[fic] when the warm air comes
Title: when the warm air comes
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Franky/Robin
Word Count: 4707
Notes: Written for Frobin Week on tumblr.
01:SMILE
Her smile is a weapon, sharp and sweet and poisonous, subtler and more effective than her thousand hands clawing at the throats of her enemies, snapping their spines, their necks. She’s practiced for twenty years, honed her smile to cutting edge. There are secrets to be read in the corners of her mouth, red and inviting. There is intent, and men die trying to decipher hers. She only has to hood her eyes-tilt her head, her lips-and they destroy themselves eagerly. She thinks this is not what Saul had wanted for her, when he showed her how to steel her jaw and laugh, but Saul is dead and she is on her way.
She is on her way, the seastone heavy around her wrists, when she meets him.
They are both in chains, but when Franky smiles, he smiles with teeth, and try as she might, she can only read triumph in the corners of his mouth. He is as much war machine as he is man, but his smile is natural and warm, like his arm against her arm, like the way he says her name, as if they knew each other in a lifetime before this one. Nico Robin, never apologize. Nico Robin, they’re coming for you.
The way he smiles, so wide, it must be regret, she thinks. Because regret cuts you open, teaches you what love means, holds you in place. Sanji on the Baratie, Chopper in that cold, abandoned castle, and this strange cyborg on the fringes of a city he once called home. Regret ties you down but it teaches you longing, too, sharpens your dreams so that they scrape the inside of your skull and keep you awake staring at stars. Regret starves you. She’s seen it in Sanji and Chopper, the way they smile so fervently and so openly, like it’s new to them and they can’t get enough.
And when Franky smiles, he smiles with teeth, like he’s hungry for it. Like Saul did.
Dereshishi, she remembers, her chest too tight to breathe. Yes, that’s how it goes. She hasn’t forgotten. She feels small again, and stupid and hopeful, because Saul had said, hadn’t he, that there will be people in this world who would love her too.
And Franky had smiled, all triumph and confidence, like Saul had tried to teach her once, and he had said, he had said, Nico Robin, they’re coming for you.
02:I'M HERE
It is exactly 4:06 in the morning. He knows this without looking at a watch because he built in an internal clock the last time he updated himself. It only needs cola to keep running, and as far as he knows, he’s the most accurate timepiece at sea. More reliable than those big, clunky sea clocks the Marines kept on their ships, all jammed up with superfluous gears and springs. Those clocks lost more seconds and minutes than they kept at the break of each wave.
His internal clock ticks soft and steady alongside his heart. It keeps the local time (4:12 now) and Water 7 time, because he is sentimental. In Water 7, it is still 9:12 in the evening of the previous day. He wonders if Bakaberg is just sitting down to dinner with some dignitaries from St. Poplar, if the Galley-La guys are hamming it up at the bar (under new management, since Blueno is gone). It’s a Tuesday, so he knows it’s taco night at the Franky House and Mozu and Kiwi are probably on their sixth strawberry margarita. Granny Kokoro should be making the last stops on the Sea Train about now, and Chimney will be dropping off to sleep in the conductor’s car. On their way home, he wonders if they’ll stop by that street stall that sells those massive baked oysters, the best in the city. Wash it down with a bit of cola and there’s nothing better. Maybe he can get Sanji to recreate the recipe. He thinks the secret might be fennel leaves on the coals.
He swipes a hand across his face and he pretends he’s not crying, even though he’s on night watch and there is no one around to see. He can’t help it, how much he misses them. He misses them so much he could write a song about it, several hundred songs, strumming his sorrows out on guitar, but it’s 4:32 in the morning and he shouldn’t wake anyone, even if he is lonely.
Dawn comes early in this part of the Grand Line, and he can already see a glimmer of sun at the edge of the world. I’ll feel better in the morning, he tells himself, but then he thinks of everyone back home getting ready for bed just as he’s getting ready to start the day and he just can’t help it-there is such a distance and he can’t believe how much he misses them. He blows his nose.
There is a sudden thunk from behind and he whirls around to see a bottle of cola on the floor, already uncapped and fizzing. He can see no one else in the crow’s nest and no one on the deck when he looks down. But then he spots it, a single brown eye looking at him from the wall next to the window.
It blinks once and he blinks back. It blinks again, pointedly.
“I wasn’t crying,” he sniffles indignantly, but walks over to grab the bottle from the floor. He takes a long swallow from it, the cola fizzing and popping down his throat, and he feels his circuitry run a bit smoother. When he glances back, the eye is gone, but he feels a brush of fingertips at his shoulder, ghosting along his jaw line. He holds out his hand and for just a moment, there are fingers entwined with his.
It’s 10:01 at night in Water 7 and here, wherever here is, it’s 5:01 in the morning. His heart counts the long, stretching distance in time zones. But no matter where they are, it only takes half a minute from the crow’s nest to the deck to the kitchen, where there will be fresh coffee brewing in the pot and another bottle of cold cola waiting for him on the table. Half a minute is almost no distance at all.
He wipes his eyes and puts out his candle, makes his way down in the fading dark of pre-dawn. Half a minute. There will be hands to catch him if he stumbles.
03:SHAME
One of the many perks of having a built-in radar is that no one can sneak up on you. Not even Nico Robin, who has footsteps like a cat’s. He pings her presence long before she enters the Soldier Dock, but he’s in the middle of something and doesn’t sit up to greet her.
She sprouts a hand from the floor of the dock, an eye embedded in the palm, next to where he’s working under the Mini Merry. Franky gives a little wave with his pinky.
“How is everything?” comes her voice from somewhere above.
“Oh, fine,” he grunts, rolling himself out for a breather. “Luffy did a number on her the last time he took her out, so I’m just fixing her up.”
“I see. How far along are you?”
“Almost done. Could you pass me the monkey wrench on that bench over there?”
“Of course.”
It’s an oppressively hot day today, one of those extremes the Grand Line is known for. He’s blinking the sweat from his eyes and his shirt is plastered to his back and his fingertips are black with motor oil. It is always a hassle to clean underneath his nails-he’ll have to put that on the drawing board for future improvements. He wishes there were at least a breeze to mitigate this blistering heat but there is nothing but dead, heavy air. He licks his lips and tastes salt.
“What’s the hold up, Robin?” He peeks around Mini Merry’s hull to see Robin standing by the workbench with her back to him. Her dark hair is pulled up in a high bun to keep it off her neck and her shoulders are bare.
“There is nothing here that looks like a monkey wrench,” she says, and she sounds almost accusatory, or defensive.
“Eh? I keep telling Usopp to put my tools back where he got ‘em,” he grumbles, hauls himself to his feet. He pads around the Mini Merry (so hot, his hair is deflating, need cola) and peers over Robin’s shoulder at the tools laid out on the bench.
“What are you talking about, Robin? It’s right there.” He points to the monkey wrench resting in plain sight next to the hammer and an assortment of bent-out-of-shape nails. It’s impossible to miss.
“You said monkey wrench.”
“I did. Wait, Robin… you didn’t think a monkey wrench actually looked like a-”
Robin places the wrench delicately in his hands, and fixes him with a smile that chills him even in the parching summer heat.
“Your wrench,” she says sweetly. “Anything else?”
He shakes his head no and decides it wise to keep his mouth wired shut.
--
The next island is cooler and there is a hilly, little village by the shore with a rickety wharf and houses with low ceilings. Usopp says it reminds him of home, so they stay for an extra day after the log pose sets, because the Strawhats are kind.
Franky’s on his way back from the local hardware store, after the shop keeper kicked him out for public indecency and hooliganism. Whatever. Franky understands that not everyone will be ready for the glory that is Centaur Franky. Great thinkers throughout history have always been met with resistance, he consoles himself.
Back on the Sunny, he has the Shark Submerge belly up on the lawn and is in the process of removing its engine for a tune-up when he spots Robin walking up the gangplank, her nose deep in a book.
“Yo, Robin,” he calls. He glimpses the title of the book she’s reading before she can whisk it from view. Handy Everyday Tools for the Modern Shipwright: How Not to Sink Your Ship at Sea! (Unabridged Edition with Expanded Footnotes) He is reminded of The Incident yesterday and he bites his tongue.
“Hello,” she says in that tone that is both smooth and dangerous.
“Back already?”
“Yes,” she answers simply. “I’ll be around if you need me.” The book is rolled up tight in her hands and her smile is a knife.
It’s glaringly obvious now that he messed up big time and the guilt rattles loud and insistent inside him. He’s got to fix it, because if he’s learned anything from Tom, it’s to own up to your own mistakes, and it’s his job now, to fix things. After years of blowing things to smithereens, he’s still getting the hang of mending instead of breaking, but he’s getting good at it, and he’s grateful he has the chance to. And this is important.
So when Sanji comes out of the kitchen to give him his afternoon cola, Franky stops him and says, “Oi, Sanji, monkey wrench.”
“What’d you call me, asshole,” Sanji says, deadpan.
“Sanji. Could you hand me the monkey wrench?” He knows Robin is on the upper deck and he knows she is listening, now.
Sanji stares incredulously at the open toolbox on the lawn. “What the hell is it?”
Bingo. Franky suppresses his grin and tries an expression of mild shock. “What the hell is a monkey wrench, you mean? You don’t know what a monkey wrench is? How could you not know what a monkey wrench is?”
“Stop saying monkey wrench! And no, why the hell would I?”
“You’re right,” Franky coughs, suddenly solemn, and he hopes he sounds natural enough. “I’m sorry. There is absolutely no shame in not knowing what a monkey wrench is. I mean, it’s not like I can tell any of your fancy, schmancy knives apart, or cook. Or read Poneglyphs.” Smooth.
Sanji looks at him like he’s crazy, which he really isn’t. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to say I’m really sorry and I am willing to write you a ballad of apology, if that’s what it takes for you to forgive me.”
“I’m going away from you now.” Sanji stalks away muttering something about loose gears in the head and Franky very carefully does not turn to look at the upper deck.
After a moment, something taps him on the knee. There is an arm holding out his oil filter wrench with the swivel handle, which is the exact tool he needs for the Shark Submerge job.
He laughs. She is the cleverest person he knows, after all. “Thanks,” he says, and the arm gives a little wave before it disappears.
Later, he does paint a monkey decal on his monkey wrench because she had the right idea, as always.
04:UNEXPECTED
20 Conversations Nico Robin Never Thought She’d Have (or, The Ineffability of Knowing Franky)
“I hear banana hats are quite fashionable this time of year.”
“Yes, that does look rather charming with a speedo.”
“I have no doubt that you would perform admirably in a pole-dancing contest for cyborgs, if such a thing ever had the misfortune of existing.”
“Please do not pelvic thrust so close to my coffee.”
“I am certain you already have a tropical shirt in burnt sienna and lilac sunset.”
“It’s whom. Eternal Super Sonata to A Raven-Haired Beauty, For Whom My Loins Blaze. Yes, you’re welcome.”
“Cola coffee is not the drink of the future.”
“I don’t think a Franky Unicorn form is necessary, or ethically responsible.”
“You were featured in this month’s Journal of Modern Mecha and Morbid Medical Mysteries. Why wouldn’t the two go together?”
“Please point your nipple lights ahead.”
“You’ve overestimated the practicality of elbow light sabers. I can indeed think of a dozen more sensible ways to slice bread.”
“Franky can’t come to the den den mushi right now. He’s in the middle of submersive cola therapy.”
“Do not form a banjo quartet.”
“Do not do underwater yoga in the aquarium.”
“It’d be lucky if you could find your nose before someone accidentally kicks it overboard, or uses it as an ashtray.”
“Your mini replica of yourself has fallen into the soup. Sanji is inconsolable.”
“Braided pigtails suit you, unsurprisingly.”
“These flowers are lovely. Shopkeep-san, do they come in a brighter color? Electric blue, perhaps?”
“Tell me about Pluton. Tell me about Tom.”
“Tell me how far we can go.”
05:TOUCH
She learns by touch, fingertips against old stone and warm flesh and dry paper.
She reads poneglyphs with her eyes closed, traces the dips and curves of engraved characters, pictures them fire-bright and alive in the dark calm of her mind. She caught a bird once, ran her hands through its feathers, felt the resilience of its hollow bones, and learned the secret of flight-it takes a hundred arms woven together to defy gravity for just long enough to think of a song to sing. It was with a Marine’s jugular pulsing beneath her palm that she learned how simple it was to snap a human spine. It was with her blood red and slick between her fingers that she realized she was no longer afraid of death.
She learned the meaning of surrender from the heavy chill of seastone, and, later, the phantom burn of it around her wrists taught her the audacity of survival, taught her selfishness, taught her a courage that burned away everything but the sea and the dreams of those who love and loved her too much.
She learned the weightlessness of gratitude from their arms tight around her shoulders, the wonder of belonging from the smooth wood of her chair at the dinner table on board a new home. These were things that came to her in a rush, were as instantaneous as sensation, less like learning and more like remembering, because they had always made her happy.
But there are other things she doesn’t immediately understand, even by touch. Things like the impossible warmth of a metal hand, the humming of machinery beneath human skin, the odd planes and angles of a body that’s swallowed failure like so much saltwater and trapped it in its lungs to remind itself that if it can carry even the sea, there is no burden in this world too large.
But she will learn; she has hands enough and their journey is a long one. And he will always be close.
06:UNDERSTAND
She has the words-in languages dead and alive-but they have never been enough. She cannot make them understand fear that turns to poison in your blood, how twenty years on the run and more betrayals than she could ever have hands twist you into someone whose reflection you cannot stomach. Hearing it is not the same as splinters slicing under your nails, all the words you’ve had to bite back, like please, like want, like home, all the hurt your heart has learned to make routine. Even if she tells them everything-her family and home in ashes and ice, hands that recoiled from her even as explosions rocked her to her knees, a glacial road over the water wide enough for only one-they still will not understand, and it is good that they don’t. To understand means they must live it, means they too must believe their existence a crime, and she would take the world apart before she lets that happen.
She imagines they would do the same, that Luffy would bring down the sun before any of them had to lose a brother like he lost Ace; that Nami would grind diamonds to dust beneath her heels if it meant saving them from a prison like hers; that Sanji would cut himself open, expertly and mercilessly, rather than let them know hunger like he does. They would, because they are wild and fierce and terrifyingly capable, and they love each other too much. And she loves them too much and that is why they must not ever understand.
But Franky, he has never needed the words, because he had looked at her and recognized everything all at once. Because he has plated his body with armor underneath his skin while she learned to form wings from the canopy of a hundred arms entwined. He loads bullets into the reinforced barrel of his bones, she grows eyes amid the crossing lines of her palms, and all this with a driven purpose-if they are not supposed to exist, why not be as terrible and as monstrous as they could. It is easier to believe all the sins you did not commit when you are branded demon instead of human, when you have too many arms or electric circuits in place of veins. They should not exist, but they are too defiant to die.
And Franky has lived it, lived through it and with it, and while she has never wished pain upon her nakama, she cannot help but be traitorously happy that Franky was taught what she was taught. That sometimes the world does not have a place for you, that it is not enough to run, you must present yourself to be hated and feared, head high and teeth bared, because the alternative is to be abandoned.
And though they know a different truth now, she knows he still understands. His fingers are as clever as hers, deft and strong, but they are hesitant when they wrap around her arm, like he is still unsure whether he is allowed to be gentle instead of cruel, and she knows, she knows he understands well.
Loneliness is a word she’s kept under her tongue, saved for days when she’s feeling self-indulgent and raw, but she has no need of it anymore. It takes two of her hands to cover one of his. And that’s it. There are no other words she needs to offer.
07:MAMIHLAPINATAPEI
The sands of Raftel are red. The color comes from the dense, jagged forests of coral growing along the coast, Nami explains. Tiny red creatures with ancient names make their homes in the coral branches. When they die, their shells erode and bleed into the sand, where they mark their existence. That’s why the sands of Raftel are red. The island is a drop of blood in the ocean, dark and rich, perfectly round.
Luffy grins when he sees it. Red is his favorite. A good sign.
