Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was nothing worse than a storm. 

The cottage roof could barely take a gentle drizzle, much less a full blown hurricane. The rattling of the windows was deafening, echoing off of the walls and shaking the silverware in their drawer. The cold breeze had somehow even managed to worm its way into the house, freezing every space in the house that wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the fireplace. There truly was nothing worse than a storm in Dadan’s cottage, the cramped walls turning into a tundra-like environment for the occupant.

Well, there was one thing worse than a storm, and it was the fact that Dadan was apparently not going to be the only occupant within her cottage anymore.

“What the hell is that?” The woman stared at the bundle that Garp was handing to her, watching the blob of blankets wriggle in the grasp of his large fingers. “Baby.”

Dadan blinked, giving Garp an incredulous look before she snatched the bundle from his hands, carefully holding it in her arms. “Well why the hell are you holding it like a damn dog?! You really are a menace to society…” She rotated the bundle in her arms, shifting the blankets to try and uncover the baby’s face, “and what the fuck is this swaddle? What, are you trying to suffocate the kid?” Tugging a corner of the blanket, she revealed a round pair of cheeks with a smattering of freckles across it. The baby’s eyebrows were furrowed in anguish. “Hm, he’s a funny looking thing.”

“He’s yours now.”

Dadan’s eyes shot up to the man standing in front of her, ready to launch the baby out of the window and into the icy rain. “What the hell do you mean it’s mine?! I’m not taking care of this little shit, I hate brats!” Garp gave her a blank stare, but the glint in his eyes was anything but passive. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be handing him over to a criminal like you.”

She paused her panicked rampage to glower at him. Garp held all the cards in his hands, playing the one where he could easily throw her in jail under any given circumstances. Dadan rarely regretted anything, but as she held the small bundle in her arms she was definitely regretting committing so many robberies.

 “Garp-”

“I know, they were only small convenient stores, but this is only a small boy. I need you to take care of him for me, my job is too important to have him under my care.” Dadan’s eyes widened at him. “ Boy? ”

Garp nodded and leaned over to glance at the baby’s form snuggled in Dadan’s arms. “He’s Roger’s kid. His name is Ace.”

 She glanced down at the squishy face in her arms, watching his nose wiggle with every sleepy breath. Sighing, she looked up at Garp with a defeated look.

“I’ll take care of him for you. As long as I need to.”

Dadan was two seconds away from booting this child into the sky not even twenty minutes after Garp left.

When Garp had opened the door to leave, the rainy wind had shot through the door and slammed it behind him, effectively lowering the temperature in the cottage to subzero level and scaring the baby half to death. Dadan had immediately been startled by Ace’s first scream, the young boy’s lungs having enough sound in them to rival the thundering outside. She quickly moved the boy from the living room, hustling towards her bedroom for blankets while cooing to the boy in a panicked tone. 

“Shh, shh baby- I’m gonna get you all cradled up, don’t worry.” As she set the bundle of blankets on her bed and threw open her linen closet, she realized that she had nowhere to set this baby and even less blankets to wrap him in. She turned around to pick up the baby and figure out where exactly he would fit when she came face to face with an empty blanket. “What in the goddamn- Ace?! ”

A small babble from the hallway directed her attention to a stark naked boy crawling across the floor in record speed. “Get back here you little shit!” Dadan sprinted to snatch up the baby from the hallway, but when she reached the doorway he was nowhere in sight. “What-” A curious gurgle sounded from the living room. Carefully watching the floor where she ran, Dadan flew back into the living room and began frantically searching for the runaway boy, bending over to look under the couch. “Garp didn’t tell me you could crawl, I can’t believe I let myself get into this, he had to have known this would be worse than prison. He played me-” 

A loud burble across the room caused Dadan to shoot up, her jaw dropping at where Ace was sitting. 

His chunky hand was reaching towards the bright flame of the fireplace, clearly enjoying the warmth it gave off onto his cold little body. “ Ace, you damn brat!” With strength she didn’t even know she had, she lifted the couch out of her way and pulled the infant into her arms with lightning speed. She held the baby close as she sighed, relieved at the way he calmly wiggled in her large grasp. “You’re an absolute troublemaker, aren’t you, boy?”

A shrill scream caused her to thrust the baby away from her, holding him out at arm’s length like he was poisonous. Ace was clearly unhappy that Dadan had intercepted his plans to roast himself alive, and voiced his frustration by howling like an abused puppy. Dadan gave an exasperated sigh, pulling the wriggling baby back into her chest as a poor attempt to soothe him. “I don’t know how much I can put up with this, Ace. I don’t even know how I’m going to feed you.”

Luckily he’ll grow up to be independent, and I can dump him back onto Garp, she mused, or he’ll at least become a tolerable boy when he gets older. I hope. Dadan didn’t have the energy to get upset as Ace projectile vomited his previous meal onto her shirt.

“You better not be draining that water just yet, boy!” The silence throughout the house was suspicious, and Dadan moved from her spot on the couch where she was absentmindedly watching television. “Ace, I said when I come over there you better still be in that tub!” The sound of wet feet slapping against the linoleum floors confirmed Dadan’s suspicions and she sighed as she walked past the empty bathroom. “Where are you hiding,   boy? Better to get this over with now than have me force you to take another hour long scrub.”

“No!” Dadan followed the sound of the muffled exclamation to her bedroom, bending over to look under her bed at the five year old’s favorite hiding spot. The young boy in question was staring back at her through soapy bangs, and the severe lack of clothes paired with his ferocious glare made Dadan chuckle.

“C’mon, back in the tub.”
“I’m already clean.”
“Yeah well, now that you’ve gone and hid from me, you’re all dirty again. You’ve become a dust bunny, boy.” Ace wrinkled his nose at her and wiggled farther back under the bed. 

“I don’t wanna take a bath, I like being a dust bunny. And you’re gonna put me in your weird shame book!” Dadan let out a bark of laughter and reached to grab Ace’s skinny arm, sliding him across the wood floor into a tight embrace. “It’s called a scrapbook, Ace, and it’s not my fault you do so much stupid shit I have to take pictures of.”

After Dadan finally got the small baby wrangled after Garp dumped him on her, she figured she might as well try to make the best of having a small bundle of chub in her possession that practically demanded her attention anyway. She dug up her crappy old digital camera from her closet, and taking a few pictures of the little troublemaker, she found that she quite adored the little smile that spread across his squishy freckled cheeks when she hit the shutter button. In reality, he probably only liked the tiny beeping noises and the flashing lights, but Dadan would take what she could get. 

What she was getting now however, was the despicable pout of an unwilling child shoved into soapy water. “C’mon Ace, at least act like you’re having fun. You look like I’m torturing you to death in this picture.” 

“You are! You’re killing me!” Dadan wiped a smudge of dirt off of his freckles, pinching his cheek as he gave an animalistic hiss. “Washing you once in a while isn’t gonna kill you, boy. You were due for a bath a month ago anyway, I’m being generous letting you run around the house like a maniac without giving you a proper spanking.” Ace grimaced at her words.

“You’re not supposed to spank people, it hurts.”

Dadan sighed guiltily and ruffled Ace’s soggy hair. “I know it hurts, I’m sorry baby. I’ll try not to spank you any more.”

“Even if I try to do boxing against your china cabinet again? Or if I go potty on your houseplants? Or when I wore your undies as a cape and ran to the store-” Dadan turned on the showerhead and snapped a picture of Ace’s terrified scream as the cold water sprayed his head. “Don’t push it, boy.”

“I am going to send your ass into orbit.”

Garp raised an eyebrow as he dangled the toddler in front of Dadan, serious as ever. “Are you now? You’re going to attack a Marine?” Dadan shot him a silent glare as she lifted the toddler from his arms. The small boy she held looked up at her from under the brim of a wide straw hat, black tufts of hair covering his wide owl eyes as he blinked up at her. A large bandage spanned the area under his eye. Dadan angrily pointed at the injury and gave Garp a smoldering glare. “What did you do to him you fucking monster?”

