When Rosinante woke it was to a cold bed and the soft red hues of a rising dawn. A pout pulled at his lips as he rolled over to his back and cast a stare out of the doors that led to the beach. He could see the broad tattooed shoulder of his husband, half hidden by the curtains sitting on the steps that lead down to said ocean.
A sigh escaped him as he stretched and sat up, eyes widening as his legs tangled in the sheets causing him to fall off the bed and onto the floor with a loud thump and a yelp.
"Every day." He grumbled as he began to arduous task of untangling himself from his impromptu imprisonment before lumbering over to his husband, grabbing his feathered cloak on the way.
It always warmed Rosi's heart when he sees him without his ever-present scarf, proud and honoured that he was one of the people that Katakuri was comfortable around. "How long have you been up Kuri?"
Katakuri tore his eyes away from the horizon and glanced down at his Heart, "A while, I'm sorry Rosi, I know you don't like waking up alone when I am here."
"Don't apologise, Kuri," Rosi sighed as he swung around to sit between his husband's legs, leaning back against his broad chest. "Tell me, what's wrong?"
"I'm not sure, my Haki has been buzzing for the last three hours, no matter how much I look, I just cannot See," Katakuri explained frustrated, hand coming up to rub at his temple.
He was tired, a headache forming an hour ago as he overtaxed himself looking for the danger his Haki was trying to alert him to, but no matter how much he looked, no matter how far he threw his Observation… there was nothing new on the island, nothing that would explain the sudden alertness or prickle of change across his skin.
Rosi stiffened, body going taught as he turned to stare up at Katakuri with worry, taking note of the stress wrinkles around his eyes and the tensed muscle of his jaw. He stood immediately, hands coming up to rub at the pulsing vein across his temple with nimble fingers, watching as tension seeped out of his husband.
"That doesn't sound good." He murmured as he leant forward and pressed a kiss to his scarred cheek, pulling him close to bury his face in the crook of his neck.
Katakuri wrapped his arms tightly around his husband, thankful every day for him. Their marriage was a deal between Doflamingo and Mama, one they were both reluctant of, but Katakuri couldn't say no to his Mama, not without consequences and it was him or Burlee and he chose himself.
His sister deserved to be free to choose.
They had grown close though, surprised with how much they had in common and more importantly, how much they both wished to be free and somewhere along the way they did indeed fall in love. Rosi trusting him enough to tell him he was a Marine trying to take down his bastard of a brother and Katakuri trusting Rosi to show his face, to express his desires and to allow weakness.
He worried every day when Rosi went radio silent years ago, taking in the news of his husband burning hospitals to the ground, blurry images of Rosinante and a small child had been given to him from Mama's network. Those six months were a nightmare, and it almost ended the same way if his husband hadn't used the emergency call.
Katakuri and Brulee never had run so fast in their life through the mirror world, if they were a second too late then Rosi would have bled out in the snow - died - and Katakuri would have been told too late… it would have broken him.
It was months later when his husband woke up on this very island Katakuri claimed long ago, panicked, and pained, whispering the story of this kid, this angry kid who just wanted to be loved… that Rosinante had begun to love as his own.
Katakuri couldn't help but love his idiotic husband more after that, both of them going in secret to find Law who had broken down at the sight of Rosinante alive – if a little injured still – and a plan had been formed.
To the world Rosi was dead and Katakuri was a widow, the only people who knew the truth besides Law's crew were his sisters Brulee and Pudding, the only ones in his family that felt like him. They wished to be free from their mothers' grasp that choked them so.
It took a long while for Law to trust him, but in the end, Katakuri was able to, because he never gave up trying to show the child how much he cared, how much he wasn't like Mama and the man the media made him out to be.
"The morning dawn rises red, and the ocean stirs when it shouldn't, I can feel a change on the winds." He murmured after a beat of silence, perhaps it was just the suspicions he had grown up with, years being a pirate who spent more time on the seas than on land. A Red Dawn was never a good sign, nor when the ocean stirred in the calm belt.
He shouldn't even be able to feel the breeze and yet…
And yet…
The ocean rippled as a Sea King lurched from the waters, too close to the land. A small body spat out into the low tide with a spray of blood screams tearing from the child's lips. Air rippling with Conquerors, strong but untamed, tearing the island apart with its ferocity.