They anchor the Sunny at a distance and pile into the Mini Merry, all ten of them at once. There are elbows dangerously close to eye sockets, they have to sit in each other’s laps and curled up on the floor, and they are bickering nonstop, but that is fine. It’s what they’ve always done: learned to make room because there is nowhere too small that anyone has to be left behind. Back on the Going Merry, Zoro and Sanji took turns standing at meals because it was an unspoken rule that everyone ate together, even if the dining table was only big enough for six. And even now on the Sunny, when Franky made sure the table could fit double their number, they still sit closer than they need to, force of habit and old comfort, jostling each other, laughing. Robin knows it reminds Franky of the Family back on Water 7 because sometimes he still cries over his food. It’s one of her favorite things about him, how he can’t be anything but honest.
Luffy is in the captain’s seat, but it’s Nami’s hands on the wheel that are taking them where they need to go. She finds the one winding path where the coral won’t pierce Mini Merry’s hull and it takes them further and then back, further and then back again. The Sunny watches them from afar, bobbing nervously on the currents.
They’ve come a long way, all of them, and Robin knows there could be no other place for them to go. Their wholes lives, from the moment they first understood being, they have been heading towards Raftel. They exist for Luffy, whom they would follow like pointed true north, straight to the top of this world in which he's taught them how to be happy.
Robin shifts from her perch on the side of the boat, and her knees bump against Franky’s. He looks at her and smiles, crammed though he is in the backseat with Zoro and Sanji. Their newest nakama is sitting on his lap, kicking Usopp in the head with her little feet. (Usopp, from his position on the floor, tries to swat her away but is beaten back mercilessly for his efforts. Next to him, Brook giggles openly at his misfortune.)
“Red sand,” Franky says. “Never seen anything like it.”
Small talk, but enough for her to take and unpack and examine from all sides in the sunlight. It’s what she does best. She likes his cadence, likes the way he’s speaking only to her even with Sanji’s bony elbow digging into his side and Chopper bouncing in excitement atop his head. Likes the way he says never, so dismissively, a word easily folded up and discarded for something more palatable.
“No,” she says. “But it’s a nice color.”
He makes a hmming sound and gives her an open, crooked smile, like he’s glad that she thinks so, even though he doesn’t really agree. She recognizes it immediately as affection, which is new. Maybe not unexpected, but definitely new. She quickly catalogues it and files it away so that she can pull it up and take it apart in the dark quiet of her study. Assess the risks and the danger and, if she's feeling brave, how inexplicably light she suddenly feels. But for now, she grounds herself firmly, and offers a slight smile in return.
Franky shakes his head at her, says, "You think too much, Robin."
It's a loaded statement. The corners of his mouth are still upturned, but it's more out of stubbornness than anything. In such close quarters, there's no mistaking the flash of consternation in his eyes, the way his brows draw downward for just a second. But then it's gone and he's looking at her like he's content to wait and the expression is so strikingly familiar on his face that she wonders how she could have missed something so monumental all this time.
Luffy whoops excitedly, which means they must be getting close to Raftel's red shores. Which means all their dreams are within reach. Which means they are nearing the end. Robin glances at the back of Luffy's head, his straw hat floppy and discolored now but still the greatest symbol of regality she's ever known, and when she looks back at Franky, her heart starts to sink. The end, she realizes belatedly. And suddenly Raftel seems too small, too unremarkable. There has to be more than this, another grand adventure waiting just beyond this tiny island, something else to keep them all together for just a little longer.
But the way Franky is still looking at her, even as the rest of the crew scrabbles over each other to get a better look, is patient and relaxed, like there is still all the time in the world.
"It'll be over soon," she can't help but say, maybe in defense, maybe as an excuse, but he laughs at this and calls her morbid.
"Nothing's gonna be over," he says, letting their youngest nakama clamber over his knees to step onto Usopp's shoulders.
She wants to retort, that's illogical. Because all things end and soon they'll be digging their toes into the red sands of Raftel and it's where they've been going their whole lives, and can't you see, there is nothing else around. This is it. You can see the rays of sunshine curve, the line of the horizon turning down.
They've waited too long, she thinks. She wants to reach out but her hands remain white-knuckled around Mini Merry's side.
"Hey," says Franky. She can barely hear him over the others' racket. "We'll talk later?"
"Later," she repeats, and she can't remember the last time she's sounded so unsure. The word blooms in the back of her throat and creeps into her chest like ivy. "Of course," she says, to convince herself.
"Yeah," he says, eyes bright, and it's a promise. She finds her footing again because if Franky promises there will be a later, an after, a beyond-Raftel, then there will be. If one didn't exist before, it does now. Who knows how long they'll last after this, after they've spent all their want and need getting here, to where they're meant to be, but it's good enough to know that they will exist for even a little longer after the One Piece. That Franky had promised later, and so she can look forward to it. That maybe they can find something else to focus their lives on with the same intensity they lent to Luffy and their own dreams.
She unclenches her hands at the same moment he leans towards her, just a little bit. But the Mini Merry is rocking dangerously as everyone around them jumps and shouts and grabs at each other. Luffy turns around and wraps his outstretched arms around all of them, pulling them into him with a bone-crushing ferocity.
"We're here!" he hollers over their heads, gleeful and wild, and then they topple over, all ten of them in one giant ball.
Even in the water it takes Luffy a while to let go. That warms her, even as the sea drags her down to the coral reefs. She cannot bring herself to be afraid. Even with her eyes closed, she knows there are already hands reaching for her, and she's reaching, for that moment she breaks the surface again, for that next breath, for what they'll find on Raftel, and for what will come after.
