Chapter Text
The girl he pulls out of the water says she’s dead, and Luffy believes her.
He can see it in her smile, plastered on and as fake as any High Town noble’s. It strains at her cheeks as she stares at him, eyes wild and hungry and grieving. It’s an ugly look, he decides. It doesn’t suit her at all.
(The look in her eyes is the same he saw in Sabo’s, the last time he saw him.
Scared and hurting and begging for a miracle that isn’t coming.
Luffy doesn’t think anyone should ever look like that.
But that look isn’t why Luffy asks her to join his crew. No, her kindness is. Because she’s scared and sad but she’s still answering all his questions as honestly as she can with a smile that’s a broken imitation of the one Makino would give him when he got hurt as a kid.
She’s hurting, but even then, she’s careful to make sure her pain doesn’t hurt him.)
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy-” I know, says the tremor in her expression.
“-and I’m gonna be King of the Pirates!” I know, says her eyes.
( How ? Luffy wants to know.
He doesn’t ask, though, because he can see how close she is to falling apart. There’s a terrible lonely thing cracking apart in her eyes as they stare up at him.
“Will you join my crew?” he asks her instead. Luffy wants to know what her smile looks like when it isn’t the only thing holding her together. He wants to know what her voice sounds like when she’s really happy instead of just pretending to keep a stranger safe.
“Okay,” she says, quiet and cracking, with the same hunger that Ace once had while asking Luffy if it was a good thing he was born.
Luffy wraps himself around her so that she doesn’t break apart.)
-:-
Zombie’s really great, even though her name’s wrong and her smile keeps slipping into something sad and ugly if he asks the wrong questions. She seems to understand everything he’s talking about, and doesn’t get mad at him at all. Not even annoyed! Even Makino gets a little fed up with him when he’s gone on for too long, and Makino is super nice.
It kind of reminds him of how Benn was with Shanks. A quieter, longer kind of nice. Patience, he thinks is the right word. Zombie’s really patient. That’ll probably make her a great First Mate, because Benn was great at his job, everyone said so. Shanks once said a good First Mate can make or break a crew, and Zombie reminds him of a more rambly Benn, so that means she’s totally gotta be Luffy’s First Mate.
(And Luffy will be a great Captain.
He’ll make sure that one day, all of her smiles are her real ones.
He starts with not letting go of her before she manages to seal up the cracks in her eyes.)
-:-
Zombie is sweet with Coby in a way that’s halfway between Makino and Ace. A little clumsier than Makino’s niceness but nowhere near as sharp as Ace’s. It fits her well, the way she treats him, all reaching hands and soft smiles.
(She’s careful with his dream, too.
She doesn’t like what his dream is, Luffy can tell the minute Coby says it, but she doesn’t tell him to give it up or that it’s impossible like Gramps would’ve. She just tells him the truth, and lets Coby decide what to do with it from there. Zombie helps Coby figure out what his true dream really is, because she doesn’t want Coby to do something that leaves a scar on his heart.
And the way Zombie talks makes Luffy wonder what dream she had that scarred hers.)
-:-
Zombie starts to float away after fighting the fat lady that was bullying Coby. Not physically, but in her head, even if she looks miles away from the inside of her skull. Luffy tries to get her attention for a while, and when he finally does, she looks at him like he’s something made out of fog.
And suddenly, Luffy knows what’s happening to her, because Ace does this.
Ace started doing this after Sabo died. Just…shutting down.
Like being in his body was too much, and he had to get away from it.
Like being real was too much and not enough all at once.
It’d been scary then, and it’s still a bit scary now, but Luffy knows what to do. He has practice. Ace had gotten better about it over the years, but he still did it every now and then, so Luffy never forgot the best ways to keep him real.
Zombie still manages to smile ugly through going away. She’s still trying to keep him and Coby safe when she can’t even keep herself inside. Luffy’s her Captain, so he should be keeping her safe. Nodding, he pulls her closer so he can hold her against his ribs. Ace once said it’s nice to hear something alive when he’s going away, to remind him that he’s still real, so Luffy figures it’ll work for Zombie.
(It does, a little bit. She’s not gone all the way now. Only kind of.
Only enough to say things she probably wouldn’t have if she was feeling real.
Zombie had four siblings. Zombie doesn’t have them anymore.
It makes sense why she’s so good at being patient, now; she must’ve been a big sister.
Losing Sabo felt like having his chest ripped out; Luffy can’t imagine losing Ace, too.
Luffy holds Zombie tight to him, and decides that she’s really strong.)
-:-
Zombie, Luffy is coming to realize, is really good at saying things in a way that makes you feel like she understands who you are perfectly. It makes her sound super cool when she finally speaks to Zoro, right up until she doesn’t anymore because she got startled by things actually working out. Luffy’s not sure why; she was doing a great job with Zoro, so of course Zoro agreed. She’s still surprised, which makes her say dumb things, because Zombie is just funny like that.
(Zombie is good at speaking to people’s hearts.
She’s gentle with them, like she knows exactly what will hurt them and how to avoid it.
She did it with Coby’s dream, and she does it with Zoro’s pride, and Luffy can’t help but look at her and think he’s chosen the perfect First Mate for his crew.)
-:-
Zombie is bleeding a lot, when she takes off her jacket. She looks surprised about it, like she hadn’t felt it at all, which is stupid because even Luffy would feel it if he was bleeding that much. Sure, he’d ignore it if it wasn’t going to end up bothering him in the long run, but he’d still feel it.
But Zombie doesn’t feel it.
It’s obvious by the way she prods at the cut, face calm and more annoyed than anything.
(He wonders if it’s because of how she goes away. Ace said that it makes you feel like you’re not in your body anymore, and Luffy thinks that’d explain why she didn’t seem to notice she was hurt until way after the fact. Then again, maybe it’s just a being dead thing.
Zombie says she’s okay when he asks, and Luffy will trust her on it.
He still makes sure to hold her hand to keep her inside herself, though.)
-:-
Luffy hesitates when Zoro gives his terms. He’s fine with putting his life on the line, but it’s another thing to pay with Zombie’s too. She’s already died once, and even if she can come back if she dies again, it’s obvious that dying hurt her real bad. Is still hurting her real bad.
So Luffy hesitates. He looks to Zombie for her answer. And she gives it.
(Fast, way too fast, and Luffy doesn’t like that, because it’s not fast in that she would never get in the way of Zoro’s dream but fast in the way that dying doesn’t mean much to her.
Zombie’s life shouldn’t be something so cheap to her.
He really wants to punch whoever taught her that it was.)
Luffy is about to say something when the way she’s smiling shifts into something nice and something real, eyes glowing like maple syrup in the sunlight as she looks at Zoro.
Zoro’s whole body screams, I will become the World’s Greatest Swordsman .
Zombie’s eyes say the same thing they did when Luffy told her his own dream: I know.
And Luffy grins back too, because she is taking this seriously. She’s taking Zoro’s dream seriously, and she took Coby’s dream seriously, and she took Luffy’s dream seriously.
(Luffy promises he’ll do the same for her, when she tells him her dream.)
-:-
Luffy thinks Shanks would like Zombie a lot.
Luffy knows that he likes her a lot.
“Guns aren’t toys, you know.”
(He just wishes she wasn’t smiling so empty as she said it.
He just wishes she didn’t keep looking at the gun so hungry after Coby saves her.
He just wishes he knew how to make her stop.)