luffychopper nakamaship.

Lullaby

Luffy and Chopper have a secret.

It's not a particularly big secret, or a bad one, or really anything that most people would consider worth keeping secret.

Sometimes Chopper has nightmares. When he first started having these nightmares, he would sit up for long hours and make medicine, or read long books. Sometimes he would sit on Merry's head and stare at the stars, and wonder how Doctorine was. Then, one night, something different happened.

He had tried to read, but found himself unable to focus on the words, and knew that he wouldn't be able to make medicine. So he slipped out of the tiny room that served as the infirmary, and tip-toed over to Merry's head. He settled himself on the wide, flat head and stretched his legs before starting to count the stars and make shapes out of them in his mind. He could turn that group into a triangle, and that one into a cup, and that one into Nami's compass, and - he nearly jumped out of his skin when a big hand pointed out a group and a loud, boisterous voice sounded in his ear with a bark of laughter. "That looks like Sanji's eyebrow!" Chopper flailed wildly and came close to falling into the dark crystal below the boat, but salvaged himself with one hoof on Luffy's arm.

"L-luffy!" He gasped out, checking his own pulse to make sure he was still alive and then he checked his head to make sure his hat (and antlers) hadn't come off with the shock he'd just had. All the while, he took huge, deep breaths to calm himself, and once calm enough not to fly away, he spoke. "What are you doing on deck? Shouldn't you be asleep?"

The captain of the ship grinned down at the tiny reindeerman. "Keepin' watch! It got quiet and I was bored until I saw you! Why are you on deck, though?" He scratched at his scar, eyes conveying nothing but curiosity and bewilderment as to why his doctor was on deck at 4 a.m.

"Er. . .well. . ." Chopper had nothing. It wasn't manly to admit to nightmares, and the rest of their crew (except for the girls) was nothing but manly. But no excuse flew into his head to save the day like they always did in novels, so he blurted out the first thing in mind: the truth. "I had a nightmare." Horrified at what had come out, he clapped his hooves over his mouth and squeaked.

"Really? What about? My nightmares are always about meat. Once, there was this huge ramen monster, and it was trying to stop me from eating meat by throwing it all in the ocean!" Huge tears welled up in Luffy's eyes at the thought of this travesty. "Poor meat. . ." Chopper could do nothing but stare at his captain, mind boggled.

"You mean. . . you have nightmares too?" The doctor ventured forth after a moment of silence, in which Luffy mourned the lost meat.

"Yeah! I have nightmares about meat and nakama n'stuff, and Zoro probably has nightmares about his swords eating him or something, and I bet Sanji has nightmares about burning up like a cigarette! And Usopp. . .Usopp told me once he was way too cool to have nightmares! He said that nightmares had nightmares about him because he's so awesome!" The wide grin that stretched across his face was infectious, and so was the laughter that followed. It only took a few minutes for the two to be rolling on the deck and trying vainly to keep their laughing quiet.

So now, when Chopper has a nightmare, he will crawl out of his bed (hammock) and into Luffy's, and Luffy will wake up. Then the two will go sit on Sunny's (Merry's) head and point out stars that remind them of anything - their crewmates, their enemies, meat. . . - and giggle at each other. It's a very nice sort of secret.