Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Law missed Viscint, and so every time he was there, he went out on the town with Rinwell, usually to some dessert place she insisted he try. This time, it had been a candy shop, with lollipops in bundles and caramel chews in stacks, taffy in boxes and sugar-dusted peppermints in little bags, and he’d watched a little fondly as her eyes practically sparkled taking it all in.

They were walking away from it when Rinwell stopped under a shadowed overhang. It took Law a couple steps to realize it though, and so he had to turn to look back at her.

“Wazzup?” he asked around his lollipop, something cinnamon-flavored that was a little too sweet for his tastes.

Rinwell stared at his mouth — what, did she want the candy? She’d bought so much crap of her own. Typical, he thought affectionately.

She seemed to gulp, then, as she slowly reached into her bag and pulled out something red and fluffy. Law’s eyes widened — was it a dead animal?! What the hell was Rinwell doing walking around with a dead animal in her bag?!

Upon closer inspection, though, he could tell it was just some kind of plushie owl charm. False alarm!

Stiffly, she said, “For you.”

In Cyslodia, Law remembered — people gave owl charms to each other as a way of declaring you wanted to be partners. Or, as he understood it —

“Are you sure?” he asked.

— lifelong friends.

Rinwell nodded. Her ears were a faint red, and her face was flushed, probably from those spicy hard candies she’d insisted couldn’t possibly be worse than Alphen’s cooking.

It wasn’t his fault, really — sure, he’d lived in Cyslodia for a while, but at the time, the locals hadn’t exactly been clamoring to tell him about the finer details of their culture, so things had gotten a little hairy in translation. And it wasn’t like they did anything like that in Calaglia. So sue him.

At the time, he’d been a little moved, because he could appreciate that things like this were hard for Rinwell. A lot of days, it was hard for him, too. Most of the time, it was easier to just bicker with each other than to bare their souls, so Law could appreciate the emotional risk she was taking. Her trust and faith was a precious gift, but he also didn’t want to get all sappy about it and scare her off, so he played it cool.

“Okay,” Law said.

Rinwell’s eyes widened. “You’re sure?”

“Gimme.” She passed it off to him as he smiled, his grin slightly crooked.

Rinwell smiled then too, looking a little relieved. “It’s based off of a Calaglian owl,” she said, then shuttered out, “As birds of prey, they use their fangs and claws to kill their prey before swallowing them whole. The indigestible parts, such as bones, scales, and fur, are later regurgitated in the form of owl pellets, which can be dissected and reconstructed as a full or near-full skeleton for research purposes.”

Gross. Owls were so gross. “Yeah, cool.” The little guy was cute, though, with button eyes and a chubby, fluffy body. Cuter than Hootle, at least. But because he liked his eyes inside their sockets, he decided not to mention that, instead clipping it on the inside of his jacket.

When he looked up at Rinwell, she was smiling softly. She tucked her hands behind her back, almost shy, and started walking again. “Guess that’s it, then.”

Weird, but whatever. As long as she didn’t start talking about owl vomit again.

Lifelong friends, Law thought fondly.

Dating, Rinwell thought to herself with a skip in her step.

Chapter Text

Rinwell leaned back against the crumbling stone wall — her book was open on her lap, but for some reason, watching Law train was much more interesting. Today, he hadn’t bothered with greaves or armor in the sweltering heat — he was barefoot instead, dressed only in a thin tank top and a pair of baggy pants that cinched tight around his calves. His hair was down, too, hanging in his face and curling at the base of his neck.

Normally, this would have been business as usual, but — Law shook with exertion as he moved through his forms slowly, deliberately, with purpose. He’d shed his compression sleeves a while ago, too, leaving his arms bare and shiny with sweat, muscle shifting under his skin as he swiveled his body.

Rinwell rested her chin in her hand, propped her elbow up on her knee, and watched him. Law would probably let her touch his arms if she asked. While she traced the outline of his triceps, biceps, deltoids, she’d make an appreciative noise about his strength, his work ethic, something like that. And then she’d have her hands on his chest and she’d tilt her chin up, just a little bit, and Law would grip her waist, pulling her in, and their lips would meet –

What was she doing, daydreaming about kissing her boyfriend? They’d only been dating for one day! They hadn’t even held hands yet!

Rinwell wasn’t good at normal escalation.

“Something you need?”

Rinwell’s daydream shattered. Law had stopped, and was standing in front of her with an odd look on his face and his hands on his hips. She bit back a curse.

“Well,” she said as heat rushed to her cheeks. “Just… um.”

“You look kinda flushed.” He squinted at her, like he was trying to figure her out. “Are you… thirsty, or something?”

She flushed an even deeper shade of red.

Hootle, sensing her mood, swooped forward with a battle cry. “Hey! Ouch, ouch ouch ouch! What did I even do?!”

As the day went on, Rinwell hoped that she would completely forget about what had happened and everything would just go back to normal. Things didn’t go back to normal. In fact, things got worse.

“So,” Law said, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, “you like coffee?”

“I drink it,” Rinwell said, adding a heaping spoonful to hers, then another, then another…

“You know,” he said, “if you keep that up, you’ll have more sugar than actual coffee.”

“And?” She reached for the creamer. “That’s what makes it taste good. It’s basically muddy water without it.”

“So you’re comfortable having the same tastes as a five-year-old?”

She didn’t dignify his question with a response, instead working on dumping as much creamer as she could into her cup. He hid a grin behind the rim of his mug.

Her eyelashes were long, Law realized suddenly. Very long.

“You shouldn’t…”

She had a cute nose too, he noticed. A little upturned at the end, almost like a rapping. Not that he’d ever tell her that – he liked his organs on the inside of his body, thanks. But it was a Rinwell kind of nose. Very nice.

“...the next time…”

Rinwell’s hair was a little mused, too, slightly out of place compared to the other times he’d seen her. Although Rinwell would look nice with any type of hairstyle, probably.

“...coffee isn’t a…”

And her face was very nice too. Back when they first met, her skin had still been bright red and peeling from Calaglia’s sun. She was tanner now, freckles dusting her face like blurry constellations, and Law had enjoyed watching them appear and darken over the months, like the inverse of the night sky. He was inordinately pleased that none of them had faded in the months since they went their separate ways.

Law was still absentmindedly tracing those freckles with his eyes when he saw the blush creeping up Rinwell’s neck. Cute.

“Hey.” Rinwell tilted her head to the side. “What’re you thinking about?”

“How cute you are,” he said before his mind could catch up. When his brain did catch up, about a second too late, Law realized this was not something you said to your great buddy. “Objectively, I mean.”

Rinwell didn’t reply, confirming that no, this was a very much not a pal-like thing to say.

“I mean, not objectively speaking. To me, yeah.” That didn’t sound quite right, either. “Not to say I don’t think you’re cute, to me. I mean I’m not pretty sure, no wait – I mean that I – ” He took a deep breath and tried again before their forever friendship ended on day one. “I mean, you’re cute to me, because that’s my opinion.”

There was a moment of silence as Rinwell stared at him.

“So, yeah,” Law continued, internally screaming at himself to shut up already.

“Okay,” Rinwell said, her face turning an interesting shade of red.

Almost like she was mad.

It was a cute look, Law thought. The red part, and maybe also the mad part. He chugged his coffee in three long gulps while she buried her face in her hands.

What a wonderful start to being besties, Law thought sarcastically, his face burning more than his tongue.

He’s bolder than I thought he’d be, Rinwell thought, her face burning behind her hands as her lips curved upward.