pairing: uMMM haha
summary: "How would it be alternatively if law caught Soph and Sabo and it became a love triangle? Even with ace... a love square? How do you think that'd go?" - anonymous on tumblr
words: 8000
notes: warnings for language, law in denial, dirty thoughts.
sword x gun x fire x staff
Sophie was taking more calls than usual.
That in and of itself wasn't alarming. She had friends outside of the crew, despite her insistence that they were just unlucky sods putting up with her eccentricities.
The Polar Tang's collection of Den Den Mushis were all kept in the humid little greenhouse below the bathroom's stubbornly leaky pipes. They called it a greenhouse mostly as a joke; it was a small alcove where Manta kept his plants and they grew fresh herbs. But there was enough greenery for the snails to nibble on, and when they were happy and satisfied, their communication signals grew stronger. That was always important when you were sailing one hundred meters below the sea.
It was there that Law glimpsed her yet again, chatting with her back turned towards him, surrounded by leafy plants. Her free hand—the one that wasn't holding the phone's round receiver—was playing with the springy chord. Twisted her fingers into it, right by her hip where she'd tied the sleeves of her boiler suit. Her right foot tapped, a sign of her thinking. Some kind of discussion was happening, and she was absorbed in it, judging by the fervor in her voice.
The snail was looking up at Sophie with some kind of vaguely amused expression while waiting for its chance to speak. Which it did, when she was finished. And Law heard the voice.
A papercut of irritation itched in his sternum. Nothing big. (Intelligent, well-spoken, handsomely burned, she likes burns, intelligent, military commander, intelligent—) Ignorable. Law walked it off, Sophie's reply echoing across the tinny metal walls after him.
Later, he broached the topic at dinner with a performatively bored, "You can't catch a break from Sabo-ya."
Blinking, the noodles falling from chopsticks mid-bite, Sophie closed her mouth, made a noise like mmmm, and nodded. As if she had to take a moment to remember what her captain was talking about. As if she didn't even notice how much time she was spending with her constant phone companion.
"We've been discussing government." She shrugged. "I don't know half as much as him, but for some reason he likes asking my thoughts on it. Honestly, I think he just likes picking arguments." Sophie sniffed a little. "My regime would be glorious, but he's too much of a rabblerouser to see it."
Sabo of the Revolution had plenty of experienced army generals to consult. Made perfect sense he'd call the resident chemist aboard a pirate ship for… advice.
Law stopped himself there. He wasn't going to inadvertently disparage his own crewmate. Who cares if she was talking to Sabo? Her mind was leagues above most; it was natural anyone would come to her for a good discussion. And he wasn't going to act… what was this, was he fucking jealous? Internally, he recoiled at the very thought. Please. That would be pathetic.
"Makes sense," he replied seriously. "Your IQ is vastly superior to his."
Her first reaction was a pig-like snort, and then a flustered, trilling laugh that startled the others into glancing over. Sophie went back to shoveling food into her mouth, equally pleased and embarrassed. Beneath the table, her foot gave him an appreciative little kick.
The papercut-itch in his sternum vanished, melted away back into whatever miserable hollow it crawled out from.
Their relationship was vague and ill-defined—thanks to him and his stone heart that had no room for anything but a single-minded goal—but it wasn't fragile. Sophie could fuck a hundred other people, but at the end of the day, her attention was always going to come back to him.
Her leg stretched out so her foot shyly touched the tip of his, and Law allowed himself to forget about her mushi calls with scarred men in top hats. (He knew she preferred his furry one, anyway.)
Well, they were bound to run into each other at some point.
A revolution.
An island overrun with scavenging bandits.
A pirate captain hunting bounties for hearts.
Winter hung low over the island of Fensalir, which was caught in a grueling trifecta between its king, its people, and the raiders hungry for easy pickings. Long blue shadows stretched over the snow, cast by a tall forest of thick pines and simple log houses with smoke curling out of their chimneys. It was a village in the outskirts, reasonably hidden by a mountain pass and far away enough from the capital to engage in conspiracy.
The stinging wind was familiar, as was the shade of frost clouding the portholes of the Polar Tang as it rose from the sea, and the chill between his teeth. The Hearts were stamping through the forest, layered in fur coats. Bepo rejoiced, flopping belly-first into the snow. It was familiar, but not quite North. A shade off from the purest white-blue of the coldest winter. But it wasn't bad.
"How are you not freezing your balls off?" Anko yowled at the North Blue boys; he was shivering so hard he was practically vibrating. Uni and Clione looked similarly woeful, and Ikkaku had attached herself to Bepo and wasn't letting go.
"You get used to it," Law said, ruffling his helmsman's hair.
"Ice in your fucking veins, Cap," Anko groused. Penguin and Shachi pounced on him, informing him seriously this was how actual penguins huddled for warmth as he glared.
At their sighting, revolutionary officers emerged from the houses, many of them bandaged and all of them carrying guns beneath their cloaks. The blond man with a pipe slung on his back lifted his gloved hand in greeting.
