Things can change...
The phone rang when Usopp was wiggling the tofu over the plastic bowl. It felt like his heart stopped and he glanced at the yellow candy colored iphone buzzing against the counter. Was it— He couldn't look. Chewing on his lower lip, he peeked anyway and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw who it was.
Still wiggling the tofu over the bowl, he picked up the phone and cradled it on his shoulder.
"Yo," he said. Man, what was this tofu stuck in? Was it clinging for life or what? He inwardly swallowed at the metaphor and tried to pretend to not to think it.
"Yo, yourself, shitty longnose," Sanji said, sounding just on this side of irritated as usual. "The hell kind of greeting is that?"
"The awesome kind." Get out, damn tofu. He wiggled a little more vigorously and it started to slide down like a large white poo. Man, the things he thought of. He gave up for the moment and set the plastic tub on the counter before leaning against it. Sanji was being awfully quiet and he felt that hollow aching in the pit of his stomach again.
"What's the news?" he said as casually as he could. "Good? Bad? You've been in to see him, right?"
"So far no change," Sanji said.
"Oh…" Well, after five years, it was pretty expected. It shouldn't hurt as much as it still did, and in fact, didn't hurt at all. Usopp swallowed past the rust in his throat so he could speak.
"So why so quiet?"
Another roll of silence. So much could be said in that and Usopp wished he was able to interpret his friend's silences in that cool animesque way where a glance or the tik of an eyebrow could tell him a major plot-point.
"Just…restaurant stuff. Listen—"
"Have you asked him yet, shitty eggplant?" Zeff's gravel and dust voice rose from the background accompanied by the sound of a door.
"I'm working on it, shit cook, stay out of this!"
"Tell Pops I said hi," Usopp said with a grin, scraping out the white stuff and plopping it in the bowl.
"I'm doing no such shitty thing. Tell him yourself." There was the click of a lighter and the suck of air through a filter. He was going to smoke himself into an early grave, but Usopp tried not to think about that too much.
"Look, the old geezer wants to know if you're coming down for the break."
"Uh…" Usopp glanced at the letter Mr. Bannerman had written him.
Come home for once! Come see us! More than welcome. We miss you.
"Sure. No other plans," he said easily as he dumped the letter into the sink and turned on the water. "Chopperman can come, too?"
"Of course he can. What kind of shitty question is that?" A hesitation. "Listen—"
Usopp listened. The tofu fell with a wet plop into the bowl. Somewhere outside a car slushed by.
"Never mind," Sanji finally said.
"That's reassuring," Usopp said blandly.
"It's nothing to worry about. We'll talk about it when you get here, I guess."
"Even more reassuring. Will you just tell me?"
What was it? Did someone die? Get shot? About to die? Lose a job? Lose a limb? He was feeling the onset of he-needed-to-find-out-what-was-going-on-or-he-was-going-to-strangle-a-cook disease.
"It's nothing to worry about. Seriously. I have to go back on shift."
"Sanji!"
"Don't worry."
"How can I not?"
"Try," he said and then dead air.
Damnit. That jerk.
Usopp gripped the edge of the counter and tried to calm down. It was nothing that big, right? Granted, Sanji's idea of big was often far removed from anything called normal but—on the other hand, Sanji was usually good about the emotional stuff.
So he would just—make dinner. Right. Great distraction. He looked into the plastic bowl filled with tofu, like lumpy snow or great big blocks hewn from hippopotamus fat, and decided that, no matter what Chopper recommended, this was not fit for man or beast. Besides which, he knew what kind of diet the kid was on. Even if he didn't have anything, it was better to stay with company then to sit here and chew on his worries all alone. He dialed Chopper's number.
"Hello?" the voice on the other end was wide awake and had a kind of wire-thin squeakiness, evidence of a caffeine high. Sleep was not an option for med students.
"Hey, Chopperman. Still got some of that pizza lying around?"
"Usopp, it's over a day old."
"So?"
"It's not healthy."
"I'll put ketchup on it. Come on. I'll bring over some cream soda."
Hesitance on the other end. Nothing like a bribe to wet a kid's appetite.
"Fine but you can only have two pieces. And be careful out there." He heard the scattering slide of lifting blinds. "It looks pretty bad."
"I'm always careful. Won a prize for it in middle school." No wait. That was nothing to brag about. Well forget it.
