Chapter Text
North Blue, 1511
The sun blazes high in the sky, white-hot and merciless.
Rosinante sits on his coat spread out on the ground, his bare feet half-buried in sand.
Absentmindedly, he twirls a lighter between his fingers, too overheated to even think about smoking. The temperature itself probably isn’t that high, but the air is humid, with almost no breeze and no shade to offer relief. Sweat dampens Rosinante’s hair, his makeup is melting, and its oily bitterness collects on his tongue.
In truth, there’s no need anymore to bother putting it on.
What’s even the point of keeping up the guise of a pirate? He’s not coming back.
But then, when he looks at his own bare face—tired, baggy eyes, sallow skin, too many wrinkles for his age—he hardly recognizes himself.
Law wouldn’t recognize him.
He doesn’t know Donquixote Rosinante, the Marine Commander.
He wouldn’t want to know him.
And Rosinante isn’t entirely sure that man even exists anymore.
It has been months since they embarked on their journey, with nothing but a rickety boat, a snail transponder and a few stacks of berri to their name. And here they are now: somewhere between disappointment and hope, between too many failures and a sheer, stubborn optimism that keeps him from giving up.
There is something achingly familiar in this state.
No matter how bleak or hopeless things seemed, sometimes he’d still allow himself to dream of the future: a distant time where everything is simple, and he is free. He’d dream of the confident touch of hot, desert-dry fingers, the hard, bruising kisses left on his lips and his neck, the smell of expensive tobacco and rum, spices and oakwood, the low, pleasant hum of a familiar voice saying his name—intimate, fond.
The difference is that he accepted those things as nothing but fantasies, but for Law…
For Law, he needs to believe.
It gets so much harder at times, and the mask that he wears holds up worse than his makeup when yet another hospital visit inevitably ends in disgust, disappointment and ire.
Rosinante isn’t an angry man. He’s not a violent man by nature, but these things test even his patience and understanding. Worst of all, they test his resolve.
Often, he finds himself going back to the advice he received: to seek help from ship doctors instead of state-funded hospitals, but while it’s always seemed like a good, solid option, he’s never managed to figure out a safe way to follow it.
There’s no chance for them to reach the Grand Line on their shoddy boat, and much of the North Blue remains the Donquixote pirates’ territory.
Every contact he makes could very well lead him straight into Doffy’s hands. Every contact… except one he made a few weeks prior—a stab in the dark, a desperate plea to those who might not even hear it, who might not care to help them, but…
Well, at least he can be sure they have no ties to the World Government.
With a huff, Rosinante pulls out a pack of cigarettes, still craving a smoke even though the mere thought makes him vaguely nauseous. He grips a cigarette between his teeth and flicks the lighter: it still works like new, even after four years without much use, and he—
“Haven’t seen this one before.”
Rosinante startles.
The lighter slips right from his fingers as he coughs, nearly choking on smoke. As long as he’s known Law, the boy has always been a blind spot for his haki; there’s never been a sense of danger from him, not even when he straight-up stabbed him…
Law bends down to pick up the lighter. Shaking off the sand, he brings it closer to his eyes and peers at it with genuine curiosity. He seems to be in a good mood, and it pains Rosinante as much as it warms him—these days, that’s a vanishingly rare thing.
“Looks expensive,” Law comments, handing back the lighter. “Where’d you get it?”
Rosinante idly runs his thumb over the dark, grainy leather and the untarnished gold of the intricately carved figurine at the top. He pockets it with odd reluctance.
“It was a gift,” he says.
“From who?” Law flops onto the sand in front of him, gaze bright and inquisitive. “Doffy? And why the hell would you keep using the cheap stuff, then? I swear, one of these days you’re gonna set yourself on fire…”
“You talk too much, brat,” Rosinante grumbles without much heat. “It’s not from Doffy. It’s—”
He stumbles over his words, unsure how to finish the sentence.
What were he and Crocodile, really?
Acquaintances feels meaningless and wrong; anything closer—just wishful thinking.
They’ve always been defined by something that just could’ve been.
They were but a potential, the bond they formed got no chance to strengthen and thrive. And yet, Rosinante feels that in another life, if circumstances had been just a little bit kinder, Crocodile could have come to mean the world to him.
