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A Dance for Two
Chapter Eleven – Eleventh Endeavor
"Only time can take away obsessions," Law read aloud. He was back in a room filled with small cotes, and several other boys were lying down, either asleep or staring listlessly at the ceiling. "There are other medications that can be tried for the bipolar, such as lithium carbonate, and psychological exercises for the obsessive-compulsive, but time and often distance is the greatest ally."
His voice was the only thing to be heard save for the buzzing of a fan someone had found and placed in the corner of the room in an effort to move around the stagnant, hot air. "Obsessions for the bipolar and obsessive-compulsive can range from persons, to objects, to numbers and other mathematical probability."
"Shut up, little whore. Some of us are trying to get some goddamn sleep here."
Law's voice didn't falter reading the passage, as the words of the other boy went through one ear and cleanly out the other. He was reading aloud to keep himself from feeling the full force of the lingering pain that remained from the piercings. He had dared to touch the earrings a few minutes ago and the punctures had stung, especially on his left ear where he'd jumped when the needle went awkwardly through the flesh for the second time.
"Certain compulsions ease anxiety for the afflicted, but only for a short amount of time, and then the anxiety often returns with greater force…"
He trailed off as someone slammed a door. His eyes flicked up to see one of the more burley boys had entered the room and was looking him over in a predatory way. This boy had a thick neck, so much out of place on his boyish body that Law had taken to jokingly calling him Necker behind his back. Law got up off his stomach, already on the offensive.
The boy grinned maliciously. "Where'd you get those earrings, bitch? They real gold? Bet they're worth a lot."
"Maybe we should take 'em," someone suggested, the same boy that had told Law to shut up hardly a minute before. Law gave him a scathing glare, but with the other boy in the room with them wasn't much for Law to fear. In fact, he was rather confident considering Law had made him piss his pants before. This boy he had nicknamed Pisser for obvious reasons.
"Even if we did rip them out of his ears, where the hell'd we be able to sell 'em? Nobody got money in here," a third boy piped up, appearing over the side of a bunk bed to stare down at Law with malevolent intent. Law knew he was one of the more cautious of boys, and a devout follower of the strongest in this quarter. It guaranteed his safety, which Law had to begrudgingly admit would've been nice every once and while.
"Dunno. Maybe we could trade them. With the miners. They could get us stuff and sell 'em at a pawn shop," the leader said, folding his arms and showing the premature muscles in his shoulders. Law almost laughed aloud. Necker looked absurd standing there like he owned the place. Hell, Necker looked absolutely absurd all the time.
"Nah, they'd just steal them and leave you losers with nuthin'," Law said, breaking up the argument. They all stared at him with mild irritation at his interruption. Then it seemed as though Law's words finally sunk into their thick skulls, for their faces became mean and impudent.
"You're the fucking loser, whore boy," Necker snarled.
Law took the thorn straight into his thigh. He growled, the tiny injuries to his pride piling up into a gaping wound, and leapt to his feet. "You wanna fight?"
"With a twiggy bitch like you? Sure. Big Boss Croc ain't here to save ya. Never even seen 'em in my life. 'E probably doesn't even exist and you probably stole those earrings."
Something caught Trafalgar's eye. It was a mop leaning against a doorframe. "In fact, gentlemen, I'll mop this floor with your goddamn blood."
He didn't wait for the bullies to gang up on him and attack in full force. He went straight for the mop, grabbing it by its handle. He swung it about in an arc, smashing into the head honcho's legs, right behind Necker's kneecaps.
It was so rare that he got to land the first hit. He savoured the cry of the older boy as his knees buckled. He didn't fall though, but Law knew he'd at least gotten in a bruise and some lasting pain.
The boy stationed on one of the bunk beds leapt down, landing beside him. Law tried to give Pisser a quick jab, but he his aim was off and the boy tackled him instead. He shook his body like a wet dog, not wanting to stay as stationary prey. Law knew the procedure; they'd grab him, push him down to the ground, and beat him until someone intervened. That was if he was lucky.