No more waiting. No more waiting, she promises.
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Franky/Robin
Word Count: 4707
Notes: Written for Frobin Week on tumblr.
01:SMILE
Her smile is a weapon, sharp and sweet and poisonous, subtler and more effective than her thousand hands clawing at the throats of her enemies, snapping their spines, their necks. She’s practiced for twenty years, honed her smile to cutting edge. There are secrets to be read in the corners of her mouth, red and inviting. There is intent, and men die trying to decipher hers. She only has to hood her eyes-tilt her head, her lips-and they destroy themselves eagerly. She thinks this is not what Saul had wanted for her, when he showed her how to steel her jaw and laugh, but Saul is dead and she is on her way.
She is on her way, the seastone heavy around her wrists, when she meets him.
They are both in chains, but when Franky smiles, he smiles with teeth, and try as she might, she can only read triumph in the corners of his mouth. He is as much war machine as he is man, but his smile is natural and warm, like his arm against her arm, like the way he says her name, as if they knew each other in a lifetime before this one. Nico Robin, never apologize. Nico Robin, they’re coming for you.
The way he smiles, so wide, it must be regret, she thinks. Because regret cuts you open, teaches you what love means, holds you in place. Sanji on the Baratie, Chopper in that cold, abandoned castle, and this strange cyborg on the fringes of a city he once called home. Regret ties you down but it teaches you longing, too, sharpens your dreams so that they scrape the inside of your skull and keep you awake staring at stars. Regret starves you. She’s seen it in Sanji and Chopper, the way they smile so fervently and so openly, like it’s new to them and they can’t get enough.
And when Franky smiles, he smiles with teeth, like he’s hungry for it. Like Saul did.
Dereshishi, she remembers, her chest too tight to breathe. Yes, that’s how it goes. She hasn’t forgotten. She feels small again, and stupid and hopeful, because Saul had said, hadn’t he, that there will be people in this world who would love her too.
And Franky had smiled, all triumph and confidence, like Saul had tried to teach her once, and he had said, he had said, Nico Robin, they’re coming for you.
02:I'M HERE
It is exactly 4:06 in the morning. He knows this without looking at a watch because he built in an internal clock the last time he updated himself. It only needs cola to keep running, and as far as he knows, he’s the most accurate timepiece at sea. More reliable than those big, clunky sea clocks the Marines kept on their ships, all jammed up with superfluous gears and springs. Those clocks lost more seconds and minutes than they kept at the break of each wave.
His internal clock ticks soft and steady alongside his heart. It keeps the local time (4:12 now) and Water 7 time, because he is sentimental. In Water 7, it is still 9:12 in the evening of the previous day. He wonders if Bakaberg is just sitting down to dinner with some dignitaries from St. Poplar, if the Galley-La guys are hamming it up at the bar (under new management, since Blueno is gone). It’s a Tuesday, so he knows it’s taco night at the Franky House and Mozu and Kiwi are probably on their sixth strawberry margarita. Granny Kokoro should be making the last stops on the Sea Train about now, and Chimney will be dropping off to sleep in the conductor’s car. On their way home, he wonders if they’ll stop by that street stall that sells those massive baked oysters, the best in the city. Wash it down with a bit of cola and there’s nothing better. Maybe he can get Sanji to recreate the recipe. He thinks the secret might be fennel leaves on the coals.
He swipes a hand across his face and he pretends he’s not crying, even though he’s on night watch and there is no one around to see. He can’t help it, how much he misses them. He misses them so much he could write a song about it, several hundred songs, strumming his sorrows out on guitar, but it’s 4:32 in the morning and he shouldn’t wake anyone, even if he is lonely.
Dawn comes early in this part of the Grand Line, and he can already see a glimmer of sun at the edge of the world. I’ll feel better in the morning, he tells himself, but then he thinks of everyone back home getting ready for bed just as he’s getting ready to start the day and he just can’t help it-there is such a distance and he can’t believe how much he misses them. He blows his nose.
There is a sudden thunk from behind and he whirls around to see a bottle of cola on the floor, already uncapped and fizzing. He can see no one else in the crow’s nest and no one on the deck when he looks down. But then he spots it, a single brown eye looking at him from the wall next to the window.
It blinks once and he blinks back. It blinks again, pointedly.
“I wasn’t crying,” he sniffles indignantly, but walks over to grab the bottle from the floor. He takes a long swallow from it, the cola fizzing and popping down his throat, and he feels his circuitry run a bit smoother. When he glances back, the eye is gone, but he feels a brush of fingertips at his shoulder, ghosting along his jaw line. He holds out his hand and for just a moment, there are fingers entwined with his.
It’s 10:01 at night in Water 7 and here, wherever here is, it’s 5:01 in the morning. His heart counts the long, stretching distance in time zones. But no matter where they are, it only takes half a minute from the crow’s nest to the deck to the kitchen, where there will be fresh coffee brewing in the pot and another bottle of cold cola waiting for him on the table. Half a minute is almost no distance at all.
He wipes his eyes and puts out his candle, makes his way down in the fading dark of pre-dawn. Half a minute. There will be hands to catch him if he stumbles.
03:SHAME
One of the many perks of having a built-in radar is that no one can sneak up on you. Not even Nico Robin, who has footsteps like a cat’s. He pings her presence long before she enters the Soldier Dock, but he’s in the middle of something and doesn’t sit up to greet her.
She sprouts a hand from the floor of the dock, an eye embedded in the palm, next to where he’s working under the Mini Merry. Franky gives a little wave with his pinky.
