Chapter Text
Lami is sure that, even if her brother hadn’t told her not to trust the crew, she would have no place in it.
Doflamingo wants her brother. He says he can see something dark in him, something scary and cruel. Her brother certainly acts as such, in front of their captain.
Lami doesn’t have that darkness. Her home burned, her parents and her countrymen murdered like unwanted rats. She’d hid in a pile of corpses, waiting for the right moment to run, and now she was tainted by a smell that would never come out. She should have that darkness.
Perhaps if she didn’t have her brother. Perhaps if she did not hear the drums.
“They’re real,” Law had told her, when she told him about the noises she heard. He’d held both of her hands in his own and smiled warmly. “The Drums of Liberation. It’s our family’s secret, you know the one.”
The big secret that hid in their name. The D. initial. Even their parents didn’t know what it meant, only that they’d given their children a fake middle name to hide it.
“So you know what it means?” She’d asked.
“Yeah, I’ll tell you all about it, once we leave the crew. Until then, you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret for a reason.”
He was so optimistic in front of her, that there was a cure out there. In front of the crew he acted angry and hopeless. He acted like someone Doflamingo would love. He had to, because there was no where else for them to go.
Doflamingo was probably the only person who would keep them, while they suffered from Amber Lead poisoning. Law seemed full of darkness and Lami reminded him of Corazon.
Except the crew laughed at Corazon, constantly insulted him. They weren’t allowed to lay a physical hand on him, but Doflamingo didn’t do much to protect him. There was just something so... off, about how Doflamingo treated his brother, treated other people.
Lami starts to question if Doflamingo even really cares for Corazon at all. Maybe it’s an act, or maybe Doflamingo is just that twisted of a person.
Lami is semi-aware that she shouldn’t know these kinds of things at 8. She shouldn’t know them at 9 or even 10. Yet here she is, forced to adapt or die. Her peaceful, naive life burned with Flevance.
~
The Amber Lead, appropriately, has her body feel like lead.
Law holds out a cup, causing her to face to scrunch up. “Here, take your medicine.” Two years has not made the medicine taste any better. At least Law makes the same scrunched up face at his own cup, before downing it in one shot like adults chug booze.
Lami sometimes wonders if her brother has been sneaking alcohol. Even Doflamingo makes sure the kids have juice at their toasts.
“Is your bag packed?” She nods in response. Everything they own is in two bags that Law taught her how to expertly pack and stuff to the gills. There’s even a special, hidden pocket for their Beri.
It’s so they can run away at a moment’s notice, grab the bags and go. At first the crew had ignored it because they were just a duo of scared kids, but when they never got more comfortable, never stopped the strict routine, Buffalo had questioned them. Law had played it off like they were efficient kids. They’re sailors, if they forget something on an island because of sloppiness they’ll never get it back.
She stopped being able to help the crew consistently a month ago, and she was already hearing complaints that she was dead weight now. Some people had the decency to whisper about it, some gleefully said it because she was there.
There was no sign of a cure, but her brother didn’t seem worried. He still seemed restless in a way only she could see, as if something was buzzing under his skin. He was waiting for something.
Her brother seemed to know things, ever since they escaped Flevance. Weird things, that he shouldn’t have known before their entire world burned. Shouldn’t know now, because the crew had been teaching him and they didn’t know these things.
The secret Observation Haki lessons were cool and all but seriously how did he find out about it and why was he good?
Ultimately, Lami does not question it, settling down for a nap instead. She can’t survive if she isn’t as healthy as she can be despite the poison.
She wakes up a few hours later, sitting up just as Corazon unceremoniously enters the cabin like he owns the place, brother under his arm. Law clutches the strap of his bag and swings it a little, her only warning to reach down and snatch hers before Corazon grabs her too.
‘Oh’, she thinks, ‘this is what he’s been waiting for.’
~
The others want to get rid of Lami.
Rosinante’s skin itches as he listens to how the others talk about a sick child. A sick child that they took in and looked after for the past two years.
Truth be told the others had never liked Lami. She was Law’s bonus little barnacle. She was weak, and scared, and useless.
She’d been eight and had just escaped her country’s genocide. While poisoned.
Only Rosinante knows Law has been training her in secret. Only Rosinante knows that the siblings are perfectly aware that Lami would get thrown into fights she can’t take because she’s literally poisoned, younger body making her worse off than her brother. The kids have been actively trying to hide her potential, keep her assigned to menial chores and the infirmary.
Oh does Lami have potential. The girl has all the ship gossip. No one pays her any mind because they think she’s weak and useless and Rosinante understands now, the desire to mold someone. He wants to take her and teach her all the spy tricks that Corazon absolutely does not know.
“She’s just laying around and sleeping all day,” Diamante argues.
‘Yeah, because she’s in the late stages of dying from poison,’ Rosinante thinks but can not say. Corazon is supposed to hate children, so he can’t stick up for her conventionally. Considering they’re not gone, he should have just given up the beatings, taken Doffy’s ‘out’ that these two were exceptions.
Having to listen to the executives suggest a little girl’s murder is what he gets for that. Have her shot, drown her, leave her behind on an island ‘accidentally’. All awful plans.
Rosinante needs to think of something.
“You know, Doffy, if she dies, Law would have to go to you.” Rosinante is going to ‘accidentally’ set Trebol on fire again.
Get rid of Lami and have Law drawn in by Doffy’s comforting embrace. String the kid up with a noose while he’s blinded by grief.
Doffy can say the kids remind him of himself and Rosinante all he wants, and others will think that sounds so sweet.
He killed their father. He’d kill Rosinante. He’ll kill Lami too.
Rosinante needs to stall that plan, just long enough to get her out of here. Trebol’s disgusting words hold the answer.
‘If Law finds out, it’s over.’
Doffy stares at the paper behind his shades. “Corazon is right. It’s too risky.”
~
The ‘Murder Lami’ idea is only put on hold, realistically. Rosinante needs a plan to get the kids away from the crew, and beating them obviously doesn’t work. Really, he would have stopped already if he didn’t have to keep his cover consistent, he’s not that dense to reality.
Law, Baby 5, and Buffalo are nearby, chatting. Rosinante could just... tell Law. Inform him that they want to kill his sister. Would Law even believe him though?
Yeah, the beatings are coming back to bite him hard right now.
‘Shit,’ he thinks, ‘what do I do?’
“Trafalgar D. Water Law.” His blood runs cold.
No. No no no.
If everything was fucked before it’s extra fucked now.
He snatches the kid up and, unfortunately, confirms that Law had not been lying. He also reveals he’s not mute, and Law, the fucking gremlin, gleefully says he’s going to rat him out to Doffy, dunking Rosinante into a dumpster in the process.
Law, the fucking gremlin, reveals he did not rat him out to Doffy, and had just wanted to make him sweat.
So Rosinante takes the fucking gremlin, and his decidedly less gremlin sister, and sails off with them, away from his brother and his crew.
At least they’d been obedient and grabbed their bags as soon as they realized what was happening, so Rosinante didn’t have to tie them up.
~
“Corazon-san can talk?!”
“Yeah, and he has a devil fruit too.”
“How did you know that?!”
“I didn’t you stupid clown! You lie to everyone for years and you fell for that trick? Seriously?” The fucking gremlin has the gall to laugh at him.
Silence.
“Is it a cool power?” The duality of siblings, clear as day.