Welcome to the ultimate so-not-Christmas gift!
And by that I mean that if you want to preserve your Christmas/New Year's spirit, you might want to read this later. (aka boy is this hella tissue-worthy)
I honestly did not compute that until two days ago.
Oops?
If angst is your thing, though, do go right ahead.
And sorry for those who were waiting for it, this is not Enies Lobby. (Trust me though, I can't wait for it either.)
But see, I discovered this filler arc recently.
And when I watched it, I laughed.
Evilly.
If this punches you in the throat, well… Sorry but not sorry? There's not just angst, though.
Trigger Warning: suicidal thoughts and generally Heavy Angst.
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, so anything that you see in this fic and that you can recognise as belonging to One Piece is not mine. If I did own it, I wouldn't have to write fanfiction. Duh. Also, I don't own the picture.
Part One - Dive|rgence
TWENTY-EIGHT
They talk about choosing what's right over what's easy
But what about the times where what is easy feels so
right?
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Zoro wakes up feeling warm.
Not just from the sun.
The kind of warm that only comes from touching another living being.
(Solid.
Close and overwhelming in a way the sun can never be no matter how hot the day is.
The touch of the sun can't be felt.
The weight of its warmth, only sometimes.
It has no scent, no texture, and makes no sound.)
Except that he doesn't make a habit of touching people.
In fact, outside of spars, fights, and the occasional slap on the shoulder from training partners, he can't remember the last time someone touched him.
He keeps his eyes closed, focusing on where what he's pretty sure is another person is touching him.
He fell asleep against a tree, one arm propped up against a knee.
The person's back is leaning against that arm and leg, breathing too shallow for them to be asleep.
There are two more problems with this situation.
First, he fell asleep on a boat, not against a tree, and even if this is a mast, the boat in question did not have one.
Second, there was no one with him on said boat.
His free hand twitches around the hilt of Kuina's katana.
Whoever they are, they should know better than to turn their back on him while intruding on his space.
The katana slashes through nothing and stops just short of what is indeed a mast as he rolls to his feet and finally opens his eyes.
The girl in front of him doesn't seem surprised at all by his attack.
Worse.
The cursory glance he gives her shows him a stance barely loose enough to qualify as a fighting stance.
She's not taking him seriously.
And it pisses him off.
He lunges forward, intent on severing her head off her shoulders like any good bounty hunter, but the girl bends over backwards, her legs following the movement and almost kicking him in the chin in the process.
He dodges only by a margin, cursing as he does so.
She catches the edge of the crow's nest he apparently magically arrived on during his nap, and flips herself over it to fall down towards the deck below.
He lunges to follow with a near soundless snarl, more frustrated by the confusion of the whole situation and how easily the girl almost caught him off-guard than entertained by the prospect of an actually entertaining fight after all the small fries he got stuck dealing with lately.
His combat boots barely thump against the deck he lands on before he moves, one katana cutting through the air towards her ribs.
For a moment it almost looks like she just inadvertently tripped, until he realises it's a feint when her fall to the side lets his blade sail harmlessly just above her head and one of her legs lashes back up to curl around his arm and tugs harshly.
He barely steadies his stance with an abrupt step forward and a curse, reaching for his hip with his free hand to take out another katana and orient it towards her stomach.
One of her hands leaves the deck in response, just a bit too slow as fingers graze his wrist-
And then her other leg extends, heel digging brutally into the inside of his elbow.
He falters in his attack with a grunt, giving her just enough time to actually catch his wrist while her leg swipes to the side, catching his neck in the bend of her knee swiftly enough to knock him off-balance.
In the tumble, her knee that was still squeezing around his other arm somehow both delivers a blow to his jaw and softens the shock of the fall to his face before she rolls off him.
He gets back to his feet only a second after her, readjusting his grip around the hilts of his katana and adrenaline thrumming like a second pulse through his veins as his eyes flicker all over her body.
He finds himself reassessing his initial conclusion.
Because the loose way she's facing him right now, barely rolling on the balls of her feet, is definitely a fighting stance.
A stance that is designed to fool her opponents into thinking otherwise.
A stance that allows her to slip into any kind of movement, because he's ready to bet that she has no set pattern of attacks or preferred moves.
On someone as limber as her, that kind of unpredictability is even more dangerous, and it makes his lips twitch with something feral-
Until his eyes flit over her face while he looks for an opening or a sign of her next attack, and stay stuck there.
Or rather, stay stuck on her eyes.
Because the analytical look there has taken on a shade of warmth that feels significantly less distant than it should be as she tilts her head and scans him again.
(This feels less like the gaze of someone who is always looking out for others and more like sparring with the few dojo students whose company he allowed over the years.
There's familiarity there.
This feels like the gaze of someone who knows him, knows his preferences and the spots in his defense that are weaker-
Except it shouldn't be.)
Then she straightens up, bringing the impromptu spar to a silent close, and opens her mouth.
What comes out is a sharp reminder of how little sense the world makes since he woke up.
"I know Hebi told you that you were good to go, Fang, but shouldn't we start with exercises before sparring? Just to see if there are some movements that are uncomfortable."
His jaw barely clenches at the words, the suggestion there too mild and easy to refuse to really frustrate him.
What does frustrate him is the sheer amount of what the fuck is going on they bring to his mind.
"My name isn't Fang," he snaps eventually. "And I'm the one who should be asking the questions, starting with where this place is supposed to be and who the hell you are."
Silence.
For a long moment, the girl just stares at him.
Then she blinks, and her whole body flinches with it.
She takes a step back, away from him, and it's so sudden and abrupt that it almost looks like she's ready to fall.
(He can't read the expression on her face, but her entire body is drawn tight and harsh with whatever is locked behind the blankness of her eyes.
She barely seems to be breathing.
He feels like he's watching the moment where something fragile is on the verge of falling to breaking shards after it's been frozen in time, and he doesn't even know the woman in front of him-
But somehow it feels like he's just killed someone in the most dishounourable way possible.)
If possible, he's now even more confused than he was a minute before, and it only gets worse when a door slams open to let out three boys and-
…
Is that a freaking reindeer?
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Smoke drifts into the air and over her shoulder as Sanji lights a cigarette from where he's standing not far behind her, both him and Zoro sizing each other up.
Usopp, who is still trying to convince Luffy that he's a subordinate of The Great Usopp, is interrupted when Luffy spots Chopper and screams in delight.
Chopper screams in terror in response, and a racing chase ensues.
Elynna registers none of it.
Her eyes stay glued to the space where Zoro stood a few moments before, and she forces her mind to go blank, to block out everything.
(It's that, or she breaks.
And she can't break.
Because there's no one to catch her, now.
Only people that she can't bring herself to be a burden for.
No matter the fact that they don't care enough anymore to accept to shoulder the weight even if she was to be one.)
A gust of sea breeze blows past her, and she jolts as the wind ruffles her hair and the weight of the strands falls back against her neck.
Slowly, she reaches up, feeling the way her fingertips graze against the cold sweat that has broken over her face.
She's still here.
Still firm enough to be real.
But for how long, now that the trace of her presence in the past of this world has eroded this much, this fast?
She should have known.
Of course she should have known.
After all this time spent telling herself that she had no place here, how did she still manage to trick herself into a false sense of safety like this, to tell herself that maybe this life wasn't completely dependent on the imagination of a man worlds away, that her being here could be acceptable?
Her hand falls back, limp and sweaty and cold.
(She wonders if she'll be gone by the time Ignis dies, now that she's been doomed to fail before she even got really started.
It would be a small mercy, but this world doesn't strike her as merciful.)
Her lips twist into a mockery of a smile, and she can almost feel the lines it traces as it distorts her face.
(She's not quite sure what she's trying to stop from spilling out.
Is it a laugh?
Is it a scream?
Is it the tears?
It might just be a bit of everything, but it doesn't really matter.
In the end, her mouth stays closed, and she feels like she might be shredded apart all the same.)
Her vision blurs, the strength of her resistance never quite enough to stop everything, to control everything that is throwing itself against the fractures inside of her, threatening to break them into gaping cracks.
But still she clenches her teeth, and focuses on the only things that matter right then.
Breathe in.
Look, but don't watch.
Breathe out.
Hear, but don't listen.
Breathe in.
Silence every thought that makes you ache. Think, but don't think.
Breathe out.
It will pass.
(Numb now, fall apart later.)
Breathe in.
Do. Not. Cry.
The door on the other end of the deck is flung open, letting out a visibly frantic Nami and the ever so slightly frozen smile of Robin.
"I think there might be a problem with Nami, Mister Doctor-"
She slows to a stop as she observes the utter mess around her, and her smile freezes just a bit more, reaching dangerously into 'fake' territory.
By that point, Sanji is already fawning all over the both of them with all the enthusiasm and intensity of the flirt he used to be and none of the carefulness he's learned to curb his eagerness with.
And Elynna is already marching towards Nami before the navigator's gaze even stops on the flag flapping proudly from their main mast.
She stops just a few steps away from where the other girl's face has suddenly blanched with the realisation of where she is exactly, unsure whether she can handle getting any closer -close enough to touch.
(Knowing that she can't handle the reaction it will bring now, compared to what it was when they wished each other a good night.)
Nami scrambles backwards, but her back meets the railing of the ship before she can even take a full step, her eyes still stuck to the joyfully smiling skull painted white on black, her fingertips trembling against the wild breaths coming out of her mouth.
"Ohhhh!" Luffy screams in a bout of delighted laughter as he spots the same thing. "We're on a pirate ship?! So cool! Where are the pirates? I wanna meet pirates!"
"Focus!" Usopp snaps as he slaps him in the back of his head. "If we suddenly turned up here it means that we've been kidnapped! This isn't the time to be a kid!"
Elynna hitches her shoulders just a bit higher, and shuts them out with conscious effort.
(Breathe out.
Hear, but don't listen.
Breathe in.)
"... Nami-san." She chokes out firmly, ploughing through the painful refusal of her throat to let out anything other than RainRainRain-
(Please.
Please just smile.
Smile like the ink on your shoulder isn't grinning anymore.
Smile like your nightmares are just that.
Smile like you know me-)
Brown eyes just light enough to see how wide her pupils are blown snap to hers, and Nami's breath hitches as she presses herself further into the wood of the railing.
Elynna doesn't move.
(But her heart-
Her heart that was in her throat, ready to spill over, spill out, spill blood-
It sinks.)
"Are you- Are you one of them?!" Nami hisses, and her fingers scramble to unfold the staff she obviously grabbed in a hurry when coming out of their room, clumsy like the hands of someone unfamiliar with what they're holding.
She doesn't wait for an answer even as she holds out the staff between herself and Elynna, eyes flitting all over the place as if to piece together a plan of escape.
Except fear is quivering in her grip and blanking over her eyes, and Elynna is almost sure that she's not really seeing anything.
"Nami-san-"
"Stay. Away. From me." Nami snaps even though she hasn't moved, and she breathes out so fast and strong that her stance falters, looking a second away from losing her balance. "How do you even know my na-"
"Six times nine."
"... What?"
"Six times nine, Nami-san." Elynna repeats, forcing her voice into something bland and perfectly poised as her eyes track the fluttering of Nami's hyperventilating breaths under the thin skin of her graceful throat.
"... Fifty-four."
"Ninety-three divided by three." She goes on without giving the girl in front of her the time to think further.
"Thirty-one."
"The coordinates of Cocoyashi." She orders upon seeing the slowing rate of Nami's pulse to check whether she's calmed down enough to remember the list of numbers after having clued her in on the first two.
Nami rattles out the piece of data without missing a beat.
Her staff falters, lowering just slightly.
Elynna slowly raises her hands to show the lack of any weapons, taking a minute step forward to bring her sternum into contact with the tip of the staff, and no further.
Nami's shoulders hitch up tighter, but she doesn't make any other move.
"Nami-san."
She waits.
(She hopes that it will one day get easier, or that she will be taken out of here soon.)
Nami's eyes meet hers.
Elynna sees the fear, sees the suspicion and the tension of those cornered and the absence of a smile, and she blinks to unfocus her vision.
(Breathe in.
Look, but don't watch.
Breathe out.)
"Breathe." She says instead, making the sound of her own breathing louder to make sure that Nami feels the vibration of it fluttering through the staff and against her fingers, gauging the level of the sound with the loose wrap of her own fingers around the staff.
Close enough to be real, not close enough to feel trapped.
She looks, doesn't watch or register any of it, and as soon as her ears take in the sound of Nami's usual breathing pattern, she very slowly lets go of the staff still applying an almost bruising pressure to her sternum, and takes a step back.
(Before she can do more than wish that the pressure would just gain momentum and splinter through her bones to smash away the aching bruises on her heart.
Before she can yank it into stabbing her through.
Before she can make herself into a burden instead of a support, just one last time.)
Her hands fall back to her sides, curled loosely to stop herself from reaching out.
"Miss First Mate."
Her fingers clench brutally, sharply enough that the nails she hasn't thought to cut recently bite into her skin, bringing a stinging warmth along.
(She thinks it should feel cold.
But warmth is everywhere inside of her, buzzing in her ears and under her skin as if her blood is bleeding out of the veins that have been flayed open all across her body.
-flayed open just enough to make blood drip-
She feels like a slow, painful death.)
Still, she forces herself to turn around.
(Do. Not. Cry.)
She turns, and forces herself not to linger on any of the faces that apparently took to staring at her and Nami without her realising.
Her eyes meet Robin's, and something seems to loosen in the line of the older woman's shoulders.
(For her, it feels like another weight.
Is it because Robin joined them later?
She came so quickly after Hebi entered the crew-
How many hours does she have left?
How many minutes before she's going to be standing there with nothing to do but watch as Robin's smile freezes into something plastic again and her first movement will be to cross her arms, because all the trust she's gained from the woman in front of her will be gone like the remnants of the rain under the sun?)
"You remember." Robin says.
It almost sounds like she's saying you're alive, and Elynna's nails twitch into the tiny, biting cuts in her palms.
(What about Ignis?
Has he forgotten her already?
Will he use the information she gave him, if he can't remember who it comes from?
She knows, before the questions even spell themselves out, that she'll never be brave enough to check.
Robin sounds like she's saying you're alive, and all Elynna wants is to die.)
She forces herself to nod jerkily.
(Breathe out.
It will pass.
Numb now, fall apart later.
Breathe in.)
Then hands suddenly grab her shoulders, manhandling her into turning to face Luffy.
"What the hell do you think you're doing to the lady, you uncouth-"
Elynna blinks slowly, stuffing the conversation between everyone into white noise at the back of her mind.
"Hey, hey!" Luffy beams wildly with a voice closer to laughing than speaking. "Are you a pirate from this ship?!"
She bites down on her tongue and the pathetic whimper that coats it, clenches her fingers tighter, and pretends that all this doesn't feel too dissimilar from the ghost pain of a freshly healed stab wound.
"Yes."
"So cool!" He laughs, shaking her with the force of his laughter as he suddenly releases her to turn around and run across the deck, stopping everywhere to inspect random details more closely.
(And he leaves her there to wonder if it's the last time she will be touched by him.
It burns like standing too close to the sun.
Like the realisation that she was never supposed to be standing close enough to touch him, or anyone here.)
"How many are you?! I want to have ten people, but I hope it fits in a ship like this -your ship is so cool! Who's the Captain?! How many islands have you seen? How long have you been sailing? Wait, where are-"
She snatches his collar lightly when he runs by her again, tugging him to a stop and closer to her by taking advantage of the temporary loss of balance that leaves him stumbling backwards.
"Hey, what are you-"
Her hand lands softly on his head, and she ruffles his hair gently.
That's when he goes silent, craning his head back to look at her curiously.
"Captain. I can't answer all your questions if you don't give me any time to do so."
The white noise around her screeches to a stop.
Robin clears her throat.
"As I was trying to explain earlier, we are all part of the crew that owns this ship."
Silence.
And then noise bursts all around Elynna as everyone starts talking at the same time.
She prefers it that way.
It's easier to block out like this, to pretend that she doesn't understand what the conversation is about.
When both Sanji and Usopp start raising their voice at each other in a way that does nothing to help with the panic that is steadily distorting Chopper's features, Robin appears to be the only one interested in stopping them.
