Neat

Characters: Law, Bepo, Penguin, Shachi. Rating: K. Warnings: none

Law liked things tidy. As a child, his parents had impressed the importance of a tidy environment on him, and despite everything that had happened, it was something he never fell out of. Untidy environments meant hazards. A toy on the floor could result in a scraped knee, a scalpel not put away properly could mean a cut finger. Dirt could mean infection.

As a child, he had taken these lessons to heart, carefully putting everything away once he was finished with it, and sterilising the area before operating on his latest frog. The frogs never survived, of course, but it was good practice for when he was dealing with humans, whose tenacity was far greater than a frog's when faced with a scalpel.

Then Flevance had burnt, and with it all of his material possessions. Doflamingo offered him new things: toys, books, entertainment. Law accepted only the clothes on his back and the rare weapon he was gifted, too tied up in his world of vengeance to care for trivial pleasures. It had all been lost when Cora-san had kidnapped him that day, the man bringing only a change of clothes and his own weapons, unhappy at the sight of Law near them.

When he met Bepo, Penguin and Shachi, he had once more been reduced to owning nothing but the clothes on his back. The mink was like him, while the other two… Well, Law had thought they'd had a home on Swallow Island, but when they followed him onto a stolen ship with nothing more than their own clothes, he'd wondered if he'd been wrong.

The Polar Tang, when they obtained her, was beautifully stocked. It was clear that, while a military ship at the heart of her design, she had been outfitted to carry the official that was supposed to name her in extreme comfort. Law had thrown most of the ridiculous things out, as well as anything bearing the symbol of the World Government, but everything else had been kept.

Sadly, he discovered the hard way that while he had been brought up to clear up after himself, Penguin and Shachi had not. Bepo, the poor shy mink, seemed too nervous to even touch most of the things found in the various storage rooms without permission, but the older teens were total chaos.

Bedding, supposedly clean and pressed spare sheets, sprawled along corridors, now requiring laundry before they could be slept in. Pots and pans in the kitchen were left piled high in the sink until Law put them away, or made Bepo do it. Worst of all, the infirmary – reasonably well equipped, although still paling to Law's standards – frequently found its cupboard doors swinging open, medicine bottles rolling around in danger of smashing, or scalpels left carelessly on the side. Law didn't even know what the pair had been doing in the infirmary.

It came to a head when Bepo got hurt. The mink stumbled over a sheet, trailing off of the bed it was supposed to be neatly covering and tripped in his haste to regain his balance. His legs entangled, he collapsed forwards, knocking glass containers to the floor and flinging a scalpel into the air, which landed firmly in a soft pad.

There to witness the accident, Law hurriedly treated his new nakama before helping him towards the control room where Penguin and Shachi were laughing and messing around instead of watching their course.

It was the first time he used his abilities on them, separating them into several pieces as their laughter became cries of fear and letting them fall to the floor in front of him and Bepo. To Law's relief, they at least had the sense to sober up when they caught sight of Bepo's bandages, and wore identical faces of horror when they discovered it was entirely their own fault.

Law never found out which bit of the experience, exactly, sobered their carefree attitude towards keeping the submarine tidy, although he assumed it was the combination of guilt that they'd ended up hurting their nakama, and the residual fear from being left in pieces on the floor for hours until Law figured out how to put them back together again once he was satisfied with their grovelling apologies.

He didn't really care too much what, exactly, was the reason. It was just a pleasure to see the Polar Tang tidy the entire time.

As someone whose bedroom is usually ridiculously messy, I see how neat the ships seem to be (obviously they're still very much lived in, but everything's still in its place) and wonder how the hell they manage to do it. I can think of a few motivating reasons why they should, though.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari