Surfacing [One Piece FF]

1: Prologue

Buggy is roughly eight years old when, one fateful night, his sleep disperses into a fine mist, granting reality's noises the permission to reach into his consciousness and jolt him awake. The small room he shares with the other cabin boy is a dark wooden cradle rocked by a currently astonishingly sweet-tempered mother sea. Every wave colliding with the Oro Jackson is excellently behaving, and even the impetuous wind has long called it a day. Against nature's peaceful soundscape stand the suppressed sobbing and the crouching movements of a person trying to make themselves as small as possible in the upper bunk bed.

Buggy's soul senses terror. Sheer, unspecific, deep-rooted terror. He cannot recall the last time Shankshad a nightmare. Both of them are heavy sleepers, with Shanks usually being the one collapsing into sleep's open arms the second his head meets the pillow. And nightmares? Well, they are for little kids, right? So, of course, the two of them, they are too old for such nonsense. Or so Buggy likes to tell himself, just like he does with many, many other things considered childish in a world of boisterous pirates he just cannot wait to grow fully into.

Still sleep-inebriated, he rolls on his back and bangs the palm of his right hand against the upper bed.
"Down, damn it. Can't sleep like that...!"

A suffocated shriek—Buggy really lacks a better description of the weird noise—rattles through Shanks' lungs, and for a moment, the blue-haired boy truly wonders if he has just scared the redhead to death. Listening intensively, more and more wafts of mist vanish from Buggy's tired mind while far too many seconds pass without a single sign of life from Shanks.

Then, finally, the wooden frame of the bunk bed creaks and down climbs Shanks, following the 'invitation.' He had not gotten one from Buggy since...since... None of them can remember, really, and it is only when Shanks cautiously sinks down on the mattress next to Buggy that the latter notices the shacking. Even in the dark, Buggy instantly knows that Shanks is still crying, albeit the heavy sobbing has stopped. There is still some sniffling, though. Instead of calling Shanks out on it, Buggy simply throws his blanket above his friend, telling himself he is too tired to personal space. Consequently, Shanks has to deal with Buggy's arm tugging him in and drawing him close enough to ensure a decent share of the blanket.

Shanks does not say a single word, which is not only uncharacteristically of him but also highly alarming, Buggy cannot help but think as he is lying next to that annoying boy who is stealing his sleep while still trying to calm himself down. It is so obvious; it is in the way he timidly wipes his face on the pillow and hides another sniffle in the back of his throat.

This must have been a hell of a nightmare.

Now fully awake, Buggy's brain knits question after question, creating an ugly patchwork of questions he is painfully aware of. All of his muscles are imprisoned by tension. In contrast to past nights, when he had always felt the need to pass on the dreadful present his brain had fed him in the form of a nightmare, he is now scared of talking, scared of Buggy asking...

This fear is new and so unlike Shanks that it plants heart-wrenching unrest in Buggy. Naturally impatient but by now a little frightened himself, Buggy keeps waiting, front teeth sinking into the tip of his tongue and ears ready to detect even the lowest of words.

Nothing.

He does not fall asleep again until he has listened for God knows how long to Shanks' breathing slowly but surely succumbing to slumber again.

Buggy has no idea tonight is only the first in far too many nightmare-haunted nights, leaving him puzzled and Shanks too quiet for his own good.