One Piece fic-PoSM, Chapter 12
Title: The Psychology of a Shattered Mind
Chapter Title: In the Offing
Rating: PG-13/M
Characters: Usopp, Nami, Chopper, Robin, Zoro, OCs.
Word Count: About 4.9k
Warnings: Disturbing imagery, implications of non-con/dub-con, and violence. Angsty Usopp and blatant excuse for nakama comfort. This will be intense. Possible spoilers for entire series. Jumps off from Usopp being stuck on the Bowin Islands.
Can also be found at FF.net here. If you want to comment it will be much loved, and feel free to do so here or over at FF.Net. I've begun to feel increasingly at home here on LJ. Con Crit loved also.
Chapter links (on LJ): Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15
The day Usopp meets Saint Iddis' mother, Saint Venosa, he's cleaning the stairs. They lead from the mansion main floor up through the multi-level tower that is entirely Iddis' domain. Lady Adel, since she is constantly looking after Iddis, has a room on the same level as the tower's kitchen. Usopp's almost cleaned his way to the bottom with his rag and bucket of soapy water-there's only one more flight. He can see the door to the rest of the mansion, and the silent guard that stands by it.
No opportunities there. Besides, shackled like this on both wrists and ankles … Zoro might be able to use it to his advantage, maybe getting someone with the chains and choking them, or even breaking the bonds altogether, or something, but himself?
No, the only thing it means is that he can't run very fast, whether he has a good opportunity or not.
With a small sigh, Usopp keeps scrubbing the landing, but spares a glance for the nearby window, which is surrounded by low, decorative relief in gold. Still, he looks past all that finery to a much more appealing sky filled with high, wispy clouds. Would be a nice day for sailing, he thinks, and since there's no point in further considering escape at the moment, he closes his eyes and pretends he's scrubbing the deck of the Sunny and not a marble floor, and that he can feel a strong breeze filling the above him.
He's so intent on his scrubbing and the imagining of a warm Grand Line day that he barely registers the sound of someone mounting the staircase, enough only to move himself and his bucket well out of the way. The rapid, clipped steps continue going up, so he only glances at the person's back for long enough to identify them as a woman, Saint Venosa, if her flower-print robes and hairstyle are anything to go by. There's a picture of her with Saint Gathram and Saint Iddis on the wall of Saint Iddis' room, the whole group looking unnaturally serious, like they don't enjoy posing together at all. Lady Adel had pointed the image out and explained the relationship between them.
Apparently she's not here for Usopp, which is just fine.
When the sound of her steps fade, Usopp looks out to the sky again, and keeps scrubbing. He's moved on to the top steps of the last flight when the footsteps begin to descend in his direction once more. He keeps on working, content to be ignored.
This time, the steps stop beside him. Unexpected, but-he hasn't done anything that would make her angry. She couldn't be angry. Just curious, perhaps. Pointy toed shoes peek out from the split in her robes. He only begins to sweat when something catches under his chin and draws his face upward. The feathers edging it tickle his neck.
Saint Venosa smiles down at him, not with anything like the playful amusement favored by Robin, but with something predatory, her slightly crooked teeth peeking out from behind bright red lips. He remembers, then, that looking them in the face is a bad idea, and drops his gaze to the floor. Somewhere below the rest of him, his arms keep right on scrubbing, probably hoping she goes back to ignoring him once she sees whatever it is she wants to see. Lady Adel's stories are echoing faintly in his head and growing a sickening pit in his gut.
"Funny, Iddis didn't even mention you."
He has no idea what that is supposed to mean.
A firm grip covered by silken fabric replaces the feather-edged fan. Saint Venosa pulls him up by his chin, forcing him to stand, then turns his head back and forth. His arms keep working in the air a moment before going still and dropping the rag altogether.
She leans in, her face close enough that if he tried to bend over he'd knock right into it. She hums, and her hand strokes his cheek. "You must not even be a day over eighteen. You still have such darling baby fat…" His eyes fasten onto the movement of her wrist covered in silken teal and his chest constricts. All sorts of alarms are sounding in his head, given the sickly sweet in her tone and the honeyed amusement in her smirk, but the urge to run-run fast, run far-is only good for setting his nerves on fire and bringing everything into dizzying focus. He presses backward into the wall, so rigid he doesn't even tremble.
