Burn

Characters: Law, Penguin, Shachi, Bepo. Rating: T. Warnings: injury, blood

Law looked at the building in front of him with a sinking feeling. While clearly nowhere near as decrepit as it had been, the signs of a fire were obvious, tarpaulin pulled over bits of blackened exposed rafters. Some of the windows were boarded up, the white walls above them smoke-stained.

An unpleasant sensation settled in his stomach, which twisted itself in knots. A hospital was a well-defended and well-cared for part of any town. The fact that it had been burnt down made Law pause, wishing his memories of where Cora-san had taken him were clearer so that he could avoid those islands completely. He had no recollection of the place, but he found it hard to believe they'd coincidentally landed on one island in the entirety of North Blue whose hospital had burnt down for a reason other than upsetting Cora-san.

It had been a few years since then, the hospital's state a clear indicator of the island's struggling economy, and Law's tell-tale white splotches had faded away considerably, so it was unlikely he would be recognisable. Still, he didn't want to linger.

"No messing around," he told the other boys. They looked affronted, as if the very idea was preposterous. Law wished it was, but they did like to explore sometimes. He wasn't interested in any explorations here. A glance was shared between them and he waited for the inevitable questions – what was this place, how did he know it, why didn't he want to linger?

They never came, instead he was given two understanding nods from the teenagers. He'd forgotten that sometimes they realised when not to ask questions – a good thing in this case, as he didn't know what he'd have told them. They deserved the truth, but it still hurt too much to recount.

He spared a moment to remember the disaster with the white lead statue and wondered if they'd put anything together from that.

"Just the supplies, then we leave, then?" Penguin asked instead and Law nodded, pulling away from his thoughts and turning away from the sight of the hospital. "Got it."

They headed for the marketplace, where wares were plentiful and prices cheap. Maybe if they charged more they'd be able to fix up their hospital.

"That hat!" a man's voice exclaimed as they entered the main square. Law ignored it despite the clenching in his gut. "It's that boy's hat!" he flailed, sounding terrified.

"The white monster!" a woman's voice joined in and Law couldn't help the flinch. Hands rested on his shoulders lightly and he moved to dislodge them before realising who it was.

"Boys, get away from him!" the first voice said. "He's infected, you'll die!" There was panicked screaming, and Law ground his teeth.

"What the hell sort of nonsense are you spouting?" Shachi demanded, and Law felt the hand on his right shoulder tighten its grip.

"Sound the alarm!" he man continued as if Shachi hadn't spoken. "Call the Marines! Call the authorities!" The cries caught the attention of everyone in earshot. "The White Monster is back!"

Time seemed to stand still, just for a moment, the words echoing in the air and tormenting Law as his mind was thrown back to sitting in the doctor's office, listening to a man who ranked his own skin above an ill child.

The illusion shattered when two fists collided with the man's face, sending him flying backwards. People screamed again.

"How dare you?" Penguin demanded, and Law vaguely registered that the hands had gone from his shoulders. The two older boys moved to stand in front of him, seething. The man wiped his face with his sleeve. It came away bloody from his now broken nose, and he screamed.

Law was getting tired of the screaming.

"Let's go," he said, turning away from the man on the ground and the woman now hovering anxiously by his side, dabbing at the blood as if she'd never seen a broken nose before.

"W-what are you-?" the man blubbered, his voice thick. "No! Stop! Please!"

Law whirled back around to see that his order had been completely ignored by the other teens, who had descended onto the defenceless man with a vengeance. The sight was the same as when he'd first met them – two teenagers angry at the world and taking it out on anyone weaker than them. Only this time their victim wasn't a mink, but a so-called doctor.

This time they were capable of killing, and as Law watched he realised that was exactly what the two were intending. The woman had scrambled back, her fear greater than her desire to help, and Law saw her eyes flicking around nervously, as if she was waiting to be ambushed.

She was waiting for Cora-san to appear. A part of Law relished the fear, watching two of the apparent medical profession panic as they reaped what they sowed for not doing their jobs when they'd had the chance, even as his heart clenched.

Then he caught sight of Penguin and Shachi's faces, twisted with an ugly rage that didn't look right on them. They should be smiling and laughing, keeping his spirits up because that was what they did. They weren't killers – they had killed, but it was always for self-preservation. Law didn't want his nakama turning into cold-blooded murderers. Especially not when their first kills had sent them into a shock that had taken them days, weeks to shake. He was certain that even now, they had nightmares about it, because despite everything they'd been through, everything they'd done, underneath the surface they were still kind and gentle.

Looking at their twisted, furious faces now, Law could see none of that. There was no trace of the grins they usually wore in a fight, as if they were having fun. There was no resigned look as they reluctantly ended a life because it was do or die. Just faces twisted into snarls of anger as they cursed and spat at the bloodied form beneath them.

