chibi_trillian

Your crackery stalled out. Apologies,

mettathron. Instead, I took up your other challenge.

Title: Gift Exchange
Series: One Piece.
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: G.
Summary: Usopp's half of Unconditional by

mettathron. I recommend reading that instead--it's much better than this. If you insist on reading this one, you should read the other one first.

The gift you offer me is precious and rare. I don’t mistake it for what it is not—I can see the brilliant colors of the emotions in your voice, no matter how much you try to cover them a soft layer of pastel for my comfort. You are giving me something that, once taken, can never be given back.

What you offer me cannot be sold or traded, for it is a prize beyond price.

What you offer me cannot be consumed, not entirely, though it can and will consume those around it.

What you offer me cannot be forgotten or dismissed, for it will brand itself irrevocably into my soul the moment I accept it.

What you offer me, what I see glowing the back of your eyes, is Unconditional Love.

What you give me is not the cheap, tawdry gilding you fling on for girls in the street, prostituting your face and your words and your actions for the briefest taste of their affections. Blinded, blindly, you trail after them like a leaf on the wind and with about as much will of your own. This is part of you, but it is not the part you offer me.

I know you. I know that you are a gentleman first and foremost, chivalrous and attentive and a champion and lover of all women everywhere, and that you’re always going to dance attendance on them first. I know this, and I understand and accept it. I know the Going Merry is a physical representation of the fact that Kaya loves me—my treasure, the thing I’ll give anything to protect, the thing I keep patching up again and again as if every board I replace makes me a little less far away from Kaya and a little less close to you.

You, for your part, keep our relationship as easy, as even as it can be. I lie to you and you kick me. I hide behind your strength and you willingly extend it to cover me. You bring me a plate as I work on a project and I pretend not to notice you, though you know I’m grateful. I tell you of Kaya, and you speak to me of Robin and Nami—our girls, our beautiful girls. Walls to hide behind, hide from each other and ourselves, hide from the third person in my life who looks at me and does not think that I need immeasurable improvement.

I close my eyes and run my pencil across the paper, and it is your face that emerges nearly as often as hers. My heart feels stretched, too full. If I were to reach out my hand and take that which you offer, I fear it would burst.

But what you offer leaves no room for fear, only reciprocation.

I don’t understand why, but what you give to me, what I cannot help but accept, is unconditional.