“How is everything?” comes her voice from somewhere above.
“Oh, fine,” he grunts, rolling himself out for a breather. “Luffy did a number on her the last time he took her out, so I’m just fixing her up.”
“I see. How far along are you?”
“Almost done. Could you pass me the monkey wrench on that bench over there?”
“Of course.”
It’s an oppressively hot day today, one of those extremes the Grand Line is known for. He’s blinking the sweat from his eyes and his shirt is plastered to his back and his fingertips are black with motor oil. It is always a hassle to clean underneath his nails-he’ll have to put that on the drawing board for future improvements. He wishes there were at least a breeze to mitigate this blistering heat but there is nothing but dead, heavy air. He licks his lips and tastes salt.
“What’s the hold up, Robin?” He peeks around Mini Merry’s hull to see Robin standing by the workbench with her back to him. Her dark hair is pulled up in a high bun to keep it off her neck and her shoulders are bare.
“There is nothing here that looks like a monkey wrench,” she says, and she sounds almost accusatory, or defensive.
“Eh? I keep telling Usopp to put my tools back where he got ‘em,” he grumbles, hauls himself to his feet. He pads around the Mini Merry (so hot, his hair is deflating, need cola) and peers over Robin’s shoulder at the tools laid out on the bench.
“What are you talking about, Robin? It’s right there.” He points to the monkey wrench resting in plain sight next to the hammer and an assortment of bent-out-of-shape nails. It’s impossible to miss.
“You said monkey wrench.”
“I did. Wait, Robin… you didn’t think a monkey wrench actually looked like a-”
Robin places the wrench delicately in his hands, and fixes him with a smile that chills him even in the parching summer heat.
“Your wrench,” she says sweetly. “Anything else?”
He shakes his head no and decides it wise to keep his mouth wired shut.
--
The next island is cooler and there is a hilly, little village by the shore with a rickety wharf and houses with low ceilings. Usopp says it reminds him of home, so they stay for an extra day after the log pose sets, because the Strawhats are kind.
Franky’s on his way back from the local hardware store, after the shop keeper kicked him out for public indecency and hooliganism. Whatever. Franky understands that not everyone will be ready for the glory that is Centaur Franky. Great thinkers throughout history have always been met with resistance, he consoles himself.
Back on the Sunny, he has the Shark Submerge belly up on the lawn and is in the process of removing its engine for a tune-up when he spots Robin walking up the gangplank, her nose deep in a book.
“Yo, Robin,” he calls. He glimpses the title of the book she’s reading before she can whisk it from view. Handy Everyday Tools for the Modern Shipwright: How Not to Sink Your Ship at Sea! (Unabridged Edition with Expanded Footnotes) He is reminded of The Incident yesterday and he bites his tongue.
“Hello,” she says in that tone that is both smooth and dangerous.
“Back already?”
“Yes,” she answers simply. “I’ll be around if you need me.” The book is rolled up tight in her hands and her smile is a knife.
It’s glaringly obvious now that he messed up big time and the guilt rattles loud and insistent inside him. He’s got to fix it, because if he’s learned anything from Tom, it’s to own up to your own mistakes, and it’s his job now, to fix things. After years of blowing things to smithereens, he’s still getting the hang of mending instead of breaking, but he’s getting good at it, and he’s grateful he has the chance to. And this is important.
So when Sanji comes out of the kitchen to give him his afternoon cola, Franky stops him and says, “Oi, Sanji, monkey wrench.”
“What’d you call me, asshole,” Sanji says, deadpan.
“Sanji. Could you hand me the monkey wrench?” He knows Robin is on the upper deck and he knows she is listening, now.
Sanji stares incredulously at the open toolbox on the lawn. “What the hell is it?”
Bingo. Franky suppresses his grin and tries an expression of mild shock. “What the hell is a monkey wrench, you mean? You don’t know what a monkey wrench is? How could you not know what a monkey wrench is?”
“Stop saying monkey wrench! And no, why the hell would I?”
“You’re right,” Franky coughs, suddenly solemn, and he hopes he sounds natural enough. “I’m sorry. There is absolutely no shame in not knowing what a monkey wrench is. I mean, it’s not like I can tell any of your fancy, schmancy knives apart, or cook. Or read Poneglyphs.” Smooth.
Sanji looks at him like he’s crazy, which he really isn’t. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to say I’m really sorry and I am willing to write you a ballad of apology, if that’s what it takes for you to forgive me.”
“I’m going away from you now.” Sanji stalks away muttering something about loose gears in the head and Franky very carefully does not turn to look at the upper deck.
After a moment, something taps him on the knee. There is an arm holding out his oil filter wrench with the swivel handle, which is the exact tool he needs for the Shark Submerge job.
He laughs. She is the cleverest person he knows, after all. “Thanks,” he says, and the arm gives a little wave before it disappears.
Later, he does paint a monkey decal on his monkey wrench because she had the right idea, as always.
04:UNEXPECTED
20 Conversations Nico Robin Never Thought She’d Have (or, The Ineffability of Knowing Franky)
“I hear banana hats are quite fashionable this time of year.”
“Yes, that does look rather charming with a speedo.”
“I have no doubt that you would perform admirably in a pole-dancing contest for cyborgs, if such a thing ever had the misfortune of existing.”
“Please do not pelvic thrust so close to my coffee.”
“I am certain you already have a tropical shirt in burnt sienna and lilac sunset.”
“It’s whom. Eternal Super Sonata to A Raven-Haired Beauty, For Whom My Loins Blaze. Yes, you’re welcome.”