"What, really?" Chopper said, sounding impressed already. Usopp was about to spin a story about how he'd saved the whole school single-handedly just with a well-timed safety talk, but the picking up of the wind splatting snow against the window made him change his mind. If he wanted that pizza (and company) he'd better get going.
"Yeah really, I'll call you when I get there."
Chopper mumbled a distracted goodbye, probably already reabsorbed in homework and Usopp looked at his own projects, various bits of electronics scattered across the scarred kitchen table, a fluid dynamics book littered with colored sticky notes for the test that was going to be in a few days…
Later… He'd think about that later. He shoved his phone into his pocket, pulled on his jacket, coat, scarf, earmuffs and thick winter gloves. Minnesota winters, man.
A scattering of granulated snow hit him across the nose as soon as he stepped out into the frostbitten night. He stared a moment at the lonely street lamps, glowing harsh yellow on the asphalt, patched here and there with slick black ice.
He might have gone out on a night just like this…
Usopp shook his head and stumped through the ankle deep snow of the cross-walk to to the safer looking, but dangerously unexpectedly icy parking lot. His poor beetle had been buried by the snowplow and looked like a small white hill with little black mirrors on either side to stare forlornly out.
"Poor baby," Usopp muttered, sweeping off great humps of snow with his arms. "I'll get you out." The wind howled, shifting through his hair and pressing cold snow kisses to the back of his neck. He shivered and wiped it away. Premonitions were bad on a night like this, so he steadfastly refused to have them.
They made up their minds...and they started packing
The heat shimmers off the asphalt and Usopp wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, feeling it crawl down his calves, and irritatingly, between his shoulder blades, making him get the shivers. He's been walking for days and the snow capped craggy mountains seem no closer than they were before. His boots are almost worn through, his backpack empty of food except for nutrigrain bars which taste like sawdust and old people, and he's thirsty. He wants to lap the snow right off those peaks, suck it down like candy instead of being down here, slowly cooking in the midday heat.
This sucks. He should go back. The Bannermans will be pissed but he's not afraid of them! …Well not much. Sanji will definitely be pissed at him for wussing out on such a great adventure. But adventures never mentioned much about worn shoes, no food and Charley horses the size of Montana. He flops his backpack on the ground, his guitar case a little more carefully, and sits on a hump of rock. After a moment he takes his handkerchief out of his pocket to rub his face and neck. It smells like old hair and grease and he can't remember what he used it for last which is probably a bad sign.
He should go back. He should, or he'd end up coyote dinner out here unless he's somehow rescued by a kindly Native American shaman and integrated into the tribe as the next great visionary. But then he'd have to muck about in the spirit world and that was just asking for trouble.
"What do you think?" he asks the sky, sparsely scudded with little hard-boiled clouds. "Should I go forward or back?"
"Back," he whispers to himself in what he imagines is the voice of a creaky old raven; and then, just for authenticity adds: "caw" Or did ravens croak? Well anyway. Where was he? Oh right.
"But Dad's waiting, o wise seer. Surely he wants me to come to him to take me on some grand adventure!" Dad would be proud of him for coming all that way, too, on nothing but his feet and the determined set off his shoulders, living off of nothing but roadside puddles and prairie dog meat.
"He will come find you when the time is right, impatient one," says wise old raven. "When you are truly a man, he will come. And you're pretty close. Caw."
He laughs and rubs the back of his neck.
"Yeah I guess you're right."
Still he sits for a while longer until he feels like he'll bake into a brick and stands, his legs feeling like noodles. There is a faint buzz in the distance, like a sudden swarm of killer bees out to sting him alive. He straightens and looks toward the sound. The sun squints like the star it is off the windshield of a pretty impressive '67 Chevy Impala that's making its way down the road, kicking up dust. Usopp shields his eyes to watch it come, feeling sweat drip off the end of his nose and hoping he doesn't look as much like a leaky faucet as he feels like.
It's going in direction he'd previously given up on and he lowers his eyelids, thinking: If this be your will, o great raven. Make it slow. Make it stop.
Usopp stiffens as the car slows
And jumps a mile when the car stops. Shock snapping like dry electricity through his veins. Holy shit he doesn't want this kind of power! He's not responsible enough for it! Take it back!
