AN: Welcome to Alabasta, we're gonna be here for a minute.

Thank you to the guest who reviewed all the chapters! It warms my heart and I'm glad you like the choices I'm making

Familiar Fixture

Chopper hopes that, eventually, he'll be able to see more than scars and frostbite on his new captain's skin.

It's just- that's the first impression. Luffy appeared on his doorstep, dying in the cold, hands and feet shredded from the ice and snow. Two people were with him but being unconscious they hardly made an impression. Luffy, however, made an impression. He asked Chopper to take care of his friends.

Two days later, Drum, the only home he's ever known, has disappeared over the starboard bow hours ago. He's rewrapping Luffy's hands with fresh bandages, and all he can see is where there were blood trails. All he can hear is the echo of his pleading. They're much improved, but it's a relief when he has them settled again. It means they can heal undisturbed.

Except, a day or so later the bandages are gone. This would be fine, because Chopper cleared Luffy of most injuries the night before and unwrapped those bandages himself. But he didn't unwrap them all . And they are all gone. And Chopper's newest patient has just slipped past 'troublesome' to hit a solid 'aggravating'

"HEY." Luffy's shoulders seize up from his perch on the ship's railing. Usopp beside him casts him a cursory glance which shows absolutely no pity.

This has become a regular occurrence.

"Luffy! Go let Chopper fix it!" Nami orders from where she is studying the angles of the sails. Usopp nudges him when he shows no sign of movement and with an exaggerated sigh Luffy hands the pole off to his sniper and slides back onto the deck.

Chopper is waiting for him at the top of the stairs, tapping his hoof, Sanji a black cloud of wrath beside him.

Luffy holds out his hands and, while Chopper's displeasure stands clear on his face as he begins rewrapping them, Sanji's withers away into a mixture of pity and mourning at the sight of his captain's cracked nails, black and blue skin, and torn apart fingertips.

"Don't they hurt?" He demands as each finger disappears beneath a layer of white, wrapped around the knuckles looser than the rest so that Luffy can still use his hands (though he's not really supposed to- Chopper just knows that the less limitations the bandages pose, the less Luffy will try to be rid of them).

Luffy shrugs.

"A little. Hurts more when my knuckles get torn up from punching. They'll get better."

"They'll heal a lot faster if you leave the bandages on," Chopper scolds. "So make sure not to take them off this time!" Luffy nods in acquiescence but before he can pull away Sanji hooks his foot around his ankle.

"Luffy." The captain pauses in his retreat and watches Sanji take a puff of smoke to steady himself before continuing. "If they're still on by dinnertime I'll give you an extra serving of meat."

"Wow, really!" Luffy's repressed mood bounces back into cheer at once. "Thanks Sanji!" The cook stumbles backward as he receives an armful of excitable rubber pirate, chattering on about how he has the best cook ever and thanks a ton!

"Yeah, yeah. The longer you keep your hands out of harm's way the more food I'll give you, okay?"

"Alright!" Luffy pumps his fist and beams at them both. "You guys are great!" Chopper stutters out a denial and Sanji gives a curt nod before turning back into the Merry with a slightly lighter stamp to his step. Luffy vaults back over to the railing and takes his fishing pole from Usopp who takes the opportunity to inspect Luffy's hands again.

Chopper has accomplished what they've all been dreaming of since the day they met one accident-prone Monkey D. Luffy. Something close to a proper healthcare system.

("Most of the lesions from the frostbite are already scabbed over but I t-thought it best to protect them for a day or two more." Chopper had explained that first morning, when Usopp inquired as to why their captain was sporting so many bandages he looked mummified. "His body heals fast but he'll run himself ragged without adequate rest and care." He'd been surprised and flustered when Nami had pronounced him perfect for his new position and roused the whole crew in a round of applause.

"They can't help it, Tony-kun." Vivi had laughed at his expression as the others called out everything from congratulations to consolation for his coming headaches. "They're happy they can finally help him the way he always helps them.")

It's hard to say why he listens to Chopper when he, at best, tolerates all the rest of them. Sure, Luffy had always let them bandage and bundle and scold and listened to them with something like understanding- but that attention had always been gone before long. Chopper is well informed of their past attempts. Sanji couldn't keep him as hydrated as he'd like, Nami couldn't keep a bandage on him as long as he should leave them, and Zoro had often been accompanied to his late-night watches no matter how much Luffy needed to sleep off some ailment or another. They'd tried bribery before, but Luffy had always tended to forget- either that there was a reward for resting or that he was hurt in the first place. They'd tried threats of debt and chores and even used Usopp's stories as a bargaining chip, but Luffy forgot the threats even faster than he forgot the bribes and reacted sourly with the results. They'd all taken shifts as Luffy sitters when he'd torn himself apart in one way or another and by the end of two or three days he'd usually slipped back into his typical habits no matter their efforts. All his arching scars and weeping cuts and slightly too wobbly steps were put proudly on display as he tried to ignore them.

But Chopper is determined to keep these first bandages wrapped snugly around every finger for exactly as long as he wants them there, even if he sometimes has to rewrap them two or three times a day.

