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The air had been thick with shouts, cheers, slamming tankards, and the clangor of mid-feast brawls for nearly two days, after everyone had regathered their strength in recovering from the worst Elbaph had seen in decades. Now, at the very center of the round table and the center of the commotion, in the light of the sun and everyone’s eyes, was the little runt and his crew. They were a bit hard to make out through the thin white bandages, but he had gotten used to it, and he could see well enough. Thankfully, everyone else couldn’t say the same. He was particularly thankful that specifically the runt had never seen what was behind the bandages. He also was not sure why he cared.
Speaking of the runt, he seemed to be putting up quite a fight in a drink-off battle with Hajrudin. The green-haired swordsman had been keeping up well enough…until he spontaneously fell asleep. So now it was just the captain left in the running. Actually–upon closer inspection, Luffy seemed to be winning against Hajrudin. The all-beloved savior of Elbaph was swelling up to absolutely inhuman proportions like an overfilled water balloon, and everyone around laughed along with him. Looking at him, beaming at them all, it was hard for him to not also want to join in the laughter. But he couldn’t.
It had felt like so long since he had been among this all, sitting freely in the Sun World instead of chained in the perpetual clouds of the Underworld. Though maybe ‘among’ was a stretch. While the dappled light shone freely across all their faces, Loki sat a comfortable distance away, in the shadows stretched between a crumbling alleyway’s walls.'
Suddenly, the small crowd around the table dispersed back into the larger mob. Loki turned his head down from the rippling leaves overhead back to the people, and there was a notable runt-shaped absence. The question of where he went hardly had time to flash in his mind before something else flashed in front of him for an instant, leaving a dustcloud in his wake. A cry of “I’ll be back, I’m digesting!” echoed back toward the crowd.
Loki was quite sure that was not how biology worked.
In a few moments, the runt was in front of him. For some reason, he had chosen this shadowy alley to do his digestion-laps in.
“Heeey!” Luffy waved his arms erratically in his direction. “Loki!”
“Hah! Has Hajrudin finally beat y–what the hell?” The stupid balloon body had really turned back into a relatively normal-looking human. Though really, he had seen Luffy accomplish feats much stranger in the past 4 days, he should not be surprised by anything anymore. The runt stopped in front of his crossed legs and looked up.
“I told you, I was digesting!” Luffy bounced up from the grass to land squarely on Loki’s knee. “Oi, come drink with us! It’ll be fun!” He grinned–a sunlit grin that couldn’t even be obscured by bandages wound around devil eyes.
Loki leaned back against the war-torn bricks and turned his head away.
“With them?” He scoffed, “Not a chance. I don’t want to get myself involved with those people.”
Luffy’s big smile distorted into an overexaggerated frown, and Loki looked away. A couple of them were starting to notice them—his stature wasn't exactly the best for remaining unseen. He could sense their joy in their movements; they were probably waiting for Luffy, waiting for their Sun God to return. And when his head twitched toward them, and their eyes shifted to his face, he could see their easygoing, warm smiles turn stiff, and fake. All fucking liars. They all still hate him. It would feel less patronizing if they didn’t smile at him at all.
“Hmmmm.” Luffy was making that face again. The serious face. And the serious voice. Somehow, that felt even more wrong than every time Loki felt the blood rise to his cheeks when Luffy gave him that wide, moronic grin. Then the runt continued,
“Join my crew.”
“I told you, I am not joining your stupid crew!” Loki snorted, “You think I want to stoop so low as to be your underling?!”
A black-gloved fist took a wild swing at the small human in front of him, but it was easily evaded, and Luffy didn’t even catch his breath before replying,
“Why not?”
“I’ve already told you why not, you brat! I don’t want to be your inferior!”
He swung at Luffy again, but this time, Luffy caught his enormous fist and kicked it away.
“That’s not why.” His voice was maddeningly level.
Loki’s scowl deepened and he yelled,
“Who the fuck are you to tell me that? I’m gonna kill you!”
Loki stood, casting a vast shadow over the ground as his fist closed around Ragnir’s hilt. He towered over Luffy, like a mountain over an ant. Luffy didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.
“Say what you mean!”