Sophie, in a bundle of ermine furs and yellow curls, bounded forward. She hesitated as she neared Sabo, first reaching for a handshake, then a high-five, then settled on patting him quickly on the arm. This incredibly awkward hello didn't deter Sabo. He scooped her up in a proper hug, arms wrapped tight around her waist, lifting her half a foot off the snow as Sophie yelped and kicked her legs, their steaming breaths mingling together.
Law eyed him. After Marineford, he couldn't hold this reaction against Sabo. Even if he wanted to.
After Sabo plopped her back down with a bright grin, Koala threw her arms around Sophie's shoulders. Law eyed her, too.
"Look at you, Hexhead," Sabo laughed, and made a show of brushing off his coat as if he hadn't brazenly embraced her first. "Were you that eager to see us again?"
"Only so I can fix your hair," she shot back, standing on her tiptoes. "Biggest rebel faction in the world and you can't even invest a few beli into buying a comb?"
Perhaps it was the falling snow. Perhaps it was just the cold. There was the faintest tinge of pink on Sabo's ears. The color was creeping up his neck, which Law saw as he bent his head slightly to allow her to brush the shaggy hair by his neck.
Law cleared his throat.
"Trafalgar." Sabo straightened up and grinned, shameless. Law was struck with an understanding: they both knew what was going on. "As agreed, the bandits are yours. If you keep them off our backs, we'll keep the marines off yours."
Law allowed nothing to show on his face. As if a hint of emotion would make him lose a contest he hadn't even signed up for. "Let's make it quick," he said curtly, brushing past the officers.
"Been ages since we've seen snow!" Shachi swung his arm around Sabo. "Nice going, bro, picking this spot to wage war."
Sabo straightened his hat. "You know we don't pick which islands fight for independence, right?"
Behind him, Law heard Sophie gasp, "Really? You're not a fairy? You don't bring revolutions whenever someone chants your name three times in front of a burning throne?" Was it just him, or was it overtly teasing? Not that there was anything wrong with that. She could tease whomever she liked. And Shachi, too. And anyone in his crew. It wasn't even about her.
They went inside a wooden longhouse commandeered by the Army. The sudden tightness in his lungs was surely caused by the roaring fire pit. The officers scrounged up some warm food and drink, surrounded by gunpowder barrels and swords being sharpened on whetstones. Law went to work immediately, going over the bounties on Fensalir's bandits and where they were last spotted.
It grew hot enough that the Hearts pulled off their furs. Sophie peeled off her gloves, sweating lightly since she was sitting so close to the fire. As if he'd been waiting for that, Sabo sat across from her at the table, and outstretched his hand—which was now also ungloved—to greet her properly. She shook it.
Detached, Law watched.
And then Sabo clasped her in both hands and leaned forward, engaging her in a grim discussion about the state of the revolution. But he was still holding her hand in his. And his thumb was tracing the deep, wrinkled scars that contorted her knuckles.
The movement was so light that Sophie didn't seem to notice it. She nodded, listening to the Revolutionary Army's struggle with businesslike focus, and did a very good job of pretending her gaze wasn't straying to the crawling mass of burned muscle on Sabo's face. Maybe she did notice what his hands were doing. Maybe she was fine with it. Maybe she even liked…
Then he realized what he was doing and promptly engrossed himself in planning how to round up hearts as quickly as possible. But his vision was being pulled back by a traitorous magnetic force: glancing at Sophie again, watching her trace the outline of Sabo's striking scar with her eyes. It wasn't fair. Law could've also had scars that looked like that. Only he ended up with his Devil Fruit at thirteen, which ensured he was capable of stitching up any wound or otherwise evading them in the first place.
Fair, he thought, a burst of frustration coming out of nowhere. What the hell do I care about that?
Law scratched his chest. The papercut-itch was growing.
They played games with each other, sometimes. He'd say something annoying, very much on purpose, but quietly enough for no one else to overhear. Would be in bad taste for the crew to think he was genuinely insulting Sophie. But it was all a part of the game.
And the game was: he'd get a rise out of her with something-or-other, and she'd retort, very sharply, cutting him down to size. He'd respond with a gallingly factual observation, and Sophie's face would flush, and her eyes would get steely, and she used her anger as an excuse to prod his arm. Or poke his belly. Or get very, very close to him as she explained at length the proper method for a titration.
The game went unspoken, of course. A pretext for them to get closer whenever they (he) wanted to. The way Sophie would sometimes stop, suddenly hug her arms, and step back with an embarrassed look made it easy to imagine that she was struggling to control herself. It was immensely enjoyable sport, if Law didn't linger on how scummy it was, objectively, to torment her like her feelings for him were nonexistent. It was, after all, just a game.
But on their second day in the winter country, he saw something that made him rethink that.
Law watched between the crack in the ajar door, and the papercut in his sternum tore open so wide it left him breathless.
They were talking about the best way to flip the king's loyalists to the Revolutionary Army's side. Supposedly. Sabo was showing her papers of compiled information on his desk, and he did so by leaning his hip right beside her stretched-out legs, his hat off and his hair all tousled and pale in the crisp light.
