We'd never know what's wrong without the pain

By the time Usopp stumbled up the four flights to Chopper's small ramshackle apartment some two hours later after near death by light pole, tree branch and crazy ass chevy cavalier, he was more than ready for three slices of pizza. He realized that he should have called but he'd lost his gloves (and gotten three splinters) by hauling the tree branch off the road and now his fingers were numb. Somehow he crooked his fingers into knuckles and knocked tentatively on the door, trying not to chap them.

There was a soft shriek from inside, the ruffling of papers and the thudding of books before the door flung open and Chopper was staring up at him with eyes as round as saucers, little round reinforcers peppering his hair.

"You dork," Usopp teased, trying to lighten the situation by attempting to pick one of the reinforcers out. Couldn't get his fingers to uncurl though H-haha that was probably not a good sign.

"I was worried, idiot!" Chopper said, knocking the wind out of him with a rib-crunching hug, before fairly dragging him inside and setting him down hard in a chair that creaked dangerously.

"Sorry," Usopp wheezed, though he doubted Chopper heard as he bustled about the room. The place was a mess. Well a mess for Chopper anyway, which meant stacks of papers and books, a neatly stacked trash pile consisting of pizza boxes and Starbucks coffee cups and various hair ties. Another big sign of the kid's stress was that he hadn't shaved in days. Though only seventeen, an unfortunate hair condition meant that he had hair, well, everywhere and looked somewhat like a wolfman or a yeti, though they called him a reindeer to tease him because that was what Luffy had decided from god knew what but one did not question Luffy for in that way lay madness. Usopp would have called him an Ewok when he first met him, but now that Chopper had put on height and muscle mass (which wasn't fair at all) he was more like a yeti than ever.

Or, well except now when he was frowning fiercely at Usopp and thrusting a mug of something hot at him, luxurious mustache bristling, he looked more like an offended walrus with pink sparkly hair ties. Usopp snickered in spite of himself.

"Shut up and drink," Chopper said, popping him on the head with the fist the size of a small ham.

"Ow," Usopp said, though it didn't hurt all that much. "Don't doctors have a thing about not hurting people" He took the cup and winced as it tugged on a splinter. Damn branch.

"I'm a med student, I'm allowed," Chopper said, slanting a concerned glance his way. "Let me see your hand."

"It's fine," Usopp said, curling his hand closer to himself. Chopper glowered at him, snapping his fingers and hold out his own hand, curiously hairless palm flat. This was a battle Usopp was not going to win.

"Don't need tweezers," he muttered, doing as he was told. Chopper lifted his hand and squinted at it, then stood and wandered back into the dim hallway. Usopp saw the bathroom light switch on and felt a well of panic.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Getting tweezers," Chopper called back.

"I don't need them! I'm good! I'm splinter proof!"

"Shut up and drink your tea. And get comfortable because you're staying."

He was not about to let a kid nine years younger than him boss him around. But the tea was pretty good.

"Hey what is this?"

"Chamomile, Jasmine infusion," Chopper said, coming back with a small box which opened to reveal tweezers and cotton swabs. Well it was just tweezers. Usopp had faced down homicidal cavaliers and giant loan sharks. This should be nothing. He held out his hand for Chopper to see again and winced as the tweezers grew closer, sucking in a breath.

"I haven't touched you yet."

"I'm steeling myself."

Chopper rolled his eyes, then sat bolt upright.

"Oh crap! A rat!"

"Where?!" Usopp sad, snapping a glance at the pile of pizza boxes.

"There, one gone."
Whaaat?

That little jerk had tricked him!

Usopp narrowed his eyes. Two could play at that game.

"The rat is still there though," Usopp said, voice trembling just the right amount.

"What?" Chopper yelped.

"As big as a chihuahua!"

"Crap!"

"Oh shit it dove behind the pizza boxes!" Usopp said, jolting out of his chair and gesturing dramatically at the stack. "Get the broom! Get the broom!"

Chopper nabbed a nearby broom and launched himself at the pizza boxes with a shriek that would put horror movies to shame. He whaled on the boxes with the broom, sending them flying every which way until the upstairs neighbor pounded on the ceiling so hard it send bits of dust raining down.

"Sorry, sorry!" Chopper called up, wheezing, then leaning on the broom and tentatively pushing aside boxes, startling every now and then as if he thought he saw something. Usopp decided to take pity on him.

"It's gone. Squeezed out under the door."

"Something that big?" Chopper said, turning to look at him with wide innocent eyes.

