Chapter 1
Usopp chews on his fist, blocking the yawn from escaping his mouth as he stumbles out of the kitchen and onto the grassy deck. The night air is cool on his skin, and the sea spray stings a little with the frigidity. He misses his warm hammock already.
Shutting his mouth he meanders towards the main mast and looks straight up at the top. It's a ninety-degree angle, and no matter how many times he's climbed it, Usopp still gets nervous when he thinks about climbing to the top- or to the bottom, for that matter.
Another cold breath of wind to the back of his neck is enough to urge him onto the climbing pegs that lead up to the Observation room. The wood is worn smooth, which he was happy about at first, (he could stop getting splinters from the new wood!) but he quickly learned that smooth wood was slippery, and that was not what he wanted. Nevertheless, he's done this enough times that after a few pegs up, he doesn't much notice the height he's gaining, and he knows well enough not to look down. He does look up though, not at the Observation room, but at the sky above it. Clouds are moving in on the clear night, and the stars are getting fuzzy at the touch of haze that comes with the edges of each cloud. He knows land must be relatively close because he can hear a seagull off at some short distance, cawing and squawking as it travels over the sea.
He sneezes and wonders idly which one of his followers is thinking about him right now, or if it's a bounty hunter thinking about Sogeking.
At the top of the mast is the promise of a warm room, a number of blankets, and a probably drifting Luffy who tends to get chatty and eager to snuggle the more tired he gets. That is enough to make Usopp pick up the pace till he reaches the trap door in the bottom of the observation room, pushing it open with shivering fingers and pulling himself inside to relish the warmth and the glory that is Franky's brain in running heating up here.
"Alright Luffy, my shift. No, I did not bring snacks." Usopp speaks through another yawn, pulling himself totally onto the floor of the observation room and shuts the door behind him, sealing the cold air out and the warm air in. There's a quiet snuffling that is Luffy moving around in blankets and offering him a half conscious reply and Usopp chuckles. It's not the first time Luffy's fallen asleep on watch, he's just lucky Nami isn't coming to relieve him, or Sanji. He stands and stretches, rubbing his eyes and stepping gingerly over a few of the scattered weights on the floor. It would be cleaner, if only because Nami or Robin would pick them up and put them away after a while, except half of them are too heavy for anyone but Zoro or Luffy to lift. He plops down on the seat next to the huge jumble of blankets and a tuft of black hair that is the fearsome captain of the straw hat pirates.
"You should be careful about when you fall asleep," He cautions good-naturedly, "Imagine if I were Nami or Sanji, sent to check up on you? Or if I a monster?" He laughs, picking the spyglass off the seat and giving the ocean surrounding Sunny a quick scan, just to make sure Luffy didn't really miss anything important. "I guess you could beat up a monster pretty easily, but the way you're snoring right now you might just sleep through it." He laughs again, and Luffy mumbles in his sleep, though it sounds a bit agitated, and Usopp wonders if perhaps he's not half asleep, but completely, and sleep talking to boot.
Annoyed, he shoves the lump in the blankets that he thinks is Luffy's shoulder.
"Hey now, don't sleep while I have to stay awake! Talk to…" His request sputters to a halt as the blanket slides and Luffy sits up, rubbing his eyes.
Or maybe he's not Luffy.
The toddler (ok, probably older than a toddler, but listen, this kid is like, three feet tall!) is yawning, rubbing at his eyes and looking around the room as though he's trying to orient himself in a place he knows, only to find that he doesn't know it at all. Swaddled (it's the only word for it, really) in a few blankets and Luffy's red shirt and sash. The shorts are there too, but they're just hardly on, not as swaddling as the shirt, and to be honest the shirt is plenty, loose as it fits on Luffy, or, the kid…
Ussop jerks back as the kid angled his gaze up at him, blinking wide brown eyes and the edge of a smile tugging at his lips.
He knows it's Luffy because the kid is making the same face Luffy makes when he wakes up and sees someone he likes.
"Hi! I'm Luffy, who the heck are you!"
The scar pretty much seals the deal too.
~1~
It is to a shrill shriek that Nami's body responds, sitting bolt upright as her eyes blow wide in panic, lending her immediate clear vision.
On the other side of the room, Robin lifts her head from the desk with a jerk, waking up at the sound, the pages of her book flipping closed without her head to keep them apart. They exchange a moment's glance before Nami tosses the covers to the floor and Robin swivels in the chair to follow the navigator as she throws the door open and charges down the hall, Robin pausing to put on slippers and a robe.
Nami's thoughts race faster than her feet, considering and filing possibilities as to the source of the scream. She's already eliminated everyone except Chopper, Usopp, and Brook when she nearly runs into Zoro, who is tromping down the hallway towards the lower bowels of the ship.
"Usopp's on watch," he grumbles in response to her unasked question, and the tension bleeds out of her shoulders.
"I'm gonna kill him," she vows, twisting her hand into a fist and taking Zoro's elbow with her other arm to lead him back on deck. Zoro yawns and follows slowly, mumbling in low undertones about the lack of sleep a person can get on this ship.
