Chapter Text
Looking back, Luffy thinks he might have always known that Law was deeply sad. He hid it well, with his big words and confident smirks, but those smirks never quite reached his eyes, and were never quite smiles. Law was outwardly cocky, bold, and dangerous. To the Marines, that’s all he would ever really be: a dangerous pirate, a Supernova. The Surgeon of Death let his devil fruit speak for him.
But Luffy remembers the lawn outside the auction house, with Kid to his left and Law on his right. They were in the midst of battling Marines, with weapons, limbs, and even heads soaring. At the time, Luffy had been on top of the world, and had felt the pirates’ joy overwhelming the Marines’ fear, a golden bubbly aura that encompassed the entire field.
Now, Luffy realizes that there was something missing from his memories. He can’t remember Law’s laughter. Maybe a small self-satisfied huff or two, but nothing like Luffy’s own shi shi shi , or even Kidd’s sharp cackle rumbling up from his chest.
Luffy wonders if that was enough to tip him off, even back then.
But in this present, Luffy wonders if Law is broken inside, the way he is now. If someone or something had been ripped from him like Ace was torn away from Luffy.
Here, in the aftermath of Marineford, Law had been quiet. Nothing like the cocky and self-satisfied Supernova on Sabaody. Luffy hadn’t seen much of him since he woke up, too stuck in his own grief to focus on those around him. He had, however, seen the man’s crew as they had attempted to stop his rampage. They looked like good people (and bears!), and Luffy likes that. He bets they’re good for Law.
Everyone needs someone who understands them.
Luffy likes Rayleigh. The old man always seems to have an interesting story to tell over dinner. Of course, Luffy doesn’t want to hear the most interesting of Rayleigh’s stories, that’s one he’ll get to live out himself one day.
But the stories of crazy islands with even crazier animals? Stories of Roger’s crewmates with their wild antics and legendary skills? Stories of Shanks ? Luffy could never get enough.
It’s with his boundless energy that Luffy approaches their campsite. He had gotten better at taming the beasts over the last year. Now, he barely even gets chomped at!
“Old man!” He calls, flinging himself through the trees, “Old man! The gorilla didn’t even swipe at me today!”
He skids into the clearing, but Rayleigh isn’t standing to greet him as usual. He’s quiet, sitting next to the bonfire. His eyes are unfocused and it’s clear he’s lost somewhere in his own memories as the fire crackles and dies in front of him.
He’s less sharp around the edges; his presence frayed and torn in Luffy’s mind.
Tonight, Rayleigh doesn’t look much like the legendary Pirate King’s equally-legendary first mate. Tonight, he’s just a man. A normal, ordinary man who has lost so much of what made him whole.
Luffy isn’t quiet by nature, but even he knows when he needs to walk carefully.
Ace generally needed Luffy to be loud as he proclaimed how much his brother mattered to him, but there were nights when Ace just needed Luffy to sit by him and show him that he wasn’t going to leave. Luffy isn’t sure if he ever really helped Ace fight off his demons, but he’ll never regret his continued attempts to try. So he’ll try here today for Rayleigh.
Luffy takes his spot across the fire. This might take a while, but Luffy’s got a whole ‘nother year before he has to meet his crew. He’s got time.
“You’re from the East, right kid?” Rayleigh’s voice is gruff and gravelly, as if he hasn’t spoken all day.
“Huh? Oh, yeah! Foosha Village!” Luffy brightens.
“Foosha ,” Rayleigh breathes. The way he says it, with lengthened vowels and a soft shh , stirs something in Luffy’s chest. It reminds him of the songs Makino would sing to him as a child, or the muttered rants of Dadan’s bandits when they thought the brothers couldn’t hear them. It’s comforting, in a way Luffy doesn’t hear much on the Line.
On the seas, most people just speak in Government Standard. The diversity of speech of their home islands lost in favor of easy communication and crew unity.
Bits and pieces of their homes peek out through the cracks, though; it’s heard in the way Northerners’ consonants trip over themselves in their rush to come out, the way that Westerners always seem to be asking a question even when they’re not, or the South’s melodic rhythm. Those from the East claim her sleepy a waves in their vowels and reflect her easygoing nature in the cadence of their speech.
Folks from the Grand Line, at least the ones from Paradise, are the outliers. Their speech is picture perfect. Even the small regional differences along the islands aren’t too noticeable, as the World Government rigidly enforces language education in its countries.
