COAST - Luffy x Reader

66. Different

Shrrk–

He would never forget that sound.

Sticky, wet, and fleshy... The blade shearing through your back as you lost your breath.

Fingers dig into your shoulder, the other hand gripping a handle that juts from your back. He doesn't even look at the perpetrators face.

Wide-eyed, he'd refused to accept it at first. Yet, the way your expression slid from your face, how your body lurched forward from the impact... He remembers that, too.

Exhaustion hinders, dulling all natural processes. Crimson bleeds into the fabric covering your hip, staining your shirt more than it already is, and the pain lags behind its coppery-counterpart.

The spot isn't small, though, not like the others. It's growing, extending to the fabric around it, a centimeter added over each torturous second.

Luffy remembers everything.

Your fingers reach for the slicked, glossy fabric, trembling enough to ensure that you're not quite aware of what's happened. Hesitantly, your eyes glide to meet his – locking for one pivotal moment – seeking help that he can't give you.

"If you really felt sorry for me..." Slurring, the words crowd from the blonde woman's mouth in a low growl, jaw hung and heaving.

Through the fog around him, Luffy hears her speaking. Then there's a sound akin to slicing meat.

"Then why the fuck... Would you walk away like that?"

A sudden, searing agony finds home in place of where the knife once rested. Your eyes gloss over, and Luffy watches as lashes flutter, tense and boneless all at once.

"...Like him."

Rachel shoves you to fall to the floor, and then Luffy's screaming.

Rage, panic – everything in between – boils over to scald his flesh from the inside out. He doesn't even register his own voice until his throat mimics carpet burn. Luffy calls your name, he curses, he berates the woman who stabbed you; in no particular order. Spit flies, wild as he is frantic.

Luffy'd used up everything he had in order to defeat Lucci.

He'd admitted that himself... It's what he'd had to do.

He doesn't know what to do other than scream.

Nerves scorched, a persistent yanking from deep within his body threatens his heart to seize. Each breath is erratic, pathetically wheezing from the dried column of Luffy's throat.

He can't move.

Entire body shot, the most Luffy can manage is the popping of his joints as they stretch. The muscles won't respond to his demands, despite the unbridled urgency to get up, up, up–

Elbows knock the concrete beneath, shuddering his bones. Arms go slack. Luffy just screams harder.

Infuriated, the pieces that compose Luffy – compose you – are sheer torment. He needs to move, right now. All he had to do was roll over... He'd drag himself over to you by his teeth, if he could.

That woman stands in the same place, off-center and shaking, white-kuckling the bloody knife. Dripping Ruby rivulets race down her tanned skin, and as each drop leaves the sharpened edge, they flee; as if the substance is still consciously part of you.