Chopper is heading toward the observation room as well, always one to believe Usopp's lies (even if he's not telling lies so much as portraying falsehood) and he crowds around Nami's legs when he sees her.
"Nami! Did you hear that? That was Usopp! Usopp is in trouble!" He chatters, pulling at the bottom of Zoro's coat, still hugging Nami's legs. "And…"
Another scream echoes through the ship, reverberating in the wood of the hull and the halls. Nami slants a gaze at Zoro for his opinion. Usopp screams, a lot, but not usually twice in a row unless the first time wasn't just a shadow or a cold draft. Chopper squeals and rushes out toward the deck calling that he's coming to help Usopp.
Zoro only shrugs. "Luffy was on watch earlier."
Ah, that did widen the range of possibilities.
Pulling Zoro's arm again, Nami leads him through the halls and the kitchen to stand beneath the mast on the grassy deck. Nami is barefoot, and she shivers in her thin, silk nightgown (it's peach, a gift from Robin). The night is getting pretty chilly, but she hadn't realized that tucked beneath her covers, and she's starting to regret trusting the weather to stay warm enough for her to be wearing a nightgown at all . Zoro is yawning, but he's warm, having never changed out of his green robe. Chopper is already halfway up the mast, in Heavy point so he can reach the rungs.
Nami wraps her arms around herself and shivers then turns to Zoro. "You will wait until I am through that door before you even glance up, or else I'll triple your debt." Zoro grunts and eyes her nightgown, acknowledging how the lacy hem flutters in the breeze.
"I'm not the love cook, I don't care."
"Well I do, so look that way," Nami grabs Zoro's shoulders and twists him to face the door to the kitchen, where Robin is stepping out in her own lavender flannels.
Nami grabs onto the first peg and pulls herself up, focusing on the beating she'll be able to give Usopp when she reaches the top and the blankets that they keep piled in the closet that she has curled up in on many a snowy night with a cup of tea that Sanji brought her… The next bite of wind feels especially chilling and Nami shivers, releasing the ladder with one hand to push her dress down.
Chopper's squeal of surprise is not what almost knocks Nami off the ladder. That title goes to the child's yell of surprise.
"It's a talking raccoon!?" Nami forgets to hold on and stares upward at the trap door left open in the bottom of the observation room. The light inside is playing over the last few pegs of the ladder, looking incredibly warm and inviting, there are a few clouds beginning to crowd around the moon, and she can smell the snowstorm creeping towards the ship.
With a sudden realization that she is slipping she latches on tighter and scrambles the last few pegs up into the observation room, getting a face full of frantic Chopper and a split second glance at a short boy in her captain's shirt and several blankets, smiling her captain's smile and laughing her captain's laugh.
And here she thought she was the master thief for being able to steal gold.
~1~
Zoro sighs, rubbing his face with his hand. He really should have gone up there first.
Robin is watching the blurry silhouettes play around where the gold light touches and contemplating what might be happening based on them and the multitude of screams and nonsensical phrases being shouted.
"All three of our most skittish crew mates are up there," she reasons, "it's quite likely nothing too dreadful, only their minds playing tricks."
"Yeah, but Luffy's up there too."
"Ah. That does change things."
Zoro groaned and stepped onto the first rung of the ladder, pulling himself up several at a time, almost like pull-ups.
"Zoro, toss down a blanket, would you?"
He grunts in response to that and finishes the climb, hauling himself up into the observation room.
The moment he puts his feet on the floor someone's flailing hand runs into the light switch and the room descends into darkness. The collective shriek puts another groan in Zoro's throat as he fumbles around for a blanket.
"Ah! Someone's got me!" Chopper cries.
"Just me." Zoro drops the frantic reindeer whose fur he'd mistaken as one of the blankets.
"Zoro!" Usopp yelps and latches his arms around Zoro's chest and Zoro grunts at the extra weight.
"Get off," he says gruffly, rough hands unclenching Usopp's arms from around him. "Someone put on the lights."
He runs his hands out in front of him, feels a soft touch of silky skin.
"ZORO!" Her fist implants itself in his head and he is knocked backward against the wall.
"You're debt is going to quadruple for that you imbecile, you insolent idiot!"
"Shut up witch, it's dark," he pushes himself to his feet, feeling forward again, he thought he was on the wall, looking for the light switch, but his fingers catch the fabric of a blanket, so he must be more along the windows where the benches and blankets are. Because he might as well, he tosses it down the hatch to Robin, that's one thing off his list of things to do now. He turns, now putting his hands on the wall.
"Who the heck turned off the lights!" He demands and Usopp squeaks a small apology while Zoro finally stubs his hand against the switch and it flips upward. Light floods into the room, it's a bit of a war zone. Chopper has been trapped beneath some of the weights on the floor, most of the blankets are on the floor, spread over the mess. Outside, the window clouds have started to peel away from the moon and it's doubling the brightness of the room, glinting off the chrome weight handles to make the place sparkle. Nami is red in the face and strangling Usopp while he tries to explain through frantic hand motions that he's innocent.