Luffy seems too busy laughing, and Zoro keeps silently looking at them all like everyone is an idiot that he has no interest in interacting with.
But Robin looks to be about to stop the two other boys by forcefully subduing them, so Elynna forces herself to move.
"Okay, that's enough." She says mildly as she reaches the two men, the back of her knuckles barely grazing their chest.
She's vaguely aware of the sound of their mouth clicking shut, but she keeps her gaze on the blue of the sea, as far away from the ship she's on as possible.
Even if she did know what to tell them after that, she doesn't have the time to say anything more.
A door smacks against a wall behind her, followed by the characteristic sound of Nami's surprised scream and-
And the Waver.
She hears Usopp and Luffy's gasps of amazement, the dismayed sound building in Sanji's throat, and doesn't turn around.
Instead she stays put, eyes open and staring ahead fixedly.
(Breathe in.
Silence every thought that makes you ache. Think, but don't think.
Breathe out.)
Because if she lets them fall shut, everything else will fall along.
So she clenches her teeth a bit more around her tongue, draws the tension of her shoulders and arms around her ribcage a bit tighter, and claws her fingers in just a bit deeper.
And then a bit more, a bit tighter, a bit deeper when Zoro grumbles some derisive words about how there's really no use staying with them any longer, just before he jumps off the Merry with no hesitation and, she would bet, not a glance backwards.
(Until she can almost feel liquid warmth slipping between her fingers,
even if she can't tell whether it's blood or tears
even if she can't tell whether it's real or not.)
Only when silence falls on her shoulders again does she turn around.
What is left of the life she had the night before stares back at her.
Confused.
Waiting.
It's strange, she thinks, how the eyes that look at her and don't know her make the faces she so loves look like strangers.
And suddenly, she can't bear to be on this ship anymore.
(Can't bear to stay in this place that is all at once so safe and so horribly, horribly wrong.
The discrepancy is unbearably terrible, and all the more so with the way it stuffs itself into every breath of air she takes and every veinful of blood that pulses out of her heart
-her heart that pumps out blood and pain until it all comes back around as if it's actively trying to drown everything in agony-
and she doesn't know if she wants to destroy this world or herself more,
but she knows that one of the two has to stop if she wants to be able to breathe.)
So she does the only thing she can handle doing.
She squares her shoulders, and smiles.
"I'll go see if I can find any information on the island. Robin-san, can you talk to everyone else to see if you can find any common points between their stories that might help us find out what happened?"
"Of course, Miss First Mate."
First Mate of what?
What's the meaning of her grade in a hierarchy that doesn't exist anymore?
What's the meaning of her in a world that will soon hold no one who can call her name and reflect her existence back to her?
She smiles again, and-
"I'll see you later."
She lies.
(Of all the lies she has told these people,
this is the only one she can't say while looking them in the eyes.
The only one that doesn't matter.
Because what are truth and lies worth, when it comes from someone who has no place in your heart?)
Then she turns away, and jumps over the railing, the waves reaching up to swallow her.
She's washed up on the nearest beach more than she swims there.
It takes a long moment before she finally rolls over and on her knees slowly, water and clothes and something like her own will weighing her down, making her movements drag through the air like a quiet sob being meticulously strangled.
The gesture of keeping her untied hair stuck to her neck is more automatic than conscious.
She pukes out everything that was still in her stomach right there on the sand, and her tears disappear in the waste of the last meal from Sanji she'll ever get to taste as she vainly tries to hiccup out the pain that is wriggling through her guts like a rusted knife.
She has already been stabbed several times.
It hurts the same, except this time there's nothing -no one- to focus on to make herself keep it together.
(There's no end to it,
-the pain-
and at some point there's only one thing she can think about-
So she does.
She gives up.)
Her fingers dig in the sand, closing into fists that shake with the panic that makes her sick.
The sand trapped there is already warm with the sun.
She retches again, but nothing comes out.
(The emptiness of her heart trying to survive is working hard to push out everything, though, and-
She lets it.
Anything to make this stop.
She falls on her side, rolls over again, and closes her eyes, carelessly throwing her life in the hands of luck and the unknown limits of the high tide on this island.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Once she has taken a bath and gathered her nerves into something as close to calm as possible, Nami sits on the sofa of the hotel room she's managed to find thanks to the little boy with the strange, seahorse-shaped instrument.
Still, her hand is shaking faintly when she reaches out to tenderly brush her fingertips against the frame of the picture she found next to the bed she woke up in that morning.
Seeing the smiling faces of the family she used to have (of the happiness she used to feel-) reassures her only a bit more than it confuses her.
Because she woke up in a very comfortable bed, with nothing to tie her limbs into immobility and one of her most cherished pictures set on the nightstand with no trace of damage, on a ship which hosts tangerine trees that definitely come from her sister's orchard.
Nami has been living with her kidnappers for years.
This isn't it.
Sure, Arlong stopped chaining her to her desk in the Room pretty quickly once she realised that she wouldn't be able to kill him and that she was better off 'befriending' the Fish-Men to gather her money more easily and avoid any repercussions for her behaviour onto her village.
But there was still a sneer in their smiles when they looked at her, and the ink on her arm still burned, sometimes.
The two female pirates she met that morning -and the bunch of weirdos who also woke up on the ship- were nothing like that.
The older one only showed concern, and answered at least some of her questions, though whether or not Nami believes her is another thing entirely.
The younger one…
She breathes in sharply, and blinks away the memory of the low voice buzzing in her own chest and the way the younger pirate looked at her.
(She looked at her like she wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them and touch her.
She looked like she already knew that Nami didn't want that.
She looked like it broke her.)
Nami swallows, hard, and hauls the bag she took with her on her knees to inspect what little she was able to take apart from the gold.
Gold, after all, is heavy. It also takes a lot of room.
She takes out a notebook, and after a pause she eventually uncoils the rubber band that keeps it closed.
It's a Logbook.
Written partly in her own writing.
She flips through the pages, mind blank as her eyes take in her own descriptions of various islands' climate and topography along with descriptions of kind people (and cute animals) she's met on most of them.
Her own words stare back at her, so much more optimistic about every place she visits than she's ever been about any stealing trip she's been on that it almost feels like a different person is writing them.
(Or maybe it's her, but in another life.
A life where she has the opportunity to live her dream.
A life where she's free.
A life where she's happy.)
There's another writing style that comes back often, slanted with excitement and dramatic in its language, telling tales of crazy adventures and fights against even crazier enemies that makes the pirate crew whose ship she woke up on sound like heroes rather than criminals, when she knows it can't be further from the truth.
There's also random historical facts written in a clinical fashion in the margins with an ink that is less faded, especially at the beginning, and she would almost bet money on them being written by the woman who greeted her first, given the book she was reading.
For some islands, folded sheets of paper hiding cooking instructions have been shoved into the notebooks and at some point drawings of random herbs and their properties start popping up.
It's... lively, for lack of a better word, and it takes a long while for Nami to realise that she's started to smile.
That in turn makes her frown, and she presses her lips into a thin line of annoyance at herself.
With a sigh, she sets the notebook down, and tries to eat some of the food she bought on the way to the hotel.
But her own curiosity keeps drawing her eyes to the backpack.
Eventually she huffs, and puts her plate aside to retrieve the thick, heavy folder that she also stole from the ship.
She opens it almost flippantly, and freezes.
Because she's staring down at carefully stacked, half-finished maps.
She blinks (it's wet-), chest aching, and notices that she isn't breathing.
Exhaling shakily, she flicks open one of them with more care than she has touched anything in the last few years, except maybe the gold she stole and the tangerine trees her sister makes her take care of when she comes home.
Most of it is still drawn in pencil, but even that is drawn with more precision than most of the maps she's made in the last five or six years, and there is a plethora of details that she hasn't bothered to put on any map for even longer, knowing that Arlong isn't interested in them.
The next one is almost complete, giving her a glimpse of the difference between the sketch and the finished version.
There's not much that has been added on the second in purely technical terms, but it's... pretty.
There's colours, fancy details added to frame the map and the annotations... It's the work of someone who's enjoying what they're doing, who loves their work enough to spend time doing things that aren't needed just because they want to-
It's her work, she can swear it.
Except she hasn't loved doing maps enough to draw something like this since-
She clenches her eyes shut, slamming the hardcover of the folder back over the maps.
Her skin feels hot with the memories washing down her mind like lava, and yet cold sweat shivers down her spine as her breathing peaks up, until the mad beating of her heart is the only thing she can hear.
Six times nine, Nami-san.
"Fifty-four." She whimpers to the empty room over the echoing gasps of her own lungs.
Ninety-three divided by three.
"Thirty-one."
The coordinates of Cocoyashi.
She whispers them fervently.
Breathe.
She does.
Eventually, it's the faint sensation of something brushing against her foot that prompts her to open her eyes again.
She glances down, intent on ignoring what just happened, but her efforts are promptly ruined by the picture that apparently fell from the folder with the movement of air she created when she closed it.
It's a picture of the girl whose voice just resonated in her ears as if she was in the room with her.
She's in a bathtub, and although there's enough soap bubbles to cover everything that is under the line of water, she's definitely naked.
An entirely different kind of heat creeps over Nami's cheeks, and she bends down to hastily pick it up.
She only wants to stuff it back into the folder, but her eyes clearly have a mind of their own and no respect for her dignity, because somehow she finds herself staring.
The girl in the picture stares back at her, seeming to be in the middle of sipping on some wine and looking supremely unimpressed with whoever is holding the camera.
The only visible parts of her apart from her face are her surprisingly wide shoulders and the knee of the leg she's crossed over the other, and her dark hair hangs free around her face, sticking to her skin with the steam of the bath.
Behind the curved edge of the glass, the left corner of her lips is quirked up with an indolent sort of amusement.
Feeling distinctly like a voyeur, Nami flips the picture over, and jolts when her eyes touch upon the words written on the back of it. By her hand.
Lynna imitating the rich-and-sexy-and-she-knows-it kind of villain almost perfectly, if not for the fact that she's drinking grape juice instead of wine and is way too lazy to actually be a villain.
Even as she covers her eyes and flushes with the realisation that she's the one who took that picture, Nami can't help but let out a laugh.
And once it fades, she finds her eyes wandering back to the closed folder.
She only manages to stop herself for a few minutes before she gives up and opens it again, carefully avoiding to really look at the maps as she delicately lifts the large sheets of paper again.
She finds at least a dozen other pictures.
In one of those that look older, she sees the unnaturally enthusiastic boy with the straw hat.
He's sleeping.
He's also tied up with thick rope and hanging from the thread of a fishing rod that the loud, curly-haired boy is holding.
Standing on the railing of the ship, the blonde man who assaulted her with compliments that very morning has his hands stuffed in his pocket, looking entirely unconcerned with the large, sharp-toothed fishes swimming in the waves below.
Apart from the sleeves that are rolled up the tightly corded muscles of his forearms, his outfit is perfectly pressed, and he's keeping the body of the boy sleeping on the railing pinned down with one foot.
Considering how irked the smile of the blonde is, it doesn't take a genius to guess what is about to happen.
She flips the picture over.
Luffy has raided the fridge in his sleep (again), number 17 of the series.
Note to self: enlist Usopp's help to make traps.
A few others, more recent, seem to relate to a single event.
It takes Nami a beat too long to understand that the event in question is her birthday.
There's one where all of the people -save for the olive-skinned woman- she saw that morning are present, along with a girl with a shy smile and sky blue hair. They're all sitting around a table, and Nami is in the foreground, twisted in her chair to give the camera a smile so wide her own cheeks hurt at the idea of trying to match it, the floor around her chair littered with various gifts.
I turned 19. I feel like a child.
In another, Nami sees herself smile up close, the strange blue staff she found near her bed resting against her shoulder and her arm slung around the thin shoulders of the curly-haired boy, whose smile looks just a tiny bit terrified.
Usopp makes the best gifts. He just needs to work on the wrapping stage.
In one that was probably taken first thing in the morning, Nami sees the birthday girl version of herself sitting in bed with a tray of her favourite breakfast foods on her lap, cheeks flushed with the pleasure of the surprise and directing a wide smile at the blonde man who is resting on one knee by her side of the bed to give her the tray.
(He looks less like the lovesick madman she saw that morning and more like he's trying to woo her with food.
He looks just as in love with her, though, simply-
warmer, or maybe more tender.)
Unbeknownst to him, the curly-haired boy is holding his hands with his fingers spread behind the cook's head to imitate the antlers of the reindeer who is perched on his shoulders and seems to be trying to stifle his laughter.
On the other side of the bed, the pale-skinned girl is still lying on her stomach, hair a mess around her face that is still mashed into her pillow. One of her wrists is clasped by the Pirate Hunter, who is apparently trying to get her out of the bed. Judging by the middle finger her hand is giving him, she doesn't agree with the idea, not to mention that the straw-hatted boy is sprawled all over her, her other hand buried in his hair and a loud, bright smile stretching his mouth to a suspicious extent.
The words behind that one are written so lightly she has to squint to read them.
I didn't think it was possible for me to love someone crazier than you, Bellemere.
Nami sees her own face in most of the pictures, and her own writing on the back of almost all of them.
(As if to leave a message to the version of herself that has now lost all those memories.
Or maybe to remind herself of what happiness is like on the mornings where the memories are still clinging to her like the burn of an old tattoo, if the practiced technique with which the girl extirpated her out of the beginning of a panic attack is any indication.)
Looking through the rest of the collection, it's clear that it's only a portion of all the pictures that have been taken.
But she doesn't need to have them all to reconsider the seeming impossibility of the idea that, just maybe, a long time has passed since what she thinks of as yesterday.
And perhaps a lot of things have changed, too.
Even if those pictures are fabricated, the pinwheel-and-tangerine tattoo on her arm cannot have been -no matter how impossible it seems to fit the idea of Arlong being defeated or letting her go alive in her head.
Very slowly, she sets everything back onto the table, and then lets herself fall backwards on the couch, wet towel and all.
She never reaches the bed and stays there instead, staring blankly at the ceiling as she tries to decide which conclusion makes the most sense (and not which conclusion she wants to make sense the most).
When sunlight peeks into the room through the window, she has barely slept, and isn't any closer to an answer.
Or maybe she is.
Because when she comes out of the hotel after managing to run away from the owner who didn't remember giving her a room -or being the owner of the hotel in the first place- and finds herself face-to-face with most of the people she only remembers meeting the day before, she does what she would never do usually.
She trusts the straw-hatted boy (pirate) who tells her that he's her Captain and that she's his navigator, and follows him to find their missing crewmembers.
The girl with blue eyes and pale skin is not there.
The questions she wants answers for remain unasked.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Okay, but how do we get back our memories, then?!"
Usopp almost gets whiplash with how fast he turns his head to gape at the straw-hatted boy sitting on the table, legs swinging in the air.
"You believe her just like that?! Have you listened to her?!" He screeches with an accusatory finger pointed in the direction of the olive-skinned woman leaning against the countertop.
She smiles at him from above the rim of the cup of tea the blond guy who dresses like a butler -and definitely acts like one around the woman- made her.
He shivers, and hesitantly lets his hand fall down.
He doesn't take back his words, though, because excuse him, but what in everything she's said so far makes any kind of sense?
Sure, he would like to hear a story about how he's the Captain of a bunch of strong pirates who have already gone up against crazy powerful guys to save countries and stuff as much as the weird guy with the smile too wide and too bright.
But he wouldn't actually believe it.
Forget about being Captain, in what world would he actually have the courage to leave his home island and do all… this?
(In what world would he be a shitty enough friend to leave Kaya alone?)
"What?" The boy gives him a confused tilt of his head. "I don't remember anything after being thrown out of my boat, but having all these cool nakama is definitely gonna help to become the King of Pirates, so I probably did all that!"
Usopp gapes some more.
Butler Guy breathes out smoke and stares pensively at Crazy Boy through it.
From the door where they all pretend they don't know the weird speaking reindeer is listening in on them, a surprised squeak slips in.
Scary Woman smiles just a tad wider.
"Looks like some things don't change, after all."
Crazy Boy blinks, not seeming to understand, but then he laughs anyway.
"So, so?! What do we do about our memories?!"
