Chapter Text
There were a lot of things about his new living situation that required figuring out and getting used to.
Rosinante didn't remember how time had spent in between his death– flashes of a cold winter and blood-soaked snow, silently begging for Law to hide, run, run– and waking up on a soft mattress with heart-patterned sheets askew, warm sunlight streaming in through a big window on the far wall. When he stumbled to his feet and knocked into dry wooden floors and the round edges of white furniture and a bookcase and an aquarium that nearly tipped right over to the indignation of the two fish inside– he clung to the back of a chair, wincing as fresh bruises formed, none as painful as the bullet wounds that were supposed to be in his chest.
The pain made it clear he wasn't dreaming. There was no bloody snow, no Doflamingo with a smoking gun, no imminent danger. And no Law.
The first few days were a confusing fever dream before he found his footing. Rosinante padded barefoot around his unfamiliar apartment with the ocassional flash of understanding, when he found a few sparse items of food in the fridge or figured out what an appliance was meant to do. The pack of cigarettes he discovered on the kitchen counter was the most welcome find of all, followed shortly by a wardrobe of nice clothes that properly fit his tall frame– although, he noted with interest, he was not as tall as he'd been back then– he only needed to duck a little to get through the doorways, and it hurt slightly less when he tripped over his feet and fell on his ass.
Next came more discoveries that helped form the bare bones of a plan in his mind– a newspaper left outside his door, a bunch of sealed envelopes with bills, the food he was meant to be feeding the fish, and a curious block of technology with an interactive screen that only worked after some time spent connected through a cable to a docket in the wall.
The bills were under his name, except for one that was addressed to a business– a business he was responsible for, apparently, so that was one thing he needed to investigate soon. Especially if this business was what kept paying all the rest of these bills. As different as this new world was, Rosinante could well understand the language of money.
After gathering as much intelligence as possible to prepare for whatever he'd find outside of the four walls of his apartment and the immediate streets outside, Rosinante dressed himself in a sunny yellow shirt and pastel blue overalls, picked up the interactive smart brick, and set about locating the address of his business.
♡
Luffy was always one for supporting his friends. That had been true in their previous lives, and rang true now, even if Law remembered a past Luffy didn't know about. But, well. This level of support was unnecessary, and entirely unasked-for.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" he complained for the sixth time in as many minutes. The younger man slumped over and across his bicycle, stomach rumbling loudly before he noticed, and clutched it with a groan. "Tra-guy, let's go eat. I'm hungry. There's a sushi buffet at Tokyo Restaurant...no, no, there's hot pot and meat in Chinatown, actually– but I want to get Italian too, Nami said the new pizza place is tasty but wouldn't be filling for me, so it can be a snack on the way there! That's a good idea!"
Law felt a vein pop in his temple. Some things didn't change, reincarnation or not. At least in this world Luffy's ability to eat was somewhat stunted by his emptying pockets.
"You go on ahead. I don't need company."
"No way." Luffy straightened up with fresh determination. "You've been coming by here after class for the past two weeks just to meet this guy. I want to meet him too."
Law hunched over the handlebars of his own bicycle, a rented one from their campus. He supposed it was only natural that Luffy was determined to stick by him every step of the way, given how he'd found himself in this strange new reality in the first place.
He had woken up unpleasantly to the sound of a door slamming open– an explosive noise not unlike the firing of canons and the armada of ships he last remembered, surrounding his ship and crew on all sides as the New World tossed violent storms and runny skies their way– and in the unfamiliar environment, when he'd caught sight of Luffy's curious face peering down at him, he hadn't paused to consider that this Luffy wasn't the one he knew.
"Where the hell am I?!" he'd demanded, grabbing the other pirate– no, college student– by the collar. "Where did you spring from, Straw Hat-ya? Is this the work of a Devil Fruit user?"
Luffy had blinked at him, stared straight into his soul for all of ten seconds, and curiously, cautiously announced: "...I'm your new roommate."
Then, after a heartbeat and a crazed staring-contest on his end; "What's a Devil Fruit? Is that an exotic kind of fruit? Is it tasty? I want one!"
Because Law had not been able to think straight and figure out just how the hell he'd gone from being under attack on a pirate ship and falling into the sea to sitting upright on a thin mattress very clearly inside a building on solid land with Luffy in strange clothes watching him like an interesting bug asking what a Devil Fruit was, he'd revealed a hell of a lot more than he probably should've in a bid to get answers quickly.
The eventual result was that Luffy– this Luffy, a wide-eyed kid who'd gone through none of the suffering and loss of his original world, but seemed otherwise exactly similar in personality–believed everything he had to say, connected some dots himself, and wholeheartedly offered to help him navigate this world at the low cost of 'some dollar-store ramen, right now, let's go'. He didn't even question what science or force of nature could cause their worlds to collide, and it didn't even occur to him that Law could just be crazy and delusional, or straight up lying to his new roommate just to be an ass.
