Chapter Text
He had dreamt of being back home many, many times before, but that did not mean that it didn’t hurt as much every time. The dreams would quickly turn into nightmares, with the Red Force turning full of blood, and his family’s bodies (all full of cuts, of blood, of..) walking up to him, chanting that it was his fault, again, and again, and again. Shanks’s bloodstruck body, with a deep, big, bloody gash going through his body (showing how he failed the man he vowed to protect all his life), coming up to him and telling him in his captain’s voice what a big failure he was.
So when he woke up, once again, in his cabin on the Red Force, he had no hurry to get up. He wanted it to be real, so fucking much, but he knew better than to hope for the impossible.
He was too afraid to get up, or use his haki to feel his family, knowing that it would just end the same way as always. He wasn’t able to endure it once again, it would just be too much.
Just at that moment, he heard steps from the other side of the door, and someone knocked on his door. The ghosts in his dreams had never knocked before in his dreams, maybe it was a way of playing nice and then attacking him afterwards?
He ignored the knock.
Then the door opened, and he lifted up his head from his hammock to see Yasopp standing there, with a bunch of papers in his arms. “‘Morning, Beck! I hope I didn’t wake you, it’s rare to see you sleep at this ti-” he stopped listening after that.
It was Yasopp. Yasopp. Not Yasopp with his whole face gone bloody, eyesight probably never being able to come back. It wasn’t Yasopp with a big slash going through his right hand, the hand he used for shooting.
This Yasopp looked well, maybe confused and worried, but well otherwise. Wait, why did he look worried? Ah, he was shaking.
He let his observation haki wander the ship at that moment, and felt the crew. He felt his family, his crew, his everything like it should be. They felt alive, normal.
He didn’t know how long this dream would last, but he would be grateful for every last minute.
He looked around him, and saw that the sniper was still at the door looking worried. Worried, but confused and unsure of what to do. It was so much like the sniper, Yasopp, one of those he considered his brothers, that it hurt. It fucking hurt.
A wet sob let its way from his mouth, and he felt tears spring in his eyes, starting to slowly roll towards the floor.
Yasopp seemed to panic, leaving his papers on the table in the first mate’s room, and slowly coming toward him. “Hey, hey, hey- what’s wrong?” the sniper panicked.
Another sob tore its way out of his mouth, and his sworn brother swore and started to panic even more.
“Hey, everything’s okay, don’t cry” the sniper tried.
He wanted to laugh at how Yasopp-like the sniper was. It really was so absurd that he just wanted to scream.
But it was not okay.
It would never be.
And it was all Beck’s fault.
He looked his dark brown dreadlocked brother right in the eyes and whispered “You’re not real”, whereafter he lost consciousness, not knowing whether he wanted it to be a dream or not.
…
To say that Yasopp was confused and worried would be an absolute understatement.
He couldn’t wrap his head around what just happened - his plan had just been to review a few things regarding his paperwork together with Beck, not for.. this to happen. Whatever it was. The look Beck had on him when he stated that Yasopp wasn’t real would forever haunt him.
He would have liked to stay and think about it for a longer time if possible, but his friend, sworn brother, needed help. Now.
He ran out of the room, and rushed past some newer members in the corridor, needing to get to their doctor, his brother, as fast as possible.
When he opened the door to the infirmary, he quickly noticed that Hongo wasn’t there.
He was going to rush to the doctor’s private cabin when he understood that he could just use his observation haki to feel where he was on the ship.
After concentrating for a few seconds he felt the man’s presence in the Mess Hall, probably having gone to wait for breakfast to start.
He hurried to the Mess Hall, and saw Hongo sitting at the officers’s table together with Lime and Snake, already deep in discussion, while they drank some sake that Roux had probably given them.
He strode over to the table, noticing other crewmembers starting to sit down at the other tables.
His three friends nodded at him, and said either hello or good morning in some form. Yasopp nodded back, but stayed serious, and looked at Hongo - “Hong, I need you right now, it’s an emergency” he said, keeping his voice low, so that the other crewmembers didn’t hear the discussion.
Hongo turned immediately serious at his words, Snake and Lime listening in too concentrated. “What happened? Is someone hurt?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low, understanding Yasopp’s silent remark to not let just anyone hear the discussion.
“Beck fell unconscious. I don’t know why, he’s not bleeding. I think he had some form of panic attack.”
His brothers' expressions turned worried, knowing full well how strange it all sounded.
“Is he in his cabin?” Hongo asked, already standing up, ready to go take care of their first mate, big brother, and looked at Yasopp for confirmation, who nodded at him.
“Right. Yasopp come with me, so you can also tell me the details of what happened.” the sniper nodded and got ready to follow the doctor, when Hongo stopped and turned to their helmsman and navigator. “I would rather not get a sad puppylike, overprotective and overworried captain to the infirmary, so try to stop him at least.”
Lime smirked despite the seriousness in everything - “Of course, love, but I don’t think stopping him is going to be that easy - especially if it’s our dear first mate that something happened to”.
Hongo scoffed - “Fair”, and rushed away from the mess hall, with Yasopp hack in his heels.
The other crewmembers had understood that something serious had happened, but the officers had been too quiet for them to understand the context. So they just continued chatting without another thought.
Lime and Snake got back deep in discussion, choosing to take up the subject with the other officers when they were all there, not before.
…
When Hongo and Yasopp came to Beck’s cabin, he rushed immediately to their first mate’s side, and checked his breathing. The sniper had been right - seemed like some kind of panic attack. Not the normal one maybe, but something similar.
They got Beck to the infirmary, and he did what he could, given not knowing what exactly caused it.
It was just hoping it would get better. And if someone had done something to their first mate? They would pay. With pain. Much pain.
He still thought (hoped) that it was just a one time thing, that it wasn’t something bigger. Oh, how wrong he was.
Yasopp’s word kept on chanting in his head - “Hongo, you don’t understand. He looked at me like I was a ghost, and stated calmly, like it was a fact, that I am dead. Not like a threat, but in a way that it just needed to get accepted as a fact.”
…
After thirty minutes of Hongo and Yasopp watching over their first mate, too unsure of leaving him alone, their big brother started shaking. They immediately rushed up and towards him, and then he started crying too.
Beck was sleeping, but at the same time crying and shaking.
Hongo cursed, trying to calm the greyhaired man down.
Then a scream tore his way out of his mouth, with the words “no” chanting on repeat between the screams and sobs.
Beck screamed.
Screamed.
Screamed.
…
“Yasopp!” he screamed, when the sniper went still on the already bloody battlefield, now body ruined by blood, vision probably never coming back. He ran to his side, and tried to get him to breathe, to be alive.. to just not leave him alone.
His other brother, the only remaining one he now had left, tried to get him to move, so that the incoming shots wouldn’t hit him. They didn’t. They hit his last brother in the back, causing the already tired Yonko Officer to fall down and breath out his last breaths.
“Beck.. I’m sorry. Live. Please, live.” he said and fell on his already bloody blonde hair still, letting out his final breath.
Beck screamed, trying to chant no, again and again. The battlefield was bloody, his family dead and still and bloody, lying on the battlefield.. and he ran. He ran away like a coward. He ran away from the destruction that he couldn’t stop. His biggest failure, showing him what a failure he really was.
Beck screamed.