A/N: Hey everyone! This is the last chapter that has also been uploaded else where (my ao3 and tumblr) and therefore the last semi-daily update! Thank you all for the love and support so far, and rest assured there WILL be more chapters! If you have questions about the series please hit me up on my tumblr whirlybirdwhat for ease of answering.
to reviewer Narya Anima, i was like 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 when you mentioned that speed jiru was from the east blue which means... well... i have some new plans for the series now ;)
hope you enjoy!
Anyway WARNING! Heavy themes of CANNIBALISM in this chapter! Its really fucking dark! Keep yourselves safe okay, especially now. Anyway, rip chopper, onto the story!
Chopper's captain is a selfish monster – this, Chopper knows well, in the way that his Captain has bloody fists and has torn gods with a smile.
He laughs in the dark, for he does not want the dark, and chases away tyrants because they hurt a friend. He welcomes strangers into his crew, women who stir revolutions and men who are all but bone.
He has climbed the cold mountains and stood behind a flag not his own for a small, insignificant reindeer. He is Luffy, who has struck down armies and governments and islands and kingdoms, all to save a friend.
All to get what he wants, and for so long, Chopper has been part of those precious few that Luffy calls crew.
So why, why does it feel like Chopper's just falling behind? Falling out of reach, out of his stars endless orbit?
People walk aboard the ship at night away from Chopper's prying eyes and he has to know, he must know what they are keeping from him, why he's not part of this inner circle
He swore to be a monster for Luffy, and if a monster he must be, he had hoped Luffy would still accept him, for his captain loves him and is a monster too
But that's not the case.
They are hiding from him, hiding something that they don't want Chopper to know, and it's been going on for a while now, perhaps sense the beginning.
(What do you say, he wonders, when it's been before your very eyes in inhuman instinct and the smell of rotting flesh?)
Why do you hate me now? He wants to ask but can't because this is his home, and if he's not home here then he can't be anywhere else.
Ever.
The truth comes as all thing Straw Hat do, in a moment that passes between things such as sanity and well into the world of something strange.
Typically, it would be wonderful as well.
It's not.
The New World is harsh in the way that no other place is. Fire rains from the heavens and lighting brightens clear skies. There are pockets of storm and raging seas, all unpredictable, and an aura of danger that sharpens every sense.
(Every color, every scent, every sight and smell and breath and burst of laughter always seem brighter if they might be your last.)
There are also stretches of calm – and this is one of them. Islands move in the New World, or at least the waters do. Weeks and months and days blend together under the blue sky of the Grand Line – every island is a refuge from its harsh waters, but a rare refuge at that.
(They are pirates, of course, they have no home but the sea but occasionally… occasionally a soul must step foot on land to know what blessings the sea has – and what dangers a sailor courts to be welcomed into her embrace.)
Now, there are no islands in sight, and have not been for the past three weeks. The waters are dry in these parts, and normally, Chopper knows, Sanji would not be worried, but there are few fish to supplement their supplies and no enemies crossing their paths.
A crew of nine does not need much to subsist, but their crew consists of people with harsher metabolism's than most.
There is no danger now, but there will be soon. Chopper knows this, as does Sanji.
(Chopper is merely considering with the welfare of the crew, but there is a deeper worry in Sanji, one that causes him to look towards the back of the meat locker with worry, so much worry, as his special meats supply starts to dwindle down. It's Luffy favorite.
He doesn't know why Sanji's so worried. Luffy can survive a couple days without whatever kind of meat it is…right?
Maybe he should ask.)
(He doesn't.)
They start rations on week three and a half.
The crew is agreeable, especially with the hard lilt to Sanji's eyes but –
There's something more to their movements and how they all get restless. The Straw Hat crew has never faced any adversary with nervousness and unease as a whole, so why, Chopper wonders, are we (they) doing it now?
They cast eyes towards Luffy, who is innocently sucking on a bone from the last meal, and Chopper wonders if this is another thing they are hiding from him.
(C'mon, he wants to scream, I'm your doctor! Trust me! Why can't you trust me? I grew stronger too! I fought and trained like the rest of you! Why why why? Is it because I'm a monster now?)
Chopper doesn't say anything, and watches as the crew leaves the galley, Sanji snapping a quick word at Luffy before leaving.
Chopper leaves too, and wonders why the Sunny suddenly feels so cold.
(Where's the truth that soon to come?)
Chopper, before, before Marineford and training and a Captain so hurt, sensed something from his crew, something that made (makes) his hair stand on end and every animal instinct scream, despite his love for his saviors.
It came from Usopp and Luffy and Zoro and Nami and Sanji, and the way they would smile in the dark or smell or breathe a little too off. But Chopper ignored it, for they were his crew, and trained himself during his two years of training to accept rather than fear.