“Selfish fucking bastard! I don’t want to join your crew because…” Loki suddenly found it increasingly difficult to maintain eye contact–if whatever was going on through the white bandage blindfolds could qualify for being called eye contact. “Because I’m the destroyer of the world! I’ll kill you, and your crew, and curse everyone you have ever known!” Loki began to swing the hammer downwards as he finished yelling, “So I don’t want to be stuck with anybody!”
Luffy leapt upwards and grabbed each hand onto Loki’s horns, hanging in front of his face, the little shit.
“I don’t care, you’re cool! I want to see more of you!”
“You don’t want to see me. The most you’d think of me is that I’m useful.” Loki spat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Not even death wants me.”
They faced each other for several uncomfortable seconds. Maybe the runt was finally going to realize that this was all a mistake and return to everyone else. The bandages obscured the searing glare that Loki was giving him, probably for the best, because this fucker had too much audacity for his own good. Enough audacity to punch the King of the World square in the face.
But that audacity was what got him so far. People admired him for it, from everything Loki had overheard about Luffy’s past adventures; daring to strike down multiple Warlord kings that were largely much stronger than he, one of those damn Celestial Dragons, two Emperors of the sea…and people loved it. No, but that wasn’t why they loved him. His infuriating cheerfulness, he could walk into a giant-sized room and light it up with that smile. Who the hell was he kidding, Luffy wasn’t going to back off just because of some empty threat. But at least maybe he would—
Luffy’s arm shot out towards Loki’s face like a bullet. Loki was fast, but Luffy was faster. Before Loki could smack the stray hand away, the white bandages around his eyes were at his feet. Loki blinked, and took it all in. Luffy looked just as he’d imagined. Through the cloth he had been able to make out the general shapes and colors, but now he could see everything. The warmth that radiated so far beyond that smile, into his big, beautiful, round eyes. They were eyes that could ignite passion and hope in a struggling country, win the people’s hearts without even trying. And in turn, Luffy was looking right back, staring directly into his own hideous devil’s eyes.
Fuck.
As Loki stood up, he vaguely registered Luffy saying something, but it rang like white noise in his ears. He’d rather pretend like Luffy said nothing at all than hear the inevitable cry of revulsion. By the time Luffy had scrambled to his feet, Loki had turned on his heel and walked away as fast as he could without outright running.
At least that way he could maintain some semblance of dignity.
___________________________________________
Loki’s fists balled and slammed into the ground. Luffy was never supposed to see that. Worse, he was definitely fast enough to follow Loki’s retreating figure into this empty building, but he didn’t even try to chase the giant. But of course he wouldn’t, why would he want to continue looking at those cursed eyes? A fool’s effort, to even bother nursing the tiny hope for anything else.
He looked around, taking in the cracked support beam and crumbling bricks of the dimly-lit room. The air was still thick with dust from the battle’s aftermath, clouding the air into a grey haze. It felt so much like home.
Home? If anything, it felt like the Underworld. Foggy and dark and alone. Through all his years of life, bounced around unwanted by all, he wasn’t sure if he could have ever used ‘home’ to describe anywhere. Rejected from birth, by Rocks, by his country. And now, after the only one who ever…
Loki’s train of thought was abruptly interrupted. Those were footsteps. Coming fast, up the steps and nearing the entrance to this isolated room. He swore under gritted teeth—why now of all times? His eyes darted around, searching for an exit but found nothing but a small window through which he definitely would not fit. Well, he could always threaten to beat up the intruder so he could be left alone.
Hajrudin slowly stepped into the room.
Change of plans, Loki supposed. During the battle, they had exchanged quick instructions, information, whatever was necessary to live. In the days since then, the two had been tactically avoiding each other. When Chopper was tending to the injureds’ wounds, they would always find a time when the other was not there. It was easy to avoid Hajrudin in the celebrations after, though—Loki simply didn’t celebrate with everyone.
The smaller giant opened his mouth, then froze, looking like he didn’t know what to say. He looked ridiculous, like a water-starved fish. Loki raised his eyebrow, confused, before his eyes widened in realization; his eyes. Hajrudin was looking at his eyes. It had never struck him that his brother had not yet seen his uncovered face.
