Astra Felix | Monkey D. Luffy/Reader
Part One of Schrodinger's Shooting Star series.
Summary: In one life, you fall in front of a Sunny ship. In another, the Merry on her virgin voyage. You fall into a small dingy just set out to sea. Even collapse onto a barrel bobbing in the waves. What matters in that you fall and the Straw Hat crew is the one to fish you up.
Luffy was told that when you see a shooting star, you're supposed to make a wish on it. No one's ever told him what you're supposed to do when you catch one.
In fact, he's never heard of anyone ever catching a shooting star. So, his blood was already buzzing from being the first to do it.
There was a loud BOOM like testing the Merry's canons for the first time again, and then the sky looked like someone punched it. It stretched like his own rubber body, and then it cracked like a mirror. He almost thought it was Ace’s birthday, the way colors sparked from it like fireworks.
And then there's a loud splash, and the light is suddenly right in front of the Sunny. It’s a rippling fountain of bright gold and silver. It fizzes and bubbles like a soda bottle. Bubbles that were nice enough not to burn Zoro when he managed to fish you out.
Zoro had rubbed his hands in shock afterward but hadn’t complained, so Luffy figured whatever it was, it didn’t hurt.
And when they finally saw you, they were all shocked. Not that he really knew what to expect when fishing up fallen stars. Nami seemed to think you would be bright and glittery, but when they pulled you out of the water, you seemed so normal.
You looked just like them. Feet, hands, nose, ears but even with a plain face he could see something. A shifting layer of light lying over each other and turning into shapes and colors like a kaleidoscope of color and ripples. Like the warm ocean reefs, rippling under the water as the ship sailed on clear days.
It was so cool. It made his mind buzz with questions. The longer he stared at the colors, the more they seemed to stick and settle. Like the scales on a mermaids tail.
He had so many questions.
What's The Ocean Above like? Are the waters as heavy as the ones that sink him like a stone? Can you swim in them? Can you teach him to swim in them?
Can you grant wishes? He wasn't sure he wanted to make one. Why take the fun out of things and ask you to grant his wish when he could do it himself? Just thinking about it, he decided. No granting wishes. It's cheating.
Can he have you?
He's not dumb enough to think he could keep you. You're a star after all. Just the thought of it already felt like trying to keep himself on land. It'd drive him crazy and make him snap and snarl as the itch would get too itchy and the crowds would get too boring.
But one of the most burning questions in his mind…Do stars poop?
It's the first thing he asks you when you open your kaleidoscope colored eyes. It was like he tossed a rock in a river. That same shift and shimmer rippled. Like an unrecognizable reflection, unable to decide its original shape before settling on a presence that couldn't be anyone else but You.
You stare at them the way bad guys stare at him when they realize too late that they’ve made the mistake of underestimating him and his crew.
You even make that same punched-out noise they do—before your head rolls back.
Chopper had quickly batted them away and like the greatest doctor in the whole ocean, took charge and did what he did best. Told Franky to carry you to the infirmary and then kicked them all out to do doctor things.
Chopper said you had passed out from shock and that despite falling from out of nowhere-...
“From out of the sky.” He corrected because it's stupid to pretend that they didn't all just see it.
-...you seemed ok.
A heartbeat, skin, blood. There was that same weird thing about how you looked that made Chopper squint but shake his head.
And then you woke up again. Quiet.
The kind of quiet that came before a storm. The kind of quiet that makes him wanna poke and prod to see just how much power that storm had.
A storm like the ones he and Ace and Sabo used to scream at to see who could be louder than the thunder.
He knows he shouldn't. He doesn't. Even though he thinks your storm gets in your own head because sometimes your eyes get cloudy and your fingers get twitchy. Chopper tells him it’s called shock. Which, if your own storm is hurting you, how is he supposed to help?
“Give them time.”
And he huffs and tries to do what Chopper says, but you looked lonely. He doesn’t like doing it, but he waits for you to tell him it’s okay or for when you say it's okay and it's really okay.
Or at least until Chopper says it’s okay.
And the more he watches and waits, the more he sees that, just like Ace, you’re not gonna get better on your own.
When you sit on the deck, he knows that heavy silent weight that bears down. Your eyes wide and distant with fear make him think it’s kinda lame that you haven’t even given this world a chance before deciding to be scared of it. Closed off and lonely.
It makes him itch, and despite Chopper trying to slap him away, he doesn't leave you alone.
If Chopper says you shouldn’t leave the ship yet, that’s fine.
He just plopped himself down next to you on the deck, humming while your brain slugged along like a snail most days.
But he could tell by the disbelieving but appreciative smile you send him. It was just enough to help settle you to your new life on his crew.
You were their lucky star, after all. He decided to make up the new station on the spot. The Straw Hat crew's very own lucky star.
It took a while, slow and steady, but you warmed up to him so much faster than the others, which made sense. He was the captain.
One day, out of the many days of what felt like months, you had taken a deep breath when he managed to drag you aboard sharing his captain's seat, and you talked.
And he listened in that way not a lot of people thought he knew how to do. He listens the way he fights with reckless focus, missing nothing, grasping at details like treasure. The way people underestimate his ears, the same way they underestimate his fists, it always makes him grin.
You talked, and they weren’t just stories, Usopp tells stories. You talk about your life from another world, another star entirely. From one star to another.
Immediately, he was hooked. He felt like he was talking to Shanks again as you told him of your life and your home. Phenomenal things. Things that sounded impossible.
You said weird things sometimes that made him laugh. You said sad things sometimes that made him want to punch someone.
Then, one day, you made a noise. It sounded strange at first, like wearing new sandals. It falters, cracks, then bursts free all clumsy and golden, bubbling up like something you forgot you even had. It was the sweetest sound he ever heard, and he had almost started to worry that you had forgotten how to laugh.
When you smiled, he understood that despite how normal you seemed, your smile was as bright as the stars. Pulled your cheeks up into apples he wanted to sink his teeth in.
Your laughter filled the ship, your tears fell like raindrops, and that’s when the thought truly settled. In the way he knows he’ll be Pirate King, deep, absolute, and undeniable.
The kind of truth that doesn’t need proof, because it’s already there, had been dropped right in front of their ship and now decorated their journey with starlight.
You were his star. You were meant to be his and your laugh proved it. Yeah. It’s right. He feels it as sure as the wind in his sails, as loud as the laughter echoing from his deck. So he grins, wide and sharp, and makes it official, like it wasn’t already obvious.
“Join my crew!”