where are little moustache guys when you need them?

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Suddenly I got anime-influenced feelings related to my own prompt. (It's all Tumblr's fault. There's a few gifs going around there.)

Title: La fleur du mal
Medium: Fic
Prompt: Bloom
Rating: G
Word Count: 299
Flavour: Angst
Characters: Luffy, Nami, Usopp, Chopper
Setting/spoilers: Post-Enies Lobby
Summary: If a certain movie-only event really happened in canon.

Nami, Usopp and Chopper stared at Luffy, not understanding why on earth their captain, until moments ago slumbering peacefully by the railing, had suddenly leaped to his feet with a gasp, ran up to them by the flowerbed, and slapped off the green plants Usopp had just put on their heads for fun. Now he was panting heavily, whitefaced, standing there just looking at them with very wide eyes.

There was a double cry of "What the hell did you do that for?", a double smack to Luffy's head, and a single cry of, "Bastard! Um… want me to take your temperature, Luffy?" Luffy blinked once more, shook his head, looked at them closer, and then grinned broadly, his frame relaxing all at once.

"You're fine! Everything is fine!" he breathed out, supporting himself on the railing a moment, then raised his hands high, laughing. Then he strolled away, down to the lawn deck.

They all stared after him.

"Must have had a nightmare," said Usopp uncertainly.

"Maybe he's sick," ventured Chopper.

"Come to think of it... " said Nami slowly, "...wasn't there an island where they all had plants like that on their heads? Um. Ages ago, on some kind of silly tourist trap place...?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah..."

Chopper frowned. "I don't remember too well... But that wasn't that scary, was it?"

The other two shook their heads, baffled.


Luffy sat down on Sunny's lawn, surrounded by the sounds of his crew. Trying not to think of a certain enormous flower, nor of the words it sometimes whispered to him in dreams.

If you ever lose them, come find me again. I'll revive them for you. Just feed me others. You'll do it, won't you? Your crew always comes first. He grasped his legs, shivering in the sunlight.

Comments

[jadekitty777.livejournal.com]

xD Aha, you seem to be enjoying peeling away at Luffy's psyche lately! This could almost be a semi-continuation or companion piece to Definitions.

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of it like that, but you may well be right! Movie 6 gave me so many Luffy feelings when I saw it (http://serrende.dreamwidth.org/16609.html): it delves into some serious Luffy angst of the kind canon would give us later.

[jadekitty777.livejournal.com]

I commend you for taking something from this movie! Aha, I personally had too many gripes with it to enjoy it (Its really way down on my least favorite of the movies list... faaaaaar down LOL). So for me, after I watched it was just.... anger, haha.

But these are some greats thoughts for sure. And Luffy screaming for his crew as they get ah...... 'eaten' was definitely one of the few crowning moments in that movie.

[shindahotaru.livejournal.com]

I thought this was going to be funny...!

It's great nonetheless. I believe that what happened on that island would've scarred him forever (I do count movies too whenever writing tho) because how blunt and airheaded and whatever else people think Luffy is, he can get hurt too and I believe that any emotional scar he's ever gotten in his life (there're definitely many) is still somewhere inside of him and if you squint, you can see some or all of them from time to time. (I actually believe that his childish, carefree manner is just a result of all the bad things that's happened to him.)

Okay, I got a little carried away... Anyways, this piece of fic amazing!

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Ack, yes, I should probably have indicated there's angst in this! Sorry about that. /edits

Thanks for those kind words! Luffy has enormous resilience but yeah, I also think those events would have lingered with him. I'm not sure if I'd say his manner is just a result of bad things - because for one I think people with other personalities would have reacted in quite different ways to those experiences - but I do think it's something he chooses to be on some level.

[shindahotaru.livejournal.com]

I think that he's just like that but his personality comes in handy for him kind of because in that way he doesn't have to feel anything below the feelings he enjoys feeling. (And I believe that he loves to be the "light" and positive energy for everyone else, hence he's this jolly guy most of the time.)

I might have chosen the wrong words there tho D: I meant that he probably learnt that being this funny, air-headed happy boy feels better than being more than that and that in this behavior he sometimes finds his shelter from an "emotional storm". Not all the time, I guess he simply is the way he is because that's the way it is (his grandpa isn't that much different either) but I think that instead of losing that while growing up and living through hell a few times, he didn't drop this "manner" but uses it to stay sane and partly to keep himself together.

(I could be all wrong with my assumptions but that's what I think about him.)

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

*nod* That sounds a lot like how I tend to see him, too.