AN: Probably something not everyone will agree with but something that I really really loved writing to help me come to terms with a few things? Also a story that got me one introduced to one of my super-awesome absolutely amazing buddies, Wren, so there's that too. ^w^
As he grows up, Luffy tries to learn not to be different.
This is not as easy as it seems.
The words in his head are honey, slow and sedate when he doesn't want them to be, and rocket ship fuel mixed with spurts of molasses whenever it doesn't matter. He says things that never come out the way he wants them to; words dancing on the tip of his tongue, doing the conga, the ballroom waltz, tapping away at the sides of his brain as he tries to let them out. It's like they hover just on the edges of his teeth, propping themselves up on beanbags and refusing to get out when he wants them to.
His skin is made of butterflies, their wings needle sharp, and they poke and prickle and punch him when he doesn't pay attention. When he thinks too much but not enough and his mind drifts off and someone touches him.
He tries; he really, truly, absolutely tries but when he's learning not to be different his body teaches his mind to turn off and-
Touch, and his skin is wrong on his bones, like it turned to fire ants instead of flesh.
Touch, and his thoughts are a broken train line, spiralling off the tracks and he wants to scratch the spot off with his fingernails, pull it all off in one clean strip so that it stops.
Touch, and he can't help but feel the scream of wrong! that echoes in his mind and pulls him from their sides and makes him want to slap their hands away.