Chapter Text
Law was just about to finish his math homework when he heard the front door of the house burst open and, just as quickly, slam shut. His dad’s shuffling around the kitchen had been the only sounds that filled the house for the past hour, so there was really only one person it could be. And if it was him, he likely wasn’t alone.
Just as Law was about to stand to go see what the pair had gotten up to this time, the door to his room slammed open and his neighbor came running in with a stumbling Sabo in hand.
“Whatever you do, don’t let him in! Actually, we aren’t even here! Got that, Law?!” Ace hastily said. Without waiting for a response or even checking to see if Law had caught any of his twaddle, Ace dove under Law’s bed, dislodging the plastic bags Cora stored spare bedding in.
“What the hell is going on?” Law asked Sabo, who was still standing next to Law’s now closed door looking sheepish.
“Ah, well-“ Sabo started, but before he could finish, he was interrupted by loud rapid knocks on the front door.
“Garp back?” Law asked unsure. If the man wanted in, he wouldn’t hesitate to barge in, just as his grandson had.
Ace only offered an affirmative grunt in response, busy moving the bags to hide himself from view, and Sabo gave a shrug. He must have been dragged along by Ace before he even received a rundown of the situation. Realizing that trying to get a better response from Ace would be like pulling teeth, Law stood from his desk and decided to go see for himself.
“Law, I’m serious! I’m. Not. Here,” Ace reminded him from under the bed, his voice now muffled by all the bedding.
“Yeah, whatever,” Law said dismissingly as he walked out of the room.
When he rounded the corner, he saw Cora had already beaten him and was opening the door.
“Hi!” a childish voice greeted loudly, the person behind the voice hidden by the half open door and Cora.
“Oh hi! Who might you be?” Law’s dad asked.
“My name is Luffy!” Luffy said as Law peeked around his dad to see the new guest. A child, barely older than a preschooler, with the biggest and brightest smile and eyes Law had ever seen was the last thing he expected to find.
“Oh, Luffy! Garp’s grandkid?” Cora asked and Law shot him a questioning look. Neither his dad, Garp, nor Ace had ever mentioned him.
“There’s another one?” Law, in an almost exasperated tone, sighed under his breath. If Ace, at ten years old, was still a pain in the ass, Law could only imagine how full Dadan’s hands, and by extensions his and his dad’s, would now be with a preschooler version of that. At least this one looked squishable.
“Yes!” the child exclaimed louder than was necessary given their two feet distance. “Hey, I’m looking for Ace, have you seen him?” he asked, suddenly remembering what he was doing in front of their door and beginning to look around. At one point, Cora had fully opened the door to accommodate Law who was now standing next to the man and inspecting the child, so instead of Luffy finding Ace, the child’s attention landed on Law.
“I like your hat!” Luffy said, pointing at Law’s spotted fluffy bucket hat and giggling as if he had just seen a clown trip over a comically large banana peel.
“Thank you,” Law said, unconsciously pulling the brim lower so it obscured his view.
“Ace? Is that who came in a few minutes ago?” Cora asked Law.
“Who else but him? Sabo’s here too.”
“So he is here?! Where is he?” Luffy asked, jumping up and down excitedly.
“In my room. He is hiding under my bed,” Law said without a care for Ace’s little over-exaggerated freakout.
“Oh. Why’s he hiding?”
“Dunno. I think he is scared of you.”
“What? I’m not scary!” Luffy said, puffing out his cheeks petulantly. The irony in Law’s remark had completely gone over his head.
“No, you are right. You are very cute.”
“I’m not cute either!” Luffy immediately retorted, his eyebrows pinching into a deep frown. Law thought his expression was as intimidating as that of an angry kitten.
“Don’t tease him so much,” Cora quietly reprimanded Law with an unserious tone, finding the whole thing amusing. At the same time, he nudged Luffy inside and closed the door behind them. Luffy didn’t resist, though he didn’t drop his frown.
