Bottles and Glasses
The seas were calm. A rarity in the Grand Line, much less the New World.
Except it had been calm for the past five days with little wind to move them and by Nami's estimation would remain that way for another day or two. All of which meant that the Straw Hats's beloved captain had become bored. Not an uncommon occurrence, their young captain had the attention span of a goldfish some days, but keeping him properly entertained for extended periods without the demands of the wild Grand Line weather to grab his attention and earn them a break was taking its toll.
So Luffy got into trouble. He bothered Sanji in the kitchen, bugged Zoro while napping or training, pestered Nami and Robin in the library, made something explode in Franky and Usopp's workshop, and was subsequently checked over by Chopper for the third time in as many hours.
Brook was the only one unbothered by their captain's bored antics, but then again, he hardly ever was. After all, boredom was his call to arms as the crew's musician and Brook could normally rein in and keep Luffy entertained with good music for an afternoon with no problem. The boy loved music and Brook could play for days without repeating a song. The problem was that Luffy liked to do things, so music could only keep him out of trouble for so long before faded into the background instead of staying the main attraction. A point they had well reached by day three.
So after what most of the crew felt was a long day, Brook had volunteered for a long watch to let them rest as he had far less need for sleep than them. It was also a good opportunity to put into motion an idea for tomorrow's entertainment that would hopefully corral their captain without spoiling the surprise of it.
The next day after lunch, Brook waited for Luffy to get bored of fishing, something Sanji had requested to help keep the food stock up. It took about an hour of no bites for the young captain to start poking and pestering his fellow fishers and Brook knew it was show time.
"Luffy-san, if you'd like something to do, would you get those crates from near the galley door and bring them down to the lawn?" Luffy jumped up eagerly and dashed over. "Ah, wait! The contents are fragile, so bring them over carefully, okay? Usopp-san, Chopper-san, why don't you help him?"
It didn't take the young trio long to bring the crates over.
"So what's in here anyways, Brook?" Usopp asked, gently setting down the last crate.
"Yeah! They were kind of heavy," Chopper chirps, bouncing in anticipation almost as much as Luffy.
"Yohohoho! Why it's a little surprise I made for you last night," Brook replied, opening a crate and lining up the old cola bottles with varying levels of water on the grass.
"But those are just bottles with water, Brook!" Luffy whined upon seeing the contents of the crates. "That's not fun!"
"Oh, but these are special bottles. Watch."
Brook leaned over and blew across the top of a bottle, creating deep thrumming sound. Then he switched bottles, creating the same sound at a different pitch, and soon enough the familiar tune of Binks's Sake was coming from the bottles.
"That was AWESOME!" the trio cheered, eyes shining as the song ended.
"Yohohoho! I thought you'd like that. You can play if you'd like, I prepared lots of bottles," Brook informed them, unloading the other crates.
"Cool! We get to play mystery bottles!" Luffy cheered and they started playing right away, laughing in delight at the different notes from piping high to thrumming low.
"So that's why you wanted my empty cola bottles last night," Franky stated as he watched the kids of the crew play.
"Mmm," Brook hummed in the affirmative. "It's simple and interactive. Just right for Luffy-san, don't you think?"
"Oh yeah, and it's pretty super!" Franky said with a laugh. "How'd you come up with something like this?"
"Oh, I didn't. It was part of something I once saw long ago. You see, back when I was alive and with the Rumbar Pirates, there was this one group in a town we visited who had the strangest instruments! They were making music with old crates and barrels, trash cans, buckets, bottles, pots and pans. Why they even used brooms! It was so different and creative and I remember wanting to try something like that some time. So here we are." Brook gestured to the boys and bottles.
"My, that does sound interesting."
"Ah, Robin-san," Brook looked back to the upper deck to see Robin leaning on the railing. "You're free to try playing as well, if you'd like."
"I might. It's certainly a very different sound compared to your usual instruments. It sounds like winds blowing through ghost towns."
"Please don't say things like that, Robin-san. You know I don't like ghosts."
"Well hey, if you want to try some other super different instrument, I'll see what I can do," Franky offered.
"Yohoho, that's very kind of you, Franky-san. Although, if there was one unconventional instrument I'd like to try, it would be crystal wine glasses," Brook said wistfully.
"Crystal wine glasses?" Robin and Franky asked.
"Oh yes. It's very similar to the bottles here, except instead of blowing on them, you rub your wet finger around the edge. The resonance of the crystal glass makes a lovely, airy sound. Yohoho, it's actually a good way to see if the wine glass is real crystal or not since it doesn't work with regular glass," Brook explained. "Though I'm afraid I've missed my chance. My fingers are all bone now, more likely to scrape and screech on the glass than play it."
Robin watched as Brook wandered over to the boys among the bottles to bring some semblance of order to their music making while Franky joined in. She then left for the kitchen.
Dinner was as loud a mess as always and the topic of the night was how much fun the three youngest and two oldest crew members had had playing "Brook's mystery bottles" as Luffy had dubbed them. The crew was content because today had been peaceful with their captain entertained and Brook got a little praise for achieving that from everyone. It warmed his heart (not that he had one, Yohohoho). So he was more than a little surprised and confused when after dinner and dessert, Sanji brought out a platter of wine glasses filled with water.
"What's this?" Brook asked.
"You can't tell? I heard it was your idea earlier this afternoon, you shitty skeleton," Sanji said.
Brook was still a moment, then chuckled. "I suppose it was, but as you may not have heard, I'm afraid my boney fingers won't do. After all, they're nothing but bones, yohohoho!"
"I heard and I think I can fix that for a little while," Robin said with a coy smile. "Dos Fleur." Brook watched as shorter fingers sprouted out from the underside of his pointer fingers. "It might be a little awkward, but it should work, right?"
"Yohohoho, well, since you've gone through all this trouble, it would be remiss of me not to try," Brook easily agreed.
Brook gently dipped a finger in the water before running it around the lip of the glass, slowly adding pressure until the glass started ringing out an airy note. Brook quickly tried all the other glasses to hear what note they made, then, after a moment of silence, he played the wine glasses. The song was ethereal in its beauty, light and airy like a choir of angels, and the crew sat entranced by the sound.
As the last note faded, Brook turned to Robin. "Thank you for helping me play, Robin-san."
"For music like that, it was my pleasure," Robin said with a smile as her extra fingers burst into flower petals.
A big grin stretched across Luffy's face.
"Shishishi, Brook is the best musician. He can play anything!"
Author's Note
Welcome to my Brook drabbles. I've gotten stuck on One Piece lately and Brook is probably my favorite and seems totally underloved here. So I'm just tossing whatever fun Brook thing I write in here. If you want a little more, I also have a one-shot written before I decided to start this called Lullaby of the Soul. It's cute Brook fluff, so check it out. I might toss it in here anyway.
By the way, the crystal wine glass thing is true and a great way to have fun/annoy people at fancy restaurants. My mom wasn't exactly happy when my dad and my uncle taught my brother and me how to do it, and that was at home.
Let the music play on, Yohohoho.