(Yo, welcome back! Uh, so, due to popular demand, I... wrote another chapter. I just want the lot of you to remember that I wrote this a year ago, so I barely remember any details myself. All I have to go by is what I wrote, which, if I'm going to be honest, is somehow better than what I write now?... So, yeah, I'm so confused about this that, if you have any opinion, if you can ascertain which is better, I'd love to hear. With that said, enjoy!)

Just how fast do you have to be to make a full plate of food disappear in less than a second? And, furthermore, how hungry do you have to be?... Pondering these questions, Ace turned back to frying eggs. You really shouldn't have to fry a man more than four eggs, but apparently, this man-child had the constitution of a bodybuilder, and damn did he need his eggs. Sure, Ace and Marco also needed their eggs, but it's not as if they were fast enough to grab them.

Not even once the egg carton was entirely empty and their four-weeks supply of bacon was ransacked was Luffy fully done.

"That's it," Ace sighed in defeat, "that's all the food we've got." Turning around, he came face-to-face with the still-chewing face of the self-proclaimed Pirate King. He gulped down the last of the food and stared at Ace with a dead-panned, stone-faced expression.

"That's it?" he asked, frowning.

"That's it." Ace shrugged, a scowl of annoyance tugging at his lips.

Luffy looked down at his empty plate, and back up at Ace.

"Y'know, back in my world, I could eat so much my stomach bulged out five feet. And so could you!" Luffy somewhat bragged, completely ignoring the stunned Marco in the background. Marco still hadn't gotten even a single strip of bacon, much less an egg. Ace could feel a grown stirring in his throat.

"Well, this isn't your world, and we simply don't have that kind of egg volume!" Ace said, leaning his body on the counter, successfully having the high-ground over Luffy. Luffy, although hardly a beginner to standing up for his reasoning, did not fight this. Instead, his back hunched considerably, and he pouted.

"Look, I…" Ace pinched the bridge of his nose. How was he supposed to handle a situation like this? He'd never wanted a child to begin with, and now he had to deal with one anyway! What a hack. "Luffy, I'll go out and buy some more eggs, alright?"

Luffy's attention was roused.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Really really?! And meat also!?" Luffy said, turning fully to face Ace, his eyes glittering and mouth already drooling, as if he hadn't just plundered their fridge like the true pirate he was. Ace didn't know whether he wanted to beat him up or give him all the soup in the pantry. In the end, he wasn't the one to decide.

"How about we bring you grocery shopping with us? Then you can pick out something yourself," Marco helpfully proposed, butting in on the conversation with a lax smile. Ace squinted his eyes, turning the idea over in his head and examining it. Taking this otherworldly looney to a store…

He glanced over at the starry-eyed Pirate King.

"Nope, no way," he said, bluntly disregarding the mere idea.

"Aw, come on Ace! It'll be fun! It'll be an ADVENTURE! I can handle myself!" Luffy whined, ideas of all the parallel-world adventures he could have in this brave new world all swirling around in his head. He had no real idea what grocery shopping was, but it probably had to do with hunting or something, which Luffy was sure he could handle. After all, he'd spent the last couple of months eating half/barely-cooked sea kings, so how bad could it be?

"Oh no, no-no-no. Look, you're a pirate, right? You said so yourself. So, what do pirates do?" Ace asked, the latter part aimed more at Marco than Luffy himself. Marco knew the answer, but didn't exactly want to say it, since, well… Luffy seemed like a swell guy so far. A little childish, maybe. A little prone to violence, maybe. But in no way malicious. But, in the end, he had to say something.

"...They pillage?" he admitted, entirely missing the dazed expression on Luffy's face.

"Yeah, they pillage! So, if we take this guy, pirate of pirates, to a fucking grocery store, what will he do?" Ace asked, knowing they both knew the answer. Both Marco and Ace couldn't help but glance suspiciously at the criminal in the midst. Luffy didn't exactly know what they'd been talking about, but it seemed they believed him to be lacking in combat ability.

"Whatever you throw at me, I can take it!" he proclaimed, fist in the air.

"See?" Ace said, waving at the caped monarch. Marco almost face-palmed. Actually, he did.

"Luffy, I may have been a bit hasty in my-,"

"I'm coming along! There is adventure out there! I haven't had an adventure in too long, and this sounds too cool to pass up on!" Luffy said, the prospect of a new adventure suddenly dawned on him. He'd explored the world, after all. Finished Nami's map. Found the all blue. But now, here… he could explore something new. Take part in adventures beyond his understanding. And do it with his brother, to boot!

