Chapter Text
The music from the old self made sound system was blasting at full volume. Whenever the drummer hit the next beat, the red brick walls of the local Squat were shaking.
Law was standing in the last row, trying not to get too involved in the mosh pit which had formed in front of the stage. His eyes and lungs were stinging from the thick smoke filled air. He never understood why his roommates thought buying a fog machine for their venue was a good idea, when all their shows were in the buildings cellar, which had almost no windows and everyone was smoking inside anyways.
He took another sip of the already stale bear in his hand and grimaced. It were nights like these, in which he wished he would be living in a normal flat, like all his other fellow students.
His head was already hurting form staying up late every single night of the last week to study for his exam. Now that it was over all he really wanted was to stay in his room, smoke a joint and sleep.
But it was Friday and that ment there was a live show happening, so sleeping was impossible as long as the bands were playing.
He knew, that they needed the money from the weekly shows to keep the already run down building alive. So he wasn’t in a position to really complain about it. But sometimes it sucked that he was the only one of his roommates that was actually planning to make something out of his life, so a lot of them lacked empathy for how hard his situation actually was, juggling Uni while being deeply involved in the local music scene. Staying up late, being at shows every weekend, getting wasted was easier when he was still 18, without any responsibilities, knowing that he could sleep in all week. His customers who dropped by to get some weed wouldn’t show up before noon anyway.
But now that he was finally enrolled in Uni a lot of the things that used to be fun felt like a burden. His little “job” selling weed could even cost him his dream of becoming a doctor if anyone would rat him out. But a man has to make a living From something, right?
His eyes wandered over the crowd, when he spotted a kid in a red button down vest and blue jeans shorts bouncing and throwing fists in the air in the middle of the pit. The kid couldn’t stand out more with the brightly colored cloth, next to all the studded black vests and leather jackets.
He furrowed his brows.
“What is this baby face doing at one of our shows?” His eyes were fixed on the red vested boy, that was jumping so hard he almost looked like a rubber ball bouncing off the walls.
“Don’t you know who this is?” His friend Penguin asked looking the same direction, with a tone so surprised Law wondered if the kid was famous or something.
“How should I know?” Law muttered “unlike many other creeps I don’t hang out with minors”
“That’s Ace’s little brother.”
“Ace like in the lead singer of the Fire Fists Ace?”
“Yes, Yes! He dropped his brother off here this morning and said we should take care of him while he’s on tour”
“What?” Laws voice must have been a little too loud since a few people turned around and looked at him. He leaned over to his friend’s ear and hissed “and who exactly thought that was a good idea? We’re no fucking daycare”
“He said his brother will be 18 in 5 days and can take care of himself. He won’t make any problems.”
Law sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose “you do realize that leaving a minor with random unsupervised adults is super illegal, right?”
Penguin laughed “yeah, like any of the things we do here is legal, Law.”
“Yes, so maybe getting a teenager involved that could run off and get in trouble with the police isn’t exactly what we need here.”
“Who says he’s running off? He’s simply dancing. Doesn’t look like any trouble to me.”
“Oh my god” law rolled his eyes “I need some fresh air.”
“It’s not like you didn’t do the same thing, when you were a minor!” Penguin called after him but his friends voice got drowned by the loud shouts and applause the crowd suddenly erupted in. Seemed like the set was over.
Maybe it was finally time for the hard earned joint Law has been looking forward to all week. He shuffled his aching bones upstairs to his room to get everything he needed.
His room was on the fifth floor. The lifts hadn’t been working since the big fire on the third floor, which was also the reason the building was once left unoccupied, which later led to the old hotel getting squatted 20 years ago.
Which was long before Law ever moved in.
Whenever he climbed up the stairs he mumbled curse words under his breath.
As soon as he finally reached his destination he fell down onto his bed, the old bed framing screaming under his body weight. When he moved in the bed was already there. It was an obviously self build bed frame, none of the wooden slats were matching, all colored with black spray paint and words scribbled all over it.
The same spray paint was used to paint a big Anarchy symbol on the wall opposite of his bed. Framed by various other graffiti, some of which were here since before it was Law’s room and some were scribbled while Law was chilling with friends and or customers. Even though none of them were made by himself. He wasn’t really the type to write on walls, never understood the appeal to leave a mark on a building.
A lot of the scribbles were names or the typical “who and who was here” followed by some political references or jokes. There also were some psychedelic looking drawings by people that got high and then had the need to express themselves in a creative way.
Why this had to happen on Law’s wall and not on paper, was something Law wondered, whenever he looked at them but at the same time he was too high himself to say anything while it happened, so now it was already too late. And sometimes he actually enjoyed staring at the detailed drawing when the edges of his vision got blurry and the heavy blanket of his high was weighing on his bones.
