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beanghostprincess · 8 months ago

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Sanji and Usopp during The Sabaody Incident™ won't leave my mind.

Usopp standing in front of Sanji protectively because he is wounded and he can't fight, so Usopp will do it for him ("I'll do what you can't do").

There is just something about Sanji's expression when he realizes he might actually lose Usopp. This is my interpretation, at least. He is literally frightened.

Usopp helping Sanji stand up to run away. This is crucial for something I want to point out later: Sanji needs help to stand up. (Also, Brook disappears trying to protect them both and saying he will do anything to save them even if it costs him his life. I am feeling sick).

Sanji being self-sacrificing and blaming himself for not being able to protect them/act sooner is not new. But he does manage to gain the strength to fight when Usopp is the only one left with him and the possibility of losing him is even more real now.

The thing that I love the most about this is not Sanji sacrificing himself for Usopp, because he does that. He is like that. But Usopp not running away or moving in the slightest because he refuses to leave Sanji on his own.

Something I'd like to point out too is that Sanji actually touches Kuma before Usopp disappears. He tries to fight and protect him and Kuma could've easily sent Sanji to Momoiro Island right away, and yet Sanji was just sent flying far from the scene and forced to see Usopp disappear in front of him.

And I am not saying that "not being able to protect both Brook and Usopp (especially Usopp) is needed for Sanji to realize he has to become stronger and find more reasons to go back with the crew" but not being able to protect both Brook and Usopp (especially Usopp) is needed for Sanji to realize he has to become stronger and find more reasons to go back with the crew.

Not to mention that we can't deny (right after Water 7/Enies Lobby) that Usopp is one of Sanji's strongest bonds within the crew. This specific scene focusing on them both is more than enough to prove it.

Sanji seeing Usopp disappear in front of his eyes without being able to do anything to save him.

Remember what I said about Sanji needing help to stand up seconds ago? Well. This is him the moment Usopp disappears. What adrenaline and the power of love do to a mf.

They are so "I can lose everything, but not you. Oh God, not you" shaped.

#sorry for bringing up sabaody i am sure nobody wants to think about it #but they mean the world to me and there is SO MUCH to unpack #we don't talk enough about this i think ?????#sanji spending two whole years having nightmares about not being able to save usopp. about seeing usopp disappearing in front of him #he still has them btw #sanji having to sleep with usopp post-ts because he is afraid of waking up and seeing he is gone #also i am having thoughts about brook protecting them and #and brook saying he will do anything to save them #because sanji has only heard that from zeff so......... so just thinking. i have thoughts. i told you brook is one of sanji's father figure #back to sanuso- thinking about how this whole scene despite having brook too is mainly focused on both sanji and usopp #thinking abt how the others disappear mostly focusing only on luffy's reactions but this emphasizes a lot sanji's attempts to save usopp #why would you give them a whole scene i am throwing up #sorry still thinking abt sanji apologizing to usopp for not being able to protect him or #or having nightmares he definitely has nightmares about it #and usopp just. staying with him and making him see that he is alright now. and letting him cry.#early post-ts kills me #still angry we don't have almost post-ts sanuso #i might start crying thinking abt them so it'll be better if just shut up and post this #one piece #black leg sanji #usopp #sanuso #sabaody

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fandombead · 8 months ago

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Consuming Darkness

Summary: Patton is being hunted down very persistently. He cannot find his family in this terrifying dark forest where the shadows try to pull him into them. He truly hopes they aren't here, but that means he is so very alone.

Words: 3,120 || It's on AO3!

Patton’s pulse in his ears made it so hard to hear what was happening. He already couldn’t see.

The side pressed himself further into the tiny crevice he’d wedged himself into to hide after being dropped into this unknown forest full of dead black trees and inky soil that clung to his shoes. The darkness was palpable, shadows like mist pricking his skin, but there was nowhere to escape from that.

He swore the crooked trees reached down to trap him but he didn’t dare close his eyes and lose the very little light he could see with to keep an eye on the shadows— because there was something darker than the shadows here, a writhing part of them. It was alive and coming for him, and while he feared it might already know where he was, he couldn’t yet bring his legs to move again, to relinquish the small bit of safety he felt.

He didn’t know where he was and it felt like he’d run the entire night before finding this reprieve. He wanted his family, were they safe? He hoped they weren’t here too, even if that meant he was alone. Were they also being tracked down by this shadow beast, by more of them? Had he run when they’d needed his help? He'd just been trying to get away.