“Shut up,” Loki growled, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
Loki sighed and turned to face the wall, shielding his wounded, bandaged stomach from his brother. He grumbled, “You don’t need to say anything. I already know. I’ve heard it all. So just go.”
“Well, I’m just delivering a message,” Hajrudin scratched the back of his neck. “From many people in Elbaph. A lot of them want to say that…they’re grateful to you.”
Loki’s twisted back around.
“Don’t fuck with me! That’s a fucking lie, they all still think I’m a curse.”
Hajrudin tentatively walked forward. Loki wished he’d stay away. Before, he would have simply cracked Hajrudin’s head in with his club to achieve that end. But now, both nursing healing wounds from a war they just fought together, he couldn’t bring himself to. So all he did was press himself further against the wall.
“I can’t speak for the truth of everyone else, but I can speak for myself. I’m…” Hajrudin was now fidgeting with his thumbs, like a child caught red-handed by his parent. “I’m sorry about what I said about you and Father. I know I apologized the first time, before everything, but we didn’t really have enough time then, and I can’t let myself just pretend as though it never happened.”
“It’s really not–”
“–I judged you too harshly. I blindly believed everyone who blamed you, one individual, for all the failings of the country. I–”
“Shut up!” Loki snapped. “I don’t want your pity, so get the hell out!”
“It’s not pity, I’m just saying that I’m sorry, and that the people are grateful that you helped defend our home from the World Government. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Yeah, only because you were going to resign the fate of our home to a couple of puny foreigners!”
“We owe our lives and country to ‘those foreigners’, so could you, for even one second, not insult them? Or do you still think your stuck-up ass is so superior to everyone?!”
Loki’s lips curved upwards into a sly grin at those sharpened words. There was the Hajrudin that Loki knew.
“Nevermind, sorry.” Hajrudin buried his face in his hands. “God, this isn’t going anywhere.”
But he still didn’t leave. Why wouldn’t he leave? And for some reason that Loki didn’t yet understand, he didn’t simply bluff a threat and pretend he’d actually strike Hajrudin. It’s not like he’d been deterred from doing that in the past.
“If this isn’t going anywhere, then just go away,” Loki groaned, and turned his head away. “This is how things are supposed to be.”
“No. This isn’t what Mother would have wanted.”
The two giants froze, the larger one looking away while the smaller one looked directly at the other. The air in the room seemed to become thicker than the dust ever made it. What would Hajrudin know about what she thought of Loki? She only tolerated him because Father wanted her to. What did it matter to him, anyway?
“I don’t care what she would have wanted!” As Loki’s voice cracked on ‘care’, he refused to meet Hajrudin’s eyes. There would be nothing worth looking at in there anyway.
“I know that’s a lie,” he said. Loki distantly thought that Hajrudin’s voice sounded strange. “You burned down the Brewer’s Village because of her. Don’t look at me like that, it wasn’t hard to piece together once I found out. I know you cared about her. And she loved you, just as much as she loved me and Father. So stop saying you don’t care when you do.”
He watched as Hajrudin looked up into the ceiling—through the ceiling—and smiled.
“She talked about you a lot, you know? She said that you aren’t all that different from your father, at least not when it comes to what matters. She liked to tell me stories about how he was a crazy man in his youth, but that he was still a sweetheart under it all, and grew into himself later. Back then, it always baffled me why she put up with you all the time.”
Loki gritted his teeth as a hundred thoughts flashed through his mind. ‘Loved you just as much’? She might have been kinder to him than everyone else, but he would never be her golden child. And he was nothing like Father. Father was idealistic, too idealistic. He was kind to everyone, even if they didn’t deserve it. Father was a beloved king, and Loki was the shame of the nation. Instead, Loki said,
“I’m also not sure why Mother put up with a kid like me.” He closed his eyes, and was suddenly small again, sitting on the stool to the side of the bar and looking up at a warm-faced, freckled woman who, for some reason, called herself his mother. “But she used to laugh about how kind and sweet you were all the time when you weren’t around to get annoyed by it. And how you…nevermind.” He bit his tongue. “You already knew all of that.”
Now Hajrudin was looking at him strangely, too. Fuck, he was looking at his eyes.
