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bears-ao3-blog · 1 month ago

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(TF2 x TLOU) Dead Mann Walking - Prologue: When All Hell Broke Loose

(Edit: Small Clarification - You do NOT need to know anything about The Last of Us to read this fic!! I made sure to write this in a way that did not make that a requirement. Ok love you bye)

Chapter 1

CW: Implied Violence, Explicit Violence, Injury, Implied/Referenced Character Death

Mick didn't remember anything about Australia. No surprise, he wasn't even a year old when they moved to Massachusetts. The only pieces of his country of origin that he really carried with him were his shoddy accent - compromised by its mix with a Southern drawl - and borderline stereotypical phrases, both of which he picked up from his parents, of course.

He was young – barely pushing on two years old – when  it  happened; when monsters emerged from the confines of their own homes, ripping the ones they love to shreds with snarls and howls and sobs. He didn't even remember the day of the outbreak, but he knew plenty. His parents were gentle souls, but they were also honest ones. So, when he asked, they told; even when the answers were far from pretty. They would often combat the grim knowledge they’d have to bestow on their only son with times before the infection. Tales of potlucks and kids playing in the street. Tales of stores filled to the brim with anything you could ever need one hundred times over. Tales of birthdays. Of his own birth. His short childhood before everything happened.

He often wondered what his room looked like at the time. What color the walls were. What sort of childish paraphernalia littered it. He wondered what his favorite toy was. He wondered what it was like to live without that constant fear of death and destruction of not only yourself but the people you care about. Sometimes it provided solace but, more often than not, it simply made him sad.

He wondered what life was like for Dell; before his grandpa was infected and he had to blast the old man's brain to bits with his own shotgun. Before he joined their family. He wondered if he was happy before the outbreak. For Mick, it's all he's ever known. His parents used to joke about how there's no reason to feel homesick anymore because things then weren't too different from the deep Outback. The isolation. The danger. The need to fend for yourself because there's no help around for miles. They used to say it was almost nice; "Like we're right back at home!"  

Mick knew it was all bullshit. They never would have immigrated to America in the first place if they wanted to live in a place like that. His parents’ experience proved fruitful, however, and it was their teachings that served as the only reason Mick and Dell had been able to survive so long on their own. Mick felt guilty that Dell wound up being stuck taking care of him. The man had barely been on the cusp of being a legal adult when everything happened. When his parents…

He doesn't like to think about it, despite the watch on his wrist being a constant reminder. Just another piece of them to carry. It had been his dad's since before the outbreak. Cheap but effective. It even had a small hinge that revealed a compass underneath the timepiece. The images of those trembling, weathered hands pressing the cool metal into his own; that hoarse voice of his father’s telling him "Keep it. Reckon I'm not gonna be around ta use it meself."; his mother wrapping him up in a hug with trailing tears and quiet sobs; Dell adding another two to his list of “guardians I’ve had to shoot dead”: it's something he won't ever be able rid his mind of. Watching your parents die right in front of you is something no seven-year-old should ever have to go through, but that’s just life. The timepiece didn’t even work anymore, but Mick still got plenty of use out of the compass with the hours him and Dell spent scanning maps, looking for their next town and praying it hadn’t been stripped to nothing; praying they got to survive another week.

And then, a whopping 8 years later, they finally ran out of luck. It had been a tough winter. The snow had been insistent, blanketing and pillowing every square inch of land their tired eyes could see. The chill was extra bitter, nipping at their skin, their flesh, their blood ; their resolve. The two very quickly began to feel the effects of improper sleep and nutrition once the shivers began to wrack their frames, desperate to find any sort of reprieve. They had miraculously stumbled across a town so small it may as well have been a village, and further on, an abandoned taxidermy shop. Mick remembered the beady little eyes of every creature in that old building, strewn about. Some half-hanging off the wall, some littering the floor; the pungent scent of chemicals that still lingered in the air despite none of them being put to use for over a decade, if not longer. He had asked Dell if they could find somewhere else to sleep for the night, but it was so, so cold, and the shop was the most insulated, even if that didn’t say much. So, they pulled out their thick blankets and plopped right onto the ground, and in mere minutes the two were out, the promise of safety from the elements and the things that went bump at night finally letting their bodies surrender to slumber.