Garp shook his head, barely fazed at the accusation. “He did that to himself, don’t get mad at me for his own stunts.” Dadan pulled the boy close to her as she checked for any more bandages. She moved the boy’s ratty tank top sleeve off of him to reveal a large bruise. “Where-”

“He’s my grandson.” Dadan looked up at him with angry eyes, clutching the boy tighter to her chest. 

“Why are you dumping him on me, then? He’s your own grandson.”

“I work for the government, Dadan. You can’t expect me to be able to take care of him every second of the day.” And I have blackmail on you, anyway, the unspoken glint in his eyes said. Dadan took a deep breath before she spoke again. “I meant where did he get the bruise.” 

In the most nonchalant voice spoken on Earth, like Garp was mentioning the weather, he simply said “discipline.”

Dadan didn’t care about her blackmail as she screamed in his face and slammed the door on him, effectively shunning him from the house and taking the small boy with her back to the bathroom. As she set him down on the toilet to begin bandaging his arms, he blinked like he realized what was happening and began to wail, tears streaming down his face as Dadan placed a large bandaid on his bruise. She didn’t know if he was crying because his own grandfather hit him, his own grandfather left him in the arms of a complete stranger, or if Dadan’s fingers brushing against his bruises just hurt that bad, but she was sure as hell going to keep him from crying like this again. Her heart clenched as she saw Ace standing in the doorway, watching her patch up the toddler with a frightened look on his face.

She was  going to keep this from happening ever again.

“No, Ace. We can’t trade him in for a kitten.”

Ace glared across the table at the toddler who stuck his tongue out at him. “He’s so ugly though! Kitties are cuter, and he doesn’t even wanna be here anyways! I don’t wanna have a baby in the house!” Dadan sighed as she slapped Ace’s wrist before he could launch his food at the other boy sitting across the table. “His name is Luffy, Ace, and he’s not your baby brother, he’s five. You’re only three years older than him.”

“I’m not anyone’s brother! And you’re not my mommy! I wanna go home!” Dadan frowned at the toddler slapping his small palms on the table, throwing a pint-sized tantrum from where he sat perched on a pillow to reach the dinner table. If Dadan was going to be forced to have a family, she wished it could at least be like the nice suburban ones on TV instead of the two filthy boys in front of her that were attempting to stab each other with forks. She snarled and grabbed both of them by their collars, holding them tight as they struggled against her grip on them. 

“Listen to me, I don’t care how ugly either one of you is, or how much you hate each other, you are going to act like civilized human beings under this roof,” she turned to Luffy as he tried to worm his way out of her hold on his shirt collar, “and you. This i s your home now, boy. As long as you live here, you’re going to follow my rules.” Luffy strained against her and threw his head back in a yell. 

“No! I’m gonna run into the woods and live with wolves instead of you! I hate both of you!” Before Dadan could argue, Luffy slipped out of his tank top before pushing his hat back onto his head, and ran shirtless to the front door, flinging it open and sprinting into the woods surrounding Dadan’s cottage. Dadan furrowed her face into her palm, so, so tired of these boys. She gave Ace a fiery glare as he let out a laugh and blew a raspberry at the open door. “Go to your room.”

“But-”

“ GO.” 

Ace went scampering to his room, and Dadan sighed as she stared at the empty dinner table. She really was just as much of a monster as Garp. Shaking her head, she stood up and moved to the kitchen’s junk drawer, pulling out a flashlight.

Garp didn’t matter to her anymore, she had a son to find.

Dadan was surprised just how fast this kid could run. Luckily his shoes left little footprints in the soft dirt leading from Dadan’s house, but she felt like she had been following the trail for nearly an hour. She felt herself begin to grow worried for the boy; no matter if Luffy hated her or not, it was late, and the darkness of the night was closing in on the trees. She silently prayed there weren’t any animal traps out here, hearing a twig snap in the distance. She definitely hoped there weren’t any animals to be trapped.

 Hearing a soft sniffle, she sighed in relief as she positioned the flashlight beam on a bright yellow straw hat peeking out from the bushes. Wading through the leaves as quietly as possible, she leaned down to look at the shirtless toddler crying into the dirt. “Luffy, c’mon, let’s get back to the house.” Luffy let out another sniffle and curled farther in on himself. 

“I don’t wanna go.” Dadan let out an exhausted breath as she placed a large hand on his back, attempting to coax him into standing. “Luffy, there are bugs and scary animals out here. I don’t want you to get eaten alive by mosquitoes or bears,” she chuckled as she lowered her voice to a playful tone, “or maybe there’s a scary woodland cannibal, waiting for sad little boys without their mothers so they could snatch them up and eat them.”

Luffy didn’t laugh, burying his face into his arms with a muffled sob. “Ace wants me to be eaten.” 

Dadan frowned and leaned down to press on Luffy’s back with a firmer hand, rubbing his shaking back. “Ace doesn’t want that, Luffy.”

“Ace hates m-me.” Dadan’s heart wrenched at the sound of Luffy’s small cries. Turning Luffy around, she picked him up and cradled him in her arms, slipping off his straw hat to run her fingers through his hair. “He doesn’t hate you baby, he’s just a little brat is all,” she chuckled, “he’s had the whole house to himself since he was a baby, he’s just acting like a little dog trying to defend his territory. He’ll warm up to you soon, Luffy.” She pressed a smacking kiss to the side of Luffy’s face, replacing his tears with a blood red lipstick smear. “I should know; he used to act the same to me too, but he warmed up to me real fast.”

Luffy sniffled as he wrapped his small arms around Dadan’s large neck, sniffling into her ginger hair as she started to carry him back to the cottage with the flashlight to guide her.

Opening the front door, she was surprised to see Ace sitting on the couch, snapping his head away from where he was watching late night cartoons. Dadan fixed him with a halfhearted glower, “I thought I told you to go to your room, boy.”

Ace shifted in his spot on the couch, looking nervously to the floor. “I wanted to know if Luffy was ok.” Dadan’s frown immediately faltered as her heart squeezed at the sentiment, and she had to turn her head to hide her teary eyes behind Luffy’s hat. “... Go start up a bath, Ace. I’ll get Luffy cleaned up and then I’ll heat up another dinner for us, okay?” She placed Luffy on the floor, letting out a breath of laughter at his sleepy expression. “I’ll even let you and Ace watch more cartoons before bed.”

Luffy gave her a wobbly smile before he waddled behind Ace to the bathroom, leaving Dadan to herself as she moved back to the kitchen. Ace’s voice drifted down the hallway with the sound of running water as Dadan stuck Luffy and Ace’s plates back into the microwave.

“Here, you can have the soft towels this time. Don’t expect me to give you them every time  though, this is just because it’d probably feel better on your bug bites.” Dadan felt herself smile wider than she had in a while, and she instinctively put up a hand to cover it.

God, how could she let herself fall in love with these sons of hers.

There should’ve been an instruction manual for children, specifically children like Luffy. Hell, there should just be one manual for Luffy on his own.

“Where have you been going this  entire time?”

“The bushes? Where else?”

Dadan facepalmed for what had to have been the twentieth time within the hour, the sound reverberating within the small bathroom. “Luffy, where have you been washing your hands then?” Luffy smiled proudly as he placed his hands on his hips. “I don’t wash my hands.” The reverb of the slap in the bathroom came this time from Dadan’s hand lightly smacking Luffy’s forehead. “I can’t believe this shit-”

“You said shit!”

“You said shit!”

“Boy, go to your room!” Ace giggled as Luffy poked fun at his mother’s slip up.

