For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left. By changing, and letting go, and moving on.-Judith Viorst, "Necessary Losses"
-Lose-
He wakes up enough to feel a warm weight straddling his hips. After the realization that he's feeling a warm weight across his hipsactually sinks into his half-asleep mind, he cracks open one bleary eye to look at the source of this alarming disturbance.
He's met with a wide, gleaming smile that eats up half a face, and Paulie promptly closes his eye and tries to go back to sleep.
"Paulieee-" a voice whines, and Paulie grimaces, brows drawing together in annoyance.
"Go away, I'm trying to sleep." He orders gruffly, not believing for one moment that the voice will. But he feels as if he has to say it. He has to let that voice know that he doesn't want this.
But no one ever seems to care what Paulie wants.
The weight doesn't move, but the voice doesn't come again either. Paulie manages to ignore its presence enough to start drifting back to sleep. He's that exhausted.
His hazy, tired mind registers only mild surprise when he feels the weight of someone sitting on his hips shifting into the weight of someone laying themselves across his chest, arms wrapping around his sides, and hair tickling his face from the head that now fought for room on the pillow next to him.
Paulie stiffens, and the soft voice says calmly into his ear, "What's wrong?"
The innocence of that voice stirs an anger in him. It's that same innocent voice from which the word nakama flows freely, the same innocent voice that has the gall to ask 'what's wrong?' when he's doing this, as if he doesn't understand.
"Get off of me, brat." Paulie growls. He's had a long day and he's tired and he doesn't have the strength to deal with this. But again, no one cares what Paulie wants, for the voice tells him bluntly,
"No."
Paulie's hands come up to grip the boy by the shoulders, intent on shoving him off, before he remembers that the boy would simply stretch, then snap back into place. So he does the first thing that comes to mind, which is to twist suddenly to the right until it's Luffy that's pinned down onto the bed, and Paulie the one that's stretched out on top.
Black eyes blink up at him in surprise, but not at all afraid of the anger that's carved lines into the face above him.
"I'm not Lucci." Luffy says, bluntly, and Paulie draws back.
"I never said you were." He snarls angrily, to which Luffy replies, in that same even voice,
"You're looking at me like I am."
The anger bubbling in his chest turns to rage and he's digging his nails into Luffy's forearms, shoving down. But there's still no fear in those eyes. As if Luffy knows there's nothing Paulie can do to hurt him, nothing Paulie will do to hurt him, and it's so infuriatingly like another black-haired man that Paulie feels something in his chest squirm.
"You're not Lucci." He says, and hopes he's just imagining the tremor in his voice that he hears.
"I'm not." Luffy confirms.
There's a moment of silence and Paulie can feel the icy rage building up. "How do I know that?" Paulie demands, and Luffy's lips twist into a light frown. Confused eyes search Paulie's face, but Paulie is a mask, one of anger and clenched teeth.
"How do I know that you're not Lucci?" Paulie clarifies. "That this," he shifts his weight in such a way that it's obvious he's referring to where their bodies are touching, "isn't a game? That when you say nakama, you're not lying?"
"Because I'm telling the truth. We're nakama." he says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Don't you get it?!" Paulie all but roars. Luffy sinks back a little in the new pressure Paulie applies, surprise once again dancing across that young face, but Paulie's at his breaking point now and doesn't care. He'd just wanted to fucking sleep for once in the past month, instead of working until he can't work anymore or spending the night in Blueno's empty, closed down bar, toasting to empty barstools and drinking until he can't remember. "I don't believe you! I can't believe you! Why don't you people get that? Why can't you people just leave me the fuck alone? Stop trying to fix what isn't yours to fix! Just take Franky and your new ship and leave,soI can stop having to look at you and think of him!!!"
Paulie's shaking, eyes wide and staring, heart hammering in his chest. There's no way he's going to fucking break down again. He's had enough of the pitying eyes and the tip-toeing around him like he's made of glass and going to shatter at the first gentle touch. He's just too tired to deal with this anymore. He'll get over this eventually, someday, without anyone's help. That's what he keeps telling himself.
Someday. Alone. His eyes slide closed as he bows his head, nails digging into Luffy's arms. He fights for control. Beneath him, Luffy shifts.