It becomes familiar to them all, in the way that all things on a ship become familiar after days without escaping them, for Luffy to be heralded by a flash of white or brush of cotton. When he talks, always accompanied by frantic gesticulations, when he reaches across the deck to pull himself to the railing or launch himself into the crows nest, when, at dinner, he reaches for something on another's plate, halfway across the room. They couldn't have ignored them if they wanted to, and they don't want to.

So when Nami is leaning against the railing and Luffy's fingers shoot past her to wrap around the wood at her elbow she grabs his wrist and makes him stop and talk to her before he goes to do something else. Usopp coerces him into doing some art things with him, occupying him with frantic brush strokes or fervent pencil scribbling. Anything to keep his absent fingers from picking at the wrappings. Anything to keep his antics from dislodging the bandages that protect him from everything he does.

And where in the past the bandages fell to the wayside in the passage of time and waning of the crew's insistence, Chopper keeps up with it.

For days they are a constant fixture and soon they become commonplace. But they are no less inconspicuous than Monkey D. Luffy himself. Chopper feels as though he's accomplished something good, and is assured of this by all his new crewmates.

That first impression never goes away completely, and very rarely (in all the years that will follow) is Luffy completely injury free. Still, the bitter memory of chattering teeth and a ragged plea becomes something else: a reminder of what Luffy will push himself to if his crew isn't there to hold him up. It's also proof to Chopper of what he's worth now, just like Nami and Sanji and all his other new crewmates. He's someone worth everything to his captain. Worth climbing mountains, waging wars, and, according to Usopp, worth taming the fiercest sea monsters the Grand Line has to offer. And Chopper, in turn, thinks Luffy's worth that and more.

For half the time Vivi knows him, Luffy's hands are heavily bandaged.

For at least three quarters of the time she knows him, Luffy has something bandaged. A bandaid pasted across his cheek or a sliver of white peeking out from the collar of his shirt seems just as familiar as the slap of his sandals and the curve of his smile. It's Nami's constant battle (until it's not and she's sick and then they have Chopper who's even more diligent about it) and indeed maybe sometimes it's overkill, but Vivi understands. It's easy to think that, maybe, more care now will make up for what none of them were around for, and protect him in the future. The point is Vivi gets used to them.

His hands are wrapped as he waves, running across the city of Nanohana to reach them with a marine captain hot on his heels.

His hands are wrapped as he shows the duongs a proper fighting form, and then salutes to them, as they part.

His hands are wrapped as the sun beats down and he lags behind, complaining of the heat. Fingers pulling at them in frustration because they're like gloves and the last thing he wants what with sweat dripping from every pore.. But he leaves them on because taking them off just means that they have to stop while Chopper pulls himself together enough to redo them.

(They're wrapped when she slaps him for telling her she's a fool. Maybe she is, but she'd rather be a hopeful fool than surrender her home to certain collapse. He may not care for her people, and he may not have the compassion or the priorities of a ruler whose country is on the verge of civil war, but she refuses to feel shame for what she knows is right for her own heart. Luffy is a fighter and a pirate captain and he's proven that he excels in both. She will let him be what he is, but she will not let him tell her she is wrong to strive to avoid sacrifice.)

Luffy's hands are still wrapped in grimy, fraying cotton, even as Crocodile's hook catches her around the middle. For an instant, that smooth loop of metal traps her, drags her back when she has to move forward . And then it is gone. Replaced by sensations so familiar she almost expects them. It's the flash of white in her peripheral vision and the brush of fabric on the back of her neck as Luffy hooks his grip into her shirt collar. They're as friendly and kind as they are coarse and violent. He pulls her away from the man who is threatening everything she loves and selfishly plops himself into her place.

And they are wrapped (and also ripped and bloody and crusted in sand) when Vivi is falling, and she thinks that everything is over. They catch her around the waist and tug her close to him as Pell soars away from the ground.

(They're gone, when they're finally back in the palace and the best physicians Vivi can find are trying to piece all her friends back together. Chopper, who's in better shape than most of them but overwhelmed with the sudden weight of his responsibility, is frantic and focusing on Luffy alone. Where the aftermath has swept them all up and spit them all out worse for wear, Luffy is a familiar case. He spends a full five minutes ranting at his captain's unconscious face about the absent bandages, and then another five crying as he covers over newly bloodied knuckles and moves on to the next wound on the triage list.)

It feels almost strange, after it's all done, when Chopper unwinds the bandages and lays his hands back down on the blankets- free of cotton. Two days of constant rest have done all of Luffy's injuries a lot of good, though it makes Vivi anxious to see him so still for so long, and it finally pushes that particular healing process over the finish line. Drum Island has no hold on him anymore. He'll be happy to find himself free of them when he wakes up, she's certain. She can't repress the surge of pride when she sees them, free of scabs and dried blood, though not without faint scars. It was worth all the scolding and the careful rewrapping and the pleading insistence they'd put into the matter. Luffy was there when he needed to be, bandages and all.

His hands are healed, having weathered the storm he brews wherever he goes, and that small mercy is worth all the attention she (and all his crew) paid.

AN: Let me know what you think! This one took a few tries but once I had it it came together really quickly. I'm pleased : )