That brought them to the present moment. Law was growing acclimatised to this reality, finding it a hell of a lot easier than the one he'd left behind. He had no Devil Fruit powers here. He had no need for them, because strength didn't seem as essential to survival as following the schedule on his 'phone', attending the lectures at his campus and studying for 'finals' (which appeared to be the greatest challenge everyone in his peer group was presently facing), and getting along with the Straw Hats of this universe, who were every bit as insufferable as the last. It was only a month of getting used to this new normal and questioning where exactly he was meant to go from here before one unsuspecting day cycling a new route with Luffy had presented something that turned his world upside down again.
Corazón's Flowers.
A locked-up, dainty little flower shop on the corner of a street, with wilting blooms in its windows and a painfully familiar heart pattern adorning every surface inside that he could see.
Law had all but leapt from his cycle, leaving it abruptly stranded on the opposite pavement to cut across the road to the little flower shop, Luffy yelling after him in bafflement. That was funny in hindsight– usually he was the one yelling at Luffy for deviating from the plan and doing whatever the fuck he felt like– but at the moment, his heart was beating too fast, and he pressed his face to the dusty glass and stared and panted and felt like he was losing his mind. The flower shop looked like it had been abandoned for a while– every once-pretty bouquet and arrangement inside now dehydrated and rotting– but not so long ago that it had gone decrepit.
If he had drowned, and possibly died, and that was what had lead to his appearance in this world– could it be that Cora-san was also here?
The decor of the flower shop couldn't be some sick coincidence. Right?
Why is it closed up? Why has no one been here in a long time?
Maybe Cora-san just hadn't found his way yet. Maybe he hadn't had someone like Luffy to help him figure out just where he was meant to fit in in this new reality, and that's why he hadn't visited his shop.
Maybe. Maybe.
Law didn't tell Luffy everything– he'd already fucking overshared, that first time, and telling Luffy about the Straw Hats and his Captainship of them had been a huge mistake leading to annoying amounts of pestering to know more–but he told him that he'd be visiting this shop every day, so don't wait up for him.
Luffy, of course, had deliberately ignored that last part. He was going to accompany him every day.
Two weeks had gone by since then.
There was still no sign of Cora-san. The shop was still closed, and the flowers in the window had never looked more poorly.
"This is stupid." Law tried not to let the heaviness he felt in his chest seep into the tone of his voice. "It's been half an hour. No one's coming as usual."
Luffy, who was distracting himself watching loud videos on his phone, abruptly shut that down and looked up at him in disbelief.
"What?"
"Let's go." He slung his laptop bag over his shoulder, making sure it was resting comfortably enough for the ride as he kicked the bike stand off of the ground. "Italian, was it? You're on your own if that's expensive."
"Hey, wait a second." Luffy got in his way, blocking him off with his front tyre. "We're only waiting thirty minutes? That's not enough time."
Law scowled. "Will thirty more minutes make a damn difference?"
"You don't know that," Luffy said stubbornly. "What if he shows up exactly half an hour from when we leave? What if he shows up exactly when we leave? Or maybe he only comes out at night, or something! Or during class hours! You can't give up just like that."
"You think I haven't thought of that?" Law snapped. "I've skipped class countless times to come check! I've been here at night, early in the morning, and there's still fucking nothing. You don't have to be here and hell, I don't have to be here either because there's nobody coming to open up that fucking shop so let's get out of here."
Luffy hit the front of his bike with his, now looking almost as ticked as Law felt.
"You can't give up like that?! I thought this person meant a lot to you!"
"He does! He means more to me than anyone, but he's dead and I need to accept that and move on–"
"He's not dead!"
"How the fuck would you know that?!"
Luffy glared at him in the heavy, oppressive silence that followed. Law didn't back down, only holding his angered gaze with the same amount of venom, forcibly tramping down the hurt and the surge of sickness he felt in his gut, ignoring the fresh embers of what had until now been a faint spark of hope.
What had he been thinking? Of course Cora-san wasn't here. He'd been dead for more than fourteen years.
Maybe if Law wasn't so fucking angry and hurting, he would've noticed the moment the fight left Luffy's eyes. Rather, he would've noticed that his expression didn't change to one of concession– that his eyes widened ever-so-slightly, and he was looking over Law's shoulder behind him where he couldn't see.
"I'm leaving," he said, with finality. "You can hang around waiting all day for a dead man to show up for all I care."
Luffy rammed his bicycle again, thwarting his attempt to wrestle it free.
"What the hell is your–"
"That doesn't look like a dead man to me." Luffy's face was plastered with the biggest grin.
Law faltered. "Huh?"