It was almost too good to be true, but Luffy didn't dare question it.

"See? This is what happens when-,"

"Why don't we let him? Alright, yeah. Okay. Look, he's not going to change his mind. Are you?" Marco interrupted, taking a step closer to Luffy. Ace squinted at him. No. No way.

"Nope! I'm infamously stubborn, shishishi!" Luffy admitted, grinning broadly and pulling up the good 'ol peace-sign as if that made anything any better. Ace scowled but didn't have any further argument. Sure, he could say what he wanted, he might even be able to convince Luffy that not going out was for the best, but… In the end, Luffy would have to go outside sometime.

"I-, sure. Whatever. But you can't go out dressed like that! And, since your world must be some sort of stinking medieval world, you'll have to take a shower. You're still drenched," Ace said, crossing his arms and turning away from the two. Marco smiled in relief, and Luffy, although he certainly was happy about getting to come along on an adventure, was hardly happy about having to take a shower for it. And, well… What was so wrong about his cardigan and shorts?... But if Ace said it, it must be true.

"Alright, we'll do it like that, then. Come on Luffy, let me show you the upstairs," Marco said, directing Luffy towards the stairs. Luffy, in turn, happily hopped off the barstool he'd been sitting at and followed Marco up the stairs. "This here is the master bedroom, here's the bathroom where you will be taking your shower, and here's the guest-room you may or may not be staying. You go ahead and take a shower while I grab you some clean clothes, that sound good, Luffy?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure! No, wait, hold on. I can't shower," Luffy realized, scratching at his head. Marco didn't seem too disturbed by this. Well, either that, or he just couldn't handle the thought. Most likely the latter, since his left eye seemed to be twitching slightly.

"And, uh, why is that?" Marco asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He should never have agreed to take care of a magical other-worldly pirate.

"I can't swim. Like, when I go in water? I just fall right down, like a hammer," Luffy explained, helpfully moving his hands theatrically to illustrate his drowning. Marco nodded slowly and frowned.

"So… you're a pirate who can't swim?..."

"Yup!"

"And I take it you're not some sort of air-faring pirates, but actual sea-dwelling people?"

"Yup, that's right!"

"Look, Luffy, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but… how in the world have you lived for this long?" Marco asked, his brows furrowed for maximum sceptical. Luffy, in turn, glanced up at the roof, lips pressed into a thin line, hand cupping his stubbled chin.

"Hmmm… I'm not sure!" he said, as honestly as anybody could ever say anything. And it was true. He really should be dead. Hell, he should have been caught by the navy years ago, considering he wasn't exactly evading them much.

"So… how do you usually get cleaned?..." Marco asked, altogether baffled by the man before him.

"Well, I don't usually get cleaned, but sometimes when I reach an island people say I reek so bad they all chip in and wash me in a wash bin or something, shishishi!" Luffy said, and although the whole situation sounded like a bad joke, especially with that laugh at the end, Marco could tell it wasn't. Much like everything else Luffy had laid over the past hours, it was the truth. A tad bit simplified, to be sure, but still the truth.

"...In other words, you haven't had a shower in months, and you're going to need help getting one?..."

"Yup, pretty much!"

"...No, I'm not doing that."

"Oh, uh… well, if you want, you could just leave me to soak in the tub for a while? Just make sure my head is out of the water so I don't drown," Luffy offered diplomatically. Yeah… that didn't sound so bad, did it?

"Alright, sure. Sure, just turn on the water and get undressed and-, wait, can't you do this on your own!?"

"Uhh… maybe? People always insist on making sure I got clean, but I guess I could do it by myself?"

"The bathroom is right in there, go ahead," Marco finally said, and without any further explanation, he headed back downstairs, where Ace was busy cleaning up all the pans he'd had to use to try and feed the hungry pirate king.

"Marco, I really don't like this," Ace said, finally putting away all the cutlery and stuff to their rightful drawers and cupboards. "We can't keep him here or nothing! At least, not if he's going to be eating that much for every meal," he grumbled.

"You want us to call the police on him? Really?" Marco asked, smirking. There was no way Ace could answer that, and he knew it.

"Grr, no, I guess not. It's just-, he's trying to say he's my brother, and that's messing a lot with my head. I mean, I have a brother, sort of, but… Plus, he said his last name wasn't even Portugas, so I really don't get any of this," Ace ranted, pacing back and forth in front of Marco.