"Yeah of course. Rats that big have collapsible rib cages. Little known fact. Look it up." And before Chopper could, Usopp waved his remaining to splinters at him. It was a worthy sacrifice. Or at least a preferable alternative to getting beaten over the head with a broom. He held out his hand again and preemptively squeezed his eyes shut. There was one pinch which made him wince.

"Hey, Usopp," Chopper said, the concern in his voice overriding the slight pain. Usopp opened his eyes to see the kid focusing on his fingers. "Why…why did you want to come over here so bad? Is it…is it because… did he…"

"Ah, no change, no change," Usopp said, waving his free hand. "Just the same as he always was." And he offered a slight smile though—it really wasn't much of a relief when he thought about it. Chopper nodded, wiping at his eyes and then leaning back to search through a stack of papers for a tissue which he blew his nose in loudly. His hands were trembling slightly, though Usopp couldn't really tell if that was caffeine or emotion.

"What about you take a break for tonight and get some sleep," Usopp said, ruffling Chopper's hair.

"Oh, but…I need to make a place for you," Chopper said, his clogged nose making it sound like 'blace'.

"I'll be okay. I've been over plenty of times. And if you crash you're going to feel terrible tomorrow."

"Bromise me you won't go home?" Chopper said.

"I wouldn't go back out there if you paid me." Which was true enough. He'd already risked his neck once tonight and once was good enough for anyone. Chopper must have really been tired, the caffeine wearing off because it didn't take much prodding to get him into bed and snoring away.

Usopp took off his coat, intending on propping up on the couch and watching tv with the captions on for the rest of the night when he looked around the place again. Geeze. What a mess. He flipped a handkerchief out of his pocket and tied it over his hair before getting to work. He went against his word a bit and braved the storm to drop the pizza boxes and assorted cups in the dumpster before they really get chihuahua rats and was glad he'd decided to stay.

Everything was covered again. The road, too, which had just been plowed, was a world of quiet still white with nothing but the hiss of snow. Usopp shivered and hugged himself, the thin jacket doing little against the cold. If it kept up like this they might not even be able to go to Sanji's.
No… No they would. Even if they had to hook dogs to a sled. That was too important do dismiss. It was only one time a year— It used to be more but— but it was one one time a year and if they stopped that then—what was the point?

"Wake up, you idiot," he muttered, but only the snow answered him. It made sense that he didn't wake up in a way. Why should he? After everything that had happened— But that would mean he was a petulant jerk…and unlike some people, Luffy was anything other than that. At least where things were important.
Usopp sneezed explosively in the stillness and headed back to the apartment, chafing his arms as he went.

Foolish one with the smile...

"JACK!" The sound of a slap fills the creaky leaky hotel room with the air conditioner that comes on in a sound too closely resembling a fart.

"Damnit, not so hard!" Usopp snaps, shaking his hand out, surprised he can still feel it. "And for the last time, you don't have to slap my hand after you've beaten me with a hand already!"

"Hahaha sorry, sorry," Luffy says with a cheerful grin that says that he probably didn't hear a word he'd said.

"Told you," Zoro says from where he's propped up in the corner, drinking booze steadily from a long bottle, and reading a newspaper. It's been about a week and Usopp still doesn't have the courage to glower back at him. It isn't entirely Zoro's fault, if he were honest. After all the guy didtell him and it isn't as if Zoro suggested Usopp claim himself the: 'Supreme Master of all Slap Jack'. Just...how could Usopp know that anyone would really be so gullible?

On the other hand, it's kind of a great feeling. Luffy pretty much believes anything he says. Even the wildest stories. The downside is that the kid believes it so completely Usopp sometimes worried about his mental health. For that matter, his own mental health for agreeing so readily to travel with a guy like this. What the hell had he been thinking?

"Want to go again, two out of three?" Usopp says because it's expected of him, but in a small voice because he really wants to be able to play his guitar again.

"Nah, I'm bored," Luffy says, flopping on a mattress which sags even under his slight weight. Usopp breathes and inward sigh of relief and finishes his macaroni salad sandwich. He'd wanted chicken salad but Luffy had polished that off when Usopp wasn't looking since, another thing he'd discovered, was that food didn't last long around Luffy, especially the meat variety. Zoro had told him this, too, with subtle looks over KFC on their first night which Usopp had been so busy trying to guess if he was going to die or not that he'd missed out on two wings and a breast before he'd finally caught on.

Still for all that. It isn't bad here. At least not yet. Usopp moves to sit cross-legged under the air conditioner so it can blow over his hair when it farts on. He glances at the seam in his boots which is coming undone and then his guitar case, opening it up to pull out his polished beauty. He can eat when he wants, sleep when he wants, he doesn't have to worry about school, Luffy is fun to talk to, Zoro is cool and he's never been this far East that he can remember.

