Alternately titled "Dialectics."
For the One Piece Big Bang 2019. I don't own One Piece, I own nothing.
Thank you to Gabi, my illustrator, thank you. Thank you for being on this journey with me.
I have tried all the old tricks, but this site refuses to let me post any semblance of a link, no matter how I space out the characters. I ask you please to check out Gabiarts or Yamineftis on Tumblr and take a look at her absolutely beautiful art for this fic.
This fanfic draws thematically from a few key concepts of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I sprinkled these themes in merely to suggest how I envision someone who is highly sensitive/empathetic might regulate an astute sense of Observation Haki. This is a fanfic is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Cheers! - your neighborhood weeb therapist.
Originally posted on A03. Updating here for consistency's sake.
Dialectics: (noun) Disputation or debate, esp intended to resolve differences between two views rather than to establish one of them as true*
* One of the core values in the context of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: the concept that two opposites or opposing views can coexist within oneself and interpersonally. I.e. that one can be both frightened and brave, both emotional and logical, both resent and care for someone.
Aims to validate the truth in two opposing sides by viewing them as "both/and" as opposed to "either/or" or black and white thinking.
...To survive, we'd all turn thief
and rascal, or so says the fox,
with her coat of an elegant scoundrel,
her white knife of a smile,
who knows just where she's going:
to steal something
that doesn't belong to her -
some chicken, or one more chance,
or other life.
-From "Red Fox" by Margaret Atwood.
PROLOGUE
Koby could feel the swells and throngs of the thousands of souls in Impel Down, their auras wailing, crying out to him.
Koby had never liked Impel Down, the place made his Observation Haki ache. No matter how grounded, how mindful he was, he was always left feeling depleted, exhausted by the feeling so many emotions, so many souls.
And yet despite the noise of the multitudes of souls, there was one, just one, he was desperate to see.
The lift rattled to halt, opening its grainy doors into the pitch black of Level Six.
"MEEEEEAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTT!"
Koby shook his head, incredulous, that even in hell - Luffy's main priority was still food.
He rounded the corner down the small hallway, Luffy's voice echoing off the walls.
"Shishishi! There you are, Koby! Took you long enough! Didjya bring me some meat?"
The chains rattled as Luffy sat as upright as he could, chained to the wall of a cell on Level Six.
He was beaming with delight as if he was sitting on the deck of the Thousand Sunny and not locked in the depths of the worst prison on the seas.
"I did," said Koby, smiling weakly.
"I don't know how you see anything down here, it's so dark, I'd get lost, shishishi…" Luffy chuckled. "I thought you were gonna bring Gramps this time, neh?"
"Garp is….occupied," said Koby, forlornly.
"Hnnggg," Luffy pouted. "How's what's-his-face with the funny chin?"
"Helmeppo? He's fine," Koby said unlocking the cell door and stepping inside
"Can you unlock my cuffs? My nose itches, I haven't been able to pick it all week!"
"That's what you're worried about, Luffy-san?"
"Pleeaassse…"
"You know I will, Luffy-san," said Koby. He unlocked Luffy's cuffs, releasing his hands from the heavy shackles that kept his arms spread to the wall.
"Meeeaaattt!"
Luffy tore into the massive shank Koby had smuggled him from the kitchen, tears of joy streaming down his face.
"Is all you think about food in a time like this, Luffy?"
"Sooooo gooooddd…" moaned Luffy, apparently in his own world of meat.
Koby drew his knees up to his chest in the dark, miserable cell.
"You haven't changed, Luffy," said Koby quietly. "You even look the same; not a day older than seventeen."
"Yeah?" said Luffy, swallowing. "You try getting wrinkles being made of rubber!"
"Do you remember when we met?" asked Koby.
"Hmmm? How long ago was it?" Luffy cocked his head. Koby could never quite tell from Luffy's expression if he was confused or being perceptive.
"Oh Luffy-san, I don't know. Over a fifteen, maybe sixteen years by now?" Koby sighed. "I still remember you bursting out of that barrel like it was yesterday."
"I don't."
"Oh come now Luffy! You're joking!"
"Ehhhh, it was a while ago," said Luffy, tilting his head. "Wasn't there some big lady or something?"
"Oh, you mean Alvida?"
"Yeahhh!" said Luffy, thickly through a mouthful of meat. "Alfffeeda! Sheb joined up wib Buggy! Wh-ebver happned to her?"
"Oh, she's in here somewhere," said Koby, gesturing vaguely.
"Wha? Here in Impel Down? Really?!"
"Yeah, I arrested her," said Koby, cracking a hesitant grin. "Awhile ago, actually. I said I was going to, so when they got rid of the warlord system, Helmeppo and I went after her."
He felt a funny mixture of pride and sheepishness, remembering shouting at Alvida that he would join the Marines and arrest her, seconds before Luffy had stepped in and punched her.
"Woooowwwww," said Luffy, his eyes large. He looked around, as if expecting Alvida to stroll around the corner. "Where is she?"
"I don't know. Somewhere alone so that she couldn't talk about me being her cabin boy."
"Hmm? Do you ever visit her?"
"What?" balked Koby. "Why would I do that?"
"You're visiting me," Luffy shrugged.
"You're my friend, Luffy-san!" said Koby. "Alvida's not my friend!"
"She doesn't have to be for you to visit her," shrugged Luffy. "When I visited here I made friends with Buggy and Crocodile and that guy with the funny hair. And Jinbei! And Ivankov!"
Koby groaned and stifled a chuckle, shaking his head at Luffy's childlike simplicity, undaunted even in the depths of Impel Down.
He sat, staring out the bars that were Luffy's home now, as Luffy happily chewed away at the meat, guileless, boundless as always.
"Oh, Luffy-san," Koby whispered. "What are we going to do?"
