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“I’ll take the little one.”
Sabo yells something behind his gag. Ace just snarls, mean as any tiger back home, and thrashes against the chains pinning him down. Luffy needs to struggle too, he needs to do something, but the stupid rock bands these guys clamped onto his arms are some kind of bad magic, making him feel exhausted even without moving at all.
One of the big guys picks him up. High enough that Luffy can see his brothers, and how scared they look as he’s handed over to this new weirdo with a fancy outfit. He squirms, tries to kick, but all the grown-ups ignore him. Stupid grown-ups. Stupid rock bracelets. As soon as he finds a way to get them off, Luffy will show all of these people why they shouldn’t mess with him and Ace and Sabo-
The fancy weirdo drops him headfirst into a box, and that hurts, in a way that hasn’t since he ate the Gum-Gum Fruit. It’s also dark, as the lid closes, and quiet. The wood’s too thick for Luffy to hear anything besides muffled voices, and then someone yelling at his brothers to shut up, but of course they keep hollering for him, and- and-
Luffy falls over when somebody picks up the box, and starts carrying him away.
(At least when he’s alone, Ace and Sabo can’t call him a crybaby.)
The box stays closed for a really long time.
Luffy’s trying to fall asleep when it finally opens; hitting at the walls didn’t do much, besides make himself hurt, and there’s nothing to eat and no one to talk to and nothing else to do, so. Sleep. Until there’s suddenly noise, and light, the lid lifting away above him. Luffy sits up. He should try to jump up and out, throw at least a few punches, but he only makes it up onto his knees when somebody else falls on top of him.
“Ow!”
“Hey!”
“AH! Get off-!” The lid comes back, and Luffy whines. Now he can’t even see whoever he’s wrestling with, but that’s not about to stop him. He shoves and pushes, until he grabs- “Le’go my nose!” The somebody slaps him, hard enough that Luffy’s grip slips and he falls over. At least he isn’t being sat on anymore. “...uh. Oh gosh- hello? Are you dead?”
“No,” Luffy says. “Are you dead? Does that mean you’re a ghost?”
“Nuh-uh! I’m not dead! I’m the least dead person in the world, ask anybody!” There’s a shuffling sound, and then a finger poking Luffy’s leg. It hits one of his bad scrapes, and he hisses from the sting. “Sorry! Sorry. Um- who are you?”
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy! And I-” I’m going to be King of the Pirates, except the box moves again, and both he and the not-dead guy slide sideways when it tips, both of them crashing into one of the walls. Through the wood, someone laughs. It’s a mean laugh. Like Bluejam’s when he sold Luffy and- and his- “I- I want my brothers!”
He’s not crying again. He’s not. Stupid tears. Stupid eyes. Stupid rock bracelets that hurt his face when he tries to rub at his eyes. A finger pokes at him again, but this time it hits the back of his hand. More fingers follow, until they’re holding his hand, and the not-dead guy makes a surprised noise. “You’re- my size? How old are you?”
“Seven.”
“Me too!”
Luffy sniffs, and pats in the dark until he finds that long nose again, and a face past it. “Did that stupid fancy guy take you away too?”
“Mmhm. My name’s Usopp.”
The box moves again, tipping the other way with a rattle and shake, until it gets dropped and Luffy’s butt leaves the floor for a second. He and Usopp cry out when they land, ‘cause it hurts, Luffy hates this, he wants to go back to being a rubber boy. He grabs onto Usopp and clings, and Usopp grabs him back, and they stay like that even as everything goes quiet and no one else messes with the box.
“...do- do you know where they’re taking us?” Luffy shakes his head. His cheek rubs against soft hair, and cloth. It makes him think of Makino’s kerchiefs, and he sniffles. “Okay- okay, that’s- we’ll figure it out!” Usopp sounds scared.
“Sorry,” Luffy tells him. “If they didn’t put these stupid rocks on me, I’d punch all of these guys, and we could leave and find my brothers and go home!”
“Rocks?” He shifts his arms, so Usopp can feel the stupid bracelets and the chain connecting them. The other boy shifts, grabbing at one, running his fingers over it. “Huh. Do they do something to you?”
“Make me tired.” And take away his Gum-Gum powers, but Luffy still has a punch like a pistol even without them - if he could actually throw a punch. “Don’t like it.”
“Oh. That- that sucks.”
“Mmhm.”
They stay quiet for a little while, sitting next to each other in the dark, until Usopp asks, “Do you think your brothers will look for you?”
