love was the law and religion was taught

↳ ♡ Salem | they/them or he/him prns | adult

↳ ♤ [Masterlist.] [❗]: Links currently under construction. [Maas-verse Masterlist] [What I'm working on]

↳ ◇ Requests: OPEN from [3/2 ㅡ 3/9] Asks are still open for questions though!

↳♡ [RULES. PLEASE READ.]

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↳ ☆ Posting schedule: tbd, typically 2-3 posts a day but sometimes more

↳♡ Recs: [x], or can be found under the tag 'ㅡgrandline recs.'

Warnings: mention of blood, death

There’s blood under your watch.

Under the flickering fluorescent lighting of the unisex bathroom, the ring of flaking red-brown where the band of your watch usually sits feels like a silent accusation. You wish you couldn’t remember whose blood it is, but you do. You always do.

The water is a hot penance as you scrub, watching as the drain-bound swirl momentarily darkens the basin of the sink. Not good enough, it says. Why didn’t you try something else? Why didn’t you do more?

The sink shuts off. The paper towel dispenser whirs.

You step back out into the chaos. Out here, there’s the ever present rush of the ED – the hustle of nurses, the cacophony of coughing, sniffling, crying. South bay seven is being cleaned. Bright red still streaks the tile, the gurney – you look away.

The nurses station is empty outside of Lena, who peers at you over her glasses as you approach. “Holdin’ up alright? That looked like a tough one.”

She’s trying to be sympathetic, and she is – you appreciate it, but all you do is tug your badge so that the scanner can read it, throwing yourself into the lab results of another case. Lena takes the dismissal for what it is and doesn’t push further.

Busy clicking through a lengthy toxicology report, you can hear the brief murmur of Lena’s voice, the response also from someone familiar – and you look up just in time to watch as Jack steps away from the desk.

“Let me know if anyone comes in for the gentleman in South seven,” you tell Lena as you stand, and though she looks likes she wants to say more, all she does is nod. The next hour and a half pass in a blur of reading lab results to various rooms, fielding questions that range between offering comfort and being realistic – routine.

“I don’t know how you do it,” a weary, grateful looking mother clutches both your hands and squeezes with a warm relief that makes your chest tight. She’s one of the lucky ones, that ugly thing in the back of your head whispers. She gets to take her kid home. Not like –

“I just do what I can,” you tell her. It’s a neutral sentence that you use more often than not. No feeding into an ego, no trying to boast skill levels that you don’t have yet. You truly do what you can, where you can, when you can.

She squeezes your hands again. “Well keep it up,” she tells you. “We need more people like you.”

The smile you give her doesn’t feel quite right, even after you leave her to wait until her child wakes up, ECG beeping steadily in the background. Returning to the nurses station, you move to start all over again, fingers flying across the keys.

Footsteps approach. There’s the span of a shadow over half of your desk, and then the thump of something being set down. You pause, blinking.

The cup is the familiar paper of the cafeteria, stamped with the hospital’s logo – steam curling from the lip of it. You look up to find Jack watching you.

“You look dead on your feet,” he says, nodding to the cup. “Can’t have one of my residents going down when we’re this busy.”

“We’re always busy,” you murmur, and catch the upward twitch of the corner of his mouth before he turns.

“When you’re done with that, come find me,” he calls. “I could use your eyes on something.”

There are other residents he could ask for a consult, you know that. He knows that. There’s a compliment in there somewhere, but you know better than to acknowledge it. Jack Abbot doesn’t do favorites.

You tip the cup to your lips.

Also gimme that grey fox he’s so FINE in everything else I’ve intentionally watched because of him like no offense Fire Country is NOT my cup of tea but the like. 4 episodes that he’s in??? Sign me up Brett Richards pls yell at me

ANYWAYS here have a tiny thing that I want to work on when I get the fucking time

–

“Here.”

The cup of coffee that is set just beside your keyboard is not fancy. There is no plastic cup broadcasting a brand, no iconic orange strawed iced coffee that Shen seems to never be without – you’re not sure that Jack Abbot has ever stepped foot in a Dunkin’ Donut, or that he ever will.

Steam curls off the top of it, but it doesn’t smell anything like the sad, burnt excuse that’s somehow choked down by most of the staff because there’s no other choice. You pause, popping the lid off of it – and blink.

“Made it the way you like it,” Jack says by way of explanation. Like it’s normal for an attending to pay attention to a resident like this. He’s watching you. Not nervously, just with that quiet sort of intensity that he regards everything with.

“Thank-you,” you say, and he nods. Just once, then he gestures to your computer.

“Finish up,” he says. “And don’t get used to that.” The coffee is half-way to your lips. “One time thing only.”

“I won’t,” you say, and pretend that you can’t see the way his expression has softened just a little bit that can’t be explained by the buzzing fluorescent lighting above or the late hour.

Warnings: death, mentions/depictions of panic, blood

The man before you is dead.

Vaguely, you can hear laughter, bright and carefree -- oblivious to your situation. To the fact that there is a dead man on the ground, and blood all over you.

Because you killed him.

The dagger is still in his neck -- familiar to you as your own hands. Wielding it is easy. The sink of it into unguarded flesh was also easy.

Too easy.