But right now only his exhaustion from exam week was weighing him down.
Right, he wanted to smoke, that’s why he came up here.
He reached to his night stand, fished all the utilities he needed out of it and started to roll his blunt.
When his perfectly rolled artwork was resting between his fingers he considered lighting it here and there. But then he remembered the conversation he had with Penguin right before he left the gig and groaned.
That damn kid was running around somewhere out there and knowing his other roommates, none of them would give two shits about the well being of said person. Even though Ace didn’t tell him personally to take care of his kid brother, he still was a good friend and his best customer, so he didn’t feel like ever having to explain why his brother got into trouble or worse spent the night at the local police station.
He safely placed his blunt in the inside pocket of his jeans vest and stuffed a lighter in one of the outside pockets.
He groaned a second time while lifting his body up from his way too comfortable bed and trotted all these damn stairs back down.
One day he wouldn’t be living on the fifth floor anymore. Or at least in a building with a working lift.
When he reached the cellar the venue was almost empty, only the band was still there packing their instruments. The kid wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Fuck.
So up the stairs again, to the shared living room, the outside area and into the kitchen where at least penguin was, chatting with a blond girl in fishnet stockings and a lip piercing. Law remembered her as the lead singer of the band that opened the show today.
“Have you seen Ace’s brother since the show ended?”
“The kid in the red vest? He was here until like five minutes ago, stuffed his mouth with all the leftovers our kitchen had to offer.” Penguin laughed. “Ace should have told us, that he eats like three people before he dropped him off. I’m not sure if we have enough food for him for the whole tour Ace is planning to be gone for.”
“And where is he now?”
“Now? I don’t know… went out side for a smoke with some guys.”
“With some of our guys or some random guests?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t really pay much attention to it.” Penguin looked between the girl, Law and back to the girl trying to signal him that this was what he was paying attention to.
“You guys are hopeless.” Law muttered while turning around, storming out of the kitchen.
“What’s your damn matter tonight? I already told you he won’t make any trouble.”
When Law left the building and squinted into the dark, cold air was blowing in his face. He immediately regretted not taking a jacked with him but he was on a mission and running up all five floors a second time wasn’t an option. He pulled the hood of his zip-up over his head and crossed his arms. Ace owed him after that.
He heard some voices from around the corner and even though he never heard Aces brother speak before the bright laughter that erupted from one of them sounded like it would fit to the face Law saw before.
He quickly closed the distance and as soon as he rounded the corner he stood in front of a small group of people, all sitting on the floor, one of them was a familiar face, a regular showing up at almost all their gigs, just about to give a lit blunt to the kid in the red vest, a stupid smile plastered all over his face.
“So this is your definition of not causing any trouble tonight?” Law frowned down at him “and since when are you sharing your weed with minors, Buggy?”
The guy with the badly tattooed clowns makeup immediately snatched the blunt out of the kids reach when he saw Law and started to stammer “L-Law nice to see you? Minor? Who’s a minor?”
The smile from the kids face dropped when he turned to face the intruder.
“And who the hell are you?”
“A friend of your brother” Law answered still, frowning down at the scene in front of him. A few of the other people, including buggy started to pack their stuff which was scattered on the floor and started to leave.
“My brother never told me he was friends with a emo guy.”
“Em-Emo?!” Law felt his face getting hotter, who the hell did this kid think he was? “I’m not a damn Emo!”
“You’re eyeliner is telling me otherwise.”
“Eyeliner isn’t exclusively for Emo’s! I’m a metalhead, ok?”
“If you say so. I still can’t believe my brother wound be friends with a lamo like you. You do know my brother is a stoner, so he would’t mind me smoking.”
Law started laughing “oh believe me I know you’re brother’s smoking, but he never ever mentioned that his kid brother is, so don’t think just because he’s out of town you can start doing it!”
“Why do you even care? It’s not like you’re responsible for me or anything?”
The kid was now also standing, his arms crossed, getting closer to Law. He was almost one head shorter than him, but there was a certainty in the way he was standing that wasn’t what Law was expecting from a 17 year old. He was now also close enough that Law could see a soft faded scar under one of the kids eyes. It clearly got stitched back together, which could only mean the wound once was deep and gaping. Everything about this boy screamed trouble.
“Ace dropped you off here and told us to take care of you, so we kind of are responsible for you.”
“I’m not a kid anymore!”
“You’re 17!”
“Duh, but I will be 18 in five days, so who cares?”
“That still makes you a minor, so smoking weed is off the table.”