“But you said I had to hold the camera, remember? Because you want blackmail for your shame book.” Luffy tilted his head at Ace’s words, confusion written across his face as he looked at Dadan. “What’s a shame book? And I thought mail was white, like the ones that your letters come in.” Dadan sighed and threw a quick glare in Ace’s direction. “It’s a scrapbook, Luffy. I take pictures of you and your brother to keep and look at later when I want to remember them, and since I got pictures of your brother when he was potty training, I thought I’d get ones of you too!” She paused for a moment, “although your brother was… significantly younger than you when I took them. Six years old is fairly late to begin potty training… It’s ok though, it’s an accomplishment and it still deserves to be recorded.”

As she picked Luffy up and set him on a stool in front of the toilet, Luffy spoke up again. “What’s blackmail though? Why’s it in the shame book?” Before Dadan could say anything, the name ‘Garp’ was whispered across the room. She shot her head over to Ace, whose face was expressionless. She blinked worriedly for a second before turning back over to Luffy, helping him undo his belt. “It’s like…” She gained a mischievous grin on her face, “it’s like when I want you to do something, so I threaten to show your potty training photos to any girl you bring back here so you’ll never have a wife. Then, you’ll be so embarrassed that you’ll do whatever I want you to so I won’t have to show those photos anymore.” Luffy gave Dadan a smug smile as he fumbled with the button on his shorts. “Joke’s on you, I don’t wanna have a wife. Girls are gross.”

“Nobody cares if you’re gay Luffy, put your weewee up. It’s gross.” Dadan turned to yell at Ace about where he learned that word, but she must’ve let go of Luffy’s waist in the process because his squeal barely registered in her brain before she was doused in toilet water from Luffy’s tumble.

The camera shutter echoed quietly in the doorway as Ace let out a giggle.

“Hehe, blackmail.”

The steam from the glass of warm milk left drops of condensation on Ace’s cheeks where Dadan kissed his freckles before bed. “Why do you have to kiss those, they’re ugly.” Dadan gasped in horror as she pinched Ace’s cheek, rubbing her thumb across his growing patch of freckles. They spanned nearly across his nose now, and Ace was getting tired of Dadan having to press kisses to every single speckle on his face. “Your freckles are precious, baby! When I was your age, I always wanted freckles. All the cute girls had freckles when I was young.” Ace huffed in annoyance and smacked his palms over his cheeks. “Well girls are gross, and I don’t want freckles like them.” Dadan flicked her finger across his forehead, eliciting a yelp from him. 

“Don’t call girls gross, girls do more for this world than anyone ever admits. You better grow some respect for girls before I smack it into you myself, boy,” Dadan narrowed her eyes as Ace shifted under the covers, “and I’m not afraid to smack you if you disrespect a lady, boy.” She gave Ace an even more intimidating glare, leaning over him as he pulled the covers up to his chin. “Speaking of calling girls gross, where did you learn that word.” Ace blinked in confusion. “You call it a weewee too? You’ve called it that since I was a baby.” Dadan faltered for a moment before she resumed her stance over Ace. “Not that one, the one about your brother not wanting a wife.”

Ace’s eyes widened in understanding, “Ohh, you mean gay. I saw it on TV once,” Dadan made a mental note to monitor Ace’s channel surfing, “Luffy said he didn’t like girls, so he’s gay. I’m just informing him of his circumstances. ” He took a smug sip of his milk. “I learned that on TV too.”

“Yeah, I figured you little shit. You’re grounded from TV for a week, by the way.” Dadan chuckled at Ace’s whines and pouts. “I don’t want you picking stuff up from television like that, Ace. If you had called him that in any other circumstance- ” she gave him a sly wink, “-you could’ve used it mean. Sometimes the TV talks about mean things.” Ace’s eyes went dark as he pulled the covers back up to his chin. 

“Like blackmail?” Dadan stilled on the covers, whatever life lesson she had been planning to teach Ace completely launched out of her mind’s reach. She reached her hand out to rub her thumb against Ace’s freckles, not looking the boy in the eyes. “How… Why did you say Garp’s name?” 

Ace pressed his cheek into Dadan’s hand, letting her cradle his face. “I remembered whenever Luffy first came here, and he made you take him in when you didn’t want to, and I thought about you showing Luffy’s baby pictures to a girl because he didn’t want to do something,” he looked into his mother’s eyes with a small voice, “that’s blackmail. Isn’t it.”

Dadan sat quietly on the bed, stroking her palm against Ace’s cheek to steel her nerves. She figured she couldn’t hide herself from her own son anymore. “Your mother’s done some terrible things, Ace. I may live without regrets, but I regret having to raise you as someone who’s committed so many petty crimes.” Ace remained quiet before he lowered the sheets from his chin and pulled Dadan’s hand to his lips, pressing a small kiss to her fingertips.

“I don’t care. I won’t blackmail you, you’re my mama.” Dadan smiled at Ace as she pulled him into her chest, pressing kisses to every freckle she could reach. “I love you, boy. I never want you to forget that. I keep you here because I love you, not because I’m being forced to.” Ace gave her one final squeeze as she lowered him into the covers, tucking him in and grabbing the empty milk glass from his nightstand.

“So does this mean I’m ungrounded from TV? Since it teaches me stuff?” Dadan gave him a deadpan stare as she grabbed the bedroom doorknob. “If you keep toeing the line like that, I’ll scrape up some money and send you to school, boy. Then you’ll really learn stuff, since you wanna be taught so bad.” Dadan laughed at how fast Ace shut his mouth and turned over with the covers over him, shutting the door behind her and leaving her boys to sleep.

The silence in the room was comfortable as Ace’s breathing slowed, before Luffy whispered in the darkness.

“So, can I be gay now?”

“You like boys?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I got good news for you, friend.”

Dadan barely noticed the front door opening as she stirred her coffee, blowing smoke out of the window as she took one last drag from her cigarette. She didn’t smoke as much anymore since she didn’t want the boys to get sick, or even worse, pick up the habit.

“Which rascal was that?”

“It’s Luffy!” 

“Close the door behind you, we don’t want bugs getting in, baby.” She snubbed out her cigarette and took a sip from her coffee cup, smiling as Luffy ran back out the front door with a bug net bouncing against the top of his hat. She had scrounged up enough money to spoil her sons, and she had bought it for him after seeing him chase beetles around the front of the cottage. She had given Ace a small pocket knife, instructing him to be as careful as possible with it, but still smiling as he carved out his mother’s name on a tree stump near their home. “Close the door behind you sweetheart, and have fun!”

“‘Kay mama!” She smiled at the clatter of the door shutting against the bug net, grabbing the remote to turn on the morning news. As the anchor started droning on about the latest economic statistics, the door flung open again. “Which one of you is it?”

“Ace; I need my knife!”

“Alright, now remember what I said-”

“I know, don’t point it at my brother and be careful with my fingers.”

“-good boy, you stay safe out there now. Close the door behind you.” The door clattered shut once again and Dadan smiled at the sounds of happy squealing from outside. She leaned back into the couch with her coffee, tuning out all the outside noise and letting herself relax for a moment. The front door opened again, and she took a small sip of her coffee as she dazedly addressed the boy entering. “Which one of you is it this time?”

“Sabo!”
“Alright, make sure you close the door behind you, boy.”

“Yes ma’am!” Dadan smiled as she heard small footsteps retreat into the boy’s bedroom. Her boys were so sweet sometimes- Her eyes shot open as realization hit her. Wait, neither of my boys have manners. Leaping up from the couch, she set her cup down on the coffee table as she hustled over to confront the intruder in her son’s room. Just as she reached the doorframe, a small tuft of blonde came into contact with her leg.

“Oof- Sorry!” The young boy looked up at Dadan with a wide toothless grin, small dimples pressing into either side of his cheeks. With his holey smile and the way he gently held a large top hat in his little fingers, Dadan thought he was downright adorable. However, she thought as she lifted the boy by his collar to get a good look at him, cuteness didn’t cover up the fact that a stranger had ran into her boys’ room.

“Who are you, brat?” The boy’s smile didn’t fade. 

