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dfortrafalgar · 6 months ago

Text

Envious

Law x OC

Law is caught red-handed being jealous over someone who isn't even his... yet.

A/N- i wrote this a few months ago specifically for my own OC! I attached a cringe reference pic of her at the bottom of this fic, and me being my own worst critic, i really need to redraw her better at some point LOL. crazy how much you can change after only a few months, but i digress. I'm sorry it's been taking me so long to work on requests, so in the meantime I'm going to go back to posting some things that have been sitting in my google docs not yet published to here. thank you all for your patience!!!

Law was a calm man. He was a level-headed man. He thought before he spoke, meticulously planning every moment of his life down to the most minute details. He was stone-faced, unmoving, unwavering.

And yet, he sat at the table in the Polar Tang’s galley, a coffee mug gripped so hard in his hands his knuckles were white, as his sharp, golden eyes stared across the room from him. His jaw was clenched as tight as a vice.

“Captain, what in the world is your problem?” Across the table with a newspaper in his hands, was Penguin, who had finally taken notice of Law’s threatening aura in front of him. Law didn’t respond to the question, instead continuing to stare daggers at whatever was in his direct line of sight. Penguin placed the paper down, turning his head over his shoulder to follow Law’s vision.

In the common area directly across from the galley sat Bepo on the floor, rolled onto his side, mouth wide open as snores exited his nostrils at a rhythmic pace. Nuzzled up impossibly close to the large polar bear was Ruža, boiler suit zipped down to her waist, sleeves tied around her hips as she instead used Bepo’s ample amount of fur as a space warmer. Her long hair was tied into a tight bun. She was sprawled out along Bepo’s belly, head resting under the bear’s chin, a content smile on her face as she dozed off within her crewmate’s comfortable heat.

Penguin turned back around to face Law, a devilish smirk crawling across his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous. And of Bepo out of everyone!”

“Will you keep your voice down?” Law quipped back, voice hushed, yet harsh.

His mate laughed at his captain’s behavior. “Never took you for the possessive type.”

“I’m not possessive,” Law grumbled, finally releasing the death grip he had on his mug and instead using his hand to pull the brim of his hat downward, covering his eyes.

A hard thump resounded next to him as the bench of the table rattled. “You sleep on Bepo all the time, and so does the rest of the crew. Why is it a problem when Ruža does it?” The new voice, Shachi, followed his statement by taking a generous bite out of the bread he had retrieved from the kitchen.

Penguin responded for Law. “He wants to be the one on top of Ru–”

Law’s motions were quicker than lightning, reaching across the table, grabbing the discarded newspaper in his fist, and whacking Penguin over the head with it to shut him up. The two men burst into a cacophony of laughter. They both knew better than anyone that Law meant absolutely no harm with his actions, he just had difficulty expressing his emotions. Extreme difficulty, at that. The laughter from Shachi and Penguin was enough to wake the mink across the room and the girl sleeping against his fluffy chest. Bepo yawned, forgetting about Ruža draped underneath him and sat up, causing her to startle awake.

“What’s all the noise for? I was having a good dream,” Bepo uttered, sleep still heavy on his tongue.

Beside him, Ruža sat up, stifling her own massive yawn. She awkwardly got to her feet, unwrapping her sleeves from around her hips and re-buttoning her boiler suit. She turned to face the three in the galley across the room from them, smiling at the sight of Shachi and Penguin covering their mouths in vain attempts to smother their laughter as Law sat hunched over, both hands now gripping his fluffy hat, pushing it so far down his face that the entire upper half was obscured, leaving just his clenched lips visible.

The woman turned to Bepo, helping the animal off the floor. “Thank you for the wonderful nap, Bepo!” She turned on her heel to exit the galley, refreshed and ready to continue her tasks for the day.

Bepo finally approached the table, plopping himself down next to Penguin who was wiping tears from his obscured eyes. “Seriously, why are you guys laughing?”

“Captain was jealous of you,” Shachi said, his mouth curled into a wide grin. “Because Ruža was napping with you.”

“Aw, Captain, you should just tell her you want to nap with her! I’m sure she’d say yes, she just likes to nap on me because I’m so fluffy and you’re so boney,” Bepo casually spurted, innocent beady eyes matching well with the wide, toothy smile on his muzzle. Penguin almost spit his coffee out at the backhanded comment.

