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“I think she’s my soulmate,” Usopp sighed, drawing hearts along his phone screen.
“Fuck’s that?” Kid dropped his workout bag on the locker room bench and pulled out his hand wraps. They were old and starting to smell, but Kid couldn’t be bothered to get new ones.
“Kaya?” Usopp flipped his phone to show off his lock screen, but Kid waved him off.
“Don’t need to see your fake girlfriend. What’s that thing you called her?”
Usopp gaped at him for a moment, and Kid realized this was the longest conversation he’d ever had with the wanna-be MMA fighter.
“Forget it-“ Kid started, but Usopp quickly continued.
“A soul mate? It’s like, I dunno, a person you’re deeply connected to on a physical, emotional and mental level. It’s the person you trust most in this world,” Usopp got a misty sort of look in his eyes and Kid took a wary step back.
“Sounds stupid.”
“It’s not stupid!” Usopp looked at him suddenly, a fire in his eyes that Kid had never seen in the sparring ring. “It’s the best thing ever! Your soulmate is the person that was meant for you! Cleaved from your soul, you spend all your life looking for them and when you do…” Usopp let out another pitiful sigh. “It’s bliss. They make getting up in the morning easier, and are the last thing you think about when you fall asleep. They’re you everything!!”
“Mean’t for me?” The words slid out of Kid’s mouth as the image of long lithe hands wrapped around a coffee cup appeared in his brain.
“Like you and Law.” Usopp encouraged. “I’ve seen how you look at each other! Definitely soul-
“We’re not like that. I-I’m not like that.” Kid quickly interrupted, willing the strange feeling in his chest back down. “Don’t believe that weird shit., the hell are you talking about. Fuck’s wrong with you.”
“What got the idiot got so excited?”
Kid barely noticed when Zoro dropped his bag on the bench next to him.
“Zoro, you’d understand!” Usopp turned to the other fighter, his green hair rain plastered to his head. “You and Sanji are absolutely soulmates.”
“Don’t get me started.” Zoro muttered
“What?” Kid looked between the two men. “You know this word?”
Zoro pulled out his own wraps, frowning as he carefully laced the fabric between his fingers. “Course I do,” he finally muttered.
“Always thought you two were dumbasses,” Kid concluded.
“Fuck off,” Zoro jerked his head, aggressively wrapping his hands, tip of his ears stained a dark red.
Zoro and Kid weren’t friends in any really usage of the word. Though after years of being in relationships with the kind of men who attracted trouble like magnets, well. They had reached a sort of mutual understanding.
“Means shit to me,” Kid said after a minute, Usopp summarily ignored as he turned to the man next to him. “All good with you two?”
“Fine,” Zoro bit out, too quick.
Another few minutes passed. Kid finished wrapping his hands, but stuck around rummaging through his bag in an absentminded sort of way.
“His brother’s getting out of prison next week,” Zoro finally said.
It took a second for Kid to remember that Sanji was the son of a disgraced army general whose failed coup last year landed the majority of the Vinsmoke Family in prison.
“That was short. Thought they all got life,” Kid vaguely remembered Law reading the trial details to him.
“Only Judge,” Zoro sighed, pulling out his water bottle, giving it a shake to mix up the protein settled at a the bottom. “His other three brothers and sister got five years. Guess they’re letting the youngest one out for good behavior or some shit.”
“Sucks,” Kid nodded, and mean’t it. “So blondie’s upset."
“Worse,” Zoro muttered before taking a long drink. “He wants to meet with him.”
“It’s his family.”
“Yea, sure. Same family that shit on him and tried to use him as a bargaining tool.” Zoro scoffed. “Don’t see why he wants to see them.”
“If his dad’s locked up for the rest of life, maybe they’re all each others got now,” Kid said. He hadn’t had much good luck with the family shit. He had the gym though, Killer and Law. That was enough for him.
Zoro gave him a long searching look that made Kid want to punch him in the face.
“Law finally dragged your ass to therapy, huh?”
“Fuck off before I break your jaw.”
“You can try.” Zoro snorted, and Kid let it go, because the mans gaze went distant again.
It was an extended few heartbeats before Zoro spoke again. “There was that guy a few years back bothering Law, remember?” Zoro nodded at him, strapping his gloves around his wrist.
“How’d you get rid of him?”