“They will if they escape! But they were tied up worse than me by the people who let the fancy guy take me away, so it might take a while.” Whenever Sabo and Ace do get loose, though, and they will, they’ll chase after Fancy Guy and beat him up just like they did with Porchemy, and then tear open this stupid box so Luffy can escape too. “Or maybe my Gramps will get here first - he’s really strong, I bet he could knock all those losers over with one punch!”
“Well- y’know, I could take them all out with one shot of my trusty slingshot! I’ve got the best aim this side of the East Blue!”
“Really?!”
“Yeah! Except, well. When they ambushed me, it got kicked out of my hand- after I took down at least three of them first!”
“Cool,” Luffy gasps. “I wanna see! When we get out of here, you have to show me.”
“O-okay?”
“Great!” Grinning, Luffy twists one arm around so he can grab Usopp’s hand and shake it up and down like he’s seen grown-ups do before. “That means we’re friends now!”
“It does?”
“It does!”
“Well, um-” Maybe Luffy can’t see it, but he can feel the smile on his new friend’s face. “Okay! Friends!”
“Oi, shaddup in there!”
Somebody outside kicks the box, but it doesn’t move much, and Luffy doesn’t even fall over this time. He scowls and yells back, “YOU shut up!” But there’s no answer, except for Usopp shushing him. “Stupid bad guys.”
“Really stupid,” Usopp agrees. “But maybe we shouldn’t yell at them until, uh, we know what’s happening, right? Trick them, make them think we’re both too scared to fight back, so they’ll let down their guard.”
“Hmph. I guess.”
“Good enough.”
They stay in the box for a really very super long time. Now and then the lid opens, and food gets dropped through, or a round thing with a lid on top and water inside. The first few times somebody reaches in to grab the thing when it’s empty, Luffy tries to bite, only for Usopp to hold him back hissing that’s not a good idea. Which is dumb, it’s better to do something than nothing, but there’s never enough food and being hungry AND tired makes Luffy too slow to keep doing it.
He and Usopp split their meals in half, though, ‘cause that’s only fair, and they pick one corner to be their bathroom so the whole box doesn’t get yucky. Luffy says they should throw poop when their water container gets taken away; Usopp has a better idea to save the poop to throw at the Fancy Guy, whenever he shows his face. And then he tells Luffy about a dungbomb he once fired from his slingshot that was so stinky it made twenty- no, thirty people run away screaming!
Luffy tells Usopp he’s awesome. Usopp makes a funny noise and then says Luffy is the awesome one. “So we’re BOTH awesome! Hey, do you want to be on my pirate crew when we grow up?”
Usopp says yes.
That’s the best that Luffy feels for a long while after.
He’s half asleep when the world starts shaking.
Usopp pulls his shoulder a bunch of times before Luffy sits up. He’s tired, and wants to lay right back down, but there are a lot of people shouting nearby and that seems like a good thing. Maybe. Then there’s an explosion and a bunch of small stuff hitting the box, which makes Usopp yelp and grab onto Luffy, getting half on top of him for some reason.
Louder yelling. And footsteps? Fast ones. Something hits the box and rattles. A second later there’s light, a LOT of light, the lid completely gone instead of just lifted a little. Luffy squeezes his eyes shut and whines; Usopp hollers, “Leave us alone-!” like he might be ready to finally fight, until-
“Usopp? Usopp, baby, it’s me, I’m your dad, it’s okay now!”
“D- Dad?”
“Hey, buddy-” The weight of Usopp on top of him disappears, and Luffy whines again, no, he doesn’t want to be alone-
“Don’t worry, Anchor, I’ve got you.” Big hands scoop him up, greasy, smell like meat - Luffy cracks his eyes open, sees Usopp crying and hugging the neck of- hey, that’s someone he knows. That’s Yasopp, with his big fluffy hair and headband, and- he said he’s Usopp’s dad? “There we go, you’re alright, kid.” Luffy looks up. That’s Lucky Roo, holding him and grinning. “Ready to get out of here? Shanks is tearing apart this crew of blackmailers, but he’ll be after us in just a bit.”
“Shanks?”
“Mmhm.” Huh. He didn’t think Shanks would show up - it was supposed to be Ace and Sabo, or maybe Gramps. But Shanks is good too. So Luffy nods and lays his head against Roo’s chest, closing his eyes rather than watch them leave the stupid Fancy Guy’s ship, and hopes his friends can get the rocks off his arms soon.
And then he’ll be the one going to rescue his brothers.