“Oh my god, who cares” he rolled his eyes at Law. “it’s not like Ace hadn’t started when he was younger than 18.”
“This isn’t about what Ace did or didn’t do.”
The kid looked another few moments angrily at Law, the air between them so wired, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the boy would try to throw a fist at him any moment. When suddenly his eyes grew bigger and the frown fell for a surprised “Ohhh. Wait, Wait, Wait, big scrawny guy with eyeliner and a constant bad mood? Tattoos and Piercings? You must be Law, right?” The kid started grinning one of his stupid big smiles again, that made his face look like it would tear in two any second. “You’re Ace’s dealer, right? He told me about yo-“
The rest of his sentence was silenced because Law covered the kids stupid loud mouth with one of his hands.
“Don’t blurt this out like that. Are you stupid?” he hissed.
“Whyf? ift’s nowt likef anyfbody knowfs anyfways” he mumbled into his hand.
“Maybe because that shit’s illegal, dumbass?”
The kid rolled his eyes at him a second time that night “whof caref”
“I care, ok? And now come inside”
He removed his hand from the kids mouth and shoved him in the direction of the squats entrance.
“Where are you taking me?” The kid asked but followed.
“Inside.” Law hasn’t really thought that trough yet. Where could he take him? Did he have a place to sleep for tonight? Was he supposed to sleep at the squat? Or was a friend going to pick him up?
When they came across the kitchen the kids eyes lit up “oh I’ve been here before! This is the kitchen right? I’m hungry! Let’s grab some food!”
When Law glanced inside, he saw one of his roommates passed out beneath the kitchen table and two people getting to third base on the old sofa they once found on Facebook marketplace.
Gross.
Before the kid was able to spot anything that was happening in there Law shoved him further muttering “kitchen’s closed for tonight”
“What why? I’m starving”
“I have some granola bars in my room if you want to eat something” Law sighed. They were reserved for when he got the munchies but it seemed like they would go to Ace’s kid brother tonight.
“Yes! Food!” The kid threw both of his fists in the air and smiled his stupid wide grin again.
Law huffed out a laugh. “I’m offering you candy and you easily follow a stranger to their room. I’ll tell Ace you have the survival skills of a sea anemone.”
“What?! Why? You’re a friends of Ace, right? So you aren’t a stranger!”
“Yeah, I told you I was a friend of your brother but how do you know I’m telling the truth?”
“So, you are a friend of my brother and you live here, right?”
“Yes?”
“Yeah, then I’m fine. Ace told me I can trust you guys.” He laughed while he said that and Law burrowed his face in one of his hands. How can a person be so easily trusting towards strangers.
When they reached Law’s room he searched trough all his typical candy hiding spots and threw all the granola bars he could find in front of the kid, which had made himself comfortable sitting crossed legged on the round fluffy carpet, that was lying in the middle of Law’s room.
“Do you always hide your food in so many different spots?”
“If I don’t, it’s gone after a day.”
“Are you hiding it from other people or your self?” he had already unwrapped one of the bars and stuffed it in one go into his mouth.
“Both” Law answered, watching in disbelief how fast all the candy bars were unwrapped and swallowed. “So what’s your name?”
“Lussie”
“Don’t speak with your mouth so full.”
“Luffy.” He gulped down the last piece “and you’re Law, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Ace sometimes called you by a different name, too… something more difficult. Tra-…Tora-… Torao?”
“Trafalgar. That’s my last name.”
“Yeah Torao!”
“That’s not my name it’s-“
“Torao, I like that! I will call you that from now on” there it was again, that genuine bright smile, showing all Of Luffy’s teeth and some of his gums as well.
“Whatever.” Law dropped down on his bed and folded his hands behind his head. “So what’s your plan for tonight. Do you have a place to sleep?”
“Ace dropped me off here and told me to ask you guys. He said you will figure something out.”
“Of course he has.” Law let his eyes wander to the ceiling of his room, like the answer was written somewhere between all the doodles and graffiti that was plastered all over this place.
“He said you usually have room for one or two bands to sleep here so it shouldn’t be a problem to squeeze in one more person.”
Law snorted “oh right, good that he thinks that. We do have room for several people here but that is already filled with the two bands that were playing tonight. And I’m not gonna let you share a mattress with a drunken stranger.”
“Why not, I don’t take up a lot of space and I also don’t snore, I promise!”
“That’s not the point…” Law sighed. “How about you sleep here tonight.” He couldn’t believe he was actually offering this.
“What, here like on the carpet?”
“No, we can get you a spare mattress from the mattress room and then we can share the place.”
“The mattress room?” Luffy laughed “you say that like that’s a completely normal thing to have.”
