Chapter nineteen made me do it, I swear.

[irrelevant.livejournal.com]

Title: Written in Stone
Rating: PG
Word Count: 297
Pairing: Raleigh/Roger
Topic: journal





Roger never wrote anything down, not on paper. There was the occasional graffiti scrawled on or carved into thousand-year-old monuments (usually in Poneglyphic) but no records, no personal papers… just nothing. It drove Raleigh nuts. Roger’s crew loved Roger, worshipped him; he was their leader, everyone’s best friend, and the pirate king. No one wanted to dump their petty concerns in his lap and they didn’t. That’s what their first mate was for.

That Roger was a great man and a great captain, Raleigh would be first to agree. But after too many years of accountancy-via-mouth (this shopkeeper heard from his brother’s wife’s uncle-the-fisherman about a tavern-keep what got stiffed three islands back), incomplete manifests and nonexistent log entries, Raleigh was ready to dump the whole mess in the Oro Jackson’s second mate’s lap and spend a month facedown in a beer tankard. But then Crocus said he was done and so was Roger, and after that nothing—much less chicken-scratch on paper—mattered. Roger was dying, and Roger was dead on a Marine platform, and Roger was dead in Loguetown of all damned cesspits!

Raleigh bore witness, yeah he did. He owed it to his captain. To his friend. He heard the words that lit the world on fire, saw Roger’s smile flash one more time. Watched the blades fall. Then he took passage on the next ship leaving for the Grand Line, got stinking drunk and stayed that way for a week.

He found the letter a year later, just a few sentences unworthy of the name.

Told you I wouldn’t die. Believe me now? Bet I’ll be back down there before you even get here, you stubborn bastard. Race you.

Raleigh looked at black lines bleeding into salt-wet and realised he was laughing.

Comments

[dark-kaomi.livejournal.com]

Ah, I bet this is exactly how he was. And ouch, arrow to the heart.

Chapter nineteen of what? I am so confused.

[irrelevant.livejournal.com]

I was recently re-reading the OP manga, and I ran into Raleigh in chapter 19 (pg 8); he's on my mind, hence the fic.

[dark-kaomi.livejournal.com]

Oh ah you mean of volume 50. Right?

[dark-kaomi.livejournal.com]

Oh hell I just figured out what you were talking about. Ignore me.

[salmon-pink.livejournal.com]

Oh holy fucking hell, this is so many types of glorious that I can't express it in words. The pairing, oh God, the pairing, and damn if it doesn't make perfect sense, and the way it feels like Roger, which should be damn near impossible because he's this untouchable figure that everyone talks about but we've never seen all that much of his personality, haven't seen much of him beyond the opening of We Are. And Raleigh (I love that name) just feels right, with the laughter and the alcohol and the tears that I can just see melting into his smile. Ima fangirl you soooo hard! ♥

[aoineko89.livejournal.com]

So sad, and yet so good... I wish there was more of these two out there. Thank you for writing this!

[dried-frog-pill.livejournal.com]

YES. THIS JUST POPPED UP ON MY FLIST AND I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THAT CREW AND HOW THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE FIC OF THEM. YOU ARE MY HERO.

That’s what their first mate was for.
Too bad no one told Ben Beckman this XD XD XD

I just love the D mentality that Roger seems to just....well, a better word for ooze. Breathe? Embody is too passive a word for Gold Roger. Anyway. This fic captures that so well And the last line, love it so much.

[irrelevant.livejournal.com]

I lied. It wasn't just chapter 19 that made me write this, it was your comment and THAT BLOODY EFFING GORGEOUS SCREENCAP YOU SENT ME. *glazed eyes* After that, I just had to, so you can thank yourself for the drabble. XD XD

(Poor Ben. Shanks takes shameless advantage of him.)

And now I'm just going to thank you one more time for your unbelievably perfect Roger and Raleigh icons because I adores them muchly. ♥♥♥

[tonko.livejournal.com]

Oh god. Lovely and ow. Made my heart clench, and not a little because I can imagine the future echo of these two lives.

[devlinnreiko.livejournal.com]

.....*grins* I knew you'd be the one to do this!!! Ha! I totally loved it. I can really see Roger like this. Awesomeness... now...you have to use the Roger icon!!!

[dethorats]

Ha! Marvelous. Yeah, that's why captains have first mates - someone to dump all the didrty work on.

This was lovely and the ending was so apt! Roger...his voice sounds excellent seeing as we have just about the smallest amounts of dialogue ever to go by.

[driftingforward.livejournal.com]

Perfection squared. I need more Raleigh/Roger.

That’s what their first mate was for. Someone should tell Zoro that.

[nonoji.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a grasp of Rogers character and yet when I read this, I felt like pointing and excaliming 'Yes! Thats him! Exactly!
You amazing you.

[cptn-shinigami.livejournal.com]

*SOB*

[lilyoftheval5.livejournal.com]

So sweet! It does sound like what Roger (little as we know of him) would do.

[mishagirl.livejournal.com]

OMG...I can't believe it took me so long to understand your icon beyond the whole "friendship poem" of it.

AWESOME.

Great drabble btw...