"We can ask him all about it once he finishes his bath. Oh, right, I should check in on him. Give me a moment," Marco said, climbing the stairs once more. By the end of a hallway, right in front of the guest-room, was the bathroom. Thankfully, unlike what Marco almost expected, there hadn't been a flood, and no water was flowing out from underneath the door. Apparently, this pirate dude wasn't a total failure.

The only odd detail Marco could notice was the steady humming coming from inside. Well, not quite humming, more like a low groan. Marco didn't know exactly how do deal with that, so he did the most polite thing he could do and knocked on the door.

"Hello? Is everything going alright in there, Luffy?" he said, putting his ear to the door. There was that groaning again. A moment passed.

"C-, chome ihn," a slack-jawed voice mumbled from the other side of the door. Marco was hesitant and for good reason. But, if he insisted…

Curiously, the door was not locked. That might have been because Luffy had decided against it since he might need assistance not to drown, or it might be because he simply forgot it. Marco, despite barely knowing Luffy, leaned more against the latter option.

Pulling the door open, Marco was met with an odd sight. The first thing he noticed was, well, Luffy. Or, rather, his head. Smushed down on the floor, leaning a little, eyes showing only the whites, mouth open and foaming. However, what truly made this a strange, other-wordly (in the most literal sense) experience was the fact that Luffy's neck was stretched out, and connected to the noodle-like bundle of limbs huddled up in the bathtub itself. Marco could not make up which noodle-like limb was which in that huddle, it was like looking into a colander filled with spaghetti, everything lying all Piggly-wiggly.

If the man hadn't been twitching like a Mexican sugar dancer, Marco might have assumed Luffy was dead, drowned. Instead, he hesitantly approached the head, bent down, and tried to catch his attention.

"L-, Luffy, are you alright? Is this how you usually do?..." Marco asked.

"Y-, yhes, buht ghet mhe ouht," Luffy hissed back.

"Well, okay, but I'm not looking," Marco replied, and he could feel his cheeks heating up at the mere thought of touching that bundle of noodles in the tub. So, in the end, he just grabbed a hold of the shoulders, pulled them out, and let the rest of the body follow as if his whole rubbery body was a non-Newtonian fluid.

And with that said and done, Marco left the room, and closed the door behind him, letting Luffy deal with the rest himself.

"There's a towel on the towel rack you can use," was the last thing Marco told him before he closed the door, and the last he saw of Luffy was a trembling thumbs-up sign.

And while Luffy got himself all dried up, Marco grabbed some of his own clothes for him to wear. Nothing complicated, just a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, since the man seemed into shorts.

"I'm DONE!" Luffy shouted as she burst out from the bathroom just down the hall, towel thankfully around his waist. And, oh man, if he was anything, it was buff. It was no wonder he could beat Ace into next year. Marco grabbed the neatly stacked pile of clothes he'd chosen and handed it to the excited man, who accepted it somewhat hesitantly.

"Here, change into this," Marco urged, pointing to the guest-room.

"Can't I use my normal clothes?..." Luffy whined, glancing between the clothes and Marco like a pleading puppy.

"No, your old clothes were damp and dusty, we need to wash them. Furthermore, we can't exactly have you looking like a pirate out on the town, can we?"

"Grrr, I guess so… but my coat stays on!"

"Just-, just put the clothes on, we'll discuss the details later," Marco said, leaving Luffy alone to go downstairs.

Luffy looked down at the clothes and back up at Marco's retreating back. Yeah, he'd totally wear his epic coat, no question of it. Humming to himself, Luffy wandered into the guest-room, his black eyes excitedly examining its features. It was very angular, with muted, boring colours. Luffy didn't much like how strangely boring it looked, but it was Ace's house, so it was fine.

With that all said and done, he put on the clothes.

They weren't very comfortable. The shirt was tight and coarse. and although the shorts weren't as bad, they were also tight. Luffy grumbled to himself and exited the guest room, but before he went downstairs once more, he grabbed his beloved fancy coat from the bathroom. Yeah, he wouldn't be parted from this in a while. This was his proof of royalty, after all! Only strong people wore coats like that, after all. Of course, he didn't leave his beloved straw hat behind either.

Cleaner than he'd been in months, he burst downstairs, once more coming face to face with his brother and a young-looking Marco. Luffy couldn't honestly say he didn't feel weird about meeting his brother again after so many years, but it was too good to dismiss, so he just did as he wanted, which also happened to be what he usually did.

"All ready!" Luffy exclaimed happily, thoughts of what adventures were to be had passing through his head at breakneck speeds.

And adventures would be had.