Sogeking was free.

Sogeking was whole.

Sogeking was changed.

He flexed his fingers idly while both Namis, the strange little brainy brat and the Entities started the negotiations. The leathery skin creaked very slightly as he closed fisted his hands - he'd have to use some of Franky's oils to alleviate that noise. It'd probably help smooth the cracks in the skin, though they sorta looked useful - maybe for climbing-

Sogeking felt an echo to his thoughts and looked up, surprised. Across from him, Usopp's head popped up, eyes wide and startled. The piratical sniper's hands were also closed into fists.

The doppelgangers gave each other a wry smile. Tentatively, Usopp's thoughts whispered through Sogeking's head.

'Looks like we aren't quite rid of each other yet, huh?'

Sogeking nodded slightly before opening his hands and slowly lowering his forearms to the table. He could barely feel the wood under his elbows - he'd need to ask Franky-kun how to correctly gauge the force needed to do these simple tasks!

'It's so weird - I feel like I'm wearing some kinda invisible armor, but I'm not...' Sogeking heard Usopp comment as his curly-haired twin pinched himself experimentally. 'This is so cool!'

'Real warrior-like, Usopp-kun' Sogeking snarked, although he wore a small smile on his face. It was something that he noticed at times on some of the other raiders' faces. Their doubles from that other water-full, wonderful dimension all had a touch of naivete that was refreshing. It was obvious that their world hadn't ground the hope out of them yet. They also seemed to possess a ball of willpower that only grew stronger - even if they were currently weaker than their Waste-born, desert-hardened counterparts. In a year or two, that power difference could easily be negated.

"It's nice, isn't it?"

Sogeking glanced down at Doc Chop, a bit surprised to see a slightly bitter expression on the little reindeer's face. The raider medic had decided, with unusual vigor, to sit next to Sogeking and keep a close eye on him until the sniper's health met some predetermined expectations in his head. Now, the youngest gang member was looking up at him, eyes shiny. Nothing fell though.

"They - they got a chance we didn't have. It's like - like looking at what could have - no, what should have been. S'great, but...well yeah. I almost kinda wish they'd stay this way. That won't happen though, will it?"

Sogeking, for his part, was very glad to know this. He had a suspicion that he had a slight crush on his pirate brother, underneath a groundswell of protective instinct he hadn't felt since Kaya...

The pain radiated in his head, an almost audible cracking in his mind. Nononoshitshitshit he was not supposed to remember this-!

'Shh, s'okay! Relax. Breathe deep- yeah, like that,' Usopp crooned as Sogeking felt the other man's thoughts frantically smother the painful fires of guilt and remorse.

Once more, in that dark, windy little hallway where he hid his real fear, Sogeking found himself wishing that the two of them could stay together forever - like real twin brothers.

[~~~]

D. Luffy was physically present and accounted for as far as the Vault-suits were concerned, but that just about covered his interest in anything other than his current fascination - the darkly tanned, freckled person in the center of the room.

Ace. Ace.

The irradiated rubber man licked his lips and cautiously flicked an eye over to his gang - just a quick check to make sure that Sogeking was really fine after all that screaming. Reassured by the altered sniper's frantic attempts to avoid Doc Chop and the reindeer's twin, he turned his intense gaze back onto Ace.

So much like him...

The hair was a little shorter, and the chest was actually more chiseled, but the face was so similar that he couldn't tell the difference unless he got closer...

So that's what Luffy did, wriggling and scoot over as silently as possibly.

He smelled good - so good! And hot! Just like always.

How could this not be his Ace? It had to be him! If only he could get in those half-pants and check his slick slit...

He would be wet for him, right? Like always?

"Ace," Luffy hissed under his breath, chest tight with longing and need. Ace didn't seem to hear him, but his double did.

That Other Luffy.

That other one turned a dark, drilling gaze onto D. Luffy's face - it was all-seeing under that vapid expression of boredom. In his jealousy, it was all the Vault-suit leader could do to not split his face in his manic grin and bust this jackass' chops.

He was fucking marking turf on his Ace! Who the fuck did he think he was-?