Nami turns her glare to Zoro, her face folded into a blazing origami figure of an angry tigress, done in bright orange paper. Her fingers unclench from Usopp's necks and he slithers weakly down to the floor as she stalks toward Zoro, putting each bare foot down in between the scattered weights.
"Zoro. I'm sure you recall the price of straying hands." She grounds out as she approaches, fully prepared to demand to be paid in full immediately. Usopp pushes himself off the ground and stares around the room frantically.
"Where did he go?" He whips around, like whoever he's looking for might have snuck behind him.
"I don't knowwwwww" Chopper wails, struggling out from under the weight and flinging a few blankets into the air, as though the subject of his desperation might be hiding beneath one of them.
"Oh yeah, wasn't Luffy up here?" Zoro realizes and Nami stops her advance long enough to allow a confused thoughtful expression to light across her face before saying, resolutely, "No."
In sync, both Chopper and Usopp yell a frantic "Yes!"
"That was not Luffy." Nami spins around with a hiss and a withering glare. "That was some ridiculous devil fruit user that we are going to hunt off of our ship the second we figure out where Luffy decided to take a nap this shift."
"Nuh-uh." Chopper shakes his head viciously and Usopp copies the movement. "He smelled like Luffy! And he had his scar."
~1~
"But that was a kid," Nami stresses, nevertheless picking up a blanket to peek underneath as well. "He was a toddler or something, Luffy is…" She pauses shocked for a moment "How old is Luffy? Nineteen or twenty?"
"Nineteen." Zoro grunts. "There was a kid up here? Little toddler kid?"
"No, Luffy was a kid that was up here. This tall." Usopp holds his hand two or three feet off the floor. "Asked me who I was, all "Hi! I'm Luffy! Who the heck are you?"
"Sounds like Luffy." Zoro snorts, but he frowns and glances out the window. Luffy could have been joking. Totally possible. He could have shrunk himself with third gear, wanted to scare Usopp, it wouldn't be the first time he'd done something of that nature.
But this seemed a little too extravagant for Luffy's everyday antics.
"First step is to find Luffy, can we agree on that?" Nami decides, planting her hands on her hips. "Then we get rid of whatever idiot devil fruit user decided to stow away on our ship and imitate our Captain."
Zoro could tell her that it was most assuredly not another devil fruit user, that there are exactly nine auras aboard this ship. Observation haki isn't his forte, so the vague presences he feels aren't in a clear area so much as near and a particular number. He can distinguish each; there are nine, like there always are on the Sunny.
So no, there is no stow away aboard.
He'll let Nami keep think about that because he recognizes that there are two presences down underneath them. Two presences where he'd left only Robin.
He should probably feel a little bad, he threw his Captain off the mast, but he can't muster the sentiment. Luffy deserves it, causing all this trouble in the middle of the night.
~1~
Robin stands in the cold beneath the mast. In all technicality the Observation room can hold as many as Sunny currently houses, the reason she remains below is because she is certain that an extra body up there would not be helpful at the moment.
She is absolutely positive, because she has both an eye and an ear in the room, and it tells her no more than she already knew down below the room. She can't see anything in the dark, and she hears nothing but the scrambling and yelling of her crew mates. Opening her eyes she banishes the extra appendages, instead staring up at the observation room from her actual vantage point. Staying up there was a waste of energy, and it was growing increasingly hard to focus as the cold intensified. The night had been relatively clear, but when she'd come out on deck she'd noticed gathering clouds, meaning possible snowfall. Carefully, she picks out some of the constellations still visible and counts the amount of times she has to rub her arms each minute in order to retain a tolerable body heat.
The sight of a cloth fluttering out of the Observation Room hatch brings a fragile smile to her face. She's in soft flannels and a robe, but it's no contest when she's competing with the weather of the Grand Line, or the New World for that matter. This is why they keep a large quantity of blankets in the observation room, so that when the temperature took a dive, the crew could whether the shift. In light, lavender flannels, Robin is not weathering the shift.
But the blanket blotting out the sky is her ticket to warmth, and the flood of relief is welcome as she grows a few hands from the mast to capture the material before a wind catches it. Her fingers grasp the edge of the blanket, a fur, she now realizes, and she also comes to understand, that it's not just a blanket.
The weight that tugs the fur from her fingertips is not heavy enough to be Usopp or Nami, but Chopper was up there too, and that estimation feels about right. She calls out a soft summoning of more limbs to snatch both ends of the blanket from the air, keeping poor Chopper cradled inside the blanket. Though each of the Straw hats are sturdy, this is not the time of night to be checking how well the little reindeer can fall, Robin will be scolding Zoro about this later, even if she's sure it was only a mix up given the darkness that enveloped the observation deck when she'd stolen a peek.