Maybe that’s why he clings to the fantasy of them like it’s his lifeline.
“It’s from a friend,” he finishes, somewhat lamely.
“Ew.” Law makes a face.
Ew?
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Rosinante asks, almost genuinely affronted.
Law rolls his eyes.
“I’m thirteen, not five,” he quips. “I know damn well the difference between a friend and a friend.”
He uses air quotes around the last word, his face scrunched in exaggerated disgust.
Rosinante chuckles, more amused than embarrassed. There is no fooling himself—or anyone else, apparently—about his feelings’ true nature. He just didn’t think he’d been that obvious, but, well… Law has always been too damn perceptive.
Closing his eyes briefly, Rosinante takes a long drag on his cigarette, relishing the dull ache in his lungs. Of all things that might kill him, it certainly won’t be that.
“Yeah, well,” he mutters. “I do have some actual life, you know.”
He used to, at least.
Even tied down by his duties, married to his work, he still had those stolen moments: something just for himself, ill-advised, foolish and doomed, and—
They weren’t meant to be.
Deep down, he had always known that, even when his mission was just a vague, looming possibility on the horizon. Perhaps it was Crocodile who drew the line that kept them from getting too close, but Rosinante chose not to challenge it. He pushed his feelings aside—in his mind, he stripped them of meaning until they felt like a joke, something lighthearted and fleeting.
What would he have done if he’d let himself get attached?
What would he have done if he’d allowed himself to fall in love with a pirate?
What would he have done when things inevitably came to an end, and saying goodbye felt like ripping his heart straight from his chest?
But the truth is, that had long ceased to matter. When he signed up for his mission, he surrendered almost all of his freedoms, yet he gained one in return: the freedom to finally let himself feel—without caution, without restraint.
And so he did. And so he dreamed, seeking solace in empty fantasies that could never be realized. They still soothed him. They kept him sane.
Rosinante feels the corners of his mouth twitch, a grimace threatening to crack his fixed smile, and maybe that’s exactly why he keeps putting on his damn makeup.
At least it always stays in place.
“So, who was she?” Law asks.
He sounds cautious, a little wary, as if he fears offending Rosinante somehow or sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong—or, far more likely, unearthing truths he would hate to discover.
There aren’t many things in Rosinante’s past that are exceptions to that.
Of course, he still has his cover: the carefully crafted history of a man who never existed. It never got much use—Doffy has always seemed quite content with his silence and his curt, hastily scribbled answers—but even so, he knows his lies well.
Sometimes it feels like all he’s done in his life is tell lies, long before he embarked on his mission. There have always been parts of him that he felt he needed to hide: his true ancestry and blood ties from his fellow Marines, his true allegiance from his brother’s crew. From Law, he hides his weakness, his hopelessness, and the rapid crumbling of his belief that things would somehow work out…
The lies he tells himself might be the most egregious. Still—
Rosinante raises his eyes to look at Law, at his face—pinched and troubled.
He wonders if the boy’s question stems from curiosity, a simple desire to get to know each other a bit better. He wonders if maybe he seeks a distraction.
Either way, Rosinante will indulge him.
In this, he’s allowed to be honest.
“He,” he corrects a little belatedly. “And he was just… someone I used to know.” He shifts his gaze toward the horizon, where the clear cerulean blue of the sky seamlessly melts into the sea’s still expanse. A gaggle of seagulls pierces the air with their cries. He puts out his half-smoked cigarette and continues, “We weren’t really…”
Involved, he wants to say, but halts when he sees Law’s expression.
There’s something eager in it, almost desperate—a longing that manages to win over even the mortification of imagining Rosinante’s love life.
And it’s a stark reminder that Law truly isn’t a child anymore.
It’s easy to forget sometimes, given how tiny and frail he is. His sickness steals years from him in more ways than one. But he’s thirteen—the age when he should be getting his first crushes and awkward, not entirely innocent dreams; the age when the thought of loving someone is no longer icky—well, maybe just a tiny bit.
Law didn’t have a chance to experience this.
Law doesn’t believe that he ever will.
He doesn’t need to hear the tragedy of things not meant to be; he wants a love story, and the thought of it makes Rosinante want to laugh and to weep.