“I told you when I walked in! I’m Sabo!” Dadan narrowed her eyes at the boy, shaking him by his little blue coat collar. “That doesn’t mean anything to me, what I wanna know is why you think you can barge into my home and waltz into my sons’ room like it’s yours.” The giggle the boy let out was not the reaction Dadan was expecting, and she certainly wasn’t expecting him to respond like she didn’t know what was going on.

“It is my room though. Ace said I could share a bed with Luffy.” Before she could question why anyone would tell him he was allowed to live in her sons’ bedroom, the front door clattered open and Dadan turned to face her two boys standing at the door. Luffy pointed with his free hand, knocking the bug net against the doorframe in excitement.

“Mama found our new brother!”

Dadan rubbed her forehead between her forefinger and thumb, her headache steadily growing. “Where did you find your friend?”

“Brother,” Ace corrected, shoveling food into his mouth as he gripped Sabo’s hand in his. Dadan sighed and responded in a deadpan voice, too tired to yell at her son. “Ace, you can’t just declare him your brother, his parents are going to get mad and miss him.”

Luffy laughed from across the table and tried to reach his short arm over to grab onto Sabo’s hand as well. “It’s ok! Sabo doesn’t have parents, so they won’t get sad!”

Dadan gaped at him in exasperation, “that’s even worse!” Sabo giggled as Ace swung their hands back and forth under the table, taking another bite of the dinner Dadan had reluctantly made for him since she was unhappy with the idea of the boy staying at her house unsupervised. “It’s ok Miss Mama, I like living here already!” 

Dadan looked at Sabo’s toothless grin with weary eyes before she stood up from the table, eliciting confused stares from the boys as she left the dining room. “Finish up eating, boy. We’re calling your parents afterwards.”

The silence she received felt even worse than if the boys had started yelling at her, and she almost wanted them to.

“C’mon, let’s dial up your momma.”

“I don’t have a momma. Luffy said you’d be my new momma.” Sabo stood in front of Dadan with a pout on his face, covered by the brim of his large top hat. Dadan sighed as she held her fingers over the landline phone, letting Sabo twirl the phone cord in his little fingers. “I’d like to keep Luffy’s word to you, boy. But your real momma is probably worried sick-”

“I don’t have a real momma.” Dadan lifted her free hand to pinch Sabo’s cheek, trying to coax him into cooperating. “How old are you, boy? You look about Ace’s age, old enough to know your dad’s phone number, right?” Sabo continued to pout as he wormed the curly cord through his fingers. “I don’t have a dad.” Dadan clicked her fingernails against the plastic buttons, biting on the inside of her cheek. At first she had been impatient at the dinner table when he had proudly announced he was an orphan, but now she was getting worried as she realized this kid was acting serious towards his lack of parents. Along with the fact that Ace and Luffy had found him in the woods…

She tried to perk up as she lifted Sabo’s chin to give him a hopeful look. “Hey, if you don’t know your parent’s numbers, why don’t we try your address! You probably recognize where you live, dont’cha? Much easier to remember than a long phone number,” she lightly tugged on Sabo’s coat lapels with a teasing grin, “you have such fancy clothes, I bet you live in one of those nice neighborhoods, huh? With the fancy gates and the trimmed hedges, I bet your parents are probably worried sick for their precious little boy out here in the nasty woods. You look like a little missing prince, don’t you?”

Dadan immediately let go of the coat as Sabo burst into tears, fat drops of sadness running clear tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. “I don’t wanna go home! I don’t have parents, and I hate the fancy gates where I can’t go anywhere! I wanna live in the nasty woods with you and Luffy and Ace, and I don’t wanna be a little prince! I wanna be your son like Ace said I could…” 

Dadan’s heart wrenched at the boy’s sobs, and she scooped him up into her arms on instinct like she did with her other sons. Rocking the boy in her arms, she slipped off his hat and set it on top of the phone as she began to stroke his soft blonde curls. “It’s gonna be real hard to take you in like this, baby. I don’t want anyone to think I’ve kidnapped you,” she lowered her voice as Sabo’s wails continued, “I don’t have a good reputation, baby boy. I don’t want to ruin your life anymore than it already has been.” Sabo’s voice rang wet and shaky through the cabin walls as he wrapped his arms around Dadan’s neck, gripping her curly hair like it was a lifeline. “Nobody’s gonna care if I’m gone whether I’m kidnapped or not. If my life gets ruined anymore, I want it to be with you as my mama.” Dadan gripped the boy tighter, pressing a firm kiss to the mat of blonde hair. She couldn’t possibly imagine taking in another boy, what if Garp did actually come back for Ace and Luffy one day and found out she claimed a missing boy as her own, what if he finally arrests her and her sons are left without any care, or if they have to be under Garp’s care-

“I’ll be your new mama, baby. You don’t have to worry about not being cared for ever again.” As Sabo nuzzled his face into Dadan’s hair with quieting whimpers, she decided to damn it all. She lived her life without regrets, and she’d never regret giving this helpless boy her love.

The squeak of the rubber ducky echoed off the bathroom walls. “See Ace, bathtime is fun! I feel nice and clean already!” Ace glared at his brother with murderous intent through a foam of bubbles. “Don’t try to infect me with your propaganda.” Sabo shrugged and leaned back into the bubbles, closing his eyes to block out Luffy’s distant screams. “You’re such a suck up to mama. Little mama’s boy. We should have left you in the woods.”

Sabo remained unfazed at the insult. “Ooh, being in water apparently makes you nasty.” Ace sloshed water across the tub, shooting it directly into Sabo’s face to make him splutter. “I mean it! You always do whatever she says! You don’t even put up a fight!”

Sabo raised a sudsy eyebrow, “why would I put up a fight? All she asks me to do is wash the dishes.”

“Exactly! Dishes stink, and you don’t even try to barter or anything, you just do them like the little suck up you are!” Ace slouched back into the water, the bubbles rising up to his pout, “and then she always makes me do the most stuff.” Sabo sighed and splashed his hand around in the water as he was explaining to Ace. 

“That’s because she’ll ask you to do something simple like sweeping the hallway, and then you’ll throw a big fit and break one of the vases, so then she’ll ask you to clean up the vase, but then you get even angrier and rip all the sheets off your bed, so she’ll ask you to make the bed-”

“Yeah yeah, I get it now,” Ace’s pout grew into a mischievous grin, “but it’s fun putting up a fight anyway.” Sabo shook his head in a chuckle, leaning his head back against the rim of the tub. “At least all mama does is yell at you. I used to have a teacher that’d smack my wrist with a ruler when I’d speak out of turn.” Sabo sat waiting for a response, but looked down his little upturned nose in confusion when Ace remained silent.

“Teacher? There’s someone who teaches you things?” Sabo squinted his eyes questioningly. 

“Yeah… Like school? You know… Abc’s 123’s kinda stuff?” Sabo leaned forward when Ace looked genuinely lost. “You don’t know what school is? Not even a little?” Ace shook his head, looking away  from Sabo’s baffled gape. 

“Mama’s threatened to send me to school, but I never knew what it was. I never wanted to know after she threatened to send Luffy’s grandfather to hell one time, she said she’d hand ‘im to the devil himself.” Sabo laughed at the idea of his mother threatening an old man, not knowing who Garp was. “School’s kinda like that if you go to one of the strict ones, I guess. The ones your mama probably would want you to go to are probably much nicer,” Sabo smiled wistfully, “I wanna go to one of those schools.” Sabo nearly shot out of the water at the slap of water hitting Ace’s flailing palms.

“Why?! I just told you mama was threatening me with it, why do you wanna go?” Ace splashed water into Sabo’s face again, “are you a weird mass-o-chist?” Sabo spit a mouthful of water into Ace’s face, laughing at the squeal it elicited. “It’s masochist, dummy. And I wanna go because if you go to school, you can go to college then! And that’s where you get extra smart!” 