“ I didn’t know you were from the East, old man!” Luffy exclaims. He hasn’t really used his Eastern in months, afraid that doing so would mean leaving out some of his crew. It feels strange in his mouth, as if his tongue has forgotten its taste.
Rayleigh’s mouth turns up in a small smile, “ Aye, both me and my captain. It’s nice to know you speak it too. It’s like he’s still here. With me. Through you.” Luffy can see the glint of tears in Rayleigh’s eyes from across the fire. He doesn’t need to ask who both of us were.
Luffy’s not sure what to say. He’s not Roger. He doesn’t really want to be.
Sure, one day, he’ll be King of the Pirates. He’ll wear Roger’s crown and bear Roger’s legacy, but he’ll never be anyone but Luffy. He doesn’t want to be.
But knowing that Rayleigh feels Roger’s presence through him stirs something in his chest. He’s never really thought that something as simple as speaking a language could make him feel like this.
From then on, Rayleigh’s nightly stories are told in the soothing sounds of Eastern.
Luffy carries that memory with him over the next year and beyond. Sometimes Rayleigh’s soft “It’s like he’s still here,” echoes through Luffy’s head. He’s thought a lot about it, at night when the air drifts cold and quiet across Sunny’s deck.
He’s taken watch a lot more since he reunited with his crew. His sleep has been better, surrounded by his nakama and their love again, but he finds that he had gotten used to being on his own back on the island. Never lonely, never alone, but by himself. He had learned to spend time thinking, remembering, and planning for what was ahead. He’s still not a strategist by any means; he mostly runs on instinct, which drives Nami crazy, but he’s gotten better at listening to his thoughts.
This evening, as his crew sleeps peacefully below deck, Luffy sits on Sunny’s figurehead and stares up at the night sky.
“It’s like he’s still here,” Luffy barely breathes the Eastern words. They float like a breeze through Nami’s mikan trees, and off into the stars.
Ace’s eyes flash through Luffy’s mind.
“He’s still here,” he repeats, barely more than a whisper.
Ace’s smile, so cocky and sure of himself.
“He’s still here.”
Ace’s laugh, bright and acerbic.
“He’s still here.”
Ace’s fire curling golden around him, keeping him warm in the cold night.
“He’s still here.”
Ace’s blood seeping through Luffy’s fingers, hot and wet.
Luffy stutters.
He gasps for breath but nothing seems to fill his lungs. He can’t see, can’t hear, can’t think. He can only feel Ace’s blood drip between his hands, his brother’s choking breaths as he breathes his last. He can only feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears as Ace’s own splutters and dies like rain sizzling against embers under his palms.
He is being pulled under by the weight of his own memory.
He is drowning in his brother’s cooling blood.
He had never learned to swim, even before he ate his devil fruit, and he cannot comprehend how he is ever expected to surface from this.
It seems to go on forever. Luffy wonders how long this will take to kill him.
A voice cuts through Luffy’s panic, “I’m here.”
He uses the reprieve to gulp down air but it isn’t enough. He’s still drowning.
“I’m here. I’m here, Luffy. Breathe.” The voice calls again. “Breathe, Captain.”
It’s that word, the Eastern Captain, that starts to pull Luffy out of the sea.
Captain.
It’s who he is. He is captain and he is from Foosha. Other seas may have their own words for a ship’s leader, but the East has this.
Captain.
Luffy’s never been called Captain before, or at least, never seriously. He and Ace always argued about becoming great pirates, but not captains. Almost as if, even in their dreams, they couldn’t imagine their crews as anything other than their equals.
Now, he doesn’t know if he can go another day without hearing it. Captain.
The voice seems to notice his change, “I’m here, Captain. We’re all here.” A hand comes down on his shoulder, grounding him further.
Luffy breathes in, and it finally seems to reach his lungs, “I know, Zoro. I know.”
“You’re right, though, Captain,” Zoro continues, “he is here.”
Luffy’s eyes snap to his swordsman, still trying to catch his breath. Zoro’s the realist, the one to tell it like it is. He’s not one to believe in silly things like spirits or a life after death. And yet, Zoro’s eyes are trained on the night sky above.
“You heard me?” Luffy asks. He had thought he was alone on the deck, with his whispered mantra kept between himself and the stars.
Zoro doesn’t respond. He just stands there quietly.
Finally, “It’s like she’s still here too.”
Luffy’s not entirely sure who she is for Zoro; his crew’s pasts are their own, but he nods all the same.
And so the night passes like that with a Captain and his swordsman sitting quietly in the presence of those gone before.