One Piece One Shots [x Reader]

Words Unspoken (Corazon x Reader)

Warnings: Angst, Depression, Mentions of suicidal thoughts (nothing explicit).

Sometimes, you allowed yourself to remember...

You'd been with the Donquixote family for a while. You weren't exactly proud of the way you were living, but the gratefulness overshadowed the guilt. Yes, you were grateful to Doflamingo and the family. When everyone else had long given up on you, he had seen potential, had offered you a future.

It certainly wasn't the life you'd planned for yourself, but these people were your family now. And at the end of the day, you had a bed to sleep in and a place to come home to, which was more than you could've hoped for.

You weren't naïve, you knew what Doflamingo was, had seen what madness lurked beneath his charming exterior. You despised him, Trebol and Diamante for what they did each and every day. No, you weren't innocent, but you never took pleasure in hurting others.

Sometimes, when the things you'd done, the crimes you'd committed came to haunt you at night, you contemplated leaving. And yet you didn't, for several reasons.

Most importantly, you didn't have anywhere to go, and you knew one didn't simply leave the family. It would be seen as an insult, as ingratitude. And you'd witnessed first hand what happened to people daring to cross Doffy.

For the longest time, you'd try to convince yourself this was your only reason for staying. But you knew it wasn't.

Even though you'd never openly admit it, you'd come to care for the children living with the family, especially the newest member of the family, a little boy called Law.

You weren't a sentimental person – you'd never allowed yourself to be. And yet you couldn't surpress the steadily growing need to help Law, to somehow show him there was still something left worth living for. Maybe, you were projecting your selfish wish for a mother, for someone to hold (something you'd never had) onto him, maybe this was your way of compensating what you'd missed out on when you'd been his age.

Maybe you were just a hypocritical, selfish individual, after all. Maybe you were no better than Doflamingo and the others – maybe you were just using Law for your own personal gain, as well. You didn't know. You weren't sure if you wanted to know.

But spending time with Law – or at least trying to do it, since he brushed you off half the time – gave your days some sort of purpose, besides the killing and the bloodshed.

And yet Law wasn't the only person who was able to provoke those warm, fuzzy feelings.

Loneliness was dangerous, because it changed people's perception of reality. It drove them to do or feel irrational, stupid things, it made them vulnerable. You knew all those things, had repeatedly told yourself to never trust anyone, to never allow anyone too close.

And yet you were tempted to abandon those principles every time you saw him. Rosinante.

You knew he didn't take any joy in hurting people, that he was nowhere near like his brother. You also saw the the warm, affectionate glances he gave the little Law when he thought no one was looking. It made your heart warm up in ways you hadn't known it was able to. Even though his appearance and his name were intimidating, there was a calm, gentle side to him just waiting to be brought to light.

He was an outsider, same as you, was the black sheep of the family, so to speak. Maybe that's why you'd been drawn to him from the beginning. Maybe the feeling you got when you took care of him after one of his infamous accidents was what you'd been missing for so long: To be needed.

Or maybe you were just two insanely lonely people desperate for someone hold onto.

And yet neither of you ever acted on it. Technically, he was still your superior, and you both knew if something were to happen between the two of you, the others would find out and could potentially use it against you.