Law groaned, his head dropping into his arms, hat being shoved off his head. “Thanks for the encouragement, Bepo.”

Shachi nonchalantly rubbed his captain’s back. “There, there, big guy, it’s alright.”

“Uhm…”

A new voice alerted the four friends toward the opposite doorway to the galley. The masked helmsman, Hakugan, awkwardly stood in the entranceway, using his upper body to hold the heavy steel door open. “Captain, you’re needed in the bridge for a quick maintenance check. Sorry if I’m… interrupting something.”

Law was on his feet, hat situated back on his head faster than the speed of light. His hand grabbed his sword that was left leaning against the wall, leaving his half-empty coffee mug completely abandoned as he followed Hakugan out of the galley.

His three friends watched him go, knowing smiles on their faces.

“He’s totally in love with her,” Penguin sighed, dreamily.

“Why won’t he say anything, though?” Bepo’s question was innocuous enough.

“You know how bad he is with feelings. He’d rather die than be vulnerable with anyone,” Shachi responded, dropping his chin into his hand.

The conversation quickly dissipated, and the three finished their drinks and food before scattering for their own afternoon work.

—

A few days had passed since Law got called possessive. Jealous.

The raven-haired man was staring at himself in the mirror of the crew washroom, hands clutching the sides of the metal sink as he gazed into his own face. He wasn’t jealous. How could he be jealous of his best friend? Everyone loved cuddling with Bepo, how couldn’t you? Law wasn’t jealous. He didn’t own Ruža, no one did, and he’d rather swallow hot coals than ever make her feel like she was stuck in that situation again. He wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t–

“Captain?”

Law jolted. In the mirror’s reflection, the person he wanted to see the least was behind him, leaning against the open door. Ruža’s eyebrows were furrowed with concern, blue eyes shooting daggers into his back.

“Ruža, sorry, I’ll get out of your way.” Law quickly grabbed his hat from the countertop beside him, turning around to attempt to get out of the room as quickly as he possibly could, sans using his devil fruit (he didn’t want to look that pathetic).

“Are you alright, Law?” Ruža gently grabbed at the sleeve of his coat as he passed her. “You look feverish.”

Law couldn’t bear to bring his eyes to meet her bright ones. His heart was hammering so wildly behind his ribcage that he was scared it might give out.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he muttered blankly, staring off into nothing. He bit down the disappointment that he felt as Ruža’s hand fell from its grip on his clothing.

“Okay…” she replied, though clearly unconvinced. “Let us know if you need any help with anything.” She finally entered the washroom after him, going straight to the medicine cabinet to grab her toothbrush.

With her back to him, Law silently turned his head toward her. His eyes landed on the tattoo still imprinted at the base of her neck, exposed by her tied-up hair, his saliva catching in his throat. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel trapped in this steel submarine she now called home, trapped with him. She needed to be free.

But the smell of her shampoo lingering in the air after she passed him was making it very difficult for him to come to his senses, as not only himself, but as a captain. Ducking his head, he finally took long strides away from the washroom.

—

“Ikkaku, have you noticed something wrong with Law lately?” Ruža was hanging up her boiler suit on a hook on the wall, shedding her clothes from the day for something much more comfortable.

Behind her, Ikkaku was changing into her own loungewear, tight, curly hair tied into two buns. The two being the only women on the crew meant that they had the privilege of their own bunkroom, away from the 20-something other men that they lived with. Ruža joining the crew made Ikkaku elated, excited to have not only a roommate, but a new girlfriend at that. And the two of them sharing the privacy of their own room meant their more personal discussions stayed far away from the prying eyes of their crass male crewmates.

“Now that you mention it, he’s seemed pretty uptight lately,” Ikkaku murmured, wiping her face down with a damp cloth.

“I feel like I did something to make him upset, earlier I saw him in the washroom and he wouldn’t even look at me.” Ruža’s voice was laced with discomfort, clearly sullen about the events from earlier in the day.

“What could you even have done?” Ikkaku asked, finally turning to face her friend. The curly-haired woman already knew about the deep crush Ruža had on their stone-faced captain, being her only confidant in her emotional turmoil. “You’ve never said or done anything bad to him before.”

“That’s what I’m wondering about!” Ruža responded with an exasperated huff. “He’s impossible to read, and he never tells anyone what he’s thinking, so if I did do something to upset him he won’t tell me no matter how hard I pry.”

