A/N: If you look above you, you may notice that the review count has reached a hundred! I'm amazed, because it only took six chapters. The last (and only other) story I got a hundred-review count was nearing twenty chapters when I got it. Also, congratulations to Quetoa for the hundredth review, and thank you!
One week was long enough for Luffy to recover; he was his usual hyperactive self in practically no time at all. Ace was overjoyed to see his brother running around like a caffeinated bumble bee, while Law was ready to tear his hair out for all the boy's rather unpredictable antics. Nami found herself between inexhaustibly amused and supremely frustrated as she got to know him.
Unfortunately, even Ace eventually tired of Luffy's boundless energy. Nami, luckily, was not forced to be around the boy nearly as much as Ace and Law, so she still had a bit of patience left for him when the two were badly in need of a break.
She had picked Luffy up early on a Saturday morning, and, after letting him squeal over her orange Mustang for a while, had brought him to first the park, then a movie theatre, and currently, the mall.
Once she was safely in a change room she fell against the door, drained. It wasn't even lunchtime yet! How was she meant to spend a whole day with him? Outside, she could hear Luffy still sniffling slightly over the ending of the movie — he adamantly refused to cry — as he waited for her. She decided to stall as long as possible.
She only had five minutes before he got impatient. "Does it really take this long to change clothes? You only brought a pair of pants and a shirt."
"Well, excuse me," she almost growled, but restrained herself in time in consideration of Luffy's naïveté, "but I actually care how things look on me before I buy them."
"Nii-chan never takes this long," Luffy grumbled, "and he always looks good."
"Well, 'Nii-chan'doesn't have much to do in the way of shirts, does he?" Nami paused, throwing the (not-very-flattering) shirt in question up to hang on the stall door. "Hey, what is that you call him, anyhow?"
"Nii-chan?"
"Yeah, that." She could hear him shifting on the little wooden chair outside, most likely trying to find a more comfortable position. "What's it mean?"
He paused a little and she could hear him shifting some more. "It means 'big brother' in Japanese."
"Japanese? …You're not an otaku, are you?"
"Huh? W– No!" he sputtered defensively. "…Well, I mean, I like Sailor Moon and some other— but that's not why!"
Nami suppressed her laughter at the mental image of a teenage boy watching and enjoying Sailor Moon as she stepped out of the change room. "So why, then?"
Luffy turned his eyes to the floor in an almost bashful way. "Well…"
She raised her eyebrows at him to continue. He looked strained, but complied.
"I'm selfish," he whispered.
Nami picked up her chosen purchase and gestured him to follow her to the register. "And what do you mean by that?"
"He's my brother," he stressed, "and he's my brother."
"Oh," she noised, giving the cashier the pants to ring up. "So you're possessive of him?"
"…Yeah. Yeah, I think I am," his inflection suggested he was honestly confused at the realisation. "That's weird. I've never been possessive before… I think."
"You only think?"
"I might not have noticed if I was," Luffy argued. "The only way we could know for sure is if…"
"If what?" Nami prompted, taking the bag from the shopkeeper as the transaction finished.
"If Sanji said so," he finished, suddenly confidant. "He would know."
Luffy grabbed her arm and began running, pulling her out to the parking lot even though there were still shops she wanted to get to. When they got to her mustang, he started spouting directions eagerly, obviously excited to see this 'Sanji', whoever he was.
"Honestly," Nami grumbled as they both did up their seatbelts, "why are you so excited to go ask some guy if you're possessive or not?"
Luffy thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I just like seeing Sanji anyway."
Home sweet home was the sweetest home when the human parakeet wasn't home, Law decided. Yes, that was it. That must have been it, because he hadn't felt quite this relieved to return from his classes in a long time.
No one seemed to be home and the entire dorm was quiet for once, save for the couch groaning when he dropped his bag on it.
Wait a minute, Law noticed suddenly, turning back to glance suspiciously at the back of the sofa, why does the couch sound human?
The couch grew an arm that looked a lot like Ace's and chucked his bag back at Law.
Law caught the bag and blinked lethargically. I'm either too tired for this or just tired enough as to enable hallucinations.
Law peeked over the back to check whether his roommate and his couch had been fused together somehow, but all he found was a distressed seeming roommate lying there. Is he distressed because he is currently merging with the couch against his will?
"What's got you moAAaaahhha–" a yawn caught him in the middle of a word. "Hm. Mopey?"
"I've had a rather disquieting revelation," Ace mumbled into a couch cushion, using the same flowery language Law knew him to do when he wanted to get his mind off of something. It allowed him to give more thought to his sentences than his words.
Law sighed. "Alright, champ," he said, sitting down on Ace's legs. Ace cursed at him, but Law thought he shouldn't bother to complain, because he was becoming part of the couch anyway and he would have to get used to it eventually, right? "Tell me."
"I realised today…" Ace ultimately ignored the person on his lower body, writing it off because Law was always a little strange when he was tired. "Luffy is seven years younger than me."
"Oh, really?" Law's eye roll might have been visible, if only his eyelids hadn't been drooping so much they obscured it. "You're a genius."
"Listen to the rest, will you?" Ace snapped. "Luffy is seven years my junior, and we're maternal half-brothers. We have the same mother."
"So?"
"So, my mother was alive. When I was seven, at the very least, and possibly after that." Ace's expression was something akin to heartbreak. "So why… Why didn't she raise me? Why did she abandon me?"
"I don't know," Law said, giving it his best to keep his eyes open — they were uncooperatively still drooping, despite the seriousness of the conversation. "Maybe she wasn't ready for a kid. Maybe she was a teen mom. Maybe she was in a career that would have put you in danger–"
"Don't make excuses," Ace snarled. "They told me she died giving birth to me."