"Lonely-lonely-lonesome-alone-no-one-but-ACE-IS-HERE-follow-fight-follow-fight-HE-SEES-ME-stronger-fight-stronger-FOR-HIM-stronger-fight-NO-TAKING-HIM-HE'S-MINE-!"

Oh. Oh.

The sheer solidity of that wall of willpower threatened to drop and crush him under the rumble of his dreams. Some part of his mind that still remembered fear sparked, trying to reconnect the damaged nerves. This - that other one - was dangerous when roused, and he really didn't seem to know the meaning of the word, 'impossible.'

It made a weird sort of sense though. Obviously any sort of Luffy would be hopelessly attracted to someone as beautiful as Ace. Especially a lonely Luffy.

Most Luffys were probably lonely, come to think of it.

But no matter what, he would get his Ace back. All it would take is one kiss. Just like that stupid old story Auntie Rouge used to tell them at bedtime. One kiss would wake up his Ace. And then, maybe he'd get some of himself back from the Wastes - enough to rescue the rest of his gang.

[~~~]

Now if only that old geezer in black would shut to fuck up and let him think! Yes, he knew he was Death - the old goat had let him suck his finger-bone while his mother gurgled her last - but that didn't mean that he had any more respect for him! His frigging rad-scorpion trick left his Ace hurt for more than a week, and he was sure as hell unwanted when he cleaned up after Teach's rampage.

For some reason, the thought of Marshall D. Teach made Vault-suit Luffy crane his head up to regard the monstrosity encapsulated in a supernatural barrier. He quickly looked away as he heard his double start speaking.

"I can trade my life for Ace's and everyone else's!"

Yes. Yes. Perfect.

"Hey yeah!" D. Luffy joined in eagerly. Get that bastard-double out of his way right now! "I think that's a great idea-!"

God dammit, he never remembered Nami's punch laying into his head like that before! And leather tasted nasty! Nasty! For fuck's sake, if they weren't his bitches - his gang - he'd kill them for touching him when he was so close to getting Ace-

Zoro's eyes burrowed into his own dark brown pair - it was the equivalent of five across the mouth. Duck had him under his wing in a merciless choke-hold as the entire gang followed Nami to one side of the cavern.

"What," Nami growled out as Sanji threw Luffy into a wall and Zoro pinned him there with Wadou under his chin, "Is your mother-fucking problem? You can't go dying on us!"

Luffy shuffled his feet, a bit sheepishly.

"Wasn't gonna die. Was gonna let that Other Luffy do mos' da work..."

"Wid all due respec', Capitan, la belle mad'moiselle is right. Yer fuckin' up plus grand qu'eva before! 'N' since when d'ya let quelqu'un fait merde pour toi, ha?"

Luffy's eyes were cold. Blank. They were starting to cool to that evil mood that allowed him to trample weaklings under his bloody half-boot.

If only his gang was actually full of weaklings. He'd made the mistake of letting them know that he needed them as much as they needed him - now, they were milking this fact for all it was worth.

Come to think of it, Ace probably would've done the same. He couldn't understand what made people want to protect him so much - he was strong, wasn't he? Protecting his special people - that was his job now, wasn't it? He'd have to remember to ask him when he got him back.

"Captain-bro, you's behavin' real erratic," Franky added in an unusually emotionless tone. "T'ain't like ya t'all."

"Truly, Captain. Your emotions typically range from naive optimism to insane rage, with hunger and perceived 'disrespect' as the main mood modifiers," Robin concurred absently while studying the pirates across the cavern."

"Have we given you some offense, Captain?" Doc Chop inquired curiously - he was never sure of what would cause a shift in human emotions, and took to studying them as intensely as his medicines.

Luffy began to glare at his gang, still not backing down. Like hell was he just going to give in. B. Bones regarded him closely, then sat back and chuckled while he tuned his guitarro.

"He isn't even thinking about us right now, mis amigos," the skeletal ghoul added with a sour chuckle as he tuned his instrument. "Podemos morir ahora and he wouldn't even notice. Well, not at first, at any rate.

The gang regarded the eldest member with the universal expression of puzzlement - all except for Sogeking, who continued to busy himself with his self-appointed chore. The maintenance of his unique weapon was a task he often used to calm himself after tense situations. Obviously, being forcibly transformed into a radioactive armadillo-man counted as stressful.

