mild gore at the very end, you have been warned
Brook has almost nothing to his name anymore.
Well, that's a lie.
He has the clothes he has bought over the two years of being a part of civilisation.
He has his cane-sword. One that he was given after he completed his swordsman ship in fencing. It had been a beautiful occasion and both of his parents had bought him the sword.
Then he had left for a pirating journey, running into Captain Yorki and the Rumbar pirates.
Laboon, I'm so sorry. Captain Yorki murmurs under his breath, unable to fully draw in his next.
Brook doesn't understand why – but he does entirely and that is why he hates himself.
Captain Yorki takes his last breath and Brook screams.
It's not like… before…
Brook is a terrible captain, he never wanted this job but it had been Captain Yorki's final order as captain so there is no way he was able to turn it down.
But then….
"Brook! We've got company! We can't see anything in this damn fog…" One of the crew cries, then he is shot and they're all fighting for their lives.
"Brook!"
The humming swordsman is everywhere at once, trying desperately to prevent his crew, his nakama from being killed from something he could have should have avoided.
And as he lays there dying he apologizes to Laboon, to Captain Yorki because he couldn't help either of them.
"One last time, for Laboon." He murmurs and begins to play.
"Binkusu no sake wo, todoke ni yuuku yo…
He cries silently as his crew falls one after the other to the poison tipped arrows, he will not cry aloud because Laboon deserves so much better, and he can only hope that someone will find them one day and play it for Laboon.
"Umikaze kimakase namimakase…
Captain Yorki, I have failed you, Brook thinks. He knows that he's going to die, he's accepted his fate.
He knows that if he doesn't die by some miracle, then…
He doesn't like to think about what he might do, all alone in the fog.
"Captain!"
Brook wakes up with twin tears streaming down his skeletal face (but how could he cry if he has no tear ducts?).
"Brook." It's said lowly enough but Brook turns anyway, still heaving his sobs out.
Luffy is sitting next to his hammock, holding his hand. Brook cries some more because here the man who is going to make his dream true is here with him.
"Senchou-san." He gasps out, he needs air (which is odd for he is a skeleton).
"Brook." Luffy murmurs again and climbs into his hammock without any further prompting.
Luffy wraps his rubbery limbs around the skeleton, Brook allows himself to be ensconced within the warm embrace of his captain, friend, brother.
"You're here with us Brook." Luffy says into his rib-cage and Brook can't help but remember just how small the captain is but how big he seems sometimes – and not just because of the ridiculous gears or food for that matter.
"I know, Luffy-san, it is just…"
Luffy tightens his limbs. "It's okay Brook. One day I'll be King of the Pirates and then we'll go see Laboon, mmkay?"
"But-"
"No buts about it, you're going to see Laboon again, I painted a jolly roger on his head so he won't be trying to get through anymore." Luffy says.
Brook hums contentedly, then Luffy's stomach grumbles and he blushes a little.
"Do you want to go get some food, Luffy-san?" Brook asks.
"Okay, you're coming too." Luffy says cheerfully and drags the skeleton out of the hammock.
Brook doesn't protest, he wishes to be surrounded by the straw hat pirates once more.
He remembers, he does have things from before. He has his memories, he has a tone dial with a last message. And most importantly he is still himself. He may not be flesh and blood but he is sure that Laboon will remember him.
Franky barely has any of his body left anymore.
Not his original body, at least.
It's all been coated and replaced by synthetic skin and metallic counterparts.
He knows that he was never wanted, his parents ditched him on that scrap island, but that's okay because he found something better than his shitty parents anyway.
"Tom! Look at what I made!" He says, proudly presenting the tiny canoe to his mentor.
"Good job Franky." Tom says gruffly, before turning back to his own boat.
"Tch."
"Wanna go, Bakaberg?" Franky asks, he had been high strung that morning and he was ready to take it out on his surrogate brother.
"Nothing."
Then the dream is dissolving like acid and fading away, replaced by something far worse.
"We're under attack!"
"What the hell?! They shouldn't be firing!" Franky is near hysterical by this point.
And then Tom, Tom is sacrificing himself and there ain't a damn thing he can do about it.
"Stop Puffing Tom, where are you taking your master!?" He hasn't got anything to live for.
