One Piece one shots.

Sabo x reader. Painted smile.

-AN-
Alright, just a heads up, this one will contain descriptions of depression and  self harm. I'm gonna have put a hold on the requests I have for a little bit until I can catch up on stuff, anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this.

Lies.

All of it. All of what you portrayed as...you, was a lie. Sabo knew it. He could tell. For a bright smile that had no reason to grace a person's lips, was always fake. Nobody smiled without reason, and those who did, actually smiled for one reason. To hide how sad they really were.

That's just the cold truth.

And for Sabo, it pained him to know that you smiled, presumably without reason, all the time. When really, he knew you were sad. He knew you were broken. He knew that you, the girl he had come to love, is actually a shadow of who she once was. Battling to not fade away with the moonlight at the end of the day, and clinging to a doppelganger of whom was long gone.

Yeah, he'd never show it, but it hurt.

Hurt enough to make him one of the many people who 'smile without reason.'

He knew the solution was simple. All he had to do was confront you on his worries, and unearth the bottled up misery behind that tainted smile, and the pain would be gone.

But no.

It wasn't that simple.

Nothing can ever be that simple.

There was the fear of striking a nerve, upsetting you, pushing you away. The fear of being denied anything was ever wrong, when he knew there was. What do you do in that situation? Everyone has been in it, but no one ever knows what to do.

The inevitable situation of being denied the truth.

You can't just force it out of them, that will push them away. You can manipulate or blackmail them, but that's just wrong. No. No, what Sabo had to do, was sit you down, explain himself, be gentle, and hope for the best.

Hope for the truth.

So that's what brings us here. To now. The blond revolutionary stood nervously outside your door, fiddling with his fingers as he contemplated exactly what to say. He couldn't do the old cliché, 'I love you, please, tell me what's wrong.' Nah, he knew you hated that bull. He had to go at it differently...maybe coax it out of you. Not manipulate, just edge you to it indirectly. But then he stood the chance of being misinterpreted....

God lord, this was annoying.

Sighing, he decided to just throw caution to the wind, and let the chips fall where they may. He knocked on your door, and opened it without an answer. Turns out, he didn't need to get you to admit your sadness.

Because he had just found you expressing it.

There you were, sad beside your bed, blade in hand, blood on the floor.

Azure blue eyes shot wide as his legs worked without command. He ran over, wordlessly, kneeled before you and slipped the painted blade from your grasp. No words that could possibly justify the situation, or your actions would leave your mouth. And so you sat there, bumbling and stuttering questions to hopefully stir the attention away from yourself.

"Wh-why didn't you wa-it for an answer wh-when you knocked?!"

You cried out, voice cracking from the fear you felt. What would Sabo do? He was so quiet, he wouldn't speak, you wanted him to say something, do something! But then...you also didn't.