Adopt

Characters: Penguin, Law. Rating: K. Warnings: None

Law was a peculiar kid, Penguin decided. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact his peculiarities largely worked in their favour – not having to find and pay for a doctor whenever someone got ill was definitely a blessing for their coffers – but there were some things that just stood out to Penguin as being downright odd.

For starters, while it had taken him a few months to get past enough of Law's barriers to see the tell-tale signs, he had all the makings of a big brother (and as a pseudo older brother himself, Penguin felt qualified to make that call). That by itself wasn't overly odd; while Penguin would admit his maturity levels seemed unusually high even for an older sibling, considering his age, being an older sibling required some sort of maturity. How else were they supposed to keep their younger siblings in check?

What made it odd was how lost he seemed. Penguin didn't know what had happened to whoever he'd been a big brother too, but they'd been separated somehow and Penguin knew enough people who'd lost someone precious permanently to recognise the slightly hollow look in his eyes. When Penguin had lost his parents, he'd turned first to Noona, and then made his own way in the world, supporting Shachi in the process because that was something he could still do.

Law didn't seem to have found any coping mechanism at all, aside from a prickly wall that Penguin was learning wasn't as impenetrable as it initially seemed. He hadn't tried to fill the role himself or allowed others to keep him steady, despite Penguin being an obvious potential older brother (or so he liked to think – Shachi hadn't turned out that badly, had he?). On the flip side, he hadn't picked up another younger brother, despite Bepo practically screaming that he was available for adoption (Bepo was quite clearly a younger brother through and through, and Penguin was succumbing to that truth himself slowly but surely).

Determined not to let Law flounder in a sea of uncertainty (and he was, no matter what he claimed), Penguin had started trying to do little things for him, so he could find his place in their crew, but so far he'd had little luck. Law was stubbornly remaining the captain, and just the captain, and drowning a little more each day.

If an attempt was obvious enough, Law reverted back into the prickly kid he'd been when they'd met him, and Penguin was getting fed up of being pushed away. It was as if the idea of someone wanting to look out for him scared the younger boy, and while Penguin didn't expect to get the story out of him, he wasn't going to let him keep running.

Shachi seemed to find the whole thing vaguely amusing, but Penguin was well versed in dealing with his stupidity and point blank ignored it, because at some point he had started to worry about the kid they'd decided to follow, and if he was going to worry about someone, he was going to go the whole way and not just give up when they tried to out-stubborn him.

Penguin was stubborn too.

Relationships aren't built in a day, especially when you're dealing with someone as emotionally scarred as Law, but some perseverance goes a long way.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari