Chapter Text
Lucy's head slumped against the kitchen table, narrowly missing her bowl of cereal.
Ace frowned next to her, grabbing her by the hair to lift her up. "What's wrong with you?" he asked. Her big brother peered at her face, as if trying to find anything he could scrutinize. It was always funny to her that he had become so perceptive; back when they were kids he had always been the first one to pick a fight or cause trouble.
Now he berated her whenever she got into trouble. Lame.
She batted his hands away, rubbing at her heavy eyelids. "Fine," she answered, yawning. "Just tired."
Sabo gave a hum of thought from her other side, inspecting her from afar. "You certainly look tired," he agreed. "Didn't sleep well last night, Lu?"
Lucy could never lie to Sabo so she shook her head. "No," she told him truthfully, ducking her head. "Guess I got a lot on my mind." Of course, she left out the part about the weird dreams she had been having lately. Some of them were pleasant, fun even. Others... not so much. For the past few nights she had been plagued with nightmares about drowning.
Drowning wasn't something she'd ever worried about, not since Shanks had made sure she could swim as well as a fish after she almost died as a child. But these dreams were worse than that. In them, she couldn't move at all. It was like her brain was shut off, refusing to listen to her.
It was scary.
"Maybe you're too stressed," suggested Ace, shrugging. "It might be a good idea to pull you out of swim-"
Lucy through her spoon at him. "No way!" she hissed. She didn't know what she would do without swim. It was her entire life, she loved the water like it was part of her own body. "If you pull me out, I'll... I'll..."
Sabo laughed, pinching her cheek. "Easy, baby sister," he cooed. "We won't pull you out. But it might be worth it to look into medication to help you sleep."
She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms. She loved Sabo, but he treated her like a baby! Of course she knew why; it was because he still saw her as a baby. After Sabo had been adopted out of Dadan's house, it had just been her and Ace for years. Sabo hadn't returned until she was thirteen. She knew he couldn't stop looking at her like she was still seven.
Ace rolled his eyes. "If Gramps knew how much you spoiled her, I think he'd regret letting her live with us," he said dully.
Lucy shivered at the mention of their grandfather. She still wasn't even sure how Ace had convinced him to allow her to live with him, but she would always be thankful. She (begrudgingly) loved Gramps, but she hated living with him. He was absent and strict, so unlike her big brothers who doted on her with love and affection.
Sabo rolled his eyes. "Better spoiled than neglected," he pointed out. She and Ace couldn't argue that.
A car horn rang out and Lucy beamed. "Zoro and Sanji!" she realized. She loved Zoro and Sanji almost as much as she loved Ace and Sabo. But they had been acting weird for a while now. Like the fact that Sanji went with Zoro to pick her up, when he lived right near the school. That was weird! She wondered what the problem was.
If something was bothering them, she wished they would tell her. She could fix it!
Sabo scowled. "Stupid brat cook," he seethed.
Ace snickered. "I like him," he defended, ruffling Lucy's hair. "He's very polite."
"You mean when he isn't ogling our innocent little sister?"
Lucy stuck her tongue out. "I gotta go," she told them, shoveling the rest of her cereal down. She wiped the milk dripping down her face and grabbed her bag, running out the door. "Bye, guys!"
"Bye, Lu," her brothers chorused back.
She met Zoro and Sanji out in the front. "You're early today, Zoro," she realized, grinning. Normally. Zoro would get them to the school at least ten minutes late. Maybe that was why Sanji had begun to join them? To make sure Zoro didn't get lost? Yeah, that made sense! She climbed into the backseat, right behind the blond.
Zoro just grumbled at her and started the car. Typical Zoro.
"Lucy, my love, you look gorgeous today," Sanji complimented her, but like the past two weeks something was off with the way he said it. It was... softer. More genuine, maybe?
She pouted. "Does that mean I don't look pretty every other day?" she asked in her best impression of a sad face. Sanji sputtered incoherently while Zoro laughed. She liked making Zoro laugh.
Lucy's phone vibrated in her pocket and she took it out. Eyes scanning over the name, she scowled and shoved the device back in her pocket; it was too early to deal with this bullshit.
Unfortunately, the movement didn't escape Zoro. "Something wrong?" he asked, peering at her from his mirror.
She shook her head. "Nope," she told him, ignoring Sanji's pointed look. And it wasn't a lie, nothing was wrong. She could handle it by herself. "You just focus on not getting us lost."
He scowled at her. "I don't get us lost," he said adamantly as he drove down the wrong street, regardless of the GPS giving him explicit directions.
"Zoro!" Lucy complained.
"You idiot!" snapped Sanji, kicking him.
~~~
By a stroke of luck, the three made it to school on time. Lucy immediately dragged Zoro to homeroom so that he didn't get lost. She liked homeroom because she could pester him for forty-five minutes straight and he was usually too sleepy to stop her. Lately, he had been wide awake some mornings, but that never stopped her before.
However, there was one thing she hated about homeroom and that was the fact that Bellamy was in it.
He couldn't do much to her with the teacher there, but his presence was enough. He would stare at her and give her looks that made her insides churn. She'd had to set her phone to do not disturb because she had quickly learned that he craved getting a reaction out of her. As long as she ignored him, she won.
Lucy stood up, making her way towards the door. "I'll be back," she told Zoro who she was sure wasn't paying attention. He gave her a thumbs up, though it was clear he was dozing off.
She was just going to the bathroom. It should have been an easy trip, no more than five minutes. But things were rarely that easy with her.
"So you think you can just ignore me?"
Lucy didn't allow herself to flinch, just turned around to face him. She didn't think she was a good judge of beauty, but there was something about Bellamy that was just so unattractive. The way he looked at her made her skin crawl and his voice made her ears burned.
But still, she said nothing.
Bellamy seized her upper arm. "Such an uppity little bitch," he remarked, his smile ugly as he leaned in close to her. "Think you're all that, huh? Someone should humble you."
She wasn't dumb, not all the time at least. Lucy knew why Bellamy bothered her and what he wanted from her. He wanted to humiliate her, to make her feel less than human. He desired her and wanted her to know that he had the strength to take her if he wanted to.
But Lucy wasn't afraid of him. So she continued to stare him down, refusing to react. Bellamy wasn't going to do anything in school, she was fine.
He roughly took her face in his large hand, painfully squishing her cheeks. "I could take you right here," he threatened. "I wonder what you're like in bed. Probably a screamer ain't you?" It would stop. Soon he would get bored and leave. His threats were empty, he wouldn't-
Lucy's eyes went wide as he pressed his lips to hers.
She had only been kissed once. Boa Hancock had given her a kiss back in middle school after promising to share her dessert. Hancock had been gentle, giving her a few soft pecks before offering the dessert. Lucy had liked it enough, just not nearly as much as the chocolate cake she had gotten to eat.
This was nothing like that.
Bellamy's lips were rough and his kiss was anything but soft. His grip on her face was bruising and his slimy tongue forced its away into her mouth. Lucy was frozen to the floor; she couldn't move, unable to comprehend what was happening. It felt like those dreams where she was drowning, only a thousand times worse.
She suddenly regretted not telling Sanji what was going on.