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The real bitch about it isn’t that Usopp doesn’t see it coming, because he does.
It’s that he knows exactly what’s happening, but by the time he realizes it, he doesn’t care enough to fix it.
He wakes up tired. First, he forces himself to get up. Luffy will steal all the food if he doesn’t, and he wants breakfast. Up, up. He won’t be so fatigued once he walks around a bit.
It's not long before that becomes too much work.
Sanji will save him a plate. He won’t go hungry if he just gets a little more sleep. No point in being so tired when he could just roll over and catch a few more minutes of REM, right? Their sniper needs to be alert.
A few more minutes becomes a few more hours within the week.
An insidious voice insists he stay in bed. He already missed breakfast. No point in getting up now. Just sleep until lunch.
Usopp rolls over and stares at the wall. On the other side, he can hear Luffy laughing. Nami is yelling something, but her voice is muffled.
He wants to be out there with them. It’s almost midday and he’s getting sweaty under his sheets.
But... they’re already having fun. What do they need him for? Just stay in bed. No point in getting up.
He kicks off his pants under the covers to deal with the heat and pulls the blankets over his head to block out some of the sunlight. He doesn’t dream. He just wakes up with another hour of the day lost.
He rises for lunch, but only because he has to pee so bad he can feel his organs shifting around. He isn’t sure he has an appetite.
Or, no. That’s not true. He’s hungry, his stomach assures him of that. But he doesn’t want to eat. He’s too tired, or… something. Too empty. Nothing spikes his desire enough to expend the energy it would take.
“Look who finally decided to get up,” Nami says, and sits right next to him at the table. He has to make himself smile. If he doesn’t, she’ll think he’s upset. He’s not. He doesn’t feel much of anything enough to be upset. “Have any sweet dreams, sleepy-head?”
“Not really,” he says.
“What, you’re not gonna tell us about it?” Zoro asks. Zoro always likes his stories. He may not say it, but he always listens when Usopp tells them, and undivided attention from that knuckle-head is harder to catch than a sea-king.
Too bad Usopp doesn’t have any ideas.
“Nothing to tell, my friend,” he says, trying to puff up his chest, even if he doesn’t feel like it. He leans his cheek on one hand and starts pushing his food over his plate.
He makes himself eat at least one serving. Usually he’d go for more, but mustering up the energy to get one plate down is hard enough as it is.
He doesn’t go back to bed immediately after lunch, even though he’s tired again already. He makes himself stay up long enough to eat dinner, only speaking when spoken to, and then calls it an early night.
“Are you sure you’re alright, Usopp?” Robin asks him as he passes by, drinking her usual eight o'clock cup of coffee.
“I think I’m coming down with something,” he says, not quite a lie but close enough. “Just need some rest.”
The next day isn’t any easier. If anything, it’s harder.
His first thought when he wakes is what’s the point. He doesn’t even bother to argue with himself. There isn’t one.
When he wakes a second time, he has to use the bathroom. He rolls over on his side so there’s less pressure on his belly. Just a little longer. Just until he isn’t so tired.
Usopp scratches his nail over a pill in his bed covers. He wonders what his life would be like if he was somebody else. Somebody that didn’t lay in bed all day, too tired to get up.
Sanji delivers his lunch to his bedside.
“Robin told me you’re not feeling well,” he says.
Usopp doesn’t raise his head. He pulls his covers up to his chest.
“Don’t worry about returning the bowl. I’ll come back to pick it up in an hour or so.” Sanji tucks the blankets around his feet and pats his calf in that awkward, uncertain way Sanji does when he’s trying to be kind to men. “Get some rest, buddy.”
The door shuts behind him with a soft click.
Usopp makes himself sit up. In the bowl are soup dumplings in the shape of dinosaurs. Sanji gave the dumplings little dough legs and tails and everything. He scoops up a dumpling-saur with the spoon provided, and his chin starts wobbling.
He’s hungry, so hungry, but his mouth won’t open to let him eat.
What’s the point? Food is fuel, and he’s not going anywhere. Why bother?
Because Sanji made this for him.
Eating it is his responsibility, how he shows gratitude for Sanji’s hard work.
He finishes the bowl. It gives him enough energy to use the bathroom.