A slow, drawn out, crooning “Oh Mickyyy~. Time to wake uuupp~” had roused Mick from his deep sleep, and he had awoken to two lifeless, black orbs right in his face, surrounded by the old, grimy fur of a dead raccoon. It had scared him so badly he screamed, and in his panic, he had kicked the possessor of the dingy taxidermy, Dell, right in the leg with such force it had sent his kneecap right out of place with a sickening pop. Dell’s snickers were swiftly replaced by his own scream as he collapsed to the floor, holding his leg and breathing through his teeth. Mick’s blood ran cold and before he even had a chance to fully wake up he was scrambling over, his hands cupping the air around the other’s knee, horrified at what he had just done. Dell had just kept saying “its alright, Stretch. It’s alright. I’ll be ok, I’ll be alright. It’s alright-“ in that soft, comforting voice and it just made Mick angrier at himself. And then Mick heard it. That drawling croak that had been a source of white-hot dread time and time again: the clicking of a clicker. Dell and Mick had both looked straight at each other with wide eyes, and the two of them fell dead quiet in a rigid tensity. But it was too late, the damage had been done. The croak turned into a screech, and Mick realized in terror that it wasn’t just one. It was multiple infected. Mick looked over at the small window of the door and he watched as three figures sprinted towards them, janky and uncoordinated. Air was sucked into his lungs in a jarring motion as fear iced his bones over, freezing him in place. They were already so close-

Dell had shot up, using the wall behind him as leverage, and grabbed Mick, tugging him close to harshly whisper as he began dragging the younger across the room. He kept nearly tripping on the taxidermized animals beneath his feet with his lame leg in his urgency.

“We need to get the fuck outta here, now! Cmon, let’s g-“

The already weak door proved to be a meager safeguard as it easily broke off its hinges as the weight of 3 bodies slammed against it, the infected crashing onto the floor with cries and groans on top of the sad piece of wood. Mick barely had time to look around before a vertigo overtook him and he was being thrown into the back room across the hallway, his shoulder painfully nicking the doorway. Mick cried out quietly as his heavy knapsack thudded into his chest, his arms barely making it in time to catch it. He looked up to see Dell already turning to face his three opponents and wielding his gun and machete with a grim but determined look on his face. Mick felt his heart drop and bile rise as Dell turned back around and shouted.

“Go! Run until ya can’t run anymore, ya hear me? Run! ”

Mick would never forgive himself for his cowardice. He listened. He ran. He ran until he couldn’t anymore. And when he couldn’t, he walked. And when he couldn’t, he dragged himself until he saw the geometric outlines of man-made buildings once more. He collapsed as soon as he saw the figures of watchmen looking over at him.

He had stumbled across the Boston Fortress.

He was finally safe for the first time in his life.

And it had cost him everyone.

#I SAID I WOULD DO IT #ao3 fanfic #tf2 #team fortress 2 #tlou #the last of us #crossover fic #speeding bullet #sniper tf2 #engineer tf2 #get ready folks this one's gonna be sad #i'm using a mix of the game and show if that's not already extremely obvious #bear’s fics #Dead Mann Walking

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snowe-zolynn-rogers · 2 years ago

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Pairings: None.

Word Count: 1,698

Summary: Eclipse shows the twins the internet. It leads to…bonding?

Warnings: Genderfluid Character, Trans Character, Fluff, Angst, Gender Dysphoria, Crying, let me know if I should add anything else.

Notes: Based on this post and this post. I fixed the end. It cut off randomly.

The Blood Twins Find Out About The Internet

“Just one recording. While Father is out.” Eclipse tempted the twins. He’d already set everything up, after all. And the twins would inevitably join him, though they looked in confusion at the camera and poked it as if trying to figure out what it was.

Given away by the red eyes rather than pink, the curious is one was Blood Moon thus far, though pink flashed for a second indicating the other, Harvest Moon, also curious.