She leans in, close enough that her breath ghosts over his cheek. "Perhaps I should make you mine," she whispers, a particular emphasis on the last word. He keeps his gaze locked on the floor. The fire spreads to the hard pit in his gut, turning him queasy.
A slap to his cheek, with the same hand that had been caressing him moments before, stings, though only faintly. Everything begins to float, dream-like and distant. Trying to pretend this isn't happening, he keeps staring at the same spot on the stairs so long and hard that it starts to blur.
It doesn't make sense. He didn't say anything to her. He didn't even look at her, not until she pulled him to his feet.
"Lewd, vulgar thing!" Another slap snaps his head the other way. "How dare you approach me in such a manner-"
But he didn't-didn't say anything-
More blows split his lip and set his ears ringing. Most of his instincts tell him to run, but common sense keeps ahead for once, leaving him frozen on the spot. Trying to get away would only make this worse. She might get annoyed and pull her gun, or activate the collar, or get the guards to stop him.
She hits him so hard that his head snaps around and he can see the staircase behind him out of the corner of his eye. The bottom, even of this one flight, seems very far away. Alarmed, he tries to throw his arms out to grab for the railing, but the chain stops the motion far short.
A painful jab forces his most solidly planted foot from its place, and a hand shoves him even more off-balance, backward. His arms try to pinwheel, but mostly just flail, still restricted by the chains. He can feel the empty air behind him, where the steps descend. He realizes with a horrifying lurch that there is no way he can catch himself. It's a long way down, falling in this direction.
Saint Venosa, her fan once again spread open and held before the lower half of her face, stares down with wide and glinting eyes, further down, and down and down and down-
Usopp flails blindly, trying to catch himself from falling.
No.
No, he isn't falling, though he had fallen asleep, he realizes, relaxing as awareness rushes in and the bed registers. Rubbing at his eyes, he wonders how long he'd been out. He feels hot and heavy, and his limbs move only sluggishly. It takes a determined effort to get up the momentum to push the blankets back and shift around to a more comfortable, less sweaty position.
The ship … it's stopped moving.
This is another jolt, but a different one. He's not sure what to think of it, except to feel slight relief that there doesn't seem to be another attack going on, since everything is fairly quiet. The sounds in the room are different now, not the grinding of a mortar and pestle, but of a pen going scritch-scritch on paper.
Nami's the only one in the room, and Usopp sits up, breath catching. Just her, no weapon held close, sitting with her back to him. Same as Chopper had been-but at least at least his nose and ears are many times more sensitive.
Didn't they learn anything-didn't they learn anything at all?
It's almost disgusting, this level of trust and naivety, Booga-shaka muses. Master would love to crush it if he had a chance.
He clamps down on that train of thought, hard. Bringing his legs over the side of the bed and watching to see if Nami notices what he's doing, he feels like he's back in the Ring somehow. His heartbeat quickens. Need to be silent, light, swift, a part of the shadows cast by the columns and broken-down walls-
He feels like he might be choking, like the air is too close, and he needs to get out. He grabs for Luffy's hat under the blankets, drawing a small amount of comfort from the fact that it's there with him. Nami still hasn't looked at him, instead tracing, with careful concentration, a squiggly line on her paper. When she sighs a little, leans back, and starts stretching, he knows he will get no better chance.
The door to the galley and dining area opens without a sound and Usopp slips through it. Though he crouches low, he hopes there's no one in the room, because crouching can only help so much if he's moving right into someone's line of sight.
It's empty.
The sense of being trapped starts to lift a little. Now feeling chilled instead of hot, he crosses the dining area and peeks out the door to the outside. It's still snowing, but the deck seems clearer than he remembers. Beyond the port side, he can see a shoreline, where fuzzy and angular shapes suggest buildings standing in the haze of snow.
A voice, not too deep but still rich and lilting, and accompanied by the clear notes of a violin, floats down from somewhere above and behind. The words are a bit muffled by the angle, but by the references to brooms and washing, Usopp judges it to be a song about cleaning. Or maybe a song about being finished with it, he amends, since the rather joyous line "now pour me another … cheers!" doesn't sound like it refers to soap.
Faint steps behind him, the movement of air from the door to the sick bay opening, and a feminine voice: "Usopp? Usopp-"
He shuts the door to the deck and whirls, one hand lingering on the handle. Fear stabs at him, laced with guilt.