Ikkaku flopped face first into her mattress, rolling onto her side and watching as Ruža pulled a baggy shirt over her head. “When did he start acting so off?”

“Uhm… a few days ago I think.” The redhead sat on her own bed, falling onto her back and gazing dimly at the metallic ceiling above her.

“Did anything happen then?”

It took the blue-eyed woman a few minutes to think about the previous day’s events. “I took a nap with Bepo in the common room a few days ago, and Shachi, Penguin, and Law were having a conversation that woke us up, and that’s when he started acting weird, I think.”

Ikkaku pondered intensely over her friend’s words. Shachi and Penguin having a laugh at Law’s expense was nothing short of common on the Polar Tang, the two of them being Law’s closest friends but also his greatest annoyance.

Ruža’s voice piped up again. “Maybe it was because I was napping during the day?”

“No, that can’t be it, Law naps on Bepo all the time so he’d be a hypocrite for getting mad at you over that,” Ikkaku responded.

“Maybe he wanted to nap with Bepo and I was in the way,” offered the red-head.

A light bulb suddenly flicked on within Ikkaku’s skull. She sat up on her bed with a start, making Ruža jump in surprise. Wide, brown eyes trained on startled blue ones.

“Maybe he was jealous that you were resting with Bepo and not him.”

It took Ruža a few moments to process her crewmate’s words. “No, that can’t be it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he doesn’t like me that way! I’m a crew member, a subordinate. I’m nowhere close to his rank, and even then that’d be pushing his duty as a captain.” Ruža was immediately on the defensive with a tight frown. “As much as I want that to be the case, there’s no way that can be it.”

Ikkaku grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. “Who says? Law’s not the kind of guy to keep himself above everyone, we’re all equal in this tin can. Penguin and Shachi make out in the supply closet all the time and no one bats an eye.”

“Penguin and Shachi have been making out in supply closets since they were teenagers. Their scenario is different.” Ruža sat herself up now, leaning back on her hands. After a few tense moments, she released a pent-up exhale. “I really want Law to like me the way I like him, but it’s wishful thinking. He’s not that kind of guy, and he definitely doesn’t seem like the kind of person to get jealous.”

Ikkaku hummed. “I don’t know, I have an inkling. But, I don’t know him as well as Bepo, Shachi, or Penguin do, so I feel like if you really want an answer, you’ll have to go through them. Even if it’s not some cute lovey-dovey romance situation, they might at least be able to help you figure out what you did wrong, if anything.”

Ruža glanced off to the side. “You’re right, probably.”

“Probably?!” Ikkaku gasped, feigning offense. “I’m always right!”

This got Ruža to finally crack a tired smile, a breathy laugh leaving her lungs. “Okay, yeah, you’re always right.”

Their conversations continued until the lights went out. Instead of sleeping, however, Ruža was laid on her back, staring blankly at the dark ceiling above her head. Her lips quivered nervously.

—

“Shachi,” a hushed whisper alerted the ginger man’s attention from his porthole washing. He turned his head left, then right, searching for the source of the noise. “Behind you, dummy,” the voice came again, from behind him. He finally turned around, spotting the nervous expression of Ruža peeking from around the corridor.

“Why are you acting like you’re spying? Just get over here!” Shachi beckoned her over, and she complied without a word, slowly ambling her way over to where her older crewmate was working. “Is everything alright? Your eye bags look like they’re about to go on a longhaul trip.”

“I wanted to ask you something,” she replied, voice small. She knew her eye bags were atrocious, she didn’t get a lick of sleep the night previous.

Shachi nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“Did I do something to upset Law?”

“Huh?”

Ruža paused, staring at the tinted shades that constantly covered the man’s eyes. “What do you mean ‘huh’? He hasn’t wanted to make eye contact with me in like a week now. I want to know what I did wrong and figured you might know… you or Penguin.”

Shachi pinched the bridge of his crooked nose in between his fingers. “Law is such an idiot, I swear.” He dropped his hand, planting it firmly on his crewmate’s stiff shoulder. “He’s not mad at you, I promise.”

“Then why is he acting like this?”

“Because he’s stupid and doesn’t know how to talk about his feelings. He was jealous that you were napping with Bepo last week.”

Shachi’s words made the neurons in Ruža’s brain brown out. Her jaw was slack, staring blankly at the man in front of her. Ikkaku was right on the money. She was always right.

