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"After all this I'll say:
There's always more time;
There's always tomorrow.
'Cause I can't be honest with myself,
And I hope you'll forgive me.
I'm trying my best."
nothing, nowhere - Wooden Home (x)
-oOo-
"I hope you don't miss me too much when I leave," says Luffy out of the blue, and Usopp's breath is knocked out of his lungs with the strength of a thousand haki-infused punches.
They're in the middle of a busy street, on a spring island; the sky is just as blue as the sea, people are hurrying past them and not paying much attention to this odd pair of travelers. Usopp's been dragged by Luffy on a chase for adventures: his captain hand's is latched onto his wrist and guiding him through the crowd, to Luffy's next place of interest, and up until now he followed, laughing and joking and not out of his mind with fear for once, and now the world feels cold and silent and cruel.
"Wha- what do you mean, Luffy?" He answers, and then, without leaving him the time to respond, "Are you sick? Injured? Do we need to get Chopper?"
Luffy, having turned around to face Usopp, just shakes his head. "Chopper can't do anything," and just when Usopp is about to protest because Chopper can do anything, thank you very much, his captain goes on: "He did warn me, though. Said that my Gears are bad for me, because of stuff I didn't really understand... Said he wouldn't be able to do anything 'cuz the damage would be too big."
Usopp's nearly sure he stopped breathing.
He forgets, sometimes. All the time. He forgets; he sees Luffy as untouchable, undefeatable, the man who will be Pirate King and shake the world to its core while he's at it; and he forgets- he forgets the price it comes with.
He forgets, sometimes, that for each invincible pirate or marine or madman defeated, Luffy loses something too. He forgets because it seems so- so far away. These years he has already lost- those are years that are out of view, out of his concern; because sometimes he's not sure he'll ever get to live them.
And then Luffy comes out of nowhere, with this serious side of his that surfaces once every two years, and Usopp realizes.
(For all his strength, Luffy's still mortal. Still vulnerable, still capable of leaving one day without a warning.
All of them are, in the end, but they've brushed with death so many times that dying doesn't really register as a real possibility.
But Usopp should know better- it didn't seem possible for his mother to die either, after all.)
"It's not Chopper's fault, you know," the fifth Yonko says quietly, looking less like an insanely powerful man and more like a worried child. "You shouldn't be mad at him."
And behind his concern for his friends, Usopp can hear the "Are you mad at me?"
Because Usopp is a liar, used to hidden meaning, and a coward, used to being terrified of everything and anything, he hears the fear, and remembers- didn't Nami and Luffy argue this morning?
He winces.
Nami loves her friends dearly, fiercely, like they're the only last piece of sun in a dark room. She'd fight with the world itself to keep them alive, and she refuses to let them hurt themselves to save her. It happened once, with her mother, and it'll never happen again, if she has a say in it- which she probably doesn't, because every and each one of them would die to protect her and every member of their crew.
Luffy loves broadly, selflessly, his friends a priority over his life. He has fought the world itself to save them- he will again, and again, and again, because Luffy is never as strong as when he is fighting for someone or something- and Luffy is always fighting for something. Luffy has lost a brother, then two, after failing to protect them, and even if he regained one- well, the damage is done and irreversible.
Nami loves her friends too much to see them fall for her. Luffy loves his crew too much to not fall for them.
And sometimes these two way of seeing it clashes. And then here is what happens; Luffy, standing still in the middle of a crowded street, looking very small and frightened.
"I knew it, you know. I knew it almost right away, Chopper told me after we saved Robin, but I couldn't- I needed to be strong. Stronger. I couldn't- Usopp?"
Usopp doesn't answer, because he's fighting back tears. Instead, he nods, slowly, not sure he won't break if he moves too fast.
"I'm sorry," whispers Luffy, apparently unaware that each of his words is a stab to his sniper's heart. "But I couldn't- there wasn't any other way. And-"
He can't go on, because Usopp suddenly grabs him in a deathly embrace, hugging him desperately, trying to memorize the rhythm of his captain's heartbeat, the warmth of his skin, all of these little things that didn't really matter until now.
"You can't go," pleads Usopp, even if he knows Luffy can't do anything about it. "You can't go until you're Pirate King, until Zoro's the best swordsman in the world, until Robin finds out about the Lost Century. You can't- you have to stay. Promise me, Luffy, promise me- you can't go until we've all realized our dreams, until Nami has drawn a map of the world, until Chopper has cured all the diseases in the world, until- Luffy, promise me."