“You kind of get used to stuff like that…” he mumbled. “We also have a bike room.”
“Like a room to ride your bicycle in? Why would you have that? What’s the point of that?”
Now Law was the one that had to laugh a heartfelt laugh. He didn’t remember when the last time was he had to laugh like this, while he was sober.
“No it’s not a room to ride your bicycle in. It’s a room filed with bicycles. Mostly broken ones we picked up from the streets.”
Now Luffy had a puzzled look on his face and held his head tilted to one side. “What would you need that many broken bikes for? That sounds kinda stupid to me.”
“We use them to repair our own bikes. Like whenever something of the bike your riding breaks, you can go there and look for the exact same thing to exchange it with. And sometimes Franky gets creative and makes some art out of them. Which can be really annoying, if you’re looking all day for a specific piece and then you see it welded in the middle of one of Frankie’s big ass sculptures that only take up space.”
“Oohhhwaaa sculptures welded out of old bikes and scrap sound sooo cool, can I see them?” There was a glisten in the kids eyes that almost made them look sparkly.
Law had to smirk. “Sure, the bike room is right next to the matress room.”
“Do you have more special rooms here?”
“No not really, we do have a cinema though.”
“Whoa, what? A real working cinema only for you alone?”
“Jep.”
“Do you also have a popcorn machine?”
Law had to laugh again “no, we don’t have a popcorn machine.”
“Wha, why not? Cinema without popcorn is lame..”
“I’m sorry, we simply don’t have one. Come on, we’ll get you a mattress.” Law got up from his bed a second time this evening and gestured Luffy to follow him.
They had to walk down all the stairs again, this time Law made a big detour around the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement where the venue was. When they crossed the small self made stage Law opened the curtain behind it a bit and gave Luffy a sign to follow. A big room stretched out before them and bellow another set of round stairs was a platform filled with a dozen of mattresses and other cushions.
“Whoa, what is all this?”
“This used to be the party area of the hotel. The bar you saw earlier at the front of the room was already here when we came. The stage didn’t exist tough. This was just a big room to dance at. The platform you’re looking at was something like the chill area. There were tables and lounges to relax at. When the hotel was closed after the fire, they left everything like it was before. Only the electricity was completely shut down and torn from the walls. They probably wanted to make sure, that a second fire couldn’t happen again. The mattresses you see were the ones from the rooms you were once able to rent. Some of them are already used by some of the squatters, others brought their own. So all the ones that had no use ended up here.”
“Whoa does that mean I could choose a king sized mattress for tonight? I’ve never slept on a king sized mattress before!”
“You do remember all the stairs we had to take to get down here? You also have to carry it all the way up there again. I would advise to take a smaller one.”
“I don’t care about carrying it all the way up there! I’m used to carry heavy shit.”
“If you say so. But don’t expect me to help you with it.”
“Can I jump into the mattresses before I choose one?” That glimmer in the younger man’s eyes was there again.
“If you want t-“ Law couldn’t even finish his sentence before Luffy jumped down the few stairs with a loud “whoooooo” that got punched out of his lungs as soon as he landed stomach first on one of the many mattresses lazily thrown down into the pit. He bounced back and repeated the action while turning around mid air, now grinning at Law with both of his hands folded behind his head. He chuckled while bouncing a few more times up and down. Watching him, he again reminded Law of a rubber ball that somehow became human.
How could one person have that much energy and light radiate from them?
Law caught himself smiling down at the boy but immediately shook that stupid grin from his face as soon as he noticed what he was doing.
“So you wanna choose one of them now or you wanna spent the night in the mattress room?”
“As much fun the mattress room is, I don’t want to spent my night alone in the basement! That’s creepy.”
“Thought so. So pick one and come up here.” Law turned around to leave and Luffy directly picked one of the king sized ones up, balanced it on his head and followed him.
Of course getting a king sized mattress up all the five floors to Law’s room, trough the narrow corridors and around the many corners of the old hotel wasn’t as easy as Luffy first imagined and of course Law ended up helping him. He cursed under his breath the whole time and often questioned what the hell he had done wrong in his life to end up in the situation he was in.
All week he had been looking forward to this day, when finally all his tests for the semester were over, he would have his long awaited break for at least a few weeks and he could finally smoke again, alone in his room.
Oh right, the bluff he had rolled earlier and stored safely away in the inside poked of his battle jacked, he had totally forgotten about it. Which was weird because smoking weed and getting stoned wasn’t something Law simply forgot about.
When they finally reached Law’s room again, they were both gasping for air. This was the third time today, that Law had climbed up all these stupid stairs, which was two times too many.