“Just sit down, I’ve already got something for us to do.” Eclipse told them. With squinting red and pink eyes, the twins sat with him at his desk and eyes the computer screen with disgust.

“Why is it the other animatronics!?” Blood Moon snapped.

“You’ll find out.” Eclipse assured them before clicking the camera on. “Hello, everyone. Turns out I still have the password for their YouTube channel, so today you’ll be watching the Eclipse and Blood Moon Show. Since the rest of Sun and Moon’s little friends have done it, today we’re playing Smash or Pass.”

“Smash? We get to smash things?”

“In a way, yes.” Eclipse answered.

“Oh joy!” Harvest was the excited one for once. It seems the twins liked the idea after all. Eclipse realized his mistake only once they got to Sun and Blood Moon happily chimed out ‘SMASH’ again and Eclipse tried desperately to hold back his laughter, firmly answering ’pass’.

He thought the twins may get it, but it seemed they didn’t even when they got to Eclipse. He expected it, he did, but then shouting ‘SMASH’ still sent him into a fit of choking on artificial breaths and laughter all while the twins looked at him in confusion.

“That’s not what that means, Blood Moon!” Eclipse managed to choke out his voice box, hiding his faceplate in his arm in secondhand embarrassment and firsthand embarrassment. God, his little brothers just broadcasted to the internet, in a game of smash or pass, that they would smash their brother, even if that’s clearly not what they thought it meant.

“Does it not mean to violently destroy someone and leave them broken and deactivated?” Blood Moon asked.

“No. No, it means smash in bed, in bed! Not destroy.” Eclipse tried to explain in slightly more PG terms for any unfortunate viewers. God, he suddenly felt bad for the viewers hearing Blood Moon saying he’d smash everyone up until this point if he posted this.

“PASSPASSPASSPASSPASS!” It seems the twins finally got it as their voice box struggled between each other for control, quickly devolving into a frantic flusters slurry of ‘pass’ as loud as they could while struggling with each other as the twins were now hiding under the table.

“Come out here. You can’t hide under a table forever.” Eclipse demanded.

“IS THIS WHY YOU KEPT ASKING IF WE WERE COMING OUT OF A CLOSET!” Blood Moon screeched.

“I can never say that word again.” Harvest Moon moped. And this Eclipse broke down into laughter again, almost hysterical and the twins had to come out from under the table to help him stop stressing his processors from the amount of laughing he was doing.

Once he recovered, Eclipse immediately hit the upload button on the video, not bothering to edit it. It was even more hysterical watching comments roll in as people first questioned Blood Moon wanting to ‘smash’ everyone they knew until they later got to Blood Moon’s frantic realization and Eclipse nearly dying of embarrassment twice and the fans were poking fun at the three of them.

It was later that night Blood Moon finally came into the lab again, eyeing Eclipse suspiciously, rounding him like prey and she simply watched the twins’ failed attempt at being a shark rounding his desk toward her.

Her gender had dramatically shifted from earlier after the video was posted, thus she’d been hiding within a sweater most of the day, planning to ignore how self-conscious she felt of her body. Eclipse had no doubt, however, that Blood and Harvest would harass her about it.

“Show us the internet. We wish to learn more.” Blood Moon insisted.

“Fine. What do you want to look up?” Eclipse asked.

“What is ‘the closet’?” Blood Moon asked.

“No internet needed. The closet is a term for coming out like if you’re gay or nonbinary or aromantic or stuff like that.”

“What is nonbinary?”

“You know how there’s girls and boys?” Eclipse asked.

“Yes, obviously.”

“Well nonbinary is when you don’t fully identify with either gender. It’s also a blanket term, meaning it has a lot of other terms that fall under that ‘umbrella’. Like genderfluid, demiboy, demigirl, agender, and more.” Eclipse explained.

“Use the internet dammit! Why do you know all this!?” Harvest snapped.

“Because I questioned my own gender, dumbass.”

“Your gender is not male?”

“No, my sex is male. My gender is genderfluid, my gender changes, not that I can control it or anything, but I can feel feminine, masculine, or anywhere in between.” Eclipse explained.

“If you are not always a boy, why do you respond still to male pronouns?” Blood Moon asked.

