Day 23

[dethorats]

Title: To Live
Rating: PG for brief mentions of gore
Pairing: None/gen Franky-centric
Word Count: 284
Spoilers: Through Enies Lobby Arc



For precious minutes he had lain there as blood stained the ocean around him pink and his life slowly slipped away. It would have been easy to die, to have given up to grief and pain and guilt. Part of him wanted nothing more than to do so. After all, he had failed once more and Tom was well and truly gone. But part of him refused to give up, to let go of the possibility of revenge. And part of him knew that Tom would have finally been disappointed in him and that he could not bear.

It took hours, slow agonizing hours that were forever blurred in his memory, to drag himself hand over hand along the Sea Train tracks back to land. He had crawled up the beach, bits of his guts leaking out and the gulls over head circling and crying, and by chance he had stumbled upon the remains of a Battle Franky. His weapons were tough and strong and Tom had liked them even if Baka-berg never had. He hadn’t wanted to build another after the trouble they had caused but just once…one more time…just so he could get his revenge.

His initial repairs were clumsy and painful and he’d almost died as he’d jury-rigged a set up for his intestines and stomach, as he’d fitted an attachment to the hand he was slowly losing. The doctor he’d been forced to visit had been appalled but he’d kept him alive and so, little by little, he’d tinkered and fiddled and improved until finally his last weapon was complete. In his head he silently added the word ‘Battle’ before his name and set himself on the path to redemption.

Comments

[monkfish17.livejournal.com]

Awesome batch of entries. I read em all =3 REALLY liked the Hina one most tho.

PS: You're gonna make me wait till the very end aren't you? XD

[dethorats]

Thanks. I like the Hina one too. She needs more page time.

[mirax.livejournal.com]

I have always wondered how the hell Franky managed to do that to himself while he was dying. It's so disturbing if you really try to think about it, and I think you managed to get that bit of disturbing in here along with the grim determination. I also really, really like the last sentence.

[dethorats]

It really is pretty f-ed up what he did. Crazy to the core and I really wonder just how much having to patch himself together ties into his guilt about Tom and affected his personality. I mean, older Franky is pretty wacky but he isn't the Franky that went off to try and stop the Sea Train and Tom from leaving either.

icon is unnecessary!

[serrende.livejournal.com]

I'll be unoriginal and second mirax noth on the effective final line and the great use of disturbing details, like the intestines - brr! - plus, I like the mention of a doctor. I never thought about it before, but it only makes sense that Franky would have dragged himself off to a doctor afterwards.

Re: icon is unnecessary!

[dethorats]

Thanks! Franky's fridge stomach has always really freaked me out because, rationally, he would have had to seriously alter his entire energy output system in order to make it run on cola rather than food. And it's really weird that he DOES eat, seeing as he doesn't have a stomach (at least not in the human location). Sometimes I theorize food gets converted into gas somehow to use in his flame attacks. Which is weird and kind of funny, at least to my cracked mind.