Ace snickered at the remark. “Luffy could stand to get some extra brains.” The sound of glass shattering a few rooms over made Sabo laugh as Ace’s point was proven. Ace leaned forward again, tilting his head to the side with genuine confusion. “I don’t understand why mama wouldn’t send us over then. We’re all stupid, especially you,” Ace dodged the soapy fist swung at him, “so why wouldn’t mama put us in school?” Sabo sunk back into the water, mulling over the question. 

“I dunno, it’s not like she’d really be losing anything. We’d finally be out of the house for a little bit, and for good reason too,” he tapped his chin in thought, “all she’d have to do is gather a bit of money and send us off. I wonder why she hasn’t already…” 

Ace’s eyes shot open in silent realization, and his mouth pulled into a tight line as that realization morphed into slight terror. Dadan didn’t have any money to gather; that’s the entire reason why him and his brothers bathed together to save water, the reason why their cottage remained rickety and worn, the reason why they never used the gas from the heater unless the boys were absolutely freezing to death. Maybe Sabo didn’t realize it, maybe he thought the cottage and the bathtimes were homey, and that the heater was just Dadan being… well, Dadan. Ace glanced up at the boy in question, who’d noticed Ace’s lack of attention and stared at him as he tapped his dimples. “What’s wrong?”

Ace turned towards the shouts from the living room and quickly jumped out of the bathtub, running towards the door. “Hey! Mama said-” Ace shushed him as he shut the door and sprinted back into the tub, lowering his voice. 

“Mama doesn’t send us to school because she can’t pay for it. She used to do bad things to get money, and since she has us now she doesn’t get any more money now,” he gripped Sabo’s shoulders and looked into his saddened stare with a serious look, “we can’t tell her that we know about school, okay? It’d make it a lot easier on everyone, and then Dadan wouldn’t have to worry about any more money. We’ll tell Luffy too, but we cannot let mama know that we want to go to school.”

Sabo shook his head, grabbing Ace’s hands in his. “Promise?” Ace shook his head and gripped Sabo’s pruny fingers tighter, “promise.”

Sabo nodded before he looked around in confusion. “Where is Luffy anyway? It’s almost time to get out of the bath-” He was interrupted as Dadan booted the door open, a snarling, naked Luffy in hand as he tried to claw his way out of her arms. 

“MOVE BOYS, I GOT ‘IM!”

Ace and Sabo barely had a second’s notice before Luffy was unceremoniously dumped on top of them in a wet heap.

The bedroom door flew open. Silence hung thick in the boy’s bedroom, their soft sleeping breaths the only thing cutting through the quiet. Dadan narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she slowly shut the door again. She slowly made her way back to the living room before she heard the noise again. Dadan quickly turned back to the bedroom door and swung it open, stepping into the room. “Alright boys, the jig is up. What are you doing in here?” Ace sleepily turned over, blinking slowly in the light from the hallway. “What… Mama, we’re sleeping.” Sabo’s light snores as he rolled over in the hallway light backed up Ace’s statement, his blonde eyelashes fluttering from where he slept beside Luffy. Luffy however, was a terrible actor.

“Yeah we’re- we’re uh. Asleep.” Dadan raised an eyebrow as she looked towards where Luffy was clearly propped against his pillow, the seven year old wide awake and clearly trying to hide something. Even Sabo’s usual angel face was twisted into obvious anger towards Luffy. “You’re asleep?” Luffy nodded proudly, like he was the most smug criminal in the world.

“Yes, I am sleeping right now.” Dadan almost burst out laughing as Ace threw a pillow directly at Luffy’s head with a frustrated growl. “You’re an idiot!”

“What, I convinced her though!”

“You obviously didn’t, stupid!” Even Sabo had fixed Luffy with a glare and stuck his tongue out at him. Dadan shook her head with a chuckle as she made her way over to Luffy. “C’mon now, you two are big ten year olds. Big boys don’t call each other stupid.”

“You called Ace stupid like two days ago!” Dadan hummed at Sabo’s retort before flicking his little upturned nose, pulling a yelp from him. “That’s because that boy thought he could take a bath with the garden hose, and dry off on the sidewalk where all the cars could see him so I wouldn’t make him take one in the house. Besides, I’m that boy’s mama, I’m allowed to call him out on his B.S.”

Ace curled back into the blankets with a furious pout. “It was technically a bath, you just don’t wanna admit you’re wrong.” Dadan chuckled as she held out her hand and pinned Luffy with a furrowed brow. “Alright son, hand over what you boys are messing with.”

Luffy crossed his arms and turned his nose away from her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We told you already, we were just sleeping.”

Dadan thrust her palm out farther, bumping Sabo in the nose with her rings. “You have til the count of five, boy.”

Luffy threw her a smug grin. “I dunno how to count, so it doesn’t matter to me.”

Dadan wrapped her fingers around his arm.

“No no!! Okay okay, I’ll give it to you! Just don’t make me take another cold bath!” He stuffed his hand under his pillow and deposited a small plastic box into his mother’s outstretched hand. “Don’t be mad mama, we just wanted to play with it a little longer…” She blinked at the small box in her hands, turning it over to see a small panel with screws in the back.

“I can’t be mad, I have no idea what the hell this is.” Sabo sighed and reached up, pressing a button on the front of the box so it’d begin beeping again, a faint glow coming from the screen on the front. Luffy bounced in his spot on the bed in excitement, wiggling Sabo along with him. “It’s a gameboy! All the other kids have them!”

Dadan stilled at the words, ignoring the game console to stare at Luffy with a serious look. “What other kids.” Luffy motioned to his back, swinging his arms to imitate something round on top of his spine. “The ones with the big bags on them! Like hobos, but fancier.” Another pillow came shooting across the room at Luffy’s head again, Ace’s smart remark following soon after it. 

“They’re called backpacks, idiot, and they’re for schoolkids, not hobos.” Ace’s face instantly paled at the words, and he looked at Dadan in horror. 

Sabo’s skin turned a similar shade as Dadan glanced at both of them in concern. “What’s wrong? Why are you two so nervous, you steal from those kids or something?” Before she could begin to get riled up over accusations, Luffy spoke up to clear up the issue.

“No, they’re scared because we weren’t ‘sposed to mention school because you don’t have any money to send us there, and it’d…” his face fell as his words faded, “...it’d....make you really sad…” Dadan’s eyes filled with sadness as she looked at her sons’ downcast faces.

Letting out a sigh, she set the small console on the boys’ dresser and sat on the edge of Ace’s bed, patting the boy’s knee through the covers. “I appreciate you boys considering my feelings, but you really shouldn’t have to worry about your own mama,” she held her breath as she let out her next words, “in fact… there’s something I’ve been keeping from you boys about school, too.” 

… I actually have enough money to send you boys to get an education, whenever you boys want.” Her son’s eyes widened in shock, silent screams written across their faces. As she realized the silence remained unbroken, she continued slowly, “I just never told you because… I can’t send all of you, only about two of you.” She laughed dejectedly. “I suppose you boys were right, I don’t have enough money to send you to-”

“I’ll stay behind!” Every head in the room swiveled to stare at Ace, who slammed his hands down onto the blankets in declaration. “Like hell! You can’t just decide that for yourself, it’s either all or nothin’, boy-” 

“But I don’t even wanna go to school! Sabo and Luffy are the ones you should send; Sabo wants to go to college, and Luffy should be able to go too since he’s the youngest and he needs it!” 

Dadan slapped her hands on the bed to reassert herself, “You aren’t the one who-”

Ace slammed his hands down harder, “if you really want me to get educated that bad, I can just learn it from them! They’ll already be going anyway, they can just teach it back to me!” Dadan spluttered as Ace shot out of the bed, standing atop the covers to loom over his mother. “You shouldn’t be holding them back because you can’t push all of us forward at once.” Tears welled in Ace’s eyes from the force of his yelling. “They’re the ones you’re supposed to be rescuing, anyway. I was just given to you as a baby for no reason, there’s nothing to save me from.” Dadan stared at her son for a moment before she caved, covering the first sob that came from her with a glittering hand of rings. Ace remained standing on the bed for a moment, bewildered at the first sight of his mother crying before he launched himself on her, tears streaming from his eyes as well. “S-Stop, I hate crybabies, you’re s-s-sposed to be yelling at me.” Dadan let out another sob and scooped him up into her grip, squeezing him tighter than any chokehold.