She tugs at the momentum of the fur so that it falls more towards her and slings it around the mast a few times to disperse the force of the fall. She can hear giggling inside the fur and she may swing it around a time or two extra for the pleasure of the little reindeer passenger. When her extra limbs dissolve into flower petals and she drops the blanket the last few feet to the ground, it's not Chopper's hat that pokes its way out of the bundle, but Luffy's.
"That was fun!" Her little Captain cheers, giggling happily and fumbling his way out of the blanket. He's small, very short. His Straw hat is falling far over his face but his hand seems to have an easy way of pushing it out of the way. It never occurred to Robin that Luffy may have grown into his hat. She's never seen him up close after gear third and it's actually rather fascinating. To think that rubber would hold such properties as to revert a man back to such a size, he looks like any other child might. With slightly chubby fingers and an innocent glint in his eyes when he spins around to look up at the observation room. He seems not to have noticed Robin's presence yet, but he's happy all the same.
"Ohhh, did I fall from up there?" He wonders aloud and Robin laughs at his voice, which has also been shifted into a higher pitch, akin to that of a child. Luffy immediately switches his attention to Robin, a grin splitting his interested 'ohhh' from its place on his lips. He doesn't seem bothered by the temperature yet, though his cheeks are looking a little rosy, and he is still wrapped in the blanket, so that isn't to be unexpected. Particularly since Luffy has never had a just idea of how to perceive cold.
"Hi! I'm Luffy!" The boy is grinning ear to ear as though he thinks it's just fine that he just got thrown from the top of a fifty-foot tall mast. Robin seals her lips closed at the introduction and pushes her face into a politely amused expression.
"Hello Luffy, I'm Robin." His face lights up and she thinks that maybe her diminutive captain remembers her but instead his eyes are filled with curiosity and wonder.
"Robin is a really pretty name, like a bird. I bet you can fly!" She pins her expression into place, resigning herself to the fact that something has happened and her captain most likely will not be remembering her all that soon.
As to why Luffy is a toddler and doesn't seem to remember his crew member will be addressed shortly, she is sure.
"As a matter of fact, I can fly." She watches his wonder turn to eager awe, his smile growing wider still and his brown eyes glowing from within at the thought.
"Really?" She nods. "Can you take me flying? I can sort of fly, but Ace says it's just falling." He pouts and Robin's eyebrow twitches with the instinct to rise when she hears Ace's name but she refrains from addressing the mentioning, instead opting to shake her head minutely in answer to his question.
"I'm afraid I cannot assist you, I'm not very good at it myself, you see." Luffy's mouth tilts into a disappointed frown and Robin chuckles, putting a hand on his head, subtly feeling for bumps that might have caused his condition under the guise of ruffling his hair.
"How do you fly, Luffy?"
"I'm rubber!" He says, stretching his cheeky smile so it's way out of shape. "I hold onto something tall and stretch out my arms and then I shoot myself waaaaaaaay up!" His cheek snaps back into place when he raises his arms towards the sky. "I could show you! I call it Gum Gum Rocket!"
"Oh no, that's quite alright." She catches one of his arms as he searches for something to grab on to. "You wouldn't want to fall into the ocean and drown."
"The ocean?" Luffy drops his arms and tilts his head like he's confused "Why would I fall in the ocean?" Robin laughs at his innocent befuddlement before pointing over his shoulder and he turns to look where she's pointing, out over the railing of the ship, and he stares vacantly at the waves and the dark horizon for a moment. She's surprised he hadn't heard it before now, the wind is rather harsh, and it's pulling the waves high up against the hull, slapping against the wood like each is knocking on a door.
Everything but the grass beneath their feet screams "you're at sea!", and still Robin watches the exact (belated) moment that Luffy realizes he's on a ship that is sailing on open water.
His vacant look tremors for a moment before every inch of his face begins to exude happiness. His eyes glisten with excitement and his smile is falling off his face because it doesn't even fit. The energy of it is dripping into the rest of his body so he starts jumping in place, laughing and cheering.
"I'm on the ocean! I'm sailing!" He bounces over to the railing and leans a little too far over the side for Robin's taste, holding out his hand for salt water to spray on to. He shivers at the chill and laughs loudly, spinning around and darting past Robin's arms on his way to explore the deck.
"Robin!" Usopp yells from the observation room and she divides her attention, letting her eyes follow Luffy's trek across the deck and her ears devote themselves to what her crewmates are yelling about.
"Move, Usopp," Nami cuts in "Robin, is Luffy down there? He skipped out on watch again."
"Yes," Robin answers easily, watching Luffy clamber onto the yellow painted wood and peek around the center mane piece. "He's on the figurehead."
"See, he's fine. We've got some rogue, look-a-like devil fruit user stowaway." Nami growls to Usopp who grumbles an acknowledging sound.
Robin smiles at an amusing thought.
"Luffy, you shouldn't stand up there, a sea king might come and eat you."
"Hah!" Nami barks "We haven't seen any sea kings for weeks because they're scared of him."