“You-you don’t have to look at them. You can just get the hell out if it bothers you so much!”
“What?” Now Hajrudin’s face was just scrunched up in confusion.
Loki pulled the brim of his iron helmet down to cover his face in place of the bandages that Luffy had ripped off.
“There! Better?”
“Holy crap, Loki, I don’t care what your eyes look like! I just wanted to see you! Is it so wrong to want to look your brother in the eyes?”
Loki still didn’t move the helmet that was blinding him. Even if Hajrudin said he didn’t care, it would never change that she cared. The first person to ever hold him cared enough to decide to abandon him for it. All it proved was that she would never be his real mother, but he still couldn’t help but feel the humiliating sting of her rejection, and he hated that he did.
“Mother told me once that she didn’t know why you hid your eyes. She said they looked…cute.”
Loki gaped. In what world were these slit-eyes ‘cute’? Then again, she said both he and Hajrudin were cute all the time, to both their chagrins.
“When did she see them?”
The cape around Hajrudin’s shoulders rustled as he shrugged.
“I don’t know. I only know that she said she wished you wouldn’t cover them. And…” Hajrudin swallowed, “And I don’t think she would want you to always be hidden in the shadows. Or, I suppose a grimy, broken down building. You deserve better than this.”
Loki’s eyelids tightly pressed together, but it wasn’t enough to stop tears from slowly leaking out from the corners of his eyes while he slowly slumped to the ground. When he sat like this, he was almost shorter than his standing brother.
“How am I supposed to believe that?” Loki’s booming voice had shriveled into a thin whisper. “When everybody looks at me with apathy at best and disgust at worst?” God, he must look pathetic right now.
Hajrudin tentatively stepped closer—too close. His hand reached up—too close—and rested on the brim of his helmet. Loki didn’t move away, even when every inch of his battle-born body screamed out in warning that he was way too fucking close.
The hand slowly lifted the helmet off Loki’s eyes, baring the embarrassingly watery mess underneath. And Hajrudin didn’t recoil—he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around him. It felt alien. It was wrong. Nobody had ever held him like this in his entire life. The first time he let himself want this, he was thrown into the Underworld. The second time someone else tried to give this to him so many years later, he slapped her arms off in disgust.
Or maybe it was fear.
Could he let himself want this?
His own arms seemed to respond for him. They snaked around the shorter giant, pulling him too close. Loki dropped his head onto Hajrudin’s shoulder and grit his teeth. At least he had the comfort of drying his tears on the thick, fluffy cape draped over Hajrudin’s shoulders. Even standing over his seated younger brother, he hardly reached the level of Loki's horned head. Hajrudin’s fingertips barely touched when they were stretched around Loki’s back, while Loki’s hands could wind around Hajrudin and still reach his own elbows. And despite it all, Loki felt so small.
For the first time, Loki wished he were small.
“I can’t tell you how to believe it,” Hajrudin admitted, “I can only tell you that you have to want to.”
He could feel his brother’s heartbeat through his skin—the skin that was only used to touching that of another when it was tearing flesh and bludgeoning bones. Gentleness did not come naturally to him, and this still seemed so, so wrong. How many times had he hurt Hajrudin simply for the crime of…what? Being nearby?
“M’ sorry…” Loki grumbled into Hajrudin’s shoulder.
“Huh?”
Loki swallowed thickly and repeated,
“Sorry. For being such a shit when I was younger. For everything.”
Hajrudin closed his eyes and seemed to try to say something, but the sound caught in his throat. He paused and swallowed before letting out, almost-inaudibly, “Thanks.” He quickly cleared his throat, bringing his voice back to a normal volume, and then shrugged, “I guess then that makes us even.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Loki frowned, “I was so much worse.”
“Maybe,” Hajrudin sighed, “But neither of us can take back the past. What good does it do to linger on it?”
Loki had spent the last six years of his life chained to a tree. He had nothing better to do but linger on the past, surrounded by nothing but the bitter wind and his bitter memories. He had replayed them all so many times over. Their weight had settled heavy in his bones in a way even the cold never did, cering him in an inexplicable uneasiness that he only now was able to place as hurt and regret. And now Loki was shuddering into his brother’s shoulder, trying in vain to control the sobs ripping through his chest while tears soaked through the fur and tracked down Hajrudin’s back. Numbly, Loki felt a few droplets fall onto his own shoulders where Hajrudin’s cheek hovered above. Hajrudin didn’t move away. Instead, he just fucking laughed through his tears,
“You little shit.”