"…Maybe she did," Law thought out loud, despite part of him knowing how this new theory of his might affect Ace, "and you and Luffy aren't really brothers. Maybe it was just a mix up with the blood tests."
There was a silence, and Law could practically feel the weight of Ace's stare — even though it was directed at the wall. The more wakeful part of his mind berated him for not considering the consequences of his words.
"…No," Ace said quietly. Furiously. "No, I refuse to even think that might be true. He's my brother and that's that. It's my mother that's–"
"You look up to her so much," Law pointed out. "You took her name over your father's. You would really rather loathe her than believe you might not be Luffy's brother?"
"Yes." Ace's eyes narrowed but remained on the wall. "Yes, I would."
Nami made a good attempt of finding a comfortable standing position in the cramped, dark staff area at first, but gave up when she stepped in something unidentifiable and just stood wherever she could get her feet. Luffy found a place in there like it was his natural habitat, holding the candle they had been given since the light was apparently burnt out.
The door flung open, thankfully outwards, and a blond man with the oddest eyebrow she had ever seen entered. Evidently, he was Sanji, seeing as that was what Luffy called the man when he gave him a flying hug (after, luckily, handing off the candle to Nami).
Sanji didn't exactly hug back, but he placed an amiable hand on the top of Luffy's head. "Long time no see, shit-for-brains."
"Sanji, am I possessive?" Luffy asked bluntly.
Sanji's eyebrows raised slightly. He looked between the boy still holding onto him and Nami, holding the candle and some laughter both.
"Someone finally point it out to you, did they?" he finally drawled.
"You mean I really am?" Luffy said with some mix of surprise and anxiety. "But I don't…"
"If you don't believe me, just know that in other company I would be flirting with your gorgeous lady friend there," he gestured to Nami, who smiled in appreciation at his flattery. "But I only had to suggest I would around you, and you're already upset."
"No I'm not!" Luffy protested.
"I can tell that you are. Your grip just tightened and you keep glancing at her over your shoulder." Nami hadn't seen any such signs in the dim light, but Luffy froze up like a deer caught with his hoof in a cookie jar — or a child in headlights. "And now you're worried about her taking me away from you, right?"
Luffy bit his tongue. "Might be."
Nami had been planning to just stay quiet and watch the situation pan out, but she could see the conflict on Luffy's face even with only the candle's flame.
"Alright, alright," she interrupted, "we got what we came for. Let's go."
She grabbed Luffy's hand and tugged him towards the exit, but they were only almost out the door when Sanji called to them, "Luffy? Don't worry too much about it. It's perfectly natural for someone who's gone through all you have."
Luffy sucked in his lips and nodded, but Nami turned back in curiosity.
"And what does that mean?" she asked, ignoring the look Luffy gave her.
"Well, it makes sense that he wants to hold onto people, doesn't it?" Sanji drew a box of cigarettes from his pocket along with a lighter, seemingly in preparation to light one up, but held off while Luffy was still there. "When all he's really had before are people who leave."
Luffy pulled harshly on Nami's hand, making her follow him out the door and to the car. Just before they had gone out, though, she had seen him snuff the candle out with his fingers, leaving Sanji in darkness.
As they buckled into their seats, Nami looked back at the door, where the half-shadowed form of Sanji lingered. "Come again soon," it said with a pleasant smile.
The drive was long and silent. When Nami dropped Luffy off at his place, she had already driven away when she realised she had never asked him how he knew Japanese.
Late that night, Luffy was leaning over the side of his bed, watching Ace perform the ritual check for monsters. A minute passed as he stared at Ace's back before he spoke.
"Nii-chan?"
Ace pulled out his head and smiled at him. Luffy mimicked his smile and they mirrored each other, one from above and the other below the mattress.
"No monsters tonight," Ace announced cheerfully, taking off the oven mitt and colander before placing both along with the spatula inside their special drawer in Luffy's nightstand, next to the disinfectant.
"Nii-chan," Luffy said again, catching Ace's wrist. He mumbled something, but repeated himself more loudly when Ace blinked to indicate he hadn't heard. "You're my brother, right?"
Ace's hand twitched in Luffy's grip and his lips parted soundlessly. The two stared at each other, paralysed and breathless, for much more than a single moment while both worried over the answer.
Ace stood suddenly, his wrist tearing away from Luffy's hand and the younger would have sworn it was painful, but then he leaned down and collected Luffy into his arms neatly, lifting him off the bed. Luffy clutched onto Ace's neck for support.
Ace pivoted and crossed the room, sitting on his own bed with Luffy in his lap. He leaned against the wall and pulled his little brother tight against him. "Yeah. Yeah I am." He tucked his head down, nuzzling against Luffy's hair. "No matter what happens."
"Forever?" Luffy asked. "Always?"
"And more." Ace felt the boy bury his face in the crook of his neck and tightened his grip. They stayed that way for the rest of the night; Ace was already drifting away to sleep when he vaguely felt himself being kissed.
Luffy was awake much longer. When Ace was clearly asleep, Luffy pulled away by a little to raise himself and kiss his big brother three times, once on his cheek, once on his forehead, and once on the corner where lips met cheek. He didn't risk anything more, but when he settled back into place, he whispered to himself, "My brother," and fell into slumber to the sound of Ace's heart and breath.
It was the first time they shared a bed, and it wasn't the last.
A/N: if a kid ever asks you to do something like look under their bed for monsters, the best thing you can do is have fun with it. Once, I was asked to babysit my cousin when he was three, and a supposedly usual lunchtime resulted in him spending two years convinced he was a cat.
The chapter title is based on multiple possible interpretations. Pick whichever you like. …And now, I have exams to study for.
Okay, you guys, here's an open question. What characters do you want to see be a part of the story? Other than the straw hats and Sabo, whom I have plans for that can't be changed, of course.