"Robin, are you feeling okay? Usually your morbid predictions are more factual." Usopp leans a little out of the bottom door and when Robin glances up at him his face is folded into concern.
"What? Robin's sick?" Chopper squeals from behind him and Robin is quick to assure the both of them that she is just fine.
She offers Usopp a smile and shakes her head "I'm just fi-oh!"
"I DON'T WANT TO GET EATEN!" Luffy streaks across the deck and hurtles into Robin's unsuspecting arms, shrieking all the way. She manages to keep the both of them from toppling over into the grass with nothing more than a few extra limbs, and she holds onto the boy that is now wrapped tightly around her torso, multiple times.
"What the… LUFFY?" Usopp screeches, leaning forward and almost tumbling out of the observation room but Nami wrenches him out of the way so that she can look down herself.
Sure enough, in a pool of orangey light played out by the lanterns Franky keeps continually lit on deck, is Robin, only standing thanks to some extra legs and braced arms, being clung to by a blubbering child, his arms and legs looped tightly around her torso in several layers.
There are two options to ponder. Either Luffy is suddenly a toddler, or a much harder to accept alternative, which involves another person eating Luffy's devil fruit.
Thus, Nami spins around, ducks under Zoro's arm, and slams her palm down on the intercom button.
"Everyone on deck!"
~1~
Sanji sits bolt upright in his hammock, steadying the swaying caused by the sudden movement, with a hand on each side of the cloth cocoon. His beloved Nami-san's voice was echoing through the intercom system, begging for his presence at her side.
"Nami-Swan!" He vaults out of the hammock and hits the floorboards in his bare feet, stumbling and hissing curses as the cold seeps into his skin. Still, he composes himself with the thought of Nami's voice, stepping forward and twirling through the dark to the door, "I'm coming, my sweet!"
Or he would be twirling out to answer her call if, from the gloom, there hadn't risen a hulking metal body from his bunk right next to the door that exited into the hallway (the hallway which exited onto the deck where his Nami-san was summoning him). Franky stretches his metal arms over his head and groans as the joints squeal. He grumbles about no time to oil up while Sanji grinds the ball of his foot against the floor.
"Oi, stupid cyborg. Move it." He fishes around in his pockets and groans when he remembers he doesn't keep cigarettes in his pajama pockets.
"Eh?" Franky rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, gears popping into place as he turns to look at Sanji, who is still standing there, sullenly, stubbing his toe against the floor like he wants to kick Franky through a wall.
"Nami-san just called for us, get moving."
"It's too early and I'm too low on cola to listen to you," Franky growls, his fuel warning beeping softly in his ear. Usually, he got a bottle right before breakfast, but they weren't going to have breakfast at, what? He checked the nearest clock and grumbled at the reading; three twenty-two, AM. Sanji sneers in response and Franky makes a snide face, even though he knows Sanji can't see it in the dark, he himself can see Sanji only because of his night vision adjustment mechanism.
"Didn't you hear the call of a damsel in distress?"Sanji fumes. "My sweet darling has requested my presence at her side!" Franky rolls his eyes again, deliberately taking his time with his morning calibrations before making to step toward the door.
"Actually, Sanji-san, Nami-san asked all of us to come to the deck." Brook strolled up behind them, "So we should all be on our way!" His white face is expressionless as always, but Franky can clearly pick out the senior's advice from the inflection in his voice. Let's all get along, no sense in ruining a day so early!
"If this is about Usopp I'm going to make him sail behind us in the mini-Merry for the next two days. Woken up twice in one night is too much, a man needs his sleep." Franky rubs his hand over his face, stopping for a moment,
"A man needs to serve his lady!" Sanji wails, trying to sidestep around the cyborg, who has angled himself in the hallway so that Sanji can't possibly get past him.
"So not super…" Franky ignores him, the smaller, yellow hand popping out of his palm and rubbing the sleep from his eyes; he was purposefully stalling. "Unless this is a big thing, I'm going right back to bed."
"It's as good a time as any to start the day!" Brook countered, chipper. "Perhaps you should refuel before you get on deck, you seem rather irritable."
"I'm just tired, Skelly." Franky sighs and presses his nose, his hair morphing into his shark-fin 'do. "But that might be just what I need." Sanji knocked his head against the wall until the exchange was over, legs jittery with the need to kick the two morons out of the way and use the leftover anxiety to sprint to his Nami-swan's side.
So as they passed the kitchen, Franky ducked out of the line and through the door, snatching a bottle of cola off the table (put there last night with the specific purpose of satisfying Franky's cola needs. He tended to get a little cranky when he woke up, so if he had the second night watch it was good to have it there, even if it sometimes got messed with *cough* Usopp *cough*) and tossed it into his stomach. His mechanisms churned for a moment and then the flood of cola rushed through his system and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's more like it!" He stretched his arms over his head and arched his back again. His hair now perfectly coiffed, he burst back into the hallway where Brook was politely waiting for his return, knuckles folded carefully around the curve of his cane.
"Sanji-San went on ahead," he said and Franky shrugged.