His master, dad is sacrificing himself for his sake and he shouldn't be. "Please, Tom."
Then all he feels is blinding pain, hot and white.
And Franky screams.
He builds himself his own armour that he melds to the back of his body. Although, he used a lot bigger parts so the skin on his back is quite stretched at the moment.
Franky swears that he will never allow something like that to happen.
He only has heard bits and pieces about what goes on inside of Impel Down from both the news and from what Luffy's spoken of when the captain is delirious.
(Poison, and fire, and so much more)
"It'll be okay." He reassures himself as he bites down on a spare piece of wood, burning the hot metal to his skin.
Any nerves he had in the front are replaced with wires and cords, whilst his back is crying in constant pain.
Who knew that making a cyborg without anaesthesia would be so damn hard?
And then he is fading away and the monstrous pits of his imagination swallow him whole.
What kind of hell could his master be undergoing before his death?
Fire?
Starvation?
Poison?
Ice?
This is all your fault.
"Tom! Please! I'm sorry! I'll be a better student! Just come back!"
Of course, his wishes fall on deaf ears and he hopes, hopes to high heaven and back that Tom was not subjected to the torture he thinks goes on inside of Impel Down.
"Oi~!"
"Tom!" Franky wakes with one arm extending to the ceiling.
He begins to cry again, which is so not super…
"Franky!"
"What do you want Luffy?" He tries wiping his eyes, but they just keep on coming.
The hammock creaks a little under the weight of the duo but Franky built them to be solid.
Luffy pressed himself up against the synthetic skin and Franky wishes that he could actually feel said captain.
Luffy presses a little harder.
Franky sobs a little louder.
No words are exchanged, only the cries of Franky are to be heard.
Next thing Franky knows, he's drifting off to sleep. And all he dreams of that night are grinning straw hats and an endless sea of adventure.
Robin has many regrets in life.
She regrets that she wasn't able to save Ohara.
She regrets that she doesn't have the medallion that identifies her as an archaeologist anymore.
"Are you my mother?"
The memory swirls into existence and the white-haired women takes another step forward-away from her.
"Please, I've been working so hard."
"It'll be okay Robin."
"Mum! Mum!"
She is within Saul's tight grip and her mother stays behind to protect her.
And then… "The sea is a wide place, there are surely nakama waiting out there for you Robin! Search for them!"
Kuzan freezes the rest of the giant even as he laughs away.
She… doesn't deserve to live.
The scholars are all most likely dead, that or taken away to the World Government for execution.
All of the civilians are dead, shot down by Vice-Admiral Sakazuki.
Ohara is burning and the tree of knowledge falls.
But fire, fire burns through the island and tears at the edges of her reality.
"Derishishi!" She cries even as she follows the ice path.
She is just a monster, who would want her to live?
She could have saved them.
She could have helped them.
Robin cries in aguish for her friends.
She may be an archaeologist but she is alone.
The burden to take her in is far too much either way.
The fire still feels hot, but not hot like one would expect of a blazing island.
"Mum."
She wakes up in a pool of her own sweat and tears, Luffy wrapped around her middle. "Hello senchou-san." She manages to choke out around the lump in her throat.
"It's okay Robin."
Is it? She wants to ask, but she will not because Luffy feels like warmth, and strangely enough, freedom.
"We're not leaving." He mumbles into her chest and she is mildly surprised that Nami was not in here.
The mikan by her bedside speaks for itself, she thinks.
"I am okay now senchou-san."
Despite her steady voice Luffy still grips her. "It's okay Robin." He repeats.
She doesn't attempt to dislodge him.
Doctor Hiruluk is a quack doctor.
Chopper knows this.
But he also loves his doctor who showed him that not all humans were monsters.
Some nights Chopper dreams that he learnt quicker and saved Doctor Hiruluk.
Some nights he dreams that Doctor Kureha healed Doctor Hiruluk.
But some nights…
"Why couldn't you save me Chopper?!"
"You're worthless, you're a monster!"
"You are not my son! No son of mine is furry, and has a blue nose."
It's always harder to distinguish whether Doctor Hiruluk actually said that or not.
Doctor Hiruluk is coughing again, but Chopper ignored all of the signs.
So he waves a flag in declaration against any known disease by mankind, and then some.