And Sophie—she was sitting in the birch chair with the tall back, her feet casually resting on the edge of the desk. She was speaking up at Sabo, only Law couldn't hear what she was saying, as he was too focused on watching her scarred hands trailing along the arms of the chair that could only belong to the Chief of Staff. She was still talking, and it was no doubt intelligent and insightful and the fact that he couldn't hear any of it was further proof that he was the scum of the earth. Her fingers were absently rubbing up and down the smooth wood. Up and down. Up and down.
Law couldn't see where Sabo was looking at, but he sure as hell saw the slowly stiffening line of his back. And then his hand came up to rest, friendlike, on the tip of Sophie's boot where it perched on his desk. His fingers curled over the leather, not even minding the dirt on the bottom of the sole.
She seemed to take it as a challenge, because her eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted in a smirk, and she tried to jab Sabo's thigh with one of his quills. He didn't jump back. On the contrary, he swooped down and said something in a voice that dipped unacceptably low. His fingers slid up the laces of her boot like a slithering serpent, as if he was going to untie her shoe right there, right there in front of Law. And then they were talking roughly, snarking back and forth, her eyes glittering in delight as she tried to keep ahead of her opponent's wit.
It never occurred to him that she could play games with someone else.
As Sabo leaned an inch closer, there came a swift knock on the door. It was time for a heart-hunt. Outside, the stags were prepared and the crew was waiting. But as Law calmly and unemotionally considered his new revelation, he wondered if he perhaps didn't need one hundred hearts. He could deliver the Revolutionary Army's Chief of Staff slimy organs directly to the doorstep of Mary Geoise, and that would be worth a hundred hearts twice over. Perhaps he could even package Sabo's severed head in a box, keep it pretty with formaldehyde. Wouldn't that be a lovely sight?
Sophie looked up in surprise, and Sabo turned with a matching expression. What, were they so focused on each other that their Observation went dead? Hm. Fine. This just meant Sophie's Haki could do with some training soon, and as a responsible captain, he was honor-bound to help.
Excellent thinking. Next, Law had to come up with a reason why his mouth was so dry.
Beaming at him as if nothing was wrong, she hopped out of Sabo's chair and picked up her coat and rifle. Law stared back. She couldn't be this oblivious. It defied human rationality.
"Is everyone ready?" Sophie chirped, passing by him with a little approving pat on his fluffy coat. She smelled like charcoal from the fire, warm and smoky. "Let's go, Captain."
Not even a flicker of guilt. Was she doing this on purpose? Couldn't she tell Sabo's machinations didn't only apply to the kingdoms he was overthrowing? Or was she trying to provoke a reaction out of him? She wouldn't do that to me. The grumpily defensive thought pounded in Law's head, before he could swat it away.
Sophie went out first, without waiting. He heard her shriek as a snowball met her face-first, and then holler threats as she chased after their snickering crew. Picking up his top hat, Sabo paused at the door and looked at the pirate blocking his path. Law wordlessly tapped the handle of Kikoku against Sabo's chest.
At the very least, he didn't condescend him by pretending he was clueless. "Sophie's smart," Sabo said with an inoffensive shrug.
Yeah. He was preaching to the choir.
"I'd be a fool not to ask her advice when we're fighting kings and marines and the entire world that she came from. You'd do the same, Trafalgar. I need all the help I can get. Try to remember that she's doing a good thing, helping. I saw what you did for my brothers in Marineford. I know you can stomach it."
After a jaw-clenching pause, Law made it clear that the last thing that would've affected his decision to help rescue Ace and Luffy in the war was Sabo's relation to them. In any case: "I won't stop her if she wants to help you. That's her prerogative. But—"
But. But? The word was a stone in his mouth. He didn't know what he wanted to say with that. Suddenly, Law felt extremely exasperated at himself. He wasn't Sophie's goddamn chaperone. Being a possessive caveman asshole wasn't his speed. And the fact of the matter was, he wouldn't be doing this for the rest of the crew, not even for Hai Xing. They were grown-ass adults. If she wanted to have some fun on the side, that was her fucking business. If she wanted to sit on Sabo's chair, or on Sabo's desk, or take off all her clothes except for her leather boots, or touch Sabo's scar as she spread her knees, or—
He was getting a splitting headache. Was he ill?
Sabo appraised him with a strangely thoughtful look in his fucked-up eye. Law tore apart the prickling feeling down the back of his neck and leveled him his flattest, deadest glare, the one that once made Anko whisper if their captain should get exorcised, like, just in case.
"…It's interesting," Sabo said, after a beat. "You act like you're hers, but you're not."
Silence.
"At least, she doesn't seem to think so. And that's what matters in the end, really."
He forced his jaw to unhinge. "That means nothing to me. Your point?"
"I don't have a point," Sabo said with a look so politely flabbergasted Law almost respected him for his acting chops. "I'm the second-in-command of an international military. I have wars to fight, dictators to overthrow, democracies to help create. I have better things to do than chase smart girls who yell at me about free elections and the right to protest."
"Ostensibly."
