and stepped out to fresh air and his balcony. He lit the cigarette with one swift movement and inhaled the oh so sweet nicotine deep into his lungs. `Much better than some shitty exercising.´
"We'll, at least you look like a real hostage now." Law said, tilting his head to the side for his voice to reach Robin's ears better.
"How come?" Came the puzzled answer from behind the slightly ajar door.
"Well not yet maybe, but by the evening when your bruises get some color to them." Law snickered, taking in another long drag of his smoke.
"Speak for yourself." Was the amused reply.
/
/
/
Law was sitting in his room in an armchair next to Robin's, just as absorbed in his book as the woman was in hers, except that he was disturbed by the hurricane twirling around his room. A hurricane in the form of Baby 5.
"Is this what you guys do? Read some boring books all day long without talking?" Baby 5 moaned in her boredom, stomping around the room as she had nothing better to do. Not when the two other black haired people weren't paying attention to her.
"Here I thought I would come to spend some quality time with my brother but to hell with it! You haven't said a word!"
Law rose his gaze from the medical book and fixed it on her clearly irritated sister who had now stopped moving and seated herself in a standing position right in front of Law.
"I don't have to. You've been talking non-stop ever since you came in." He said and he was telling the truth. Baby 5 had came into his room roughly about half an hour ago. She had started with a quick "hey" and then proceeded into venting everything about her man problems. Law, just like everyone else in the family, knew very well how bad taste in men his sister had. A man had to say nothing more than "I need your help", and Baby 5 was already moving mountains for him, misinterpreting exploitation as love.
After Baby 5 had told about this amazing and kind man he had met, who had loved her from the bottom of his heart and asked her to give him a massive sum of money, she had told about how the bastard Joker – yes, she called Doflamingo Joker every time she got mad at the man – had interfered with their relationship. It happened every time - Doflamingo interfering with Baby 5's relationships - and it always ended the same way. It ended with the man dead.
Baby 5 was either too blinded by love – which Law highly doubted – or just so plain dumb – the more likely option from the two – that she didn't realize that Doflamingo always did what he did for her sake. He protected her from her own gullibility by killing the men who shamelessly exploited her. Even when everyone tried to explain it to her, she refused to listen to them and claimed that Joker had killed her one true love. For the 435345928th time.
So, borrowing Baby 5's own words, she had tried to cut the bastard's – aka Doflamingo's - head off his shoulders. Law knew how this all went. At first, Baby 5 was heartbroken and tried to assassinate her boss for 2 or maybe 3 hours and after failing, she pouted and refrained from speaking to the man for the rest of the day. The next day though, she reverted back to her usual behaviour as if nothing had ever happened. That's how it always went.
Dressrosa – The heaven on madmen (and women). Mentally unstable people everywhere, as far as the eye can see. At least that's how Law saw it.
"Well I had no other choice as the two of you are obviously either dead or just mute!" Baby 5 shrieked and probably damaged Law's hearing for the rest of his life in the action.
Law sighed and put his book aside.
"What do you want to talk about?" He asked, crossing his legs and placing his hands on his lap in a manner that told he was ready for a serious conversation.
Baby 5 sighed heavily and shook her head in disbelief.
"What now?"
"I was hoping that you had something you wanted to share with me." She moaned. "But obviously you don't because all you do is read books every single day. Your life is boring." She was making a face as she spoke, implying that she pitied Law for having such a dull life.
Law rolled his eyes at that.
"Depends on how you look at it." He protested, not agreeing with her at all. In his opinion, medical books were more interesting than listening to some useless shit about his sister's miserable love-life. Obviously he never said that out loud. He didn't want to have his head cut off his shoulders.
"There is no depending. Your life is more boring than listening to Trebol's jokes!" Baby 5's voice was exasperated, causing Law to raise his eyebrows.
If something was said to be more boring that Trebol's jokes, it really had to be Very boring. The only person who laughed at the man's jokes was he himself. Others wanted to cry or just plain kill themselves. That's how awful the jokes were.
"Your life really is boring." Robin comped.
"See? Even our hostage thinks that your life is boring!" Baby 5 spread her hands wide to emphasize her point.
"Whatever." Law rolled his eyes. He wanted to say that Robin had no business calling his book-reading life boring when she herself was completely satisfied with doing it herself too, but decided it was too troublesome. It would most probably have ended with more arguments coming from both women and him losing the fight. He didn't even bother.
A knock at the door saved him from being bothered further by the two women. He practically ran to the door to greet his savior.
He opened the door, only to freeze the second he saw who was behind it.
The older man was wearing his usual attire, leaving his muscular, tanned front completely bare and begging for attention. Not like any was paid though. Law's attention was fixated on the eyes that hid behind purple shades.
The two males had a long, intense moment of staring at each other in silence, and neither one of them dared to move. They just stood there and looked dumb.
Baby 5 broke the ice by storming past them both.
"I'm off." She hissed from between her gritted teeth, obviously loathing the company and wanting to get away from the man who had killed his lover earlier that day. She was gone in less than three seconds.