Then he goes back to bed.
“Usopp.”
He rubs his eye as he’s pulled from his restless, unnecessary sleep.
“Nh?”
“I heard you don’t feel good,” comes Chopper’s little voice.
His bowl of soup has vanished from his bedside, replaced with a little bowl of cut fruit. The light that comes through the porthole is golden. It must be getting close to evening. Another day gone. Not like he would have spent it doing anything useful, anyways.
“I’m fine,” he lies. “Just tired.”
“Do you mind if I run a few tests? Just for my peace of mind.” He’s already trying to pull himself up, one foot slipping on the mattress as he tries to use it for more leverage.
“Okay.”
Chopper checks his temperature, his heart rate, and his blood pressure. All normal. There’s nothing wrong with him. Nothing wrong with him physically, at least.
“I guess you are fine,” Chopper says, unconvinced. “I’ll keep checking in for changes in your condition."
“Okay.”
He stares at the ceiling after Chopper leaves. He nibbles on pieces of fruit, not tasting any of it. He watches the gold fade to purple, and purple turn to gray, and gray darken to black. It’s the most boring thing in the world.
He wants to get out of bed more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.
What would he do when he got up? Eat, and not appreciate Sanji’s cooking as much as he deserves? Half ass a conversation with friends who deserve a better version of himself? Be too tired to go along with Luffy’s antics?
No. Might as well stay here. He can’t handle the world out there. This, picking out muddy shapes in the darkness, is much more his speed.
The light flicks on in the boy’s quarters.
“Dinner’s ready. Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” he sighs. His stomach grumbles.
Sanji frowns at him. Usopp looks away. He won’t get out of bed, won’t spend time with his friends, and now he won’t even eat. He deserves it, but he doesn’t want to see Sanji’s disappointment.
“You’re sure you don’t want some bread, or something? I can make something that’s easy on your stomach.”
Maybe if he agrees to the bread, Sanji will leave him be.
Then again, when he finds the uneaten bread later, Sanji will get even more worried. Then everybody will come in and bother him, asking him if he’s alright, and he won’t know how to answer.
No, he’s not sick. He doesn’t have a fever, or a cough.
But his bones ache. Apathy chills his chest from the inside out. His head is heavy. He doesn’t have the energy to move, to smile, to even think. When he does have the energy, he doesn’t have the will to gather it.
There’s something wrong with him, a heaviness that clings onto his back. Some days it swallows stones until he can no longer carry it, and it drags him to the ground. He wishes he could say that he only needs time to gather his strength, but it’s not up to him. It chooses when to spit out the stones. Only then does he pick himself back up.
“I’m just tired,” he says. “Maybe tomorrow.”
But tomorrow is no better. His body hurts from laying down for so long. His head aches, either from sleeping so much or not drinking enough water. He catches the foul smell of the sweat he’s been sitting in when he shifts in bed. His face is greasy. He wipes it off on his sheets.
His breakfast is a smiling face made up of two sunny side up egg eyes, a half of a strawberry for a nose, and two pieces of sea king bacon curved up in a smile.
As he forces it down, he wishes he were someone who deserved to eat it.
He wakes sometime around noon to a weight at his side. He opens his eyes, unsure if he was really sleeping or just passing the time in darkness.
“Hey.” Sanji reaches out, hand twitching halfway in hesitation, before he rests his hand on Usopp’s shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”
Feeling?
It takes a moment for him to remember what that’s like.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been in bed for three days, man. I don’t think you’re fine.”
Usopp turns his head into his pillow.
“I’m not sick, Chopper already checked.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re fine,” Sanji says. He lets his hand fall from Usopp’s shoulder. His entire body is stiff when he speaks. “Do you wanna... talk about it?”
Talk about it? Talk about what? How he can’t even get out of bed unless he’s about to piss himself? How he’s too pathetic to eat with the rest of the crew? How Sanji’s kindness is forcing him to go out of his way to keep Usopp fed, when Usopp has done nothing to deserve it?
They should just let Usopp wither away. That’s what he deserves.
He hasn’t given anyone a reason to do anything else.