The other two were on him. One went for the length of the mop while the other stooped to get his legs. He knew falling would mean defeat, and kicked with all his might at the boy beneath his mop's immediate reach.
Crack.
He thought he broke someone's nose.
The boys were like a pack of hyenas. They didn't care how many of them got hurt when they went in for a kill. Law would bet that, like the hyenas he'd read about in Crocodile's lair, the boys would get so focused on drawing blood that they would begin to gnaw on each other, unaware of who was ally or enemy.
He kicked at the one trying to hold him, feeling little fingers on his neck. Those fingers clamped down and he gasped, trying to tuck his chin in an effort to dissuade those fingers from choking him. If only he could bite the fingertips off. He would, if the chance presented itself.
The leader of the pack slugged him in the side of the head.
He should have been paying Necker more attention. The boy had injured him more than once before, and always by using his brute strength, never his brains. Now he was on the ground, writhing, with two of the bastard children on top of him.
The only good thing was that the dumbass with the pointy fingertips had stopped trying to starve him of oxygen.
He got a blow to his gut. Then another.
Howling with pain-stricken anger, Law caught the attention of a certain bulky passerby. They stormed into the room, accessed the situation with pale blue eyes, and launched themselves at Law's most brutal attacker, knocking him to the ground. The other boy on Law reared back in alarm, and that was all the opportunity Law needed to stick a foot into the stomach of the more timid of his assailants.
Bepo only managed to give Necker a bruise on his jaw before Mr. 1 made his appearance. By this time in his career, Mr. 1 was quite accomplished in the field of intimidation and separation of assets. He kicked the boys apart and established order on behalf of the elusive, unseen Sir Crocodile.
"Who started this?" he barked in his deep bass tone.
The boy who held his bloody nose in his hands, the victim of Law's foot, let his hands stray from their duty keeping the red blood from falling on the scuffed flooring to point at Law. "He did!"
"I did not!" Law lied. "They ganged up on me!"
"I don't care if you all kill one another, I just care when the five of you chose to fight rather than rest. That tells me you're not tired enough and need more work to do." Law's friend and saviour in particular flinched. "Bepo, you ought to be in your dorm room trying to sleep, with the other boys who were repairing factory equipment." He directed his attention to the hyenas in the room. "And you three will report to Miss Valentine downstairs in the work rooms. As for you, Law…"
Mr. 1 hesitated, scrutinizing his new earrings with his dark eyes. They were a telltale sign that Law had already reported to Crocodile and that he'd fulfilled his reason for being.
"For the next week I'm giving you the duty of cleaning the kitchens after the cooking is done. Then you'll help with the laundry. You will not tell Crocodile, of course, for if you do I shall deal with you severely."
Law muffled a snort by raising the sleeve of his oversized shirt to his nose.
"I'll work with him," Bepo volunteered automatically. Law sent him a bereaved look. Bepo nearly always offered to alleviate any burden of Law's. "Give me half of his shifts. Or let me work next to him and we'll get it done quicker."
"Fine. I don't care. Just get out of my sight, you disgusting little sewer rats." He stared at Law in particular as he made that comment.
Bepo grabbed Law's arm and spirited him away down the corridor and out of Mr. 1's sight. It was no secret that the man abhorred Law, for when the little boy had first caught Crocodile's attention he had become something of a pampered doll. Or at least that was what it seemed like in Mr. 1's eyes. There were days when he dined in Crocodile's presence and others where he spent the day lounging around in the hidden library while everyone worked. Only Mr. 1 really knew about Crocodile's true fondness for the boy. Others merely speculated when Law appeared and disappeared like a phantom.
Jealousy bred hatred between Law and Mr. 1.
"He's going to kill you one day with his knives," Bepo said as they stopped running to catch their breath. A few adults passed them in the hall, their clothing sooty and their faces blackened by the mines in which they worked during the daylight hours. They didn't acknowledge the kids so long as they were out of the way, and Law grimaced as he realized next week Bepo would likely get a laundry shift again, like the week before. In addition to whatever he'd volunteered for Law's sake.
