can't do well when I think you're gonna leave me, but I know I try

by gifffery

Summary:

Luffy dreams of a man. He doesn't know who he is. But he has an idea.

Notes:

this fic was inspired partly by Empire of The Sun's We Are The People. Title also comes from the song. (you might see some of the influence from the song in this fic)

I did the song on loop while I wrote this. < /3

I debated making the title "We know everything about us"

Luffy dreams of a man. He doesn't know who he is. But he has an idea.

His hair is dark. It's not long, but it's longer than his own.

The dream isn't always the same. Some times they're on a cobbled path other times they sit on the dirt in the middle of a forest. In some dreams it's just the two of them, in others there's a third person. But in every dream before he can reach out, before he can touch the man, he wakes up.

When he wakes up from these dreams there's typically no commotion. He doesn't wake up panicked or scared all the time, but there is something. He wakes up some days with an overwhelming sense of loss. He wakes up drenched in sweat and with a desperate ache between his ribs.

There's one night in particular. He had fallen asleep in between Robin and Nami on the dock after an especially filling meal. When he wakes up he gets up slowly blinking once then twice. The previous whispered conversation happening between the two women trails off.

"Luffy, are you alright?" Robin asks concern evident in her tone.

"Yes?" He says almost obnoxiously.

"Well it's just that you're crying, Luffy. Did you have a nightmare?" Nami finally spoke up.

Then he blinks once then twice and he breaks for the second time.

He tells them about the boys he grew up with. He tells them about his turbulent childhood. About the woman who cared for his brothers and him.

He laughs as he talks about the time they tied him to a tree as bait. He describes the unforgiving weather. He describes the sticky summer nights they spent in their tree house.

He also talks about loss. He speaks of the boy who never got to grow up.

He doesn't talk about Marine Ford. He knows they know what happened, so he skips it. Instead he talks about the nightmares.

He talks about being too weak. He was too weak to save his brother and too weak to save his crew.

He describes the feeling of having blood run through your fingers. He tells them it feels so much worse when it's the blood of the one of the people you love most in the world.

Then, finally, he tells them about the man he dreams of. He doesn't know who he is. But he lets them know he has an idea.

He's never seen his face. It's always been covered. Sometimes by the glare of the sun's rays. In one of the only dreams that features more than the three of them, his face is obscured by unrelenting sand.

In the dream he almost hesitates to call a dream, there are billows of smoke, a raging fire, and an overwhelming sense of loss. In this dream he can barely see the man's hair, but he can feel the warm almost burning blood that coats his hand.

These dreams pass by in hazy images. Like photos that can now only be described as grainy, but he knows few things.

The man's hair is dark. It's not long, but it's longer than his own. He has a brilliant smile. He is the strongest person he knows.

His big brother, the person he'll love forever, has never left his mind or heart.

 

Since Ace's death it felt like a piece of him went missing.

There were so many memories shared between the three of them that now only Luffy has the privilege of having. There are parts of him that only Ace had access to.

There is no one now to call him their stupid kid brother.

Luffy has learned to live without Ace. He had to. That doesn't mean, though, that it doesn't hurt. Sometimes after a particularly exciting adventure, he thinks about how he can't wait to tell his brother.

He remembers that his brother isn't just out at sea having his own adventures. His brother is dead.

 

“He told me once he would never die,” Luffy whispers, “I don't know how I'll ever repay him.”

“Well Luffy, all of us, strawhats, owe him a great deal too. He saved our captain after all. And he took care of him until we were able to take over.”

Notes:

I sobbed the entire time I was writing this.

I feel like this a bit of a word vomit, but i dgaf we ball.