onepieceyaoi100 | On the Figurehead

Title: On the Figurehead
Rating: G
Pairing: ...
Wordcount: 246

Notes: Companion to the previous post and topically appropriate, hence I'm posting it here despite the lack of yaoi. Many apologies. Manga spoilers.

The sun is bright on the water, and he tips his hat down so the glitter doesn't blind. He's warm, sitting here, comfortable on the painted wood, and every scratch and gouge his fingers run over is familiar.

It aches, so he can almost feel it himself, broken, every creak of the abused hull a faint whimper that he didn't hear before.

If he listens hard enough to the waves, they'll carry the sound of Vivi's laughter to him still, soft and sweet and so happy, for all he knows she cries some nights, looking up at the same moon they watch. Those tears taste of the same salt as seawater, but she's laughing more, in her kingdom that is saved.

Usopp's laugh is different, louder and sillier but no less true. But wherever Usopp is now, he can't hear it, no matter how hard he listens to the wind.

Between the carved curling horns, Luffy wraps his arms around his legs, rests his forehead on his knees. In the shelter of his arms all he can see is the dim sunlight filtering through the hat's straw weave, playing on his faded jeans. All of him smells of saltwater, so strong it burns his nose, his eyes. With his arms muffling his ears he can't hear the sea, or the wind, or the hurting of the hull; nothing at all but the constant steady rush, in and out and in and out, of his own breathing.