After a slow second, Sabo's eyes hooded. He smiled. "Ostensibly."
The gaping bloody cut in Law's chest grew fangs, little horns, a forked tail.
"If it helps," he continued in that charming, casual voice, hands held behind his back and spinning his pipe in flashes of silvery-blue metal, "think of Sophie as a temporary, part-time consigliere."
"You this friendly to all your war councilors?" Law inquired, hating how thin his voice sounded.
"Well," Sabo said innocently, and a handsome grin curled beneath that writhing burn, his bad eye darkening until it almost matched his good one. "Maybe you'll get a chance to see how friendly I can be, considering your fondness of voyeurism."
That afternoon, Kikoku did a lot of stabbing.
There was only one bounty head among the bandits they encountered. He'd been promised at least a dozen.
"They're not all going to show up in one place, Cap," Penguin pointed out, slinging back a cup of hot mead. "We'll scout the southern villages. The Army's info hasn't been wrong before." He was clearly confused by the sound of his captain's grinding jaw.
Logically, Penguin was right. Law had expected something like this to happen—not exactly this, but in the realm of 'not having his mastermind plans go off perfectly without a hitch', which never really happened in the first place, anyway.
When they came back from the hunt and were drying themselves out by the fire, Sabo had beckoned Sophie over to a pile of old maps drawn on animal skin. They were discussing the geography for a land-based assault on the Fensalir king's stronghold, and she was advising him on what the World Government would do to help defend the city.
She was still damp from the outing, frost melting on her hair and her furs, her cheeks and nose tinged pink from the chill. "My guess is they're going to pretend these mountain passes aren't well-guarded when they definitely are, so if you send your crow whisperer to the north… the freaky-deaky one with probably some kinda fetish, you know?"
"Do I know Karasu?" Snorting, Sabo reached over and untwisted a stray twig from her hair. "Yeah, we've met once or twice."
She ran a hand through her disheveled curls. "Oh, thanks."
Some pine needles fell, and Sabo brushed them off her shoulder. The look he shot Law was a quick, flashing thing of evil, the corner of his rosy, cold-bitten lip crooked up. His bad eye had the fucking audacity to wink at him before it followed his right, looking back at Sophie. "No problem. When did you turn into a wood-sprite?"
"Yes, yes, the dirt and sweat is very glamorous," she said, smiling dryly at Sabo with the mouth she once fucked Law with.
Koala inserted herself between them, and he assumed that his blood pressure that just shot through the roof had a chance of lowering. But then the orange-haired temptress licked her thumb, grasped Sophie, and scrubbed away a bit of dirt on her cheek. A flustered sound escaped his crewmate. Koala snapped, "At least let her clean herself off before you start being annoying," at Sabo, and pulled Sophie over to the baths behind the longhouse.
The baths. Ikkaku and Bepo and a few of the others were still in there. He felt himself gruffly relaxing. They were safe. Part of the crew.
Of course. That's what this was. The reason why he was so antsy watching the revolutionaries interact with Sophie; they weren't a part of the crew. That made perfect sense. (Never mind that all the other officers were interacting perfectly fine with the rest of the Hearts.)
He plotted in his corner like a portent of death, in his all-black fur coat and a black sword dappled with crosses that stood beside him, as tall as a man itself. He could withstand another day of this. Even two, even three, if it was just the wily, articulate, blond-haired insurgent with an enthusiasm for chemists who he had to keep an eye on. Law exhaled quietly, satisfied he had come to an unbiased, objective explanation for the nasty curdling feeling in his chest.
The next morning, a raft with paddlewheels and a lone sail appeared beside the Polar Tang. A spot of fire shivered on the coast.
"Shit, it's cold," Fire Fist Ace sniffled, shirtless beneath his cloak.
Fensalir became famously rich, as with just about every other great kingdom, on the backs of its hunters and farmers and laborers. They exported furs that sold at exorbitant prices in other countries, especially the summer ones where a blanket made of soft grey pelt might go for tens of thousands of beli. And the Whitebeard Pirates, bleeding heavily after Edward Newgate's death and losing territories left and right to Blackbeard, wanted in on the trade.
Ace had been sent by Marco to see if they could barter a deal. The king of Fensalir was historically a strong ally of the World Government, and there'd never been an opportunity for a pirate to slip in and divert some gold for themselves, not even an Emperor.
Except for now. There was a revolution going on. And a brother to throw some firepower behind.
Which was great for Sabo, and the Revolutionary Army, and Sophie, who got to see a dear friend again, and the Hearts, who were all star-struck by the freckled cowboy/Whitebeard Commander/secret son of Gold Roger, the Pirate King.
It was not so great for Law.
No one needed that many epithets anyway. It was obnoxious.
If he felt a spasm of annoyance when Sabo hugged Sophie, it was full-out irritation when Ace got his hands on her. The fire demon had kicked open the door to a random house with a roaring, "SABOOOO," as villagers screamed. Flames blazing from his body turned the snow around him into a lake. Physically steaming, the moment Ace saw Sabo he tackled him around the middle.