“If you’re gonna get anything out of him, you have to corner him like a cat and force him to talk. How else do you think he managed that alliance with Straw Hat? That kid forced Law around against his will and in the end everything worked out.” Shachi smirked.

“I’m not gonna drag him around like a dog,” Ruža muttered, hiding her flushed face in her hands. “But… I want to try to talk to him. I got no sleep last night because of this. Clearly.”

Shachi patted the woman’s shoulder a few extra times before finally releasing his supporting grip on her. “Let me know if you need anything else, alright? You got this.” He flashed her a toothy grin.

Finally having a few answers, Ruža felt her shoulders relax, a relieved smile on her face. “Thank you, Shachi, you’re the best.”

—

The day dragged on slower than a ship on the Calm Belt, and no one had seen Law for the entire duration. Not at breakfast, snack time, or dinner. Someone claimed they saw the man make a mad dash from his office to the galley for food, but no one could back up that claim. He was like a cryptid among his own crew.

Regardless, that evening, Ruža stood face-to-face with the hand-painted plastic sign that he kept hung up on the heavy metal door to his office.

DO NOT ENTER. I AM WORKING.

‘Obviously,’ thought the woman with a frown.

With a trembling hand, she reached up and knocked three times on the door, cringing at the way the heavy sound screeched through the desolate hallway of the submarine. She waited a few moments in deafening silence. No answer. Her hand faltered, but she knocked again, louder this time.

“Read the sign,” yelled a clearly agitated voice from within the closed off room.

“I can read just fine, Captain,” Ruža responded, surprising herself with the sass on her tongue.

More uncomfortable silence followed, before the sound of a screeching chair could be heard. Slow footsteps approached the steel door, and Ruža backed up apprehensively, heart beating wildly as she anticipated the door opening. It did, a tiny crack, allowing the glaring light from the hallway to shine off of Law’s weary face. His eye bags were worse than her’s, and his hair clearly hadn’t been washed in some time.

He stared at the woman outside of his door for a few agonizing moments before simply saying, “Yeah?”

Ruža pursed her lips. “I wanted to talk to you. It’s imperative.” Law didn’t need to know that she had been practicing that last word in the mirror for the better part of 20 minutes. Instead, she kept her shoulders back, chin held high, attempting to assert herself in front of her brooding captain who she was madly, desperately, incredibly in love with. She was failing miserably.

Law looked past the way her lips quivered and her arms trembled at her sides, as well as her own sleepless appearance. He silently opened the door to his office a bit wider, inviting her inside. Her apprehensive steps followed him, and she closed the door behind her, standing against it as she watched her captain meander back to his desk, plopping himself in his chair before leaning forward to rest his head in his hands.

“I want to hear from you why you’ve been ignoring me.” Ruža tried to suppress the way her voice trembled on its journey into the air. “I have my suspicions, but I want to hear it from you.”

Law bowed his head, the shadow from his bangs concealing his eyes from her vision. “What are your suspicions?”

Ruža was very quickly growing impatient, not helped by her lack of proper sleep. “That you were jealous that I was napping with Bepo. Shachi told me, but if that’s the case, I want to hear the truth from you, no one else.”

Law was worried that the sound of his hammering heart beat would be audible from across his office. His own fingers were trembling with nerves, he never in a million years thought he would ever be in a situation like this one. He did everything possible in his attempts to close himself out from intimate, personal connections, losing one too many people for his liking. And yet, a woman stood before him (well, behind him), who held his weary heart in a grip so warm and caring that he almost didn’t want it back.

The red-haired woman waited patiently for her captain to respond.

“Yeah,” was all he was able to breathlessly mutter.

Ruža waited for him to continue.

“I was jealous. But I shouldn’t have been.”

“And why were you jealous?” she demanded. “The entire crew loves napping with Bepo. Tell me why it’s different when I do it.”

Now it was Law’s turn to grow progressively more agitated. His teeth clenched within his closed mouth. “Do I really have to say it?”

“If it’s really this hard for you, then you don’t have to bother. I’m just tired of you acting like I don’t even exist. We’re in a damn submarine, it’s a bit hard not to feel ignored.” Ruža’s voice had softened only slightly. She was aware of her captain’s emotional issues, she knew bits and pieces of why he held everyone at three arms lengths away from him. She knew that the tattoo she had forcibly inked on the back of her neck was a disturbing sight for him, just as it was a painful scar for her.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Law finally leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes, tossing his head back, breathing shallowly through his nose. “I know it was immature of me to treat you like that, Ruža, I’m sorry.” He rotated his head only slightly to glance towards the woman at his door, gazing at her with golden eyes that were filled with an unspoken agony.

“It’s okay,” was all she said back.

An idea popped into Law’s anxiety-ridden mind. He slowly pulled open one of the messy drawers of his desk, procuring a wrinkled blank piece of paper. Pulling a pen from a cup on his desk, he pulled the cap off and started scribbling frantically onto the paper. In his head, the vision of Corazon writing on slips of paper to communicate while he was pretending to be mute flashed through his vision. If Law couldn’t muster up the courage to vocalize the three little words bouncing aimlessly through his skull, then he’d just write them down.

The scratching of pen against paper finally ceased, and Law stood, keeping his head low as he passed the paper underside-up toward Ruža, who carefully took it from his hand. Flipping it around, she began to scan the words sloppily written on the front.

Ruža clenched the paper within her shaky fingers. The words she herself had been afraid to say were written at the top. I love you.

The silence was palpable, so thick you couldn’t even slice a sword through it. Shockingly, however, a light, airly laugh infiltrated the space. Ruža’s face was flushed a bright, rosy red, and her mouth was twisted into a nervous, childlike grin as she tried with all her might to keep down the nervous laughs that were forming in her chest. She couldn’t help it, small giggles escaping her lips as her shoulders shuddered with the effort of keeping them in. Law picked his head up, staring with a mixture of shock and bewilderment. He poured his heart out onto a piece of paper, and she was laughing at him.

“I’m not laughing at you, Law,” she finally managed to say. “I love you.”

The formidable captain of the Heart Pirates, one of the most wanted men in the world, nervously swallowed the glob of spit that had formed in the back of his throat. “You… you do?”

“Yeah.” Her response mirrored his curt words from the short minutes prior. “I was so scared that I did something to upset you.”

“God, no, you could never,” Law replied, breathlessly. He felt 100 pounds lighter, like he could float away on the slightest breeze. The three words that had cursed him for almost 20 years of his life now held a new weight to them. A new, liberated weight.

The woman in front of him, with a nervous, giddy smile dancing across her lips, eyes closed tightly with the force of her infectious smile, held his heart so tightly in her grasp and she didn’t even know it. Not yet, at least. That would come with time.

Ruža broke the silence. “Can I please hug you?”

Law felt the corners of his own mouth twitch upwards. “Of course.”

The red-head closed the distance within a few short steps, hiding her face within Law’s chest, still giggling like a child over the sudden revelation. She kept the paper held firmly in her hand as she wrapped her arms around his torso. Law’s scruffy chin found its perch on the crown of her head, the scent of her shampoo filling his nostrils and clouding his mind with a bliss he had never experienced before. He couldn’t fight his smile any more, letting it consume him, the same way he accepted the way his heart beat uncontrollably within Ruža’s presence.

“I’m sorry I’m laughing, I can’t help it,” she mumbled, the sound muffled by her face squished in the fabric of his sweatshirt.

His hands found their place around her shoulders, his left hand involuntarily coming up to rest on the back of her neck, covering her tattoo with his own inked hand. “It’s okay,” he responded, his words quiet and soft. “This is all new to me.”

“It’s new to me, too.”

The two stood in the same position for what felt like hours before Ruža finally (though regrettably) backed away slightly. Law’s hands slipped off her shoulders, but his fingers gingerly brushed along her tattoo.

“We don’t have to do anything about this if you don’t want to. I know with you being the captain and everything makes this kind of weird.” Ruža’s eyebrows angled in a way that made her appear almost sad at a reality that hadn’t even happened yet.

It took Law a few moments to really form his response. “No, I… I think I want to try. I don’t know what to do, though.”

“Me neither.”

Now it was Law’s turn to laugh. “We’re fucking hopeless.”

“Tell me about it.”

Ruža gazed longingly at the paper she still held in her hands, eyes repeatedly glossing over the three words at the top. Law could get used to the way her bright eyes softened, as if not believing that what she was reading was the truth. In the back of her mind, the reason she had even shown up to his office in the first place pushed itself back to the forefront.

“So about you being jealous…”