A Light Touch (Eustass X Reader)

Chapter 4: Mouse

You manage a small thanks when Eustass pulls up to your apartment complex and cut Killer off with a quiet word. You bow and turn toward what feels like a long cold walk to your apartment. You had to give it to Killer, he had packed all your stuff up well enough you could handle it with one hand.

You set your things down and stood in the middle of your apartment for a moment before you just sigh. It had been just a few years since school, and maybe leaving the East Blue to come to the South side of Grandline Metro was a mistake. The city was so large that each area felt like it's own little city-state.

By the time your mom passed away there just wasn't anything holding you to the area. The job offer came in for the Devil Fruit registry processor and so you relocated. Leaving all your friends and typical haunts behind.

You got plenty of correspondence, Nami and Sanji both wrote fairly regularly. Zoro would write from time to time as well, and Luffy would send the weirdest drawings that were only remotely decipherable because of the letters from the others. Your friends had chosen to live within the underside of the city and you couldn't blame them.

There was a certain kind of freedom there that couldn't be found elsewhere. Your mother had spoken against that side of the Metro, as you imagine most parents do, and you had gone into your government job mostly to ease her concerns. Luffy had wanted you to join his group, the gang knew about your capacity for healing, and with training you likely would've made a terrifyingly effective fighter of some variety.

But you were where you were.

And right now where you were sucked. You let yourself cry as the frustration bubbled up again. Everything was piling up around you; the accident, your car, your hand, his car, the pending rehab, the prosthetic, the court date that was as yet to be decided.

You didn't have to worry about your job, at least not immediately. Killer had called on your behalf at some point and they were already processing short term paid leave for you. For a few moments you had really kind people in your life who weren't hundreds of kilometers away, and they stayed just long enough to make your otherwise comfortable isolation feel cold and cruel.

You could probably call any of the Straw Hats and have the whole crew over here before morning. You had no doubt those bonds of friendship were intact. But it wasn't their voices or their eyes you wanted to see. It wasn't their light, and banter, and joy you needed right now.

You tried to tell yourself you had put him on some savior pedestal. That he hadn't been doing anything more than matching your bratty energy to help you get through a seriously stressful situation that he could empathize with. You tried to shrug it all off, but the tone of his voice echoes in your brain. The heat in your cheeks and the desire in your bones wouldn't let you just shrug it off.

After a shower you felt a little better. At the very least you weren't drowning in angst and were coming to terms with however things were going to play out. The mechanics of bathing one-handed had at least given you something to focus on, and the challenge of dressing yourself was a good distraction as well.

You managed. The lack of bleeding from your ability to heal made things less frustrating than you imagine they would've otherwise been, even if the pain was still there. Eventually you'd adjust to this new normal for you and things would get easier and easier.

You sat in the middle of the floor with a small huff, and just looked around listlessly for a moment before your eyes fell on the rumpled box.

A small part of you felt compelled to return it. You were sure if you asked for an address from Killer he'd give you one, but a gift given is one that is meant to be accepted. Returning it unopened would be rude.