"Why do you always do that?" Law grumbled. "Why can't you just leave well enough alone? I don't have things to do most days, and you always have work."
"I like to be with you," Bepo answered simply. "You don't make fun of me."
Law shrugged. While he did think Bepo was a bit too soft around the edges and had his head in the dust clouds many days, there wasn't much to make fun of in his opinion. Of course, appearance wise there was a ton to make fun of Bepo for. Law just didn't think it was funny.
"You're crazy to ally yourself with me," Law said as they passed through a set of doors into a stinky place known as the Black Hole. It might have been a respectable kitchen, once. Now the dust that clung to all surfaces from the miners who brought it in darkened the fixtures by ten shades. It was hard to work in this windowless, stuffy environment, and as a result those on cooking duty were easily irritated.
They wandered into the throng of otherwise homeless people who earned the roof over their head by the number of potatoes they peeled or the carrots they chopped. Had Law been alone, he wouldn't have been immediately noticed, but with Bepo trailing behind him and dwarfing him in every way they garnished attention.
"No brats in the kitchen," someone said, voice kinder than most.
"We got sent to do cleaning," Law said. The man who addressed them pointed to the sinks overrun with dishes and cutlery. Beside the mound in the sink was a towering castle of pots and pans and other miscellaneous things. Must have been breakfast. "It's not that bad," Law said to Bepo as they went over.
"I think that's the first bit of optimism I've ever heard from you," Bepo said softly.
"I was just stating a fact," Law replied, peering down into the sink. There was stale water already in it, and after removing a bunch of the dishes he found the sink was clogged. "What the hell is that monster down there?"
He was, of course, referring to the muck stuck in the drain. Yet someone came over to look and offered to dislodge it. Law looked up to see that it was one of the higher-ranking men that reported to Mr. 1. Law had seen him around, but had never really been spoken to by the man. His name, if Law remembered correctly, was Galdino.
They spent a couple hours in the kitchen, and in that time Law studied Galdino, as he knew the man reported to Mr. 1 and had the capacity to get him in serious trouble if he so wished. He realized the man was supervising the operation, and couldn't help but note that every time he helped out he had a certain peculiar way of dealing with things.
There was something about the number three.
Bepo elbowed him after a particularly lengthy pause in his work drying the dishes Bepo scrubbed. He'd been staring too intently. "Hey. Wake up, Law."
"Sorry. It's just…that guy's got a thing going for him. He does everything three times." Bepo looked at him like he was crazy, and Law elaborated. "He checked to make sure the stove was off three times. In a row. Then he took out three knives from the drawer over there and put two back. Look, now he's doing it with the forks…"
"Huh. Maybe he's getting ready to serve Croc and doesn't want anything to go wrong?"
"Don't even mention Croc in my presence," Law growled, returning to his scrubbing with renewed vigour. Bepo kept silent for the remainder of their shift, only now he couldn't help but peek out of the corner of his eye and watch Galdino meticulously count things.
A week passed by until something of interest happened to the boys. They were in the laundry room, which was something of a factory space, and sorting through clothes that had been through the washer and dryer. Each piece of clothing had a number sewn on somewhere it would be easily visible, and they had gotten stuck with the job of running around trying to match numbers.
"I got an 82 shirt and a 79 pants left over," Bepo said glumly. "Do you think the washer ate their matches? Should I just put them together anyway?"
"They belong to two different people, Bepo," Law replied. "You don't want 82 beating 79 up, or vice versa, do ya?"
Bepo sighed. "Maybe the dryer ate them, not the washer. Should I look?"
"Naw, don't bother. It'll take too much time to search all the machines." Law let his eyes sweep over the expanse of machinery, some stacked on top of one another. Most were front loading machines, and a few were still going, noisily chugging along. Law wondered how much water they used up every week. Laundry was almost a daily thing.
He was just glad he only had to do it every once and a while.
He turned back to Bepo, who was still distressing over mismatched clothes. The shirt with the patch on it that said 82 was clearly assigned to a bigger man than the pants labeled with 79. "Here, let me see. We could always just throw them back into a washer and hope nobody notices. Then it'll be someone else's problem."