His captain stays silent a long time, and for every second he doesn't speak, Usopp's attempts at fighting back tears are becoming a little weaker. Then Luffy says, in a solemn voice, heavy with meaning:
"I can't promise you I won't die, Usopp. Ace- Ace did, and he broke his promise."
And there- right here and then, in the middle of this bright and cheerful town, bustling with energy, that doesn't seem to have noticed the two boys holding on to one another with all they have- there, Usopp's heart crumbles and shatters and breaks and everything falls around him.
"You shouldn't be too sad, if I do, though," Luffy continues as if he didn't notice the tightening of Usopp's fingers on his back, the way the sniper's voice is breaking ever so slightly, the way his tears are falling freely. "I almost gave up on my dream when Ace died- you can't do that, Usopp," declares his captain in the same tone he uses to say that he will be Pirate King, with a simmering power that feels on the edge of exploding.
My dream is worth nothing without you, wants to scream Usopp. My dream is to be worthy of you; can't you understand?
Usopp's shaking now, and desperately wishing to go back in time, before this conversation- better yet, before Luffy invented Gear 2nd, before years of his life had already disappeared. He wants to apologize, too, because it's his fault ; because if he had been a little stronger, then maybe, maybe Luffy wouldn't have had to invent his Gears.
(He would have done it still, whispers a voice in the sniper's mind. He would have done it, because he was always going to protect you, no matter how strong you were. He worries about you and Nami just as much as Zoro and Sanji; strength has nothing to do with it. You're his crewmates, and he's your captain; you're his to protect, his to die for. Nothing was ever going to change that.
Shut up, screams the rest of his mind at this little voice, because Usopp lies and therefore knows the truth when he hears it.)
Usopp says:
"I can't promise that either."
Luffy startles a little and tries to meet Usopp's eyes, but the liar refuses to let go.
"My mother always said that, you know," he reveals, feeling a little numb and a little raw. "That- that I shouldn't be sad, that she'd be fine, that I should just keep on living. And then she died, and she was gone, and I was alone- you can't ask me not to be sad, Luffy!"
You're my world, he wants to tell his captain. You're the sole reason my life is as magical and bright as it is, you're why I got so strong and saw so many islands, why I witnessed miracles and lived in one of my stories. You're essential- how can you think I wouldn't be destroyed by your death?
"You can be sad! I was sad, when Ace died." His captain's voice quietens a little, and he adds: "Sometimes I still am." His voice regains its usual happiness just as fast as it lost it, and he exclaims, the sheer faith contained in his voice making Usopp dizzy: "But- you're my sniper; you're going to be the greatest sniper in the world! You can't let me stop you."
As if Luffy wasn't the one that made him dream first. As if the world makes sense if he isn't there.
Usopp steps back from Luffy, reaching out to put his hand on the top of the precious straw hat crowning his captain's head, tilting it just so, covering Luffy's eyes in thin shadows.
"I'm your sniper. I'll become the best under you or not at all." Usopp states, in the most serious tone he can muster, though his voice is still trembling. Luffy frowns, probably about to protest, and Usopp adds precipitately, because he is a coward and desperately wants to stop thinking about Luffy's death- "But you're not leaving yet. Not for a long time. Hey, I think I saw a firework shop- want to go check it out?"
Luffy stares at Usopp for a second, eyebrows furrowed- and then he looks at the direction his sniper is pointing at, eyes shining like a child's, looking like he already forgot the conversation, though Usopp is sure he didn't.
The sniper watch him observes the crowd, and when Luffy tugs his arm because there is a firework shop, and wow, Usopp, there's so many, and they're all so pretty, isn't it cool? , he lets himself be dragged toward the colorful building, head still reeling with thoughts.
You're not dying before me, Captain, swears Usopp, and the sentence is as much a promise as a threat.
I don't plan to live a life without you; what's the point, then?
-oOo-
Much later, after Usopp comes back on Sunny, and just as the island is starting to fade in the distance, he finds Nami curled up in his workshop, clutching a worn-out straw hat in her right hand, eyes red and seeming exhausted beyond her age. Across of her is Zoro, as unreadable as he is when he wants to be, hands tracing invisible lines on Wado Ichimonji's unsheathed blade over and over again, the sword in his lap.
"I don't want to talk about it," she bites out as soon as Usopp arrives, and he nods and lets himself fall next to her.
"We're not letting him die," he just states, and Zoro scoffs from his place in the shadows.
"Of course not. What kind of crew would we be, then?"
But the silence after that is a little too heavy, a little too meaningful, and the future has never seemed so terrifying.
Because- Luffy will always sacrifice himself for them; even his crewmates can't stop it.
(They'll try, though.
They can't do anything else.)