Then, as Sophie come into view, Fire Fist rounded on her. "Curls!"
"Ahhh you idiot!" she yelled back. (Law approved.) "Wear a shirt! You're gonna poke someone's eyes out!" She jabbed Ace's nipples for emphasis. (Law would process how he felt about that later.)
Ace decided he would wear something, and that something was the frizzy-haired girl in front of him. He spun her around in a great bear hug, and then purposefully tipped over, right on Sabo, and fell in the snow with his arms still around her. The three of them collapsed in a flurry of white. Sophie shrieked at the cold, which dissolved into muffled laughter as she rolled around with them, trying and failing miserably to get back up with the East Blue boys jostling her in a childish tag-team. The winter morning sunlight tipped the snowy pines around them in golden yellows.
"Doc." Ace canted his hat at Law, nonchalantly sitting on Sophie's back as she floundered and kicked snow everywhere. She was splayed belly-down over Sabo's legs, and pushed herself up on her elbows to lob shittily-made snowballs at them.
Law nodded back. "How's the wound?" The wound. The wound that Akainu gave him, that one nearly ripped him apart.
He patted the magma-scar on his chest. It was several shades darker than the sun-browned hue of his skin, shiny and wrinkled as new skin laboriously stretched over it. "Healing better every day."
Shame. "If it gives you any trouble, come to me for a check-up."
"Is that supposed to sound like a threat?"
"It is." Face-down, Sophie's voice was muffled by snow. "He's very thorough."
Sabo snorted. Ace eyed Law for a second, and said, "Good to know. Curls, why don't you ever sing my praises like that?"
"Tell me what you've done that's worth singing about," she hit back, smooth as butter, almost disdainful. "Being born with constellations on your face doesn't count. You too, Sabo. Just because you have that pretty thing on your eye doesn't mean you can settle for being someone's trophy husband. Ancient chemist proverb."
Law didn't glance at Ace or Sabo, but he knew exactly what he would've seen. Felt it on his own face whenever Sophie muttered about how lovely his scars were. He didn't know what the hell she was talking about, and brushed it aside. But she kept saying it, and it became irritating in a way he couldn't describe. Sometimes it got easier to look in a mirror. He never told her to stop.
Law bent down, lifting a hand from his coat pocket and reaching out. He pressed his fingers right into Ace's ribcage, inadvertently feeling the hard muscle there—a flash of heat—and pushed the Whitebeard Commander off Sophie. His fingertips singed, the nerves dancing in pain. Bastard.
Helping Sophie up, Law dusted off the back of her coat and her shoulders. She glanced at him questioningly. He explained, "Something was on you, but I got it."
He pulled Sophie to his side, but then let go quickly and stuffed his hand back in his pocket. As he turned away from the two brothers, he caught a flash of Ace quirking a smile and Sabo looking back at him knowingly; their gazes were almost identical, beneath the shadowed brims of their hats.
Sophie wasn't conventionally beautiful.
If you were to see her in a crowded market, you wouldn't look twice. She didn't have features that were immediately striking, except maybe for her hair—but what was hair in a world filled with mermaids and sky islanders and giants? Most of the attention might be drawn to her mangled, discolored hands, perhaps her eyes if she was having a particularly twitchy, caffeinated day. Alright-looking, if a bit jittery. Too weird to be truly plain. That would be the extent of the praise.
And then she spoke. Stars burst down from the sky, dead trees bloomed to life, the celestial heavens spun in reverse.
She wrote languages in numbers, elements, secret symbols. The more you looked at her, really looked, you'd start to see every shade of ocean in her eyes. She existed, like everything worthwhile about the world, beyond the boundary of convention and orthodox and fitting into a neat little box. The ugliness of her scars, her sharp tongue, her thighs that pulled with stretch marks were infinite with possibilities, infinite like the universe. It was in Law's objective, clinical opinion that this creature was shockingly and exquisitely beautiful.
No one else could see it, and the little devil in his chest approved. No one but him.
…Until now.
He saw it in the way Sabo would listen as she talked. The war-planning would go late into the night, and Sabo would draw up battle tactics in countless iterations, accounting for weather, terrain, troops, every minute detail—this was actually interesting, and discussing war with the Chief of Staff, a fellow veteran in the art of blood-shedding, was an entertaining intellectual exercise. Law was here for heart-hunting, not to help their cause, but he offered up his own experience in winter fighting. An alliance went two ways, after all. Besides, if the Army failed, Sophie'd get weepy.
Then she would chime in with her thoughts about the World Government's war strategies, and Sabo's head snapped towards her. He'd sit and rest his chin on his palm, his eyes never straying.
Alarm sirens.
It happened later with Ace, too. He was heading out to entreaty the villages around the island on behalf of the Whitebeard Pirates, stuffing on a thick sweater over his head and looking sullen about it. Sophie was fussing around him, tying his cloak tighter around his neck, adjusting his cowboy hat, and clucking at him to bring a warm drink. Standard stuff, really. Remnant worries from Marineford, as if Aokiji was waiting in the distance. Ace watched her with his heavy-lidded eyes, his trademark cocky grin faded away. It was a look Law wasn't sure that Fire Fist even knew he was making. It wasn't a smile. It was something—pensive, a little brooding. As if the friendly big-bro pretense he wore slipped off and left something painfully honest in its wake.