You feel sick, ears ringing as you move to pull the blade out. Fresh crimson pools -- and your stomach lurches.

You leave him there. Someone will find him, but you won't be here. The way back to where the Polar Tang is surfaced is not a long one, but it feels like it when all you can smell is copper and iron.

You can hear your own footsteps. Once, you'd graced these floors like a ghost -- today, you feel heavy. Too heavy.

You drift, marionette with strings cut and the numb purpose of cleaning up. Bloody water swirls down the drain of the sink. Tacky spatter at your neck, macabre freckles across your cheeks.

You lean, trying to even the sharp rhythm of your breathing. (Blood in your hair, under your nails, sinking deep into that part of you that you believed none of this would ever touch--)

Footsteps creak in the doorway behind you.

"I didn't expect you back this soon, I--" Law cuts off. You wonder what he sees. The blood in the sink, on your skin, the dagger in your hand.

"It's not mine," you say, like that makes it better.

It doesn't.

"What happened." Not a question, a demand for an answer, fingers twitching like he wants to check you himself.

You swallow.

You aren't a violent person. Law knows that -- has often thought that you're too soft, too kind, too much of things this life is so cruel to. Snuffs it out in a blink, drowns it out here without a trace because the ocean keeps her dead like a secret.

He helps you clean up. Apologetic reverence in the way he cleans the blood from skin that should only ever know the sun and hands that were made for things better than this. Never this.

"Breathe," he reminds when your chest heaves, helps untangle the knot of your lungs and waits until you're calm to speak again. "You did what you had to."

What you shouldn't have had to because he dragged you into this life, watched you earn digits above your head like there could ever be a price for who you are. He knows you'll tell him you chose this life. You chose him.

Warnings: bit of angstish, mention of the Rocky Port Incident

“I can feel you staring at me.”

Law's voice pulls you from your thoughts, finding him watching you from his desk, expression unreadable -- even as he quirks an eyebrow in question and prompts, “Going to tell me what’s on your mind?”

Part of you wants to dismiss it, tell him that you’d simply been lost in thought and happened to be staring at him, but that’s a lie. You’d been thinking about him. Your relationship with him – if it can be called that – is a complicated one.

Law is not one for admitting feelings outright, you know that. And it's a testament to your value to him that he allows you in personal spaces like this when he doesn’t necessarily need something from you or you from him, but neither of you have put a label on it, or if you should. He’s your captain – but somewhere, whatever lines should be there have begun to blur, and you’ve both let them.

Tentative, fragile.

He calls your name, tone a little sharper – something like worry in it.

“Sorry,” you say at last, “I was thinking."

He stares. He knows there’s more to it than that, his gaze unwavering. “About?”

Your eyes lock. “You.”

Us, the silent addition. Law looks away first. “That’s dangerous.” It’s somewhere between teasing and a hint of self-loathing.

“Most of what we do is.” Pause. “Like Rocky Port.” All of those hearts, tucked away in neat little blue boxes. A price for power, completed so easily, the clean precision of everything he does.

A soft snort. “Worried I’ll do that to you?”

“No.” Another beat of silence, debating before you offer quietly, “I’d let you, though.”

Law stiffens, teasing light dimming. You expect him to scoff, to tell you that you shouldn’t joke around like that – but you both know you’re serious. That you’d let him take your beating heart straight from your chest, pack it in that little box – and do whatever he wants with it.

“You shouldn’t.” His tone is low and quiet.

It’s your turn to snort, to hide the little flicker of hurt. “Why, you’d get rid of it?”

He wants to tell you that the kind of devotion you’re offering isn’t one he deserves. But he wants it – wants you. To keep you in your entirety, all the good and bad, wrapped up and tucked in the same drawer as his comics.

Law is selfish, he supposes, at his core. At least with you. “I’m not sure I'd give it back.”

The smile that tugs at your lips makes his own chest ache in the best of ways. “It’s yours to keep. Take good care of it."

Hiya papaya!! My dog personally likes to "pull" me down so i'll bend down so she can give me kisses on my face esp in the morning, so --

Since I’m currently down bad for law rn, can u write something with law/ninja reader? It’d be so cute to see him lowkey geeking out over it haha.

Hiya! I am so, so sorry that it's been like. A literal year (or more) since you asked me this --

There's someone following him.

Law knows it, catches the briefest hints of movement out of the corner of his eye -- and it doesn't surprise him. He's a pirate, after all. He's sure there's more than a few posters with his face on them and a pretty tidy sum to go with it.

But he's not going to go down without a fight, either.

It's as he's ready to confront his newfound tag along that he hears it -- a cut off sound of pain, and then the heavy thump of a body dropping.

He turns. "Took your time."

You drop from the tree just two steps back from him, soundless as always -- a feat he's still mostly convinced is the doing of a devil fruit. Just like your heartbeat, your breathing -- it's all unnaturally quiet.

"Thought you'd take care of it," you say, and he watches as you retrieve the slim dagger from the man's back.

"I would have," he says, "but I knew you couldn't be far."

You raise an eyebrow. "And if I hadn't been?" You ask that as if you're ever far from him -- his own personal shadow, or perhaps a wraith. You take his silence for the answer that it is as you approach.

You lean up, and it's a positive earmark of your relationship that he doesn't move back, letting you near until your lips are almost against his.