"Whatever, Curly-bro gets grouchy in the morning anyway."
They strolled together (actually, Franky sort of sauntered) toward the door to the deck, but the closer they got, the more urgent the situation seemed to become. Of course, this was only based on the frantic yelling on the other side of the door and its gradual increase in volume.
The two exchange a look, Franky's eye flashing mechanically and Brook's eye socket lighting up for a moment as light slanted in so that you could almost see it playing across the back of his skull.
"You two!" Sanji bursts inside from the deck, slamming the door shut behind him "Stay inside. Way inside." He's wincing as the words leave his mouth but he doesn't hesitate to say them.
Now the three of them stare at each other, Franky's mouth open in the start of a retort while Brook clacks his jaw and resets his fingers on his cane, his aura betraying the slightest pinch of hurt while his skull remains emotionless. Sanji's lips are weighted with curses, though his eye is focused, there's no talk of his ladies; his posture betrays his trepidation and uncertainty.
Franky and Brook are unsure how to react to Sanji looking...nervous.
So they each nod and retreat back to the men's cabin, well out of everyone's way, even though they feel the curiosity and urge to help wrapping around bones and coiling in cogs.
~1~
"I DON'T WANNA GET EATEN" Luffy repeated frantically and Robin rubbed her extra hand along his back soothingly as the child cried into her shoulder. She's marvelling at the fact that though Luffy must be able to feel her two arms trapped beneath his own rubbery ones, he doesn't seem surprised that there is a third arm in the mix of things.
"There is no way that's Luffy," Nami growls, gripping each rung with frustration while Usopp chatters above her about magic spells and out of control devil fruit powers. "Shut up, Usopp!" She barked. Usopp's chatter died down to a low string of nervous muttering.
"It's not that impossible." Zoro said, continuing to climb a few rungs beneath her. "Luffy." Exasperated fondness laced his tone.
"I know; 'Luffy'," she mocks, she's too annoyed to sound fond. "But look at him!" All four of them turn their heads to the deck, looking at the child version of a man they'd seen knock people out simply by wishing it, declare war on the world, and come out of a hard fought battle with bloody knuckles (sometimes it's his blood, often it's not). Now though he is clinging to Robin as though he can't bear to be without contact and some form of protection. As though he actually fears the prospect of a sea king eating him. The punchline being that sea king is one of his favorite pre-dinner snacks.
It was a strange sort of vertigo.
Robin twists around to look up at them, still cradling Luffy, and she gives them a meaningful look, and then nods her head towards Luffy. The message is clear 'Get down here.'
Nami swings her foot at Zoro's head and whispers that he had better hurry up, to which Zoro complies, dropping the last few yards to the ground rather than climbing it.
"We haven't seen any sea kings for almost a week." Robin assures the trembling boy wrapped around her torso. She pries carefully at his fingers, which are starting to dig a little too deep for her taste. Still, Luffy refuses to loosen his grip, only pauses in his quiet blubbering.
"Are you sure?" The voice is wobbly and it is obvious that the owner is holding back tears.
"I'm quite positive," Robin affirms, rocking back and forth, almost subconsciously. Nami creeps forward, edging into Luffy's line of sight, which is actually rather limited at the moment, his face buried in Robin's shoulder as it is.
"Hi there," she says once she caught one slightly teary brown eye peeking through Robin's hair at her.
"Hi," Luffy answers dejectedly. He blinks at her for a moment, then rears back with a gasp. "Ah!" He pulls his arms loose from Robin, it takes a moment because they'd gotten tangled (which was unusual, Luffy hated getting tangled). Once they are free he scrubs at his eyes, sniffling, just slightly.
"I'm not a cry baby, I wasn't crying." He denies without anybody accusing him. He ducks his head away from the two women only to find himself staring at Zoro. He stares at the older man's scowl for a moment before his gaze inches upwards. "Wow, Ossan. You're hair is green! That's so cool!"
Zoro grunts what sounds like an affirmation (though he'd call it a denial) while Usopp peeks out from behind him.
"Ah, Longnose-Occhan! I'm sorry I scared you." He grins a smile that says he's actually very happy about it and bows.
"You didn't scare me!" Usopp protests, stepping away from Zoro. "Idiot. Nothing scares the great Usopp-sama!"
"Oh? Then why did you scream?" Luffy tilts his head to the side and makes his confused face, which looks deceptively like a thinking face. Not that they don't recognize it; if this is Luffy, he hasn't changed much since he was younger. Usopp, to his credit, only has to think for a moment before locking into his favorite story genre, fictional-autobiography work.
"It's a greeting between heroes, taught to the valedictorian of every class which graduates from the Inter-blue hero school. I assumed you would know it because you look just the age to be graduating the Junior prep class. And very heroic."
"I'm not a hero!" Luffy shakes his head furiously, the hat dips in over his face and he knocks it back straight. "Heroes share meat, and I'm not sharing, nuh uh!" He puffs out his cheeks and crosses his arms.
