Years passed, and Atlantis grew into a metropolis. More merfolk from around the world came to the city, and Ace grew older, taking on more of the responsibilities that came with running a kingdom.
Luffy, while he too did grow older and stronger, and could swim the whole length of Atlantis with his eyes closed, still kept his childish tendencies… and the strawhat given to him long-ago by a red-headed human.
Of course, no-one knew about that. Luffy kept it hidden in a large grotto near the beach that was half-in and half-out of the water, along with all the rest of his treasures. Ace'd probably kill him if he found out that his younger brother had gone near a ship, but after having been rescued by them when he was younger, Luffy couldn't stop exploring and learning about the humans.
In fact, Ace'd probably kill him for exploring this ship, never mind that not a single human had been on it for years. Usopp certainly looked like he'd rather be dead. His whole body shivered as they darted through the remains of the wreck, scattered beams of sunlight illuminating the algae-covered bare timbers.
"Luffy," Usopp whined, casting a pleading look at the young prince of Atlantis, "Why are you so obsessed with these stupid things? Can't we go and do something else? Like, I know! We could go and visit Nami and try and get her to give us some tangerines, or we could go to your brother's library or check out the armoury or literally anything but this!"
Luffy rolled his eyes, ignoring his friend, before gasping with delight. "Look! Check this out." He darted through a gap in the floor planks, sneaking lower into the darkness, and he could hear Usopp almost screech when he disappeared. Snickering to himself at his scaredy-fish of a friend, Luffy glided to a stop just above the floor, the glint in the dark that'd caught his eye half-beckoning him.
"Hey Luffy? Luffy? C'mon…There's a storm coming! Can't we go home? Please!" Usopp's voice drifted down to where he was brushing silt off of a sliver of silver and peeling gold, and Luffy gave a quick glance up, before quickly hurrying to clean up the silver thing.
"Just a minute Usopp! I found something sooo cool."
Was it some sort of reflector-y thing?
"C'mooon Luffy," Usopp whined pitifully above him, and Luffy pouted, before grabbing the reflector thing and powering to where his friend waited. Thankfulness was easily seen to bloom on Usopp's face when he flashed into the sunlight, and he proudly brandished his prize.
Usopp peered closer and saw his own yellow and green body staring back at him. He quickly darted away, and Luffy laughed, tucking it under his arm.
"Let's go see Nami, huh? I wanna know what this is!"
Usopp looked like he wanted to curse, but he instead let loose a loud sigh, quickly zipping after Luffy as he neared the surface. Ooo, it was going to be so great to show Nami all the new things he'd found. There'd been gold at the last wreck, which would make her happy, and this giant thing he was lugging around right now was certainly going to look great once he added it to his collection. He knew the perfect spot for it too; where sunlight peaked in through the gaps in the roof of his grotto. It'd make the whole cave shine just like it'd shone down in the dim glow of the sunken ship.
Usopp suddenly darted in front of him, making Luffy skid to a stop, and he eyed Usopp curiously, tail flicking back to hold him steady.
"C'mon Luffy, we're gonna get in so much trouble! You know we're not meant to be near the surface. Especially this close to the shore! What if there are ships out? What if the storm beaches you? What if we get caught by demons going swimming?!"
Luffy laughed, shaking his head at his friend's panic, and swum around the side of him. "Calm down Usopp! We'll be fine." Usopp looked like he wanted to groan again, but finally only sighed and moved after Luffy, obviously attempting to make him stay out of trouble. Like that ever did any good.
They broke the surface, the inner surface of Luffy's grotto undisturbed by the wind that whipped up the wave outside, and Nami fluttered down from her perch, plopping Luffy's hat upon his wet hair.
Luffy grinned his thanks at her, holding the hat further down, before moving to the tiny outcropping and dropping his square frame-thing on the rock. The familiar clicks and pops he made in the back of his throat shifted to human, the sounds still as weird as they'd been to the younger him, but after years of using it and practising, he'd gotten quite good. Usopp sighed heavily by his side, before moving back underwater, probably knowing that he'd only catch a few words here and there as Luffy and Nami chattered.
As a seagull, Nami had picked up both bird and human over the years, knowing the handiness behind know what humans were saying about their surroundings, and though she wasn't proficient, she could speak a few words in mer.