The shadows warped around the side of his hiding place.

It had found him again.

Patton swore he was screaming as it descended on him and he clawed his way up the rock to get away, but it was as if the darkness stole his very breath, an oppressive heaviness that threatened to suffocate as it pressed down and tried to pin him. Patton tried to shove at the non-entity but there was nothing to push. A foul taste like ash and char coated his mouth and he coughed, but fanning at the air and covering his mouth with his shirt did nothing to displace it.

He was seized by a terror he’d never felt before as he tried to cry out, the blackness only growing darker as inescapable as a blackhole, compressing in on him and freezing his core as his weakening fingers scrambled just to hold onto the outcropping of stone. He couldn’t and his grip failed him.

Patton fell, tumbling as he barely managed to protect his head from being battered against stone. He landed painfully in the oily dirt beneath him. He let out a hoarse cry from his dry burning throat, unable to form words as his vision swam, but he could see again however briefly.

He rolled painfully onto his knees only to see the thing descending on him. He fought to get his sore legs under him even as his lungs burned in protest of the abuse.

Before it could descend and engulf him— and this time there’d be no fall to save him— there was a sudden flash went off in the distance. A tiny red spark against the dripping, inky sky, and yet it was blinding in contrast. Patton had to look away, though it burned out fast. Another went off in the same spot, and Patton squinted to try and see it. It looked miles away. It was the first bit of light he’d seen here and he wanted to run towards it, away from this monster who’d been temporarily stunned.

It could possibly be what would save him.

It let out a warbling hiss that got Morality’s feet scrambling under him and he had no clue where he got the strength. Everything ached, and his skin prickled with lingering ice everywhere that was exposed. He only hoped it wasn’t frostbite. He clutched his thin cardigan closer as he tore through the trees and tried to forcibly get feeling back into his chilled skin, but with his icy fingers, the effort was lost. Patton just grimaced and hoped he’d see that light again, to make sure he was heading towards it in this endless, repetitive forest.

He desperately searched for it, but it was like trying to spot a lightning bug in the sky while running for his life and not tripping over gnarled roots that hadn’t been in his path just seconds ago. He heard the whistle-like gale wind of the shadow trailing him. He knew he couldn’t look back even though it felt like no matter how fast he ran, it was curling its wispy tendrils right at the back of his neck, tugging at his back-most heel every time he took a stride, no matter how much faster he thought he was going. It had to be toying with him, he couldn’t make it to that far-away light that had probably already been snuffed out—

A deep blue light swirled and curved unnaturally from the same spot. Patton had to physically shield his eyes against it, lest it honest-to-stars blind him. His faltering step somehow didn’t result in his entrapment by the shadow, as it recoiled violently, ripping back from him even as the light fizzled again. He felt able to take a full breath of the muggy night air. He was thankful and took the chance for what it was.

He was closer. It wasn’t in vain. He could make it.

The land turned steep as he fought his way up and up a hill now, and the treeline stopped at its foot.

Patton gritted his teeth and made his way up, the futile hope of safety there driving him for one last stretch.

The oily dirt of the Black Forest turned dry and warm and a soft brown under his palms as he had to pull himself up some of the way. He was going too slowly.

The shadow grew bold at his stilted progress but when it tried to circle him, a crack of yellow light like lightning fell from the peak and it recoiled as far as the light spread, providing temporary safety.

Patton climbed. Whenever the shadow closed in, the light in multiple colors banished it and it fled back down. He looked up and the hill seemed more a mountain. He looked down while trying to catch his breath and his hope sunk considerably. Darkness churned, raging below. Webby limbs trying to grasp his dangling sneakers, black coils trying to tug him down.

He couldn’t see the ground at all, however high he was; without the low contrast of the forest, he could see how truly massive the turbulent beast was. It roiled and shrieked, obscuring the land that had to still be down there entirely in every direction. Its hiss and spindly limbs like dragon claws reached for him.

Panic coursed through Patton’s veins. He shook where he clung to the small resting spot he had found to sit and stare. How could the little lights ever hope to stop that? How could a tiny glow stop a force the likes of an ocean looking to drag him down and drown him?

“…tton!! Don’t look down!! Patton, please! Up here!!”

Patton was yanked from his thoughts as one of those lights– vibrant and familiarly purple– nearly struck him, whizzing past his head. The darkness that had crept up to his elbows retreated, releasing him and he let out a loud gasp like his soul had just returned after being nearly yanked out of him. He choked on the noise he made as he whipped around so hard, he almost lost his precarious perch.

