Young In Love - LawLu AU

Chapter 04

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Law walked ahead towards his submarine, gesturing his group to resume loading so they could get the hell off the island. He was shouldering his nodachi, trying not to think back on the worst days of his life, the memories of which were brought back because of the straw-hatted boy who followed him to the sub. Law had his guard down because he was confident that they had taken care of everyone who dared put up a fight. He didn't want to admit it but slashing through flesh and bone brought a sense of sadistic pleasure to his being.

The small sounds of footsteps following Law were welcome in his ears as they distracted him once he started listening in on them. The boy had stopped sobbing momentarily. His mind wandered to what he was going to do with the kid, how was he going to get him back to his family, if he was going to help him enough to get back to his family or if he should dump him on the next island and leave him to fend for himself. When Law was in such a stream of thoughts, he was hardly ever able to focus on what was going around him but right now he was fairly aware. That didn't mean he took immediate notice of the footsteps that stopped following him. He sighed and turned around only to find the boy collapsed on the cold snow with his face buried in its whiteness.

He went to the boy and crouched down to flip him on his back. He was unconscious. Law checked for a pulse, breathing and checked all the vital locations, coming to the conclusion that the exhaustion and malnutrition had finally caught up with the kid and that he was going to be this way for a while. Law had half the mind to leave the boy there but then his brain would play images of what the kid had said and Law would groan so he decided to comply.

He picked the kid up by the back of his shirt and adjusted him against his chest, putting his small head on the left shoulder and using his right arm Law brought his left arm under the boy's legs and held him there so it looked like the kid was sitting on Law's left arm, resting his head against his shoulder. Once the small body was that close, Law took notice of how thin and bony it was and how many injuries it had. The fever the boy had was burning through Law's shoulder and he didn't think it was a good sign. A boy this young was going to be difficult to bring back from the depths of malnutrition with minimum long term effects. Regardless, Law quickened his pace and went inside the submarine, not handing the boy to any one of his friends who asked. Law was unsure of why he wouldn't part with the small burning body but he dismissed it as it would be better and faster if the boy was in his care so that if there were any symptoms, Law could be quick to action.

He went to the med bay and put the kid on one of the beds and started working on him. Law asked for Shachi to help him because he needed to divide the work force and with Shachi assisting him, Law could be relieved leaving the rest in the capable hands of Penguin and Bepo, though he told the crew to keep themselves submerged around the island and not move further for a while.

Law asked Shachi to first remove the boy's accessories while he himself pulled on his gloves and put on his mask and arranged the tools he knew he'd need. The straw-hat was carefully placed aside and Law began cutting through the torn and blood stained clothes. The boy was all skin and bones and it shocked Law that he could run and move at all.

Shachi handed Law the peroxide first, helping him clean all the blood off. The hair were matted with blood and sweat but there were no head wounds so that could be left for a later time. Shachi went ahead and cleaned the dirt and blood off the boy's face and Law noticed the scar under his left eye, wondering how it got there. The small puckered lips, cheeks and forehead and nose red from the fever, made the boy look a lot younger than he probably was. There were numerous scars on the kid's body, much older ones that had started to fade out of existence and once again the young doctor found himself in thought of what kind of hell his patient had been in before he got to where he was. What kind of life did he have, what kind of human connections. When Law reached the kid's legs, he had to restrain himself from ripping the skin off the boy's thigh. There was definitely a mark there that he remembered the kid had been trying to hide. It was a tattoo, the presence of which sealed the body's belonging to a revolting bastard. Law felt that rage again and the need to burn something came back and he knew just what he would be burning.