Katakuri shot to his feet in an instant, sending Rosi sprawling into the sand at the bottom of the stairs. Something he knew he would have to apologise for later, but not now, not when he was launching himself towards the shore in a hurry.
"Kuri!" Rosinante yelled as he scrambled after his frantic husband, long legs struggling to keep up with even longer ones.
At the sight of a Sea King rising from the shallows Rosi's hand flinched towards his jacket, cursing slightly as he realised that his guns were on the table where he left them after he cleaned them. He watched as Katakuri dove out of the way, mochi flowing to catch a projectile that was spewed from the sea kings mouth before dipping back into the sea.
The burst of Haki had Rosi stumbling, nose scrunching as the acidic stench of bile and burnt rubber filled his senses as he grew close.
Katakuri carefully placed the boy down on the sands in a hurry and stepped in between the child and the ocean in case the sea king decided it wished to attack. His own Haki was combating the ripple in the air of the child's Haki.
"Fuck!" Rosi cursed as he slid to his knees beside the child, hands hovering over unsure of where he could touch without injuring the sobbing child.
His front and side were burned badly and looked like old wounds, but he could see a large slash across his back that was fresh, probably from being spat out of the Sea King like one would bad food. He needed help desperately.
Rosi flew back, body slamming harshly into the trees, something cracking with the force. The kid screamed and screamed, blood splattering the sands even more as his wounds opened and…
"Rosi get back!" He yelled, swinging around as he forced his mind off his Observation. Mochi curled around, catching Rosinante with ease.
Splutters left Rosinante's lips as he coughed out the mouthful of Mochi, panic seizing in his chest as the air crackled with Conquerors Haki and then, finally as his head whipped around, the screams reached his ears through the thick barricade of Mochi his husband put up around the boy to mitigate damage.
"Katakuri! Quick let me through!" He yelled as he ran towards the dome and saw the chaos within, fingers clicking as he called for Silence when he saw the fingers of the child dig painfully at his ears. "What happened!? Shit, his wounds are opening call Law! Don't argue, CALL LAW!"
He gathered the boy up in his arms tightly, trying to stop him from thrashing, and from hurting himself further. The boy struggled within his hold, even with Katakuri's Mochi trying to hold them both still to help.
"I want dad… please I just wanted my dad…" The kid screamed over and over; it tore at Rosinante's heart. His eyes shot down and in his arms was Law, crying out when the pain of Amber Lead grew too much, Cora-San on his lips.
"Law is on his way, he said to stabilise the child till he gets here," Katakuri stated roughly, standing at Rosinante's back, heart aching fiercely.
The kid stopped struggling in Rosi's arms as he held on, black eyes peering up at him unseeingly through tears and blood. "Dad… dad… please! Dad! DAD PLEASE!" the words repeated over and over begging for a father that wasn't here.
Rosinante pulled the child closer in his arms, careful of the injuries, exactly the way he did when Law was sick, and they were on the run. Fingers brushing through questionably wet matted hair tenderly. "Shh rest kid, we got you, you're safe. Rest."
In one blink and the next, the kid was out, unconscious in his arms that had him panicking, fingers slipping from hair to pulse point, exhaling slow when he felt the slow rhythm of sleep. His whole body spasmed in shock as Katakuri picked him up, his long strides getting them back to their cabin easily.
Thankfully last time Law had visited them he set up a medical room after Rosinante fell into the bonfire and took Penguin with him, the hour-long lecture from his teenager was not needed nor would be spoken of again but it ended with them having a medical room.
The moment the boy was placed down on the table both men rushed around for all the things they would need to clean wounds and stabilise him, but considering how bad some of them were and how they were slightly healed he was at no risk of dying, thankfully.
"Where did he even come from?" Rosinante asked as he carefully cut away the clothes from the child, eyes tight with the wounds that were revealed. They weren't as bad as he expected but something niggled at his brain with how the burn marks sat.
Katakuri shook his head, condensing his body down to fit comfortably in the room as he cleaned the jagged wound on the boy's back, it would need stitches from hip to shoulder but Katakuri wasn't good enough at stitching to not leave a wound that would hinder the boy…
"He has a devil fruit." He blinked in surprise as the skin he pulled back to flush the wound stretched further than expected.
Rosinante's head snapped up. "What?"
"His skin stretches," Katakuri explained and then slowly moved to pull at the skin - in view of his husband - that wasn't wounded. "That would explain why he passed out so fast besides over-taxing himself. He's drenched in sea salt."