"Of course!" Usopp amends while Nami seems simultaneously ready to strangle the boy and cuddle him. "You must have been in the warrior class then, no wonder you didn't understand the traditional greeting!"
"Luffy, these are some of my friends." Robin interrupts. "Zoro, Usopp, Nami, and Chopper," She points to each in turn and Luffy's head swivels between them all, mouthing their names like he's worried he'll forget them. Which he might.
"I don't know any of you guys!" He realizes suddenly, twisting to look out over the railing to the sea. "I don't remember setting sail. Are you guys bad? You don't seem bad but Ace says I'm bad at guessing that stuff and Sabo says I can't trust people just 'cause they seem nice."
"Sounds like good advice," Nami says dryly, remembering the times Luffy had wholeheartedly trusted enemies because they fed him or said something funny. Luffy's definition of 'seems nice' had a lot to be desired. Just look at Zoro.
"It's good of you to listen to their advice." Robin smiles, just a small, petite curve, but Luffy beams.
"Yeah! My brothers know everything!"
"Brothers? I thought you only had one brother?" Usopp asks before Nami manages to clap a hand over his mouth.
"You idiot!" She hisses "He hasn't told us anything, he might get suspicious!"
But of course, Luffy doesn't.
"Nuh-uh, Ace and Sabo are two people," He holds up two fingers to verify for them. "We all drank sake, it tasted yucky." He makes a face, sticking out his tongue. "But now we're brothers!" Luffy looks like the picture of happiness, face so scrunched with his smile that you can't even see the crescent scar that runs beneath his eye, it's blended with the curve of his eye because there's not enough space left over for all his facial features what with the proud smile he's displaying front and center.
"Um, you don't have to worry, Luffy." Chopper edges out from behind Zoro's leg. "We're good people..."
"Kay then!" Luffy's still beaming, though obviously he's now excited because he feels like he's done what his brothers told him to.
"People can lie about that stuff you know," Nami mumbles to herself, quiet so Luffy can't hear. Pointing it out to him wouldn't do any good; he wouldn't listen, and if he did it wouldn't be good for their current predicament. It wasn't like they could tell the seven year old that he was wanted for a large sum of money and was actually nineteen and was their captain.
"Hey, can I go back home now? Ace and Sabo are going to be worried, and last time I left without telling them they only let me eat the tail."
"The tail?" Chopper and Usopp echo.
"Of the crocodile," Luffy pouts "the head is the best part, but Ace always gets that."
Ah, he's talking about food.
"We can't bring you home right now, Luffy," Nami apologizes, kneeling down next to him. He looks at her expectantly and she bites her lip, trying to come up with an acceptable excuse. Then she smiles. "We're on an adventure."
"An adventure!" Luffy cries, eyes gleaming "When I grow up I'm gonna go on lots of adventures, and I'm going to have really great nakama and we're all gonna be the greatest pirates on the ocean! I get to be the captain. Ace and Sabo said they're gonna have their own crews and I should join one of them, but I'm gonna convince them to join me!" He crosses his arms and looks to the side, muttering about stupid older brothers. Then he brightens, puffs out his chest. "I'm going to be the Pirate King."
Usopp ducks away, hugging Chopper. "He has such confidence in us!" They both sob quietly.
"But you can come with us now!" Nami urges "We can send a letter to your brothers to tell them where you are. We're pirates, just like you want to be."
"Really! You guys are pirates?" He looks up at Zoro with more than a hint of adoration. But then his smile droops and he looks down at his feet. "But... Ace smiles more when it's all three of us..." He darts a glance around deck and his gaze is undoubtedly longing. "I can't stay, but your ship is really super cool!" He brightens. "When I turn seventeen I'll look for you guys!" He's moving before any of them understand what he's talking about, he spins around and climbs up the stairs, trying to get to the highest point he can reach easily. When he does he cranes his neck and stares at the top of the mast, above the observation room, where there flies a banner of black cloth, a skull and cross-bones emblazoned across it. "I'll draw your jolly roger when I get home so I won't forget..." He freezes as he finally notices the straw hat perched upon the skull's head.
Luffy's hands creep behind him, pulling the straw hat from around his neck. He holds it up to compare it to the flag. His eyes narrow and he closes one, trying to see both clearly at the same time. He turns back to them looking angry, and for a second Nami thinks he's figured out something important.
"You guys stole my jolly roger!"
Or, maybe not.
"That's what my flag is gonna be! You can't have it!" He fumes. "A flag is a pirate's pride! You can't take mine before I even have a chance to fly it!" His eyes widen, hands grasping the brim of his hat with white fingers, nearly ripping the poor thing. "Do you want my hat? Is that why I'm here instead of home? You can't have it, it's my promise! Shanks gave it to me! It means I'm going to be king of the pirates!" His anger has shifted into frantic yelling, his eyes dart between them all, uncertain as to who to trust and who to blame.