He wants to say all this but his mouth is glued shut as he stares at the window. If a bird sticks its head out, he is running as fast as his legs can carry him.
It's not a bird, but a kid with dusty black hair, a wide grin, and a scar under one eye.
"Yo," he says. "Wanna come with us?"
Not… Need a ride but, want to come with us. What…?
"Will you stop inviting people?!" snaps the driver, a green-haired guy who looks like he could crack walnuts with the force of his scowl. Oh boy.
"Um, I better wait til the next one," Usopp says, sliding a step back, curiously, he doesn't feel the need to bolt into the wild blue yonder, no matter how crazy that kid's smile is. The kid's grin only widens and he leans in the window, folding his arms and around him…
Ah~~
…Around him like the sweet sweet nectar of the oceanic gods, comes the cool swirl of air conditioning, accompanied by the stale corn chip smell of largely unwashed male, but forget that. Some things were meant to be beared. Born? Whatever.
"Where are you going?" Usopp asks, and then, as if his common sense had just peered out of whatever hole it had crawled in and took stock of the situation: "How do I know you aren't ax murderers?"
"Nah, not that. Zoro uses swords."
"That's not reassuring," Usopp says. Though to be beheaded with swords was kind of like some cool Akira Kurosawa flick—except it was his head that he'd be losing, so that was a no go.
"We're not going anywhere," the kid says as if he hasn't heard Usopp's muttering. Instead he's examining a grey booger he must have pulled out of his nose while Usopp was fantasizing about kneeling dramatically on straw mats dressed in those cool pants that—
Wait, what?
"Wait, what? What do you mean you're not going anywhere?"
"We're just driving," the kid says. "Looking for adventure." There's that crazy grin again. Psychos would pee themselves in anticipation over that grin. "Where are you going?"
"Um…" Usopp scratches the back of his neck. "New York?"
"Okay! Let's go!"
"What?"
The kid leans out and whaps the passenger side door that rings metallically from the force of the blow
"Come on! Hop in! Let's go to New York!"
Usopp glances tentatively at the driver who just gives him an open palmed shrug with one hand that's probably the coolest gesture he's ever seen. To walk back home…or to have an adventure— a real adventure— with possible ax murderers but…
"Yeah, okay." Before he changes his mind, he opens the back door.
"Careful of the sword," the green haired guy says in his impressive baritone. Usopp can just see the glimmer of a white hilted katana from where it's wrapped in the blanket and nearly geeks out there and then. That is so awesome! He'll wonder if the man will let him hold it. He reverently sets the sword upright and slides in himself, setting his guitar case beside it and setting the bookbag at his feet before shutting the door, the metallic clung filling him with a queasy anticipation that he can feel to the tips of his hair.
The car rumbles to life. He grips the seat. The green haired guy shifts the gears. He swallows. The car starts down the highway. The field becoming a blur, telephone lines looping overhead while mountains and sky remain as still and serene as ever.
Holy shit. What is he doing? This is crazy. Absolutely nutso…
But oh man if he tilts his head just so the air conditioner hits him right in the face, sweet sweet bliss. He doesn't realize he's closed his eyes until he opens them again and sees the kid grinning at him, turned around in the front seat with his chin resting on the headrest, probably in violation of some fifteen different laws.
"I'm Luffy," the kid says. "And this is Zoro." He gestures and the green haired man grunts in an impressive display of no shits given manly communication.
"Usopp." He should probably given an alias he realizes belatedly. But it won't really matter if his head gets severed from his body in a horribly painful if glorious spray of blood-—man he's really been out in the sun too long.
"Great to meet you," the kid— well— Luffy says. "Where are you from?"
"Seattle… hey, look," he says, finally realizing something. "Shouldn't you guys be in school?"
"Shouldn't you?" Zoro asks, looking at him through the rear view mirror with the piercing all encompassing eyes of a hawk diving for prey. Okay yeah. Usopp digs out the last of his too warm water from his backpack and chugs it, pretending he never asked. The kid grins at him all throughout and Usopp has the feeling that he wants to either play with him or eat him and Usopp isn't sure which he'd prefer.
"Hey," Luffy says after Usopp wipes the water away from his mouth with his sleeve. "Wanna play slap jack?"
Zoro groans and Usopp spares him a glance before shrugging at Luffy.
"Sure, why not?"
After all, how bad could it be?