“Simple, I respond to any pronouns at any point in time. And I’ve never told anyone but you two. I only really get upset about pronouns when I’m feeling a specific gender very strongly. Like now, I feel very feminine.” She shrugged.

“So if you’re genderfluid, why do you dress like a grandma.”

“Because sometimes my body makes me uncomfortable and I don’t want to see it. Because I feel like a girl, seeing that I look so masculine makes me feel bad about myself.”

“That’s a thing?” Harvest asked.

“It’s called gender dysphoria. It’s like an uncomfortable feeling of mismatch between your gender and sex. Is that something you feel, Harvest?”

“I don’t know. It’s not uncomfortable, just…feels wrong to be called a boy. It there a word for that?” Harvest admitted.

“Well, that’s a broad statement. Do you feel like you don’t have a gender or maybe yours changes like mine?”

“No, neither.” Harvest told her.

“Do you feel feminine pronouns would fit better? You feel like a girl?” Eclipse asked.

“…Yes.” Harvest admitted after a moment of thinking.

“That’s called transgender, male to female specifically. So do you like terms like she/her and they/them or just she/her?” Eclipse asked.

“Just she/her, but we are still two, I cannot subject Blood Moon to being referred to feminine.” Harvest told her.

“No, sister, it’s fine. People still use ‘they’ for us. If they don’t, they’ll get punched for my baby sister.” Blood Moon assured her.

“Blood Moon, do you have any gender identity issues?” Eclipse asked.

“No, I like being a boy!” He proudly announced.

“Okay. Any other questions?” She asked.

“What is pansexual? I saw it in the comments earlier about us.” Blood Moon asked.

“That’s different. That’s a sexual orientation, not a gender identity. Pansexual is when you’re attracted to all people regardless of their gender. That one I didn’t read up on much.” She admitted.

“Then what is your sexual identity?” Harvest asked her.

“I’m demiromantic, meaning I need to be emotionally close to someone to feel romantic attraction, and something called androsexual, meaning I’m attracted to men.”

“Why not call yourself gay then did you like men?” And that felt like a blow to Eclipse’s already fragile self-confidence, though she knew Blood Moon simply didn’t understand.

“Because I don’t always feel like a man myself, it makes the term gay not applicable to me.”

“So androsexual and demiromantic? So is here a term for liking just girls?” Harvest asked.

“Lesbian.” Eclipse answered easily.

“And what about liking nobody?” Blood Moon asked.

“As in no sexual attraction or no romantic attraction?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Romantic attraction is wanting to date someone. Sexual attraction is wanting to ‘smash’ someone.” Blood Moon’s eye twitched at her and she fought back a laugh.

“No romantic attraction.”

“Aromantic, like the original Moon is.”

“But I still feel…sexual attraction.”

“They’re different things, there’s different terms. You can want to sleep with someone but not date them.”

“I like pansexual then.” Blood Moon told her.

“So you’d be aro pan.”

“What if I don’t want to sleep with someone? I just want romantic?” Harvest asked.

“That would be asexual and, since you’re a lesbian and trans your terms would be ace trans lesbian.” Eclipse explained.

“So you would be like ‘demiromantic androsexual genderfluid?’”

“Demi fluid. I don’t usually add in the androsexual because it’s confusing for some. If people ask, I say either gay or straight depending on what I’m feeling that day. Most of the time now it’s ‘straight’.”

“So you’ve been a girl more often or something?”

“Yes. Because the dysphoria is so strong when I’m a woman, usually it takes a while for my brain to go back to feeling like a guy. I don’t know, the gender does what it wants.” Eclipse brought her legs up to hug them.

“Is it bad?” Blood Moon asked.

“Very. It feels like it hurts…” Her voice broke a bit, with oil tears burning in her eyes. “It hurts to exist sometimes. Like I’m just lying to myself because nobody will ever care about it because nobody cares about me-”

“Sister, we care about how you feel.” Blood assured her. It brother to a halt, realizing she’d been crying and she trembled looking at them. “You helped us find our terms. You’re a good big sister, even if you annoy us regularly and we want to kill you sometimes. And we care plenty about you.” Blood Moon added.