Looking down at him with a desperate sort of relief was Virgil, though his eyes still looked beyond terrified as he frantically waved Patton up. “Come on, buddy, you gotta move!! The light is running out! Get up here, hurry!”

Patton gaped and wanted to sob at seeing a familiar face, that his instinct to come here had been right. He didn’t waste time even as his vision blurred and warm tracks cut through the cold on his cheeks. With trembling hands, he climbed, Virgil his goal and progress marker now. Virgil reached down for him, but made the mistake of letting his eyes snap behind Patton in fear.

Patton instinctively looked back to follow his gaze and Virgil screamed at him to stop. Startled, he let go of his hold to try and close the distance to his friend and then could not find it half a second later. He looked back in alarm and Virgil was gone too, there was only the deepest black he’d ever seen, blinding him to even his own body right in front of him. He shook at the chill that quickly set in, attacking and sapping at his core, entirely overwhelming. He couldn’t even think which way to move, if he even could move. The monster’s darkness curled up his limbs, trying to pull him away (down? He couldn’t tell). He curled in on himself, feeling weightless and barely registering the charred bone taste that hadn’t faded from before.

He’d seen Virgil there. Was he alone? He’d been an arm’s reach away, had it gotten him too?

Before he could shut his eyes, something thin physically snagged around his waist and yanked.

He was ripped out of the cold, the force of it making it cut at him like millions of icy shards. A searing wall of heat caught him and he almost lept out of the grasp immediately from shock, gasping.

“Padre! We’ve got you!”

Roman was here?

“Patton, are you conscious? Can you see us?”

Logan’s voice. He sounded unusually worried.

“We just snatched him out of that demon’s grasp, I’m sure he doesn’t need a moment to gain his bearings.”

“Fuck! That was so long, how is he still breathing?! Were we too late again??”

“He’ll be alright, we’ve got him now. Roman, set him down, it is likely too much contact—“

Patton was dazed as he felt the far less burning warmth of the earth under him. Janus and Virgil standing to his right but worried eyes resolutely vigilant as they watched the rising darkness. He eyed the giant hooked cane Janus had clutched in his grasp, and what had to have been what saved him. He twisted, Roman still close by to support him, a much more comforting wall of warmth against his side. He frowned at the headcount and looked around again, asking if Remus was here too, but the others didn’t answer him. Roman and Janus looked away, pain and guilt in their eyes and Patton knew, then. He hadn’t made it here. They’d lost him. Had he been alone when it took him? What was this awful place and how did they get out?

He barely had time to grapple with their loss sinking into his heart, though, because the darkness had trailed him and it was with dread he realized all of them were now in that same danger. Logan stood in front of him now, wary as he held a small blue flame cupped in his palm. Patton’s eyes widened at it. Virgil, Janus, and Roman were the next line of defense, their backs to logic and morality as they looked ready to defend against the shadows however they could. It clicked in that moment that they were making a last stand here. But they could not defeat that thing. Not with their weapons or fists. The mountain they were on looked more like an island now, in a dark storming sea that was threatening to rise and wash them away. It would crash down and take them all with it.

Patton whipped around to the light— a spearhead white flame that was shrinking under the crawling shadows trying to snuff it out. He lunged for it.

He didn’t know what he expected, but it enveloped his hand, flaring up a light, vibrant blue. It was impossibly warm against his chilled skin. The fire shifted in his hand, not burning. Patton easily bent it to his will like clay, making a rod of fire that he flung at the black wall coming down on them. Everyone shielded their eyes but Patton still saw stars as he blindly reached for another. With every throw it got smaller until he wasn’t willing to risk it further, kneeling by the flame that was but a dwindling campfire. Still, it kept the darkness at bay. Just barely. Before he knew it, the others were at his side, huddled in close to one another as the flame was a refuge in the swirling black void around them, getting smaller by the moment. Patton looked at them all, then at the little white flame. Patton stuck his hand in again, tentatively as Virgil tensed next to him. It flared a sky blue again and the darkness swirled angrier, trying to push in but unable to. Patton watched it before sticking his other hand in too. The flame grew more, twice the size it had been. Janus stared as he did, then added his own ungloved hand to the heat.

