A/N: Here's some cute shit.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

The blades of Law's skates grazed smoothly over the ice, leaving behind thin marks that joined the hundreds of others that had been left on the surface of the large, square-shaped outdoor rink. There was a light snowfall, the flakes highlighted by the street lights while the dark sky above was clear of clouds, covered by a blanket of stars shining bright. It was relatively quiet, considering the rink was located near the city centre and just a few other people were out skating besides him.

As delightful an evening it was, Law certainly had better things to do on a Saturday night instead of waste time skating around on a giant block of ice, but once his companion had laid eyes on the rink, there hadn't been much else for him to do but go along with it. He supposed there were worse things he could be doing as well, like all the household chores he'd been putting off due to his somewhat workaholic nature. In that respect, taking a night off might actually do him some good.

He doubted it would be relaxing, however. Seldom could anything he did together with Luffy be classified as in any way relaxing. Usually it was the opposite. It often made his friends question why he still associated with the kid, and Law had to admit that had it been anyone else he probably would've erased them from his life, but the fact of the matter was that he was fond of Luffy.

Entirely far too fond, affectionately fond, fond in the most romantic, non-platonic meaning of the word—and it was torture. Luffy was energetic and cheerful and inviting and extremely friendly and his brightness damn near blinding, but he was that way towards most people. Law had trouble gauging what exactly he was to Luffy, beyond good friends.

"Traffy!" Ah, there was the mountain of trouble stuffed into a deceptively normal-looking boy's body that he'd been waiting for. Goody. Law came to a slow halt in the middle of the rink, looking at Luffy who was walking to the entrance with his skates on. "You said you would wai—"

The kid put a single step on the ice, slipped, and fell on his face.

Law frowned and skated over, unperturbed by the comically disastrous entrance, slightly bumping into the fence as he came to a stop next to Luffy, who rolled onto his back, one hand holding his painfully red nose. Law reached down, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him up. Luffy wobbled slightly as he tried standing straight, hands clinging to Law's jacket for balance.

"Be careful," Law cautioned him, casually brushing some of the snow and ice left on Luffy's coat off. Luffy squirmed away from him, as he always did whenever Law tried to straighten out his appearance, which the doctor tended to be very precise about and which tended to irritate Luffy. "You do know how to ice skate, don't you?"

"Nope!" Luffy admitted readily, with the usual amount of cheer, clinging to the fence now and staring down at his feet. "But how hard can it be?"

"Pretty hard if you don't know what you're—" Luffy pushed himself away from the fence, skated two feet with unsteady legs, and fell once more, this time on his rear "—doing." Law finished with a sigh, taking a moment to watch Luffy attempt to get up, slipping and falling for a second time in the process. He really shouldn't be finding it as amusing as he did, but it was cute to see Luffy keep trying at something he was evidently horrible at.

"I'll get the hang of it!" Luffy vowed, trying for a third time, placing both his hands on the ice and slowly trying to stand up. "Just… need to... ugh!" He leaned too much forward and fell down again, onto his knees. "Ow."

Law skated up behind him, thinking it enough schadenfreude for the day, linking his arms underneath Luffy's and hoisting him up. Luffy swayed dangerously for a moment, until Law put his hands on his companion's waist from behind, steadying him. "You need to keep your legs still first. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," Luffy replied, still looking down at his feet, as if to glare them into submission. Law slowly released him, and skated around to face Luffy, whose arms were somewhat outstretched to help him balance.

"Relax," Law replied with a slight smile, taking Luffy's hands in his, carefully starting to pull the kid forward as he skated backwards, noting that the kid stupidly wasn't wearing any gloves. "Try letting your feet glide with the movement."

"Mmm," Luffy stared down at his feet, attempting to follow Law's advice with a deep furrow between his brows in concentration, tip of his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth. It was damned unfair how adorable he looked at that point; it wasn't often that he saw Luffy focused so intensely on anything but eating. "I think I got it!"

"You sure?" Law replied sceptically, letting go of Luffy's hands for a moment. He moved out of the way, and watched the first clumsy attempts of actual skating that didn't end up with Luffy falling on his ass.

"See? Piece of cake!" Luffy declared proudly as he slowly skated to the fence and back towards Law. Within a few more minutes of practicing, he seemed to have gotten a firm grip on the art of skating in a straight line, but still couldn't make any sort of fluid turn that Law could. In fact, he was starting to skate rather fast in a short amount of time.

"Hey, don't get too reckless," Law called as he watched Luffy have a race with an invisible opponent, skating as fast as he could from one end of the rink to the other while making rather unnecessarily wild movements.

"This is really cool!" Luffy practically smashed into the fence, laughing loudly. "Traffy, let's have a race!"

"What? No." Law crossed his arms over his chest with a scowl. "You just learned how to skate—you'll just hurt yourself trying to beat me."

"Oh, I see! You're just scared that I'm faster than you," Luffy taunted him with a big grin, leaning back against the fence.

"As if," Law responded, unimpressed. "You couldn't catch me on foot, let alone on skates."

"Let's test that out!"

Luffy pushed himself off the fence with a strong shove, propelling himself forward.

"Oi—!" Law barely had time to react before the kid came barrelling into him recklessly, sending them both falling back onto the ice. "Dammit!" the doctor cursed, relieved that he hadn't ended up cracking his skull open on the ice, though his head did ache a little bit.

His attention was quickly diverted away from the pain, however, when he realized Luffy was sprawled out over him, the kid's weight shifting suddenly as he sat up, straddling Law's waist with a huge smile.