"This kid just gets curiouser and curiouser." Rosi mumbled as he went back to cleaning the burns, lathering them in the burn cream that Law made for him and wrapping them.
It took them a couple of hours to get the child clean and resting comfortably in the cot, he looked incredibly small wrapped in the blankets, his dark red hair the only colour in contrast to the pristine white.
There were so many questions running through their head, who was this child? How did he get all those injuries? Where was his father? Where was he from? There were too many and the only person who could answer them was unconscious.
X
By the time Law arrived, Katakuri and Rosinante were exhausted and stressed, pacing their home and the medical room anxiously. It had been two days and the child had still yet to wake up, Rosinante was able to set up a heart monitor and insert an IV though it took him a little bit to remember how.
Yet, it still felt like they hadn't done enough.
He was left alone while Katakuri was summoned home briefly, promising to return soon with Burlee.
"Cora-san? Where is he?" Law's sudden appearance had Rosi startling, cigarette falling from his lips and catching his coat on fire.
Hands instantly patting out the flames as he scrambled to regain his balance.
"Law, thank the Seas." He breathed out and quickly rushed to hug his kid. "He's been out for two days, we've kept an eye on him and kept an IV on him but still."
Law followed his father into the room, taking in his new sudden patient with a critical eye.
'Room – Scan'
He took note of every wound, old and new with wide eyes. Not only that he could see his blood, shimmering in a familiar if rarely seen way. This kid was a mystery because the injuries he had shouldn't be survivable and yet, they were healing faster than they should be too.
But he knew these burns, familiar to him in how they were made, especially when he shambled out the debris that was buried under healed skin to reveal a part of a shell. "He survived a Buster Call."
"What!?" Corazon spluttered, eyes widening to lock onto the kid. "How?"
"I don't know but we cannot allow anyone to know," Law replied to Cora-san, voice tight as flashes of Flevance obstructed his vision...
Determination and resolution settled heavily across the blond's face as he realised just what exactly his son was saying, mind turning to Ohara and Nico Robin. He would have to speak with Kuri when he got back, but they will have to help this child in any way they could, like hell he was going to let another kid be hunted for a bullshit reason.
Oh, how far you have fallen from the Marines Rosinante… a voice suspiciously like his adoptive fathers and his brother whispered in his head.
"He must be from the Goa Kingdom, how did he get here?" Law explained as he gathered everything to rewrap and stitch the wounds closed.
Oh, that would make sense, Cora remembered reading about it several days before the kid showed up.
"Would you believe me if I said he was coughed up by a Sea King?" Cora-san explained as he fell into the empty seat to watch his kid work.
Law hummed and nodded. "I would, considering he is Ocean Blessed."
Another splutter of shock escaped Cora-san. "What…? Really?"
"Tightly blessed too, when I did my scan his blood shimmered like the depths of the seas, looked like the waters when I peer out of the porthole in Tang." Law explained, a hint of awe in his voice. "Whoever this kid is, he's important and they will hunt him down worse than Nico Robin."
Cora swore even though he already knew that.
Ocean Blessed were rare, but to be so tightly bound that it showed in the blood was extremely so. He wondered who this kid was once again and hoped that whoever he was Blessed with didn't know what happened or succumbed to the horrors – he knows that its wrong to hope so, but the agony of being ripped from your Blessed One could be maddening… - of the Buster Call.
Something told him the longer he stared at the kid, he was going to topple everything, that in time, he would herald a change and Rosinante couldn't wait to see it.
"How long will you stay?" He asked his son softly, changing the subject. "Kuri will wish to see you when he returns."
Law's golden eyes sparked as he looked up, "till my patient is awake and stable, I have so many questions."
"Alright, I'll set up the rooms for you and the others or are you staying on the Tang?" He asked while standing.
"The others will prefer it, the Polar Tang needs some repairs but Bepo will probably stay here with me," Law replied while looking back down at the kid, fingers deft as he stitched the wound on his back closed.
"Alright, I'll get dinner started, thank you for hurrying over Law, I know it was risky with what you have planned," Cora muttered, leaning over to place a comforting hand on his son's shoulder as he passed.
"Don't need to thank me, dad, I could hear the screams when Katakuri-ya called," Law mumbled distractedly, completely missing the wide grin of Corazon as he left the room.
No matter what the circumstances were, he would always smile when Law called him dad.