A/N: I was just gonna write Luffy visiting Ace's grave, but somehow this happened. Some Zoro POV since he's been missing for a while from the anime and some Brook POV for the awesomeness he showed in the latest episode.
Zoro pauses in his cleaning of Wado Ichimonji, eyeing Luffy's precarious position on the Sunny's figurehead. He's unnaturally still, eyes focused on the horizon. Ever since the crew finished eating lunch, Luffy's been watching, waiting for the next island to appear.
Everyone else is busy with their own tasks: reading, drawing maps, tinkering, cooking...except they're not really busy. They're trying to be respectful and give Luffy space, but honestly, Zoro thinks this "giving space" business hasn't really been working out.
It's been years since the disaster at Marineford, and yet the scar left by Ace's death still hasn't healed. It will never truly heal, Zoro muses as he stares down at Wado Ichimonji's white scabbard, but it shouldn't leave Luffy looking so vulnerable, so childlike and lost, at the thought of visiting Ace's grave.
Zoro sheathes his sword with a clink, and Luffy's head turns slightly. Zoro catches Luffy's eye and notices the sea of anger, uncertainty, and sadness lurking behind a frail mask of impassiveness. He can't quite help the feeling of wrongness echoing in his heart as Luffy turns back to looking at the horizon.
Zoro leans back against the railing and closes his eye. Hopefully, visiting Ace's grave will bring catharsis to Luffy, to give him the strength to face Blackbeard and succeed where Ace failed.
Luffy seems to spot the island before even Usopp, who's up in the crow's nest, does. Some type of animal instinct perhaps, Brook decides, that connects Luffy to Ace even now (the same type that calls his heart — except he doesn't have a heart, skull joke! — to Reverse Mountain).
Brook's fingers itch with the desire to pull out his violin or guitar, to play a melody that will soothe the ache in his captain's heart. And so he does, moving his bow across the violin's strings gracefully, carefully, edging the line between calming and haunting. Shifting his head, Brook follows the line of his violin to his captain, still seated on the figurehead.
It might just be wishful thinking, but Brook feels like Luffy is less nervous now. It's in the gentle curve of his back as he leans forward, the way his knuckles are no longer ghostly white.
When Brook's song comes to an end, Luffy turns to him, a smile plastered on his face.
"I liked that," he says simply, a shadow of his usual cheeriness. "Can you play more?"
Looking at the childish innocence in Luffy's face, the hints of a sorrow too deep to ever be completely healed, Brook truly feels his age in a way he usually doesn't when he's with the other Strawhats. To someone who came before Roger, Luffy is but a child, having barely stepped foot into the cruel world of adults. To one of Luffy's crew though, he is a man — brave, firm in his convictions, and scarred by what life has given him. He is the man who will become Pirate King, the man with an infectious cheer and a smile brighter than the sun itself.
If Luffy wants Brook to play, he will continue to play, hoping for the return of a smile that captivated him the first time he saw it.