Bepo tossed him the heavy garments, designed to withstand wear and tear. Law turned them over in his hands, deciding that it would be easier to wrap the shirt around the pants if he balled them up. So he tried to fold the pants as tightly as possible, shaking them out first to try and remove the wrinkles that would bulk it up.
Something metal fell from the pants and bounced down the tile floor. Bepo stared and picked up the coins that had fallen. "Money?" he muttered, curiously turning it around in his hands.
Law dropped the pants, almost scampering over to see what Bepo had picked up, then a thought hit him and he picked up the pants again to search its pockets. Sure enough, he found more squirreled coins.
"Huh, Mr. 1 would shoot this guy if he knew he was hoarding money in his work clothes," Bepo said jokingly. There was a hint of truth to that.
"Yeah, that's not allowed," Law muttered. "Maybe we ought to pocket this, considering we're not miners."
Bepo stared at him, his jaw slack so his lips parted stupidly. "What? Like, steal?"
"I don't think of it as stealing," Law said. He dropped the coins on the ground, then picked them back up. "See, I picked them up off the ground, so they're mine now."
Bepo did not look so sure of that. "I don't want these."
Law shook his head in disbelief. He strode forward and took the coins out of Bepo's palm, shoving them into his pocket before anyone came into the laundry room. "Bepo, he real world runs on these."
"But we don't live in the real world," Bepo replied with a forced laugh. "We live in here. I dun wanna get in trouble for hoarding things. What if Mr. 1 finds out?"
Law snorted. "He won't find out. Besides, if we ever want to escape, we're going to need these," he jingled the coins in his pocket, "to survive."
"…I don't know if I want to leave after all," Bepo said. "At least in here we have a place to stay. Food to eat. And all that."
Law was growing increasingly irritated. "Yeah, but out there is the whole world. In here is nothing. Don't you want to go outside?"
He knew Bepo was fearful, but he didn't want Bepo to just grow up to be one of Croc's disposable miners. He saw it as much too simple a life. The oppression he felt now he knew that Bepo would eventually feel when maturity set in, and he wanted to get him out before that happened. When Bepo became more knowledgeable about the outside world, he'd realize there was more to life than the repetitiveness of the poorhouse. Outside, there were opportunities, he just knew it.
In truth, there weren't that many kids held in the Baroque with them. Just enough for some of the menial duties to be preformed. Older kids were moved up to different occupations, some of them joining the rank of miners that scoured the earth for riches that would be sent out for manufacturing or wherever it was they went. Law didn't care enough to press Crocodile for the answers.
"I guess going outside would be awesome," Bepo said slowly. He looked around him, wary of listening ears that could prosecute them later. "That's why I just want to get through these years. Move up."
Law shook his head; Bepo had been so brainwashed by the conditions of everyday, and he was beginning to think it wouldn't be possible to save him. "Well, I'm escaping. I just gotta figure out how to do it without getting caught. I wasn't born here like you – I know outside's a better place to be, even if I end up sleeping in the streets hungry. It's better because then you're free, and you can do whatever the hell you want."
Bepo pondered this, playing with his hands and digging dirt out from beneath his cuticles. "I guess. But we can't just walk out."
"That's why it's called escape, Bepo," Law said sternly. "We can't just walk out because we're considered the property of this place. Or at least that's what we're told. I'm nobody's property."
"Me too," Bepo chimed in. His eyes turned downward and he grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt, twisting it around his little fists. "Well, if you do decide to leave, don't go without me. I couldn't stand to be by myself again."
"Even if I get out first, I'll come back and get you," Law promised. He looked towards a clock hung high up on the wall with a steel lattice around it. "We should get upstairs and eat. Save up our strength. We'll do some planning later when everyone's asleep. I have a plan, but it involves using Croc's secret entrance in his library. There's a reason most people never see him, after all."
Bepo gulped at the mention of the elusive owner of the workhouse and seemed about to back down from the challenge, but Law flashed him such a confident grin that Bepo couldn't help but try to feebly return it.
Law's heart pounded in his chest as Crocodile's palm closed over his eyes.