Scary Woman's smile turns more pensive as she absentmindedly stirs what's left of her tea.
"It might be good to go over what you all remember doing until your memories stop to see if we can find a common point. The only ones out of all of us who still have our memories are Miss-" She falters, like every time she had to pronounce the name of one of them while explaining their supposed past, and that doesn't help Usopp's suspicion one bit. "Elynna and myself. I have a theory, but neither she nor Mister Swordsman are here to help me check."
Crazy Boy swings his legs a bit faster with a hard frown, humming under his breath and not seeming particularly enthused about the prospects of a memorising exercise.
Usopp is about to tell him to stop thinking before his brain explodes when Crazy Boy suddenly straightens up, pointing an excited finger at Scary Woman.
"Oh yeah, that girl! Who's she?!"
"Ah." Scary Woman smiles, and there's something a bit strange in the way she voices such a simple word.
It somehow makes it sound complicated, and the others probably hear it as well, because Usopp feels the attention in the room shifts to something a bit more intense.
His shoulders hike up, and for the nth time he curses himself for not following after the red-haired girl.
She seemed to know where she was going, and had all the money.
Granted, she also looked just as crazy as the rest, but he could put up with it if it meant getting back to his village faster.
"She's our First Mate."
There's a pause, and then Sanji straightens up sharply as Usopp coughs on his own tongue.
"What! It's not Roronoa Zoro?! You're telling me she's stronger than the Pirate Hunter?!"
(And yet even as he voices his disbelief, he remembers the low volume of her voice, the feather-light weight of her touch, and how it all made his voice fade into silence anyway.
The Pirate Hunter gives off enough strength for it to edge into violence.
Elynna, or whatever her name is, did not make him straighten his spine out of the fear that he might become a punching ball for a swordsman with too much bloodthirst and not enough time in the day to spend it all even if fighting was the only thing he did.
Rather, when she just stood between him and Butler Guy, she just seemed…
Solid.
Not-
Not strong, but reliable.
Like he didn't need to work himself up to the point of getting into a fight, because there was someone right there who already knew how to solve the problem, or how to find the solution.
Like he just needed to stay calm and wait to be given the information he needs and the task he has to fulfill.
She gave off authority that felt like trust, trust that she will get things done.)
"So cool!"
Seriously, what is he doing here?
But then Scary Woman shakes her head, and-
"No. Her rank has nothing to do with her fighting ability. In fact, I believe that she was a perfectly normal civilian before she met you at the beginning of your journey, Captain."
Oh, thank God.
At least he had some skill to start with, so if it turns out that he wasn't actually kidnapped and brought here and that girl managed to keep her head high among all these monsters, he probably managed to do the same somehow, right?
"... Wha- A civilian?" Butler Guy mumbles, eyes wide and confused.
"Yes. No experience in fighting or the life of an outlaw before she joined the crew, although I might simply be unaware of it."
"Uh? Why did I pick her, then?" Crazy Boy asks as he reaches up under his hat to scratch at his skull.
Scary Woman's smile quirks, just a bit higher and scarier.
"Well, I can't be quite sure, because I never asked either of you to describe the way you met very precisely, but from what I've heard and guessed, I would say that the both of you simply complement each other very nicely. She is… cautious, careful, and level-headed. If you give everyone the initial drive, Captain, then she's the one who paces us, so to say. And while it's true that she started pretty much from scratch and is thus not on the same level as you or Mister Cook here, I would say that her fighting ability is nothing to laugh at either, although it remains quite average as far as the Grand Line scale of strength is concerned."
Usopp gives her a flat look.
"You're telling me she went from 'average civilian' to 'average fighter on the Grand Line'. In, like, a year."
Scary Woman hums out a soft laugh.
"Miss First Mate is quite dedicated in her training, whether with you or with Mister Swordsman."
Crazy Boy beams just a bit wider and squirms excitedly in his seat, cutting Usopp off just as he's about to demand Details, because what the hell, since when is he good enough at fighting to be anyone's teacher?!
"So we can just join her, right?! She probably found some stuff about what happened by now!"
"Right." Butler Guy says with a slight frown as he leans away from the counter he was resting against next to the only woman in the room. "I don't like knowing that she and Nami-san are alone when we don't know who exactly attacked us and what their number and abilities are."
"... And what about Roronoa?" Usopp cuts in with a flat look.
Butler Guy grunts in annoyance.
"I don't care what happens to that brainless gorilla."
Crazy Boy laughs, and a small giggle filters through the door.
But Scary Woman doesn't even smile, and when she sets her cup down it clinks strangely loud, ringing into the silence that falls as they all turn to her.
"This… might be complicated."
"Uh? What are you talking about?"
The weird reindeer finally comes into the room, and Scary Woman's eyes flicker between all of them.
"One thing you have to understand about Miss First Mate is that her most important and defining characteristic is how much…" Her mouth pauses, tracing silently the edges of a word that looks a lot like love, and it makes Usopp's stomach clench and flutter with the idea that oh crap, he might actually be friends with all these crazy people. "-devotion she has for all the members of this crew. She's smart, and she's particularly good when it comes to deduction. Considering this, there are two possibilities."
She pauses, looking up to make sure that they are all paying attention, and then goes on.
"The first one is that she gets angry. The one time I've known her to actually lose her cool and act on it, she ensured that a member of the Shichibukai ended up in what is probably the worst prison in the world -for a long time. In this case, it's very likely that she will track down whoever has caused you to lose your memories -because I doubt it was due to a natural phenomenon- and get any information she can out of them on how to reverse the process. Although... She will probably end up murdering them."
Her voice doesn't falter.
Her smile doesn't change.
The words are said casually, almost as an afterthought.
Maybe that's why the simplicity of her words take a moment longer than they should for all their brutality to register in Usopp's mind.
But when they do, he suddenly feels very, very cold.
(Like even the air of the room doesn't want him here.)
"Wha- What do you mean, m- murder?! Why am I on the same crew as a serial killer?! This is bullshit!"
Crystalline blue eyes pin him in place, and his mouth snaps shut.
"That is not my point, Mister Sniper."
Usopp laughs, and it sounds hysterical even to his own ears.
(And he's very, very used to hearing himself laugh when he's scared.)
"What can be more important than that?!"
"Miss First Mate is certainly not a serial killer. She does not have a particular interest in violence, even if she might have less… inhibitions than you when it comes to the idea of using it. In fact, she usually does her best not to kill her opponents or deal them permanent damage, because most of the time she has nothing personal against those we fight. I would know. I was on Crocodile's side when you came to Alabasta, and she has never shown much hostility towards me, if any. But everyone has a breaking point. It just so happens that hers is when a certain level of threat is directed towards one of her nakama."
Usopp swallows, tearing his eyes away from her to survey the kitchen, a bit lost.
Neither of the two other guys look even remotely scared.
(If anything, there's something almost hungry in the way their eyes glint and their fingers twitch.)
But then his eyes latch on the small reindeer whose scrunched up face reflects both repulsion and a kind of horrified awe.
(And his fingers tighten into a grip onto his stomach as he tries to figure out the sensation that lingers there.
Tries to figure out if it feels reassuring to know that someone who is ready to kill for him has his back, or if it feels terrifying to know that someone is ready to kill for him.
Tries to figure out whether it's something good or not.
He doesn't want it to be something good.
There should be nothing good about someone being willing to murder anyone for him.
What about the people she might have already killed for him?
Does their death rest on his shoulders for being loved by someone like that?
…
Has he killed people already?)
"What's the second possibility?" Crazy Boy asks, face finally serious for the first time since Usopp opened his eyes that morning to find himself in a place as unfamiliar as the boy Scary Woman described him to have become.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Sanji's hands shake faintly as he reaches up to light another cigarette, and he feels the woman's gaze on them.
He blows out a cloud of smoke, and tries to ignore the words he knows are going to come out of her mouth.
(There's nothing more painful than to love someone and receive only blank and uncomprehending gazes in return.
He hates that he's inflicting this upon anyone,
-let alone someone who is devoted to him,
because hell,
how did he even get this lucky?-
and just for that he might actually murder whoever did this himself.)
"Miss First Mate," Robin says softly after a moment, "might… get lost."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She's… lost.
Definitely, and utterly lost.
(Or is she?
Can one be lost when one has nothing
-no one-
to go back to?)
She looks down at the waves splashing against the wall of the cliff she's standing on the edge of, a place that she found herself in after stumbling through a forest upon waking up.
She looks up, and finds a blue sky and a bright sun.
She closes her eyes, and thinks of the strangely smooth feel of Luffy's skin and the sound of his laughter, how it can ripple through the air even when there should only be tension there.
Remembers the strong, steady beat of Zoro's heart in her ears, how the way he demands more from everyone can never measure up to how much strength he demands from himself.
Reaches for the memory of the ways Nami's breath flutters across her face depending on how they fall asleep, of how the fire in her eyes burns with every mile of the world that they discover and that will be laid down in ink on paper, because she has decided she will own the world and so can never get lost in it.
Grasps at the ghost of Usopp's never-ending encouragement and advice during training sessions, and how he shines whenever he has a target for his slingshot or his mind and his hands.
Scrambles for a recollection of the exact, soft angle at which Sanji's mouth curves when he smiles at her, and the strength in his stance despite how gently he handles anything in the kitchen.
Stretches herself to accommodate the afterimage of how soft Chopper's fur feels -except around his hooves where the chemical concoctions and experiments he's always doing have roughened it- and of the way the squeak of his voice changes depending on whether he's giving her instructions or asking her a question.
Sifts through all the things she's learned since Robin joined them, and how the older woman's voice has mellowed out into something almost comfortable.
She thinks of smiles, laughter and warmth. Of love almost painful when its intensity is sharpened by fear and anger and danger.
She thinks of how it was all there one moment, and all gone the next.
Again.
So what is she supposed to do?
She's no better off than all the people on this island who don't remember their own names.
(She became a criminal as soon as she arrived here.
In this world, she is no one and has nothing to her name.
-any of them-
And now…
Well.
She might as well not exist at all.)
She has no official identity, no official existence.
No way to get a job unless she sticks to the world of criminals.
(But what reason does she have to do that
if it won't protect anyone she cares to protect?)
She's stuck on this island unless she goes back on that ship, and the thought is enough to make her feel like she's been punched through her chest, heart shredded apart upon impact.
Even if she did get out of here and built herself a new life, would she ever relax enough to stop looking over her shoulder and expect to see the eyes of someone who knows that she has a bounty on her head?
Would the weight of the memories and the futures that will never be ever decrease?
Would she ever find it in herself to start loving all over again? To take the risk?
And if she doesn't, then what even is the point of trying?
Her eyes fall back towards the sea below her.
Maybe…
Should she just… stop?
There's a drugstore in the village she passed through on her way here.
In a town of people who don't remember themselves, no one would notice if her last action as a pirate was to steal some sleeping pills.
Or maybe it would be noticed. How much medication is needed in order to kill a heart that keeps a body of this world going?
(She might need to steal a lot.
After all, it's still beating right now.
She wonders how, when the pain felt like a fatal wound.
It's distant now, though.
And she feels-
cold.
The cold of someone who has bled out.
The red warmth of her blood might still be there, but where have the smiles gone?
Where has the laughter disappeared?
And what about the parts of love that don't hurt?)
The sun warms up the skin of her neck where her hair slid away from it when she looked down, and she shivers.
She's only ever touched dead bodies when they were still warm.
(She wonders if this is the kind of cold that corpses reach.)
She stands there, maybe for hours, staring vacantly, feeling nothing of the time that passes or the weather that changes.
She thinks of stealing sleeping pills, but her feet stay stuck there.
She thinks of throwing herself off that cliff, but her back stays straight.
She thinks of using her knives, but her fingers don't even twitch.
The knowledge that she's still alive is right there, but she feels too dead to do anything about it.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Zoro blinks hard, struggling to recentre himself after recovering his memories for the second time in ten minutes.
Then he looks up at the sky, blinking again as he watches Luffy swing a seahorse around without any worry about the fact that he's still up there in the sky.
"... I'm not even going to ask."
"Yeah," Usopp grumbles next to him as he squints up at their screaming Captain and tries to rub away his oncoming headache with one hand. "Definitely not worth it."
Zoro snorts in agreement, eyes flickering all over their group to check that everyone did get all their memories back.
And then he tenses up all over again as he finally picks up on what was making him so uneasy the first time his memories were stuffed back into his skull.
He reaches out just as Sanji comes up to them, snatching him by the collar to haul him closer.
The stupid cook is obsessed with their female teammates, he's got to know-
"What the hell, you brainless-"
"Guys, come quick! I think Zoro lost the memory of the patience he learned to have with Sanji-"
"Where the fuck is Lynn?" Zoro snaps with a growl, cutting off the nonsense he can tell is heading his way to waste his time.
(Time that he
-that they-
don't have.)
Sanji stops struggling.
Usopp's mouth clicks shut, and suddenly he can't seem to look anyone in the eye.
Then the stupid cook slaps his hand away, straightening his suit into perfection with a glare that Zoro absolutely does not care to entertain at the moment.
"Watch it, mosshead. You're not the only one who's worried-"
"But I'm the only one who saw her face when she found out," he gnashes out, cutting off the insult, "and I'm telling you that we need to find her. Now."
Sanji stares at him with narrowed eyes, and then jolts into movement like he can see the blood the way Zoro saw it, licking and dripping off the taut skin of trembling fists as he left-
"Nami-chan. Have you heard anything in the village about where Elynna-chan might have gone?"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She doesn't know how much time has passed when the haze shatters under the weight.
There's a voice.
No.
Voices.
Familiar voices.
Her body jerks, but her hair still hangs free, and so the wind pushes it across her face as she turns around.
Her hand shakes as she reaches up to push the inky green strands away.
The air she breathed in crashes to a painful stop in her throat that tightens too much to allow anything through, and she chokes.
They're all here.
"Hey!" Luffy screams with a beaming smile and a wild wave of his arm. "What are you doing here, you dummy?!"
They're all here, and they're running towards her.
And no matter how much she's gotten herself used to fighting things out over the past months, her natural response to a confrontation will always, always be flight.
So she stumbles back, scrambling to preserve the space between them that their steps are chipping at.
(Scrambling to avoid facing the reality that is now her own.
Because she won't face it.
She will crash and burn and shatter.
If she's going to die, then she wants at least that to be painless.)
The look on Usopp's face shifts to one of alarm.
"Hey, watch ou-"
Gravity presses down on her, and suddenly there's no ground under her feet to push back against and keep her standing.
Oh.
And then she's falling, wind rushing through her ears and the roar of the sea beating in her skull.
Her hands don't reach out for something or someone to hold on.
Instead, she closes her eyes, and just…
falls.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Sanji grunts at the impact of his feet against the sand, the relatively shallow water they land on surging high under their fall to drench them from head to toe.
Realising how tightly he's holding Elynna against him, he loosens the circle of his arms around her with a frantic call of her name.
Blue almost black like a bruise that won't fade away for days, her dark eyes stare up at him, unblinking and silent.
His second call of her name is hesitant.
(He feels closer to scared out of his damn mind than hesitant.)
He doesn't get to properly finish it before his First Mate jerks against him, hard enough that he falls on his ass and has to throw his hands behind him to stay somewhat upright.
He blinks, startled.
Knees pressing further down on either side of him, Elynna grasps at his tie with one hand and his shirt with the other, dragging him close until they can hardly see anything else than each other.
"Again." She rasps.
"What?"
Her fists tighten their hold, and he realises they're shaking.
"My name. Say it again."
Oh.
She didn't jump.
She was trying to run away.
Because she thought they still didn't remember her.
The thought sinks in, and he tries to focus on it hard enough to forget the way her eyes closed.
(The resignation.
The relief.
He caught her in time, but it still feels too late, still tastes like failure.)
He swallows.
"Elynna-chan."
"Again."
"Elynna-chan."
"... Again."
"Elynna-chan."
"Ag-"
"Elynna-chan." He repeats more firmly, raising a hand to close it around her forearm and squeeze. "I'm Hermes, and you're Elynna-chan. Our First Mate."
She stares down at his hand on her skin as if of all the things they've seen and lived through, this is the one that is too impossible to believe in.