Usopp, on the other hand, stubbornly refused to learn how to speak it, though he probably did understand a bit.
Even if he may have been one of Luffy's best friends, he hadn't been around when Luffy had first met Nami. If he had, their friendship may have started a bit differently, considering the first time Usopp and Nami met Nami had tried to eat him. Luffy smiled to himself at that memory; it certainly was an interesting way to start a friendship.
That was also when Usopp'd first learned that Luffy knew human, and after a panic attack that occurred when Luffy explained that he'd stayed alongside a human ship for weeks Usopp had been half-threatened and half-begged into secrecy.
How often he must curse that promise now, when Luffy did stupid antics and explored forbidden ship wrecks.
"What's this called, Nami?" Luffy asked eagerly, moving his thoughts away from memories and back into the present again. He dripped droplets of sea water onto the reflector-thing as he tapped it.
Landing on the ground, the seagull hopped around Luffy's prize, her feathers ruffling slightly. "Humans use it to look at 'em selves. I think it's called a mirror."
"It can't be a mirror! Mirrors aren't solid like this."
"It's a human mirror," Nami said in that 'Luffy you're being an idiot' tone that she often adopted around the merman.
Luffy made a noise of understanding, heaving himself out of the pool to stare into it. He laughed, and the reflection mimicked him, throwing back Luffy's bright, sharp-toothed grin. "That's so cool!" He said excitedly, tapping against the mirror's surface, and Nami rolled her eyes, a look of fond exasperation on her features.
"Did you find me anymore coins?" She demanded, and Luffy nodded, digging around in the pouch he kept by his side to produce a shining collection of shimmery gold coins that he dumped on the mirror's silver surface. Nami grinned, shuffling them to her nest.
"What're they even used for?" Luffy asked curiously, resting half his body of the water to watch Nami hoard the gold coins into her nest, and Nami snorted.
"Humans use 'em to buy stuff. But I like them because they're so pretty. Besides, you never know if it'll come in handy to have all this stuff lying around, right?"
"Right!" Luffy chirped back, before powering off to the other side of the cave to grab an umbrella he'd found drifting in the middle of the ocean one day. "Like this! What if we need an umbrella? Or a music box! What if someone desperately desperately needs this twirler-stick!"
Nami laughed at his antics, flapping her wings to get to the top of the cave, and with her feet she tapped a thick book with a dark brown, water-stained cover. "And how would you've learnt human if we didn't have this book here?"
"Exactly!" Luffy said, nodding his head frantically, and he swam back over to the outcropping, heaving his body out of the water to lie against the sandy floor.
Letting loose a loud sigh, the merman rested his head on his folded arms, and watched the roof of the cave, the faint edges of dark grey clouds through the small holes in the grotto's sides.
"Hey Nami," He started slowly, slightly questioningly, "How am I meant to learn more about humans now? I've gotten hundreds and hundreds of things, and you've already told me everything that you know. I want to know more! I want to know what having feet feels like, and being able to dance! What's it like to walk on the ground, or climb a tree or balance along the edge of rocks with feet?"
Nami fluttered to land on his bare chest, her expression stern and serious, and she tapped his forehead with one fluffy wing. "Oy! You think it's been easy learning human for you? I'm trying my best to pick it all up, and here you are, whining about not knowing enough? You've got a tail! Tails and wings are better than feet any day."
"But Nami-," Luffy tried to protest, sitting up to lean on his elbows, "You can't go on land with a tail! If you have feet you can do both!"
"No you can't! How're you meant to get to Atlantis with stupid human lungs, huh? They drown if they don't breathe air, but you can stay above the water or below it, whenever you want."
"I guess," Luffy mumbled, dropping back down to lay on the floor, and his chest rose and fell with his heavy sigh. "I just wanna know what land is like, though. I know every inch of this part of the ocean. I wanna know what it's like to stay above the sea! I wanna go exploring the whole wide world!"
"You can do that with a tail," Nami reminded him persuasively, but Luffy merely sighed again, and dislodged his winged friend, slipping back into the water. Carefully he removed his hat, placing it on the sandy floor of the outcrop, and gave her a small wave.