“Cola coffee is not the drink of the future.”
“I don’t think a Franky Unicorn form is necessary, or ethically responsible.”
“You were featured in this month’s Journal of Modern Mecha and Morbid Medical Mysteries. Why wouldn’t the two go together?”
“Please point your nipple lights ahead.”
“You’ve overestimated the practicality of elbow light sabers. I can indeed think of a dozen more sensible ways to slice bread.”
“Franky can’t come to the den den mushi right now. He’s in the middle of submersive cola therapy.”
“Do not form a banjo quartet.”
“Do not do underwater yoga in the aquarium.”
“It’d be lucky if you could find your nose before someone accidentally kicks it overboard, or uses it as an ashtray.”
“Your mini replica of yourself has fallen into the soup. Sanji is inconsolable.”
“Braided pigtails suit you, unsurprisingly.”
“These flowers are lovely. Shopkeep-san, do they come in a brighter color? Electric blue, perhaps?”
“Tell me about Pluton. Tell me about Tom.”
“Tell me how far we can go.”
05:TOUCH
She learns by touch, fingertips against old stone and warm flesh and dry paper.
She reads poneglyphs with her eyes closed, traces the dips and curves of engraved characters, pictures them fire-bright and alive in the dark calm of her mind. She caught a bird once, ran her hands through its feathers, felt the resilience of its hollow bones, and learned the secret of flight-it takes a hundred arms woven together to defy gravity for just long enough to think of a song to sing. It was with a Marine’s jugular pulsing beneath her palm that she learned how simple it was to snap a human spine. It was with her blood red and slick between her fingers that she realized she was no longer afraid of death.
She learned the meaning of surrender from the heavy chill of seastone, and, later, the phantom burn of it around her wrists taught her the audacity of survival, taught her selfishness, taught her a courage that burned away everything but the sea and the dreams of those who love and loved her too much.
She learned the weightlessness of gratitude from their arms tight around her shoulders, the wonder of belonging from the smooth wood of her chair at the dinner table on board a new home. These were things that came to her in a rush, were as instantaneous as sensation, less like learning and more like remembering, because they had always made her happy.
But there are other things she doesn’t immediately understand, even by touch. Things like the impossible warmth of a metal hand, the humming of machinery beneath human skin, the odd planes and angles of a body that’s swallowed failure like so much saltwater and trapped it in its lungs to remind itself that if it can carry even the sea, there is no burden in this world too large.
But she will learn; she has hands enough and their journey is a long one. And he will always be close.
06:UNDERSTAND
She has the words-in languages dead and alive-but they have never been enough. She cannot make them understand fear that turns to poison in your blood, how twenty years on the run and more betrayals than she could ever have hands twist you into someone whose reflection you cannot stomach. Hearing it is not the same as splinters slicing under your nails, all the words you’ve had to bite back, like please, like want, like home, all the hurt your heart has learned to make routine. Even if she tells them everything-her family and home in ashes and ice, hands that recoiled from her even as explosions rocked her to her knees, a glacial road over the water wide enough for only one-they still will not understand, and it is good that they don’t. To understand means they must live it, means they too must believe their existence a crime, and she would take the world apart before she lets that happen.
She imagines they would do the same, that Luffy would bring down the sun before any of them had to lose a brother like he lost Ace; that Nami would grind diamonds to dust beneath her heels if it meant saving them from a prison like hers; that Sanji would cut himself open, expertly and mercilessly, rather than let them know hunger like he does. They would, because they are wild and fierce and terrifyingly capable, and they love each other too much. And she loves them too much and that is why they must not ever understand.
But Franky, he has never needed the words, because he had looked at her and recognized everything all at once. Because he has plated his body with armor underneath his skin while she learned to form wings from the canopy of a hundred arms entwined. He loads bullets into the reinforced barrel of his bones, she grows eyes amid the crossing lines of her palms, and all this with a driven purpose-if they are not supposed to exist, why not be as terrible and as monstrous as they could. It is easier to believe all the sins you did not commit when you are branded demon instead of human, when you have too many arms or electric circuits in place of veins. They should not exist, but they are too defiant to die.
And Franky has lived it, lived through it and with it, and while she has never wished pain upon her nakama, she cannot help but be traitorously happy that Franky was taught what she was taught. That sometimes the world does not have a place for you, that it is not enough to run, you must present yourself to be hated and feared, head high and teeth bared, because the alternative is to be abandoned.
And though they know a different truth now, she knows he still understands. His fingers are as clever as hers, deft and strong, but they are hesitant when they wrap around her arm, like he is still unsure whether he is allowed to be gentle instead of cruel, and she knows, she knows he understands well.
Loneliness is a word she’s kept under her tongue, saved for days when she’s feeling self-indulgent and raw, but she has no need of it anymore. It takes two of her hands to cover one of his. And that’s it. There are no other words she needs to offer.
07:MAMIHLAPINATAPEI
The sands of Raftel are red. The color comes from the dense, jagged forests of coral growing along the coast, Nami explains. Tiny red creatures with ancient names make their homes in the coral branches. When they die, their shells erode and bleed into the sand, where they mark their existence. That’s why the sands of Raftel are red. The island is a drop of blood in the ocean, dark and rich, perfectly round.
Luffy grins when he sees it. Red is his favorite. A good sign.
