Hi guys! I'm surprised at how much people seemed to like the first chapter even though it was so short. Thanks a lot! Especially to all the lovely reviewers~ Just as a warning: I will respond to the reviews at the end of the chapter so if you don't want to read them you don't have to~
Thanks for reading so far!
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece and no characters were harmed (much) in the making of this chapter.
The crew of the Moby collectively let out a large sigh for the twentieth time that week. You would think two weeks of non-stop failings would discourage the little fire brat. But no, for the third time that day the crew watched as their soon-to-be brother was sent flying into the ocean from another attempt on their father's life. It was only Wednesday!
They were pretty sure at least one of the brat's brothers was getting sick of it too, or at least jumping into the ocean after him. Just as they had finished watching the blur that was the little fire brat another blur, blonde this time, dashed from where he was previously snoozing to jump over the side after his moronic older brother.
With a tired sigh Marco decided it would be a good idea to lower a rope ladder down to the brothers, who were bobbing by the hull. He didn't want them to drown after all, no matter how much of a headache would be saved if they did. He could already hear the blonde brother swearing his head off. Where had they gotten such a creative vocabulary from? They were only seventeen! Heck, Marco didn't even know what half those curses meant!
Sabo tossed him a semi-thankful nod as he hauled his spluttering older brother onto the deck and collapsed next to him. He glared at Ace, unsympathetic to the fact his brother was now chocking on air.
"Ace, I like being clean as much as the next person. But when I want a bath, I take a bath normally. Stop falling in the fucking ocean!"
He glared at his chocking brother before tucking his soaking hair behind his ear with an exasperated sigh, glaring at the strands that refused to stay behind his ear.
"Why did I grow my hair long?...it's impossible...got to cut it..."
As Ace finally figured out how to breathe again, Sabo got up and wondered back to where he was lounging on the deck talking to the fishman Namur, muttering about chopping his hair off as soon as possible.
Namur smirked at his younger companion, handing back the top hat that had been thrown to him in Sabo's haste to rescue his assassin-wannabe brother. Sabo jammed the hat back on his head and proceeded to watch as Luffy poked Ace back into the world of the living, chuckling when that ended with Ace leaping up and running after Luffy yelling death threats while his little brother giggled and ran for his life.
"They seem like a handful" Namur commented, watching the two D brothers tearing through the crew in their little chase. They were dodging around the crew like they had been doing it their whole lives, ducking and weaving through them like shadows in a forest. Poor Jozu was nearly knocked over when Luffy unexpectedly used him as a springboard away from his brother, making him join in the little game of 'Capture-and-Kill'
"They are" said Sabo, watching their shenanigans with a fond smile. "But they're my brothers, and I wouldn't change 'em for the world, ya know?"
Namur gazed around the deck, taking in all his siblings and nodded, his own smile stretching across his face. Looks like Haruta had joined in the fun. Namur carefully hid a winch as she pulled out her sword, obviously not wanting to destroy their youngest soon-to-be-brother but more for the thrill of the chase, laughing her head off as she did.
"Yeah, I know."
They sat there in relative peace for a few minutes, enjoying the sound of screaming and laughing siblings, before a large rumble sounded from Sabo's stomach making the blonde scratch the back of his head in embarrassment. Namur chuckled slightly before hoisting the still soaked young man to his feet and pushing him towards the general direction of the galley, earning an embarrassed laugh and a wave from the blonde as he stumbled towards the galley.
He was glad the blonde was starting to open up slightly. They had all learned the hard way that asking questions to the brothers usually was met with stony silence and untrusting dark eyes from the elder brothers, and a blank look with wide eyes and a tilted head from the youngest. Sabo and Ace seemed very unwilling to trust them with anything, let alone their secrets. Luffy on the other hand had taken to everyone he had met like a bee to honey. Some had tried to resist, most notably Marco and Jozu, but within the space of two weeks he had somehow charmed all of the commanders so that they didn't get nearly as mad at him when he did something idiotic. Of course they all moaned and groaned when it was their turn to 'babysit' the brat but at the same time they left their duty with a new appreciation for their youngest.