He can't help but wonder if they are feeling what he felt (what he feels still), now in regards to him.
It hurts, more than he'd like to admit, especially when (Luffy smiles all jagged edges Usopp seems to bend and twist and scare Nami breaths and smells like ozone Sanji feels like bone and Zoro is lost on The Sunny but winks with two heads at Chopper-) they smile at him like nothing is wrong, and praise him in battle.
He loves this crew, so why, why?
Why doesn't Luffy accept the monster?
Sunny is different than Merry, though Chopper loves both. Merry was white and young and lovely in the sun (but at night her shadows were never colder and there were always odd splatters on her hull.) Sunny is golden and bold and young too, not like a child (led to slaughter) but like an adventure at its start.
(The shadows in her hull and the splatters on the kitchen floor seem new, in the way that Merry's weren't, and of course they are for Sunny was built for them, but Merry… it seemed like there were shadows born onto Merry that they brought to Sunny.)
It is a surprise when Sunny starts feeling like Merry did.
(Like the night when the Doctor died, or nights when Doctorine couldn't save a patient. The. Air of death and the stench of decay setting in, the sight of bodies, pale and unmoving, and sounds of anguish of those left beyond echoing through the air… Like hallowed grounds, when someone died, like an absence in the earth.
Chopper does not forget nights when all feels lost.
(Men die when they are forgotten, after all.))
Chopper doesn't know why though, why there is sudden coldness mixed with home.
Because, suddenly, Franky is fashioning some sort of chains with Usopp, mixed with the sea stone they swore they would never use and Nami keeps checking in. Suddenly, Robin has more eyes everywhere, and Zoro's scent (always tinged with blood) is now spiked with the worry he gets when the crews in danger. Suddenly, Brook is always on deck, playing a calming song and Sanji is giving Luffy more than the rations allotted him to have.
(The 'special meats' have run out.)
And Luffy…
(A hint of trepidation haunts the crews every step.)
And Luffy…
(Well. Here the thing- Chopper doesn't know, because Luffy should be acting lethargic and hungry with the lapse in food but instead he's tight lipped and unmoving – as if he moves to fast he will jump out of his skin. Luffy is tense and jittery and not meeting anyone's eyes, so unlike his bold, uncaring self. It hurts, because Chopper wants to help his Captain but he can't bring himself to move, because what if?
Is that really his captain?
Chopper is not, because his Captain certainly doesn't have spikes on his skin or blood on his teeth, now, right?)
There's something in the Shadows, Chopper notices.
Something dark.
(He's always avoided the shadows before.)
It stalks in the night, slow and comfortable with the shapes of Sunny's hiding spots. It hesitates, sometimes, when it's so close that Chopper can feel its breath running down its back, and flees when Chopper turns, so that nothing else Is on deck save for Luffy or another of his crew mates.
Chopper doesn't feel safe sleeping, not when he can smell the hunger radiating off of it.
He tries to distract himself with his studies, tries to have Robin and Franky distract him too, but it never seems to work. When he suggests a game (Hide n' Seek, despite his hatred for it before (a fear to override a few)) Luffy and Usopp shake their heads.
(Well. Usopp does. Luffy's sitting tense and with hands gripped tightly behind his back as he rests near Zoro. If Chopper could see it, he would see Zoro's hand clenching Luffy's wrist together, stopping him from clawing at himself or others in nervous habit. A precaution. A warning. A failsafe.)
"Not the best idea right now, aye Chopper? Why don't you go see if Sanji's ready for a meal, okay?" Usopp says while Luffy is far too quiet for normal.
(He's been quiet a lot, recently. Chopper's worried.)
The reindeer does as Usopp requests, and peeks in on the kitchen.
He has the strangest feeling that the beast is behind him again, the thing that lurks in the shadows, keeping him from sleeping soundly, but when he looks back, all he sees his Luffy shoving his face into Zoro's shoulder.
It's nothing… right?
Chopper misses the oddities of when simple games used to unnerve him. He wishes they were back to those times, instead of now, when every step is like waiting for an inevitable tripwire.
Dinner is small. Only a simple meal of pasta and water, with some sparse meatballs on top.
Luffy keeps his hands to himself and doesn't snag anyone else food. He's shaking, if anyone looks too closely, and if Chopper himself wasn't half frightened by the look in Luffy's eye he'd be ordering Luffy into the infirmary.
As it is, he looks at the way Luffy fidgets and keeps quiet.
Luffy's just hungry, Chopper assures himself, we all are.
(He's just scared and Chopper doesn't know if he's referring to himself or Luffy.)
After dinner, Luffy's supposed to take watch but Zoro goes up with him.