Then she looks back into his eyes and chuckles, faint and breathless.
On her drenched face and under the dark tresses that stick to her cheeks and throat, the tears would be invisible, and so he can't tell if the way her shoulders shake is closer to sobbing or laughing.
"Right. Elynna. Of course."
She lets go of him, but it only makes his own hold more firm.
"Elynna-chan," he starts urgently, unsure of what to say but feeling like he must say something. "Are you-"
The sound of footsteps splashing into water interrupts him.
"Lynna!" Nami bellows imperiously as she finally reaches them, lunging forward to take hold of Elynna's collar and haul her up to her feet, face scrunched up and eyes blazing with anger. "What. Were you. Doing!"
She's so furious that her words come out choppy and not at all like a question.
There's still tears stuck to her eyelashes.
Elynna mumbles a few words that sound like 'sorry' and 'slipped', but she's clearly more busy staring at the other girl.
She's still not blinking.
She looks confused by what she sees, in a blank sort of way.
(As if she can't comprehend the concept of Nami-chan talking to her with any kind of familiarity.
As if she can't fathom the physicality of Nami-chan's hold on her.)
"Don't give me that bullsh-"
The rest of Nami's growled out reply ends in a yelp when Luffy barrels into her, knocking her aside in the process.
Sanji stands up to catch her, but for once keeps his comments to himself as he watches the others join them now that they have all untangled themselves from the impromptu parachute Luffy turned himself into mid-fall.
"Ann!" Their Captain frowns, even as he tries to smile and grips his First Mate's shoulders to shake her vigorously. "Why did you run off alone like that?! We would have found the solution even faster if you were there!"
The girl stares back blankly.
"The solution." She repeats slowly, blinking just as sluggishly as she speaks.
It sounds like the thought never crossed her mind and she's struggling to compute it.
Like she never even considered another option than giving up when she realised the problem they were facing.
(They know that they all have strengths and weaknesses, and that in that sense they are stronger together.
They know that when it comes to strength of will, their First Mate might just be the weakest of them all.
They suspect that, often, nakama is the main, if not sole incentive that makes her pull through.
And still, somehow, the reality of how weak she actually is on that front when she only has herself to rely on, the ease with which she just gave up, is startling.)
"Yeah, the solution, stupid-"
"Lynn."
Her eyes stare some more at their Captain, and then slowly drift to where Zoro is standing behind him, arms crossed and features set into something stony and closed-off.
"What were you doing."
The words fall hard.
Heavy.
A demand designed to force the words out.
But there's no resistance to break through.
No strength to meet and win against.
Elynna cocks her head on the side, and the answer comes easily.
"I was considering it."
Silence falls.
Luffy's hands slip away from her shoulders.
They all stand there under the still bright sky of the early evening, horror heavy and stifling and inescapable like the weight of the heatwaves in Alabasta's desert.
(None of them needs to think twice about what she was considering, and it's terrifying.)
Zoro's hands tighten around his biceps, and when he looks down at the tug he feels on the fabric of his pants, Chopper is there, staring at their First Mate.
He's shaking.
He looks sick.
His slack hold on Zoro falls easily when the swordsman shifts, and he places his leg behind the back of the small reindeer for him to lean against so he doesn't fall if his legs give out.
"Why?" Chopper whispers.
It breaks the silence, but still no one moves.
Elynna looks up at the sky, back at them, and then shrugs.
"It seemed easier, and I thought there was no one to hold back for. But… I obviously thought wrong. I apologise for what I made you go through."
"What?!" Nami spits, eyes burning even as they blink rapidly to keep the tears away, and Sanji steps closer with a worried frown, unsure whether the tension wracking her frame will translate into violence or tears. "You think that saying 'sorry' is going to make us feel better?!"
Elynna gives her a look that almost seems confused.
"I don't expect anyth-"
"Wai-wait," Usopp fumbles, holding up both hands and a trembling attempt at a smile as if to push back the very idea she mentioned so casually. "What do you mean, 'no one to hold back for'? I get that we almost all forgot each other, but what about your family? I mean, I know that you haven't gotten a letter from your parents in some time with all the distance that has to be covered and all, but-"
"Hawk."
His mouth clicks shut.
"I'm the one who wrote these letters."
They stare.
She stares back, looking resigned.
(She looks defeated, and unwilling to do anything about it.
Most of all, she looks tired.
Of everything, perhaps.)
"... What? But… It's not like I could read them, but the writing wasn't yours."
"I have two writing styles."
" S-So you mean… You lied?"
Elynna presses her lips together, but doesn't look away from him.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it was easier to get used to the idea of never seeing them again on my own. I wanted to tell you once I was able to… process it, but-"
She closes her eyes for a long moment, as if she doesn't want to look them in the eyes and see what stares back at her there.
Then she sighs again.
(A further slump of her shoulders.
Another defeat.)
"I was too much of a coward, I guess. I never got around to doing it."
Zoro frowns.
Luffy's mouth curls down further, and it looks entirely unnatural on him.
And then Nami explodes forward, shoving their Captain aside to take a hold of Elynna's collar and drag her closer.
"Bullshit!" She hisses venomously. "We could've helped you!"
Elynna looks down at where the knuckles of the navigator are pressing against her skin through the fabric of her top, warm and packed with enough fury to make them shake.
"You don't need to know for that." She says as she looks back up at Nami and every one of them. "Do you think you haven't helped me, when I felt sad or tired? The reason why doesn't matter. You made me feel better all the same."
"Don't lie to me!" Nami barks, shaking her hard even as her voice breaks and she starts to cry. "Chopper is always going on about how we have to tell him everything about our injury if we want him to treat it correctly! It's valid for this kind of pain, too! You can't- You can't just keep it to yourself if it hurts you this much! We could've helped you, and we still can!"
"No." Elynna rebukes softly, eyes flat and deep with nothing.
She stiffens in the navigator's hold, but Nami shakes her again.
"Yes! If they were dead, you would have said so already, so we can still help! What is it? Is it because you're with us?! Is that why you won't see them ag-"
"No." Elynna says again, the smooth emptiness of her features breaking into something fierce to the point of painful.
(Something alive.)
Then she goes slack again, but the intensity of her eyes on Nami keeps her rooted in place.
"It has nothing to do with the fact that I chose to go with you." She goes on. "What I meant is that there's no point in telling you, because I don't know anything about whatever is keeping me away from them. There's nothing I can do, Rain."
"Wha- So that's it?! You're going to give up on your family, your friends- Just like that?! Do you even want to see them again?!"
Elynna's eyes go wide, and suddenly she bares her teeth to let out a sound that barely seems human even as she roughly shoves Nami away from herself and into Sanji's waiting arms.
"What do you want me to say?!" She screams as the sobs finally break out in her chest and crawl up her throat to fall out of her mouth, tears tracing again the dried up path of the sea water that already ran down her face. "That I was on holiday with my family at the beach, that I ran away to be alone after disappointing my mother, and that when I opened my eyes again I had a boy dying in my arms and no land anywhere no matter which way I turned?! That I don't know how I got there or who brought me there, if there's even a someone involved?! That I ended up in a body that isn't mine and that can do things I shouldn't even be able to do?!"
Her voice breaks, strangling her breath, and she stops.
She stands there, panting and sobbing and staring at them with something closer to desperation than actual anger.
(It's a wild thing, a thing that lashes out and thrashes about, barely kept away by the boundaries of her body.
It looks ready to eat away at her until she collapses in on herself and disappears.)
"I'm not-" She looks down at herself with a sob heavy enough to sound like it's too big for her throat, heart-wrenching and almost silent in its magnitude, and places a hand on her cheek, nails digging into the round flesh and dragging down like she wants to tear off her own skin.
The welts left behind are red.
"I'm not even supposed to look like this-"
Zoro steps through the distance between them and snatches her hand away.
He stares her down, shoulders rising and falling easily, evenly.
She stares back, body spasming around her sobs even as she tries to regulate her breathing to follow his.
"You're scared."
Elynna chuckles, but over the sound of her distress it's positively unhinged.
"You are all a bunch of reckless idiots who are ready to wage war for someone you barely know. I'm-" Her voice wobbles, and she coughs out a sob. "I'm not a stranger, am I? It won't matter to you that I'm up against someone or something that can literally rob me of my body if I ask for help. So yeah, I gave up. I gave up because I'm scared. I gave up because I won't take that risk. I don't-"
She swallows, and crouches down slowly, curling onto herself, as if the weight of everything around her is crumpling her into something easier to throw into the bin with the rest of the trash.
When she speaks again it's tiny and choked, like all the confidence she learned how to feel never existed in the first place.
"I just didn't want you to get hurt-"
Her voice hitches, and she breaks into sobs right there.
It's horrifying.
It's horrifying, how silent it is.
A few sniffles here and there, but her shoulders shake, and nothing comes out.
As if the shards of her broken heart are stuck in her throat no matter how hard her body shudders to get them out-
As if no matter the fact that her mind is finally giving up and forcing her to let go, her mouth stays shut, trapped in a habit that seems as old as her pain.
(Her pain that might just tear her chest open,
if only to get out and be heard-)
Her knees sink into the water and then the wet sand beneath it, until she's huddled and bowing at their feet.
It looks as if she's begging, or perhaps apologising, for everything she has ever done and ever been.
(It looks as if she wants to disappear.)
Zoro looks at his Captain, who breathes in sharp, and adjusts his hat before giving the swordsman a nod.
If Elynna sees the strike that knocks her out coming, she doesn't do anything to avoid it, and she falls straight into the arm Zoro holds out to catch her.
"Let's go home." Luffy says.
The stillness grips them all for a moment longer, before they tear themselves away.
The silence, however, follows them.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna wakes up in a darkened room that turns out to not exactly be a room.
The cool breeze of the night brushes against whatever skin is uncovered, and her sigh presses the shallow lines she scratched into her cheek into the wood of the deck.
Despite that, she feels warm.
All her crewmates are sleeping around her, close enough to each other for their respective body heat to circulate without leaving enough space for the cold to really settle.
She breathes in a bit deeper, letting wakefulness seep through her veins as she tastes the way her ribs expand.
It makes the distinction between the weight of her sleep and the tears she shed and that of the arm around her waist stark.
The arm tightens compulsively, but there's no space left to drag her further into the body she suddenly realises is pressed against her back.
It feels… strange.
She's used to being the big spoon when she and Luffy sleep together, but right there she finds herself becoming aware of the fact that where he was just a bit smaller than her when they first met months ago, now it's the other way around.
"Ann."
Her eyes close.
So much for pretending to be asleep.
She huddles herself into a tighter ball, but Luffy follows the movement, coiling around her and huffing in irritation against her neck.
She squirms reflexively at the sensation, and his arm tightens again around her, his other arm that he placed under her head curling loosely around her head to shift her backwards into him.
It's when he throws a leg over both of hers and circles it around her limbs that she thinks she understands.
(The last time he let her go off on her own, she ran away.
On a ship, the bottom of the ocean is always so, so close.)
So she stills in his arms, screwing her eyes and her lips shut against the tears that burn hot with shame.
(Not shame for what she thought to do.
Shame for not making sure that no one she held dear would be hurt from it.)
"What about now?" Luffy mouths more than he speaks against her spine.
I was considering it.
I thought there was no one to hold back for.
"You're here." She says simply, because in the end it all comes down to this, no matter how unfair it is to put the weight of it (of her-) on the shoulders of everyone on this ship.
(And she's sorry, really.
Sorry that she's not cut out for this world and their dreams, sorry that they have to pick up the slack she can't carry herself and that she's never quite sure that what she has to give is enough to make up for it.)
Luffy presses his face closer, hair soft and tickling against the nape of her neck.
"You're my nakama, but if you weren't you could still be great."
She wants to laugh at the assertion that nothing can be as great as being his nakama.
She can't.
"I know." She croaks out through the tears that trail down the breadth of her face to wet his arm and the wood her cheek is pressed against, grasping for where his hand is grazing her ribs and squeezing tight.
She knows that she could.
She knows that she had the potential to make a life for herself if her crew didn't come to get her.
She knows there are hundreds, thousands of people around the worlds that make do with much worse than her, and some of them who rise to the top.
She knows that there's so many things in the world she could be passionate about, could dedicate her life to that aren't other people.
What she doesn't know is why the idea of giving everything one has should be so obvious.
Why should it be better to fight and keep fighting until you have nothing left to give to the fight even when you think something is lost, because 'if you don't, it'll be lost for sure'?
She could have tried.
She could have given more, could have kept fighting.
But she didn't want to.
"Are you hiding other things?"
She blinks rapidly, teardrops crushed into specks of water that stick to her eyelashes and make her sight blurry.
I'm not from this world.
I shouldn't be here.
None of you should feel so real.
(If we hadn't gone to Drum, I think I would be dead.)
"Yes."
They breathe together as he waits.
But she stays silent.
His hold on her tightens again, and she can almost feel his forehead wrinkle as he frowns.
"If any of it puts you or the others in danger, I'll tell you." She goes on to try and erase it.
His heart beats three times against her back before the arm around her waist suddenly slips out of her grip to press on her shoulder and turn her flat on her back even as he hoists himself higher to hover over her.
"And what if it puts you in danger?" He tells her, low and harsh as he frowns down at her fiercely, grip hard and stare hot as if he wants to light a fire similar to his inside her chest just by looking at her (but why should it always be better to have that fire inside?). "What if it hurts you?"
She closes her eyes, breathes in, then out.
Compromise.
She has to compromise.
She can't justify wanting to keep them safe as much as possible because she loves them and not expect them to want the same for her.
"If you can help me, I'll ask for it. I've already done that."
He peers down at her, eyes severe and features tight with the kind of doubt he should never look at her with.
(The kind of doubt he would never have looked at her with if she was a good First Mate to begin with.
Except she's not, and so instead of dealing with all the things he doesn't want to deal with as the Captain, she's just added to the burdens on his shoulders.
It makes her want to hide, makes her want to erase her existence from this world so things can be as they should.
Because the tiny part of her that every human has and that tells her that nothing can happen purely by coincidence is whispering that maybe, just maybe, it was a sign that her existence was almost entirely erased like a snap of one's fingers.)
"I promise," she adds, and because she still thinks compromise (still feels sick with guilt), she goes on. "I might find more information in Water Seven. It's a town we're going to reach soon."
The words feel heavy even after they have left her mouth.
She had the possibility of leaving this at 'I know nothing about what I would face if I chose to fight'.
But now she's just told the most stubborn boy in the world that it doesn't necessarily end there.
She's just given up, given him the possibility of forcing her into a corner, given him the power to decide whether he trusts her to handle whatever she might find on her own.
He knows, which means she won't be able to do whatever she wants about this the way she has been up till now.
And Luffy nods, slowly, loosening just enough around her for her to get comfortable.
"Go to sleep." He tells her, and she does.
(Despite how heavy she feels inside of herself with all the things that are stacked up there, whether old or new, sleeping is easy. Easier than anything else.
After all, it's just a matter of not holding it all up.
-just a matter of caving in under that weight,
even if it makes her sleep heavy with everything that crumbles over her,
until waking up is harder than anything else-
Now that she's done it once, it feels so simple.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
It's way too early for most of them to be out of bed according to their usual schedule, but it's hard to sleep when their First Mate sleeps so still.
So instead they sit at the kitchen's table after Robin brings Elynna to her bed, time ticking away loudly in the silence.
Standing against the wall with his arms crossed as he looks out of the porthole, Zoro eventually speaks up, cutting through the heaviness that permeates the air.
"Did you feel it?"
Half-lying over the table, Nami listlessly looks up, eyes rimmed red by unshed tears.
"Feel what?"
"Ann's presence." Luffy answers from where he's sitting cross-legged in one chair, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed in thought since he took a seat.
Usopp's eyes flicker to Robin, but she gives a minute shake of her head, prompting him to turn back to his Captain.
"What about it?"
"I'm curious as well."
Sanji looks at the two of them before shifting to tap his cigarette against the edge of the ashtray placed in front of him.
"Did you feel uneasy, when you first saw her yesterday morning?"
Usopp jolts, as if the words just hit something that was already bruised.