More alarm sirens.
…They saw it, didn't they?
The chilliness inside Law grew. If he sliced his arm open, he wouldn't be surprised to find ice in his veins instead of blood.
His theory was confirmed when they came back from another hunt, this time loaded with half a dozen hearts. Bandits, done and dealt with. Pleased with the day's haul (it'd been a while since he'd felt some sense of satisfaction, he'd take this small victory), Law was checking off mental boxes when he went around the longhouse after cleaning all the blood off.
Three blue shadows stretched over the snow, where chickens and goats were roaming as they dug up patches of grass. Voices, talking. Sharp blue coat, dusted with snowflakes. Wolf furs, grey and dark brown. And between them, Sophie's bright curls. There was something she did whenever she got all nervous or excited; her fingers would tap, or twist around themselves, or she'd tug on some part of her clothes. She did that a lot around him, especially if they were alone. It was a laughably amusing habit. She fidgeted so easily. (For him.)
Presently, she was fidgeting. Sophie leaned her back against the icy wood of the longhouse, icicles glittering around her. She was looking at Ace as he spoke, then said something to Sabo. She was bundled up so heavily she looked like a very round, furry roly-poly, completely shapeless, but he knew her mannerisms in the shift of her feet, the movement beneath her furs as she twisted her fingers. She laughed at something one of the brothers said. Her cheeks and ears were naturally pink from the chill, but when she looked at them like that… when she smiled…
Law found himself flexing and clenching his hand repeatedly. Nearby, a thin goat butted its head against his leg. He distractedly patted it and strode forward.
Sabo caught his eye first, and he adopted a look of polite cheer as he waved. "We were just telling Sophie about the possible bandit hideouts in the mountains."
"Saw one on my way back from the villages," Ace added. "Could've burnt them then, but figured I should leave them for you."
Law made a mental note, appreciating it. Didn't mean he actually had to say that part out loud, though. After a methodical pause, he drawled, "I'll scope it out tomorrow. Forgive me if I don't immediately trust the advice of two pretty boys born into royalty."
Their expressions darkened, and internally the little devil rubbed his hands together.
"I left that life behind me," Sabo retorted.
"I have nothing to do with Roger," Ace snapped.
"Oh, Captain." Sophie yanked the sleeve of his coat, smiling sweetly. "Ahem. Come here." They both turned around, and her façade dropped. She looked at him like he was a complete idiot and reminded, "Both your parents were wildly successful doctors and you had a private school education."
He leaned in. "I won't tell if you won't."
"Ace and Sabo grew up in a jungle," she said in an undertone. "Take it easy." She gave him a once-over, frowning a bit. Her lips were dry and chapped from the cold. It was very tempting to warm them up, to bite them gently until they reddened with color. He could find some excuse. Hazards of frozen extremities. Hypothermia was dangerous. "Why are you so tense?"
Law straightened, his expression betraying nothing.
Behind them, Sabo was saying, "And for the record, I was a noble. I wasn't royal. There's a difference, okay?"
"I never even met my dad," Ace continued, the snow around him steaming, "I didn't even take his name."
"They'll get over it. Come on." Before she had time to reconsider, he was taking her hand and leading her inside the longhouse. The officers were going about their business, and the Hearts were regaling a few of them with the day's adventure fighting bandits. Law found the room his crew was given, which was crammed with fur blankets and its own fire pit that was lit with small crackling flames. He couldn't feel it; he was ice-cold.
Sophie blinked at him in a fidgeting daze, and he made a split-second decision to lock the door with a clear snap when he could've slid it shut silently, just to watch her jump. This was hypothetically very bad. No, not hypothetically. He deserved a bullet in the foot or worse. (He usually deserved worse.)
There was no reason to lock the door. This wasn't some kind of jealousy-driven fairytale. He wasn't going to round on her like a deranged madman, push all of her clothes off, and lay her down on the softest area of the floor. He wasn't going to glide his hands up and down her thighs, or devour every inch of her until her warmth drained down into his frozen bones, or murmur in her ear to moan his name right by the wall where he knew Ace and Sabo were standing outside. She'd probably stammer it incomprehensibly, anyway. But that'd make it more genuine. Maybe she'd even scream it, delirious and pink and smitten with her despicable captain, who spread her legs not because he could give her anything of value, but because he couldn't stand her looking at anyone else like the way she looked at him. What a piece of shit.
Well. It wasn't going to happen. The angry, miserable hollow in him dragged all of his awakened demons back into the shadows, and demanded he get his shit together. Law knew well enough to listen. The fog in his brain was thankfully not so intense that he missed her look of confusion. He cleared his throat—that did nothing to help the lump in it—and rasped out, "You're covered in mud."
"Oh," she said quickly. "Oh, right."