He waves it in surrender for he will not be able to learn without her.
Kureha accepts him because of a promise to the stupid quack doctor.
I want…
I want Doctor Hiruluk to be okay.
"I'm raising my flag to challenge all of the diseases out there!"
A hand is slapped to the cherry blossom flag.
"Really?"
"Yup! You gotta face life's challenges head-on Chopper! That's why I'm a doctor Chopper."
"Don't we make things worse?"
"Nonsense, I like to think that we help people smile again."
He laughs.
"You're sick?"
Chopper is beaten within an inch of his life but it's okay because he found it, the cure to doctor's disease.
It can cure anything.
"When do you think a man dies?"
"Doctor! Just wait for me! Please!"
"When they're shot through the heart with a pistol? ...No."
Chopper is running as fast as he can. He can't have given Doctor a poison, Doctor said that the skull and cross bones meant a challenge!
"When they have an uncurable disease? ...No. When they drink soup made from a poisonous mushroom?"
He will make it, he has to, Doctor did so many nice things for him, he cannot be the reason the kind Doctor dies. He can't be.
"No! When they are forgotten! Even if I die, my dream will come true. The hearts of the people will be cured..!"
And Chopper screams in rage and pain and charges at the 20 MD. "Doctor Hiruluk!"
And he wakes up to the wooden roof of Sunny. He immediately stuffs his hooves in his mouth to prevent any more noise from escaping but the damage has been done.
He hears the crew murmur some things to each other before a pair of arms encircle him, squeezing him tightly. They were warm, contradictory to the cold his mind was telling him was there.
"L-l-luffy?"
"Shhh, we're going to sleep, aren't we?"
Chopper just nods and feels Luffy shift behind him before settling down.
"Just sleep Chopper, we're all here."
Sanji didn't have a particularly good childhood.
The way he was brought up it was kill or be killed, okay, so not as drastic but the point stands that the Vinsmokes were brutal bastards.
Even Reiju, as kind as she had been, she hadn't spoken out against the treatment. Not that he blamed her, there was no doubt she would have joined him.
The darkness was oppressive, pushing down on him from within the metal helmet.
It had been a week since he had been left down here, whether to die was another matter.
Sanji had cut open his hands on the helmet.
And Reiju still was kind to him.
But his mother…
She always tried to make him feel better. She had even tried to hide just how sick she was.
But Sanji wasn't stupid, he could see the way she was beginning to slip away.
And finally…
She faded away…
There weren't many attenders to her funeral. Either out of fear for Germa 66 or because they didn't care.
Sanji was the only one who cried.
He did so in secret so he didn't make a big scene but they heard him anyway. "Look at this wuss, crying like a little coward."
"Baha."
"We should teach him a lesson."
Their fists rained down on him and he was pretty sure that at least one bone broke which was always a pain in the ass because he wasn't able to cook half of the time.
The memory swirled like cake batter before reforming to that godamned rock.
"He still has plenty of food left."
"What are you doing, little eggplant? Did you see a ship?"
"I'm here for your food old-man."
But there was no food, only worthless gold and a stump of a leg.
It's your fault and you know it.
He sacrificed it all and this is how you want to repay him?
Stupid little Vinsmoke, should have died before he was born.
"It's delicious Sanji!"
"You liar…"
He wakes up, curled onto one side, tears sliding down his face silently.
He loves his mother, he loves the shitty old geezer too.
But he hurt both of them…
A body lands on top of him and it takes everything to not just scream at Luffy. "Hi Sanji."
Then Luffy winds his way into his chest, worming into his curled up figure and he figures what the hell? And allows the captain to have his way.
"You're nice and warm, shishi."
Sanji's still trembling but eventually they die down.
"What are you doing shitty rubber?"
"I was cold so I wanted to warm up."
It's infallible logic, if it wasn't currently 25 degrees. Sanji thinks it's more impressive that Luffy didn't whistle or give away his lie.
So Sanji allows the idiot to stay there.
It is comforting, but he would never admit that.
Usopp knows that there had to be something wrong with him.
Logically, as a young child he thought that maybe his father just didn't want to stay because of the responsibilities of having a child.
He thinks that that is why his mother died of her sickness.
But that isn't what usually haunts his dreams.