“Weren’t you cooking?” Law asked instead, raising his brow defiantly at his father.
“Oh, shoot!” Cora exclaimed and rushed out of the living room. He had probably left the stove on.
Turning his attention back to Luffy, Law continued to tease him.
“You sure about that?”
“Not cute!”
“If you say so,” Law said and ruffled the child’s soft, messy hair. It was a dark brown, the same color as his doe eyes. “Hey, I like your hat too,” he said when he noticed the child’s own hat hanging around his neck. It was a straw hat that was clearly many sizes too big on him.
The child’s grumpy expression immediately fell and was replaced by that large infectious grin again. “It’s really cool, right?! I got it from my friend Shanks before I left. He is a super cool pirate.”
“A pirate?”
“Yes! He has this big ship and this big crew that he sails with! They go out to sea and catch giant tasty fish! When Shanks comes to Foosha Village, he sometimes takes me fishing at the lake! Oh, this one time, we caught a giant piruru…pracuru…No, a pira…”
“Pirarucu?”
“Yes! It was this huge,” Luffy continued, stretching his arms widely, presumably to demonstrate the size of the fish. “It was bigger than me! And then, we went back to Makino’s and grilled it over a big fire. We invited the neighbors and had a huge party. It was so fun and the fish was super tasty!”
“Wow, you sure have been on some cool adventures!” Law goaded him on.
“Yup! Wait, this looks like Dadan’s house. Just flipped,” Luffy unintentionally changed the subject, finally taking notice of his surroundings.
“It does, doesn’t it? That’s how duplexes are usually designed.”
“What’s a duplex?”
“It’s a style of house. A single building with two houses inside.”
“Wow! You are so smart. What’s your name?”
“Trafalgar Law.”
“Tofal…”
“Trafalgar”
“Toragal…”
“No, it’s Tra-fal-gar,” Law repeated, slowing the pronunciation in hopes it would be easier for the child to understand. Law didn’t really mind. He was going to ask Luffy to just call him Law, but his concentrated face was quite adorable, so he decided to entertain it for longer.
“Got it! Torao.”
He looked so sure of himself Law didn’t have the heart to correct him.
“Yup. You got it.”
Luffy made a pumping gesture in the air and giggled again. Although Law had already worn a smile on his face, he couldn’t help but let a few giggles of his own escape. The child’s laugh and excitement was infectious.
“Aren’t you here for Ace,” Law reminded Luffy when his giggles calmed.
“Oh, yeah! I forgot,” the child admitted.
“Take off your shoes and I’ll show you.”
Luffy was wearing a pair of red crocs, which in Laws opinion, was one of the worst choices of footwear for a place like Swallow Island, beat only by open toed sandals. There wasn’t any snow on the ground yet, but it was undeniably cold outside. At least someone had the sense to dress the kid in a warm coat. It reached the boy’s ankles and was decorated by horizontal red and white stripes. He looked like a candy cane.
Law took the sentiment back as soon as Luffy slid the coat off and revealed he was only wearing frayed jean shorts and a thin tank top under it. Clearly, Law would need to talk to someone about this. Dadan or his dad because he was pretty sure Garp put him in this outfit in the first place. He wasn’t sure what Luffy was doing in Pleasure Town, but if he remembered correctly, Pirarucus were freshwater fish found only in the East Blue. Luffy was a long way from home, so it was likely that he would be spending some time in Swallow. It was best if he got a warmer wardrobe sooner rather than later.
When they walked into Law’s room, Luffy immediately dashed for the bed, dropping to the ground to peer under it.
“Ace! It’s okay. You can come out. Law said you are scared, but I promise I’m not scary,”
Law couldn’t see the child’s expression, but he was sure that even now, the boy was smiling widely.
“I’m not scared of you! Law, you asshole!” He heard from under the bed followed by some shuffling.