He sets the guitar on his lap and starts to tune her, listening carefully, hoping the heat didn't warp the strings. He hasn't heard any kind of missing persons reports either. Not that he cares. He doesn't expect the Bannermans to have missed him anyway…and even if they had, he wouldn't go back there. He couldn't.

"Oh are you going to play?" Luffy says, sitting up, the ragged straw hat he always carries around with him falling back on the pillow. Usopp feels his face sting at the sudden attention.

"Er…no. I'm just tuning it up."

"Are you gonna play after that?"

"Nah." He ducks his head, watching out of the corner of his eye as Luffy brings his feet flat together, gripping them with one hand and absently picking at a toenail, but all the time he does that, his eyes don't leave Usopp and he feels the weight of his gaze prickling all over his skin.

"What?" Usopp finally says, though not meeting his eyes.

"Mmmm nothing." Luffy looks away, picking at his ear with a pinky. "I was just wondering why you had a guitar if you didn't wanna play it."

"It's special," Usopp blurts out, then, realizing how stupid that sounds. "It's um…I'm not very good and I'd rather not."

"'Kay." Luffy flops back again, crossing his hands behind his head. Usopp plucks a string. Luffy hums in the tone, lifting a leg up in the air. Usopp raises an eyebrow at him as his leg remains in the air, wondering just what the hell he's doing. Luffy doesn't seem to notice him, instead looking at his toes and wiggling them.

Weirdo.

Usopp scratches his nose and sniffs, then plucks another string. Luffy hums again and lifts his other leg this time. What…? Usopp casts a glance at Zoro who just looks at Luffy, shakes his head and takes another draft from the bottle. After a moment, Usopp plucks a third string, and Luffy replies the same way. He plucks out three notes, and Luffy hums them one at a time, kicking a leg out each time. Usopp can't help but laugh.

"What are you doing?"

"Dancing," Luffy says with a wide grin that's so unselfconscious that Usopp has to wonder if he's even human. Still he plays a few more notes, and faster in a little half out of tune tune. Luffy's dancing is not so much that as flailing his legs against the bed and after a particularly aggressive "C" cord, he slams both legs down on the bed which creaks and breaks foot first, sending Luffy sliding onto the floor with a yelp and then laugh. Usopp breaks out laughing too.

"We're going to have to pay for that, you know," Zoro says, but even he sounds amused.

"Nah, we can just sneak out the window."

Sneak out the- Is he crazy? No wait, it's only been a week and even Usopp knows the answer to that.

"I can probably fix it," Usopp says, digging out his toolkit from his backpack. He scoots closer to the bed to inspect the damage which doesn't look too bad. The bed will never be perfectly even again but it should be too hard to fix.

"Here, hold this up, since you broke it," Usopp says, but Luffy seems to have no problems with following this order, holding up the fairly heavy bed with relative ease. Usopp can see the faint trace of muscle in his arms and decides…no…no it's just not fair to compare himself to some weirdo guy like Luffy. That can only end in tears. He must have been born near some radioactive waste site or something. Usopp shifts under the bed and starts undoing one of the bent screws, holding a flashlight in his mouth.

"Oh?" Luffy says, peering at him. "You can really fix it?"

"Mff hff," Usopp says. It occurs to him that a grandiose story of fixing an entire store of beds wouldn't be out of place here, but that's hard to do with a mouthful of flashlight so he leaves that be for now. Luffy grins and claps his feet together.

"You're pretty useful, huh?"

Usopp feels his face sting and concentrates on the task at hand. Well—yeah he guesses he is if anyone needs a bed fixed. He's kind of good at plumbing, too. At least the basics of what he learned from watching Mr. Bannerman. Of course there was one time he flooded the basement, but anyone could make that mistake. With Luffy's help, the bed is soon fixed and Usopp scoots out again, taking the flashlight out of his mouth and making a face. Ugh flashlight breath. Luffy grins and looks like he's about to say something but Zoro interrupts.

"Furniture sale," he says, flicking the paper. Luffy sits bolt upright as if someone had rammed a shotgun up his spine and scrambles over to peer at the paper, practically knocking Zoro off his chair.

"Oi!" Zoro snaps.

"Who! Who! Who!" Luffy says, making grabbing hands for the paper. Usopp tries to comb some left over dustbunnies from his hair and watches the two with raised eyebrows. Was this some kind of weird ritual? It had to be. He couldn't see any of them interested in ottomans or Queen Anne Armchairs.