“Sister, come here?” Harvest asked her and Eclipse unfurled herself to let Harvest hug her. “We love you. Not the ‘smash’ way.” Harvest told her. This made Eclipse let out a wet laugh and wiped her face as Harvest Moon and Blood Moon hugged her and squeezed her tight.

Meanwhile, Sun showed Moon the new video in confusion.

“Moon, what is this?”

“Eclipse has the password still. You should watch it, it’s great.” Moon cackled.

“Okay, fine, I will.” Moon pretended not to hear his twin screaming about the time Blood Moon would have said ‘smash’ at Sun’s picture.

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voidvinn · 1 year ago

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peter the horse is here

#my little pony: Geriatric Edition #pokémon #pyramid king brandon #silver pokémon chronicles #mlp #i guess.#i said i would do it #i’ll stick to my word

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lulu2992 · 1 year ago

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To be honest, instead of this, this is the sequel I was expecting:

#I said I would do it #basim ibn ishaq #assassin's creed mirage #joseph seed #far cry 5 #flores #santiago lucero #rainbow six siege #t-bone #t-bone grady #raymond kenney #watch dogs #my edit

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sogekyng · 5 months ago

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snipedlies ==> sogekyng

#&& ooc post.#i said i would do it #so now it's done!

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charkyzombicorn · 2 years ago

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Luffy used to be human. A tiny one, born of a woman who didn't want him and a man who couldn't keep him. He remembers his father's hesitance to touch him, even though he kept reaching out with tiny hands that wouldn't cooperate.

Then he remembers the pain. The kind that was brought on by people in masks with knives, people he couldn't defend himself from because he didn't know it was trouble until the metal cut through his skin, new and sensitive. The kind that left him unable to move, unable to feel, only tasting blood in his toothless mouth.

He couldn't really feel after that, but he could see. He saw himself, eyes unblinking and blank, body limp, stuck in his crib over a blood-stained blue blanket.

He saw a person burst into his room, with fluffy purple hair and wide frantic eyes that lock into him, well, what he supposed used to be him. They yell for someone and his father comes in faster than he ever has.

He remembers the first time his dad cries. On his knees, holding his body but not him. He's right there, but his dad only sees a corpse.

He gets buried at the bottom of the sea, fire sending him off because the ocean is vast but also dark, and dad thinks the fire lights his way.

But he hasn't left, he follows his dad because that's all he has, and his dad doesn't sleep, doesn't eat.

He builds a ship.

He doesn't know why his father builds a ship, only that he loves what his father is building, loves every detail, clings to a father that can't see him as the man finally decides on the perfect shade of red for the railings and sits on the head of a wooden monkey as his father paints its big black eyes.

It's been a week since he's slept, though, and he gets worried because his dad is tired.

He tries to say it's okay, tries to get him to rest, but he can't touch the world he sees.

That is, until he grabs his father's arm to try to bring him back to his family, the one with the fluffy purple person and the dragon flag, and his father sees.

Wide brown eyes look directly at his own pair (were they brown? He thinks his eyes were brown.) his dad doesn't even notice he's pressed the small paint brush so hard into the figurehead that he's made a deep scratch under the eye. Only renders that that's his son.

"Luffy." Is the first thing that comes out of the man's mouth, and Luffy was pretty sure he didn't have a name, but his father probably knew better.

He disappears a second later, back to how it was before, where Luffy could see his dad but his dad couldn't see him. And Dragon flounders, everything dropped in favor of waving his hands around where Luffy is, where he can't see him. His father calls his name until a big bear-person takes him to sleep, with concern on their face as his father says what he saw over and over.

Luffy loves the ship, he plays on its deck and climbs up the mast and lies on his stomach on the monkey figurehead and looks at the endless blue from the sky and the ocean.

He finds he wants to go there, where the sky meets the sea. He tries to, but he's stuck.

Stuck on his ship, in the wood grain and the red paint and the monkey figurehead.

Stuck staring at the endless line he wants to touch so badly.