Law blinked a few times, as if to break himself free from a spell, and then proudly raised his jaw up. He wanted to look down at the man in a degrading manner, but that would have needed the assistance of ladders or him breaking his own neck, so he had to settle for a cold, hard stare.
"What do you want?" He asked in the harshest voice he could muster, and - to his irritation – the only reaction he received was a wide, amused smile on the older man's lips.
Doflamingo was looking down at him.
"Fuffuffufu, I want a lot of things, Law." The blond man snickered, his eery voice awakening cold shiver's in Law's spine. "But right now I want to have a word with my hostage."
Law's eyes widened for a short moment before he managed to pull his composure back together.
Doflamingo wanted to have a word with Robin. A word. That couldn't be anything positive.
"She's right there." Law pointed at the armchair at the back of the room, ridding himself of any visible signs of worry for the woman's sake. He had a bad feeling about this even though he had no idea what business Doflamingo could possibly have had with the woman.
"In private, Law." The man spoke in a deep, pressuring tone, and all Law could do was repeat the man's voice calling his name in his head.
When he finally managed to break himself free from the spell – for second time during a short moment – he courageously narrowed his eyes at the shaded man, ignoring the impact the blond's voice had on his obviously very weak mind.
"Don't hurt her or-"
"Or what Law? Fuffuffu." The man cut him off with cruel laughter, scaring the hell out of Law.
The raven haired boy gritted his teeth and let out a small, frustrated noise from the back of his throat before he stepped out of the room. He banged the door shut loudly after him and leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms.
What on earth had he thought, trying to threaten the psychopathic yakuza boss? He had lost his mind for sure. Maybe Baby 5 had been right after all. Maybe he should be doing something else too and not read books all day long. They seemed to melt his brains.
After a while of listening to blurred talking – mostly one sided on Doflamingo's behalf – Law figured it was safe to go somewhere. The man would have attacked the woman already if he had wanted to, and Law's feet started to get tired from standing in one place. He decided to take a walk.
He went downstairs, intending to grab some food, but when he saw Diamante and Bellamy whispering to each others' ears in front of the dining hall's door, he quickly switched his direction.
He went to the game room – yes, Dressrosa had a large room filled with different consoles and huge TV's – but after finding it occupied by the green haired sisters, Monet and Sugar, he again turned around on his heels. He really didn't feel like interacting with anyone right at that moment.
After wandering around the mansion and finding nothing to do, he returned to his earlier station, leaning back to the frame of his room's door. At least he had stretched his legs by walking around. He wondered whether if he had to do it again, not having any idea for how long Doflamingo was still going to `have a word´ with Robin.
Law was just scratching his jaw and pondering when he would get some facial hair when the door behind him opened. He quickly stood up and turned around, only to come face to face with Doflamingo again, just like the last time his room's door had been opened.
The man seemed casual, no visible marks of agitation anywhere on his face. That was a good sign, Law figured. Or maybe it wasn't a sign at all. The man had a good composure and his face rarely held other expressions than his trade-mark smile. It was a habit of his to be smiling a wicked smile after cold-bloodedly murdering someone.
Much to Law's relief, the man's smile was normal and nowhere near to being wicked.
"The circles under your eyes are darker than they normally are. Didn't you get enough sleep last night?" The man's words caught Law completely off guard. He had totally not seen that coming. He had expected for them to stare at each other in silence for a few seconds and then go both their own, separate ways. He hadn't expected the man to actually start a conversation, and about Law's well-being above that.
He quickly calculated one plus one and frowned. Had the man heard him screaming his sister's name last night?
Law figured that if Doflamingo's screams carried all the way to his ears in the middle of the night then it would probably work the other way around too. But why did the man care? No, he most probably didn't even care. He was just stating the obvious.
"It's none of your business." Law muttered and hurried past the man to his room, closing the door tightly behind him.
He didn't have much time to swim in his irritation though, as his mind soon became occupied with a more urgent matter.
His gaze shot up to the woman who was now standing next to a window, staring through it to distance. Law could tell she was vividly shaken and maybe even frightened, but that was normal to anyone who had just met Doflamingo in a not-so-friendly- air. Hell, if the man even managed to scare the shit out of his own family, he sure could awaken horror in people who had never met him before.
After making sure – from a distance – that the woman had no visible bruises, other than the one's from the morning's exercise, Law stormed to the balcony for a smoke.
His hands shook for an unknown reason when he picked a cigarette from his pack. Then he lit the cigarette and gave himself the relief to the pressure inside his mind.
/
/
/
"What would you call a thing that makes you want to cause pain to someone but that thing also prevents you from causing pain to that someone?"
Diamante rolled his eyes over the administrative papers in his hands, fixing them on the taller man's face, hoping to find any signs of joking. They didn't talk about deep, philosophic shit like that with his superior. Never. Unfortunately everything on the blond's face told him that the man was more serious than death.
"Well?" Doflamingo prompted impatiently.
"Uh, tell me more about that… uh, thing." Diamante said, making a face that implied he had a difficult time adjusting to their suddenly serious and very odd conversation.