Caught, you've been caught-you idiot-
It's so easy to startle him. This is exactly what Zoro was so concerned about, Nami sighs to herself when she manages to surprise Usopp simply by coming into the galley, calling for him. It's all starting to give her a headache. Zoro had warned her quite pointedly not to turn her back on Usopp for too long, given his apparent penchant for running off, getting into trouble-and then creating some. Nami supposes that's sensible, though she wonders how long it will take for Usopp to realize he's being followed around all the time, and then how he will feel about that. He doesn't mean to create problems, she's sure.
He just needs. So much.
They all need to sit down and talk about this again, she thinks, but for the moment, even Zoro had felt that they should first determine if the island town was really abandoned, or if something else was going on. So, with that first order of business clear, Chopper, Robin, Zoro, Sanji and Luffy had all gone to explore. Chopper, she had been reluctant to send off in case something happened here, but he is the one with the nose, and probably the best for determining if anyone'd actually been in the area recently. Robin had gone, so there would some brains in the expedition, and Sanji and Zoro, also, for numbers and for sheer fighting power-just in case it is some sort of trap.
Luffy, well-he was going no matter what anyone said.
It puzzles her a little that Usopp would get up and leave so quietly without saying anything-but maybe he's used to moving that way now. She didn't hear him at all, which is the part most surprising. He could sneak very quietly before, yes, but never so … consistently. He was always a bit clumsy, and reactive, and that meant he tended to give himself away. It hadn't been that long since she last checked on him, however, so he hasn't gone any farther than the galley. That, at least, is a relief.
He almost looks guilty, like he's been caught doing something he knows he shouldn't have been. She's still not quite sure how present he really is these days, since it was only a few weeks ago that he would spend hours and hours staring out at the ocean, seeming not to notice much of anything else that was happening on the ship.
Nami tries to keep it casual. She goes over to the fridge. Sanji had assured her, before leaving with the exploratory group, that there was plenty of food ready and waiting for her-and Usopp's-consumption.
It's none too soon, because now Usopp's starting to look distant, somewhere else. Nami doesn't like it. "Hey, Usopp-are you hungry?" After opening the door, she grabs one of several plates Sanji left for anyone to eat and holds it up. "Sanji went ashore with the group scoping out the island, but he left something for you."
The fear that shows up on his face at that startles her, and she puts the plate back, pursing her lips. Right, get him to eat something if he wakes up, Chopper says. He forgot to mention how to achieve that if food makes him freak out, now, too.
"Brook and Franky stayed behind as well," she says, trying to buy herself more time to think, and to figure out what to do. She want to keep his mind occupied with simple things, keep it away from whatever darker thoughts are lurking … "I have them out there clearing the decks off better."
Silence from Usopp, who shifts uncomfortably, now looking anywhere but her. Or maybe it's not the food, Nami realizes, Robin's recounting of the battle and the near-disaster on the roof with Usopp and Sanji coming back to her and starting to fit in with other facts. Usopp didn't remember them. Didn't remember Syrup. Which meant he didn't remember what it meant for people to care about you.
It all falls into place then, in ways she hadn't quite considered. Her hand tightens on the fridge handle until her knuckles turn white.
And how paranoid would you be if the only people you ever knew were ones like Arlong?
Usopp's looking at the door to the deck, the set of his shoulders tense. She takes a deep breath-has to take a second breath, too-and looks back into the fridge, resolutely ignoring the pricks at the corners of her eyes.
He fingers the handle of the door to the deck, trying to weigh the risk of doing so against his curiosity about the singing. Nami's not quite paying attention to him again, but if he tries to slip out the door, she might notice the outside breeze or the change in temperature before he could get all the way out.
Sneaking … why did I have to do that here?
Something doesn't quite make sense, and he rubs at his temples, trying to get the odd tension in his head to fade. It takes a mental effort to get his jaw unclenched.
A hum of pleasure from the direction of the fridge draws his attention. Nami's leaning on the counter with one elbow, lifting a tart filled with yellow cream from a plate piled with pastries, to her mouth. The pastries ooze whipped cream, fruit, and chocolate, and gleam with sugar glaze. His stomach pinches. He clenches at his coat, forcing himself to tear his gaze away.
"These were for anyone," Nami says, as if he had asked. The plate scrapes against the counter faintly. "You want one?"