The room was thankfully empty, so he had no excuse to not watch Sophie peel away the dirt-covered coat she wore. She examined the holes at the bottom of her coat—a gift from several well-aimed arrows—and pursed her lips in a frown. Dropping the coat on a wooden chair, she hugged her arms and moved closer to the fire.
She hardly got a foot closer before he was opening his long, fuzzy coat and pulling her into him, wrapping the outer layer around her so they were both bundled up in his mostly-clean coat in the silliest way imaginable. Law felt rather stupid, but he also felt grumpy, and it was the irritating grumpy melty feeling that won out when she craned her neck back so she could blink up at him.
"You were shivering," he said, as though he wasn't making up excuses on the spot, and cracked a small grin. "Bepo isn't here, so you have to make do with me."
It was worth it to see her flush. "I suppose you make a decent substitute," she mumbled, and Law knew with nasty, scum-of-the-earth satisfaction that her abrupt demureness was her struggling to control herself, to resist the urge to do terrible things to him, his dick, and by extension her dignity. For a moment, things felt normal again. He was back to being the center of her attention.
Sophie let out a tiny, restrained breath. And then she shoved her freezing hands up his shirt.
Should've seen that coming.
There was a celebration that night, because Sabo's troops wanted to give a proper welcome to their Chief of Staff's brother. The Hearts, by virtue of their proximity and love for good food and ale, were invited as well.
They gathered inside the longhouse after a busy day, stamping snow from their feet and warming themselves up by the fire. The cooks prepared fish and picked meat and vegetables as the rest milled around, cleaning weapons and wounds. Ace went from drying himself off on fur blankets, to rolling around on Bepo, to flopping over Sophie and investigating what she was doing. She was so focused on her gun maintenance she hardly noticed her new leech.
The fire pit crackled behind their backs, drying all the cloaks hung over the flames. Fensalir's troubles were briefly forgotten as he enchanted everyone with stories, and hands were always at the ready to refresh his pint of hot cider. Pirate and revolutionary crowded around him, eager to hear what the Whitebeards were up to, how the Phoenix was handling being the new captain, if they should be on the lookout for any wars with the Blackbeard Pirates on the horizon. Koala was excitedly drawing up new plans for tomorrow's skirmish, pushing aside troops on the map to make room for Fire Fist Ace. The moon rose high in the wintery sky, and soon people were nodding off thanks to the strong ale and the warmth insulated by woven fabrics covering the walls.
The magma-scar on his chest had healing nicely, so Law could pretend he was simply observing Ace's wound instead of his expanse of rippling muscle. He was built like a sledgehammer. So many prominent veins, easy to slice open. Nice jugular.
Sweating from the fire, Sophie was pulling off the top of her boiler suit. Which meant attempting to extricate herself from under Ace's arm. Which meant cursing at him as he kept slipping his free arm around her shoulders like a nuisance, while his other put away another pint in one gulp. Once she tied the sleeves around her waist, she stuck the barrel of her gun beneath his chin, which only made Ace grin wider. "You're hot."
"Thanks for noticing. Took you a damn minute, Curls."
"Your brother is a terror," she informed Sabo. "If you want me to make you amnesic about him again, I'll do it for free."
Color rose in his normally composed face, and Sabo flicked her on the nose. Ace bent his elbow around Sophie's neck as she cackled, catching her in a headlock that wasn't really a headlock, judging by how the real objective was to pull her between his legs like a big, cuddly dog. The Hearts embraced platonic skinship and regularly slept piled on top of each other. This was known as the Bepo Effect. It's nothing serious, Law thought, though his back was tensed like a steel rod. Like penguins. Huddling together. It was fine.
Sabo wasn't outwardly, blatantly… handsy. He was a bit like Law, shrewd, self-aware, his interactions with Sophie smothered by justifiable touches; that was something he could handle. But Fire Fist was different. He swaggered through life with no sense of physical boundaries, and somehow people fell for that bullshit puppy-in-human-form shtick. Never mind that he'd earned a reputation of burning entire Marine fleets to ashes, dusting off his hat, and whistling as he looted gold from the wreckage. A goddamned D, just like Law, which meant Ace was also a storm-bringer, and maybe also secretly passive-aggressive as fuck.
"Oh, too soon? Oops. Sorry. Ehehe." Sophie went along with it with nasty giggles, fully prepared for her untimely demise. Until Sabo caught her leg, the back of her calf, and maybe she mistook that as a threat to pinch because she huffed quickly, "Hey, I said sorry."
Sabo didn't move his hand. He looked at his brother with a little disappointed tsk. "Careful, you'll get ex-marine all over yourself."
"Is that a bad thing?" Ace wondered in her ear. "'Cause he makes it sound so nice."
Sabo rested his elbows on top of her knees. "These Hexheads are cursed, Ace. No real bones. Break her open and bats come flying out."
"Makes sense," Ace agreed. "All this wiggling."