He opens his eyes just in time to catch a glimpse of raven hair, before a pair of warm lips press gently against his own. For one heart-stopping moment his mind screams Lucci!! before the painful reality sinks in. Paulie wants to scream in outrage, but those lips are insistent, holding the rage in check with the same calm surety this boy shows in everything he does. Paulie wants to shove this warmth away, because this brat has no right to do this.
However, there's nothing assuming in those lips, nothing harmful or violent. There's no Lucci in those lips, and that gives him pause. It's just a boy. A stupid, clumsy boy. And despite everything, Paulie can feel the tension leaking out of his shoulders, his fingers loosening their numbing hold, and his mind going from angry white to a flat, hopeless gray.
"I'm not Lucci." Luffy states again, softly, breath brushing across lips that still tingle with the gentle kiss.
It hits Paulie then, staring into the smooth guileless face of the boy so utterly sure in his conviction that he is not Lucci, how young this brat is. It angers him; the utter gall to just simply barge in here like he understood anything and to think it was okay to just…
Luffy is not Lucci. He's not the man of biting teeth and tearing nails and rough, careless hands. Paulie doesn't need these warm lips telling him that. He knows it, somewhere past the hastily-erected armor he's wrapped around himself. He knows it more thoroughly than this pirate surrounded by nakama ever could. And this young face, trying so hard to comfort in its own meandering way, can't do anything but stir his rage.
This rage in his chest hasn't gone away since Enies Lobby. He's been walking around with it, keeping it tightly bound and under control. Suppressing it every time it fought and clawed against him, screaming at him to lash out. He's not sure why it doesn't hurt anymore. It stopped hurting after they made it back alive to Water 7. Now all he feels is rage. Rage at them for betraying him. Rage at himself for being such a fool. Rage at the World Government for their fucked up idea of Justice.
Rage at this straw-hat wearing pirate for his childish conviction that all wrongs can be righted. Rage that surges every time that boy reminds him of what he loved and what he lost.
Maybe some measure of escapes his hold, flashes across his face. Maybe the idiot can see it glittering in his eyes. Whatever the reason, Luffy moves one second before Paulie does. He doesn't give the shipwright a chance to lash out. Luffy surges forward, pushes with deceptive strength on Paulie's shoulders, forcing him backwards until their positions have reversed yet again. Paulie pressed roughly against the sheets of the bed, Luffy's hands painfully clenched around Paulie's forearms. Unforgiving pressure holding him down as surely as those lips pressed against his had.
"Stop it!" Paulie's voice is thick with suppressed rage.
"No." Luffy says simply.
"What do you want from me?!" Paulie fights Luffy's hold on him, but the boy keeps him held firmly in place.
"I'm trying to help."
Deprecating laugher bubbles out of his chest before he can stop it.
The first flashes of anger finally appear on Luffy's face. "Why is that funny?"
"Because it fucking hurts."
"You think it shouldn't?"
"What do you want from me?" he asks again.
"It doesn't have to hurt."
Paulie's trying his damnedest to keep the black rage in check, and forces out through clenched teeth, "I don't need your help."
"I didn't ask you if you wanted it."
Luffy leans down again, with an ease born of absolute surety, and presses those warms lips against his once again, drowning the harsh retort that had been on the tip of Paulie's tongue.
Maybe it was the simplicity of it that threw him off. Nothing artistic, nothing soul-rendering. Just two lips pressed together.
"Stop it." Paulie pleads softly, pushing Luffy away just enough to form the words. But his strength is half-hearted, his voice so quiet as to almost be unheard. He's slowly starting to wrap his head around…this.
Luffy is not Lucci. He knows it. He knows that he knows it, but somehow he has to keep reminding himself. Hard to imagine that the two have anything in common and, really, they don't. Paulie doesn't know why they are the same person in his head, why one name blurs into the other and the thought of either leads invariably to the opposite. All he knows is that this boy with the warm lips is here, and the other is gone. And someday they'll both be gone forever from Paulie, and he's equal parts relieved and crushed. Crushed because having at least one of them here, when they so often blurred into images of each other, was the same as having them both. And while it was a so very fucked up idea, he can't wash it out of his mind.
Some part of him protests, the same part that feels like a fool, and he pulls away again to say, "I can't…" but halts, abruptly, because there's a thousand possibilities attached to those words he hasn't worked out yet. He can't deal with this, he can't promise anything, he can't accept this, he can't get over this, he can't do this. They all clamor to be said, so in a fit of frustration he just forces out the only answer he's sure of, lest the others escape as well, despite how much it surprisingly pains him to do so.
