text: Twenty minutes of Luffy yammering about rice had finally gotten Law to reach…well, not drowsiness, but at the very least the ability to feign it and the willingness to get in bed with Luffy to make the rice-musings stop.
  
  "Your brother is very suspicious of me," Law noted as he took off his shoes and hat.
  
  Luffy snickered, "I think he's just not sure what to do. Sabo says he keeps getting confused cause he looks at me and expects me to be seven sometimes. Maybe Ace has something like that."
  
  Law vaguely tried to imagine how he'd have reacted if his sister had ever brought someone home. One he got through the issue of managing to imagine a world where she was old enough to date…yeah, Ace seemed more reasonable then.
  
  Apparently deciding Law wasn't moving fast enough, a rubbery arm shot up to wrap around him and yank him into the bed, "Hey!"
  
  "You were taking too long." If Luffy was anyone else Law would call that innocence fake as hell but he knew the potential Pirate King didn't have a wisp of guile in him. Normally that fact could be annoying but here…it was kind of nice.
  
  "My apologies," Law said, settling on the mattress. "Let me make up for it…"
  
  He wrapped his arms around Luffy and ran his fingers down the younger captain's spine, eliciting a high-pitched noise of approval.
  
  "Like that, do you?" he asked.
  
  "Feels good," Luffy agreed.
  
  "Your muscles probably just like having some gentle attention paid to them once in a while."
  
  Luffy might have been the one who sometimes had to remind Law to do the ordinary, to eat, sleep, and relax, but Law sometimes found the roles reversed with his having to remind Luffy that as someone who often put himself under extraordinary strain, he might need to do a little extra care now and then.
  
  Law continued trying to help out Luffy's constantly-abused muscles for a few minutes until a rubbery leg suddenly wrapped around his angles like a rope and tugged, sending him off balance. "Luffy-ya, I said no wrestling!"
  
  Luffy merely laughed and pounced while Law was disoriented, nearly knocking Law off the mattress, "Got you now!"
  
  "Oh do you?" Law asked, smirking. "Room. Shambles."
  
  "That's cheating," Luffy muttered as their positions switched.
  
  "You started it, Luffy-ya," Law purred. "This is why you don't wrestle with the Surgeon of Death."
  
  "Yeah, cause you cheat," Luffy said and Law suddenly had a rubbery arm looped around his torso, tugging him into the air.
  
  "Put me down or I'll put you in pieces!" Law warned.
  
  "Nah, you like me too much to chop me up without putting me right back together," Luffy said, letting him dangle.
  
  "That doesn't mean I'll put the bits back where they should go," Law said.
  
  He easily detached the arm that was holding him from Luffy's shoulder, ignoring the yelp of protest. He then used "Tact" to take control of the arm to disentangle himself.
  
  "Gonna give it back?" Luffy asked, poking his shoulder where currently nothing was attached to it.
  
  "Let me think…" Law mused. He manipulated the arm to prod Luffy in the side, "Quick question, do you feel the sensation your arm doing that any differently than when it's attached?"
  
  "It feels kind of fuzzier, now stop doing research," Luffy complained. "You're so weird, Traffy."
  
  "I like how it's the research that makes me weird, not the fact that I'm poking you with your own severed arm," Law said, reattaching the limb.
  
  "Eh, it's not so bad. I know you'll put it back eventually."
  
  Law chuckled at the trust as he banished the Room, "Only if you didn't really piss me off."
  
  "Nah. You're not as big a jerk as you want everyone to think you are. You're only cruel when people deserve it."
  
  Law shook his head, "You place too much faith in some people, Luffy-ya."
  
  "Shishishi. People keep saying that but I keep being right!"
  
  Law paused and thought about it. Luffy had known Law wouldn't screw him over with the alliance certainly. He'd put his faith in Nico Robin, a former enemy, and here she was a valuable crew member. Nami had also allegedly been part of a rival crew…
  
  "Good point," Law said. "Still, be careful. Not everyone's as 'good' as me."
  
  "I know. Sheesh, sometimes you guys seem to think I'm totally naïve."
  
  "Says the guy who declared he'd be pirate king to one of the four Emperor's faces at age six," Law said. "And another's face at seventeen."
  
  "Yeah, because I'm gonna do it," Luffy said matter-of-factly. "Besides, Shanks wasn't an Emperor to me, he was more like a cool uncle."
  
  "Well he's the only current one who's not an ass, that's for sure," Law said.
  
  "Mm-hm. So after we finish off Kaido, want to go for Big Mom or Blackbeard? Shanks has to be last."
  
  "Our alliance will technically end with Kaido's fall," Law said. It sounded fake even to him.
  
  "Nah, we're allies for good!"
  
  "Because you say so?" Law yawned, curling against Luffy.
  
  "Yep!"
  
  Some days Law wondered if Luffy had used Conqueror's Haki on reality itself to make things go his way. "Sounds good. I vote Big Mom next. We can pretend to give her Caesar."
  
  "Wait, we still have him?"
  
  "Where would we have dumped him, exactly?"
  
  "Good point…" Luffy muttered before dozing off.
  
  Law luxuriated in winning an argument with Luffy, no matter how minor, before dropping off himself.