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No Parking on the Battleground
residual bursts
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They've been gone from Drum Island for only a day, now, and they are still near enough to get some residual bursts of the cold weather that Chopper knows he is going to miss. The snow falls thick and heavy, disappearing into the churning ocean waves and settling on the deck. Usopp is the only one with sense enough to bundle up before he and Luffy burst out into the high drifts, laughing and shouting and rolling in the freshly-laid snow that is already gathering around their knees. Chopper follows them a bit more slowly, enjoying the cool air.
He's still kind of hesitant about joining in.
So, he sits contentedly on the sidelines for a while, where Zoro is leaned up against the gunwale taking a nap (even though Chopper has tried, without results, to wake him and ask him to go inside before he catches a cold or frostbite). The tiny reindeer smiles and giggles quietly to himself as he watches Usopp and Luffy play together.
That is, until he notices the snow Usopp is pilling up start to take a more defined shape, and Luffy patting together a bunch of snow of his own, jamming a stick from who-knows where down into the side of it once he's satisfied it's the right size. Luffy laughs, pointing at Usopp's sculpture, and says it looks stupid; Usopp tells him that he just can't appreciate this sort of thing and that his snowman is too lumpy and not intimidating in the slightest. Chopper realizes what they're doing, and they're obviously having so much fun, and his heart beats a little faster the longer he watches. He slips off the gunwale, using the snoring swordsman's shoulder as a stepladder, and he bounds across the snowy deck.
"Luffy," he says breathlessly, pausing on the other side of the soon-to-be snowman that is already twice his size. Luffy leans over the top of it, grinning down at him, and Chopper taps his hooves together nervously, and gathers the courage to grin back and say, "I... I've always wanted to build a snowman... with my friends!"
Luffy laughs, "Well, go ahead, dummy, there's plenty of snow~"
He sets up another ball of snow, this one smaller and lumpier than the one underneath, and Luffy has to mash it down quite a bit before it decides to sit where he wants it to. Chopper hesitates, shuffling his feet in the snow, and then he comes around the snowman to stand between Luffy and Usopp.
"Could..." Chopper pipes up, and they look at him again as he turns to look at both of them. He can't believe this. He can't believe he gets to ask, "Could we build one... together? Could the three of us build a snowman together?"
Luffy grins again, broader than ever - but Usopp is the one who answers.
He stands, tall and imposing, declaring with great, enthusiastic authority, "Of course we can!" The sharpshooter scrambles out of the way with a yelp of surprise as Luffy hefts his own snowman up with a roar, in all it's lumpy, bulky glory, and hurls it at Usopp's delicate sculpture-of-a-lady-at-sea. The two crumble down together, Usopp skidding aside in the snow, and Luffy laughs loudly, doubling over, his bare hands scooping out another ball of snow and packing it together.
"Let's make a great big one, then," the captain says.
"Can we put a hat on it when we're finished?" Chopper asks eagerly, trying to pack a bunch of snow on his own with his small hooves, "And a pipe? And a carrot for the nose?"
"We'll give him a scarf, too!" Usopp says, brushing the snow off his parka, cool and nonchalant, "Don't want him to get cold!"
"That's brilliant, Usopp!" Chopper says, beaming, with stars in his eyes.
Luffy shows him how to start a snowball rolling properly; Usopp shows him how to smooth and pack the edges so it doesn't fall apart. And the snowman they end up with is nothing like what Chopper has ever imagined before (and he has privately imagined it for a long, long time). It is wide and lumpy - despite his and Usopp's best attempts to smooth it out - adorned with Usopp's scarf, the stick-arms from Luffy's previous snowman, and a bunch of buttons secretly and unwisely taken off one of Nami's many blouses. It's taller than the galley deck, and Chopper has to stand on his toes in Heavy Point in order to place the straw-hat on top of it's head while Usopp and Luffy stand on the deck below, grinning and looking proud of themselves.
Chopper smiles behind his hands.
This is the best snowman he's ever seen. Ever.
Even after Sanji comes out of the galley, idly trailing smoke, and puts his foot through it's face for obstructing the Ladies' view.
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-BobTAC
