Chapter Text
There’s a noun only used at Fuusha Village that represents yearning, a feeling of missing anything held dearly - a person, an object or even phases of life. The first time Luffy uttered it, his nakama grew confused and inquired whether he had made the word up. Such an occurrence confused the captain, who wondered why it wasn’t part of the lingua franca, but his crew easily grasped the meaning, as it was a sentiment so common in daily life. Saudade was the name. It was possible to feel saudade of your old toys, the smell of someone’s cooking or the sun rays that used to shine on your bedroom during childhood.
In Luffy's case, he was experiencing it in the form of his old crewmates.
The sky was blue when the straw hat found the One Piece. Laugh Tale had been just like Robin described on the readings of the poneglyphs: a joke on itself, its existence so absurd people who stumbled upon it couldn’t help but laugh. Luffy hadn’t been an exception, only for the fact that his eyes watered with sad tears, and the wish that anyone he ever loved could witness the completion of his dream.
In reality, finding the treasure was not the key for Luffy to become pirate king; he had long guessed it was the case, since the ruler could not hold the crown without their crew. What had fueled his trip to the place were the sacrifices the Straw hats made for him to reach that point, writing adventures in their own blood. Time told people a new king had taken the throne, a man who had the highest bounty of the world, putting a Celestial Dragon fortune to shame and faced down Emperors of the Sea at the ripe age of 19. Believers and non-believers existed within the crowd, though none of it mattered, as Luffy had not accepted the title.
For him, he was just the failure of a captain who couldn’t protect his crew.
In the past, Luffy stood proudly against all odds, never looking back at his actions. Whatever was done had been filled with certainty, no take-backs or regrets embedded, a reliable back carrying the wishes and prayers of whoever crossed his path and showed an inch of kindness. Despite his unpredictability, Luffy’s line of action and thoughts only faced forward, the future at sight. The voices of the past were mere pieces forging his adventures, never letting their claws cage and restrain him.
The turning point was a cruel one, in the name of Zoro. The first mate was a steel wall, the only one with enough power to put a stop to whatever nonsense Luffy had decided to tangle up, and was obsessed with the thought of getting stronger. The straw hat had never asked the reason, since deep down he knew it was tied to Zoro’s loyalty towards the crew, a love expressed in the form of protection. In the end, it was Luffy who wasn’t strong enough to notice an attack directed at him, obligating the swordsman to take the hit.
That was the first step to the downfall of the straw hats.
Like a castle of cards, after one of the foundations was removed, each of the pieces fell at an abnormal pace, and all Luffy could do was watch. His rubber powers bestowed on him allowed his arms to stretch indefinitely, but they weren’t capable of stretching fast and far enough to save his crew. Sabaody was a neglected lesson, a mark on his life that reminded Luffy how weak he was and what it would cost if he did not change.
(He failed to notice strength was not the one variant on a battle, but mindset too).
So, in the place of a boy who laughed and grinned in the face of danger, a 22 year old man whose hands were stained in his nakama’s blood woke up on a boat.
Luffy woke up at Sunny, which was surrounded by water hurricane serpents. The familiar creek of wood was wet against his feet, and although it was raining cats and dogs, he could pick up voices screaming at each other, a buzz on his ear that Luffy had not heard in years. Unlike his nightmares, the screams carried a mix of excitement and fear, euphoria running on their tongues as they were in the eye of the storm and still surviving, holding their ground.
Of course, it had to be another illusion, memories pouring in as the captain recalled old adventures, until they drowned him, bringing forth sorrow and saudade.
Luffy hated it, hated with a passion how his mind played those tricks, throwing him on the past to once again remind him of his failure. At this point, guilt was becoming a long time companion, and Luffy would like it to just leave and let him experience life like before. It was selfish, to let the past take the dying face of his crewmates and wish to leave it behind, to start another adventure without them.
But he couldn’t take it anymore, his brain was not brilliant but what it was doing was pure cruelty.
So he raged against the sea, beating the shit out of the serpents who had the nerve to reform and strike Sunny once again. However, Luffy did not give up and kept throwing punches left and right, in hopes of calming his fury. He was fuming. He was angry. He was…being pulled by a familiar hand.
“Luffy, calm down! The storm has passed, we are safe! What’s up with you?”
Luffy blinked two, three, several times before looking at the face of his cook. Sanji had his left eye covered, eyebrow twirling at the end of it and a wet cigar between his teeth. His blonde hair was lighter, probably because of the rain, and his face implied anger, though Luffy could look at the blue eyes and see worry painted on them.
Never had an illusion touched him.
“Luffy?” a soft voice called out to him, albeit younger and more honest with its feelings.
Sanji’s figure in front of him was becoming blurry, whatever movement caught was only a blur of colors and Luffy felt his heart accelerate. It was beating on his chest like it wanted to leave it, to cut it open and run as it was only getting tighter, and his head followed the same action. Despite the painful banging inside his body from both mind and heart, at the same time he could feel nothing, as if he was drowning on the sea, as if his soul was trapped in a rotting corpse that refused any command he gave. Distantly, he heard a thud, only to notice it was the sound his knees made as they came in contact with the wood, and his lungs decided to abandon him too, making Luffy do the manual work.
The thing was, he could not remember how to breathe.
Panic coursed on his veins and made the task harder, he wished to ask for help but his voice did not come out, no words were forming on his tongue and his stupid mind was unable to form anything coherent. What helped the straw hat through it was the very same jovial voice. It kept talking to him at a slow pace, and soon another one joined, though more raspy and melodic, followed by clacks of bones. They asked questions that he absent-mindedly answered, regarding sensations, smells, noises, easy things like that. The sky was blue, there were seagulls flying low, it was a hot and humid day.
Luffy caught the word “breathing” and repeated the command to follow the rhythm.
In, then out.
They continued like that for some time. Luffy could not in his life tell how long it took for him to finally calm down and, as the stress left his tense muscles, his stomach lurched, and he ended up spilling its contents on the floor.
His helpers asked for consent to touch him, and Luffy nodded. Soft paws gently held his sticky hands, a smell of flowers invaded his nostrils as someone massaged his back, then threading his hair off his face. The buzzing stopped, and the straw hat tilted his head up to find a group of people who, instead of being painted in blood and devoid of any life, were very much alive and unhurt.
Just very concerned.
This was not an illusion.
“How...” he coughed and someone handed him a cup of water, instantly gulping down. “How are you guys here? Did I die?”
The hairy figure, Chopper, spluttered “NO! You are not dead! And what do you mean how? Wasn’t it you who recruited us?”
Luffy scanned his surroundings and indeed, he was at Sunny before everybody went to train on their own. Nami, Sanji and Robin had shorter hair, Zoro had two eyes open, Usopp lacked a ton of muscles, Franky looked more human than cyborg and Chopper wore his old hat. Only Brook seemed unchanged by time.
This was 5 years ago. How was that possible?
“Are you feeling better now?” Robin asked, still running her long fingers on his hair. In all honesty, Luffy felt his body was weighed down by tons of sea prism stones with a tiny Usopp hammering his temples like the frequency he used to hammer Merry Go, which was all the time.
“Yeah, I’m fine”, he answered instead, breaking into a wide smile to soothe the worry on his nakama’s face. That apparently worked since they all dropped their tense shoulders.
“You made us worried. What happened, Luffy? How are you wearing clothes I didn’t buy? Did you use our money without me knowing? And where is your hat?!” The last question was almost shouted, and set the crew to run through the ship, not needing any order from Luffy to find his treasured hat. Nami had asked many things and he knew she did not need an answer right away, it was just her way of showing worry while maintaining a distance. Her habit was picked up during her time with Arlong, his fish-men crew quick to anger whenever she, a human, expressed any sort of concern upon them, a sort of humiliation “no proud fish-man would easily accept”. So Nami showed her concern with a scolding tone.
The captain of Thousand Sunny laughed at the commotion, insides feeling warm upon the display of respect and love held for him.
“Sorry sorry, don’t worry about my hat. It’s where I want it to be.”
“But it’s your treasure! Didn’t you have a promise with Shanks regarding it?” Sanji intervened, no longer being able to hide how stupefied he was. Time and time again the hat had to be saved and stitched back with how often they ran into trouble. And time and time again all of the straw hats put their lives on the line to save it, almost as if the piece of straw was a crewmate itself.
Luffy simply shook his head. “It’s really okay. I am sure it is safe too”. He turned to Robin and Chopper. “You two can let me go now, thanks for the help!”. Contrary to his words, Luffy did not want to let go of the warmth that surrounded him. The textured paw gave a sense of grounding and the fingers on his scalp were nice, they assured him this situation wasn’t a trick of his mind. But Luffy was a captain first and foremost, the main pillar of support. He wasn’t letting his yearn for comfort cloud his actions.
Brook approached his captain and offered a bony hand to help him up, which Luffy took gladly, as his legs felt like jelly. He recognized one of the voices from earlier as Brook’s, and would have been surprised the skeleton knew how to handle his episode had it not been a certain conversation they shared over tea. The leaves were brewed specially by the skeleton, a sort of peace nesting on the ship as all the straw hats slept, for the exception of two.
“You see, loneliness does quite a show when it reaches a certain point. When nothing can be offered as a comfort to you in the present, it searches on the past, digs up memories you would rather keep buried than surfaced.”
“Wouldn’t you feel happy to see the faces of your old nakama?”
The skeleton stirred his tea with a spoon on his teacup, lost in thought. Luffy knew Brook had sailed far away from where they sat. It was interesting how expressive the musician was, even if he didn’t have facial muscles.
“As easy as a human can change their mind, a memory can achieve the same. What once were sweet memories of me playing with the Rumbar Pirates, became sour the moment the context they surged changed.”