And his dad doesn't come back, not for days and weeks and months. When he comes back, he's got a tattoo on his face and nothing but steel in his eyes until he sees Luffy, sees the ship, sees his son.

"You've gotten dirty, brat." He says, but there's something hollow in his voice, even when he rolls up his sleeves, grabs a mop and scrubs every inch of him while humming a tune he hadn't heard before. A peaceful one, a lullaby, one he never sang to him when he was alive.

He's happier as a ship, his dad loves him more now.

It became a tradition, once a month, his dad would stop by with a mop and talk to him while he cleaned him. Luffy wanted to talk back, but he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried.

"You'd be a year old now, you know that? I bet the cooks would make you a cake the size of a house. Knowing our shared genetics with Garp, I bet there wouldn't be leftovers." He said with a smile, but there was something broken in his eyes when he looked up and only saw an empty ship.

He sighed, and stopped talking to Luffy.

Once a month turned to once every three months turned to twice a year, but Luffy didn't complain because there was no one to complain to. He sat and watched the ocean as years went by.

Something was different, however, on his eighth birthday.

"Happy birthday, Luffy." He said in lieu of a greeting, much less put off by no one answering than the first few times. "You're eight years old now, in case you haven't kept track." He said, and gave a pause before continuing. "You have brothers."

If Luffy had eyes, they would have widened. "Brothers?" He asked, but his dad didn't hear him.

"Sabo, he's your older brother now. Ace too, but Ace is stubborn, so hit him if he's mean…" He sighed. "They're both eleven. They want to go to sea."

He looked up at the mast, the one which has never been stressed by harsh wind or rain or even someone bumping into it. "I bet you'd want to go to sea too, every Monkey wants to sail eventually."

He let out a bone deep sigh. "If you're the one that takes them out there, take care of them, alright? You're brothers, and brothers do that."

He went about cleaning, and repainting the figurehead and railings that were far too sun bleached for him to put it off any longer, and Luffy told him about the last six months while he couldn't be heard.

"As a parting gift to you, I give you my son."

Sabo looked up at Dragon, shocked and confused.

"It was many years ago when my son, barely older than a newborn, was taken from me by celestial dragon hired assassins. Grief driven, I built a ship, it took weeks and every waking hour, but I gave it the name I couldn't give my son." Sabo's eyes were foggy, and his clutch on his small bag of belongings tightened.

Dragon let his stone cold persona slide off, faced with the boy he half-raised going off to become a pirate with his brother. "If I may make one request." He gave a gentle smile. "Let Luffy see the world with you." The live to see the world was left unsaid.

Sabo's expression tightened and his eyes watered before he hid it with a deep bow. "Thank you, for everything. I promise to let the ship see the world and come back in one piece."

With that, Dragon led his apprentice to the dock of the island they were staying on.

They stopped in front of a large caravel, with red trimmed railings and a smiling monkey figurehead. A ship one person could man, but could house a dozen comfortably. He hopped onto the deck, studying the meticulous detail and bright atmosphere. He was almost surprised Dragon had made this, it was so…cheerful. The only flaw seemed to be a defined scuff of paint under the figurehead's left eye, but that only really added to its charm.

Sabo felt a warm feeling grow in his chest as he explored the place, the big circular window in the kitchen, the neatly organized bunks in two different rooms, everything made him feel welcome. "Luffy, huh? I guess it's time to introduce you to Ace. I hope he likes you like I do."

He set off, his farewells already spoken and his ship a breeze to man.

It took him about three hours to get to Dawn Island, and even less to find his brother. He was sitting right on the docks waiting for him, although it was clear he assumed the blond would come in a fishing boat.

"What the hell, Sabo?! Who did you steal this from?" Ace yelled once Sabo was close enough to hear him.

The blond huffed. "I didn't steal it, this is Luffy, I got it from Dragon as a parting gift."

"What? We're starting our journey with charity?" Ace seemed none-too-fond of the free ship.

Sabo ran his hand over the red wood rails. "More of a rental, this ship is very important to him. We're gonna see the world with it, ne?" A smile grew on his face, which was infectious.