"What?! No!" Nami blurts out as she suddenly straightens up in the seat opposite to his.
"Nami-chan." Sanji interrupts her softly, and when his eyes land on her there is nothing like judgement there. "I wasn't trying to question how much you love Elynna-chan. But when you saw her as someone that you didn't know, what did she feel like?"
The tangerine-haired navigator stares back at him with thinned lips, before her weight slumps back on the table.
"Fine." She grumbles, looking away from everyone else as her voice falters to a whisper. "I can't sense people's presence like you guys can, but… She scared me."
Even if her best friend did nothing to make herself threatening.
Honestly, between the initial confused terror Nami felt upon waking up, the pirate flag she saw when she came out on the deck and the face of Elynna being the first thing she glimpsed when she looked back down, she isn't quite sure what triggered her panic attack the most.
Somehow, at that moment, she felt… backed into a corner, the presence in front of her so overwhelming it was enough to choke her breath in her throat even without any hostility.
"But she doesn't anymore." She hurries to add after shaking herself free of the memory.
There's a moment of silence before Zoro turns to look at Robin, who tilts her head to the side.
"No." She says softly. "I did not feel any change in Miss First Mate's presence."
"... So what, are you saying that the fact that she's not human has somehow gotten more obvious since we met her, and we didn't notice? Because I don't see how none of us could have noticed how she was-"
His mouth snaps shut.
Robin stares at him quietly, more curious than smiling.
"If all of you have felt this, I think it is safe to assume that this is at least partly due to habituation. We live together, after all. If this change is the product of her mind… settling, so to say, in her new body, then it was probably something gradual that would have been hard to take note of during daily life. Alternatively, it could also be the result of a triggering event, and you didn't notice that the change remained afterward."
Memories float between some of the people present.
(-torn fists, raw voice and body blurry like a ghost under the blanket of rising water-)
Zoro sighs, lifting a hand to drag it roughly through his already messy hair.
"Well. At least now we know why those idiots the other day were scared shitless."
Because sure, the Foxy Pirates are weak when considered individually.
Given how numerous they are, though, it was frankly strange how they all tended to give Elynna a wide berth during their whole stupid game -or came to taunt her and then seemed to regret the hell out of it.
He has no problem admitting that his First Mate can definitely be intimidating when she wants to be, but even then, their opponents' reactions were strange in the degree they reached.
Except that despite their weakness, they've still been sailing on the Grand Line for some time, so they obviously don't completely lack a sense of self-preservation.
If to them, Elynna felt like she felt to him-
(-incomprehensibly endless to the point of drowning and careless and the kind of cold that has never known warmth-)
If to them, she felt like this, but with a thick layer of murderous intent backing it up given that she was feeling pretty fucking angry that day-
Well.
The unknown can sometimes ring alarm bells for anyone with some survival instinct, and a pissed off non-human entity with unclear powers definitely qualifies as that kind of unknown.
The door of the kitchen creaks open, drawing his and everyone else's attention to their resident doctor, who enters the room with a load of medical supplies in his heavily muscled arms, which he comes to set carefully right in front of Usopp.
The sharpshooter gives it a confused look, which he then transfers onto the reindeer.
"You should go change Elynna's bandages." Chopper tells him firmly in lieu of an explanation.
"What? Why-"
Chopper cuts him a look, and Usopp's voice goes silent.
He swallows tightly, gaze weighed down towards the floor by the ghost of the words he said and thought when he lost his memory of their First Mate.
Taking one last look at Chopper's face, he sighs, and grabs the supplies to head out of the kitchen.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
For the first few minutes after Usopp passes the door to take care of all the scrapes Elynna collected while she was wandering through the forest -and clearly not really paying attention to the branches and brambles in her way, it feels like his First Mate doesn't even register his presence, eyes still staring almost unblinkingly at the same spot even after he brings her to a sitting position.
(He thinks that if this is what it felt like to be in her spot, he probably would have run away, too.)
Then he takes hold of her hand to look at the long line scratched down her forearm, and stops.
It's not the first time he holds her hands.
In fact, he's used to it, even though the number of times she cuts herself enough during training for him to need to treat said cuts has considerably gone down.
But usually, he focuses on her cuts.
This time, what makes him stop is the feel of her calluses under his own fingers.
They're rough, and thicker than he thought they would be after barely a year of pirate life.
He looks down, and her fingers aren't longer than Robin's or Nami's, but all the same her hands look… bigger compared to the deceptive fragility of his two other female teammates' hands, the strength of her grip further hinted at by the corded muscles that thicken her wrist.
This… is his First Mate.
Hardworking.
Strong, regardless of how many people in the seas they're on can beat her without even trying.
The contrast with the utter exhaustion that currently weighs her body down -until it made him doubt she would actually stay upright while he took care of her- is striking.
He wonders how long they have all been relying on her and adding to the weight on her shoulders, simply because her feet seemed so solidly planted in the ground.
(He wonders when she left him behind to be the only one with one foot still firmly on the civilian side and a heart still unable to steel itself against all the dangers they can face.
Perhaps from the very beginning, when she let Zoro attack her to learn how to dodge while he was telling Luffy nonsensical tales for the pleasure of seeing his eyes sparkle with awe.)
Usopp frowns, suddenly feeling like he's back to the cliff of his home island, looking down at the four pirates who have just come to presumably attack everyone he's ever known and thinking real pirates are really something else.
Then the fingers in his hold twitch, fingertips brushing along his palm.
He barely feels the graze of it.
Because they trace the shape of his own calluses.
He looks up sharply, still sitting in front of where Elynna is sitting on her bed.
From behind heavy lids, Elynna looks back, dark eyes both still worlds away and seemingly peeling open the thoughts in his head.
"We're pirates, not mercenaries." She says, thumb pressing down gently on a burn he got during an experiment a week before and that hasn't quite healed yet.
Our life isn't just about fighting, so our skills don't need to be only in that area either.
He opens his mouth, but her thumb taps against the burn again, as if she can sense the protests about to spill from behind his teeth and wants to replace them with the memory of the satisfaction he felt at the end of this experiment, which allowed him to successfully add another type of munition to his stock.
Usopp looks away, diving back into his bandaging task without a word.
(Yet he can't help but be pleased, and he feels horrified by it.
He doesn't even know what he despises the most about what is happening
between the fact that he has been so obvious about what is plaguing him in front of a nakama who almost caved in under the weight of her own thoughts barely twenty four hours before
-slipping so easily back into the habit he has developed,
even after spending a few hours with only disgust and fear to call on at the idea of being so close to the girl in front of him-
and the fact that said nakama has taken on the weight he set at her feet so thoughtlessly, without hesitation or regard for how much heavier it will feel to her, how much harder it will make it for her to breathe-
But he's surprised by neither of them.
The only difference is that one makes him feel disappointed, where the other makes him feel-
Makes him feel like he should have been the one begging on his knees for her forgiveness, for everything he thought and said and felt when he forgot,
heard of her unyielding anger and the blood washed off her skin and forgot the grounding weight of her attention wrapping around him and the warm darkness of her eyes.)
The weight of her gaze on him doesn't let up, though, and eventually his shoulders tighten under it.
"Maybe, but there's a difference between not being super skilled and being a total burden. I was useless against that Marine guy." He eventually grumbles.
"And I froze." She replies tonelessly.
Usopp stops rubbing the disinfecting lotion over her cut, pinching his lips together for a moment before carrying on.
"It's not the same."
He's not quite sure how, but it's not the same.
He finishes his task quickly, intent on getting out as soon as possible, and preferably before his First Mate finds an argument that makes calling himself a burden for his nakama sound less sensible.
But as he reaches for the door handle, she speaks up again, and he stops in his tracks.
"How is your strength right now, Hawk?"
Memories of the man who made freezing the sea into a road look as easy as painting a Jolly Roger creep between the muscles of his shoulders.
"Not enough." He mumbles.
"None of us were enough against him." She comments idly as if she can read his thoughts in the lines of his back. "But what's your potential?"
Usopp thinks of his father and what Luffy told him about the best sharpshooter of Red-Haired Shanks' crew.
But he keeps his mouth shut, because even in his own mind it sounds ridiculous to think of closing that gap.
Elynna doesn't seem to be really waiting for an answer, though, because after a moment she keeps going.
"How many times have you fought your fear, Hawk? How many times have you won?"
Since he first stepped onto the deck of the Merry?
So many times.
Every time, even.
Because when it mattered, even if he ran away, he always came back.
But like hell he'll let his First Mate use the fact that she didn't win over her fear just the day before to make him feel better about himself.
So he turns around even as he opens the door in his back, and points an accusing finger towards her.
"Fine! I'll believe that I'm a good pirate, but only when you admit that you're the best First Mate ever! There!"
And then he promptly steps out and slams the door shut behind him while clenching his eyes shut.
(There.
Now he won't have to pretend that he's a good anything.
Because his First Mate will never agree to think of herself as the best anything either.
It's better like this.
A good pirate, after all, should be able to take care of the gift his precious friend gave him, should be able to take care of his treasures, and-
The Going Merry is living proof that he's anything but a good pirate.
No matter the fact that when Kaya last called him, she and Merry thanked him for taking their ship so far out in the world despite how old and unfit for the life of pirates it is-
Their thanks felt like the confirmation of his failure, even before they met an actual carpenter to repair the Merry.)
He opens his eyes, ready to stomp back towards the kitchen for some good comfort food-
and freezes.
Coming from the kitchen with a tray of food, Sanji stares back at him with a raised eyebrow and amusement lapping at the edges of his mouth.
"Um-"
"If you really think you're too weak," Sanji cuts him off as he comes closer, "you just have to become stronger. You know, like you've been doing since the beginning."
He passes Usopp by with a pat on his shoulder, and leaves him there to gape like a fish.
Although, a fish would probably die from the level of heat he can feel under the skin of his neck and face.
…
He kind of wants to die from embarrassment, though.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The door opens again barely a minute after Usopp closes it, and Elynna is still sitting up.
(Is still staring at the door that closed behind Hawk's back,
as if to mock her attempt at helping him and deny her the possibility of trying again.
She doesn't have the energy for that anyway, the failure weighing too heavy inside her chest along with all the others.
She thought that maybe, if she managed to make him smile, she would be able to smile, too.
But it sure as hell isn't going to happen if she can't even manage to do her job right after exhausting all the strength she managed to muster.)
She blinks, but it takes her a moment to register the sight of Sanji standing in the doorframe with a tray of food in one hand.
When her eyes finally focus on his, he smiles down at her around his cigarette.
"Elynna-chan." He greets her, voice almost a whisper.
"... Hermes." She eventually manages to force out.
He blinks in surprise, and it makes her nails sink into the flesh of her thighs.
She looks down, unable to meet his eyes, because-
He shouldn't be surprised.
She's supposed to-
She's supposed to be the First Mate.
She should be someone he and the others can always rely on, someone who is strong enough to be relied on, even if she's not the strongest fighter.
She's watched them all hold on and get back up through every injury and all the pain, and-
And this time she hasn't even lost anything or anyone.
So why can't she do the same?
Why is it so hard to be brave?
Why does she always, always fall short?
Why did she open her eyes that morning and hate the sound of her own heartbeat and the sight of her room, when all the people she loves in this world are still here?
It's only when she sniffles that she realises how hot the tears dripping down her cheeks are and how her vision is wobbling.
She clenches her eyes shut, pressing her lips together and cutting off her breath altogether.
The next sob shakes her shoulders silently and stops short of coasting up her throat, coming to an abrupt, painful stop somewhere in her too tight chest instead.
And then a hand lands on her knees, making her curl inwards some more as shame and lack of air make the heat under her skin dizzying.
"Elynna-chan. Do you want some food?"
Sanji's voice is warm.
(It's horrible.
Horribly warm, and so terribly safe.
it makes her want to jerk away, but she's always been so weak-)
She shakes her head frantically.
Even if she could stomach the food, she doesn't deserve to.
"Elynna-chan." He says again, and she can almost feel the worry radiating from him. "Breathe. Please."
She flinches at the plea, debating for a moment what will burden him the most between the sound of her weakness and refusing to allow his request.
In the end, she caves in.
Her mouth falls open, gulping down air with a winded, shuddery mockery of a cry.
She keeps her eyes shut as she tilts forward towards the warmth of her crewmate, arms latching blindly around his frame to nestle her chin over his shoulder.
He stays still under her for a moment, before the knee he pressed against the floorboards rolls as he presses forward to rest a hand at the top of her spine, thumb slipping under the sloppy bun of her hair to brush soothingly against her neck as her chest works frantically against his to stabilise her breathing.
They stay like this, and eventually Elynna's breaths become slower and deeper, her weight falling further against Sanji's, whose thinner frame doesn't budge an inch.
Elynna's eyes sting with dry salt when she finally opens them to stare at the wall.
"... I'm sorry." She eventually croaks out, not sure how many things she should be apologising for but certain that she has to all the same.
Sanji's other arm hesitantly winds around her waist, squeezing lightly.
"Usopp was right, you know, so there's nothing to be sorry for."
"No. He said I was the best. I'm not the best. I just… try to do my best."
(There's a difference
-a huge one-
and the result is not in the favour of her nakama.)
"And that's all we can ask for." Sanji replies patiently. "There's a difference between being the best and being perfect, Elynna-chan. We both know that perfect, flawless… All of that can't be attained by anyone."
She knows.
It feels like she should be close to that to deserve them, though.
And her best isn't anywhere close to perfect.
Sanji exhales against her, and then slowly pries her away from him.
For a moment, she clings, stomach knotting at the idea of what she might see on his face, but eventually she lets go, choosing to keep her eyes set on the black fabric of his tie instead.
"If by perfect you mean the best option possible, though, you're definitely perfect for us."
He's still holding her hands in her lap, and she flinches at how his hold feels like his voice sounds, can't bear to look up and see the love in his eyes.
(The only thing she seems to be able to think about since waking up are all the ways she failed these people.
Her mind is hazy with it, and the way Hermes is holding her hands
-like holding something precious, a treasure-
feels entirely disconnected to who she is fundamentally.
It just doesn't make sense, and the easier it is to hate herself, the harder it is to take his love for herself.
The more suffocating it feels.
Like one more lie.
One lie too many.)
So instead she stares as his hands gently release hers to mindlessly readjust the knot of his tie.
She reaches out, and traces one finger down the fabric.
"How do you do that?" She asks, wincing slightly at the hoarseness of her own voice.
It's just another way to keep her eyes off his for just a little bit longer, just another way to keep him from showing her even just a little bit more love, and she knows that it's suspicious.
But after a moment of silence, he undoes the knot and reties it slowly as he explains the steps he follows, still on one knee in front of her and giving no hint of being uncomfortable with the position at all.
He does it three times, and then leaves the tie undone.
It takes her a moment, but she scoots forward and reaches out for the fabric with both hands, hesitantly working through the steps with fingers that tremble just like the heart inside her chest.
She focuses on the task and nothing else, not even the warmth of another living being fluttering against the back of her fingers, until the knot is quick and perfect and her hands are steady and her mind is somewhat silent.
Then she smooths a hand down the length of the tie, and places it back in her lap, blinking down at the faint outline of scar tissue on her knuckles and the calluses on the palm of her other hand.
Fine! I'll believe that I'm a good pirate, but only when you admit that you're the best First Mate ever! There!
Her shoulders slump.
And she looks up.
Sanji looks tired.
He looks worried too, brow creased and eyes heavy with it.
Most of all, though, he looks a strange mix of hurt and sad understanding -until he registers the fact that she is looking back at him.
Then he breathes in sharply, and holds it in, eyes pinning her in place with an emotion that sits in an uneasy middle between pleading and hopeful.
"I-"
She closes her mouth, swallows, and opens it again.
"I'll take some of the food."
Sanji smiles.
It doesn't quite chase off the concern, but the tension in his shoulders fades into something more relaxed, and she figures that counts as a win.
"Of course, Elynna-chan. It's all cold food, so take your time eating whatever you want."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Knowing that she's reaching her limit, Chopper is busy preparing Elynna's pain medication when Luffy marches into the room he has claimed as his lab.
Chopper looks up, startled.
Luffy's face is already set into stubborn refusal before he even asks his question and risks receiving an answer along the lines of 'I can't tell you anything'.