“No, you’re right, boy. I shouldn’t be depriving my sons of a better life.” She let out a wet laugh as Sabo stood to hug her as well, pulling the boy in to press kisses to his dimples. “I can’t believe one of my boys wants to go to college one day, must’ve raised you right at least.” Sabo hugged her tightly and pressed a kiss of his own to her cheek, “always, mama.”

Dadan chuckled as she felt a small weight throw itself against her back, her shoulder sleeve immediately soaked through with tears. “I-I dunno why we’re crying, but I want hugs too!” Dadan pulled Luffy over her shoulders with a bark of laughter to cradle all of her sons in her large arms, rocking them back and forth. “I promise I’ll get you registered as soon as possible, babies,” she pressed kisses to each one of their heads, “and I’ll get you boys started on a better life, from now on.”

She continued pressing kisses to their hair as their tears dried and their sniffles turned into even breaths, the beeping from the gameboy dying down along with the console battery.

Dadan had enthusiastically went down to the nearest elementary school and gotten the boys registered, and although presenting her identification was nerve wracking, she smiled proudly as she tucked Luffy and Sabo’s registration forms away into the linen closet. As they departed from the school and walked through the double doors of a large building instead of the worn door of their cottage, the boys grew confused.

“Why are we going here, me and Sabo ran to that little convenience store to get food a few days ago?”

“This is a store?! ” Luffy gawked at the rows of colorful products lining the aisles as he was tugged along by Dadan’s large hand when he stopped to look at something. Dadan huffed as she nodded in response, “the money doesn’t go towards me putting you boys in school, it goes towards the supplies,” she glowered at Luffy’s hand sneaking into the shopping basket draped on her arm, “which means you aren’t getting any candy this time, boy.” Luffy pouted as he went to go put the bag back on the shelf, laughing when Ace also got caught with a bag of chips. 

Although Dadan felt bad about not being able to get everything on the list (“Just borrow some from a friend,” she had grimaced when she saw how pricy the colored pencils Sabo showed her were), she had to admit that her heart had burned warmer than it had in a while as Luffy marveled at the notebook he got to pick out.

“Please, please mama, can we get one candy this time? Just one?” Dadan sighed as her sons gathered around her, batting their eyelashes at her for mercy. She glowered at Ace as she noted how he strategically moved Sabo in front of him, knowing his brother’s baby face and his bright blue eyes still affected her even if he was an eleven year old. “Fine, but I get to choose which one you get,” she ignored their defeated groans, “I have the money, so I get to pick.” She turned to the boys with a sly grin, “ and I get to take as many pictures as I want of you boys before you head to school.” She chuckled evilly at their echoed groans, louder than the last round.

Her eyes quickly scanned the bags of candy near the checkout lane, strategically checking each price and comparing it as- “Aha,” she exclaimed, grabbing a small package and setting it on the conveyor.

“What’s that? It’s so small, it can’t possibly be for all of us.”

“Gum.” The boys all whined at her to pick something else before she flicked each one of their foreheads. “I’m not paying four dollars for something that’s gonna be gone in two seconds, you boys can either have the gum for ninety-nine cents, or I can whoop y’all’s butts for free.”

The boys gladly accepted the package and divided the strips of gum between them, and Dadan laughed as she gave the cashier a few wads of bills before she stuffed the package in her pocket. Carrying the bags home as Luffy continually tried to peek into them to stare at his pencils, Dadan handed Ace the gum package and smiled at the boy’s surprise. “You’re letting me have more?” Dadan nodded, using her hand to hide the package from his brothers who were busy gushing over their supplies. “I’ll even let you hide it from your brothers, you don’t have to share if you don’t want. You’ve been real responsible lately, and you’re doing your brothers a big service by staying behind, so I wanna spoil you a little once in a while,” she pinched his freckled grin, “you’re a good big brother, boy. I hope you know that.” Ace smiled as he sneakily slipped a few more pieces of gum into his mouth before he shoved the packet into his pocket. 

Dadan snickered and shared a few elbow nudges with her son. She never regretted keeping this boy with her, not from the day he’d been handed to her and sure as hell not now.

She did however, regret giving him a whole package of gum as she shaved sticky chunks of blonde hair off of a screaming Sabo, his brothers wailing lament to their own massacred haircuts behind him due to Ace falling asleep with the wad in his mouth.

There wasn’t much you could do to keep a twelve year old entertained in a rickety cottage. Ace had already watched every cartoon rerun twice, drawn on every sheet of printer paper known to man before moving to notebook paper, then construction paper, then Dadan’s mail before he got yelled at for scribbling on her letters. He’d even folded every drawing into origami, making a stack of paper samurai helmets to place on his head. Every path in the woods had been walked, every good tree was carved, and he was pretty sure he had played every good game on his brothers’ gameboy. Sighing, he gazed out of the window with glazed eyes. I could always break another one of mama’s vases.

“You better not be thinking about starting trouble over there, boy.” Ace’s brow furrowed as he turned to her with a pout, “I wasn’t even saying anything.”

Dadan chuckled from her spot in the dining room, her taxes spread around her as she tapped cigarette smoke out of the window. She had figured since half the cottage’s occupants were gone and it was warm enough to open the windows, she could indulge herself in her bad habits for a while. “I know you weren’t saying anything, that’s how I knew you were plotting.” Ace blew out an exasperated breath as he flopped into his dining room chair. “I’m so boooored mama, when are Luffy and Sabo gonna be back?” Dadan squinted at the dusty clock above the table. “Seven hours from now.” Ace whipped his hair to stare at the clock, gaping in shock. “It’s only nine in the morning?!”

Dadan nodded as she filled out another form, “you’ve only been awake an hour.” Ace huffed and crossed his arms on the table, burying his chin into his elbows. “I wanna go to school with Luffy and Sabo, if it only meant I’d be less bored here,” he raised an eyebrow at Dadan, “do you think I could fit into Sabo’s backpack?” Dadan rubbed her temples before slid one of the envelopes on the table over to Ace. He picked it up and stared at it, looking at the name on the envelope, “this is your name. It’s not for me.” 

Dadan nodded and waved her cigarette towards the letter, “it’s a letter from one of my friends, read it to me, boy.” Ace frowned and peeked at his mother from over the letter. “I don’t wanna read though, I barely know how.” 

“Exactly. Since your brothers are in school, I’m gonna teach you here. You said you were bored, didn’t ‘cha?” Ace furrowed his eyebrows further before he pulled the envelopes contents out and held them in his hands.

“D… Dear,” Dadan nodded for him to continue, “Dear Curly,” Ace paused. “Who’s Curly?”

“My name, what else?” Dadan paused her writing to glare at Ace’s stifled laughter. “Boy, if you don’t keep reading I’m gonna lock you in your room with nothing to do for the next seven hours.”

Ace quickly adjusted the letter and continued reading, “I am sending my… con-doll-enkes-”

“Condolences, the ‘c’ makes an ‘s’ sound when it’s next to an ‘e’,” Dadan gently corrected, and waved for her son to continue.

“ Condolences, because I heard that your… mo-ron-ic son broke another vase,” Ace’s eyes lit up as he turned to his mother, “Hey! I finished a whole sentence! I can actually read what they’re saying!” He paused for a moment before frowning and stuffing the papers back to his nose, “hey wait, they’re talking about me, and they called me a moron!”

 Dadan let out a laugh as she leaned over to pat Ace’s head, “if you keep on reading to me, I’ll be sure to defend your honor when I write them back.” 