Even if he wants to. He wants to get out of this bed so badly it hurts, but every attempt is like trying to break down a reinforced steel door. He can scream and kick and throw things as much as he wants in his head, can want to tinker with Kabuto and fish and brush his teeth as much as he likes, but it’s never enough. Nothing he wants matters enough.
“Why’s it so hard?” Usopp asks the ceiling.
“What is?”
Usopp’s lips press together as his chin starts to tremble again.
His tears come in an anti-climactic, lazy slide down the sides of his face and into his ears. He takes a sharp, sniffling breath through his nose.
“Everything,” he says. He swallows around the knot in his throat. “It’s so easy for everybody else. You want to do something, you get up and do it. I just… lie here.” The tears don’t stop, but they never build to anything hysterical and satisfying. They just continue to drip.
“It’s not easy for everybody else.”
“Liar.” Usopp rubs his nose over his wrist. It leaves a trail of snot on his forearm that he doesn’t bother to wipe off. “Nothing’s hard for you and Luffy and Zoro.”
A look passes over Sanji’s face. His mouth sets in a grim frown, and his eyebrows furrow. He straightens the covers over Usopp’s chest.
“Just ‘cause some people are better at hiding it, it doesn’t mean they’re not struggling.”
Maybe if Usopp cared about anything at all, if his icy self hate left any room for other thoughts, he’d wonder what Sanji meant by that. As it is, he can only wipe his eyes on his pillow case.
“It’s not fair,” Sanji continues. “It sucks that life is so hard. But y’know what gets me out of bed every morning?”
“Huh.”
“You. I have to get up, ‘cause if I don’t, you guys don’t eat. I’m lucky that I have people that need me. When I need a reason to keep going, I can think of my friends.”
Usopp lets out a full body sigh. Of course Sanji would say that. If Sanji doesn’t do his job, if he isn’t around, the crew suffers. What’s happened since Usopp’s been absent? Nothing.
“Nobody needs me.”
Sanji pinches his arm, and Usopp flinches away with a squeaked ow!
So much for Mr. Nice Guy he’s been getting the last few days. Usop rubs the red welt that Sanji left.
“We do need you. Never say we don’t, or I’ll kick you so hard you really won’t be able to get out of bed. Everybody’s been practically inconsolable without you around.” Sanji leans backward, his warmth making Usopp’s side sweat. “I understand if it’s hard to see right now.”
“Thanks.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Is that really all it takes for you? You just… will yourself forward?”
“Most of the time,” Sanji says. “Some days are harder than others. But I keep something in my back pocket for the worst days. It’d probably help you, too.”
Usopp quirks his eyebrow in question. He prepares himself for Sanji to say something unhelpful, like how if he doesn’t face the day, he won’t get to see Robin and Nami’s tits. Sanji grins.
“When I’m really, really down, I think about Zoro eating dirt.”
That shocks a laugh out of him.
“ What? ”
“I think about Zoro eating dirt,” he repeats, unable to hold in his own chuckle.
“Like, with a spoon?”
“With a spoon, with his hands, on a plate or out of a dog bowl or something–”
“ A dog bowl? ” Now Usopp is truly laughing, hands over his face as he imagines Zoro shoveling dirt into his mouth, hunched over a dog bowl with his name on it. Oh boy, his favorite. What the fuck. “Who even thinks of that?”
“It works, doesn’t it?”
Usopp wipes his tears again, but this time they’re not from his frustration and grief.
“You’ve got a thing, man,” Usopp tells him. Sanji laughs darkly. He hops off of Usopp’s bed, and he yanks off the sheets that have been both his sanctuary and his prison.
“C’mon. Time to get up. No more laying around.”
That heaviness washes over Usopp tenfold, begging him to stay in the comfort of his bed. He makes a grab for his sheets.
“I–I dunno, Sanji, I’m really tired–”
“You’ve been sleeping for three days, there’s no way you’re tired. You don’t need sleep, you need a shower and a hot meal.” Sanji takes Usopp’s wrists and pulls him up to sit. “Just trust me.”
Usopp looks down where Sanji is holding him. That weight is still too heavy to lift on his own, but here Sanji is, doing everything in his power to make it lighter.
If he can get up for nothing else, he’ll do it for him. Until he can do it for himself again.
“Okay,” he says softly. “I’ll try.”