Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece... It would be crap if i did. :p

A.N. My first Franky fic! I loooove him and Iceburg! They're my current obsession! Ice is sexy. :3 And those two make such an amazingly canon pairing, cuz there's no way in hell Franky is straight. He gives off so many gay vibes my gaydar almost exploded. And I can sooooo see him in a relationship with Franky. The strength of their bond is amazing... they have a real history together. And I don't think they see themselves as brothers either. They formed their "family" late enough in their lives to never form that exact kind of bond, and they never call each other aniki or nii-chan or anything to indicate they see each other as brothers, but still their relationship lasted, even through all that pain. If that's not love, I dont' know what is. Sadly, this pairing is painfully unapreciated, and there is very little written about them. :( I am hoping to help change that, even if it's just a little bit.

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Cruel and Beautiful

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“If Tom is taken away by those men… I will never forgive you!!! Franky!!!”

Iceburg’s words still echoed in his head, pulsing with a life of their own within his body; like a toxic effigy of the heart beating inside his chest. It was burning him up inside, all the anger and the fear and the hatred his fellow apprentice had forcibly shoved down his throat like a ball of broken glass and molten steel. Iceburg had often called him names, reprimanding him for his stupidity and naivety; but this was different, and it hurt. Not because it had been his fault for creating those battleships in the first place, or that he had allowed those government bastards to use them to hurt Tom and Iceburg.

No, it hurt because Iceburg had truly meant what he had said. Unlike the childish insults they shot back and forth at each other that, over time, had become more like terms of endearment than actual insults, he had meant every word of what he’d said, and the thought of losing Tom and Iceburg both at the same time was more painful than anything he could ever imagine.

Tom was the one who had saved him. The great fishman had taken him in when his parents had abandoned him. He’d taken him in, and then taught him how to build ships. He’d taught him how to measure dimensions and draw out blueprints, how to use a saw and a hammer and cut wood, how to bend steel and craft ships from scrap and debris. Tom had been his teacher, his father, and his inspiration to keep on going.

Iceburg had been his only friend. While they spent most of their time arguing, that was only on the surface. The way they acted while they worked, or while Iceburg worked and Franky just goofed off, was only the scene that the outside world saw. It didn’t speak of the deep friendship between them, the intimate moments after an exhausting day of work where they would just curl up next to each other and sleep, the times they laughed together, the times they cried together, the times he had been unable to sleep and had stayed up long into the night just watching Iceburg breathing gently in and out, and Franky had wished that he could tell his friend how he really felt.

But he never could. He had never been strong enough to tell Iceburg that he loved him. Loved the way he smiled and the way he laughed, loved the way his wet purple hair caught the light as the sun shone down on them, loved the glow that always crept into his eyes as he built creation after creation.

He’d spent his entire life working beside Iceburg and Tom, learning from them how to become a better shipwright, and a better person. He owed them everything, even his life. And he would give it up. For them. For all that they had done for him. For the life that they had given back to him after he thought there was no point left in living.

He would save Tom, Iceburg would forgive him, and they would go back to the way things had always been.

Or he would die trying.

“STOP, PUFFING TOM!!!” Franky screamed as loud as he could at the oncoming train, flinging his arms out to either side as he braced his feet against the underwater tracks. Tears full of fury and anguish streamed relentlessly down his cheeks as the sea train continued to race towards him faster and faster. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop it. He knew that it wouldn’t matter if he tried to save Tom, because he would never stand a chance against the monster that they had spent ten years creating. But it didn’t matter that it didn’t matter--he was going to try and stop a train. Even if it was foolish. Even if it was just a lost and broken dream that he could ever return to the life he’d had with Tom and Iceburg and Kokoro. He was going to try anyway, even if it cost him his life.

Because he had nothing left to lose.

‘Tom-san… I… don’t want to make ships anymore…!!!’ he thought as the train collided with his outstretched hands. ‘I can’t love a ship that hurt so many of the people I hold dear…!!!’ The bottoms of his feet were tearing apart against the cold steel of the tracks, and he could feel that the hands he was pushing against the steel grate of the Puffing Tom were broken already. ‘But Tom-san, my goal is still you!! I want you to come back and teach me some more!!’ It was no use. The train was so much stronger than him, he’d only managed to stall it for a second or so before it had overpowered him, crushing his body beneath thousands of pounds of wood and metal. Everything was breaking--his body, his heart, his dreams.

‘I want to make… a dream ship some day. A dream ship that will… proudly ride over… the unknown waves at the end of the world.’

He was dying. He could feel it. His body was broken, nothing more than a rag doll full of shattered bones and torn veins leaking his life away in swirling clouds of red down under the crashing waves. His dream was lost. Tom was gone. Iceburg would never forgive him. And now he was dying because he had never been strong enough. He hadn’t been strong enough to keep his parents with him. He hadn’t been strong enough to build the ship he had always dreamed of. He hadn’t been strong enough to confess his feelings to Iceburg. He hadn’t been strong enough to save Tom from the government. He hadn’t even been strong enough to keep his body from breaking into pieces just like his dreams had.

And now he was dying.

He had lost Tom. He had lost Iceburg. He had lost his dreams.

And now he would lose his life too.

‘I can’t… let it end like this…’ he thought, closing his eyes as the waves surged over him, beating his broken body and filling his mouth and lungs with water. Darkness swirled through the ocean, clouding up his vision until nothing was left but darkness… and silence.

How long he slipped in and out of consciousness, he didn’t know, but by the time he could once again think clearly, he realized that he was not dead, and that there was an enormous ship looming over him in the fog. Somehow, he managed to drift closer to it, and drag himself onboard. It was abandoned, full of scrap metal and debris. It gave him a strangely calm feeling, this empty, scrapped ship. It was almost like being back on Water 7 with Tom and Iceburg…

He closed his eyes, trying hard not to cry, and blaming it on his raging fever and delirious state of mind when a few salty drops slipped past his closed eyelids. He reached out to grab a piece of scrap metal. First, he had to fix his useless body, and then…

And then he would find Iceburg. And after that… after that, he didn’t know.

With a grunt of pain, he sliced open the skin of his forearm with the strip of bent metal.

It was time to stop crying and dwelling on his failures. He would build himself a better body. A stronger one. And once he did, he wouldn’t let anyone take the things he loved away from him again. He would destroy anyone who tried to stop him from dreaming, and he would build a ship that would carry on past the end of the world. He would make Tom proud. He would hope that in time, Iceburg would forgive his mistakes. And he would find a way to live in a world that was as cruel as it was beautiful.

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D: Poor Franky... Poor Iceburg... Poor Tom... Poor everyone. Except Spandam. We hatesss him..... D: