Chapter Text
Cover art submitted anonymously and mysteriously.
It was past 3am when the back door of the car opened and closed with a sullen bang. Law slid into the backseat of the sedan and kicked the driver’s seat. “Go.”
Kidd had been waiting for hours. “About fucking time. You having an off day?”
“Drive. Idiot.”
The big redhead sneered at the rearview mirror and drummed heavily ringed fingers on the steering wheel. The lanky figure in the back seat wasn't looking at him. His tattooed hands were shoved firmly in his jeans pockets and his hood was up so Kidd couldn’t see his face. No bragging or banter, but that was rare these days.
Kidd sucked his teeth and considered the empty road outside. “If you fucked something up, now's the time to say.”
“I didn't. Take the highway.”
“Jesus…” He cast another burning look at the back seat and put his foot to the pedal. “How bad was it.”
“Fucked.”
The highway route meant the highway stop, which meant Law didn't want to wait to do their post-operation accounting. Which meant bad, but not in the skip-town-and-sleep-with-a-gun sense. Kidd pulled off the highway at the abandoned gas station, and into the cover of the overgrown lot behind.
Law didn't wait for his all-clear before stomping out of the car and over to a stand of trees.
“Aw, real professional,” Kidd complained as his charge emptied his guts into the foliage.
Law flipped him off. He caught the water bottle Kidd tossed him, rinsed his mouth and splashed his face.
“The air in that fucking bougie fratboy rathole, cigars and Axe, still fucking clinging to me.” He shucked off his jacket like it was full of ants, and Kidd kicked it over toward the car. He'd put it in the fire bag later.
“Law, get on the hood.”
Law wasn’t listening—he was standing there and scratching absently at the scabs on his arm. “Would you believe there were two fucking kids this time? Both marks. Rich brats, high schoolers.”
“Sounds like you did a service to mankind.”
“Donquixote’s been handing down some fucked up commissions. You gotta wonder.”
“No you don't cuz that'll get you dead,” Kidd reasoned. He grabbed Law’s shirt and pulled him over to the hood of the car for examination. “Injuries?”
“None,” Law murmured.
“Liar. Meds?”
“Holding up.”
“Shots discharged?”
“None,” Law sounded vaguely proud.
“None? Not even on the marks?”
“Overdose and drowning. More elegant. And they’ll be a hot tub full of bio-soup by the time they’re found.”
“Huh.” Kidd pulled off Law’s shirt and tossed it on the fire pile. Underneath, he was all raw edges, his skin stretched paper thin over a slender but obsessively toned physique. The sprawling tattoos on his chest, back, arms, stood out stark as wrought iron.
“Okay, there's one injury,” Law finally met Kidd’s eyes, flashing that sarcastic half-grin that used to be a regular feature on his face. “Wanna guess where it is?”
“Not really.” Kidd started on his belt.
“It’s right here,” he indicated the left side of his face. There was nothing there. “One of the brats thought he was tough shit, he got a good shot in, messed my face up. See?”
Law laughed and let his handler pull off the rest of his clothes.
“Shit happens, huh,” he pulled Kidd's stooped shoulders down so he could bite at his lip.
“Guess so,” Kidd sighed into the hungry mouth. He savored the leisurely sliding and entwining of their tongues before pulling away.
The thick cords of muscle in his back bunched and then relaxed.
Law’s head snapped back and he hit the hood of the car with a dull thud and a grunt of pain.
“Nnggh! … haha… shit happens…”
Law was quiet at first while Kidd fucked him, just gritting his teeth when a particularly sharp thrust jarred him. It took a while for his indifferent facade to start to break down. Kidd held his legs apart and drove himself deep into the patterned body until desperate little gasps and curses started coming out. He knew he had to make it hard; punishing.
“Ahh! Ah! Kidd, fuck…”
“C’mon, you fuckin whore. C'mon.”
“Kidd…”
Law finally came apart in a shuddering mess. Kidd fucked him through it, so hard their skin impacted like a slap. And then the grey eyes rolled back in his head and he was gone, collapsed into exhaustion.
“Psycho,” Kidd muttered, checking under an eyelid. The patterned body was limp and heavy, pulse rapid and breathing shallow. Out cold.
But still fucking perfect—beautiful and wrecked. Kidd shifted him slightly but didn't pull out. It only took a few more thrusts until he came inside him. Almost as hard as Law had, too… Kidd pulled out and watched the evidence drip over them both. Now there was a thing to see: that honed body with all its deadly symbols, spread out beaten and fucked on the hood of a car in the middle of nowhere.
Kidd cleaned them both up with the discarded shirt, and redressed Law in the loose clothing from the bag in the passenger seat.
Now that he could look his charge over properly, Kidd saw that he did already have another injury. A head wound, for fuck sake—blunt trauma from something heavy, not much blood but a big lump. Why couldn't the guy fuckin say something? Had to go and make it worse… Make Kidd make it worse.