(A conversation happens between the two's eyes, Zoro the only one to get Luffy to meet him and its one Chopper will never be able to decipher, wonders if he even wants to.)
It's not Luffy that comes back downstairs after watch, but Chopper is too afraid to turn over and look to see if it's true.
(Hot breath runs down his back, and Chopper remembers that just because he has horns and a fruit it doesn't mean that reindeer aren't still prey animals.)
Day ten of rations, day five after the meats in the back of the freezer have run out and Luffy stops shaking.
He stands, in the middle of the deck, and the sun grows cold.
(Whatever Luffy is, he doesn't fit into his skin, the mist surrounding his essence (a shield for the rest of the world.)
Luffy's head cocks to the side as he fingers still, and Chopper looks at him, truly for perhaps the first time in a while, and wonder why he has been so blind. In Luffy's stillness, scratches and startling thinness and dark spots emerge where there once was none.
I failed, Chopper thinks, and doesn't know why he hasn't been treating his captain, I failed.
Where did the sun go?
Luffy speaks. "Sanji," He says, and is voice is like spiders on skin and maggots on corpses – exactly the tone it should be but always, never right. There's power thrumming through his voice, like an unbridled beast, and Chopper, unwittingly, takes a step back.
"Sanji," Luffy says, and Sanji steps forward, smoke in his step. "Help." And Luffy breaks but not in the way Chopper knows – no, in the way that beasts do when they have been pushed too far on a hunt.
(Too long without food, the cold winter blows and all that's left is red red red red red red death)
Luffy lunges as Sanji does, and then Luffy's on the ground, held by strong legs and a pair of sea stone cuffs.
(He's not really fighting now, Chopper knows, because Luffy's stronger than the seastone they have when he wills it, but beasts don't have will do they?)
(Chopper does. Luffy does.)
Sanji drags Luffy, so lethargic now, that unsettling restlessness gone until Luffy Is thrown into the Bay 6 of the Soldier Dock System (and how, how has Chopper missed the metal walls and places for hooks along the edges?) where he is cuffed and hooked to the wall.
Sanji gives Luffy a tight hug, hand holding his jaw so carefully away from him, and walks out.
He notices Chopper then, and softens at the horror in Chopper's eyes.
"Chopper," He says, and that's it before he brings him away from their chained, starving Captain and up to the top deck.
As Sanji shuts the door with heavy chains, Chopper catches one last look at Luffy, slumped tiredly to the ground.
It's not Luffy.
(the shadows…)
In the galley, between Robin and Nami, Chopper listens to a story weaved about a demon sea, and crew mates who hail from it. It's not the entire thing of course (Chopper swears something is slurring Nami's words together so that she can't tell it all) but it's enough to let the horribleness melt from Choppers bones.
They weren't keeping secrets from him because they'd thought he was a monster, but because they'd thought he be scared.
And maybe he is, but most of all, he's angry.
"I COULD HAVE HURT YOU! I DON'T KNOW YOUR PHYSIOLOGY, I COULD HAVE GIVEN YOU SOMETHING, SOME HERB TO HELP WITH SOMETHING AND KILLED YOU!" He screeches, mushrooms flashing through his brain. "I'M YOUR DOCTOR! TRUST ME!"
Nami shushes him, with assurances that they do, of course, but Choppers mind is on the most pressing subject.
Luffy.
Like a trance, he slides from his seat and onto the floor.
Luffy, he thinks, avoiding his crew mates to walk to the infirmary for a few precious materials.
Luffy.
My captain.
Chopper walks to Bay Six.
(Of course, he realizes that Luffy is the presence in the shadows and that his captain was hunting him. But, quite frankly, he doesn't care to think about what the special meat was or what Luffy might have done had he not restrained himself, he only cares that his captain is hurting and he's done nothing.)
(Sunny and Merry, floating above him, let their protection fall, and let Chopper see what Luffy asked them to hide. Their captain is hurting, and he must survive for they love him too.)
(The Veil has no mind, but there is laughter, ringing through the air, as a child realizes the monsters were not besides him or in him or under the bed but in his hero, his savior, his captain.
Tis a cruel world, isn't it?)
Bay Six is dark when Chopper arrives. Dark and scary and so very, very lonely.
(Chopper thinks of two years without crew, and then thinks of Luffy and lets himself have one, single tear.)
When he pushes it open, there is someone waiting for him.
"Luffy," He breathes out, and instincts hit him like a brick.
There is fear, and then there is terror, and then there is horror. Chopper is well past all these, into something far greater – the kind of emotion that occurs when heroes fall and all that is left is something dark and broken and unnatural.
The emotion prey gets when faced with certain, absolute death.