"Rhinegold," Zoro says and shrugs when Luffy looks at him. "Haven't heard of them." His eyebrows raise. "Looks like Bon Clay is going to be there. Haven't seen him in a while."

"Your friend?" Luffy asks.

"I know him," Zoro says.

Okay. What? Usopp hovers a moment in indecision and then hesitantly makes his way over, trying to peer at the paper around Luffy halfway upside down. Zoro glances at him, then gives him the paper, pointing at the longish at. Usopp holds it out to look at it, Luffy peering over his shoulder.

Rhinegold Furniture and Exotic Stuffs
Feat. Lunch Set, porcelain, imported, No.2 ottoman, No. 6 ottoman, Barnum and Bailey picture set.

What the hell? Usopp grabbed onto the one thing he could grasp.

"Isn't Barnum and Bailey a circus thing?"

"Ooh, is there going to be a circus there, too?" Luffy asks with a wider grin.

"It's always a circus," Zoro says, taking the paper back and folding it up.

"I mean a real one."

"Don't be stupid, why the hell would there be a real circus?"

"I dunno, juggling between matches would be pretty cool!"

"Oh, yeah I guess so," Zoro says, scratching his chin. Usopp raises a hand halfway.

"Um…excuse me…what are we talking about?"

"A furniture sale!" Luffy says. Usopp chops his shoulder lightly.

"Not you, someone who makes sense," he says, looking hopefully, hopefully at Zoro.

"Cage fighting."

"C—cage fighting?" Usopp says in a voice that probably shouldn't squeak as much as it did.

"It's not throwing cages at each other," Luffy says with such sincerity that if Usopp wasn't so startled he'd chop him harder.

"I know that, idiot! Why the hell are you cage fighting?" Just because he has swords doesn't mean he should use them for something like that!

"It's fun!" Luffy says.

"I wasn't asking you!" Usopp snaps, and then his brain catches up. "Wait, you do it, too?"

"Haha yep!" Luffy says with a grin. "Zoro showed me what to do."

"Wanna play?" Zoro asks with a different grin, one that reminds Usopp of sharp scary things best left to horror movies.

"Of course I don't wanna play, are you crazy?" Usopp snaps, whacking the air with the karate chop in the general direction of his shoulder which had no hope of landing anywhere near him. "I'll get killed!"

"The risk is part of the fun," Zoro says, his grin never wavering.

"Right?" Luffy says.

"You're both nuts!" Usopp throws up his hands. "You could get killed. You wanna get killed?"

"That would be okay," Luffy says, sitting back on the bed again. Usopp can only goggle at him. He's with psychopaths. The raven was right. He should have got while the gotting was good. There is no way these guys are serious but he can tell with the liars talent for spotting lies that they are as sincere as bleached bone. No wait. Bad metaphor.

Usopp shakes of the ensuing willies and sighs. It's obvious what he has to do here. While Zoro is a lost cause, Luffy is too young and naive to even know what he's getting into. He's clearly never really been to a cage match before, much less fought in one. Unless there was a kind of kiddie beginner zone and if that was the case than maybe Usopp could…? No…no way what is he thinking?

He was clearly the sane one here, and more importantly older than Luffy, so time to do what he did best and be a big brother. After all, he'd mentored three middle-school kids. One idiot shouldn't be that much harder. He puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head to give Luffy a serious look.

"I know this all seems like fun," Usopp says. "But death is serious, you know. It's not something you can come back from."

"I know what death is," Luffy says, looking at him with such intensity Usopp wonders if Luffy understands it even better than he does. Luffy picks the hat off the bed and looks at it a moment before putting it on. "Even if I die, as long as I do it getting stronger, then that's okay."

"Yeah but you can only die once," Usopp says, flustered. "What do you want to get stronger for anyway?"

Luffy grins at him. That maniacal grin coupled with the intensity of Luffy's eyes sends a bolt of something clear down to Usopp's toes and back up again.

"I want to become King of the World."

Wha-a-a-a-t.

Usopp slides a gaze to Zoro to see what he thinks of this psychotic break, but the green haired man is only watching him with a smirk. Oh…oh okay he gets it now.

"H—hahaha that's pretty funny."

"It's not a joke." Grin gone and his eyes intense again. He needs to stop that right now. It plays havoc on Usopp's nervous system. "It's like you want to go to New York," Luffy says.

"Yeah but I want to go to New York," Usopp says. He means to speak sensibly because it is sensible. Or at least more sensible then…what it was that Luffy wants but— his voice comes out soft and unsure. "I mean…who wants to become King of the World?"

"Me," Luffy says. And for some reason, despite the whole world seeming to be going crazy at the same time all around him, Usopp believes him.