"I don't get it!" He cries, his anger melting into despair in an instant. He's spiralling out of control and none of them can get a word in edgewise, he's not listening, not at all. "You said you were nice! You all feel good!" He squeezes his eyes shut, yelling. "Why are you all bad?"
It was all a horrible misunderstanding, but each of them felt the pain in their chest, a child was yelling at them, a child who they knew would grow to become a man they all respected and owed their lives to. And he was now condemning them, convinced that they were bad people for trying to steal his dream.
It hurt. For a group of people who was formed to accomplish his dream (and theirs too), hearing him accuse them of stealing, it hurt.
"NAMI-SANNNNN! HOW MAY I SERVE YOU?"
The door flies open, right beneath where Luffy is standing (the deck above the kitchen entrance) revealing a pajama clad Sanji, leaping forward with his arms in the air. "I'd awake to your call at any time! You must only whisper my name in your angelic voice and I will hear it and be summoned from even the greatest of distances. For nothing can separate true lovers!"
"Sanji-kun! Now is not the time!" Nami hisses, eyes only for Luffy, who's face is slowly morphing into one of his confused faces, it's the one he makes when he exhausts himself after a battle and doesn't seem to grasp the reason that he's falling over.
He mouths something, probably meant to say it, but there's no sound, and he realizes this, brow furrowing and he says it again, loud, so they hear this time.
"Ace… Saaaaboooo…" He moans, eyes instantly filling with tears "I'm scared!" Chopper whimpers and takes a few steps forward, hooves twitching with the urge to go help the vulnerable figure standing on the upper deck. Robin frowns but still holds him back from running to him, though clearly she has the same urge.
Sanji's eye widens as he turns and looks up at the child, succumbing first to sniffles then dipping into quiet sobs, still the confused crinkle on his face. The moment he realizes who the child is, is marked with an incredibly clear shift in his face, from confusion to resignation and surprise simultaneously, and then to annoyance.
"Stop that, crap captain." He snaps "I don't know what's going on, but you're upsetting Nami-san!"
He'd flipped a switch, the quiet sob turns to an all out bawl and Sanji jerks backward like he's been struck as he realizes that something is really not as it should be.
"Sanji-kun!" Nami screams, pushing him aside as she rushes up towards Luffy, desperate to calm the crying child. Chopper was right next to her, equally loud.
"Luffy, don't cry! We didn't mean to upset you!" He wails, blue nose obscured by the snot that often came with his hysterical tears.
Zoro had stepped away from the group, his hand wrapped around the hilt of one of his swords, eye closed, mouth set in a grim line, reaching around the ship with his observation haki. Usopp was mumbling to himself, eyes trained on the wood right beneath Luffy's feet.
"Luffy, don't get so upset, we can explain things to you if you'll just listen!" Nami pleads with the boy but there's no change. Nami's brain makes a sudden connection and she hisses to herself, then yells at Sanji. "Sanji-kun, go back inside, tell Brook and Franky to stay inside. They'll scare him." Sanji ducks back into the cabins with a sense of purpose but also with the air of flight. Luffy is still seemingly inconsolable, it's struck the chord of desperation in Nami, the part of her where she wants so horribly much to make him stop crying that she'll start doing things that'd probably make him cry more. A part of her whispers, he's just a kid, be calm and kind, while the other part yells, it's Luffy, just beat him over the head like you always do!
"Don't be stupid, we don't want your hat, you can have your jolly roger." Nami swears, but he keeps going, ignoring her. "Whatever is wrong we can fix, stop crying!" Surprisingly, he does, sort of.
It is the suddenness of it that leaves worry coiling in Nami's stomach, how his figure completely stills and his breath immediately turns even. She watches as a shiver runs up his spine, she can tell because his body ripples with it, and there is the slightest gasp as the small boy falls to his knees, silent.
"Luffy?" Nami probes after a moment of silence. "Could you come down?" No answer but then a shuddering breath, an abrupt snap, almost the crack of a whip, and Luffy cries out and lurches to the side, suddenly going limp and crumpling into a discombobulated huddle on the floor.
There's a beat of silence, everybody hoping that he'll sit up and whine about how he'd landed on his hat and it was flattened now, or start crying for his brothers.
But he doesn't.
With a short gasp Nami scrambles up onto the same level of deck, scooping the boy up to cradle him against her chest, her soft spot for children aching and overriding the exasperation she felt for her captain for doing… whatever caused this.
She runs light fingers over his arms and face, looking for bumps and scrapes, and then she shakes him gently. He mumbles gibberish and shifts away from her hand, asleep.
She sighs with relief, leaning back over the lower level.
"He's just asleep." Chopper wilts with relief and Zoro grunts. She frowns looking down at the little boy in her arms. "He looks smaller though, and something's different… He looks strange."
"Why not we discuss this inside?" Robin interrupts. "it's growing colder, and we should all be present to hear this, no?"
"You're right, Robin," Nami quickly agrees, slowly clambering down. "Somebody tell Sanji-kun to put on coffee, looks like our day's starting a bit earlier then usual."
~1~