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Characters: Trafalgar Law, Doquixote Doflamingo

Genre: Drama

Warnings: Torture, death, Doflamingo

Rating: M

Notes: Who hasn't wondered how Trafalger Law ended up in Doflamingo's crew. This would be my version.

#3 - Faustian Bargain I

He's smarter than the average boy his age which is why they took him in the first place. He's even smarter than the average man of His age, but he knows better than to point it out.

And in any case he's smart enough to not spare a second glance towards the rapidly cooling bodies of his mother and brother and instead keeps his gaze fixed onto the two cowering men. His expression is blank as he stands next to Him, a direct contrast to that cold amused grin.

They have no mutual need of each other. It is rather heavily one-sided on his end because they can and probably will find a dozen little boys like himself whereas his chances of finding someone else to offer him freedom and life after having been caught by slave traders are non-existent. Yet, he hesitates and this is because he is smart.

The boy knows a devil when he sees it because although not as widely acknowledged, pink feathers and gleaming sunglasses are just as diabolical as a forked tail and pitchfork. He is as diabolical as a man can be and that is exactly who he is to Law. The Devil.

He may be only a little boy, but he has already memorized (and understood) the tale of Dr. Faustus. There are precisely two ways to escape the Devil's clutches, but refusing the proffered deal is not an option because he wants to live.

Any form of faith into a higher, benevolent power coming to his aid eludes him on principle: he's a dreamer but not a fool and there are two bodies lying at his feet which rather bloodily illustrate the risks of foolishness. No, he cannot put his trust into anything or anyone but himself. It's the intelligent thing to do.

Which leaves him with trying to pull the wool over the Devil's eyes and although he is smarter than the average man of His age, the Devil standing before him is not an average man. And then there's the part of him, that is a little devil, too, and that reminds him that there is a third way to solve his predicament: become even more of a devil than the one standing before him.

"Well, what do you say, kid?" the tall man says with a carefree grin, as if he hadn't just asked a child to choose between life and death.

Gray eyes meet with tinted sunglasses, a small tanned hand gestures towards the two men (these, at least, are men and not devils, evident by the fear in their eyes) that earned the Devil's scorn.

"Kill them both. But make it slow."

The Devil's grin widens diabolically at the child's forcefully neutral tones. He kneels in front of the boy, voice vibrating with gleeful anticipation as he breathes: "How?"

He casts a look to the side, into empty eyes and a pool of blood. There are the dead, lifeless bodies of his mother and older brother, right in front of him. There's positively lethal knowledge that belies his actual age in the boy's head and a hunger for vengeance throbbing in his chest. And there's the Devil's promise of life and freedom if he can make it worth his while.

"Give me a knife and I show you how," he replies because there are a lot of things you can do to the human body that take it to the brink of death and leave it there for hours, even days, and the little devil in him always wanted to try them out of morbid curiosity.

Getting to do it for the pleasure of hurting those who hurt him is just an added bonus, like their screams and pleas for mercy.

Eye for an eye, he thinks and forces them to scream as much as he did when they ended what was left of his home; makes them bleed for every tear he refuses to sheath. Steady and precise, childish hands guide the blade through fearful flesh. It would be easier with a sharp one, but the Devil insists on the rusty, jagged knife he liberated from the dead boy's skull. The two men are soon reduced to crying, sobbing, begging and bleeding bodies and they bore the Devil after a few hours already. But the boy who draws blood, pain and desperation from them with clinical precision and nonchalant cruelty doesn't. The boy excites him. Oh, the possibilities!

"What's your name, boy?"

"Trafalgar Law."

There's a moment of silence in which a black dress shoe prods the smaller of two tanned corpses. Doquixote Doflamingo smirks.

"Let's get you cleaned up, Law. They've made quite a mess, didn't they? And then I'll show you where you'll be sleeping."

His smirk is mirrored in the little devil's face.