No, there's about a bajillion other things that scare him hidden within the folds of his nightmares.
Usopp is a perfectly normal human being. He dreams of death probably more than he should.
Death by perfectly innocent looking things.
But he grew stronger over the two years, so his captain would never have to go through that again.
His nightmares are primarily about Merry.
She carried them for as long as possible.
And that is why she could die happy. The ocean floor is a lonely place. Usopp thinks.
He thinks about it a lot, if he were to die, he would prefer for it to be back in between Water 7 and Enies Lobby where Merry waits for them.
He will fufill his dream but he isn't dumb, he knows he's not invincible, hell, none of them are invincible.
So he wakes from dreams filled with stupid deaths and dark blue oceans to the sight of a familiar straw hat and a warmth at his back that hadn't been there before.
Nami is adopted, that's okay, Bellmère is a marine that saved her.
She was adopted into a dirt-poor family, that's also okay, she knows how to steal and she loves Nojiko and Bellmère.
Her dreams are filled with the days they plant mikan trees together.
But eventually they crumble away like the soil beneath their toes to that day.
The day that Arlong came into her life.
She had been so mean, such a bitch that she had said those things to Bellmère. The ex-marine had only ever been kind to her.
And she still had the gall to complain about how much she had. Such materialistic desires, she knows better now.
But it's a little too late.
"I'm sorry Genzo but I can't stand here and say that I have no children. Nami! Nojiko! I love you!"
"Bellmère!" Both sisters scream in synchronisation.
"I will get 100 million beri, if it's the last thing I do."
The tattoo is like a claw around her shoulder, pulling her back to the bastard that had ruined her life. She tears at her skin desperately trying to pull it off.
Because he promised and her village is going to be destroyed because of her naivety.
But then Luffy is there, stopping her from utterly destroying her arm further.
A treasure is placed in her crew and later on she watches in pure, unadulterated awe as the boy – not even a man – takes down the seemingly invincible fishman.
But she still feels bitter.
All of those years amounted to nothing it was all stripped away in a moment and then a boy who had no business there was destroying the Arlong Pirates.
She wakes up crying, she quickly claws her way under the doona cover to prevent Robin from being woken up by her but then remembers that the archaeologist is on watch.
She sobs out loud, she misses Bellmère and the smell of her faint gunpowder and mikan and-
She shudders as the door is pushed open and footsteps thud dully along the floor, her doona is opened and a lithe frame slips in and brings her into his arms.
She can't find the energy to tell him off for making his way into the woman's quarters and instead buries her head in his chest, crying out the rest of her tears.
Zoro doesn't have nightmares very often.
She left and it was all her fault to leave him with a promise to become the very best.
Taken away in a flash, just like that!
She was always stronger than him and he wishes she was alive now.
The grassy field is surprisingly warm despite the rippling wind.
Kuina is not much than a dark blob standing on the tree line.
But then she moves forward and any pretence of peace is broken by the sight of her rotting body.
Zoro flinches backwards because she is decomposing. There is a trail of human decay behind her as she walks, still as graceful as she was in life despite the gaping holes in her body.
An arm falls off and yet she still walks, skin green and white and grey, black matter falling out of her like an awful parody of snow.
"You were prepared to give it all up!" She screeches, sounding more like a banshee than the girl he had known.
Zoro takes the abuse as she comes closer and brings back a fist and punches him square in the face, it causes her arm to grotesquely snap and part of her body smears against his face.
He falls over, too stunned to do anything.
"You promised!" She screams again and straddles him, bringing her fists back and raining them down on his body.
At some stage they fell off and instead she is punching him with two stumps instead of fists, the blood that isn't really blood is spreading over his dojo uniform and he feels like vomiting.
He wakes up, tears gathering in his good eye, he lets them fall despite the warmth at his chest from his captain.
"Hey Zoro." Luffy whispers into his chest.
"Hey." He manages, it sounds very strangled to his own ears and wonders if that's what it sounds like to his captain.
"Zoro was having a nightmare."
He wants to snort no shit sherlock but refrains, Luffy is warm against his chest, unlike the mockery of Kuina, her breath hot and rotting against-
Nope, just think about Luffy.
"Yeah." He whispers.
And it's okay, it'll be okay.