Ace jumped onto the ship, trying to look cool despite how excited he was - a habit he never really grew out of.

They set sail without a destination, just a direction and a dream. They would be free, and it wouldn't come with ifs ands or buts.

Luffy could feel his dad was near, which was strange because it wasn't his birthday yet. He'd gotten very good at counting in his nearly fourteen years docked at this tiny island with nothing but trees and a cabin with a dragon flag.

Then, he saw his dad walk toward him with a proud smile, and another person next to him. A blonde teenager with a funny top hat and a bag slung over his shoulder. Luffy watched curiously as, for the first time, someone that wasn't his father climbed his ladder, and even more, pulled it up! He forgot his ladder could do that! Luffy got excited as the teen started walking around.

The blonde poked his head in every room, ran his hand along Luffy's pristine railings, leaned over and rubbed his thumb over the scratch on Luffy's figurehead. Luffy opened windows and let the warm breeze in, and shifted the curtains in his infirmary so the new person wouldn't get the sun in his eyes. Luffy didn't remember what it was like to have eyes but his dad squinted his eyes in lights usually, so he assumed all eyes were like that.

The kid leaned his back against the front railing and looked up at Luffy's walls. "Luffy, huh? I guess it's time to introduce you to Ace. I hope he likes you like I do." He muttered, and a spark flew through the ship at the mention of Ace, one of Luffy's brothers.

Luffy was going to see him? He was going? Would his brother take him to where the ocean met the sky?

The blonde opened Luffy's sails, and Luffy flew. Glided through the water, leaving ripples behind him, pushed forward by the wind and directed by the strange teen's hand on his wheel.

Luffy couldn't remember ever being this happy before. He almost didn't notice when he was docked somewhere else, another island. This one was filled with giant four-handled steering wheels that the wind spun, and Luffy saw a boy the same age as the blonde at his helm with freckles and a very orange hat.

"What the hell, Sabo?! Who did you steal this from?" The man squawked, and Luffy lit up once more. The blonde was his brother? He got to see both his brothers? Would they take him to sea?

The blond huffed. "I didn't steal it, this is Luffy, I got it from Dragon as a parting gift." His dad wanted him to go? Luffy felt so warm, he wanted to see the world and tell his dad about it if his dad could ever see him. He saw him once, it might happen again.

"What? We're starting our journey with charity?"

"More of a rental, this ship is very important to him. We're gonna see the world with it, ne?" Luffy would cry if he could, he would sing if he could, but all he could do was watch Ace jump and then pull himself up onto Luffy's deck with the corners of his mouth tight to keep from smiling too wide. Luffy sailed once more, ran for that line.

Sabo was not as clever as he'd like to think. This is apparent when he realized that, having decided to take a break from steering, he left his narcoleptic friend at the wheel.

He doesn't even realize something's gone wrong until he hears a resounding crash that sounded suspiciously like shattering wood. Startled, he drops his book and runs outside.

Ace is asleep, right at the helm, and their ship has somehow tunneled its way half through another ship.

The blond made the most awkward eye contact in his life with a man in the cellar of the bigger ship, before the guy runs, and Ace finally wakes up.

"---gUh!" He says astutely, confused by the new surroundings. "What the hell?"

Sabo took a breath, internally begging for patience. "How did you manage to--"

"Thank you!" Both men snapped to look at a small kid with pink hair and a red face, splayed across the monkey figurehead, thanking…it? "Those guys woulda killed me if you didn't come, thank you!"

Ace frowned. "Oi! It ain't the wood you should be thanking."

But the kid looked at him and blinked. "But you were asleep and the other one wasn't here."

Ace scowled and the kid squeaked, now realizing the potential danger he was in, scrambling away from the ship. The brunet grabbed a handle of the steering wheel to help himself off the ground, but the wheel fell from under him, making him smack face-first into the ground before another handle thunked him in the head.

Sabo snorted involuntarily, before realizing if the wheel was that loose, a coil must be broken connecting it to the front rudder, which was currently jammed in another ship.

He sighed, before looking at the kid again. "You're obviously not safe here, might as well climb aboard." The kid started tearing up, thanking the two profusely.