It could be a bad idea-
But Nami's eating them, and he wouldn't want to hurt others trying to get to him, would he? Very likely those are safe …
Wait a bit, see if she drops dead or gets sick?
He half watches, half pretends to ignore Nami eating a few more pastries. His stomach doesn't just pinch now, it growls, and his grip on his coat tightens. She doesn't show any ill effects as the moments wear on, and Usopp almost begins to feel like he's being unjustifiably paranoid. At the same time, he knows that there are awful prices to pay if you aren't when you should have been …
Careful then, slowly, slowly …
His mouth is beginning to water by time he's inched close enough to smell the sugar and chocolate. He waits a little bit, then slowly reaches out for one, watching Nami the whole time. When she looks over, he freezes, holding off for her blessing.
She only smiles-calmly, no triumph, nor warning in it. Just welcome. There is a faint tension, too, like she might be tightly controlling herself, but he's not entirely sure of that. Her stance remains relaxed.
"Go ahead," she says, popping the last bite of her current pastry into her mouth and taking another from the other side of the pile. He does his best to ignore the apprehension tightening his chest and takes a bite.
The faint tension he thought he saw in Nami's smile melts, for sure, into something gentler.
Chopper, trotting in Walk Point through the loose-packed, shallower snow in the middle of the road, twitches an ear in Robin's direction as she gives a faint, but thoughtful, hum. Luffy had wanted to explore a road that headed diagonally through the rightmost side of town. To no one's surprise, Sanji had only reluctantly gone with Luffy, not wanting to part from Robin until she herself recommended it. After that, Robin, Zoro, and Chopper had continued down this road heading straight inland, looking for who-knew-what. Although most of the buildings have overhangs that would offer some shelter from the falling snow, the gusty wind ensures that snow has collected in deep drifts underneath them, leaving the trio stuck out in the weather just so they can get somewhere.
Another gust blows small pricks of ice into Chopper's eyes, and he blinks. As something in the distance bangs, he jerks his head to the side for a better look. The sound comes over and over, and he soon spots a door swaying open and shut. He sighs in relief and looks ahead once more. Other than their footfalls, the faint clinking of Zoro's earrings and swords, and other random, fairly easily discounted sounds such as the swaying door, the town is silent and empty. They come across nothing-not even prints in the snow or faint scents in the wind.
Eyes searching the empty street, Chopper shudders, tempted to go into Guard Point for no reason he can really identify. He chides himself for the impulse. Zoro and Robin don't look scared in the least, and he spent two years without any of his crewmates, anyway. There's no way anything's gonna happen to him with both Zoro and Robin here, right? Right!
The least he can be, as a man of his experience, is a little confident.
Still, something about this empty town is making his fur crawl. Like maybe it's filled with ghosts hiding just around the corners, waiting for the right moment to jump out at them. Although Chopper supposes he's been to a place like that before, so he should be able to take this place being similar, right? Right…
Robin turns aside, and Zoro keeps right on walking, so Chopper lets out a warning yelp, dashing ahead to make sure he doesn't wander off. "What now?" Zoro grumbles, stopping.
"Wrong way, Zoro!" He jerks his head in Robin's direction. "Over here!" As Chopper trots over to her, he keeps one eye on Zoro to make sure the man's following. If there's one thing that never changes, it's Zoro's sense of direction.
"What now?" Zoro repeats as he steps up behind Robin and Chopper. "There's no one in town to open this bookstore, let alone sell you anything."
Robin's peering through the large show window of the bookstore, almost at an angle to see the back of the shop's door. Chopper blinks as he hears the clunking and clicking of locks being undone from inside. A hand sprouts from the outside wall, grabs the doorknob, and shoves the door open.
Robin smirks back at Zoro and Chopper. "My, my. It seems some careless person has left the shop unlocked. Perhaps we should take the opportunity to browse?"
Zoro snorts and follows Robin inside. Chopper looks back and forth down each side of the street just to make sure no one's watching, sniffs the wind one last time, then heads in as well. He draws the door shut with a hind leg as he enters, hooves clacking against the bare wood floor. The show window rattles faintly. It's only marginally warmer within the shop, and that's mostly because they're sheltered from the wind here.
Chopper sniffs around the entrance, but any scent that isn't theirs is very, very old, and almost indiscernible from the dust. "Nobody's been around here in a while, either," he muses, half to himself and half to let Zoro and Robin know, then he glances about the store.
