Warnings: Things get a little violent.
Author: The Dark Crimson Blood
Story Title: Trafalgar D. Luffy
Chapter Title: To Disassociate
Word Count:2,284
Summary: Luffy's found happiness with a strange, new family. Unwanted events continue to occur and the mystery around his parent's death begins to unravel. He wonders just how long this happiness will last.
Dead
She's dead.
Monet's dead.
Dead as in never coming back.
Dead as in 'she's not alive anymore'.
Her body is hauntingly still; the maniacal grin stays on her face, even in death. Luffy feels as if she's staring at him, cursing him even though she was no longer there. He feels sick. Something inside him twists; right now all he wants to do is go home and hug Law and never let him go, but right now there's a possibility of never seeing him again.
It's a scary thought.
Almost like Monet.
Who was dead.
Who was never coming back.
Just like mommy and daddy.
Mommy and Daddy were dead to, weren't they? They were never coming back, right? They're dead. Just like Makino.
DeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDeadDead.
What a scary thought, death was.
Did his parents look like Monet when they died?
Did they smile like maniacs too?
Does that happen to everyone when they die?
Will that happen to him, when he dies?
Is he going to die?
If they were smiling, they were happy… So was death a good thing?
Maybe… He wanted to die.
"Did you really have to throw up everywhere?" That man asks; his expression dark and one Luffy can't really see anymore. He's kinda blurry, actually. Everything's blurry. He looks at his hand.
Blurry.
Everything is.
"It's bad enough that you had to bleed everywhere…"
Suddenly it's dark.
So painfully dark.
He closes his eyes.
"Hey, brat, don't sleep!"
oOo
When Luffy wakes up, he wakes up with a strange feeling of dislocation. It's like he's there, but not there at the same time. There's no pain, no sadness, and no suffering; just nothingness. Blissful nothingness.
He blinks; his eyes shift. "You're awake?" Luffy can't seem to make a face out anymore. He's just a blank circle. "I was worried that the wound under your left eye, but the buyer said that it makes you look more special…" He scoffs. "Pedophile's have strange tastes, don't they?"
"…"
"You're not going to say anything?" Luffy blinks. "Very well; this way you won't annoy me."
He comes closer; there's a grin on his face. "I suppose I don't need to use any pain killers when I stitch up the gash under your eye, either." His cold fingers run underneath his left eye, brushing over the gash and putting pressure on it; Luffy doesn't even flinch. He runs his finger into the wound, feeling blood spill as he makes the injury worse; Luffy just blinks again.
"Have we broken you?" Ceaser questions with furrowed eyes, a terribly fake expression of pity rests in his eyes as he stares at the child. A smile stretches all the way up his face, "Hm. Why don't I get the medical kit, then?" He leaves the room.
Luffy's eyes slowly shift to the corner of the room, something moves; he has to squint to make out what it is. It's a raccoon with a horn on each side of its head; it's wearing a pair of pink pants. Strange. "Raccoons shouldn't be in here. You'll be caught!" The animal looks at him, stands on two feet, and glares at him.
"I'm a reindeer!" He shouts. "And I was caught already."
"Can't you escape?"
"I tried…" The raccoon pulls on its chains. "It's impossible." It wipes its wet eyes with its hooves, and Luffy feels a strange amount of pity for the poor human-like animal.
"…If I ever escape… I'll take you with me."
The reindeer smiles; "Thank you!"
"I'm Luffy, by the way."
"You can call me Chopper!"
oOo
Right leg over the left leg.
Left leg over the right leg.
Separate, repeat, sigh.
Fingers over leather jeans; tap, tap, tap, tap, tap
Sigh.
Look down, look up, look left, look right; repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Sigh.
The left eye twitches.
Sigh.
Cross the right leg over the lef-
"Law stop fidgeting so much, you're making everyone impatient." Beside him Dolflamingo speaks with annoyance in his voice, his arms are crossed and he looks just as impatient as Law is.
In the front seat, behind the wheel, Smoker drives like a police officer. Probably because he is one; but that means he obeys every single last traffic law and drives at the speed limit. Slow. He's too goddamn slow. "Can't you go any faster?!" Law all but whines; sounding much like a child who doesn't understand that it takes time to get places.
"Let me drive." Dolflamingo interrupts; Smoker sends him a brief glare but silently pulls over anyway. It is far too obvious how much more important this is to them than to him, they're missing an important family member after all.
Dolflamingo takes the wheel; Law silently tightens his seat belt. Smoker sends him a strange look.
Until he realizes why he made so many precautions.
Dolflamingo drives like a maniac.
oOo
"DAMN IT!" Ceaser yells as he grabs at his gas mask, he latches it on and calmly takes a deep breath of fresh air. The air around him has been contaminated by a purple like gas; it's in such a thick quality that he doubts he'll survive even with a gas mask in. It'll get in through his skin.
He sweats nervously. The whole apartment will be contaminated. There's nothing important in the room, so it's rather easy for him to escape. At least, until he remembers there's still a child inside. To be exact, it was his precious cargo that had been left behind.
He rips open the apartment door that had previously been slammed shut in an attempt to contain the deadly toxin somewhat; he rushes in. "Luffy!? Answer me, you fucking brat!" He yells.