He winced, for several reasons, and tried to get away but Crocodile's one good hand drifted to grasp his shoulder. He was held in place firmly, and seeing Crocodile's scowl anew made his heart feel as though it had burst and stopped supplying blood to his brain.
"Who did this to you?" Crocodile asked, his voice no more than an lizard-like hiss. His eyes flicked over the unsightly bluish-yellow bruise that decorated Law's left temple. "Well?"
His voice was so utterly commanding that Law was forced to concede, "Mr. 1. He got mad and hit me."
His calm tone surprised the both of them. Truthfully, during the walk down concrete stairs into the Croc's abode, Law had been silently mouthing the words he needed to say. Now, to finally say them in front of the man was terrifying, but he was well rehearsed.
Crocodile's face contorted in anger and he seemed almost poised to strike Law, his clawed stump raised above Law's head. Law sucked in a deep breath as the hook descended upon him, moving through his black locks of hair parting them down his scalp. He clenched his eyelids closed and angled his head down, afraid that if he moved backwards the end of the hook would puncture his skull. He felt it, cold and dangerous, slithering down the back of his head and neck, then come around to his front and lift up his chin so it pointed at the rather low ceiling. He opened his eyes and blinked at the silhouetted shadow above him, standing in the way of the overhead incandescent light that coloured the room a putrid yellow.
"I'm surprised he'd do this. He knows better than to mar my Pet. Now, what did you do to upset him?"
Law swallowed, the skin of his throat moving over the cold metal. "I said something he didn't like. He put me on duty cleaning the kitchen, and I told him what you always tell me – that I'm not supposed to get my hands dirty."
"Or anything else for that matter," Crocodile growled. The hook left his chin and drifted away, allowing Law to breath a sigh of relief without worry that he would injure himself. "I'll settle this matter. Until then, stay here."
Dry lips descended on his forehead, and Law comforted himself with the sole thought that, perhaps, this would be the very last time he'd have to feel them on his skin. Crocodile brushed past him, his pinstripe suit smoothing against Law's tattered black shirt, sending a shiver down his body.
He turned to watch Crocodile leave, and when he was out of sight beyond the heavy door that led to the hallway, Law began to search.
He'd never found anything before, but always he'd been under the watchful eye of the man he'd just sent stomping his way upstairs to find his second in command. Now that he was out of the Croc's hungry gaze, his heart settled down while his stomach twisted itself in knots. What if he was wrong? What if Crocodile didn't have some sort of other route to get outside?
When Crocodile returned, he wanted to be long gone from the Baroque, preferably with Bepo who was waiting at the corner of the hallway that led down towards Crocodile's chamber. Bepo had taken some convincing to stand in plain sight of Crocodile, a man he'd never seen before but knew existed from Law's vivid descriptions, and would head downstairs to meet Law before anything happened.
He hoped Bepo remembered to hide his right fist where his knuckles were badly bruised. Bruises showed up starkly against albino skin, but Bepo had been the only one Law trusted to punch him in a location that wouldn't hurt too bad. Except, it had taken a lot of tries, because Bepo wasn't one to hit hard, especially when his only friend was on the receiving end.
Mr. 1 was supposed to be on the far side of the workhouse at the moment, patrolling the only entryway the building had. There was always someone stationed there, making sure only those with permission were allowed out and back inside. Of course, the miners were usually the only ones with such rights, and right now was peak activity time for movement through those doors, requiring a tighter guard. Hence why Law had chosen the time.
His fingers scrapped over nooks in the bookcases. No, had there been some secret passage he would have already located it during his perusal of the texts inside the library. He ran over to Crocodile's desk and sifted quickly through everything on top, then quickly checked what lay in the drawers and underneath. No clues whatsoever, only he noticed that there was an unusually excessive amount of dirt on the laminate floor, signifying where in the room Crocodile spent the majority of his time.