It felt like a punch to the gut. A haki-coated Law G punch to the gut.

This wasn't right. They shouldn't be so hateful, and the nagging sensation that if he didn't stop them something would irreparably shatter drove him to action, lunging forwards and grabbing them by the backs of their collars. Bigger, taller and enraged, pulling them back took more strength than he had. He was fairly certain they only stumbled back because their clothes were throttling them, and the fact that he'd had to do that to them was a douse of cold seawater to go with the gut punch.

"Let go!" Shachi snarled, his voice perfectly matching the ugly hatred on his face. Law never wanted to hear that from him again.

Penguin was wordless, vicious noises more at home from a rabid bear than his nakama's mouth making themselves heard as he threw himself forwards again, causing Law's shoulder to lurch painfully.

"Stop!" he shouted, seeing the limp, bloody form of their target on the ground, unresponsive even as his assaulters were bodily hauled back as best Law could manage. No-one took the chance to run to his aid, not even the woman cowering nearby. Disgusted that they would even abandon their own, he gritted his teeth and jerked his nakama backwards, catching first Penguin and then Shachi with a hooked foot around their ankles and causing all three of them to crash to the ground. Law's lungs deflated as Shachi's elbow caught him, and a breathless cry followed as the full weight of both teens crashed on top of him. "Stop!" he wheezed again, taking advantage of their brief stunning to wrap his arms around them more firmly. To his immense regret, the only way he could force them both to stay still was a chokehold, his arms hooked around their throats, and he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed in an effort to hold back the tears.

Fingernails scrabbled at his arms as both teens reacted instinctively to the attack, clawing at him mercilessly for several long moments as he fought to keep them subdued, all the while battling with the wrongness of the situation. Every fibre of his being wanted to release them, to stop hurting them as they gasped for breath and bit and scratched at every part of him they could reach, but he couldn't.

If he let go, they'd finish what they'd started, and lose something precious. They'd break, and it would all be Law's fault.

"L-law?" Penguin gasped, the first word he'd spoken since beginning his beatdown. Law needed no further persuasion to lessen his grip, letting his nakama breathe again but unable to let him go completely in case he rampaged again. Shachi was also lessening the fight, and Law didn't know if it was surrender or impending unconsciousness, but he slackened his grip on him, too.

"Stop," he said again, hoping they were in the state of mind to listen to him now. Despite his weakened grip, neither made a move to get up, and Law took a chance, releasing them completely. "We're leaving," he told them, carefully extracting himself from underneath the pair. They stayed still for a moment, just breathing, and Law watched them nervously, ignoring the shocked silence of their onlookers. Still no-one had gone to help the unconscious man.

"Yes, Captain," Shachi said, and he sounded resigned. Defeated. The ginger staggered to his feet, rubbing at his throat lightly. Besides him, Penguin mirrored his actions, and this time when Law began to lead the way back to the Tang, they followed.

The island natives parted for them silently, stumbling over themselves in their haste to get out of their path. Law ignored them, infinitely more concerned for his now silent nakama. Did they hate him now? The duo were never silent. Not like this.

"I'm sorry," he said, the moment they were back on the Tang, Bepo watching them with unconcealed worry but keeping his distance. He reached out for them, his hands stopping halfway at the blank faces. "I-"

"No," Penguin interrupted, breaking the silence. He sounded almost like Law was used to, almost normal, and part of Law dared hope that everything was okay. "I'm sorry." Now he sounded sincere, almost severe, and Law's heart dropped. This was it. This was the tipping point, where he'd pushed them too far, hurt them.

Arms wrapped around him, a crushingly tight hug, and Law froze as the older boy buried his face in his shoulder.

"They hurt you," Penguin continued, his voice muffled. "I couldn't do anything."

"We couldn't do anything," Shachi corrected, the ginger suddenly there in Law's personal bubble and wrapping his arms tightly around him, too.

Law felt his eyes water. The idiots. Compete and utter idiots. Barging into his life and his heart and staying there and forcing their way into situations they didn't belong just to help him.

There was a warmth at his back and all around him as Bepo joined in the hug, nuzzling at his cheek gently. The mink didn't know, couldn't know, what had happened and yet he was there, reliable as always.

"I never asked you to," he muttered into their hats. You do more than enough already. The unspoken words hung in the air, and Law let the silence stretch. Nothing had changed. They hadn't crossed the line of no return. Their humanity was still intact, as it should be. As it would always be, if Law had any say in the matter.

Law was their captain. Of course he had a say in the matter.