"I'll see you tomorrow," He said instead of replying, and Nami watched him worriedly, looking as though she wanted to speak again. Before she could, however, Luffy had darted under the waters, slipping out of the grotto with Usopp in tow.
Once they were far enough away from the grotto, Luffy stopped, Usopp continuing for a few strokes before he halted, swimming back to his friend. "You go along without me Usopp. I'll be along in just a minute!"
"You're gonna go and watch the ships in the storm again, aren't you?" Usopp demanded suspiciously, watching him with distrustful, narrowed eyes, and he probably caught the hint of Luffy's mischievous smile.
"No," He said, and Usopp sighed, looking to all the world like he wanted to try and drag Luffy with, to home and to safety.
Of course, this was one argument that they'd had for a long time, and there was never a single time that Usopp had ever managed to win, so he gave up before they even got started, saying with another sigh, "Alright, whatever. Just be careful, okay?"
Luffy's grin would've brightened the sea surrounding him, and he nodded. "Yeah yeah, I promise!" He quickly flicked his tail, turning his back on his friend, before arching and waving his goodbye.
Sighing again as he watched his friend's rapidly disappearing back, the small fish turned and headed back to Atlantis without Luffy by his side.
He felt bad for lying to Usopp, he really did, but he knew that the fish knew that Luffy was lying, so it wasn't that bad, right?
He wasn't even going near the humans! He was just watching out for Shank's ship among the sails that darted through the rain and the waves. It wasn't as though he were really doing anything bad, right?
Luffy could hear the shouts of the humans as they called to each other on their ships, their tiny bodies throwing ropes to each other and sails flapping in the stormy weather, and Luffy watched in fascination as they moved to calls and shouts, a hive mind that knew exactly what to do and where to be at the right moment.
The humans aboard the ship worked like a well-oiled machine, passing each other and barely faltering in their stride to give each other help, making sure their ship stayed alright in the storm.
Luffy's eyes were constantly drawn to one in a white, rain-drenched shirt, who heaved ropes and bought in sails and ran around the whole ship, working twice as hard as any of the other sailors. They seemed to take him as a constant; whenever a hand was needed, the man was there without a second thought, dragging people from the edges right before a wave would've pulled them overboard, lashing ropes to the side and holding the very ship together.
Luffy couldn't stop watching him with awe, moving closer to the ship to see more-
And that was why he was the only one who noticed that the man had tied ropes to all the crew's waists bar his own. He'd just done up the second to last when a blond man got knocked in the back by a barrel, sending him half-sprawling against the rails, and the other man (he had green hair! Luffy noted in surprise, Green hair like algae,) immediately leapt for him, using his momentum to tug him away from the edge.
All would've gone well, had a large swell not forced the ship to the side. The boom mast dropped and swung around to the side, and even as the blond man opened his mouth to cry out, the man with green hair was knocked overboard.
Luffy gasped, forcing himself out of the water further to try and see if the man came up, or if anyone went after him, but although the blond man tried to jump in, he was held back by the other members of the crew.
Slow, torturous seconds passed, dragging on, and the green-haired man didn't come up for air. Unable to hold back any longer, Luffy darted beneath the waves, desperation making him zoom through the wild currents at a speed he knew he wouldn't have been able to hold in normal circumstances.
Bubbles rose from where the man had fallen, and Luffy dived deeper, peering through the murky blackness to try and see where the man had gone, heart pounding in his throat; he'd committed himself to saving this man, now, but what if he couldn't? What if he didn't reach him in time?
There! The green-haired man came into view, sinking slowly, and Luffy poured on more speed, grabbing him beneath the arms before heading for the surface.
Luffy's powerful tail heaved both himself and the human upwards till he broke through the waves with a loud gasp, trying to support the human so that he didn't sink, and could still breathe.
A human! A human! Luffy's heart half-pounded in his chest, excitement making him heady, but panic and the knowledge that if he didn't get the human to land he'd drown meant he quickly powered his way through the storm, heading for the beach that the ship had started from. Tugging along the human was difficult with the strong currents, his feet knocking into Luffy's tail as he tried to swim through the waves, and the human's unresponsive body was heavy while weighed down with water.