They threw the mattress on the round carpet in the middle of the room and Law climbed over it onto his own bed to throw a pillow and spare blanket from his bed into the freshly prepared shakedown.
“Do you need clothes to sleep in?” Law asked.
“I’d sleep in my boxers if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t give a crap.” Law let his body fall down on his own bed with a loud thud and turned to his side to face Luffy. “Do you even have anything with you? A toothbrush, spare clothes, etc?”
“Oh yeah, I came with a backpack with all the important stuff but I dropped it off somewhere, when I got into the mosh pit and after that I haven’t seen it.” He laughed again.
How can anyone laugh in a situation like this?
Luffy must have read his mind ‘cause he continued with “don’t worry tomorrow I will find it again. I always do.” And smiled at him.
“You’re unbelievable” the older man growled and turned on his back. He fumbled the spliff out of his pocket and finally lit it up.
Luffy aggressively started sniffing the air like he was a police dog trying to identify the direction of the offense.
“Are you smoking weed?”
“Yeah?”
“Gimme, gimme.” Luffy reached towards Law and opened and closed his hand right in front of his face.
“Fuck no.” Law turned around again so now he was facing the wall.
“Wha? Why? That’s not fair why are you allowed to smoke but I’m not?”
“Because I’m an adult and you aren’t.”
“Yeah but only for five more days, four to be exact. So who careeeess.” The last word was stretched out and whiny. “You do realize I had weed before, do you?”
“I don’t care what you did before. Weed is not good for your brain when you’re underage, so you won’t get any from me.”
“But it’s only four days, as if my body would chance that much in that time.”
“I have my principles ok? And one of them is to not give hard drugs to minors. Especially not if they’re the little brothers of one of my friends.”
“As if weed is considered a hard drug” Luffy snorted.
“It’s damaging for the brain, so yes.”
“Why do you care for my brain so much, it’s mine isn’t it?”
“‘Cause I’ll be a doctor one day.” Law mumbled.
“What?”
“Because I'm going to be a doctor one day, ok?” This time he almost shouted it at Luffy.
“Are you serious?” There was disbelief plastered all over Luffy’s face. “You? A doctor?”
“Yes, I’m studying medicine at the moment.”
Luffy took a moment to look at Law, then looked around in his room, at his graffiti smeared walls, the beat down curtains, barely covering the old wooden framed windows, the furniture that was covered in stickers, some of the shelves looking like they were made out or old wine boxes and pallets, the old stained mattress he was sitting on and then broke down laughing. He laughed so hard, his forehead was touching the bed and he was holding his stomach.
“What is so damn funny?” Law felt the heat creeping up his face again.
“You? A doctor?” He laughed a bit more. “Sorry sorry, but you have to admit that’s quite a funny image in my head. You’re covered in Tattoos, living in a squat, your room doesn’t even have a real door, only a curtain and you’re smoking weed right now. That’s not the typical picture I get when I think of a ‘doctor’”
“Not everyone has the same start in life ok?”
“Oh i know, I know but shouldn’t it be more your brain you should be worried about and not mine? I don’t dream of becoming anything close to as serious as a doctor.”
“I’m an adult, that’s something different.”
Luffy rolled his eyes and let his abdomen fall flat onto the make shift bed. “I’m an adult, I’m an adult. I can’t fucking hear it anymore. Everyone treats me like a damn child, but I’m not a child ok? Most children didn’t have to go trough half of the shit I had to endure. And I’m not stupid, ok? I’m not that different from you or Ace so why is everyone treating me so damn different? Age is just a fucking number it doesn’t define a person.”
Law got silent for a moment.
“Age isn’t just a number, Luffy. It’s of course different for everyone and yes maybe you’re right and five days up or down to your 18th birthday really doesn’t make such a big difference. But right now you’re still a child, and there’s nothing wrong with that. One day you will look back and wish you could have been a child a little longer.”
“Urgh… you sound just like Ace.”
“Maybe it’s because we are right.”
“Yeah or both just stupid.”
Law laughed. “Or that.” He turned to face Luffy again. The bluff in his Hand was already finished so he pressed it out in the ashtray that was stored on his nightstand next to his bed.
“It’s late, we should go to bed.” He could feel how his eyelids got heavy. The familiar warm blanket of his high weighted down on him, gently pressing him further into his way to comfortable bed, that he had to leave behind way too often today. This was the point he noticed he was still fully dressed but decided now was not the time to change that anymore.
“Yeah fine.” Was all he got as a response from Luffy.
The light was shut off and right before he drove off to sleep he mumbled “Luffy, on your 18th birthday I’ll smoke with you.” So calmly that he wasn’t even sure the other man was able to hear that.