"You're not murderers," he told them, his voice stern even though he could feel it trembling on his tongue. The hats pulled back far enough that he could see their faces. Both were tear stained and his gut churned. "There's a line between killing for survival and killing for killing. Don't cross it."

They blinked at him numbly, and Law kicked away the memory of his early time as a Donquixote Pirate, when he'd charged over the line only for Cora-san to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and bodily throw him back.

Behind him, Law heard Bepo make a confused sound, unable to fully muffle it.

"Killing… for… ki-" Shachi sounded out slowly, as if testing the weight of each word on his tongue before letting it escape his mouth. "For… ki-"

"Gods," Penguin breathed, comprehension dawning in his eyes. His legs buckled, and Law lunged forwards awkwardly to try and catch him as he fell. Penguin was heavier than Law could comfortably hold, and for the second time that day he ended up on the ground, holding his nakama. He heard a matching sound from Shachi, and his eyes flicked over long enough to see that Bepo had caught the ginger, lowering him to the ground with far more gentleness than Law had been able to achieve.

"I… we…" Penguin garbled. Shachi started to hiccup, the ugly, painful sound of someone unable to breathe properly because there were tears in the way. "We…" His hands were trembling, his whole body shuddering, and Law knew then that everything had sunk in; the heavy realisation that they'd been about to throw away their humanity, to become murderers, not just survivors.

"It's over," Law said, because he was never good at words, could never make people feel better. "You didn't. Bepo," he called, gaining the immediate attention of the mink still holding Shachi, letting him wipe tears and snot in his fur because Bepo was good like that.

"Captain?" the mink asked, one paw firmly entrenched in ginger hair. Shachi's hat lay abandoned on the deck and Law wondered if that was a trick for successful comforting.

"We need to leave this place," he said, and watched as Bepo hesitated, looking down at his nakama before gently nudging him towards Penguin. Unsurprisingly, the pair melted together, clutching at each other as if they were the only things keeping each other afloat in a sea of emotion, and Bepo gave them one last concerned glance before disappearing to the control room.

Bepo's sudden absence didn't make Law suddenly proficient in comforting. He knelt in front of the pair, awkward and wooden as he sorted through everything he knew, trying to find something appropriate, anything.

There was nothing. None of the books he'd read, none of his life experiences, had left him with any inkling what to do in this situation, how to make things better. He couldn't heal mental wounds, couldn't heal emotional wounds. All he knew was the body, how to stitch it back together so that it could keep going.

His eyes landed on the other boys' knuckles, bloodied and bruised. They were hurt, although it was clear to Law that their physical discomfort had yet to register in their minds at all, too busy tying themselves up in what-ifs and whys and everything that came with a mental crisis (and wasn't it funny that Law knew what they were like but not how to cure them?).

It was small, insignificant. In amongst everything else they needed it didn't even register on the list of priorities, but Law was a doctor and insignificant it might be but it was something. And something was better than nothing.

"Inside," he ordered, trying to soften his tone and internally wincing when it came out sharp and brusque. It was enough to catch their attention, their heads jerking up to look at him with too-blank eyes (and Law knew it was bad when he could tell Shachi's eyes were blank even through his shades). "Infirmary," he clarified when they didn't move immediately. For several long seconds they still didn't move, and Law chewed the inside of his cheek again, wondering how to get them to listen.

Then they moved, slowly unfurling themselves and finding their feet in a jerky, uncoordinated fashion, like a new born animal unsure of its place in the world. They followed in silence as he led the way, the stillness alleviated only by the background hum of the Polar Tang as her engines roared to life.

They slumped onto the beds when they reached their destination, and Law wasted no time in taking hold of Shachi's right hand, dabbing at it with disinfectant to clean away the blood before wrapping it gently yet firmly with white gauze. Something flickered behind the shades as he started to work on the left hand, and as he finished, both hands flexed loosely.

Penguin's hands were in the same shape, and Law treated them just as tenderly, because he couldn't heal their minds but he could heal their bodies, and he'd do anything to stop feeling so useless.

"Law," Shachi said as he finished with Penguin, and he looked at him because Shachi didn't sound like he was crying anymore. "Thank you."

For what, Law wanted to know. For putting them in a situation where their rage had almost destroyed them? For standing around like an awkward puppet as they fell apart, unable to help?

He said nothing, jumping as bandaged hands wrapped around his own securely.

"We won't make that mistake again," Penguin promised. "We won't be murderers." There was an awkward, pregnant silence, and for once Law knew what to say.

"I know."

This ran away from me. A lot. Usually I try to curb these things when they do that but as this is chapter 150 and apparently I'm letting every 50th chapter be a big one I let it do what it wanted.

Someone asked for an encounter with a doctor that refused to treat Law, and that was just filled with angst opportunity so I couldn't resist.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari