Time: Standstill

-x-x-

Kid woke up an undetermined amount of time later, still gasping for air despite the respirator he was hooked up to. He also hurt, a lot. Kid closed his eyes briefly and sagged in the hospital bed.

He'd fucked up.

Not only had Doflamingo come to silence him about the pills, which Kid brilliantly hadn't even given thought to, he'd lost his temp jobs too. And now he was struggling to breathe.

Oddly, Kid didn't give a damn.

Killer was probably going to mother hen him, which was going to be downright embarrassing and amusing at the same time, but for right now, Kid didn't feel good at all.

Had the doctors even gotten the bullets out of him yet?

At the sound of a door opening and footsteps approaching him, Kid's eyes opened and he tilted his head to the side as best he could.

The red head blinked his confusion, and then stared hard. Kid's vision was shitty right now, blurry from sleep and probably from pain, but he could swear it was Law standing there next to the bed and looking down at him wit an unreadable expression.

"Trafalgar?" Kid managed to breathe out, his breath coming in rapid pants as if even speaking were too much of a toll on his body. The beeping of the machine in the room was annoying too but Kid was more distracted by the fact that Law was there and not dead.

What the hell?

A hand lightly rested over Kid's, distracting him from thinking upon things too much.

"Time to go, Eustass."

"It wasn't…two years." Kid mumbled, but at the very least that damn beeping had changed into a more level sound. "Wasn't two weeks." The red head insisted, able to get more of an offended tone than wounded to show in his voice. Kid even managed to sit up, which was a remarkable feat in and of itself, and he grinned like he'd done something amazing and fuck if Kid didn't like that sight of the fleeting smirk that crossed Law's lips. "You lied about the two years." Kid didn't know why he was so fixated on it, but felt that the dark haired man needed to know all the same.

"I know. The pills not being the real thing the whole time threw it off." Law held out a hand, his expression searching. "You can stand?"

"Love you." Kid grudgingly said instead, as if not wanting to admit it as he stood up and took Law's hand. Seeing the flash of surprise cross the other man's face was worth it.

"I know that too." A hand squeeze as Law stepped forward to lean against the red head's chest.

"You want to go somewhere with me?" Kid asked as Law started to lead him toward the still open door. "Got somewhere in mind already?" Kid asked as soon as they were through the door.

"Somewhere quiet." Law confirmed. "Somewhere I don't need those pills." There was something else in his tone that meant he had more to add, but what, Law wouldn't say. Not yet, anyway.

"Sounds good. Told ya they'd find a cure." Kid said, his grip tightening around Law's hand. He felt lighter, somehow. He didn't hurt at all, either. Funny, considering he'd been shot and bleeding and short of breath not too long ago.

Maybe he'd imagined it.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Kid asked as they walked down the hall of the hospital, people ignoring them as they went by. "I should let Killer know." It would just figure his blond haired friend would give him shit if he didn't.

Law said nothing, weaving his way around the hustle and bustle of the halls, all the while holding tight to the red head's hand.

"Trafalgar?" Kid was starting to have a bad feeling about this. Surely someone would have demanded to know why he was up and on his feet, wouldn't they?

So why…why weren't they? Why were they just walking past them like they couldn't...couldn't see them?

Law continued to walk, unconcerned at the lack of interaction, but he leaned up against Kid's side as he did so. When Law spoke, there was an almost sorrowful tinge to his voice. But underneath it, there was something else, and it wasn't good at all. Law almost sounded…pleased.

That was odd.

"Trafalgar?" Kid prompted. When Law cast a look over his shoulder, he added. "I should tell Killer something."

"You won't have to worry about telling your friend anything. He'll know, and soon."

"Know what?" Kid asked, though he did grin when he saw that Law was leading them to a supply closet. The red head wasn't smiling, however, when he walked through the door, nor did Kid know what to make of Law's indifferent expression turning into one of malicious pleasure. It was a far cry from the almost timid air Law had when he'd died, and different from the lusty mood he got in during sex.

"You won't have to worry about anything anymore, Eustass, because you're dead."

Kid would have argued except for the fact that they had walked through a damn door without opening it. Frantic, Kid tried to grab something in the room, to deny Law's words, but when his hand passed through the broom, he panicked.

Law encroached on Kid's space until he had the red head on the ground and was seated on his lap.

With Law's hands on him, running over him and somehow getting him interested, despite being a fucking ghost or some shit, Kid felt almost relieved that he could at least still interact with Law, and returned the motions.

"That's better." Law all but purred, leaning into the red head's touch. "You won't leave me like all the others, will you? You're different then they were. You stayed."

There had been something weighing on Kid's mind and even though he really didn't want to know the answer, he had to ask. "What happened to all of your other lovers? After they left you?" Kid, had he been alive, would have had an odd chill run down his spine at the sight of the strange look that appeared on Law's face.

"From the way that you are looking at me, I think that you know the answer." Law said after what seemed like forever. A smirk crossed his face soon after speaking. "Though I must say, not all of them died mysterious deaths. Only the ones who made the attempt to harm me once they found out I had a time limit to live and thought I ought to die for lying to them."

"You didn't lie because you didn't tell them. And you did die, you know." Kid pointed out.

"That I did. And now you have died as well." Law quirked a brow. "Do you wish to discuss how many of my former lovers wanted to kill me, or would you rather leave that in the past?"

"I really don't wanna know." But Kid was curious about it; he just didn't think now was a good time to talk about it. And, to further distract both himself and the dark haired ghost practically on his lap, Kid wrapped his arms around his back and all but crushed Law to his chest. It was a lot of information to take in, and to be faced with such a different demeanor in Law was something that the red head was still trying to process. Kid also decided that there was no point in making an enemy of Law now. "You know..you're acting different than you were before."

"Because I had to be careful when I was alive. I had to play it safe and please the people around me; otherwise I would be the one who was hurt. And I already had enough on my plate with my illness taking up most of my time." Law stated, nuzzling his face against Kid's cheek. "But since I don't have my illness anymore, being dead and all, I feel good." Law's grip tightened around Kid's back. "I want that bastard Doflamingo to pay for giving me those fake pills. He won't know what hit him. He may not been one of my lovers, but I certainly would like to kill him myself if I could."

"Guess I want to get back at him too." When Kid saw the questioning look Law gave him, he frowned in return. "What? You didn't know? Doflamingo was the one who shot me." Kid decided he liked the flare of anger in Law's eyes, and what followed when Law all but ripped his clothes off of him.

Huh.

Kid didn't know one could have sex as a ghost.

Interesting, that.

Though it wasn't so interesting when he and Law later found out that neither of them could leave the hospital to exact their revenge.

Suffice to say, Law wasn't in the best mood the next few weeks, and his mood made parts of the hospital frigid.

The occupants of the hospital were at a loss to explain the odd cold spots.

-x

The small hospital in Grand Line Central had to be abandoned and its patients moved to other neighboring hospitals after a series of escalating accidents. The Grand Line Central hospital was deemed unsafe until inspected, but given the funds of the city, there was no rush to go in to fix things. So the hospital remained boarded off and abandoned, all but for the two permeant residents it still contained.

-x

Kid walked the abandoned halls of the hospital, pausing now and again to admire the graffiti that some punks had done over the course of the past few months. It wasn't like he had anything better to do with his time now that he was dead. Other than watch people walk by the boarded up and fenced off hospital, and from the way Killer passed by the hospital on a near daily basis, Kid had a feeling that his friend wasn't content to leave things as they were.

"Having fun?" Law asked, stepping out of a closed door to stand alongside the red head.

Kid huffed at Law, letting him know without words he didn't like being reminded that he could pass through solid objects.

Law raised his brow, waiting.

"That." The red head said simply as he nodded toward the wall at the newest addition to colorful artwork and rude messages.

SMILE rules. Feel no pain.

"Looks like Doflamingo made use of my illness and made it into something to sell to others." Law's eyes narrowed. "It makes me sick that I was being used as a test subject without knowing it. To test for something that had nothing to do with curing me" Law leaned against Kid, linking hands with him. "I will find a way to get back at him. But for now…" Law broke off and steered Kid into a room, though a solid fucking door, and pressed him against a gurney. "You being here is enough." The dark haired man smirked. "And I want to fuck."

Kid knew, as he and Law got off in that abandoned hospital, that he should have left the moment Law had given him the option to do so.

"Don't think too much." Law taunted as he rested comfortably on top of Kid. "We have time to figure things out. Revenge will be easy if we get people to come here, and draw Doflamingo's attention."

Kid was torn between liking and hating this newly confident and sarcastic as fuck Law, but reined it in. Because keeping Law relatively happy, between fucking and ghostly shit, Kid had nowhere to go and no reason to taunt Law too much. Because now Kid knew he could never leave. Not the hospital. And he couldn't leave Law, no matter how much he might otherwise have wanted to, because the other man wouldn't let him.

Being dead was not what he thought it would be at all. Kid had thought it would be the end, and instead, it was the beginning of something new.

Something dangerous and exciting.

And it was something Kid couldn't stop.

And soon enough, the red head was content to let Law take the reins of their day to day existence, while Kid began to do a lot of thinking.

There had to be a way out.

Perhaps he could flag Killer down or something, Kid considered, as he resumed watching people go by on the sidewalk some weeks later, acutely aware of Law's presence nearby, watching him.

Afterlife was turning out to be a bitch, but at the very least, Kid could still get laid.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A/N: And that's all for this fic. I left it open for some kind of sequel if I get the urge to smash my keyboard and hammer out a short fic again. This was a more just for the fun of it fic, so while it could have been made longer, I decided against it (because anything I touch without parameters seems to expand into a ridiculously long fic I might not have time for).