And the three brothers didn't even realise how well they fit in with the rest of the Moby Dick!
As soon as the crew on deck noticed where Sabo was moving towards they were a flurry of action. Those who had joined Ace in hunting Luffy stopped dead in their tracks and hurried to move out the way. The ones who were conscious of their body parts made a clear way for him. It was a fast learned fact that nothing separated the three youngest from two things; their brothers and their food. Blenheim was still finding bruises from the last time the brothers ran him over.
Within the short space of a minute the two raven haired brothers gave up on their game of catch-and-kill to rush and join their blonde brother in their dash to the galley, and more importantly to their lunch. This was slowly becoming a normal sight, as was the sheer amount of food the boys could pack away; although some of the crew still refused to watch in case they lost their appetites.
"So, how are our favourite set of brothers doing?" chuckled Thatch as he came over to their table, expertly ignoring the food mountains disappearing and dodging the rubber hands that were stealing food from all over the room.
Only Sabo deigned to look up at him, face bulging with food as he flashed a quick thumbs up before returning to his mountain, stabbing Luffy's hand and punching Ace's arm as they joined forces to steal his plate of seaking.
Thatch made a noise of acknowledgement before passing some money to Haruta to put on Ace for the current bet of 'which brother is going to choke first'. It wasn't that they didn't care about their soon-to-be-brothers (they did!). It's just that, when someone inhales a small mountain of food on a regular basis and at a speed that would make a cheetah blush, you tend to de-sensitise yourself to the choking hazard. Besides, it was an opportunity for betting! So you needed to take advantage of that fact on the Moby Dick.
To be honest, he was surprised he had even gotten a response from Sabo. For the first week the brothers were on the ship they had refused to talk to anyone but themselves, the exception being Luffy who was still calling Marco 'pineapple' (something Thatch wasn't going to let the man forget for a looong time) and generally being a nuisance. Those of the crew who had gotten annoyed with the little idiot had been quick to learn the wrath of his two over protective older brothers, and as such now put up with his blabbering with a pained smile and a paranoid glance to where the other two were. Sabo and Ace had quickly earned the reputation of bringing the apocalypse down on any poor soul who said a negative word about their 'baby' brother.
The fact that Sabo was now deigning to talk with a few of the commanders filled the redhead with hope that maybe Ace would follow in his brother's footsteps and talk with the rest of the crew and accept Whitebeard as his father...maybe that was going a bit too far but a man could dream couldn't he?
Thatch sighed before smiling jovially at the brothers who seemed to be nearing the end of their mountains. Five minutes and nobody had choked yet! That had to be a record!
"How can you guys pack that all away? And where does it all go?! You two aren't exactly packing it on and Luffy's as thin as a twig" he asked as he watched a whole chicken descend down Luffy's throat. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Ace and Sabo exchange what seemed like a worried glance but quickly dismissed the thought; after all, what could they be worried about? I mean sure, their brother who can eat at least three times his weight in food was definitely one of the thinnest people Thatch had met, and yes if he didn't watch the boy eat he would have thought he was malnourished, but that wasn't enough to warrant their overprotective worry...or maybe it was.
Now that the chef thought about it he scanned over all three brothers with a professional eye and didn't like what he saw. But for now he would wait until he got more evidence for his theory, just in case he was wrong and these boys just ate like this because they could. So lost in his contemplations, he failed to remember that he had asked a question until Sabo opened his mouth to speak.
"...we don't know...we ate a lot as kids and with the amount of exercise we do we've just kept eating like that..." He tailed off thoughtfully, never having really thought about their eating habits in too much detail. Growing up on and in the Grey Terminal meant you needed to eat, eat a lot, and eat fast. Whatever you didn't eat quick enough was fair game for anyone else, so you had to scarf it down and scarper if you wanted to eat another day. But the Whitebeard pirates didn't need to know that. The Spade pirates never cared, so why should this crew?
