Title: Luffy and the Berry Scary Costume
Characters: Sabo, Luffy, Ace
Pairings: (none)
Warnings: Spoilers for Marineford and beyond.
Setting: Goa Kingdom, in Luffy and Ace's childhood
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.
"Ace, Sabo!" The two boys glanced at each other as a third, younger boy called their names. "Come help me!"
Ace rolled his eyes, snorting a little in apathetic displeasure as Sabo shrugged and smiled a put-upon smile.
"What is it, Luffy?" Sabo asked pleasantly, as was in his easy-going nature. He may not have the wisdom of Luffy's legendary pirate hero-friend Shanks, but the small boy had endeared himself to Sabo and the blond tried to look after him as well as he could despite Ace's numerous complaints.
"What the hell, Lu?" Ace shouted, seeing the little would-be pirate first.
"I can't get it out." Luffy sulked, his hands as red as the gooey substance that covered his head. There was probably a correlation, Sabo thought, with distant amusement, shocked by Luffy's antics.
"What were you trying to do? Ace screamed, looking around for any water that might be close enough to be useful. A questionably muddy puddle caught his eyes. Fortunately Sabo saw it too and shoved a flask of clean water at Ace before anything could happen.
Ace grudgingly took it, throwing the contents roughly at Luffy's sticky head.
Luffy, red streaming down his face and neck, burst into tears and Sabo felt his stomach drop as a terrifying thought struck him. What if the red was blood?
"Ace, stop." Sabo pushed the older of the Ds aside and combed his fingers through Luffy's hair, checking for any injuries. Finding none, he sighed in relief.
"Don't scare us like that, Lu." Sabo scolded, giving Luffy as light smack upside the head. It wasn't hard, especially when compared with Garp's infamous fists of love, but it was enough to startle Luffy into silence.
"What stupid idea did you get into your rubber head this time?" Ace grumbled. He looked angrily disinterested, an impressive feat, Sabo admitted to himself, but to anyone who knew him he had been worried too.
"Shanks…" Luffy sniffed, as if his absent hero would explain everything.
Sabo and Ace looked at each other.
"You know what he's talking about?" Ace asked, starting to look less angry in his confusion.
"Not a clue." Sabo answered before turning back to Luffy, kneeling before him and saying in what Ace had dubbed his "Makino-voice," "What were you doing Luffy? You had me and Ace worried sick about you."
"I wasn't worried." Ace grunted but shut up when Sabo shot him a "Makino-glare."
"I think you owe us an explanation."
"You'n'Ace had such great costumes that I wanted to have one too." Luffy's giant, innocent brown eyes, lashes still wet with tears, bored into Sabo.
"You've lost me, kid." Ace stated bluntly.
"Costumes?" Sabo thought for a moment. "You mean our Halloween costumes?"
Luffy's face brightened for a moment. "Yeah. Halloween. I wanted to have the best costume and be Shanks for Halloween and Shanks has red heard so I put some red berries on my head and squished them up real good, but my hair is still black and not red. What did I do wrong?"
Tear welled up again as Luffy became panicky again. Ace burst into obnoxious laughter.
"First off, it's December. Halloween was almost two months ago. Secondly, you can't dye black hair red. Everybody knows that. It's too dark. The lighter color won't show up." Sabo patiently explained.
Luffy thought about it and looked disappointed. Ace, still chuckling to himself, left, tromping through the forest that surrounded their tree house home in the general direction of the closest stream. Sabo hoped he was fetching more water for Luffy's much-needed bath, but he wasn't about to hold his breath waiting.
"So you wanted to be Shanks for Halloween, huh?" Luffy nodded.
"Shanks is amazing."
"So we've heard."
"He wasn't my first choice, but I thought if I dressed up as Gol D. Roger Ace would be sad and angry." Luffy continued.
Sabo raised a blond eyebrow. That was unusually thoughtful of the squirt, yet so Luffyish.
"Ne, Sabo," Luffy started, jutting out his lower lip in excitement.
"What now, Luffy?" He almost groaned.
"You have light hair."
"Yeah…"
"Can we dye it for Halloween? If I can't be Shanks then I want someone as awesome as the real Shanks to be him."
Sabo's stomach, which had just returned from its downward journey after Luffy scared him, leapt into his throat and filled with warmness.
"Ace can be Benn. Benn likes to pretend that he doesn't get scared and care about people, but he does. Just like Ace."
"And who will you be?" Sabo asked, grinning.
"Lucky Roo. Then I can eat meat all day." Luffy grinned back.
"It's a plan then." Sabo agreed. "Next Halloween the three of us will have the best pirate costumes ever. Now c'mon, Lu, you need a bath and we need to catch Ace. After all, we only have ten months to force him into his costume!"