Doflamingo lifted his left ankle to rest on his right knee, leaned his chin against his fists and closed his eyes. The frown on his forehead was a sign of thoughtfulness and frustration.
The brunette waited patiently until finally, after many, long minutes, the blond opened his eyes. Despite how much Diamante had hoped that he wouldn't, the blond threw a slightly frustrated stare at him and started to explain.
"It's like you have this small bird in a cage. You have it in there and you want to keep it for yourself only. You want to watch it and not show it to anyone else." Doflamingo held a pause to sigh at the elite officer's confused expression. "The bird's wings slowly wither in the cage where it can't fly, but you still can't let it go. You don't want to set it free but you have no other choice but to do so because you don't want for the bird to die. So the bird is suffering and slowly dying in the cage where it can't fly, only because you want to own it. But if you open door and let the bird fly to freedom where it's out of your reach, where someone else can capture it, you suffer."
Diamante gave the man a look that implied he had lost his mind, but after receiving a murderous glare, he quickly erased the expression from his face.
"First of all, a bird won't die if it's wings wither." The brunette started impassively "And second, I don't like birds. They shit everywhere so I wouldn't be keeping one as a pet."
Doflamingo buried his face in his hands, resisting the urge to bury his fist where he really wanted to bury them. Straight in the face of his idiotic brunette Elite Officer.
"Replace the bird with a human." He said, rubbing his temples to calm himself down.
"But why would I be keeping a human in a cage? Even our hostage isn't in a cage." The brunette asked with a puzzled tilt of his head.
"It was a figurative speech for fuck's sake Diamante!" Doflamingo roared, not able to control his frustration anymore. He had a short temper and everyone knew that.
"Oh." Diamante flinched at the hostile tone in the other man's voice and leaned back in his chair, quickly starting to translate what the other man had said figuratively, to plain English.
"So there is a person you want to own, but if you own them, they will be in pain. You don't want them to be in pain, so you let them go." The brunette tried and after receiving an encouraging raise of eyebrows from the blond, he continued speaking. "But you don't want anyone else to own them either because then you would be the one in pain."
"We'll I wouldn't say I'm in pain, but I hate it. And I want to cause him pain." Doflamingo muttered to himself eerily before rolling his gaze over to the brunette. "You're smart." He said, sarcasm obvious in his voice.
Of course Diamante only picked the compliment from his speech, ignoring his sarcastic tone.
"No I'm not." He said, suddenly fidgeting in his seat and looking happy like a puppet wagging it's tail.
"Yes you are, a genius." Doflamingo said, covering up for his sigh with a voice full of faked admiration. This was the only way to handle his elite officer if he wanted to get answers from the man any time soon.
"No, I really am not." The brunette replied, now fidgeting so much that the other man actually waited to see him fall off his seat. It never happened though.
"Whatever you say." Doflamingo raised his hands up as a sign of giving up.
"Well if you insist then I probably just have to admit that I am a genius." The brunette said with a flattered blush on his cheeks, his voice as humble as possible, contradicting his words.
"What about the thing? Did you figure it out?" Doflamingo asked and arched an eyebrow. His finger was tapping to the hard surface of the wooden table impatiently.
"Isn't that shit love or something like that? Insane and twisted, but sounds like love or maybe a sadistic obsession to me." Diamante said in a bored manner, waving his hand to imply that he wasn't interested in the subject anymore. He was obviously still bathing in his dreamland of flatters.
The blond had to irk his other eyebrow too, and then he slouched into a thoughtful posture on his seat, crossing his ankle over his knee again.
"Love, eh?" He murmured and then burst into amused, sinister laughter that sounded like a wordless way to say:`Yeah right.´
Insane, twisted and sadistic sounded more familiar. Obsession wasn't his favourite word, but it was much more better than the word the brunette had used about affection. His brain must have gone bad after doing fluffy, sickening shit with Bellamy.
Doflamingo had to admit he was disappointed with his elite officer. He had expected for the man to share his interests in bedroom, but apparently he was one of those boring `gentle lovers´ who didn't seek pleasure to it's fullest.
Speaking about pleasure, it was about time he needed release again. He was about to search for the number of one of his usual partners when a picture of raven hair fisted in his hand and a lean, pale body writhing under his own flashed through his mind. It immediately drew a reaction from him. A reaction in the form of a jolt on a certain part of his body.
Suddenly he didn't feel like calling one of the usual women anymore. He knew they weren't going to be enough to satisfy his needs, even if he went through every single one of them.
The blond man pushed his phone over the edge of the table in frustration, drawing Diamante's attention when it hit the hard floor with a bang.
"Fucking brat."
/
/
/
Thank you again, my beloved readers, for being patient with my lazy fingers that just will not write when I tell them to.
In case you are wondering "what the heck are manpris", you aren't alone there. I actually had to google capris for the correct grammar (because my writing app didn't recognize the word) and that's when I found the word manpris. They are capris for men, apparently, so there you go. I blew your mind, right?
Well then. Please leave me a review and look forward to the next chapter which should be up in no time :)