Law dropped a paper containing information on Alabasta Desert, what kind of ores it contained and the minerals that could be excavated from them. His frustration was mounting. He stuffed his hands into his pockets where everything of value to him had been placed. Coins, someone's silver necklace, and a plethora of other relatively useless articles that may or may not hold value in the 'real' world filled his pockets and he sifted through them with the tips of his fingers. Though the majority of the items were stolen and stockpiled under his bed in one of the boy's dorms for the past few years, they brought him great comfort.
He circled the room twice with his hands stuffed inside of his pants, searching the wall for some trace of the abnormal. There was nothing. He'd been so, so wrong. And now Bepo would also fall prey to this trap he'd sprung on himself. He slumped against a wall and placed a palm over his left temple. It stung and throbbed with its own separate pulse, but nothing could contend with the rapid beating of his heart.
Then he noticed it, staring out vacantly at the room. The bizarrely out of place circle of dirt that seemed thicker in that one area than every other place in the room, not including the underside of the desk.
With his interest piqued, Law padded over and peered down, wondering what the significance of this dark patch was. His mind told him it was nothing, but his gut didn't allow him to pass it off as just a bunch of dirt.
He walked around it, trying to think. Naturally, his mind strayed to thoughts of what he would say to Crocodile when he returned to find him and Bepo standing in the middle of the room, one not supposed to be there at all and the other having freshly lied to his face.
With tears threatening to invade the corners of his eyes, Law stretched his head back and sucked in a deep breath of stale air. He blinked his tears away, willing himself to be braver than he felt so he could come up with something good to say about why Bepo had little to do with anything.
His eyes caught an outline in the ceiling that didn't match the rest of the dark beige paint, rectangular in shape and being the only thing so far to catch his attention besides the dirty floor.
He studied it, his eyebrows knitting together. Then his mouth parted slightly. He was in the deepest part of the building, well below ground level. Why hadn't he thought of going straight up?
The thought of finding stairs through a hidden door off of the library had been what his mind had fixated on, and the idea of going straight up through the ceiling hadn't once crossed him as a viable escape plan. Now though, he searched Crocodile's desk with the intent of finding another clue.
He slung all of the papers onto the ground, all of the pens and old dishware that Crocodile had amassed down in his crypt. Glass smashed and plastic pens bounced, and the papers made a whooshing sound as they scattered all over the dirty floor. There was nothing under them but a dusty surface which he marked with his fingerprints, so he turned once again to the drawers in the desk, this time taking out everything regardless of what it appeared to be.
His hand passed over something heavy that refused to budge as if it were affixed to the inside of the drawer. He clawed at the box shape, bending into a crouch and placing his eye at an angle to see into the dark drawer.
There was nothing more out of place in the room than what lay in this drawer. His fingers poked and prodded it, and something under his index and middle finger gave way and beeped softly.
He jumped when the ceiling shook and he instantly remembered reading about earthquakes in a book once, and how when involved in one the best thing to do was to get under something and out of the way of falling debris. Only, he didn't have any intention of crawling under Crocodile's desk and hiding. No, he leapt up and faced the earthquake head on.
He wasn't sure what he had been hoping for, but to see his stairway to heaven fall short of the ground placed a pit of disappointment deep in his stomach. The structure was metal, and it was clear that it folded down right to the floor, but what was even more clear was that it was a two-step process, and Law didn't think he'd be able to move past step one.
His eyes glued themselves to the chain dangling from the bottommost part of the staircase. In his mind's eye he saw Crocodile easily reaching above his head to pull it down and exiting his chamber with ease. Then his imagination put him in the same situation, only he was jumping for the chain with his fingertips missing by a hair's breadth.
Regardless, he pushed forward, running over to the stairs that came out of the ceiling and looking up at their suspended bulk. From the ground he could see the metal latch that had doubtlessly released with the aid of the button on the electronic box hidden away in Crocodile's desk. He stretched an arm out above his head and stood on the tips of his toes. As he already knew, he didn't come close to reaching the chain. He jumped a few times, testing to make completely sure of his inadequate height.
Determined not to be defeated by a mere lack of a few inches, Law searched the room for something to stand on. The chair Crocodile always sat in was the first object to catch his interest, but practicality dismissed it. The chair was an outrageously heavy leather model, an armchair that was meant to stay in one spot for a long period of time, which it had certainly already accomplished if the dust and wear was anything to judge by.