They anchor the Sunny at a distance and pile into the Mini Merry, all ten of them at once. There are elbows dangerously close to eye sockets, they have to sit in each other’s laps and curled up on the floor, and they are bickering nonstop, but that is fine. It’s what they’ve always done: learned to make room because there is nowhere too small that anyone has to be left behind. Back on the Going Merry, Zoro and Sanji took turns standing at meals because it was an unspoken rule that everyone ate together, even if the dining table was only big enough for six. And even now on the Sunny, when Franky made sure the table could fit double their number, they still sit closer than they need to, force of habit and old comfort, jostling each other, laughing. Robin knows it reminds Franky of the Family back on Water 7 because sometimes he still cries over his food. It’s one of her favorite things about him, how he can’t be anything but honest.
Luffy is in the captain’s seat, but it’s Nami’s hands on the wheel that are taking them where they need to go. She finds the one winding path where the coral won’t pierce Mini Merry’s hull and it takes them further and then back, further and then back again. The Sunny watches them from afar, bobbing nervously on the currents.
They’ve come a long way, all of them, and Robin knows there could be no other place for them to go. Their wholes lives, from the moment they first understood being, they have been heading towards Raftel. They exist for Luffy, whom they would follow like pointed true north, straight to the top of this world in which he's taught them how to be happy.
Robin shifts from her perch on the side of the boat, and her knees bump against Franky’s. He looks at her and smiles, crammed though he is in the backseat with Zoro and Sanji. Their newest nakama is sitting on his lap, kicking Usopp in the head with her little feet. (Usopp, from his position on the floor, tries to swat her away but is beaten back mercilessly for his efforts. Next to him, Brook giggles openly at his misfortune.)
“Red sand,” Franky says. “Never seen anything like it.”
Small talk, but enough for her to take and unpack and examine from all sides in the sunlight. It’s what she does best. She likes his cadence, likes the way he’s speaking only to her even with Sanji’s bony elbow digging into his side and Chopper bouncing in excitement atop his head. Likes the way he says never, so dismissively, a word easily folded up and discarded for something more palatable.
“No,” she says. “But it’s a nice color.”
He makes a hmming sound and gives her an open, crooked smile, like he’s glad that she thinks so, even though he doesn’t really agree. She recognizes it immediately as affection, which is new. Maybe not unexpected, but definitely new. She quickly catalogues it and files it away so that she can pull it up and take it apart in the dark quiet of her study. Assess the risks and the danger and, if she's feeling brave, how inexplicably light she suddenly feels. But for now, she grounds herself firmly, and offers a slight smile in return.
Franky shakes his head at her, says, "You think too much, Robin."
It's a loaded statement. The corners of his mouth are still upturned, but it's more out of stubbornness than anything. In such close quarters, there's no mistaking the flash of consternation in his eyes, the way his brows draw downward for just a second. But then it's gone and he's looking at her like he's content to wait and the expression is so strikingly familiar on his face that she wonders how she could have missed something so monumental all this time.
Luffy whoops excitedly, which means they must be getting close to Raftel's red shores. Which means all their dreams are within reach. Which means they are nearing the end. Robin glances at the back of Luffy's head, his straw hat floppy and discolored now but still the greatest symbol of regality she's ever known, and when she looks back at Franky, her heart starts to sink. The end, she realizes belatedly. And suddenly Raftel seems too small, too unremarkable. There has to be more than this, another grand adventure waiting just beyond this tiny island, something else to keep them all together for just a little longer.
But the way Franky is still looking at her, even as the rest of the crew scrabbles over each other to get a better look, is patient and relaxed, like there is still all the time in the world.
"It'll be over soon," she can't help but say, maybe in defense, maybe as an excuse, but he laughs at this and calls her morbid.
"Nothing's gonna be over," he says, letting their youngest nakama clamber over his knees to step onto Usopp's shoulders.
She wants to retort, that's illogical. Because all things end and soon they'll be digging their toes into the red sands of Raftel and it's where they've been going their whole lives, and can't you see, there is nothing else around. This is it. You can see the rays of sunshine curve, the line of the horizon turning down.
They've waited too long, she thinks. She wants to reach out but her hands remain white-knuckled around Mini Merry's side.
"Hey," says Franky. She can barely hear him over the others' racket. "We'll talk later?"
"Later," she repeats, and she can't remember the last time she's sounded so unsure. The word blooms in the back of her throat and creeps into her chest like ivy. "Of course," she says, to convince herself.
"Yeah," he says, eyes bright, and it's a promise. She finds her footing again because if Franky promises there will be a later, an after, a beyond-Raftel, then there will be. If one didn't exist before, it does now. Who knows how long they'll last after this, after they've spent all their want and need getting here, to where they're meant to be, but it's good enough to know that they will exist for even a little longer after the One Piece. That Franky had promised later, and so she can look forward to it. That maybe they can find something else to focus their lives on with the same intensity they lent to Luffy and their own dreams.
She unclenches her hands at the same moment he leans towards her, just a little bit. But the Mini Merry is rocking dangerously as everyone around them jumps and shouts and grabs at each other. Luffy turns around and wraps his outstretched arms around all of them, pulling them into him with a bone-crushing ferocity.
"We're here!" he hollers over their heads, gleeful and wild, and then they topple over, all ten of them in one giant ball.
Even in the water it takes Luffy a while to let go. That warms her, even as the sea drags her down to the coral reefs. She cannot bring herself to be afraid. Even with her eyes closed, she knows there are already hands reaching for her, and she's reaching, for that moment she breaks the surface again, for that next breath, for what they'll find on Raftel, and for what will come after.
No more waiting. No more waiting, she promises.