"Told you I could do it!"

The red on his cheeks was definitely just from the cold. His face could have no other reason for heating up so suddenly. "Could've hurt yourself, idiot." Law muttered, before his eyes picked up on Luffy's fingers, which were almost as red as Law's cheeks, though for an entirely different reason. "Why didn't you bring your gloves?"

Luffy glanced down at his hands, as if just noticing. "Uh, I forgot." he said, looking mildly troubled as he rubbed his hands together in a feeble attempt to get them warm. "Ouch, kinda hurts. My fingers are really cold."

Pushing himself up in a sitting position, he stubbornly ignored Luffy's weight on his lap, and took his own gloves off, tattooed fingers wrapping around Luffy's cold ones. Bringing the shaking hands to his mouth, he blew on them with a hot breath that came out like smoke, trying not to notice the way Luffy's eyes were glued onto his face.

Whenever Luffy stared at him like this, as if he demanded all his attention and was the only thing in the world worth looking at, it threw Law off, made him restless. He wasn't used to looks like that.

"Better?" he murmured, glancing up at Luffy's face, considering its red tint and the mouth that was slightly parted, foggy breath mingling between them. If he wanted to make a move, now would be the perfect time. Unfortunately, flirting wasn't exactly his forte.

"Yeah," Luffy answered, making his fingers flex experimentally.

Law kept a hold of Luffy's hands, which weren't being pulled away, so that was probably a good sign, right? Ah, screw it. "You know," he started, voice sounding a little hoarse, making him clear his throat awkwardly. "Your lips look pretty cold too."

Jesus Christ, that was horrible.

"Really?" Luffy pulled one hand out of his grip and gently touched his lower lip, making Law swallow audibly. "Well, I don't feel anything. I think they're numb." Trust Luffy to let a pickup-line like that completely fly over his head.

"Want me to warm them up for you?" Law attempted valiantly, slightly impressed by his own ability to keep such a straight face even while delivering the cheesiest lines known to man.

Luffy peered up at him, smile dissipating. "Sure." he said, unusually calm, watching Law with an intense gaze.

Law, on his part, took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his heartbeat into a pace slower than how it was beating wildly against his ribcage now, his one hand still holding Luffy's as he lowered it down so he could lean forward.

Luffy didn't move a muscle as Law's hot breath ghosted over his lips in a soft exhale, but Law could hear the exact moment when Luffy's breath caught in his throat—the same moment he inched closer and nipped at Luffy's lower lip. Law only had a moment to enjoy the control he had over the situation, however.

"Hey," Luffy muttered, pulling back slightly. "I think your lips are cold too."

The doctor felt his temperature rising a completely unreasonable amount as he inhaled deeply, his mouth suddenly dry. "Yeah." was all that came to mind, wondering, hoping, expecting something at least vaguely similar to a kiss—

Luffy pressed his palm over Law's mouth, shocking him out of his lovesick thoughts. "There!" the kid exclaimed happily. "Are they getting warmer yet?"

Law, suffice to say, felt like driving himself off a cliff.

He pushed the hand away, frustrated and entirely unsatisfied. "That's not…" he trailed off, sighing deeply. It was his own fault for expecting anything more in the first place. "Never mind. Yes, they're much warmer now, thank you."

Luffy beamed, appearing pleased, and pushed himself off Law before carefully attempting to stand up with his skates. Law felt the lack of warmth immediately, awkwardly straightening out his jacket and scarf as he stood up as well, avoiding eye-contact with the oblivious kid.

"It's getting late. I should head home." he decided. There was no way he could continue the evening after that debacle. Either Luffy really had rocks for brains, or this was his weird way of letting him down easy. Whichever the case, he wasn't going to get anywhere today.

Luffy didn't look happy with that, and whined as Law skated back towards the entrance, getting out of the ice rink. "Already?" He skated towards the fence as well, clinging to it as he watched Law sit down on a bench on the other side and start to untie his skates.

"You staying here?" Law asked as he pulled his skates off and grabbed for his boots, starting to put them on.

"Yeah, I wanna skate a little bit longer."

Luffy watched as he got his shoes on and stood up, brushing some snow off his jacket.

"Guess I'll see you some other time," Law said as indifferently as he could manage, masking disappointment, putting his gloves back on as he prepared to leave and turning away from Luffy.

"Law!"

"Hmm?" Law turned back around to see what Luffy wanted, a bit surprised at the sudden use of his first name, when he felt his arm being grabbed and was roughly jerked towards the fence. "What—"

Luffy's hands grasped his shoulders as his lips pressed onto Law's with fervour, and though it was clumsy, and a bit overwhelming, and there was an almost painful clash of teeth at first, it still sent him reeling. Like someone had just kicked his skates out from underneath him and he was slipping over the ice, control completely lost.

The tongue slipping into his mouth made him groan and the cold fingers sliding around his neck made him shudder. They parted with a wet smack of lips when their lungs started aching for air, both breathless, but one more alert than the other, who was utterly dazed.

"Hey," Luffy said, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I'm not cold anymore! Thanks, Traffy. See ya tomorrow!" He pushed away from the fence with the brightest grin Law had yet seen on him, and started pulling a lap around the rink, as if nothing noteworthy had at all just taken place.

Law forced himself to move away, heart drumming loudly in his ears. It was only until he was all the way across the street and slowly walking back home that he pulled one glove off his hand, reaching up and touching on his lips with his fingertips.

They were still warm.

END