Kidd gathered him up and propped him up in the back seat like he'd put himself there, then went to signal their tail.
Law woke to Kidd shaking him some time later. Early dawn. They were in a different car, parked outside the safe house.
“Mmmrgh. What.”
“Making sure I didn't put you in a fucking coma. Were you gonna mention the head injury?” Kidd sounded pissed about that.
“Nah. And you're not supposed to wake concussion victims.”
“You're not any kind of victim,” Kidd argued. He shoved Law out of the car and onto the pavement, and left him there while he retrieved the bags.
“My hero,” Law complained dryly.
“Asshole,” Kidd retorted.
Law dismissed his attempts to pick him up, just to be difficult. He made it as far as the kitchen before listing sideways. Kidd caught him.
“Stay,” Law murmured as he was set on the bed.
“I’ll be right outside.”
“No, you’ll be here.”
Law knew the harsh face was creased into a scowl, though it was too dark to see.
“You don't give me orders. All I gotta do is drive where you say.”
“Just get in the fucking bed.” Law was already shedding his clothes and burrowing in. “You can do your check-in bullshit from here, and I'll get to sleep faster.”
“I won't get to sleep faster, though,” Kidd pointed out.
“Fine. Gimme the valium and fuck off.”
There was a pause.
Law waited.
Kidd made an impatient sound but gave in. He kicked off his shoes and shuffled in under the blanket. Law let him mess around with his phone for a while, messages flickering across the screen and illuminating his deep frown of concentration. Scar tissue around his eye and a nose broken too many times made it more or less permanent now.
Law watched him. Eventually he grunted and thumbed the screen off, sinking back into the pillows and throwing an arm over his eyes.
“Fuckin lemme alone,” he grumbled as Law started pulling the clothes off him too.
Law grinned to himself and left the shirt bunched awkwardly up around Kidd's muscled arms, so he had to take it the rest of the way off himself. Ditto the pants.
“I'll do the other eye,” Kidd threatened as he kicked those away.
“Right,” Law dismissed this. Then he spread a hand across the broad chest, the tattoos he couldn’t quite see in the dark but had memorized.
Some of the ink was the same as Law’s, like the grinning crest on both their shoulders. Kidd’s had two bars at the edge, Law’s had one: their ranks in the Donquixote Family. Both had a large scythe somewhere on them: they’d taken lives. Kidd’s scythe was on his ribs, crossed with a sword: he’d had someone taken from him. Law had two swords crossed on his back, and two scythes crossed in the shape of a heart on his chest.
Some were different. Three rings on Kidd’s left index finger and two stars on his right, usually covered by his rings: he’d done a three-year term inside, and two months in solitary. Law had no rings or stars, since he’d never been caught, and never been called on to take a fall. His hands showed a different kind of utility. The Rota Fortunae on the back of each hand, and the letters ATRPS spelled across his fingers communicated a unique claim to those who knew how to read it: That Law’s business was death; his record so flawless and his methods so precise that it was as if he served fate. Not a single broken spoke in the wheel.
Law liked Kidd’s more personal pieces best. Like the large Stella Maris on his chest—a sailor’s traditional protective charm.
“The Latin seems so unlike you,” Law paused at the ORA PRO NOBIS inscribed to either side of the serene madonna of the sea. He rested his head on Kidd’s chest and traced the dark letters, jiggling his foot restlessly.
“The what?”
“The ora pro nobis thing. Didn’t think you were much for languages.”
“It’s not Latin, it’s just stuff you say.”
“Uh, it is Latin, it means pray for us,” Law raised an eyebrow at him.
“Oh. Yeah that makes sense…”
“Heh. What did you think it meant when you got it done?”
Kidd waved an annoyed hand. “Well I know what it means. It's part of this whole thing you say in churchspeak—”
“Latin,” Law insisted.
“—that’s just like, ‘Hail Mary, shit is fucked, hopefully my soul not so much.’”
“That's… the best translation I've ever heard.”
“I mean that's the gist of it. When I was a kid at the mission they used to make us say it a bunch of times if we were bad. So maybe it’s more like ‘I fucked some shit up.’ But then we also had to say it before bed and everything so… I dunno. We were probably just born fuckups.”
Law smirked at the idea of tiny hellion choirboy Kidd. “It’s kinda hard to believe you’re religious.”
“Pff. Not religious, just Catholic,” Kidd mumbled, halfway asleep already as Law traced the bold letters on his pale skin.
“Eustass.”
“Mmn.”
“Are you seriously a god-believing-type, though?” Law was still trying to wrap his head around this.
“Nah. Or like, whatever. Dunno. But shit is fucked, so…” Kidd muttered sleepily, gesturing vaguely out at whatever. Everything. “Better not be all there is.”
“And what, you think you’ll go to ‘heaven’ after all the shit you’ve done if you mumble a few words now and then?”
“Dunno.”