"I can't go with you." Paulie says. He's not sure whether or not it sounds like a plea.
There's one endless moment during the silence after his statement where he's terrified that Luffy's going to ask him anyway, because nobody cares what Paulie wants. And these black-haired men don't take no for an answer.
When Luffy mutters, "I know," there's a vast, unashamed relief so powerful that he grits his teeth to keep down a sob that's trying to force its way up his throat.
Self-hatred is a new concept to Paulie. He's hated a lot of things in his life – he hates the parents that abandoned him for a better life. He hates the city for leaving him so few paths to choose. He hates the shipyards for being the only path he could take. He hates these black-haired men for taking what he was foolish enough to give, and he hates himself most of all for foolishly giving it.
Lips again, a flat reminder, and the only thing that Paulie can think of is, this is what a fool must feel like. What a paltry gift this is, these warm lips Luffy gives him. Paulie understands – he understands the naivety of youth. He understands the level of conviction this boy possess just as surely as he understands perspective.
Everything looks like justice from the right perspective. Every wrong can be righted, just so long as Luffy can get Paulie too look at it from the perspective of these warm lips instead of those cold hands. Drown one memory in the feelings of another.
Paulie pushes Luffy away.
"It isn't yours to take away." Paulie says firmly.
Black eyes regard him, looking old and out of place on that smooth, childish face.
Blue eyes hold the gaze, before drifting shut.
"I'm done." Paulie states, because he's exhausted. Exhausted with life, exhausted with struggling. He's been struggling for as long as he can remember – and when he looks forward at the path ahead of him, the struggle to lay it all to rest, to move on, to let go, to bury the dead… there's no reprieve, no solace. Only an endless struggle against the idea of nakama that he knows more surely than anything will never end. He knows that despite these lips now, and the lips that will surely come in the years to follow, it will always be Lucci. It'll always be the something he lost, instead of the something he has.
"Someday." Luffy whispers suddenly. Paulie wants to open his eyes, but the effort isn't there. "Someday…" Luffy repeats, voice velvet and soft and suddenly close to his face, "You'll understand."
Understand?
"Foolish dreamer…" Paulie mutters at the face he knows is hovering above him. Understand what? The idea of nakama is dead to him now, and he knows he'll never believe it again. He'll push everyone away until it's just himself and he'll die old and alone and completely safe from betrayal. There is no more 'someday' for Paulie. Lucci and Kaku are gone, and they've taken that 'someday' with them. Then Luffy will leave – without Paulie – and take his 'someday' with him as well.
Warm breath against his face, and Paulie unconsciously tenses for the warm lips that are sure to silence him again. But after a moment the lips never come. Somehow Paulie knows they'll never come again – he's pushed it away. It's the bitter start to his new life. He feels a pang of irrational sadness, and swallows thickly. A little voice in his mind taunts him, whispers that he could have had this, and in his fucked up mind right now it was like having them both. And he desperately wants both, even though he can't have them.
The warmth from where their hips are connected stretches across his entire chest as Luffy drapes himself over the shipwright. The fingers that had been curled around his forearms release their numbing hold and suddenly Paulie is given the freedom to do as he pleases. Shove away or allow.
Damn him, Paulie catches himself thinking, though he's not sure which one of these black-haired men he's damning at the moment. If he's damning Luffy for trying to fix him in his own meandering way, or Lucci for taking what he wanted and breaking it like it meant nothing
Paulie lays there, wonders if he really has the strength to even choose anymore. If he's just being a fool for even allowing himself to let someone get this close. They continue to lay like that for the longest time, until Paulie feels himself once again drifting off to the sound of Luffy's even breathing and the gentle laping of the water streets from his open window.
This is something new, something Lucci never gave him. Lucci always took what he wanted and left... there were never any warm arms before. No chest draped across his. As he contemplates this, and Luffy's supossed 'someday', he wonders if it's possible to remember these warm arms and forget everything else, or if Lucci took that away from him too.
The last thought that floats through his mind before he drifts off to sleep is that the deepest circles of hell are reserved for those who betray. Paulie sincerely hopes that Lucci will rot in them for all eternity.
-fin-