"Are you helping Ann with something?"
He's so startled by the question that it takes him a beat too long to answer.
"I won't tell you one way or another."
But he knows that his Captain has already picked up on his hesitation.
Luffy might not know what, but he knows there's something.
And even as Chopper braces himself for the relentless assault of questions from a boy who is as obstinate in his love for his nakama as he is in his determination to make what he wants come true, for the way he knows he won't be able to meet Elynna's eyes if he caves in, his Captain finally breaks the stare contest with a nod, grinning at him.
The smile is as strong and stubborn and bright as the rest of him.
"Tell me if you need help!"
And then he leaves just like that.
Chopper blinks, and lets out a relieved sigh.
He doesn't know where his Captain got this sudden awareness of boundaries from, but he's grateful for it.
As he gets back to work, though, his mind starts to wander, trusting his body to handle the task that has become a routine for him.
It starts to wander, and circles back around the same question it has wandered and circled around for the last two days.
How can he have missed this?
How do you miss something as big as your friend grieving their entire life?
And if he's been blind to this, how much more is Elynna possibly still hiding?
Did she even tell Doctorine everything before his mother called him to explain to him how to treat her condition?
And as always every time his mind lingers, he wonders what they might all still be missing, when what he has found out already paints a picture that makes him shake when he should be steady the way only bad doctors aren't.
It paints the picture of a girl -a child- who had everything one moment and nothing the next, except for her mind and her awareness of her self.
A girl who only knew a life that was so much softer, so much easier, and who suddenly became a criminal, always on the run from the threat of execution and running towards possibly deadly destinations, without any kind of shield but the willingness of the strangers around her to protect her and help her protect herself.
A girl who didn't take Luffy's hand because she wanted to go down that path like the rest of them, but because it was the only hand that was there to take, because she was lost and alone and terrified, because she was barely capable of holding herself together, let alone make a life for herself all on her own.
A girl who has grown to love the people around her, and whose mind is perhaps ceaselessly haunted by how easily she lost all the people she first learned to love and the risks that come with the life they all chose.
(All of it shadows that sharpen the anxiety she can function with into a constant fear that borders on obsession, and suddenly it all makes sense.
Why she brings him his patients more often than they come to him.
-because she's always looking for a sign of hurt in each of them-
Why she risked drug addiction for the people who call her their First Mate when even the prospect of the temporary loss of control induced by alcohol is enough to keep her from drinking any.
Why she suffers from a painful condition, and yet still allows Usopp and Zoro to push her body to the limits.
Why, despite her initial lack of interest in violence, she's become so prompt to think of using it, and has been so quick about it.
Why the only thing that bothers her about the blood she sheds is its smell.
Why she didn't even stop to consider that there might be a solution to the problem they were facing,
so inhabited by the absence of those she already lost that even her brilliant mind couldn't come up with anything else than the idea that everything was being taken from her again, despite how easy it would have been to dispel that belief.)
A girl who, despite knowing that every life is objectively worth the same and that no one is perfect, places all of her crewmates a step above the rest, including the world and herself, to the point that she sees no interest in her continued existence if they're not here to give it substance.
It could be worse, he knows.
She could have found herself with almost nothing that used to be hers, and ended what was left on the spot.
She could have found herself alone.
She could have taken the hand of someone much, much worse.
But the thought doesn't reassure him as much as he wishes it would.
It could be worse, but it doesn't make Elynna alright.
Chopper sighs, and blinks startled eyes at the door he's somehow made his way to after mindlessly finishing the medication.
He glances down at the liquid in question suspiciously, but the colour, smell and texture all seem right.
Satisfied, he knocks softly at the door, and then slips in after a wordless hum answers him.
Elynna is lying flat on her back in the bed, head turned away from him to look out of the porthole, like she has been every time he came to visit her since they left the island two days before.
It makes him swallow, because he's slept in this room enough times after impromptu Smart Quartet meetings (or Smart Quintet when Robin joined them) to know that Elynna doesn't sleep on her back.
Then the door clicks shut, and she turns her head to look at him.
Silence settles as they stare at each other, as she watches him and waits for him to speak and says nothing, even when he starts to shift on his feet timidly.
Against the light like this, there's almost no blue in her eyes.
(For a moment, he remembers the few people that his mother and him couldn't save, and why he followed in his mother's steps in taking the habit to always close their eyes first.
There's nothing more chilling than looking at the face of someone who is in all aspects alike to any other person, and yet lacks the most fundamental thing to make them more than a body.
To make them alive.
Elynna blinks, and the moment passes, but the memory slithers down his spine like icy water, slipping through his ribs to clamp around his little heart.)
"I brought you your medicine." He eventually says, soft and low as if talking any louder would break the fragile equilibrium of the silence in the room and, maybe, of the body in the bed.
Elynna's eyes fall on the fuming mug clasped between his hooves, but she doesn't move.
So he takes a step forward, intent on bringing it into her hands himself if she feels as tired as she looks.
(So tired that breathing seems to take effort, every breath more like a sigh than an intake and outtake of air.)
"Hebi." She whispers tonelessly, eyes still stuck to the beverage, and he jumps.
"Yes?"
"Can I… wait a bit to take it?"
He blinks, and frowns, eyes running clinically over what he can see of her body under the sheets.
Body too stiff to be relaxed like her exhaustion would suggest, no matter whether it is physical or mental.
Breathing too controlled, too tight to be comfortable.
And the way her teeth clench intermittently.
Her previous dose of medicine has already worn off entirely.
Probably, she has been feeling the pain of her most recent wounds for hours, now.
"But… You're hurting." He whispers, blinking back tears.
Her only response is to face the ceiling and close her eyes again.
"I'll take it soon." She promises. "I just… want to feel something else for a bit."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Chopper doesn't really remember finding his way to the kitchen, but when he gets there the mug in his grasp is starting to cool down, and he looks up to see Nami sitting alone at the table, staring at something in her hand with a thoughtful, hesitant frown.
Then she blinks, seeming to realise that someone else is now in the room with her, and turns to him.
"Chopper? What's wrong?"
He doesn't realise he's twisting his face to stop the tears from falling until he sees concern spread over her features, and he sniffles.
He's not here to get comfort, because no part of this was done to hurt him.
(There was no rejection, no harsh words, even when she looked so far away she could be the one who forgot all about them.
There were only bad coping mechanisms, and he's come here to make sure they're replaced by something worthy of his First Mate.)
"I brought Elynna some medicine, but she refused to take it."
He doesn't say that said medicine has nothing to do with what happened two days before, and Nami doesn't have the medical knowledge to question anything he said.
Instead her frown hardens, and she swipes whatever she was looking at off the table while muttering a few choice words under her breath. Then she gets up to march out of the room, heels clacking as loud as the frustrated energy that lines her every movement, and he trots after her.
By the time they reach the girls' room, he has almost sent the mug flying three times.
Nami barely stops at the door, having done half of the trip hopping on one foot to take off her shoes, and as soon as she enters, she stomps up to the bed, places one foot on it and hoists herself up to go and stand over Elynna, her bare feet framing the hips of the other girl before she kneels down.
Their First Mate opens her eyes, and blinks.
Chopper's eyes jump between the two of them.
"I didn't think we would end up like this in this kind of circumstances-"
Nami's eyes narrow, bright and dark with anger.
"Lynna." She interrupts through gritted teeth. "I love you, and I love your jokes, but I'm really not in the mood for this."
Chopper nods firmly.
"Evading conversation through humour is banned from this room until further notice. Doctor's orders."
Dark eyes flicker to him, but Elynna seems more resigned than angry.
Then Nami forcefully jabs a finger in the direction of the medical concoction.
"Drink this. Now. And don't think that Chopper will warm it up for you. Cold medicine is what you get for being difficult."
The next breath Elynna sighs out is just a bit louder, but she doesn't protest, so Nami reaches out to take the mug Chopper holds out to her before joining them on the bed, and Elynna sits up just enough to drink it without making a mess.
Then she falls back, and closes her eyes as if she just expanded all the energy that kept her awake.
Nami looks down at her for a moment, leans to the right to place the mug on the nightstand, and then lets herself fall on the side of Elynna that Chopper isn't on, settling on her back as well, one side of her body pressed tight against that of the other girl through the sheets.
The three of them stare at the ceiling as the minutes tick by, breathing synchronising without much thought.
And then-
"You're angry." Elynna says.
(And suddenly the joke makes more sense to Chopper.
Communication is usually something Elynna understands the importance of,
but she rarely stands her ground if it means that any of her crewmates will actually be angry with her.)
"I'm not." Nami denies stiffly, furrowing her brows at the thin crack running a strange shape on a portion of the ceiling from a pillow fight that Luffy once initiated with Usopp and Chopper.
She should definitely ban him from her room before her maps take the brunt of the damage.
If Lynna really wants to sleep with him, she can do it in the boys' room.
"It's okay. I hurt you."
The navigator stiffens some more, features shifting into an outright scowl.
"... Fine. I'm angry."
"Why?" Chopper probes.
"Because you gave up." She snaps, directing the answer at the girl lying next to her.
"I know."
"And you didn't even try before giving up!"
"I know."
"Did you really have this little faith in us and our ability to find a way to solve the problem?!"
"... There's always someone stronger." Elynna eventually says softly.
(She feels her mouth smile small and bitter, because it has been a long time since she has ever thought the words plot armour as anything other than a joke to herself.
But just then she wishes she believed those words a bit more two days before,
believed this world and these people to be a bit less real than she feels them to be down to the marrow of her bones where the hurt and the warmth she came to know here seeped and engraved itself.
Maybe things would have hurt less, then.
Maybe she wouldn't have hurt them, either.
But no matter the fact that she can't get rid of the knowledge that might just wear her mind down to snapping threads if she thinks too much on it, it doesn't feel real enough to protect her from everything in this world that touches her.)
And then, even softer-
"And at that point, there was no 'us'."
Nami gnashes her teeth and stays silent, so Chopper takes it upon himself to reword the question.
"Do you really have so little faith in yourself and your ability to live without anyone?"
Their First Mate's body moves between theirs in what might be a shrug in response.
"Maybe, maybe not. It's not really a matter of faith or ability. I just have no interest in it."
"But why?" Nami hisses, fingers curling tight around the wrist closest to her.
Elynna blinks at the ceiling, and thinks of telling her of how she literally should not exist.
(Of how this world, as far as she's aware, is following the course of a story, perhaps because she has not caused big enough changes.
Of how she wants to do just that, is planning for it.
Of how her first thought upon realising that Fang was not Fang anymore was that maybe, the world was giving her a warning precisely because of this.
Of how Robin might have followed after the rest of them.
Of how maybe this was the world finally reacting to the unwelcomed presence of a parasite and getting ready to erase it.
Of how she thought there was no point waiting for it if whatever time she had left to live was going to be this painful and empty and utterly pointless.)
But that would hurt her, so she doesn't.
She thinks of telling her that a tiny part of her was, maybe, waiting for it.
(A tiny part of her that didn't particularly want to die, but that never particularly wanted to live, either.
A tiny part of her that was tired.
Tired of all the effort and the responsibilities and the decisions that living implies.
Tired of the world, even before she discovered how much it can really hurt her, or how much it can really scare her.
Tired of how utterly terrified she can be these days, even if she has learned to steel herself against it and move instead of freeze.
Tired of how her body almost never scars, and yet in the gaps between two shots of Hebi's medicine she can feel all the things that should mar her skin.
And for that tiny part of her, the possibility that her death might hurt those she loves was the only reason to hold on.
Being forgotten was… a unique opportunity.)
But giving up doesn't belong with a member of the Straw Hats, and she's shown more than enough of that already, enough that showing any more might just get her disgust on top of anger.
So she doesn't.
And instead she gives them the closest thing to the full truth that she can.
"Because I might not really have a dream like you do, but this was my worst nightmare."
Nami's frown slackens into something less angry and more pained as she presses her lips together against the memories of almost silent sobs and nails digging into skin.
She turns her head just enough to run her eyes over what she can see of Elynna's face, before looking back at the ceiling.
Then she tries to imagine coming back from a hunt and finding everyone, everything ripped away, ripped to pieces.
The hand resting on her stomach clenches into a fist that crumples and twists the fabric of her t-shirt in its hold, while her other hand tightens again around Elynna's wrist.
The only thing she can think about, the only thing that she's rather sure she would think about if this happened, would be to seek revenge.
Rush for it.
Never stop.
But there's herself, and then there's Elynna.
And Elynna, she's quite sure, would be much less interested than her in taking revenge for herself.
Not if it means risking what and who she has left, because she prefers to cut her losses than gamble.
Not if she has nothing and no one left to go back to once her revenge is over.
(And she thinks of the few times when the hunt ended badly, when the end seemed so far, like the low light of dying stars outshined by the burn of her wounds.
These times when the daydream of what it would feel like to be free again -to be free to be happy again- and the lives of everyone she ever loved were like physical weights steadying her when she wanted everything to just-
Well.
So they're not alike, and she can't quite understand what went through Lynna's head for her to have been this stupid for the better part of a day, but-)
She sighs harshly through her nose, and loosens her hold around Elynna's forearm before lifting both their arms towards the ceiling.
Then she digs into a pocket of her shorts with her free hand, and reaches up for her best friend's hand.
Elynna's eyes blink open, and stare at the thin, long chain tangled into their interlocked fingers.
Most of all, though, she stares at the oval-shaped locket dangling from their clasped hands, engraved with abstract curves.
it's already open, the steel of the inside engraved on one side with all their initials and covered on the other facet with a picture.
It's a picture they took not long after coming back down from Skypiea, on a day when they stopped to chill on a deserted island for a barbecue day.
The picture was taken when they were all staying under the shade of the trees to rest from the heat of the afternoon.
They're all here, and they all look so young, Robin included.
The scars on whatever parts of their skin show are almost easy to forget, and their smiles are almost as bright as the real ones.
Nami watches the girl next to her stare and stare and stare without blinking, watches her swallow and forget to blink away the few tears that still make it up to her eyes.
She clears her throat, and squeezes Elynna's fingers tighter, smiling a bit when the bed groans under them as Chopper shifts into his biggest form to engulf both of their hands and her gift into his own huge hand and the soft, short fur that covers it.
"Happy birthday. And next time you think you're alone, take a look at this."
Her First Mate nods tightly, still staring at the picture above them.
"Promise?" Chopper demands more than asks.
"... Promise."
Nami smiles more frankly this time, and even more so when she hears the happy noise coming from the doctor's side.
They stay there for just a bit, watching the light be reflected off steel and glossy paper to the sound of their breathing.
Until Elynna's mouth quirks up the tiniest bit.
"Once we've taken care of the Merry, I'm getting a bigger bed."
Chopper flushes hot and embarrassed, and even if neither of the girls can see it, they definitely feel his huge form squirming bashfully.
Nami reaches for the pillow under her head, and swings it over herself to smack Elynna lightly in the face.
"Sorry, I'll turn ba-"
"A. Bigger. Bed." Elynna repeats flatly in a deadpan tone that somehow perfectly conveys why would you accommodate my bed when I just told you I want to accommodate my bed to you?
Chopper pauses for a moment as his brain catches up with that, and then smiles a beaming smile, now squirming for an entirely different reason.
Nami sighs, fond and long-suffering.
"And chains. I'm gonna need chains, too."
The navigator gapes, startled, and heaves herself up just enough to better convey her weirded out look.
"... To tie Sea King up when he moves too much in his sleep, obviously." Elynna explains flatly when she catches sight of it. "Get your mind out of the gutter."
"Yours lives there 24/7! Of course I would think you meant it for something weird!" Nami screeches as she wacks her with the pillow again.
"Ow."
"You liked it!"
"Cover your eyes, Hebi, things are about to get-"
Nami only gives the reindeer the courtesy of one warning glance for him to turn back into his smallest form and get out of the way before she slips her fingers out of Elynna's hold and shoves the other girl out of the bed.
Her roommate lands with a hard thud that draws a satisfied smile to Nami's lips before she sits up and clambers off the bed.
"What are you doing on the floor?" She snickers. "Get up."