Right away, Luffy wanted to disagree. How could the face of a loved one bring pain? What refuted his opinion was the feeling of Ace’s arms. They were the reminder nothing was ever lasting, all things had to come to an end. Throughout Luffy’s life, he found many places that he deemed safe, where he seeked comfort and reassurance; first was Shank’s hip, then Ace and Sabo’s side and then Zoro’s back. None of them lasted till the end, their arms were warm but also cold reminders things always came to an end.
That day, he thanked Brook for the extra dose of tea to help him through his sleep. Without it, Luffy was sure he would’ve pulledl an all-nighter.
A pleading voice interrupted his thoughts in the form of Tony Tony Chopper.
“Luffy, if you need to talk, you can always count on me, okay? I am the doctor of this crew, let me know what is hurting you so I can fix it!” It was a childish request with a shallow promise of fixing, like all the problems of the world could be solved by reading a book.
Nonetheless, the words made Luffy feel better, because at the end of the day what mattered the most was not an answer to his problems, but the thought that his nakama were alive and safe.
A follow up of grunts and nods revealed the crew’s desire to help Luffy, and he found himself letting hope consume his heart, whispering that yes, this was his crew he so loved and he was in the past.
Before the captain could stretch his arms around everyone and give a group hug, a prick on his stomach made itself known and, as Luffy looked down, he saw nail lines adorning it. That explained why his nails were sticky. So he steeled with shaky steps and went to the bathroom to check the damage.
In the washroom there was a cracked mirror big enough to fit Luffy head to waist. All mirrors that weren't in Nami's or Robin’s room were broken in some way, since men often bumped them with force. As a result, it distorted their image in funny ways. The first time it happened, Luffy and Usopp laughed so hard they had to run to the deck to gain air, their lungs emptying once they looked up again. So, as a tiny prank from Sunny, the ship wiggled whenever someone was in the bathroom so they could bump on the mirrors, resulting in all of them being cracked.
Luffy looked at himself and racked his brain, trying to remember how he looked 5 years ago. Surely, the scar on his chest did not exist, so he opted to close down his shirt, and the trustful hat wasn’t there, so his image was a bit incomplete, a ghost sensation of something sitting on Luffy’s hair. Should he try to mimic his old self too? The man kept tugging his face around the edges to copy the baby fat his face had when he was 17, to no avail. Defeated, Luffy decided to just act like himself. It would be too troublesome and annoying. He exited the bathroom to ask Sanji for food, but stopped on his tracks when a sea king showed up in front of them.
Green and blonde hair jumped and attacked the creature before it had any chance of doing anything, knocking it down. The force of their attacks made the animal spit two mysterious figures, landing on the deck unceremoniously.
A woman with green hair and fish tail, and a starfish wearing a bonnet were dropped.
Camie and Pap…something. They repeated their actions from the first time Luffy met them, explaining their situation about a friend who was kidnapped by a bunch of bandits. During the back and forth, the captain chose to remain silent, much like a spectator watching a memory play like a movie. It felt weird, since it made him feel detached from the present as he knew what happened in the end. Jumping blind on adventures was more to his taste, so to experience the same adventure twice….Luffy couldn’t say whether he liked it or not.
Maybe one thing or another would be different and, if it was too boring, he could pull some sticks to make it more fun.
While the others were talking with the two new occupants, Zoro, like a shark smelling blood, approached his captain sensing his distress.
“Oi Luffy, you sure you are ok?” From afar, anyone could say Zoro was relaxed, as if nothing bad was happening or would for the next hour. Hell, even standing near the swordsman some would say that, but Luffy, who knew his first mate like the back of his hand, noticed an anxious hand clinking one of the three swords in and out of its scabbard, a habit to soothe his nerves. Sometimes a finger or two got caught in the blade, drawing blood.
That wouldn’t do.
“Give me your hand.”
And Zoro did without question, like the devoted man he was. It weighed awkwardly and too sweaty on Luffy’s hand, action not coming naturally as the right hand man did not have a habit of touching others if not for lethal purposes. For Luffy, however, it was perfect.
“I’m okay now.”
It was unfair of him to deny comfort yet accept depending on who it came from. Nonetheless, Luffy couldn’t care less for such inconsistency when it was about a man he had not seen since he was 20. For now, the captain would let himself bask in the presence of Roronoa Zoro, his most loyal companion.
“So, whose butt we gotta kick?”
It earned a snort from the green haired man, as Luffy summarized every situation with whose ass he had to kick.
“A bunch of bandits who fly in fishes, I guess.”
The nonchalant response to the absurd affair made Luffy giggle.
"Let 's go, then! Camie, Starfish, don’t worry! We will help you.”
For now, the straw hats’ captain would let his damaged mind believe in this sweet reality and fight with every muscle of his body to ensure that, this time, none of his crewmates would leave with unfulfilled dreams. He wouldn’t let them fall prey to self-sacrifices, absolutely show them there is no need for such. Monkey D. Luffy will set sail with a crew of dreams that will definitely come true.