He rubs his chin with the heel of his palm and chuckles.
“Well, dating is kind of hard when you spend most of your life at sea, you know?” he says lightly.
It’s such an absurd simplification, yet there is still plenty of truth to it.
Even if things were much simpler, even if Rosinante never left for his mission, what could they possibly have had but a few stolen moments? Perhaps he would’ve been allowed to spend his leaves with Crocodile—the man did invite him, after all…
It wouldn’t have been much. All but impossible to maintain long term.
Still, it’s a nice thought. Something he mourns.
“Was he…” Law hesitates, his gaze slipping down as he chews on his lip. “Um… well, was he a civilian or…?”
Or. Rosinante’s expression freezes for a moment before he wills himself to relax.
It lingers in the air, that thing left unsaid. A shared lie.
“Ah, no,” he says. “A pirate.”
It feels odd to find a sense of relief in the confession, but too much has changed—for him, in him—to cling to his old convictions. The lines have blurred; they’ve always been blurry, but Rosinante used to have loyalties, and now—
Now he’s free. Almost. Not quite. Not yet.
“A pretty powerful one at that,” he grins, feigning boastfulness. “Can you imagine?”
Law looks like he has a hard time doing that. His face twists in blatant disbelief, the depth of his skepticism written plainly on his features.
Why the hell would a powerful pirate be interested in someone like you?
He doesn’t say it aloud, so maybe he has become attached to Rosinante a little.
Enough not to try to obliterate him with words.
Though, truth be told, it’s not like Rosinante hasn’t wondered about it himself.
He’s never struggled with low self-esteem; in fact, he considers himself to have a pretty fair assessment of his own worth. He’s not exceptionally powerful, wickedly smart, or quick-witted. He’s not much of a looker and definitely not charismatic enough to compensate for that. He’s just… ordinary. Perfectly average.
And Crocodile is anything but.
The man has always had a certain presence about him that makes people look, attracting all sorts of attention, no matter how ill-advised it may be. Rosinante knows for a fact that there were a fair number of cadets—and older officers, too—who harbored absolutely embarrassing crushes on one of the Warlords of the Seas.
Not that he was any better.
It was just easier for him to resist the pull when, in his mind, Crocodile was first and foremost a pirate—someone to whom Rosinante refused to defer, someone he refused to feel charmed by. But that didn’t change the fact that, in a different setting, Crocodile would be firmly out of his league.
“More powerful than Doffy?” Law asks.
Rosinante blinks. “Uh… I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”
Undoubtedly, Crocodile would be royally pissed to hear him say that, but Rosinante knows exactly what his brother can do—the limitless potential of him, his cruelty and his hate, yet his power as well. In contrast, Crocodile’s is hearsay to him. The true scope of it he can only imagine, and he’ll probably end up missing the mark anyway.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter.
There might be a certain temptation in seeking security with someone who’s at least capable of opposing his brother, but capable doesn’t mean willing—and either way, Rosinante wouldn’t want that.
He’d hate nothing more than to drag Crocodile into his mess.
That’s not how it works between them.
That’s not how they made it work. They’ve always belonged to different worlds, always had vastly different goals and ambitions, morals and dreams, and convictions. The only thing that could keep them together was their unspoken agreement to let each other be, to make their own choices. Mistakes.
Is this a mistake?
With a sigh, Rosinante returns his attention to Law. The boy seems to be deep in thought, his gaze far away and his brows furrowed. He looks like he’s desperately trying to work something out—a mystery, maybe…
Suddenly, his eyes shoot up, wide and somewhat horrified.
“It’s not Sir Crocodile, is it?”
Rosinante chokes on air.
“Uh…”
Well, that wasn’t at all a convincing denial.
Rosinante would wonder what gave it away—he’d barely said anything, really—but Law has always been a damn smart cookie. A bright kid, keen and observant, so kind despite his horrific trauma. He has so much potential—so much to live for.
Rosinante’s faith may be crumbling; he may be struggling to come up with any scenario that would get them out of this mess. He’s hurting, barely holding on, he’s long since given up on the idea of coming out of this alive—and, sometimes, he thinks that might be for the best…
But he will make sure Law survives. Even if it’s the last thing he does.
Law purses his lips.