“Easy.” Kid shrugged, remembering Vergo’s cocky smirk as he threatened to put Law in the hospital again. He hadn’t gotten to finished the sentence. “I bashed his skull in with a baseball bat.”
A huff of surprise interrupted their conversation, and Kid turned to see Usopp staring at him, face thoughtful. “So you’ll kill for someone…but you want call him your soulmate-"
Kid grabbed the boy by the nape of his hoodie and slammed him into the lockers. “Don’t fucking eavesdrop.”
“You guys were talking-“ Usopp tried to protest, but Kid already dropped him back to the ground as walked towards the exit.
“Still haven’t figured out that anger issue yet, I see.” Zoro hummed, following closely behind.
“Don’t like hearing bullshit.” Kid muttered.
“Usopp’s not wrong, though,”Zoro said after a heartbeat.
“Whadya mean?”
“You and Law,” Zoro gave a half hearted shrug, gaze still far away. “You got something there. Something a lot of other people don't. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Shut the hell up.”
The image of Law flashed into his mind, more specifically his favorite version of Law. The one that was half awake, cheek smooshed again an upturned hand, the other clutching a cup of coffee as he scanned the news.
Or the version of Law with less clothes, but considerably sleepier. Sweat drenched and satiated as he threw his arm over Kid’s chest, nuzzling into his neck in a rare show of affections.
Kid shook it away with a wave of his head.
“Me and Law, nothing.”
Except the word followed him, like a stray dog, like a thread of fabric still clinging to the sweater it was ripped from.
It followed Kid from the locker room into the ring. He thought he could shake it, as he did with most things when he stepped onto the mat. Bruising punches and kicks that rocked his opponent sideways. Mind blissfully empty of anything but the desire to win.
Except it came back when he went to get a drink of water. When he unwrapped his hands. As he walked back to the place he knew Law was waiting.
On and on it followed.
“What is that expression on your face.”
“What expression?”
“That?” Fingertips reached out, brushing against the arch at the top of his nose.
Kid opened his eyes to see Law upside down, staring at him with a strange look in his eyes. And for a moment all the feelings in Kid’s chest bubbled up into his throat, threatening to spill out. Instead he turn his face into the meat of Law’s thigh, nipping lightly at the skin. He was sitting in front of the couch, Law directly behind him, thin legs framing Kid’s bigger body. They were freshly showered and relaxed in a way that Kid was still getting used to.
Such a vulnerable position, so easy for Law to wrap his arms around Kid’s neck, cut off all the oxygen. Kid might not even fight it, not if it was Law.
It’s the person you trust most in this world.
Usopp’s damn words echoed in his ears. It sent the strange feelings burning into his chest again.
“You’re making it again. Are you sick?” Law pressed his cool palm across Kid’s forehead, and Kid allowed himself to lean into it.
Kid was born to fight, his first memory was of brawling with some boy two times his size, scratching to get back the toy the boy had stolen from Killer. It only got stronger as he got older.
Being in the ring, watching his opponents eyes as they finally accepted defeat. It was the only time he had felt alive.
So why was his body taut as a live wire when Law shifted his fingers so they ran in circles through Kid’s hair. Why could he feel every nerve singing as Law leaned over to press a kiss against his scalp.
Such small things, such hard earned intimacies. Years of keeping each other at a distance, to a desperate sort of romance to this. This.
Nothing to do, nowhere to be. Safe in the home they shared, matching rings tattooed on their fingers.
Wasn’t that enough, did there have to be more? Did it have to have a name?
Kid let out a sigh that sounded more like a strangled laugh.
“Eustass?”
“You ever heard of a soulmate.” Kid kept his gaze ahead, voice neutral.
“Whose taught you such a big word?”
“Fuck off.”
“Mh” Fingers grabbed gently at his chin, forced him to meet grey eyes, full of laughter and something else Kid wasn’t sure he wanted to name. “Must have been someone at the gym. You hardly do anything else but fight and come home.”
Home. Kid shifted, but kept his gaze steady as he angled towards the man holding him captive.
“Robin doesn’t seem the kind to talk about such romantic things. Definitely not Luffy.”
Kid snorted, but Law continued, the smile on his face growing.
“I think Sanji would rather pluck out his eyeballs then let that word cross his lips. Zoro?”