His lungs burnt with the bitter human air by the time he finally dragged them both up to the shore, and he only just managed to get the human above the reaching grasp of the waves before his muscles turned to noodles, dropping him unceremoniously onto the sand.
It itched against his tail and skin, sticking as his chest heaved to get in more air, and it took a while until he could finally breathe properly. As he caught his breath, the storm began to abate, waves dying slowly to a more normal and manageable size, wind dropping as fast as it'd sprung up to smash into the ship.
Heaving himself onto his elbows, unwieldy tail dragging against the beach, Luffy lifted himself to stare at the human he'd saved, propping himself up on his elbows.
"It's a human," Luffy exhaled reverently, brushing sand off of the sleeping creature's face with a soft awe. "It's a human!"
Excitement made Luffy's voice get louder, and the green-haired human groaned loudly, moving his head to the side. Luffy jumped slightly, surprised by the sound, but then peered closer, curiosity and interest in every inch of his body.
"Hey, are you alright?" He asked carefully, poking the man in one cheek. The man groaned again, one arm coming up to cover his eyes and to try and swat away the inquisitive hand. "Hellloooo," Luffy called, moving even closer to the man, taking in green eyelashes and the faint, almost invisible sprinkle of freckles decorating his tanned features.
"LUFFY!" Nami's loud screech made Luffy look up to see his friend, before his sight was covered by feathers and a very enraged bird. "Are you kidding me?! You promise you'd keep yourself safe and then you find a human and stare at him!?"
Luffy yelped loudly, flailing to try and get Nami off of him, but the human gave another groan, this time the sound dissolving into a thick cough as he spluttered out water and rolled over. Both the bird and the mer froze for a second, staring at the human.
"Get in the ocean before I skin you alive," Nami hissed quickly in pure anger, and Luffy winced, rolling himself back down into the sea until he could get some buoyancy back and swim away from the beach.
He didn't go too far, however, no matter how many glares Nami threw his way, instead hiding behind a thick outcropping of rock as the man staggered to his feet, looking around in utter confusion.
"ZORO!"
The man turned-
And was met by a kick to the face.
"You jumped in the fucking ocean!"
Bending over backwards, the green-haired man – Zoro, Zoro, Zoro, Zoro! Luffy's mind repeated to itself in excitement – came back up shouting right back, "I didn't jump! Anyway, you were the one going to drown!"
"Yeah but I can swim you fucktard!" Was that blond the one that Luffy had seen on the ship? That meant a few hours had passed, then; it didn't feel like it, but the adrenaline and exhaustion was probably deluding him.
"So can I!"
"Zoro, you got knocked over the head!"The blond raked a hand through his hair, skewing the strands, and grabbed a fire-striker from his pocket, flicking it to life and lighting the stick-y thing poking from his mouth. "It's a miracle that you're alive!"
Smoke curled from the blond's mouth, and Zoro glanced towards the ocean, the barest turn of his head that made Luffy quickly duck further behind the rock, in case he was spotted by either human.
"How'd you even get to the beach?" The blond questioned, and Luffy hesitantly peeked over the edge of the rock to see Zoro's shrug.
"Dunno. I think there was-" Zoro stopped, gaze flicking towards the ocean again, and this time the blond's head followed Zoro's eyes.
The blond's mouth curled into a smirk around his smoke-stick, and he cocked an eyebrow at Zoro. "What, don't tell me that you think you get rescuedby a mermaid or some shit like that."
"No way!" Zoro blustered, his cheeks turning the faintest red, and Luffy felt a weird stirring of something unnameable tickle uncomfortably inside his chest, "Only a shitty cook like you would ever think of getting rescued by a mermaid. They're not real."
The blond snorted derisively, and they started up the beach, their voices dropping away till Luffy could no longer hear their conversation.
At Nami's urging, he eventually forced his tired muscles to move, slipping off the rock and back into the ocean, heading for Atlantis.
AN: You see what I mean about these getting really long? THIS IS THE FIRST ONE AND THEY'VE ONLY JUST MET C'MON.
Also I would've had this up earlier but I have a report that's been killing me and I haven't had time to write anything really substantial. Sorry. VnV
Hopefully this'll tide you over until I can finish my report and get to writing again! ^w^