"He doesn't look dead. He looks healthy, actually." He pointed a finger over Law's shoulder. "Is the guy who's supposed to be dead really tall and clumsy? Because I'm starting to get worried he's going to trip backwards into incoming traffic and actually be dead."
Law turned around so fast he gave himself whiplash. Staring slack-jawed at the person Luffy was pointing at, his heart in his throat beating a mile a minute, he didn't even notice the younger student's triumphant cackle and subsequent 'I told you so.'
♡
It took Rosinante a ridiculously long time to locate the shop that he supposedly owned. This world was a constant attack on his senses, especially with the plethora of transportation machines on the road and the way the traffic worked and the layout of the city he was in. Too many times he crossed the road wrong before he learnt from observing other people how to do it without nearly getting killed, and at one point he'd been stopped and given a long ranting spiel by officials dressed in an unfamiliar uniform, that he assumed to be the equivalent of Marines in this world, and then he'd gotten scammed out of a disproportionate sum of money because he didn't understand how the currency worked.
As it turned out, the man in the city square who'd thoroughly insisted that he read Rosinante's fortune for a small fee hadn't actually wanted to help him out. He was only saved from handing the guy a number of currency notes he deemed appropriate by a young man with green hair who wandered into their path, witnessed the transaction, and boistrously asked if he was an idiot for giving 'a whole hundred bucks' to 'one of these phony con-artist tourist traps'.
The younger man had also described the directions he needed to take to reach the address he was looking for, which had been a kind gesture, except following his instructions had resulted in Rosinante getting even more lost and out of the way.
But here he was at last. This had to be the place. Corazón's Flowers.
Well, the name of the shop and its decor choices left little room to doubt that.
After a solid two minutes of fiddling with the set of keys from his apartment, the correct key slotted into place on the door and he pushed it open with some force on its long-unused hinges.
And immediately started coughing. It was dusty and the air was stale. Every flower in the shop, which must have been pretty a long time ago, was far past its point of expiry and in a different stage of rot. Rosinante waved the stale air away from his nose and searched the walls for the light switches.
It was atmospheric, golden light that lit up the whole room. There were smaller lights on strings winding up the pillars to the ceiling and adorning the counter, upon which sat an unfamiliar machine, and a small stand of greeting cards, boxes and gift wrapping paper for sale.
Rosinante couldn't help smiling to himself, a warm flutter in his chest. So he ran a flower shop in this universe? He wasn't even with the law enforcement of this world, whatever that passed for Marines, or involved in some underworld with a group like the Donquixote pirates?
That didn't seem so bad.
He was still smiling to himself, making his way through the dust-covered displays, curiously reading the labels and wondering how he was going to turn this around because he didn't know the first thing about flowers or plants, when he was startled out of his pleasant daze by the sound of a doorbell ringing. The doorbell of this shop.
Rosinante turned around to see who it was through the shop window. He hadn't imagined he would get customers when the shop looked like this, so he wasn't prepared to deal with that problem.
He relaxed a little when he caught sight of only a pair of kids in the window. They looked to be in their early twenties, maybe– one in a red sweater and blue shorts, looking unbearably excited and waving at him enthusiastically, and one in a long-sleeved shirt and sweater vest, who was looking directly at him with an incomprehensible expression.
What did they want? Rosinante hoped it didn't mean trouble, though the kid in red looked pretty friendly and non-threatenening.
Gathering his resolve, he headed over to the shop door to open it. The small crystal dial above the door tinkled merrily as he did, greeting the two kids with a polite but questioning smile.
"Hello. How can I help you?"
"Hi!" The kid in red stuck his hand out, not for a handshake but for a fist-bump. "I'm Monkey D. Luffy! You must be Cora-san!"
Rosinante did a double-take at that.
What?
"I– What did you just say?" he stuttered out, disbelief and confusion and some other bustling hives of unfamiliar emotions turning his coherent mind to static. Nobody called him that. Nobody, except for–
"I'm Monkey D. Luffy," the kid replied with the same unwavering enthusiasm, not put off by his alarmed reaction. "We've been stalking your flower shop for weeks. Law was just about to leave because he didn't think you were ever coming, but he was wrong and he owes me dinner now."
The mention of Law by name stabbed Rosinante through the heart like a direct hit from canon-fire.
Luffy prattled on, "Oh, wait, I didn't tell you that, did I? Anyway, I made up that bet just now. I don't have enough money for sushi. Or hot pot. Since you lost our bet you owe me."
It dawned on Rosinante slowly, so painfully slowly.
Luffy's words became slurred background noise in his head as he finally turned his head towards towards the kid who'd come with him. The kid with messy dark hair and dark circles and the faintest patches of discolouration on his tan skin if he squinted.
Rosinante's breath caught in his throat.
But as soon as they made eye contact, before the question could clumsily leave Rosinante's mouth, the dark-haired kid unexpectedly burst into tears.