Kid tilted his head slightly, acknowledge the unspoken words. Zoro, the one who loved deeper than even Kid thought possible, but “Nah. They’re going through their own shit.”
“Chopper is too young, ah,” Law laughed, an airy sound as he dropped his hand. “Usopp then.”
“Fucker says the stupidest shit.”
“He’s in love,” Law said. “He sees things through rose tinted glasses. Everything he loves has meaning and he’ll do anything to prove that it’s real.”
Is this real? The question appeared, unprovoked in his mind. Stupid, Kid thought to himself. He wasn’t like that, some shitty romantic, wasn’t some 13 year old girl needing validation that he was good enough.
“So it's not real?” Kid said, finally, fingers tracing the pulse point of Law’s thigh.
“What’s not real.” Law smiled at him, the teasing one reserved only for Kid. He hated it and loved it. It coaxed emotions and words out of him that he had spent years burying.
“Soulmates. It’s not a real thing.” The word still felt weird on his tongue, raw and wrong and forbidden somehow. Like a hidden treasure Kid never thought he’d discover, so why should be bother searching for it.
“I suppose it depends on what you think is real.”
“Fuck off with your mind games.” Kid huffed, only partially meaning it.
“Emotions are just neurotransmitters firing,” Law continued, curling the longest of Kid’s strands around his fingers. “They must have started as something necessary. Dopamine firing when women orgasm must have mattered to our primordial lizard brain. If they enjoy the act of it, they’ll do it more, thus ensuring the survival of the species.”
“Sure,” Kid said, he was never great at school. “So all the romantic stuff is bullshit, we’re just following our lizard brains to eat and fuck.” Easy answer, he was someone who preferred simple things.
“I suppose,” that teasing smile was back on Law’s face. “It can’t all be biology, though. Why do humans marry? What do some desire monogamy? There is something that exists beyond just the firing of impulses in our brain. Most of it is society, I’m sure. There’s something else though, some missing need that we have yet to map.”
“So if monogamy is societal, shouldn’t we follow our lizard brains and fuck other people?” Kid smirked up at Law and was rewarded with a harsh slap on his head.
“Concentrate.”
Kid let out a laugh, gaze catching on Law’s returned smile. It was all in there, Kid realized. It had always been there, Kid just hadn’t been looking that hard. Neuro-whatevers and society and the little sliver of something leftover.
That’s where they lived, that space, full of of potential and unspoken words and emotions they didn’t put a name to because they didn’t have to.
Kid ran his hands up the inside of Law’s thigh, fingers tugging at the hem of Law’s boxer briefs. “Off.”
“You’re a very bad student,” Law smirked, but hooked his fingers in the elastic band and shrugged the fabric down.
Kid would never get tired of the sight, Law, body wide and vulnerable ready to accept whatever Kid was ready to give.
Kid would give him everything.
Mine.
The word echoed in his mind as he took Law into his mouth. Easy and unhurried, like they’d done a hundred times, and would do a thousand more.
Law came undone as the sun gave its last final stretch into the night sky. Kid followed quickly after, calloused hand making quick work of his own need. He used his t-shirt to clean up, then kicked off his pants.
“Move,” Kid roused Law from his bliss as he climbed onto the couch.
“We should just go to bed. It’s too small for both of us,” Law grumped, but moved, turning so his face was pressed against the cushions. Kid slide against him, drowsy in the best sort of way.
“We’ve slept on smaller.” Memories of nights crammed into a too small hospital bed.
It was the first time Kid had felt that aching feeling, the one that realized if Law died, a little bit of him would die too.
And yet.
“I’ll never say it,” he murmured the words as he fought sleep. Even if it’s real, even if it’s true. Those kind of words weren’t Kid.
It wasn’t an apology, per say. He would never be Usopp with his grandiose displays of love or even Zoro with his unwavering devotion to the blonde haired chef.
Kid could only ever be himself.
And Law just gave him that small smile, that one Kid could pick out in the crowd from the inside of the fighting ring. “You don’t have to.”
No. Warmth spread through Kid’s chest as pulled the Law towards him, impossibly close. He wrapped his arm around the always too thin waist, making sure not the jostle that arm that still gave Law trouble on rainy days. Lips brushed against the back Law’s neck, and Kid felt the soft shiver run through both their bodies.
Even now, after all the years together.
Law would never say the words either, it didn’t matter. He already knew.