It seems untouched, for the most part, like someone just locked up for the night the other day. The only thing neglected by whoever was here last is shelving duty, as there are a few books lying on the floor in various places. Robin pulls a book from the still decently stocked shelves and thumbs through it. Zoro wanders over to another shelf and stands there staring at it with crossed arms. Chopper's not sure if Zoro's actually interested in some books or just killing time while Robin browses, but, he admires Zoro's completely cool manner a moment anyway, before heading off to find the medical section. At some length, Robin speaks again, her voice carrying well in the small space of the shop.
"This town is proving to be quite the study." Chopper can hear the whump of a book closing, then faint scraping as it's replaced on the shelf and another is pulled.
Zoro hums, sounding possibly interested in a very manly and aloof sort of way. His measured steps move quietly down his selected row.
"The buildings here," Robin continues, "Weren't designed for this kind of weather. The walls are thin and uninsulated. Many windows have no ready covering. I even noticed a few collapsed rooftops."
"Oh, I didn't even think about architecture!" Chopper says. He's not quite sure where she's going with this, but Robin's always so smart about these sorts of things, so it must be important.
Now back in Brain Point, his ears twitch forward when he finally spots an interesting title on the spine of a book high up on the shelf: Diseases of the Jiho Island Group. He's never even heard of the Jiho Islands! With a grin, he hops several times, waving his arms in an attempt to reach the book, but he only manages to make himself a little winded. He's just thought of going into Heavy Point so he can get taller when Zoro wanders up from around the near end of the shelves, selects the book, and hands it down.
Chopper grins up at him in thanks. Zoro returns the smile briefly before looking in the direction of Robin's voice again, leaning against the shelf with one elbow. "So? You think the locals got run out of town by a little bad weather or something? If they were that cold they shoulda just put on some coats."
A brief glance through a few pages of the book in his hooves reassures Chopper that he does want it. Detailed symptom synopses, current and past standard treatments, related diseases….
Robin comes up from the far side of the row, a stack of books already in her arms. "Our boarders sought food and not treasure. A massive weather change would be very likely to decimate typical crops on a summer island … though famine may only be one motivation for the abandonment of this island's main settlement and only port."
"Only port?" Zoro questions.
"Summer island?" Chopper asks at nearly the same time. Robin extends a hand, and when he hands up his book, she adds to the bottom of the stack in her arms. After that, she picks up a thin volume sitting on the top of the collection, and opens it to a two-page spread of a map showing a strangely curvy island in the shape of a long water drop. "In the 'local books' section."
Leaning in closer to the pages, Zoro reads aloud: "Summer Island 'Tallu.'"
"Also known as 'Nine Storms Island'," Robin supplies, closing the book once more. "Famous for its nearly constant rainfall and year-round warm weather, the waterfalls cascading from the high shoreline cliffs into the sea are-or, I suppose, were-one of its more famous identifying features. The tropical weather and scenery, as well as the island's proximity to the Red Line, also made it one of the few well-frequented places here in the New World."
"So … it's normal for there to be a big storm here, just not a big snowstorm?" Chopper asks, feeling even more creeped-out by the empty streets. He likes the cold and the snow, sure, 'cause it reminds him of Drum, but given that it doesn't sound at all right for this place …
He has to shake himself to keep his imagination from running too far away with what might have happened to everyone that used to live here.
"Yes," Robin says, heading to the front. One arm sprouts from the bookstore counter and begins writing up a receipt. "Though all this tells us very little about the change in weather."
"Weather's always changing on the Grand Line. When did it start needing a reason?" Zoro sounds dismissive.
Robin smiles back at Zoro. Drawing the brown sack from her shoulders, she puts the stack of books inside. "Moment to moment, things do change. But such a massive change in an island's general climate? Possible, of course, but not all that likely, even for the Grand Line. Need I remind you of Crocodile's weather manipulation with Dance Powder? The locals blamed it on weather change. They were wrong." Pulling a small satchel of Berry from her overcoat's pocket, she leaves the appropriate amount of money sitting on top of the carbon copy of the receipt. The sack goes back over her shoulder. "In any case, I advise proceeding here with caution. If it is indeed deliberate, turning an entire island into a frozen wasteland seems like a rather hostile course of action-a quick and unselective way to bring a few extra corpses into the world."
Continued in Chapter 13: Ballast