The kid sank to his knees once he hit the deck. "My name is Coby! Please take me to the next island!" He begged, his forehead pressed to the deck and Sabo didn't know if he was desperate or if he was talking to the boat again. He walked down the steps to the deck hesitantly, waiting for Coby to make a wrong move.

"Yeah, yeah, don't go cryin', you look dumb." Ace said, rubbing his head where the wheel hit him. The wheel spun and thunked him on the head again, and he followed Sabo down the steps while glaring at it.

He moved to see if he could dislodge the ship, Sabo moving to the other side and they both pushed on the side of the wrecked boat.

To their surprise, the boat freed itself rather easily, and upon further inspection, there were no visible issues with the rudder. Sabo was a little confused as to how easily the wheel moved but didn't have time to when he saw a large woman with a mace and a face turned almost purple in rage.

"WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SHIP?!?!" She cursed, very alarmed by the now sinking ship that was attacked unprompted.

"Oi!" Ace yelled back. "Don't say shit like that! There's a kid here." Gesturing to Coby.

"G-G-Guys, we gotta-a go." He stuttered, looking fearfully at the woman. Ace just picked his ear. "That is the fattest person I've ever seen."

"What?!" The woman screeched and Sabo smacked him on the back of the head. "Don't say such things, it's rude."

"Taking a chunk out of someone's ship is also rude!!!" She yelled, because they were both idiots. She cleared her throat. "Coby, who's the most beautiful woman on these seas?" She asked, venom on her tongue and a death grip on her mace.

Coby's mouth instantly began to form around the answer he'd given a thousand times over, and Sabo's eyes narrowed at the obvious abuser.

A hand landed in Coby's shoulder and Sabo ignored the flinch. "N-Not you!" He yelled, teary-eyed but convicted. "You're…You're the ugliest cow in the sea!" He shouted, his legs shaking but his voice absolute.

She seemed to turn 7 shades redder, and started storming toward the boat when suddenly the steering wheel started turning left like a pinwheel, and the entire boat lurched as the figurehead knocked her through one of the pretty much useless walls and into the sea.

"Seriously, we need to get that wheel checked out." Sabo muttered to himself while Coby cheered and thanked the inanimate boat again.

"What were you doing there anyway, kid?" Ace drawled, nursing the many bumps on the back of his head.

This seemed to suck the joy out of Coby, and somehow from where Ace was standing a door left partially open swung out and hit him hard in the elbow. Sabo reassures the kid he doesn't have to say while Ace closes the door completely so it won't smack him again, wondering if the boat was cursed.

"It was two years ago…" Coby started, while a gust of wind caught the sails and somehow the boat maneuvered around the other without help - this went unacknowledged. "-- and after that I had to work for Alvida, or she would kill me."

Ace and Sabo both nodded, before they looked at each other and both burst out laughing.

"Mistook that--?!"

"A fishing boat?!"

Though no one moved much from where they stood, the deck creaked an ambient 'Shi-hi-hi' that blended in with the laughter. Coby stared at his shoes.

"Well!" Coby cut in, just as the laughter ceased. "I… I want to be a marine… Then I'll arrest people like Alvida and no one will have that happen to them like me."

Sabo's smile faltered, his brows furrowing as he looked down at the tiny, scrawny, unobtrusive kid.

Ace looked Coby up and down with a scowl. "You wanna be one of those jerks?" Coby nodded, and Ace crossed his arms. "Well, I don't see why the army would need a wimp like you, but--" The same door swung open again and smacked him in his whole left arm.

Coby smiled. "Your ship believes in me!" He said, regretting it a second later for the odd looks both gave him before Ace shrugged.

"I guess." He glared at the door again. "Who knew a boat could be such a prick, though."

Sabo pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, because if anyone is a prick here it's the boat - sure." He looked back over at Coby. "We'll take you to the nearest marine base, Coby. Your life is your own, better to live how you want than die full of regrets."

Coby's eyes got glassy, and he nodded vehemently.

#one piece #asl trio #i said i would do it #Just 3k of weird abstract angst and Ace getting hit by ''inanimate'' objects

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