He looked to the next best thing – his paper friends, the books.
Stacking a bunch of them was easy and quick. He had six thick volumes, textbooks on mining and other engineering things he had little interest in, put into place before too long. He stood on top of them gingerly, and reached up. Then he jumped and found he would need another two texts at the very least. So he got two more, stacked them precisely, and tried scramble on top only to find it awkward and hard to get the books to remain in place. So he grabbed more, and made his own little stair to help him get onto his book block.
The chain above felt frigid in his grip, and he tugged on it as hard as he could. He could feel some kind of mechanism trying to give, but he did not possess Crocodile's thickly muscled arms. He grasped the chain with both hands and shoved of the book stack to use his full weight, which was slight, but thankfully enough.
The stairway creaked down with more noise than Law was prepared for and the moment his feet touched the ground he threw himself out of the path of the falling metal joints. The loud crack it made against the hard floor rung in his ears many times as he got back up off his knees.
He beheld the fallen structure with bewilderment, hearing the room send a high-pitched echo ricocheting around the room and, likely, down the hallway.
Instinctively, he spun on his heel and faced the door, expecting the noise to attract Crocodile back into his chambers. His heart began raced with renewed vigor, and he put one foot on the first steel step to test it. Somehow, looking up into the dark hole in the ceiling above and with one foot on the stair, he felt for the first time that maybe what he was doing was foolish.
He wrapped his fingers around the railing that had come down with the stairs and turned back to the door, expectant. Enough minutes had passed by now. Someone should have arrived.
Where was Bepo? He was supposed to be in the library with him at this point. Law had calculated everything there was to calculate, exactly the number of wide strides it took to go from the hallway to the library, the time in minutes, and even hypothesized how long it would take an angry Crocodile to get from his library to Mr. 1 at the front entrance. There was no way he was lacking in calculations. The numbers spun around in his head, reassuring him. Had something happened then, to give reason for this delay? He grit his teeth as he conjured up a dozen scenarios easily, each one ending with no chance of escape.
A horrible thought passed him by. Should he leave Bepo behind and go on without him? There was really little chance that he could break him out at a later date by himself, but maybe he'd be able to get someone from the outside to help him?
The thought seemed ludicrous given that he had nothing to offer anyone for their assistance except for a few cents in his pockets and a broken silver necklace.
His face flushed as a wave of panic settled in. He had come close to feeling something akin to panic earlier, but it had been tucked away while his brain was working hard to figure out Crocodile's usual getaway route to the outside world. Now, waiting for Bepo to come, he realized there was really nothing he could do to put the odds further in their favour except wait.
Or leave. That was still an option, though he didn't even want to consider it until he knew for sure whether or not Bepo was coming. Had Bepo chickened out on him? Was he waiting only for Crocodile's return?
No, Bepo wouldn't do that. They'd both sworn to see Law's plan through, and Law knew Bepo would rather bear the damage wrought by a furious Mr. 1 than lose the trust of his only friend.
Suddenly, his heart swelled with relief. He could hear footsteps rushing towards the room. He tensed on the stairwell, getting ready to bolt up the metal steps to freedom. All that he needed to do before that was send a quick signal to Bepo to follow his lead.
He grinned and took another step, keeping his eyes trained on the closed door. He had no doubt that Bepo would open the heavy door easily.
Sure enough, the door opened without a hitch. So perfectly, in fact, that before Law saw who was on the other side a part of him already knew, and his feet did not freeze in place but rather they began to move up the stairwell.
He didn't dare glance over his shoulder as he took the steps faster than he thought he'd be able to, as he knew he wouldn't be able to stomach the livid expression contorting Crocodile's face.
A.N.: It can only go downhill from here. Sorry guys, it's been hectic these days and updates (especially for this story) will be sporadic at best.
So, Law's flashback will likely last a half chapter and then we'll be back to the present (YAY!) and hopefully Kidd (double YAY!) With all hope, right?