The next few months in Dadan’s cottage were spent with Dadan doing her chores as Ace read her letters aloud for her, heeding her soft corrections on grammar and pronunciation. When Ace had finally mastered reading her letters to her, Dadan supplied him with tattered books from her bedroom closet that she’d barely touched in years, happily dusting off the covers and handing them to her son. Although Ace was likely nowhere near the level Sabo was in school, she smiled proudly as she watched him flip through the worn pages as they lounged on the couch together. 

“The one book you gave me, about the dragons? It has this girl with a sword, and she gets a powerful necklace from her mom that lets her shoot fire.” Dadan chuckled as she stroked her sons’ hair, taking another sip of her lemonade she had made for the two of them. “Do you like the book, Ace?”

Ace grimaced and wrinkled his nose, “nah, I hate reading. I like the sword though, and the necklace.” Dadan barked out loud laughter at that, patting Ace’s stomach and nearly making him spill his drink, “at least you’re honest, boy.” Ace reached his hand up to paw at his mother’s own necklace, rolling the pink pearls between his fingers. “I want a necklace from my mama too. Is yours magic?”

Dadan chuckled as Ace fiddled with the jewelry, “nah, it’s just handmade. You won’t be able to shoot any fire from your fingers with this.” Dadan’s eyes lit up as she stood from the couch, causing Ace to sit up in confusion. “Y’know, I probably still have string somewhere- do you have that pocket knife I got you?” Ace nodded slowly, still confused at what his mother was implying. “It’s hot enough, if you go down to the river, I’m sure you’ll find some clams there,” her grin widened as Ace began to connect the dots in his head, “I’m sure you’ll find some pearls in ‘em, and we can make you a necklace like your mama’s-” Ace shot out of the house before she could finish her sentence, making her howl in laughter. 

Even though she really did wish Ace could be in school with his brothers, she really wouldn’t give up stringing together a fiery red pearl necklace as Ace sat on her lap for the world, even if Ace was way too old and way too heavy to be bounced on her knee like a five year old.

The way her sons were huddled around Ace’s neck, she would’ve guessed they were going in for the kill. However, Dadan merely snickered at how Sabo and Luffy spun the pearls around Ace’s neck with gentle fingers. 

“Woah, mama made this for you?”

“Man, and we just had to go to school…” 

Ace proudly showed off his new jewelry, puffing his chest out so the beads would glimmer under the kitchen light. “Yeah, and I went to get the pearls all by myself.” 

Luffy’s eyes widened at the statement, “by yourself?! Mama never lets me go to the river on my own…” Ace patted Luffy’s head with a smug look, “that’s because you’re only ten. I’m thirteen, so I can go by myself.” Ace’s eyes flickered with excitement as he grabbed a letter from the stack on the table. “And guess what… I can read like you!” Ace’s brothers shouted in surprise as he opened the letter and began reading it to them, “Dadan, I’ve written to consult you about my grandson and Ace, as I’ve decided I’d like to take them back under my care to begin military train-” Ace’s face paled as his voice dropped out, silently reading the rest of the letter as Sabo and Luffy gave him confused looks.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Yeah, I thought you said you could read-” Dadan ripped the paper from Ace’s hands, fixing him with a terrified look. It didn’t matter, he had already read the rest of the paper. His hands shook as they shared a silent look with each other, and before Dadan could make a sound Ace opened his mouth with a mutter.

“I’m not that good yet, I can’t read the rest.” Sabo and Luffy shot confused looks at each other before nodding at Ace’s excuse, silently moving to their bedroom to talk to themselves. Dadan quietly pulled Ace into a hug, holding the boy’s limp arms as she tossed the letter into the fireplace. She didn’t know what compelled her to hand Ace the lighter, but she knew as he stared at the flames eating the paper that he needed it.

“You didn’t give birth to me, did you?” Dadan stared at Ace with a look of bewilderment over her newspaper. “The fuck?”

Ace spluttered out a laugh at her language, “I said it like that because if I had said ‘you aren’t my real momma’ you would’ve gotten mad.” Dadan blinked at him before hollering a laugh of her own, “you know your mama well, boy!” 

Both her and her son dissolved into a fit of laughs before she wiped her eyes and answered her son, “but no, I’m lucky to not have pushed you out of me, you were one fat baby when I got you.” She scrunched up her nose at Ace, “you were funny lookin’, too.” 

Ace frowned at Dadan’s laughter, sticking his tongue out at her as she got up from the couch and picked up a large binder from the front entrance. “C’mon, I’ll prove it. I got pictures of you.” 

Ace sighed as he got up from his place on the carpet to sit next to his mother. “I know, I’ve seen the pictures of me holding Sabo’s hand in our stupid church clothes like a billion times.”  Dadan flicked his nose as she flipped back to the front of the binder. “Yes, but you’ve never seen the pictures of you when you were really little.” Ace leaned over her shoulder in curiosity as she pointed her long finger at a photograph of a small bundle, placed on what seemed to be her bed. “Is that me?”

“Sure is,” Dadan smiled, “you had those big ol’ freckles since the day I got you.” 

Ace absentmindedly rubbed his cheeks as he looked at the photos, glancing at each image of his younger self in amazement. His brows furrowed in confusion after a few seconds, though. “How’d you get pictures of me as a baby if you weren’t my momma though?” He turned to Dadan with even more confusion written on his face, “and if Garp’s not my dad or my grandad, who is?” Dadan froze at Ace’s query. She hadn’t been planning to have this conversation with Ace until he was older, at least seventeen. 

“How’d you figure out you weren’t related to Garp?”

“In the letter, it said ‘my grandson and Ace. ’ I’m separate.” 

Curse Garp, and curse the devil who fathered this child. “...No, Garp isn’t your father or your grandfather.”

“Then why did he want to take me back if I was never his?”

“He was originally entrusted to you after your father died.” Ace’s eyes grew just slightly, “what about my real momma?” 

Dadan looked at Ace with saddened eyes, her fingers intertwined in silent prayer, “she passed when you were born, baby. She carried you as long as she could, but she died during birth.” Ace remained silent. His eyes clouded over for a second before he turned back to Dadan. “How’d my dad die then? Did he die when my momma did?”

 Dadan grimaced at the question, choosing her wording carefully. “He was… He didn’t choose to die. He was forced to pay for his actions, and that price was death.” Ace’s eyebrows shot across his face. “He got-His actions? What did he do?” Dadan’s voice lowered as she rubbed a hand over her son’s back. “Your father… He was a great man, Ace. He was only a man. But men can be monsters sometimes, and that’s what your father became,” Ace inhaled sharply, “many people lost their lives, Ace. Your father was not one for small crimes. Your mother did what she could to protect you.”

Dadan ran her fingers across Ace’s freckles, her tone lightening as she reassured her son, “you’re not like him though, baby. You look like your mother more than anything.” 

Ace’s eyebrows remained raised as he locked his gaze with Dadan’s, “you know what she looks like?” Dadan nodded and got up from the couch, staring at the pictures of him as a baby. He couldn’t believe he didn’t know his parents died until now… His lips pulled into a small line. I can’t believe Dadan knew, and she didn’t tell me. Why would she keep my mother from me? My FATHER?

The sound of footsteps alerted Ace and he stared at Dadan’s hands, a small envelope peeking through the rings adorned on her fingers. He crawled over Dadan’s lap to grab the envelope, shaking it over his hand to empty the contents. Two pieces of paper fluttered out, a photograph and a newspaper clipping. 

Ace grabbed the photograph first, turning it over in his hands to reveal the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She had the most gorgeous eyes, and her hair flowed behind her in the wind to reveal a timid smile. She almost looked nothing like Ace, had it not been for the stark freckles muttered across her cheeks. “Is this her?”

Dadan nodded, silently watching Ace stare at the photo in his hands. He flipped the photograph over to reveal writing on the back, the small cursive smeared in the corner. “ Portgas D. Rouge, ” Ace murmured as Dadan’s fingers stroked through his hair.

