#m.monkey d. luffy

[pileofmush]

the sun still rises ☼

pairing ➸ monkey d. luffy x fem!reader

synopsis ➸ luffy catches something in the water. it's a girl, to his dismay. not a fish.

details ➸ tags: pt. i, angst, introspection // cw: very much a vent fic, near-death experience, struggles with mental health, i gave reader a name bc i can, an attempt at prose // wc: 1.4k // series m.list

Water crashes against a rocky shore. It whispers; it sings. Rising and rolling, the water recedes; it warns. 

A thud. Feeble knees collapse into wet sand. Salt lingers on your tongue, though you’ve scrubbed your mouth three times now. You choke on the grains still lodged in your throat. Blink the sand out of your eyes.

Alive. You’re alive, you think to yourself. Your cruddy boat is gone, washed away somewhere. But you remain—alive. And the sun still rises and the world still spins.

Not that the world would have stopped spinning had you died. Not when death makes the world go round. Still, the sun rises. Still, the ocean’s tide sings. The tide drapes over you, blocking out the sky. Perhaps you should have fled, when you had the chance. But you didn’t-- you don't, and the wave crashes over you as consequence. You are moved. Moved by the wave; moved by the weight of your circumstances. No one prepared you for this. Your mother didn’t dole out this particular lesson in her long spiels about the meaning of life. And now, she will never speak again.

Mother leapt. 

Mother crashed. 

Like waves against a rocky shore. 

If only you could take on the attributes of the sea. The sea knows no god. She does what she wishes. But you? You bend. Bend to the will of those who want harder than you. Bend to the magnificent wave’s power as it drags you back, back into the godless sea. You are nothing, in comparison. Flotsam.

You don’t want. But there are things that you don’t want.

For instance: you don’t want to return to your mother. 

Oh, you thought that you did. You thought a lot of things. You once thought your mother believed in the hollow words she said. She didn’t. You once thought dying would be easy. 

It isn’t.

Dying burns. Like the burning in your lungs. It takes, and it consumes, until there is nothing left of you but a mound of ash. 

And, dying squeezes. Squeezes you out like a dirty dish rag, until out spills every morsel of fear, frustration, desire and hope that once existed inside your fleshy body. And, there you are. Your essence, pooled into the ocean for all to see. And in your last few moments, you are left to wonder, perhaps I did exist; perhaps I should have lived. 

You inhale. You don’t want to die. There has to be more to life than drowning in the waters of a strange island, strange ocean, stranger world. Saltwater fills your lungs as you begin to mourn the life you never lived. 

Dying, you find, is a color. A deep, solemn purple. The color of a fresh bruise; the color of your mother’s wine; the color of regret.

Cupped hands cut through water, frantic, as you try to rise; as your head spins. Above the waterline, above your flailing body, the wind howls. It warned you, you know. The ocean warned you. And now the wind howls, though the wail doesn’t quite reach your ears. Not over the deep blue croon of the ocean, and your own pained gurgles. 

You can’t think, any longer. Only feel. 

Feel your fingertips just barely breach the surface. Feel your legs kick with a renewed sense of urgency. Feel the sudden intake of air—sweet, glorious air rushing through your body—almost too much, but not even close to being enough. Feel the hands that wrap around your torso like a lasso, firm and sort of rubbery. Feel your body fling through the air, and your stomach lurch, before you collide into a person. 

It knocks the breath out your lungs, and you choke, for a second time.

The same hand that deftly plucked you out the ocean whacks your back, while the other keeps you upright. You would wave your savior off if you had the energy. You possess no devil powers—you dare not make a foe of nature itself—yet the ocean saps your strength, anyway. Takes what little you have left to claim, like she took away your mother. 

You’ve yet to open your eyes, but you can reason you’re on a ship. You can hear the calls of a woman over the song of the wailing sea, preparing the ship for docking in the middle of a thrashing storm. You hear the grunts of men, and the flapping of wind-beaten sails, and the stamping of several feet, scurrying across a wooden deck. 

When you’re finally done hacking your lungs, the savior makes to set you down. Your knees buckle.

 “Woah there,” you hear them exclaim, then let out a boyish laugh. The stranger hoists you up by your arm pits, like you’re a drenched cat. “You’re not a fish!” 

This is true.

You blink the water out of your eyes. In front of you: a boy. Just a boy with a wide, proud grin, and a curved scar underneath his eye. A yellow straw hat hangs from his neck. 

You cough up water as a greeting.  

You know of this strange, savior boy. He belongs on fading, brown parchment above big, bold letters—Wanted; Dead or Alive—his toothy grin immortalized on the bulletin board outside the pub back home. But he isn’t just any old criminal. No, this boy is far worse. For he looks at the expansive blue sea—godless, boundless—and has the gumption to declare it his playing field. 

He looks at what the world has to offer him with wide, peering eyes, and yet, he is still not satisfied. Surely, the world has more to give. Surely, it has more to take. That’s what he does, and it’s what he will continue to do: take and take until he’s had his fill. 

He’s a pirate, after all.

The boy sets you down on the deck and you are finally centered—reunited, at last, with the ground. He’s kind of awkward looking: gangly and disheveled and bright, but his carefree countenance wraps it altogether and ties it in a messy red bow. He tilts his head at a 90 degree angle and stares at you point-blank, thin black brows furrowed in confusion. 

“If you’re not a fish, what’re ya doing in the middle of the ocean?” he asks bluntly. Like you could help getting swept up in the current of Mother Nature. Like his crew mates aren’t currently scrambling to safely dock this ship. 

Your voice sounds strangled when you speak, words getting caught in your throat and roughly tumbling out of your mouth. “Drowning. I was drowning,” you manage to say. 

The rocking of the ship you’re on is not kind to you. Hunched over, your hands brace against your knees as you huff. Your fingers are pruned grapes, wrinkled and trembling.  

“That’s dumb,” the boy tells you. “Just swim next time.”

Maybe he has a point.

You look to the sky. It’s a deep, foreboding gray, pregnant dark clouds looming above and promising rain. Somewhere, you register, behind the clouds… is the sun. It’ll set, yes, and plunge the realm into night, but by dawn it will rise again. And the world will spin. 

“Who’re you then, if you’re not a fish?” The boy draws you back to him, demanding your attention. His eyes are dark as coal, round with open curiosity. You burn under his gaze; greedy and intense. 

Your back straightens. “I’m Yuna.” 

“Like Tuna?” he questions.

“Just Yuna.”

He accepts your answer with a swift jerk of his head and a slight pout. In the distance, you can hear the woman from before calling the the ship to anchor. One of the men—this one has a slender frame and long, long legs—leaves the helm and drops an anchor to the ocean floor. 

Your gaze flickers back to the boy who saved your life. “I’m Luffy! Monkey D. Luffy,” he introduces himself, then reaches for his straw hat to place atop his head. A red ribbon wraps around the base. 

Things make sense when the hat is on, you think to yourself. He makes sense. 

“Remember that,” he demands and jabs a thumb towards his chest, something like passion lighting his coal eyes aflame. “You’re talkin’ to the future king of the pirates.” 

As if the heavens already bow to him, this future king, it begins to rain. He pulls off his hat and looks up. Water droplets kiss tawny skin. They roll from his cheeks, to his chin, down the curve of his neck. 

Rain, your mother liked to say, is good luck. Fathers renewal. Change.

You hope she’s right.