A/N: Another one for the Prompt Exchange Challenge. Three little things—
1. I am going to be busy as hell this November (and possibly into December), so don't expect much of me for the rest of the year or so. I'll barely have enough time to read stories I'm following, let alone update my own.
2. If you have time, please check out the poll on my profile. I have yet to receive results from it and it would help me if you gave your input.
3. If you want to see more like this story from me, you can check out my earlier oneshots Inversion and Everything Began Again, which are probably better than this one, simply because I had more time to spend on those ones. On top of that, this one is mostly narrative experimentation... Oh well. On with the show.
A day without laughter is a day wasted. [sent by Otorisosa-kan]
The first day is the day they meet.
They are, respectively, eleven and fourteen years old. Their parents have just gotten engaged and they are soon to be stepbrothers, though they have never seen each other.
They are introduced to each other on the day Luffy and his father move into the Portgas' house. Neither make any effort to leave a good impression. Luffy chatters endlessly, obliviously, as Ace makes a valiant attempt to shut him up with a scowl.
It is into the third minute of a particularly bad run-on sentence from Luffy that Ace gives up. He turns and leaves the room without a word or a backwards glance; Luffy follows eagerly, ready to become the collective noun they will one day be.
Their parents laugh and call this cute.
.
The second day is bloody. Very, very bloody.
It is one month after the first day, and it is the day their mother dies. They will remember this day very well, though they will wish they didn't.
She is walking them home from school when it happens. There is no one around, and the traffic on the next street over drowns out all noise, and they are approached by three laughing, poorly washed men.
She recognises them. They shoot her before she can say a word.
What follows is much panic and confusion. There is cowering, and there is pain, and fear, and shouting. There is a shocked bystander. A phone call. The police.
They are home with their father, and they do not know what is going on. The wedding is cancelled. The funeral will be in its place. They do not understand.
The next morning they are home with themselves. They never see their father again.
.
The third day is years later. They are at the zoo.
It is a good day. They feed penguins. Ace finds a peacock feather. Luffy tries to climb into the lemur habitat. They are nearly thrown out.
"I hate Gramps," Luffy says suddenly. The hyenas yip and howl, laughing their agreement.
Ace nods. Their grandfather is a foul man and hatred is nothing new. They watch the hyenas circle each other, and jump, and miss, and dodge. They think it is a game but they are not sure.
"Why do we live with him?"
Why do they live with him?
"He hates us. We should leave."
He hates them. They should leave.
"Let's leave."
They leave.
It is a good day.
.
On the fourth day, Luffy shows his first symptoms.
It has been several more years since the third day. They are no longer in contact with any of their family. Luffy has just finished college.
They are speaking of their mother, and Luffy cannot remember how she died. It is strange, and Ace ignores it even though he shouldn't. It is only one of the symptoms.
They are all little things. He walks into the couch as if he can't see it. He takes longer at a meal because it is troubling him to swallow. He twitches.
Ace laughs and makes fun of the shadows under his eyes. They will clear up now that he is out of school, he thinks. They don't. Luffy can barely get to sleep at night.
It is small. It is nothing. It is deadly.
.
On the fifth day comes the diagnosis.
The doctors find it odd. Luffy is several decades too young to have the disease he has. They wonder if it is a new strain. They wonder if this will happen to more people. They wonder how it has happened.
A doctor with tattooed hands approaches Ace, offers answers to questions that hadn't been asked.
What does he have?
"It's CJD — or at least something remarkably similar to CJD."
Can you fix him?
"There is no cure, unfortunately."
Is he going to make it?
"The disease is always fatal."
How long does he have?
"Typically, it runs its course in about seven months, though at his age the situation's hardly typical. I would think he has a year or so left."
Ace sobs and it feels like laughter not his own. It takes a moment for him to work out why.
It feels like God is laughing at him.
.
The sixth day comes and puts Luffy into a coma.
The doctors try to be sympathetic but they see such things too often. Ace curses them. He curses them, the sky, the disease. Himself. He has too many things to curse.
The doctors say this is typical of the disease. Luffy doesn't even get the solace of a unique death. Ace wants to retreat to the zoo, the hyenas, their game. Back to the laughter and the reckless decisions.
It has been months between the diagnosis and the coma. Ace has come in every day and watched as Luffy deteriorates. He forgets, recedes, is no longer himself. He twitches and stutters and sometimes he doesn't recognise Ace at all.
It has hurt. Ace endures, but he can't keep it up. Luffy is about to die.
.
The seventh day marks a gravestone.
There is no laughter on this day, nor joy, nor even words. He is silent and still and living and bleating, throbbing, crying. There is too much of everything and not enough.
There is no collective. No Ace and Luffy.
There is no Luffy.
There is Ace. There is a memory, and a mother, and a shocked bystander. There is the police. There is a funeral. A gun. A disease.
There is Ace, detached.
He is home with a gun in his hand. He does not know what is going on. The funeral is in two days. There is a bicyclist passing by the window. The birds are singing. He does not understand.
The next morning he is home by himself. He thinks again of death.
It is tempting.