“Huh,” he says, then adds after a pause, “I saw him once, you know? Just about a month before—well, before. At Doffy’s. Did you know he was there?”
Rosinante hums. “Yes.”
“Does he know that you’re…” Law gestures vaguely, struggling to find the right words. “That you weren’t really…”
“Yes.”
Rosinante’s chest tightens with guilt—for all the lies he’s inadvertently pulling this boy into. Law is smart, and Rosinante’s excuses are see-through, paper-thin. At this point, they’re just kindness, a play-pretend for the sake of a sick child.
Law knows more about him than either of them is ready to admit. And Crocodile…
In the end, Crocodile might be the only one who knows all of it, down to the last ugly detail. Who Rosinante was: a kid raised on the Marine base, fed ideals that never quite aligned with his own sense of what’s right; a young man who dreamed of the impossible and feared it would prove to be just that. He knows about the tainted blood that runs through his veins, and the blood he’s spilled with his own hands.
Rosinante the Marine Commander.
Corazón of the Donquixote Pirates.
Everything in between.
And maybe he still has too many truths left unspoken, confessions buried too deep, it’s a comfort to know that when he’s gone… when he’s gone, he won’t just be remembered in pieces that never quite fit into something whole.
“He’s a complicated man,” Rosinante finds himself saying. “He’s harsh and abrasive, a downright asshole with people he doesn’t like—and sometimes with those he does. He can be cruel. He’s… not what I’d call a good person.”
He grows silent for a moment, unsure why he even brought this up.
Does he still feel like he has to justify it?
“Then why?” Law asks.
Rosinante shrugs, helpless. “I don’t know,” he says. “Perhaps…”
He smiles, a little unsure, but genuine.
“Perhaps one day you’ll find yourself falling in love with someone who seems the direct opposite of you,” he says, his faith in Law’s future unshaken and steady. “And yet you’d feel right with them. Like you belong. Like, with them, you’re becoming a better version of yourself.”
Not necessarily a better man, but… maybe that, too. Maybe he could’ve become one—in a different world, where he’d be free to follow the path Crocodile kept pushing him toward. Challenging the hypocrisy within him, denying him the easy comforts of complacency. Crocodile was never gentle in that. At times, his words hurt —but they were exactly what Rosinante needed.
They mattered. So many things felt like they mattered…
They still do, in a way. To him. To his conscience.
He sighs.
“Crocodile isn’t the kind of man you’d suspect of caring for anyone but himself,” Rosinante says, his lips twitching into a smile that surely looks fond. “But the thing is, he does care. About those he lets close. About everything wrong in this world.”
Beneath his cynicism, beyond his egoism, these things touch him. They unsettle him.
Rosinante could hardly imagine Crocodile actually doing something about it—he certainly places his own interests far higher. He’s no freedom fighter, not someone who’d put his neck on the line for a cause. But he’s not indifferent. And there is more to this feeling than just the anger of someone who was once wronged by the world.
It could be fair, this rage. It is fair in Law, and Rosinante wouldn’t even try to find words to quiet the seething resentment this kid has toward the system. It wholly deserves it. Those who still serve it wholly deserve it. Rosinante—
“And you?” Law’s voice is quiet, and there is something desperate in his eyes, something heartbreakingly out of place in a child his age.
He’s been through so much —things no one, young or old, should ever experience.
But he did experience them. Too many still do. Too many will.
“And me,” Rosinante says softly. “I do care, Law.”
Even if his words feel hollow.
Even if he’s spent too long being willfully blind, letting the weight of his small acts of goodness rest on a scale already tipped far beyond balance.
He was a Marine once, and he was a pirate. He’s neither now—a dead man walking. It’s too late to hope to become something more, but—
There’s still one thing left he can do that will matter.
Perhaps to the whole world. To him, certainly.
Things hurt: being betrayed, becoming a betrayer, sacrificing his own chance at happiness before he even got to taste it. His regrets are too many, and there’s almost no chance to make amends…
But there’s hope in him, solidifying into certainty. There’s a faith in him he’s determined to hold onto as long as he breathes. Perhaps he’s never truly been free—not even now, though he’s closer to it than ever.
But Law will be free. He will live.
And that, Rosinante thinks, is enough.