Hajrudin’s tone had no malice.
“Shut up.”
Loki’s words held no venom.
And neither of them moved away. God, this felt so pathetic—but it didn’t feel wrong. Not anymore. Loki found his stiff back and arms softening as he slowly slumped into his brother’s embrace, letting time pass over them slow like syrup. His mind went quiet, and for once, the unending flow of the seconds didn’t sting.
“Loki. I was thinking,” Hajrudin whispered, “I’d like to have you on my crew.”
“Eh?” Loki sputtered, “Now you, too?!”
Hajrudin laughed again, “Ah, right. Luffy, he…he’s someone else. I couldn’t believe him when he asked the first time, before he even knew any of it. But he’s crazy like that.”
Crazy, huh? Every time Loki looked into Luffy’s eyes, he saw a wild glint in there, lively and untamed and dangerously inviting. It made people want to follow him anywhere. That, he had only ever seen a few other times, in people equally crazy. Crazy, like the man walking into Warland and demanding the king as if he owned the place. Crazy, like the woman who just watched a man twice her size bring down the Bunt Kingdom, and then still decided to slap him across the face. They were all definitely a bit crazy. Maybe Loki liked crazy people.
“Yeah,” he grinned, ears warming, “You don’t say. Fucker tried to punch me square in the face right after meeting me. And then tried to heal me by shoving scorching hot meat and soup down my throat. I don’t know what kind of weird metabolism he has, but that is not how normal people work.”
“And you’re the pinnacle of normal people, of course.”
“As if. I’m better.”
“Loki, you’re dodging the question. The crew.”
He had never been part of a whole, only an outsider. He’d watch from afar when the small, magnetic rubber man drew laughter even from the scowling swordsman while the blond cook pirouetted around with plates on each hand for the two women. And he’d watch from afar as Gerd teased Road about his dolls, or as Goldberg chatted to Stansen about the newest cooking technique from the South Blue. Something deep in Loki’s chest ached.
“Hmph. So now that I’ve proved myself useful and won’t immediately kill you, you want me under your thumb?”
“Far from it. I think we should become co-captains.”
“Co-captains?”
Hajrudin shrugged and said, “Dorry and Broggy did it. So did Jorul and Jarul. Is it so strange?”
“That isn’t what I—whatever. What about the throne? Who will protect Elbaph?”
“Luffy offered us a Strawhat flag. We’ll fly it in the nation to put under their protection. If anyone messes with us, they’re messing with Luffy. Besides, that’s already what we pledged with the Grand Fleet.”
“Well…” Loki’s fists tightened, “Does your crew even like me?”
Hajrudin breathed out and loosened his arms from around his brother, letting them drop to his sides.
“I told them all about what you told me back in the Underworld. They don’t hate you. I talked to them about your joining as a co-captain, and they said that whatever you decide is only up to us.”
Joining that crew. Being part of it. Was that something he could let himself take?
“I…I’ll think about it.”
“You know,” Hajrudin slowly said, “You can think about it outside. With us.” He put a hand on Loki’s now-damp shoulder. “Drink with us, Loki. We’re celebrating Elbaph’s victory. We couldn’t have done it without you. You’re as much part of this as any of us.”
Twice now he had been invited to drink with everyone, to stand in the sun, where he had nowhere to hide from people’s glaring eyes. Invited to stand with them, and laugh with them, as if he belonged there. They’d be counting each second he was there, waiting for the moment he’d leave.
Loki looked down into Hajrudin’s guileless eyes. Could it really be that his crew no longer held hatred to him? Hatred rarely fades so quickly. But if Hajrudin was telling the truth, and they were really not revolted by his presence…
His chest ached again. Wanting, despite every cautionary bone in his body crying out to protect himself.
Fuck it.
“Okay.”
Loki and Hajrudin stood up from the dusty shadowed room, and walked out together, into the light.