Before him is something (One who Feast, King of Beast, Demon of Pits and Hell, Hellshaker hell raiser, Voices would scream if Chopper could hear them) that isn't human. It reeks of death and rotted flesh, a smell Chopper has known before, with blood tinging the scent with its own abhorrence.
All he sees is Luffy, but it's not him. It can't be.
"Luffy," Chopper says again, and this time Luffy looks back. "Let me help you."
Blood drips from one of Luffy's cuts onto the ground.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
"No." Luffy rasps, and its final, the way he says it, but Chopper can't help but protest.
"Please! Let me do something, please, Luffy, Captain. You always help us but let me help you! I can do something, anything if you just let me-" Chopper is cut off by the force of a Conquerors Will slamming into him.
KNEEL.
It's not love he feels, this time, like he usually does when Luffy's presence washes over him.
This time, it is a heightening of the horror that he already felt, an execution that fells him to his knees, trembling, a force of will that makes him seem small and afraid.
Luffy, he can't even bring himself to think, because this is his Captain but…
KNEEL.
Before him is teeth and hunger and horns, scars and scales rising with fire and eyes, eyes crawling to stare at Chopper with nothing but a ravenous greed.
It's a selfish beast, and now it is a hungry beast, but before it was his Captain – it still is his captain.
(The Veil is a presence that which can be torn down by a will greater than the force itself. Conquerors who know it, breath it, live it, treat it as a play thing, a curtain to peel back and forth at will to show the truth. Few know, but all who see believe, and the veil has bowed to few in the past.
Luffy, who is never without the veil even among what some presume to be his kind, can shake the veil like he has torn down governments and islands and war lords.
Ruthlessly, and without mercy.)
KNEEL.
He falls to his knees.
"Chopper," Luffy says, blood spilling from his mouth and dripping onto the floor, painting it in reds and blacks. "Go."
Chopper does not want to go, but what can one do when faced with the soul of a conqueror, captain, king in the body of something from the depths?
Chopper leaves, and sobs outside the door because no matter how terrified Chopper is of Luffy, Luffy will always love them. Save them.
Be alone for them.
Chopper loves his Captain, and wonders why he ever thought Luffy wouldn't like Chopper because he was a monster.
A Marine ship passes by in two days, but not before Luffy howls in his chains and every night is spent silent and huddled in the dark.
(Not before Zoro and Sanji stand guard by the door and knock their captain back every time he gets deranged enough to escape.)
Zoro and Sanji head out and come back with six prisoners. Chopper wonders what they want to do with them, when the Marine lifeboats are right there, but then they walk down to Bay Six and Chopper understands.
He doesn't want to understand
(The thing about Luffy is that despite everything, despite his selfishness and greed, he will never demand something so significant from them. Only ask.
Join my crew, he will say, and take you anyway, but he will never demand that Chopper not help anyone but himself.
If Chopper truly wished it, he could demand that they let those marines live, in remembrance of an oath he never took. Instead, he helps Robin bring crates of fruit and meat aboard the Sunny, and ignores the screams from below and the blood on deck (Sunny will take care over it before long.)
Luffy would never demand that Chopper become a monster for him, but he does not ask either, and that makes Chopper give himself again and again and again to him.
If the price of his captain's safety, his sanity is perhaps some of Chopper's morality, well –
He's a pirate. He sought this out himself.
(It's not a game, not anymore, and the Straw Hat Flag is the sign of Chopper's freedom. If he is to deny that, then he is to deny that Straw Hat Luffy will never be the Pirate King and that is a lie.)
Chopper accepts the weight of knowledge and cries himself to sleep.
Luffy is alright soon enough, and they reach an island in another three days. This time, Chopper knows about the blood on Luffy's lips and doesn't question it.
(Rumors of men gone missing flutter through his ears at night, women weeping in the dark and children crying because they don't understand loss.)
(Luffy needs it, Chopper knows, and he will never deny his Captain something so important, no matter how much it strikes blades at his heart and settles poison in his stomach.)
But now…
The beast in the shadows isn't so terrifying anymore. And when Luffy comes down the ladders from watch, Chopper sleeps tight, knowing his Captain is there, and that Chopper now knows the truth.
His crewmates can sleep easy, heal easy, because Chopper can find dark tomes of demonic medicines to heal his crew and with the power of a conquerors slicing will, he can save them all, three heads or no skin or made of storm instead of bone.
(There's more to Luffy he knows, even now.)
(Trust us Luffy!)
(His captain doesn't talk about himself.)
Chopper climbs into Luffy's arms, the utmost trust in his eyes, and knows that everything is finally okay.
Everyone is here.
Alive, Safe, and sound.
(Luffy would never eat them.)
(Right?)