Hands moved. Sophie startled into a pink flush, and it might've just been due to something harmless like the heat and a humorous remark—or something that Law couldn't see past Sabo's shoulders. Stifled chuckles. Whispers. She might've been suffocated by them, leaning back against Ace's chest with her knees crooked up, her feet jabbing with merciless affection at Sabo. Hands on legs on ankles; fair, tanned, and burned hands that Law's narrowed eyes were watching over a snoring Bepo.
He wasn't going to be irritated. He wasn't going to be anything. He was going to drink the rest of this piss-flavored mead and stumble to an empty room and glare at the ceiling until the light dawned and he crankily assented to enduring another day.
"I won't take that from a former noble," Sophie retorted, lightly kicking Sabo.
"I wouldn't either," he shot back, clearly enjoying her response. "Between me and Ace, who pisses you off the most?"
"Easy answer," Ace snickered.
"You can say it's me," Sabo said with an encouraging smile. "You can say I irritate you so much I live in your head rent-free."
Ace's smile fell. "Oi, that's dirty." He tilted her chin with his thumb, and said seriously, "Hey. Just because I haven't tried to kill you doesn't mean I ain't fond of you."
She huffed, blowing strands of hair out of her face. Her weirdly thick eyebrows scrunched together. "Excuse me. I know you two aren't this horrible to other people. Why am I the constant exception to being terrorized?"
They merely grinned back at her. If Law thought about it practically, it was unfair that she liked a captain with an unrelenting stone heart. He couldn't blame her for wanting to warm herself up, especially not in a country as cold as this one. If he saw her the next morning quickly combing down her hair, with bruises and scratches on her waist where two hands would've gripped her, that'd be—it'd be—
It'd be fine.
This was too bothersome to care about. Which he fucking didn't. Care, that is. The more he allowed space in his thoughts for it, the more it wound around him like golden legs wrapping themselves shyly on his hips. He was going to get up now. He was going to leave for the sake of his own embattled sanity. Law sat in place, gazing at the fire. Sweat beaded down the back of his neck, slipping down his shirt. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Bet you missed us," Ace said to Sophie, tucking his small grin against her shoulder. And then his dark eyes flicked up, glimmering obsidian at Law, and his teeth flashed between the wavy black hair falling across his face. His voice roughened as he said, "Doc, you think she missed us?"
Shirtless, sun-tanned, more slum rat than Pirate King. His tattooed arm was red with firelight, the muscled one that was curled over Sophie's stomach, glistening with a hypnotic sheen of sweat. Sabo looked over his shoulder, and the burned muscle of his face seemed to smile at Law, warped and wicked and too fucking pretty, with his hand tracing the curvature of Sophie's foot.
There was an indent in the metal cup where Law was gripping it. The headache pounding behind his eyes was becoming unbearable.
It worsened when Sophie met his gaze over Sabo's shoulder, and realized he'd been watching them the whole time. The flush on her cheeks darkened to red, the same color as her lip where she'd been biting it to hold in her laughter. For a strange, inexplicable moment, she looked at him like…
Then panic entered her eyes and she squirmed, which was quite possibly the worst fucking thing to do in her position, and it had to be for the express purpose of tormenting Law until he ground his molars into dust.
Sophie quickly tried to return to some semblance of modesty. The hand she rested (accidentally?) on Ace's thigh lifted up so she could elbow him away. The knee that that Sabo was absently touching hit him in the chest. They let go at once and settled back on the floor, the peculiar tension in the air broken. Grumping at them, she scooted away and became stubbornly fixated on counting her bullets.
But Law hadn't waited for the show to end; he stood up, and was now standing outside in the snow before he was even fully aware of it.
He had walked and walked until his back forgot the heat of the longhouse, and around him was an endless stretch of snow-capped fir trees. The full moon lit the forest in shades of dark blue, which was a welcome reprieve from the firelight glowing over loose hair, reds and oranges warming flushed skin.
He stood there ankle-deep snow in a stiff, still line, breath coming out in quick, hard fog. He had left so abruptly he forgot his coat, but it turned out he didn't need it. His nose and ears were red and aching from the cold, and yet somehow it felt like he was melting. Shit, he was so fucking hot.
Raising his head to the sky, he inhaled as hard as he could. Law stayed that way for several minutes, trying to empty his mind, trying to think of nothing. His heart thumped brutally.
And then he bent down with a muffled snarl as he dug his hands into his face, eyes squeezed shut. It didn't fucking help. He still saw Sabo's crooked grin, Ace's bare shoulders with his tattoo crawling down one bicep, Sophie holding his gaze while doing nothing to remove the broad hands searching her body. Had her hips rolled slightly, or did he dream that? When she stared at him, wedged between two other men, had her mouth parted as if to invite him in again? He still saw their individual wretched burn-scars, all that moribund flesh, jagged and charred and unsmooth like destroyed velvet. His crotch throbbed.
The winter wind was sharp and biting in his lungs, and Law stayed outside until it finally, finally cooled the molten-hot embers in his chest.
.
.
.
notes: 'love square' dynamic where character b thinks she's in one-sided love with character a, reunites with characters c and d who've grown quite fond of her, while character a gets so annoyed at b, c, and d for frustrating the hell out of him he accidentally gets himself hard.