Nevertheless, it didn't make the priestly sniper oblivious.

"It's Ace, isn't it?" Sogeking interjected, not even looking up from where he was breaking down Kabuto and cleaning her thoroughly. "You want that Ace, right?"

Luffy snarled hotly at his gunner, his eyes suddenly blazing to life.

"That Ace be my Ace! No-one's like my Ace. He be mine, man! Mine!"

The raider gang was temporarily floored by the vehemence in their leader's voice, however the revelation finally sank into their heads.

Their captain was, indeed, in love with his cousin. Madly so. Deeply so. Insanely so.

Most of the gang found love - all-consuming romantic love, to be specific - quite foreign. Fucking Nami was more on the level of stress relief - maybe a perk of being in the gang.

So what if Zoro's face was horribly bleak and aged? So what if Sanji looked suddenly lost and small? So what if Bones' skull was peering at something invisible in the dark? So what if Franky had shielded his optical sockets with his opaque, protective lenses?

This sort of love was foreign to them - utterly so.

Sogeking's sigh broke the silence that had swallowed up the end of Luffy's words. It was heavy and old; tired and very unhappy.

"Luffy-kun," he muttered, and here the others knew to listen well, because very rarely did they call the captain just plain old Luffy. The sniper raised his head to capture his leader's burning gaze. "Luffy-kun - I can still read Usopp's mind. I'm pretty sure - no, I'm almost positive that the Ace in that room is not your cousin."

The two men stared at each other for long moments before Luffy, of all people broke it off. He bowed his head, his chin almost resting on the flat of Wadou's wafer-thin blade.

"Please? I...need to make sure on my own. I...I need...if he's really not mine... Then I need to find that out my own way."

Looking back up, Luffy's eyes were dark, darker that caves, but glowing like toxic waste. It struck everyone that this young, over-powered boy-man was so very, very sick inside his own head and he knew it.

"God dammit!" Zoro hissed lethally as he pulled the sacred blade away and slid it back into its sheath. "You ain't gonna go 'lone in dis, capt'n. Not fo' shit! Nami! We get dis shitty sacr'fice choosin' ova wid. Now!"

As the others followed the triplets' lead, Bones clapped a hand on Luffy's shoulder.

"Enviamosle, con Dios o Diablo - you choose who you need to make it work."

[~~~]

An opening. They had given him an opening. His heart swelled as he realized that his gang really would do anything for him.

For a brief, brief moment, they even supplanted his memories of Ace's dogged protection. Only a very brief moment though.

Somehow, most of the others had taken up positions with their counterparts on the opposite sides of the table. In a subtle shifting of seating positions, they had managed to put Luffy right next to the dozing Ace. True, that Other Luffy was on the opposite side of Ace, but that was a minor issue - he appeared otherwise occupied by some story the vampiric ghoul was trying to tell him.

He moved closer to the delightful aroma of fire and skin and strength - all the scents that reminded him of happier times; of home and of security. His fingers clutched the table edge frantically, a vain attempt to resist the urge to kiss the freckles off that face and brush that rough-soft hair out of those blazing warm eyes...

Luffy's heart broke again as he watched Ace wake up. Long lashes fluttering against a slightly puffy cheek. Cat-like moans and rumblings in a long column of neck, Irregular heaving of breath through a slightly open mouth lined with plush lips.

"...hey there," Ace stated simply, only the slightest quiver in his voice. Oh, by the Wastes, it was too much for a simple, hormonal, ever-so-slightly psychotic teenager to bear. Luffy didn't know what he was saying, or even what he was doing. All he knew is that he'd lived without those lips for far too long; lived without that warmth, that essential, burning connection that he'd only ever felt before with his cousin...

And then he was waking up from a head-first collision with a wall.

He could hear his gang - everyone but Nami, to be specific - getting riled up, ready to kick ass for the blatant disrespect to their captain, only waiting for his word. They didn't worry that he might not be okay physically - at this point, it'd probably take one of the bombs from The End of All to do him in.

Or the sight of his Ace with a dick. And balls. And nothing resembling a vee anywhere.

