romey20 on tumblr:If you're still taking prompts, can you do some ASL fluff? I think I'm gonna need some before this coming Sunday!
(I failed so bad and this is more than a month late but I hope you can forgive me.)
1,366 words
Rated K
Luffy falls hard, his leg scraping against the root of a tree as he goes down. He tries so hard not to cry. Ace has rules about crying, and if Luffy starts to cry, Ace will send him home. Sabo is a little nicer; he'll spend about one minute being sympathetic about it. But when that minute is up, Sabo will leave the rest up to Ace.
"Are you okay, Luffy?" Sabo asks, kneeling to get a better look at the damage. Raw skin is torn open in a jagged patter and blood is oozing sluggishly down Luffy's leg.
"Yeah," Luffy sniffs. He isn't crying, but his eyes are watering and his nose is running.
"It's just a cut," Ace grumbles, folding his arms over his chest in a sign of impatience.
"We should take care of it," Sabo says. "It could get infected of something."
"It's won't get infected, now let's go!" Ace replies, exasperated.
Sabo's one minute is almost up. "Can you stand, Luffy?"
"Yeah," Luffy says again, pulling himself upright. Pain shoots through his torn leg, but he stays standing.
"Come on!" Ace almost yells. "Didn't you guys want to try bear meat tonight?"
At the word 'meat', Luffy almost forgets that he's in pain. He's the one that insisted bear would be good to eat, and it took a lot of convincing to get his brothers to agree. Ace only agreed after Sabo had pointed out that hunting bear was good training.
They had been on a trail when Luffy fell, and if they didn't get moving soon they would lose the bear. Luffy takes an experimental step forward. His injured leg shakes a little, but it managed to hold his weight. He takes another step, and then another. His leg is getting used to the pain, which is good because Ace has had enough of waiting around already and is on the move again.
"Let's go, Luffy!" He calls back, and Luffy hurries to catch up.
The bear is at least as big as Dadan and twice as scary, but the challenge delights them all, and they have a plan.
The plan is simple: Sabo and Ace will come up from behind while Luffy distracts the bear. But Luffy doesn't want to play the distraction, he wants to attack the bear too and it isn't fair only Sabo and Ace get to do the fun part. He tries to complain, but his protests are shot down by Ace before Luffy even has time to make his case. Luffy is going to play the distraction and that's final.
But Luffy still wants to fight, and just because he's the distraction, he doesn't see why he can't attack from the front. So when the bear comes, Luffy is ready for it. Yielding his pipe, he gets himself into position. If he launches himself at the bear as it runs towards him, maybe he can take it down. If he takes it down by himself, maybe Ace and Sabo will give him half the meat.
The bear spots him, and Luffy gets into position. All he has to do it jump at the right moment and swing his pipe down at the bears head. It's easy, and he knows he can do it. The bear advances on him, picking up speed as it goes. It's goal is similar to Luffy's, and it's kill or be killed. Luffy is ready.
Except that, his bad leg refuses to move. He bends at the knee, ready to launch himself upward, but his legs won't let that happen. The shaking in his leg had gotten worse. He's stuck.
He watches the bear coming at him, and he realizes he's powerless to stop it. He can hear the heavy breaths as the bear runs towards him, and he can hear the blood drip from his knee, landing with a soft splat onto the leaves below. A single second seems to stretch into an eternity, and he closes his eyes, curling into himself as much as possible as he waits for the bear to strike.
"Luffy!"
It's an angry shout that usually means he's going to get a lecture later, but at the moment all he can do is peek his eyes open and watch as his two older brothers launch themselves down from the trees. They strike the bear perfectly across the head with their pipes. They land together in front of Luffy, and the three of them watch as the bear staggers and falls, sliding to a full stop just inches from their trio.
"You idiot!" Ace rounds on Luffy, fury in his eyes. "What were you doing?!"
Luffy can't help but let his tears fall. He isn't sad or in a lot of pain, and he knows crying is only going to make Ace more angry, but he can't help it, the tears come on their own.
"My leg wouldn't work!" He wails, the words coming out broken and strangled between sobs. "It stopped moving and I couldn't get away!"
"Sorry, Luffy." Sabo kneels down. He dabs at the blood sticking to Luffy's bad leg. "I'll look at it properly this time."
Ace snorts but doesn't yell at Luffy for crying and waits patiently for Sabo to clean up Luffy's knee. Luffy can see Ace peeking out of the corner of his eyes to watch.
When Sabo is finished, there is a clean strip of fabric tied around Luffy's knee. It still hurts, but he doesn't say anything more, and instead wipes the rest of his snot and tears away.
"Let's get going then." Ace picks up the top part of the bear onto his shoulders. "We don't have all day."
Sabo rushes to help Ace, picking up the bear from the middle, leaving the back legs up to Luffy to carry. Luffy can feel his legs buckle momentarily under the extra weight, but he doesn't complain and his legs start to recover before long. Together the three of them haul the massive bear back to their tree house.
"Luffy!" Ace shouts back. "Don't drag the legs! You make it harder for me and Sabo!"
"Sorry," Luffy grumbles. "Ace, I'm hungry!" He whines. He suddenly feels starved, hungrier than he's ever been in his life.
For some reason, this makes Sabo laugh, and after a moment, Ace joins in too.
"You must be okay, Luffy," Sabo says between chuckles.
Luffy assumes they are both out of their minds, and his suspicions are confirmed when Sabo speaks again.
"Come on, Luffy, let's get home and we'll make you get a lot of meat!"
Ace doesn't deny Sabo's statement either, and Luffy wonders what happened to his brothers to make them act that way.
When the bear is cleaned and the meat is cooked, Sabo makes good on his word and give Luffy the biggest helping of meat he's ever gotten.
"I don't know what happened," Luffy says between big mouthfuls. "But I hope it happens again!"
"It better not," Ace says firmly. "Just eat your food and shut up."
Luffy does as he's told, but knows he's not going to forget today, because bear meat might be the most delicious meat he's ever tasted.
"Luffy, what's that scar on your knee?" Nami asks curiously. She's leaning against the railing that Luffy is sitting on, and only by chance happens to notice the pale mark on his leg.
Luffy laughs and traces the jagged white mark. "This was the day I got to eat a whole lot of meat! Ace and Sabo let me have it because the bear almost killed me!"
"A bear?" Nami asks. "What?"
"Yeah." Luffy's smile fades a little, and he turns his gaze out towards the ocean. "They saved me, but come to think of it, I bet they were really scared."
Nami is about to ask her captain what he's talking about. The small smile on his face and the soft nostalgia in his voice make her curious about his past, but before she can say anything more, Sanji calls them in for lunch. Luffy bounds away quickly, drool dripping from his lips and the previous memories all but forgotten once more.