Luffy walks in looking the same as he did before; he wasn't puking blood, his nose wasn't bleeding, his skin wasn't turning purple, and his eyes hadn't even gone blood red yet. He was normal. Nothing had changed. Ceaser stops to wonder just how that was possible. He was a child, a small one at that, meaning that he should have been affected much faster than anyone else.
Actually, Luffy should've been dead by now.
But there he is, standing, completely alive and completely healthy.
Maybe Luffy was worth too much to sell off to some pedophile.
He grabs Luffy's shirt, and though the child seems to be holding something tightly to his chest; Ceaser ignores it. "It's okay Chopper." The child whispers; Ceaser raises an eyebrow in curiosity. Though, he falls silent as he glimpses in between Luffy's arms.
"Hm."
oOo
There's only been one treatment, but Ace's father looks far better than he did before. The color has come back to his face, the bags underneath his eyes are gone, but guilt and regret still weighs down his shoulders as if they were the heaviest things in the world. Rouge's eyes look to be just as dark as his.
"Where is Luffy… right now?" Roger asks. He runs his hands through his hair as he avoids his son's gaze.
Ace shrugs. "He was kidnapped; Law went to get him back."
"Is there any way I…" He takes Rouge's hand. "We can help?"
"Just be there to properly apologize to him when he gets back." Ace sighs. "To both Luffy and Law."
oOo
"
"Luffy sits in Ceaser's car with Chopper hidden in his arms and his back to the driver. He fiddles with the phone he had taken from Monet, and had used to call Law. Taking note of street signs, buildings, and other scenery; Luffy tries his best to figure out just where he is.
"I don't know how he's alive." Ceaser says harshly as he talks on the phone; his other arm remains lazily draped over the steering wheel. "I was supposed to sell him, but if he's really immune to my poison then I need to find out why. I don't people surviving it."
"He may even be the one we need to perfect it. I'm bringing him to the lab." Luffy sends Chopper a thankful glance as the rac- reindeer shields his hands from being seen. He silently opens the phone; it's already on mute. 'We're moving.' He sends a text message to his brother. 'I don't recognize anything, but I think we're heading to a laboratory. He's not planning on 'selling' me anymore. Ceaser said that he wants to test something on me. Don't message back.' Luffy feels as if he's a lot calmer than he should be; when he texts Law, it's almost as if he's talking about someone else's situation instead of his own.
It's a strange feeling of numbness that follows.
The car pulls to a stop and Luffy nearly falls forward, as he had purposely forgotten to put on his seatbelt. He quickly shoves the phone back into his pocket and brings Chopper to his chest. "Get out. We're here." Luffy stares at the giant laboratory in surprise, he hadn't expected it to be anywhere near this big. The area around it was barren and burned down; seemingly a field of nothing but ashes and rocks.
He doesn't really feel himself being dragged out of the car and towards the building; he focuses his attention on finding some sort of address. When he does, he keeps it in his mind and repeats it so it won't be forgotten. Though he can't help but count the number of men in yellow gas suits as he passes them down. (Thirty one… Thirty two… Thirty three…Thirty six…. Forty three?) He's lost count.
"Wait in here." He's shoved into a dark room, and the door bolts behind him. The lights click on to reveal a air tight room with a small white cot in the middle. He leans against the bolted door and slides down to his feet.
"You should probably text Law while you still have a chance." Chopper offers as he places a hoof on Luffy's shoulder. The child nods and shuffles through his pockets once more. He quickly sends Law his location. 'Also; it would be unwise to come alone. There more than fifty people here and they all seem to be doing illegal work. Call the police and have them bring back up. Don't reply.'
The door opens, and Luffy's quick to hide the phone in his pocket again.
"Please get changed into this." A woman who looked to be in her thirties tells him, she has sad eyes full of guilt and regret; she stares at him worriedly. It's not even a second later that he realizes that, oh, she's easy. She's so easy. It won't even be a challenge.
He wipes his dry eyes furiously in an attempt to redden them; he bites his lip and sniffles twice. "I w-w-will" He forces himself to stutter; he stumbles out of bed and limps over to the pile of clothing she had kindly placed in front of the door.
She furrows her eyebrows as she watches him struggle and wince as he gets out of his clothing and changes slowly. "How… How old are you? Do you… Have a mommy or a daddy?"
Luffy holds up five fingers. "I just turned five!" He lies. He shakes his head while putting on a sad expression. "Mommy and Daddy fell asleep and haven't woken up yet. The guys in white took them away and gave them beds underground… I haven't seen them since."
Her eyes widen. "…How did they… Fall asleep?"
"The house got all smoky, and it was hard to breathe, so I think it put them to sleep."
"Do you have any… siblings…?"
"A big brother! I love him a lot! But I got taken away so I don't get to see him anymore…" Queue the crocodile tears. She's putty in his tiny hands. "He's the numb one big brother ever!"
She feels her shoulders shake at such a pitiable little boy.
"Hey, you're really nice!" He sends her a grin, "Can we be friends?"
She looks as if she's ready to start crying.
"Hey, if you were taken too, I'll rescue you!"
She brings him into a tight hug that he doesn't really feel.
"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" She cries.
Victory.
oOo
A/N: Luffy became manipulative, didn't he? I wanted him to start gaining traits from Law, since he's the one Luffy's around the most. It would only make sense for him to start acting in the same way Law does and take up his habits, even if it's just a little bit.
Children often cope with trauma by disassociating themselves with it. Luffy does that here.
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