Luffy couldn't hear anything. He couldn't see anything but the horrid, horrid, horrid truth that his counterpart had roughly shoved into his face. It was all for naught. This was not his Ace.

His Ace really was...really was...

His lips were moving, but he couldn't hear them. He was pulling out his security blanket, the shredded, leathery skin that he'd used to help him keep a grip on his slipping brains. He watched, vaguely hopeful, as the naked Ace watched the skin unfolding with wide eyes, eyes filled with some sudden knowledge.

Hope died when that Ace screamed, vomited and blacked out, rough, large hands twisted in black, tangled locks.

D. Luffy's mind began to spiral like a free-falling jet.

[~~~]

The immense bulk shook once as the irradiated man-boy's body hit the shielding. The power held in those elastic confines shivered through the casing.

The hulking creature took that shiver, absorbing it into its skin. It was rich with power - the sort of power that could split atoms or fuse gases. Yes, it would do quite nicely.

With slow, deliberate precision, the vast mass released the same shiver of power back out onto a minute dent in the encapsulating forcefield. The field flickered almost imperceptibly

Oh yes. It would do quite nicely indeed. The creature re-absorbed the reflected power, let it bounce around inside his cells for a bit, then spat it back out again.

[~~~]

D. Luffy watched, broken, as the vamp-ghoul spread the skin and started speaking again. He didn't know how he knew his Ace, nor did he care. At least someone knew why he was so...so...

Luffy shuddered as another part of his mind broke away. He'd soon be floating, unattached to anything, no salvation, no support-

Scratchy. Something hot and scratchy and kinda musty-smelly. Smelled like...tangy. Salty like old sweat. A hat.

Peeking only slightly, D. Luffy watched as that Other Luffy sat down. He was hat-less. Was this his hat?

It felt...nice. It seemed to be holding his few brains in, for the moment. He could actually listen to his other self speaking...

And ohbythesecretsoftheWastes, he had not thought that there would be something worse than his Ace being dead.

D. Luffy tried to imagine being forced to watch Ace die - watch the life leak out of the black, sparkling eyes as the head was cleaved from the body. Or maybe the head was taken afterward - an attempt to hide Ace's beauty.

The cord on his sorrow broke completely. That Other Luffy's words hit him like physical blows and it was all too much...too much. How was he supposed to survive this when the threat of losing one of his gang members almost sent him off the cliff-?

A weight pressed against his back - it braced him up. The scent of salt doubled. He was being forced to rock, rock, rock with someone. His other self. That Other Luffy would press, then collapse, so then he'd press, then collapse.

The meeting in their minds was even more profound.

That Other Luffy's tenacity allowed him to chase the broken fragments of the raider's psyche and mash them back into place. When the young boy went too far into his own memories, D. Luffy pulled him back out with a twist of raw strength.

Knitting and pulling and pressing eventually helped to patch the broken mind. Unexpected assistance came from the revelations of the vamp-ghoul.

[~~~]

His sweet Ace had borne a child. His child.

He had created life in the barrens that were the Wastes.

Even he, as crazy and loony and vengeance-driven as he was, had created something good! It filled him with warmth, as if Ace had come back - just a little! - to ease his pain.

And then, everything went back to the hell he was used to.

[~~~]

Ace, the Ace of another place and time and destiny, was waking up.

Howling.

Burning.

Slavering at the eyes of an enemy.

"Marshall D. Teach!" Ace howled, the voice wavering insanely between octaves, sounding more like two people in one place.

D. Luffy noted in passing that this Ace's flames were filling the halls of his mind, sheeting Reason in abominable flames of unquenchable damnation.

It was more rewarding to see the same loss of sanity in that Other Luffy's eyes before fire covered everything.

[~~~]

Author says:

Translations for the masses! XD Please remember that the language is not supposed to be perfect, because the End of All kinda fucked the commonly held linguistics of the day, mmkay?

Quelqu'un fait merde pour toi - Anyone doing shit for you...

Podemos morir ahora - We could die now...

Enviamosle, con Dios o Diablo - We will deliver him, by God or Devil...

Edits for grammar, wrong words and the inevitable errors of someone posting in the dead of night. :S