"Yeah, Elynna! It's time for lunch. Sanji made lasagna today!" Chopper adds with a giggle.
"But I'm not hung-"
"If you miss another meal, Sanji-kun might actually cry, you know." Nami goes on airily as she bends down to grab Elynna's hand again and haul her up.
This time there's no protest or resistance, and she sends a thankful glance at Chopper for the inspiration, because of course that's what would get her best friend to be compliant.
The doctor receives the silent praise with a sheepish smile and a squirm, and then opens the door to lead the three of them towards the kitchen.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Hey."
There's a bout of silence on the other end of the line before sound filters through again, soft and rustling like limbs slowly moving between bedsheets.
"... Ignis." Elynna says, but it sounds almost like a question.
The realisation that this is only the second time he's the one calling her instead of the other way around comes abruptly like a punch from a blind spot, and Ace winces.
"Yeah." He confirms, clearing his throat when his voice comes out still a bit too raw with the apologies he just swallowed.
"Do you… need something?" She eventually asks, slow and cautious and a bit like disbelief.
(As if this is a dream and she's trying to stretch it out as long as it can last.)
Suddenly, Ace finds himself wanting to burn something.
But he's on his boat with nothing worth burning as far as the eye can see, so he has to make do with breathing in deep to cool down everything in him that sears and scorches with the idea that she might think she can call him just to check on him and annoy the hell out of him but that he won't do the same.
(Will only ever need her as a tool to kill a man who is worth so little, so much less than she is.)
"Nah," he says as he looks down at his Den Den Mushi, "but I bet you do."
"... What?"
"Luffy sucks at keeping contact, but he figured I would want to know if one of my friends wasn't doing well."
Silence.
Silence so, so heavy, like the weight of tears that stays stuck in your throat and makes everything hurt in that suspended moment before you manage to swallow them down.
And then-
"... I fucked up." Elynna whispers, small and rough and not quite spoken, torn with a drawn out whimper between the quivering realisation of abject failure and self-loathing so deep it feels like she's reached out to scoop it out of his own stomach and voiced out the sound that might come out of him if he ever spoke the words.
There's a sizzling sound of sniffling and a tear falling too close to the sound system of her own snail, and Ace surges to his feet, the Striker almost turning over from the abruptness of the movement.
He pays no attention to that, gritting his teeth and pacing as much his tiny boat allows.
(It's a boat built for speed, but that changes nothing.
Because he's not there.
He's not with her, nowhere close enough to hold her against him and be sure that she's not breaking herself to pieces, breathing like she is right now through her mouth the way people do when they're trying not to cry, lips screwing shut and twisting sometimes because not breathing becomes the only viable solution when even passing air seems to invite the sobs clawing up their throat-
His fingers twitch, and his arms ache, and it feels like he'll be cold until he can touch her and be sure that she's alive and safe, even from herself-
But he's not there.
No matter how much he wants to.)
"I can't believe I was stupid enough to hurt them this much-"
It seems to be the only thing that bothers her about the fact that she came this close to killing herself, and he hates how scared that makes him.
Because even he has a goal in this life that doesn't involve making his brothers or his family happy.
But-
"I love you." He blurts out.
(But if this is the only reason that holds her back right now,
then he'll make damn sure that it will hold her back until she finds another reason, or doesn't need a reason at all.)
Silence falls abruptly, and he sees the eyes of the snail resting at the bottom of the Striker widen.
He shuffles on his feet, and goes on when the silence only stretches.
"Yesterday morning I read what you gave me in the package again, and I wanted to call you to help me cross check some info I got -you know I'm not good at that kind of stuff."
I didn't forget about you.
"... I was worried when you didn't call last night, too." He finishes more softly.
You're not the only one who thinks about us.
He hears her swallow, and there's something wretched yet avid in her voice when she speaks again.
(Wretched yet avid like longing.)
"… I'm sorry about that, too."
He pauses, and finally sits back down with a sigh to make sure that she can see the unimpressed look he sends her via their respective Den Den Mushi.
"Are you being serious right now? I can't believe you're the one who told me not to dodge the point."
"I'm not." She answers, voice now mostly clear of the roughness of incoming but permanently unshed tears. "I'm still sorry."
He clicks his tongue, and rolls his eyes.
Maybe he did deserve some of the slaps he took to the back of his head these last few years and Sabo's long-suffering stares, after all.
"Whatever. Just call me next time my little brother can't help you."
There's a pause, before the left corner of her mouth twitches.
It's not a smile, so it probably shouldn't make him feel so proud of himself, but it does anyway.
"I will. Sorry Sea King bothered you so early."
"Don't sweat it. We wouldn't be exactly friends if you were the only one of us giving help to the other."
"That's… true." She says slowly as the snail tilts its head to blink at him.
Then her lips twitch again, just a bit closer to an actual smile.
"Thank you."
He smirks, but then lets the curve of his mouth melt into a grin the way it wants to.
"That's better."
They stay silent for the few minutes that follow, and he listens as her breathing progressively goes back to its normal pattern.
As she consciously matches her breathing to the sound of his own to do so.
And even if the words he's been trying to say for some time now have come out, their weight still feels heavy under his tongue and on his shoulders.
It makes him shift with the awareness of it, just a tiny bit embarrassed about having said the words.
He's always been more keen on using actions to convey that kind of meaning.
He can't even remember the last time he actually used words for it, especially words this… direct.
He feels something like warmth creep up the back of his neck as his thoughts keep looping back on it, and in the end he defaults back to their usual mode of conversation in an attempt to get rid of it.
"If I knew that's what it would take to shut you up, I would have said it sooner."
There.
She deserves payback for all the kicks she gets from teasing him, anyway.
But then the face of the snail shifts to suggest the slow rise of an eyebrow that it doesn't have, and he knows that he's screwed up.
Because his brother's First Mate does not get embarrassed about this kind of thing.
Ever.
"If I knew that tears got you going like this, I would have cried sooner. I can even beg, if you want-"
He reaches up to slowly drag a hand down his face.
"Goddamnit, El."
Her lips twitch.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Zoro barges into the girls' room when he has enough of waiting, and finds Elynna sitting alone on the bed and looking out of the window.
She's not lying down, which is an improvement.
But she's not on the deck so he can put her through the wringer until she realises how strong she actually is.
(Because like hell he would let a weakling give him orders,
and if he looked only at physical strength he wouldn't have stepped a foot on the dingy boat her and their dumbass of a Captain crashed into his life with.)
So not enough of an improvement.
Unfortunately for his First Mate, if he has to drag her out the way Nami and Chopper dragged her to dinner, then he has no problem doing just that.
She turns to him when the sound of the door closing registers in her ears, and he meets the stillness of her eyes with stony eyes and crossed arms.
Her shoulders slouch with a silent sigh that tells him she knows why he's here.
"You're skipping." He says anyway.
"I'm tired."
He scoffs, and it's loud in the heaviness that plagues the air.
"Bullshit. You spent the last three days in bed and nothing's changed. You're not tired. You're moping."
Her hands that lay folded in her lap flinch with something like shame, but he doesn't need to see that to tell he's hit a sore point.
He doesn't even know what is worse between the fact that she can't validate her own pain if someone she loves shows even a hint of disagreement, and the fact that he doubts it's anyone's fault, so he can't even wash his anger in someone else's blood.
It just infuriates him more, and his jaw clenches tight with it.
"I don't care how justified it is. There's no point to it if it doesn't make you feel better."
He shifts away from the door he's leaning against, arms uncrossing so he can rest one on the hilts of his katana.
"Put something on and hurry up." He tells her, because even if they're going to train the weather is definitely not a match for the shorts and sports bra she's wearing.
And fuck if he's going to let her catch a cold and use it as an excuse to sink back into that silence where nothing comes out of her and nothing seems to reach her -whether food or words.
She looks at him for a long moment before her eyes slowly drift towards the closed wardrobe where her clothes are kept.
Her shoulders slouch inwards a bit more, as if just a glance is enough to steal whatever energy she mustered up that morning and make her want to sleep for ten years to make up for it.
He scowls, and crosses the distance between them, dumping the white shirt he slipped out of in her lap before she can let herself fall on her back.
"It wasn't a suggestion." He snaps. "Put that on."
Her only answer is to blankly glance between the shirt and him, before finally reaching out to put it on.
The shirt falls down her midriff, and she looks up at him like she can't do anything without being told to.
And then she opens her mouth.
"I might need more motivation to actually get out of bed. Could you take off the res-"
"Like hell I will." He growls with a heated glare. "That would make you stay in bed, not get out of it."
"Well, yeah, but we'd still get a pretty good workou-"
Deciding here and there that she has enough clothes to make do, Zoro bends down and grabs her by the waist, hauling her up with him as he straightens up to throw her over his shoulder.
One of her hands presses against his back to stop her face from smacking into him, but other than that she doesn't put up a fight at all when he starts heading for the door.
Instead she relaxes in his hold, forehead coming to lean against his upper ribs silently.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
A few minutes later, Zoro reaches the room Usopp usually uses for his training with Elynna and some of his more dangerous experiments.
Closing the door behind him, he tightens his hold on the back of Elynna's thighs momentarily to draw her attention, before rolling his shoulders to shake off her weight, letting her use his arm as a support to get down.
He watches her for a moment, half-sure that she won't even be able to stay on her feet.
But she does.
It's just… different.
He's used to seeing her move around like she's aware of both her own body and their training space, because she utilises both to the fullest, movements traced with purpose and half-thought out plans flickering through her mind.
Now, though, she stands there with muscles loose, not to prepare for any and all movements, but like someone who has already decided to lose.
Someone who wants to be done as soon as possible.
It's an attitude that promises a performance which will be somehow even worse than the one she gave him when he first started training her.
He loathes everything about it, and he won't stand for it.
"So. What are we starting wi-"
He swipes a low kick at her feet, steps forward as he unsheathes a katana just enough to brutally dig its hilt into her stomach, and then grabs the back of his own shirt to throw her through the air.
She hits the ground hard, before rolling to a stop.
She doesn't get up, and he doesn't move to help her or apologise.
"What… are you doing?" She coughs eventually, turning her head just enough to watch him from the corner of her eyes.
"I should be the one asking that." He snaps back without much heat as he crosses his arms across his chest. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You're the one who told Luffy you wouldn't try to kill yourself as long as we're here, so why aren't you sorting out your damn mess?"
She stares at him for a bit longer, and then her gaze drifts to the ceiling.
"I'm… tired." She repeats quietly, eyes slowly falling shut.
He scowls harshly, feeling the simmer of his anger pulling at the features of his face, and walks closer to her, until his booted foot is almost pressing down on her shoulder.
"Move it." He snaps.
She tilts her head against the ground, opening her eyes to stare up at him.
"Make me." She says, and the shadows that fall over her face look more like a plea than defiance.
His mouth curls down into a frown only until he remembers the way her shoulders slumped when he entered her room, and he finds himself considering the possibility that it might be due to something else than resignation.
(To relief, maybe.
Because as she is now, she isn't capable of picking herself up alone.
Stuck in her mind, and stuck in her bed.
And apparently, she's come to the same conclusion.
He doesn't know if she's asking for help in such a roundabout way because she thinks a First Mate should be infallible, but-
Make her?
That, he can do.)
He slides Kuina's katana out of his haramaki, and flips it to press the tip of the scabbard hard against Elynna's sternum.
"And if I don't want to?" He challenges with a raised eyebrow. "You're just going to stay like this? Luffy might accept to keep a burden like that on his crew, but I sure as hell won't. If it comes down to it, it will be either you, or me."
She jerks under him at that, pain skittering along the round curve of her jaw, and he pins her down harder until the corners of her lips tick up in a wince.
Then he changes his angle.
"Either way, it'll be a pain to adjust next time we get into a fight. Nami and Usopp are still too used to you doing your best to keep an eye on them. Not that it'll be my problem," he shrugs in dismissal. "I won't stick around long enough to see them get hurt-"
Her palm smacks hard into the back of his calves, and he lets it, having expected her to lash out.
What he doesn't expect when his back meets the floorboards harshly is the elbow that strikes at the stitches on the side of his forehead.
He rolls away and to his feet on instinct, one hand already reaching out to assess the damage before he's even fully up.
His vision sharpens on the blood that stains his palm even as a thin trail of it trickles past his mouth.
He looks up, mouth splitting open into something a bit too violent to be called a smile as the blood taints his teeth.
"You're a bitch, Lynn." He informs his First Mate idly as he wipes a hand across the lower half of his face.
"You started it, Fang."
His smirk widens as anticipation melds within it, and he unsheathes two katana, more than ready to wipe the floor with her for that little stunt -and for making him too tense to sleep properly for three days in a row.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna steps out of the training room to leave Zoro to his solo workout regimen, and blinks, covering her eyes from the sun with a hand that is still faintly shaking with leftover adrenaline and the accompanying physical strain.
Her crewmate definitely didn't go easy on her.
He may have gone harder on her than he ever has, actually. She lost most of their spars -not that it really matters.
She breathes in, the air a stinging, salty kind of freshness, and she feels-
Not good, but…
Okay.
She feels… okay.
Her mind is still wiped blank after spending two hours in a state of focus where overthinking has no place, and all the muscles in her body have gone slack with exhaustion.
The good kind of exhaustion, the kind that makes her want to sleep as in take a nap instead of a lose consciousness and fall into a coma kind of sleep.
Still, she makes a note to herself to look into some meditation techniques after everything Zoro told her about the change in her presence, because she's evidently not as good at compartimentalising her feelings as she would like to be these days.
And she has a theory about how the intensity of her emotions might relate to the intensity of her presence, because if the latter was as noticeable as Zoro makes it out to be all the time, she doubts she would have managed to remain unnoticed around civilians in the last islands they visited, let alone sneak into-
She pauses in her reflection, pressing a hand against her stomach.
She's hungry.
The feeling is almost strange, but not unwelcome.
(She misses mealtimes.
Hermes' food.
The territorial fights initiated by Sea King.
The noise, even.
Most of all, she misses the warmth of being together with all her crewmates
-of being happy, and of seeing them be happy-
and suddenly the last few days feel like a century of something too close to solitude.)
So she turns to head towards the girls' room to change into clean clothes, and in the meantime throws her head back to drink the last of the bottle of water Zoro brought to the training room before coming to take her.
Sanji, who was jotting down some notes about a new recipe in a small notebook while heading to the boys' room, chooses that moment to look up, and gapes at the unexpected sight of a drop of water trickling down her throat and into the wide cleavage of Zoro's shirt.
And then he promptly walks into the door that Usopp just opened.
Blinking at the loud, thumping sound, the sniper steps fully out of his room, and looks down to find the cook cradling his bruised nose -and a furious blush.
There's a moment of silence where they stare at each other before Usopp blinks again, somehow managing to put an impressive amount of judgement in the motion.
"... I want to apologise," he eventually speaks up slowly, "but somehow, I feel like you totally had this coming, so I'm not going to."
Sanji glares.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Nami is about to raise her mug of tea to her mouth when she hears the door of the kitchen click open, and she looks over her shoulder curiously.
She jolts so hard at the sight that greets her that she almost send half of the mug's content into her lap, but she's too busy staring to notice it, because-
It's Elynna.
Alone, without anyone to drag her in.
Looking almost as present as she used to be.
She hurriedly sets her mug on the table.
"Lynna?" She calls out hesitantly.
Her roommate's eyes fall on her, and she looks at her.
Nami blinks, and then suddenly Elynna is right next to her seat and bending down to press a hand on the chair, close enough to graze Nami's thigh as her other arm wraps around Nami's shoulders, drawing her closer into a hug as tight as possible given their awkward position.
For a moment Nami can't do anything but freeze, startled and unused to being in the position of the smallest one out of the both of them.
"... Lynna?" She repeats, suddenly unsure whether her First Mate is really okay.
She tries to draw away, but the hand still pressed against the center of her back stops her.
"Nothing." Elynna's answer comes out soft like a kiss against her temple. "I just missed you."
Nami's breath stutters.
Then she chokes out the sob that wants to come out to smile instead, and it feels like a sigh of relief and breathing out something she's been holding in for days.
She launches further into the hug, arms latching around Elynna's waist and squeezing tight.