“You’re not holding up your end of this theological debate.” Law flicked Kidd’s nipple idly and got himself dumped off the tattooed chest.
“Fucking go to sleep, Trafalgar.”
“Can’t sleep,” Law protested. “Still fulla ritalin and coke.”
“That shit shoulda wore off already. Wait, coke?”
“Yeah well, I took a top-up.”
Law waited, picking obsessively at a loose thread in the pillow that turned out to be one of Kidd’s hairs. The big redhead growled and shook him off before digging around in the bag next to the bed and throwing a pill bottle into Law's waiting hands.
“Here. Knock yourself out.”
It was fucking valerian. Law threw it back. “This hippie shit won’t knock me out. Might as well be homeopathy.”
“Yeah well at least with the homo-path stuff you can't OD. Just take some.”
“Eustass, give me the benzos or I'll show you exactly how one overdoses on homeopathics.”
“Pff, and how's that.”
“Fucking drowning.”
Kidd snorted. He exhaled through his teeth, still not budging. “The other stuff fucks up your system after too long, though… and you already have to take a bunch whenever you go… over to…”
“That’s a different thing. Just gimme the fucking bag I’m a fucking doctor.”
“You’re the fucking opposite of a fucking doctor.” But Kidd threw the whole bag at him.
Law sat up and dug around until he found the right bottle. He sighed with relief and dry swallowed one for the uppers and one for his nerves. Two from another bottle for sleep. He paused and briefly considered a third before thick arms circled his waist and pulled him back into bed.
Kidd didn’t say anything else, just lay spooned around Law’s back, breathing on the nape of his neck. Not breathing like he was sleeping, though… like he was thinking.
Law counted their pulses in the dark, still buzzing while the sedatives worked their too-slow way into his system. Kidd’s heart was always so steady, so regular, no matter how fucked things were. Maybe his little superstitious charm worked, or maybe he was just made for this kinda thing. Born to fuck shit up.
Ugh… sleep wasn’t happening fast enough. Law was bored.
“Eustass.”
“No.”
“Eustass-ya.” Law stifled a laugh. Messing with the guy was almost better than benzos. “Speak Latin to me.”
Kidd snorted. “What?”
“They made you memorize it, right? In priestfuck preschool or whatever? Tell me some.”
“Yeah they kinda beat it into you, if you want the complete experience.”
“That would help me sleep,” Law mused.
Kidd broke his sullen silence and laughed into Law’s hair. “Oh my god. You’d fuckin love that shit, wouldn’t you. Should I get some robes?”
“Yeah, all the sinning is actually so I can work up to the penance part. So get me started, here.”
“Heh.” Kidd nosed around Law’s ear, breath warm on his neck. “Sancta Maria…”
“Ooo, perfect inflection,” Law fanned himself.
“Mater Dei…”
“Hot. Tell me more about your magical spacemom.”
“...Bless me cuz I’m gonna kill this blaspheming fuck if he doesn’t let me sleep.”
“Excuse you. You couldn’t kill me if you tried,” Law rolled his eyes.
“Your punk ass? Yeah I fuckin could. Any time.” Kidd flopped his head back down on the pillow.
“No. You couldn’t.” Law turned to look at him. “Don’t forget that, okay? If shit goes wrong and you get sent after me? I would win.”
Kidd’s eyes were faint globes in the dark. Something about that little warning/challenge seemed to get him, and he pulled Law flush against him and fit their lips together.
“Mmnh…” Law sank into the kiss.
He could feel Kidd’s dick pressing into his hip. He was still sore as hell from getting fucked on the car like that, but that made everything so much better. Just the thought of it got him hard, made his heart speed up again…
But he was suddenly so fucking tired. His awareness was starting to blink in and out. Time skipped and he was on his back, Kidd’s weight pinning him down and their mouths sliding together. Law raised his hands to comb through the wild red hair… but it wasn't there anymore. Kidd was gone? No, Kidd was hovering over him, twisting rough fingers in him… pulling him over, arranging him like a doll… fucking him.
“Ahh!… Kidd…”
Kidd was watching him fade in and out. “Downers kicking in, huh.”
“Yeah, it’s all… fuck… ah… ah…”
“Mm. Just hold onto me.”
Law tried but his hands felt heavy and useless. Everything was starting to get numb but he could feel the thick cock sliding into him, slow and slick. Not a violent invasion like before, smooth now that he was already fucked open, but still painful. Everything else was hazy, though. He laughed to himself and watched his own fingers flex sluggishly on the bed next to him.
“Guess if you wanted to kill me you could ju… st… just come for me when ’m… like this…”
“I could, yeah. Heh.” Kidd grinned down at him, teeth glinting.
That was rare, thought Law vaguely. He smiled so rarely these days. He couldn’t think of the last time… couldn’t think of anything. He thought there might be a hand cradling his head, lips against his.
Law closed his eyes and relaxed into a warm chemical haze of arousal, pain, and Kidd’s taste.
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