The fire flared a near neon green as the two colors of flame overlapped and seemed to merge together. And the others caught onto what they were doing, seeing how the creature writhed and was forced back. They could add to it. Roman and Logan’s hands added flecks of indigo and orange and a darker green, and Virgil’s soon after created a rainbow between them, as big and bright as a bonfire. They were forced to stand back as the heat quickly grew with the flame, the colors swirling and tearing holes into the dark like it was just a tarp over them. It was almost overwhelming. And at the flame’s core, between all their palms, all their colors swirled faster and faster, combining into a shining black before it exploded. They were all shoved down by the force as it shot into the air like a burning firework and burst. It sparked and shimmered and completely irradiated the darkness, vaporizing the manifestation. The massive splotches of colored light were raining down to the earth, like dozens of meteors and they panicked as they scrambled not to be hit, not wanting to know what that’d do to them.

Patton cried out as one he couldn’t dodge hit him directly on, overtaking his vision and the heat of the impending impact singeing his skin.

Morality lurched, falling off the couch and narrowly missing hitting his face on the coffee table. He landed on Creativity, who jumped, sitting up with a shout of his own. This in turn woke Anxiety, who was on his feet in the time it took him to open his eyes, jostling Logic who’d been leaning against him. Deceit groaned from where he was draped across the armchair. They stared at each other with confused, startled looks.

Before anyone could say a word, though, a figure hanging out by the window popped up. “Oh finally, you gays decided to wake up! The fucking sky out there looks like a unicorn got gut—“

“Remus!!” a chorus cut him off, shocked to see him and quickly confirming to everyone present what they’d shared.

Remus quickly found himself insnared by a tangle of limbs, squished firmly between his brother and Patton and Janus, the others there with hands on his shoulders and back and he squirmed a little at the sudden barrage of questions.

“Hey don’t look at me, that one wasn’t my doing” he quickly defended, “I just wanted to see if getting eaten alive by the darkness was the exit strategy!”

He laughed as they all winced at this. “It wasn’t! I was basically incorporeal and my consciousness became part of that thing, though I couldn’t do anything cool like take over half of its body or be a parasite. It was colder than Jack Frost’s butthole in there, let me tell you–”

“Remus,” Roman groaned, almost sounding like a beg, making a face as he exasperatedly put his forehead against his brother’s shoulder. “Please, for the love of Disney stop making this unbearable for just two moments– we thought you died!!”

Remus snickered, and headbutted Roman. It was lighter than he would have which was borderline affectionate coming from the green twin, but which still earned some mild complaining. “Aww you guys really missed little ole me?? It’s not like I’d of been gone permanently! Only shot off to the subconscious to be excruciatingly rebuilt atom by atom for a few weeks.”

Roman could only cover his face at how casual Remus sounded. “Unbelievable– only you could ever sound eager about that.”

Roman didn’t buy it for one second and neither did anyone else present. They all knew it was the last thing any of them wanted to experience, and even someone as insane as Remus wouldn’t go looking through that on purpose.

They pulled away to let Remus flop over on the couch, and they actually had a look through their living room window, marveling at the color-streaked sky. No one said anything for a while until Patton piped up that perhaps they could have breakfast. No one had any argument for it, more than happy to put off the conversation they’d definitely need to have about that shared experience. Not that any of them knew how to begin to talk about it, as it had never happened before and they were all admittedly too freshly shaken from it. But they’d gather themselves over a big, comforting breakfast and figure it out from there.

They were just glad they’d escaped that nightmare together and decidedly didn’t dwell on what could have been if they had not managed to fight back. Would the mindscape look different? Would they still be here at all…? Things they wouldn’t have to get answered, hopefully. Perhaps it was a one-off thing. They might have trouble falling asleep again for quite some time, and they would definitely need to talk to Thomas about just what had gone down last night too. And they wouldn’t avoid it for too long, as that would not make it go away. No, for all their sakes and for Thomas, they would sit down and figure it all out, whether for prevention or to prepare and resolve it…should there ever be a next time.

But for now, they took breakfast outside for an impromptu picnic, eating and becoming more at ease under a multicolor-painted sky that hadn’t been in the mindscape before. Perhaps it wasn’t an entirely bad thing in the end, the test or trial or trauma it was. And they’d prevailed. They all sat a little closer, more watchful even as they conversed about unrelated mundanities, but there were no crawling shadows to be seen.

Patton, at least, felt warm.

#patton sanders #ts patton #sanders sides #ts sides #my writing #tss fanfic #all the sides are here but since it's mainly Patton's pov I didn't wanna fill the tags for all of them #there is art for the fic on AO3 created by my event buddy!#so check that out

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