"Besides, Ace can't kill on an empty stomach" he added on with a laugh, hoping to veer this conversation away from their upbringing because thinking about their upbringing ultimately led them to think about-
No!
Sabo shook his head violently to dislodge that thought. He wasn't going to think about him, he wasn't going to think about him, he wasn't going to think about him!
If Thatch found Sabo banging his head against the table odd he didn't let on. Instead he acknowledged the boy wanted a subject change and rolled with it, noticing as he did that Luffy's eyes seemed a little wider than normal and that Ace was slowly paling.
"Ace can't kill Oyaji anyway. I doubt being full would make a difference." He commented, secretly congratulating himself when the brothers seemed to latch onto this change in subject like a lifeline. Besides, Ace was no longer so pale. His colour had returned...as well as his temper.
Dark grey eyes glared at Thatch as he threw a knife towards the man, one that normal people would usually eat with but when did he ever do things normally. To Ace's frustration Thatch just dodged it with a laugh.
When Thatch had calmed down he looked over the brothers with a smile and eyes filled with a strange emotion that caused Sabo to put down the salmon he was half way through demolishing. The other two hadn't noticed but then again he hadn't really expected them to. When Sabo looked into the redhead's eyes he suddenly felt like he had upset the older man in some way and wanted to cheer him up but he didn't know how.
'Why won't you trust us?' That's what he could read in the chef's eyes and it made him sad and weary all at the same time. The fact that just his eyes looking at him made Sabo want to spill his guts unsettled him quite a lot. He couldn't trust this man, not while Ace wanted to kill Whitebeard. The past two weeks had been a whirlwind for him and he had found himself starting to enjoy life on the Moby Dick. Luffy loved it and Sabo could tell, just by looking in his brothers eyes that it was starting to wear down Ace's walls too. But Ace was determined and he was fighting for his dream, and damn if Sabo wasn't going to support him!
Sabo looked up at Thatch with a smile. Not one of his large cheeky ones, but a soft one.
'We want to trust you, but we can't'
He tried to convey those feeling in his smile and by the nod of acceptance Thatch gave him he might have succeeded. He doubted the older man would give up though. Giving up just didn't seem like part of the resume for the Whitebeard pirates.
A loud chocking sound tore Sabo from his thoughts as he noticed Luffy turning an alarming shade of blue. Ignoring all the cheering and the groaning (stupid pirates were betting on this again) he turned his attention to making sure his little brother didn't die an embarrassing death by chicken. As soon as Luffy's colour had returned to normal and the chicken had been dislodged the brothers soon got into one of their usually fights over their food, leaving the rest of the galley laughing at their antics.
They couldn't trust the Whitebeard pirates, not yet...but that didn't mean that they didn't want to.
There we go, hope you enjoyed it! R&R please~
AboveSkye: Thanks! This is my first One Piece story so I'm glad you liked it so much. I have always seen Ace as the eldest, and he is born two months before Sabo so it fits: doesn't mean he'll act like the eldest though ;p They are going to be cautious of the crewmates at first but it starts to change pretty soon next chapter~
MegDBrew: Thanks! Glad you find it funny.
mixxi: Ohgoshpleasedon'tchoke! I'm happy you found it funny~
Darkspider: I'm glad you like it so far! Don't worry Luffy will still be going on his own adventure, nothing can stop that XP But that is for another fic~
Cyborgnetics: I love them too and for that reason this fic will go on! As long as me and my friend keep coming up with ideas and seeing as we've already started planning a sequel you don't have to worry about this fic not continuing~
XPao-17X : Here's the next chapter! Hope you enjoy it~
Waterwolf: Thanks! It's a fun thing to write about~