“Oh really? Sorry, thought you were, given how you came in shouting and slamming doors,” Law said with a smirk.
Don’t get him wrong. Law liked Ace and they even hung out with each other often. That didn’t take away from the fact that Ace was a menace that drove Law crazy sometimes. He was simply giving him a taste of his own medicine.
As it turns out, Luffy was here to stay. Foosha Village, where Luffy had spent the first seven years of his life, was indeed in the East Blue; in the Goa Kingdom. After a series of unfortunate accidents, funnily enough involving that “pirate” friend of his, that left a scar under Luffy’s left eye, Garp had decided to bring him to Swallow.
Law had never been to the East Blue before, having lived in the North Blue his entire life, so he was extremely interested in Luffy’s stories. The child had truly lived an adventurous life, having tales Law had only attributed to protagonists in comic books.
Luffy hadn’t grown up with any of his parents, or family for that matter. Just like Garp had done with Ace, the old man had dropped Luffy off with some acquaintances and asked them to take care of him. But unlike Ace who had been raised by Dandan his whole life, Luffy did not have that stability. The responsibility of his upbringing had been passed around the Foosha Village citizens, and he had never had a single caretaker for long. Law suspected that the lack of attachment and attention in turn gave way for a lot of unsupervised time.
“The shark came out of nowhere and it bit Shanks arm off!”
Since Luffy had gotten here, Ace had been brooding at Law’s computer, pretending to ignore Luffy. For a while, Law had suspected that he was indeed more interested than he let on, and it was confirmed when Luffy’s story took a dark turn.
“What do you mean it bit his arm off?” Ace asked, turning in the desk chair he was sitting on to finally face the younger boy.
“Yup! There was a lot of blood and now he only has one arm,” Luffy confirmed, extending one hand and wiggling his fingers to emphasize what he had just said.
“I bet you were really scared!” Sabo added from Law’s bean bag in the corner of the room. He was probably just as interested as Law.
“No!” Luffy immediately retorted.
“Really, not even a little?” Law teased. He could clearly see it was a lie with how Luffy avoided eye contact and puckered his lips. He couldn’t blame him though. He was practically a baby and had seen a horrifying event that could have ended in someone’s death take place right in front of his eyes. Really, he was surprised the kid hadn’t broken down crying while telling the story. “It’s okay if you were. I would have been scared, too.”
“Really?” Luffy asked, his expression changing to that of excitement. As if Law’s simple admittance to the obvious was something admirable. “Well, I did cry a little,” Luffy finally admitted.
Ace, having turned his attention back to the computer game he had been playing, scoffed. “What a crybaby,” he said.
“You would have cried, too!” Luffy threw back.
Ace was just about to stand when Cora shouted from the kitchen that the food was ready.
Luffy ate like an animal, even more so than Ace and Garp. Which said a lot… He tore into his chicken leg like a starving dog and didn’t stop to even breathe. Law hoped that that was just a Monkey D. trait and not a sign of something more concerning. He wouldn’t be surprised if Luffy had struggled with food insecurity. It was often that way for orphans. He had been lucky to have been taken in by Cora, or he thinks he might have been in a similar situation—or worse, dead.
That night, after dinner, Law and Cora made sure the boys made it home. Although they quite literally lived right next door to each other, Law was concerned that if left alone, Ace would shut the door to Dadan’s in Luffy’s face and leave him locked outside in the cold night.
Before closing the door behind himself, Luffy turned back around to see Law and tackled him into a hug before Law could even blink.
“Can I come and play tomorrow?” Luffy asked, peering up at Law without letting him go. It was already dark outside, but the light from the porch was enough to make his eyes look like they were sparkling.
“Sure, come over whenever,” Law said a little out of breath. Luffy was deceivingly strong and had knocked some of the air out of him.
With a last giggle, Luffy finally let go and disappeared into Dadan’s, leaving Law to close the door behind him. He hoped Dadan would notice and locked the door before she went to bed.