"Not as much as I missed you, you absolute idiot." She laughs against Elynna's shoulder.
She feels her best friend go lax in her arms, and tightens her own hold fiercely in response.
"You know I love you, right?" She whispers intently.
"I know, Rain. I love you too."
Nami breathes in the familiar scent of Elynna's skin, satisfaction curling possessively around the base of her spine before she eventually draws back, pushing down on the other girl's shoulders to force her into the seat next to her.
"Are you hungry?"
Elynna hums with a nod, and Nami can't help the probably slightly stupid smile it prompts out of her.
"I'll make you some hot chocolate, help yourself to the food. But first-"
She reaches out a hand to drag Elynna's chair closer to her, and then starts buttoning up the large grey shirt the First Mate is wearing.
The girl in question freezes in the middle of reaching for the raspberry jam, and raises a questioning brow at her.
"It's not for me." Nami snorts in response to the silent question. "I'm trying to save Sanji-kun from an early grave."
"Too late for that." Usopp chimes in as he steps into the room and heads straight for the coffee pot, eyes flickering to Elynna and then Nami's discreet nod before he reaches for the chocolate powder to make his First Mate's beverage along with his own.
"What do you mean?"
"He's already dead." The sniper deadpans. "Bled out. Buried. Gone rotten."
Nami stares at his back, then at the button she's still fiddling with.
Then a mischievous smile spreads, and she starts unbuttoning Elynna's shirt again.
Elynna takes one glance down at her steadily expanding cleavage, and bites into her toast without so much as a blink.
"May his soul rest in peace and his body remain to bless us with his foo-" Usopps starts to say as he turns around while the water boils and the milk heats up.
He stops as he registers the situation, and promptly chokes, slapping a hand over his eyes.
"Nami! What are you- And you!" He exclaims with a finger blindly jabbing in the general direction of his First Mate. "Tell her to stop, damnit!"
"Please stop, Rain."
Nami pouts even as she starts redoing some of the buttons.
Usopp sighs in relief.
"You should at least wait until we're in private."
Usopp groans, glancing at the ceiling for divine help.
Nami laughs.
The sharpshooter still gives Elynna a mug of hot chocolate in his boundless generosity, and then slides into the chair opposite to her while still grumbling under his breath.
When he glances up for a moment and notices the amused look both girls exchange, he glares, and launches one of the bite-sized brownies Sanji made that morning at Elynna's face.
Except Elynna opens her mouth, ducking down just enough to catch it in her mouth.
Usopp gapes.
"You- You did not just-"
"Nice, Lynna."
"I told you to stop using the skills I teach you against me!"
"... But you're the one who threw that."
"Well be a good student and let it hit you so I can laugh!"
"... What kind of training does he make you do, Lynna?"
"The weird kind."
"Don't say it like that! She's going to think-"
"You mean the kinky kind?"
Usopp's mouth snaps shut, and he sinks forward until he hits his head against the table with a loud moan.
Elynna pats his hand, and he slaps hers away half-heartedly with a grumbled insult.
Nami takes advantage of his position to reach out for the brownies on his plate.
"What does it say about me that I'm still glad you're feeling better?" The sniper mumbles defeatedly from behind the cover of his crossed arms.
Both girls exchange a glance, and turn back to him.
"Weird things." They answer simultaneously.
"... I'm leaving."
"Thanks for the brownies!" Nami beams.
Usopp swipes the plate away from her hand with a vicious glare, and then picks up his mug as well for good measure.
"I'm leaving with my brownies."
Then he sniffs haughtily, and marches out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
"... Do you think he noticed how many of his brownies are missing?" Nami inquires in the following silence with a smile that trembles with laughter.
Elynna takes the last of the brownies Nami gathered on her own plate, and inspects the small piece of cake.
A blood-curdling scream reaches them through the thick wood of the door.
"Yup." She confirms as she pops the sweet in her mouth.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Miss First Mate," Robin calls out when dinner ends, drawing Elynna's attention from where she's half-lying over the table, drained after struggling against Luffy's hold restraining her from getting up to help Sanji take care of the dishes while Nami hurried to take her place. "Would you like to keep me company for my shift?"
Elynna blinks slowly but critically at the smile the historian directs at her.
She tilts her head, cheek smushing just a bit more against her crossed arms.
A bit stiff, and no genuine amusement or softness glossing over its curve.
Malleable like well-worn plastic.
Huh.
Still sprawled all over her with the distinct ease of someone who's made of rubber and thus feels none of the discomfort anyone would feel when doing the same while still sitting in their own chair, Luffy stiffens ever so slightly, the arm slung across her stomach tightening just a bit for the few seconds it takes him to consciously shut down the thought of what the heartbreak he saw on the face of his First Mate barely a week before can make her do from the height of the crow's nest.
But when the body under his shifts and strains against his own, he lets up, his other arm trailing over the muscles of her shoulders and neck as he draws back.
Elynna gets to her feet with languid grace, stifling a yawn behind her hand even as the fingers of her other hand scrape lightly against his skull in silent confirmation that he can trust her, and his mouth settles back in the familiarity of a smile as he catches the glint of the light against the closed locket resting between her breasts.
"Sure." She says, gesturing for Robin to lead the way.
She follows the older woman out on the deck and up the main mast towards the crow's nest, joining her to lean against the railing of it.
Several minutes come and go with only the murmur of the night breeze to keep them company.
Elynna breathes it in, eyes roaming the sky splattered with the faltering glow of the stars and the moon, made ghostly by clouds so thin they could be smoke.
She's listening distractedly to the modified version of Sleeping Beauty that Usopp is telling Chopper and Luffy (which involves the dragon being actually a super cool uncle figure who is not keen on giving up his precious niece to a frankly shifty Prince) when Robin finally speaks.
"You lied to me."
"Did I?" She murmurs to the cloud of white heat that comes out of her mouth with the words and evaporates along with the one created by the woman whose arm is just close enough to hers to imagine that they're touching, even if they're not quite there.
"When you told me that everyone you knew died."
The question hits bluntly, and she breathes over the sting of it with practiced ease after so many months of work to tame the pain into a duller kind of ache.
"... Ah." Elynna says simply, tilting her head without looking away from the line of the horizon her eyes have fallen to and knowing that her mouth almost looks like a smile. "But I never said that. Although I guess I did lead you to think something along those lines."
Her eyes drift to the hand that lays on the railing, fingertips just inches from her own.
She watches them flinch against the wood, and looks up to find Robin's eyes already on her, almost silvery in the night, with just a touch of cold to her amusement.
"What for?"
She shrugs, and doesn't look away.
"Because I figured that if you could take pity on someone, I could give you a chance."
Because regardless of her other motives on the day when they shared this conversation in the Going Merry while sailing away from Alabasta, she had already decided to not rely too much on the script of the story as she knew it in her head, considering both how little she knew of it and the fact that her very presence and lack of knowledge could change important things without her knowing about it.
As far as she's aware, this world might be only loosely related to the story, and that includes the personality of the people living in it.
Putting her safety in the hands of people she trusts based on a story instead of information from this world was one thing.
Putting the safety of her crew in the hands of these same people is another thing entirely.
"... A test, then."
Elynna hums as she looks away again.
She sees Robin do the same from the corner of her eyes, and listens as the archeologist breathes out a sound that stretches in the grey area between sigh and laughter.
When she speaks again, her voice is slow, as if she's not quite sure she wants to say the words even as she lets them out.
"Why… did you not tell the others anything until you had to?"
Eyes staring distractedly at the inky waters ahead of them, Elynna cocks her head, thinking less about her answer and more about the assumption engraved in the hollow of those words.
Why did you not tell the others, whom you trust, unlike me?
It's a wrong assumption.
(It's a bit too late to not trust her.
It's hard to love without trusting, after all.)
But she supposes it's not a surprising one.
She doesn't trust the world to treat Robin kindly, or Robin's ability to not keep them in the dark if what might happen does come to pass, and that can easily be misinterpreted.
All the same, she stretches her hand, inching forward until she can thread her fingers through the thinner ones of the older woman and cradle them in her hold, just loose enough to allow for escape.
Robin stiffens next to her, perfectly still except for her breaths.
But she doesn't move away.
Elynna quirks her lips up at the almost hidden moon.
"I guess… For the same reason you do, Robin."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Robin blinks up at the clouds, mind unpacking the words slowly, almost hesitantly.
Because I didn't want to touch them with the risk -the danger- that chains me down.
Because I didn't want to risk being left behind if they decided it was too much of a danger for them to deal with.
Because I love them.
Yes, she thinks.
This sounds exactly like the First Mate of the Straw Hat Pirates.
She deliberately folds down the sound of her name without any polite suffix attached to it coming out of the girl's mouth, and gently hides it away in one of the many, many dark corners of her mind.
(It's the third time.
But it's the first time that the girl uses it deliberately, just because she can, instead of wielding it as a tool to assert her authority on her.
It's not a nickname, but it's an offer, a hand being held out.
The choice is in her hands, and suddenly Robin finds herself wondering who, between the two of them, is really the most distrustful.
The most scared.)
She sighs in the night, and closes her eyes, knowing that in spite of all of this, even after they met that man and all her crewmates were made aware of how little they know about what she has done and who she has been before she became Robin of the Straw Hat Pirates, even if they wonder and still don't ask-
She knows that the words won't come out of her own mouth.
"How did I do on that test?" She murmurs, not quite sure she wants to know -she was not a perfect picture of pity, after all- but curious all the same.
(Then again, she's known for a long time that her own curiosity is perhaps the thing that hurts her the most in this world.)
"Are you fishing for compliments? Nico Robin doesn't fail a test." The girl next to her tells the sky as if commenting on the weather, allowing the change of subject graciously.
Robin finds herself smiling again before she can think about it.
But they're wrapped in empty air and dark night, and they're not looking at each other.
So she lets it happen. Lets it stay.
"A history test isn't exactly the same as a niceness test, Miss First Mate. The World Government did name me the Demon Child, after all."
The girl mutters something under her breath that sounds very much like goddamn drama queens, and Robin's shoulders twitch in silent amusement.
"Well," Elynna eventually begins, and this time there's definitely a touch of a smirk in her voice, "guess you could say that I'm probably going to hell, but at least I confirmed that I'm not really against the idea."
Robin blinks slowly, bewildered.
"No?"
"Nah. You're definitely not as bad as all that bringer-of-eternal-torture stuff. And it helps that you're so beautiful. Are looks like yours the norm for demons, or are you an exception?"
Robin blinks again, feeling even more confused and a bit like she's suddenly stepped into an alternative dimension, or perhaps a dream.
(Because the word rings out in the blank expanse of her mind
-beautiful beautiful beautiful-
but it finds so few echoes in her mind, echoes so ancient and washed out they feel like illusions,
illusions that cave and warp beneath the weight of the shadows that follow and drown them
-shadows of monster monster monster demon murderer-
and she struggles to recognise the word, to feel its weight and have it settle in her mind like it can belong there without relating to centuries-old stones and ink or memories that look alive but smell of burning pages and melting flesh and flaming trees.)
"Even when I break someone's neck?" She whispers, swallowing when she realises that it comes out just a bit too tight to be entirely and solely amused.
"Especially when you break someone's neck." The girl replies without missing a beat.
Robin jerks, finally turning to look at her, and she's already looking back, the corners of her lips barely lifted up.
But even if the stars were visible enough to confuse her, the glint in her eyes is definitely too cheeky to not come from her.
Robin blinks at the sight, and blinks again after that.
Then she closes her eyes, and allows her mouth to slip into a smile again.
It was the last answer she expected, but coming from the girl in front of her, maybe she should expect it.
"If hell is a place of sin the way some people describe it, then you might just fit in enough to skip over the whole torture affair, Miss First Mate."
Elynna shrugs, an impression of a smirk still fluttering playfully at the edge of her lips.
She looks supremely unapologetic, and perfectly aware of it.
"Anything that is done elegantly is attractive, whether it's reading a book or murdering random assholes whose names shall not be mentioned here."
It takes a moment for Robin to realise that she's laughing.
She only looks back at the girl next to her when she finally calms down.
She finds that her dark eyes are still set on her, warm and indulgent and-
She swallows, and tentatively returns the hold of the calloused fingers around hers.
"I think… You might be more similar to the Captain than I first thought, Miss First Mate." She says softly, more to distract herself than anything else.
(Because she knows-
She knows that she shouldn't be doing this,
shouldn't indulge the reindeer's requests for hugs,
shouldn't feed the sniper's curiosity about all the weapons that have existed through history just to keep him talking to her,
shouldn't look at the straw-hatted boy's back and find it so reassuring,
shouldn't cherish every dish that the cook brinks her so preciously,
shouldn't be so amused whenever the navigator unleashes her fierce temper on any of the boys and then turns around and calls her Nee-chan or gushes at the doctor's cuteness or fires something flirty in the direction of the First Mate, all the while ignoring any comment about her favouristic tendencies,
shouldn't be so touched that for all the reluctance the swordsman has shown towards her continued presence in the crew, he was the one who moved to block Aokiji's first attack-
She knows.
But even as a child, she could never stop the visceral reaction that made her reach out and clutch tight tight tight whenever someone offered a hand instead of throwing words and stones and blows.)
"Well… You're certainly the first one to say that." Elynna comments, looking a bit confused as well now before she shrugs. "I hope you're not comparing our table manners, though."
Robin's lips quirk up again.
"I am not, although yours might end up being messier than the Captain's if you actually stab his hand at some point."
Chin propped in the palm of her hand, the girl glances at her, and then suddenly huffs out something like laughter, soft and muffled in the fingers that cradle her jaw, like a secret between the two of them.
It's the closest thing to a laugh that has come out of her since the both of them woke up to people whose memories they were erased from, and Robin clutches the fingers in her hold tighter at the realisation.
(Tighter, until she can't tell who's squeezing the closest, the tightest between the two of them.)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
So.
Yeah.
Elynna is kind of fucked up in the head lol
The Davy Back Fight is already supposed to foreshadow the Water 7 & Enies Lobby combo along with the associated angst about losing your crewmate and all that, but I watched this and I just… couldn't NOT add another thick layer of (extra angsty) foreshadowing of it just for Elynna.
Sometimes, I stop and think for a second about everything I'm putting her through.
Really, I do.
But then I continue on my merry way, because writing this shit is cathartic and enjoyable as hell.
#FTSFact11: Opening Five 〜 Gold trickles down, and the Straw Hat Pirates follow, freefalling through the sky. Only Usopp and Chopper seem to be concerned about that fact. Elynna isn't so much anymore, now that she's tied herself to the main mast of the Merry, leaving her to go back to her newspaper in peace.
Keeping guard atop the crow's nest with the First Mate half-asleep on his shoulder, Usopp suddenly spots an island through his spyglass and waves excitedly to catch the attention of his crewmates, leaving Elynna to fall off him and crash on the floor even as Nami turns around from where she's surrounded by the rest of the crew to let him know that they have reached their temporary destination, sending Chopper running to correct the ship's course.
On the island, Elynna and Robin discuss the book the latter is reading under the cover of a tent while Usopp entertains everyone else around the fire, and a few hours later half of the crew has turned into a cuddle pile of haphazardly twisted limbs and bedsheets for the night, which Zoro and Robin stay far away from to avoid the fallout in the morning while Sanji enviously scoots closer even in his sleep.
Spoilers of what is covered:
The Straw Hats in Water 7.
The Foxy Pirates think they look cool.
The Galley-La Company looks cooler.
Luffy tries to hit an Admiral and gets iced over for it.
Wannabe gangsters try to attack Zoro and get sent flying for it.
A random green-haired grandma.
Sanji beating an idiot's face in. Literally.
Usopp's handmade boat being pretty damn resilient.
Chopper Gets Hugs And Does Not Like It.
The Galley-La Company looks cool because its members are CrazyTM.
Usopp and Luffy scream at each other, which means they fail to see Elynna coming up behind them -or the knife in her hand for that matter.
Chopper is pissed, and a building explodes. Yes, it's related.
Also it is now apparently a thing for Nami to wield a gun and there's no channel to file a complaint, so don't bother.
In the end, the Straw Hats still smile.
Last but not least, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, great holidays and the best for the end of this year and the beginning of the next one!