“That was her name. Your last name is Portgas, too.”

“I thought I’d have my father’s-” Ace paused as he looked at the other piece of paper in his hand, a faded newspaper clipping. The headline stated “Crime Lord Sentenced to Death Penalty,” and the picture-

Ace didn’t have his father’s last name, but he had everything else. The exact part in his wavy black hair, the rigid wide smile, the stone cold eyes. He looked exactly like his father in every way except the thick mustache over his maniacal smile and- Ace gripped the freckles on his cheek like they were a treasure.

As he scanned his eyes over the picture of his father, he felt afraid of how much he looked like him, the photo of the man who was surrounded by details of the murders he committed. His eyes widened as he realized Dadan must be afraid of it too. His attention focused back onto her as she gently ruffled her fingers through his hair. “Do you think I look like him?”

Dadan’s face turned into a look of silent horror as she pulled Ace into a hug, slipping the newspaper clipping out of his hand. “You aren’t your father, Ace. I want you to know that baby, you’re so much more special than that.”

Ace let himself be held in silence as he stared at the picture of his mother in his hands. His real mother. He began to think that he didn’t look anything like her. He began to think that Dadan was lying about him being different, that she was scared he was going to become his father, that she hid his father from him for so long because she already had to look at him every day. He began to think that maybe, he was given to Dadan because he was the child of a murderer, and he belonged in the woods with her. He began to think that’s what Dadan thought too.

Even though he was held tightly in his mother’s arms, his body felt miles away.

He began to wish it was in military training.

Perfume was rarely a common occurrence in Dadan’s cottage. The light smell of cigarette smoke mixed with whatever dinner she’d cook the boys was permanently wafting around the house, the smell of lavender soap added into the scent on the rare occasions the boys would get a bath. However, as Luffy and Sabo returned from school and happily bounded to their bedrooms, the smell of daisies trailed behind them and caught Dadan’s nose. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she followed the boys to their bedroom, carefully nudging open the door to see Ace and Luffy scribbling on the cover of Luffy’s notebooks on the floor. The smell wasn’t in here (Dadan noted that an entirely different smell lingered in the room, and that the boys needed a bath), and as she conducted the process of elimination Luffy glanced up at her. “Hi mama, whatcha need?”

“Where’s your brother at?”

“Ace is right here.” She frowned at Ace’s giggle and Luffy’s oblivious blink.

“I meant Sabo, boy.” 

“Oh! He went to your bedroom, he said he needed paper.” Dadan raised her eyebrow in confusion, but before she could question Luffy any further she heard the front door open and shut in haste. She sighed as she thanked her sons and headed off towards the kitchen. Whatever her son was doing, she’d find out about it later. She had better things to do than chase a fifteen year old around the woods.

Sabo carefully pulled his pen along the paper, making the big loops of his cursive as neat as possible.

  You are one of my best friends, so I can say confidently that you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever met. You have very nice hair and Koala is a very pretty name. I like your smile- Sabo shook his head, scratching out the line of writing. That felt too creepy to say, although he supposed it was kind of creepy to be writing a letter to his crush in the first place… Sabo sighed, picking up a flower and twirling it in his fingers.

“Wow, you’re worse off than I thought.” Sabo yelped at the voice behind him and jumped up, sending his papers flying into the wind. “Ah! No-”

Dadan’s massive hand easily wrapped around the papers, and Sabo nearly sighed in relief before his mother unfurled them and began reading the loopy writing. “Koala, huh? What a nice name, although you clearly had an entire paragraph more to write about it-”

Sabo desperately tried to scale his mother’s tall build, flailing his hands around to try and grab the papers back. “Stop! Don’t read those, I’m not writing about a girl!”

“So a boy then?”

“Noooo!!” Dadan took mercy on her son, lowering her hand just enough to let him reach the papers. “I don’t want you to see them, it’s embarrassing…” Dadan let out a loud laugh at her son’s turmoil, ruffling his top hat against his head.

“I’m sorry baby, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t sneaking off to see any girls,” she smirked at Sabo’s wide eyes, “you smell more… flowery than usual, baby boy.” 

Sabo blushed as he looked down at his feet and mumbled, “she gave me a hug today and it smelled pretty, her perfume probably rubbed off on me…” 

Dadan chuckled as she handed her son his papers back, giving his hat one last ruffle. “Don’t get too embarrassed, boy. Everyone has a little crush at some point in their life.”

“Even you?”

“No, not me. I neutered every boy who tried to talk to me.” Sabo shivered as Dadan barked out a laugh. “Don’t worry baby, I won’t tell your brothers.” Sabo smiled as his mother turned away from him, adjusting his love letter in his hands. “Now hurry up, you’ve been out here three hours, that’s why I came looking for ya.” Sabo quickly hurried after his mother, smile wide across his face before terror shot through his bones.

“You aren’t gonna show her the photo album, are you?” Dadan’s evil grin sent Sabo sprinting back to the cottage, his mother easily keeping up with him while howling maniacal laughter.

Ace looked left and right, sneaking to his bedroom as he shut the front door behind him. Well, he tried his best to sneak. It was hard to be subtle when you were a 5”8 seventeen year old. He gently creaked open the door, and after seeing that his brothers were nowhere in sight, he quickly stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. He tiptoed over to his pillow, shaking it by the end of its case gently before a wrinkled photograph fluttered out. Ace gripped it gently in his hand, smoothing out the corners with his thumbs. “Hi mom.”

The photo of Rouge stared back at her son, her timid smile matching the one pulled across his own lips. Ace laid back on his bed, staring up at his mom’s photograph in his hands. He didn’t have too much of an emotional connection to his mother, not having ever met her, but sometimes he stared at the photograph he kept under his pillow. His smile faded as he rubbed his thumbs over the printed freckles. He mostly just looked at it to remind himself that he looked like someone other than his father. 

He continued rubbing his thumb over the freckles on his mother’s face, the only thing he could see that resembled him in any way. He had begun making trips to the library to look up any information on his mother, but had been severely disappointed when the results pulled up nothing. In fact, the information he found had been the exact opposite of what he wanted, the computer screen flashing images of his father in his face as articles described not his mother, but the crime lord she had conceived a child with. 

He stared at his mother’s warm eyes in the photo. He knew next to nothing about his mother, the only piece of information he had given to him by Dadan, that of which he was holding in his hands. He absentmindedly stared at the photo before realization hit him. “Of course! Mama was the one who showed me you, she must have more!”

 As soon as the words left his mouth, the telltale sound of the front door clattering open and his mother’s heels sounding along the wooden floors echoed through the cottage. He shot up from the bed, carefully taking the photograph of his mother with him in his fingers. “I’m gonna ask more about you mom, and then I’ll finally be able to be someone other than Roger.”

His mother smiled back at him.

Ace waltzed into the kitchen, stepping behind his mother as she organized her taxes in front of her at the table. “Hi mama!” Dadan gave him a slight wave, groaning as she pulled more forms out of envelopes set on the table. “Can I talk to you?”

“Not now, boy. I’m busy.” 

Ace bounced on his toes, waving the photo in his hands. “I just wanted to ask you something-”

“I told you, I’m busy, boy.” Dadan grumbled at the tidal wave of forms spread across the table. It had been hard enough to get by when it was just her and Ace, adding two more children into the mix and then sending them to school had done significant damage on her wallet.

 Ace wiggled more impatiently as he stared down at the photo of his mother. “It’s really important-”

“What I’m doing is important too, Ace.” 

Ace began to grow angry with Dadan, gripping the photo of his mother tightly and speaking louder. “I just need to know about my parents-”

“Not now, Ace. Give me a second.”

“But-”

“ Ace. ” 

Ace’s temper flared, and he squeezed the photo of rouge in his hand as he raised his voice at her. “You don’t get to keep all this stuff from me forever! I have a right to know about my family, and you’re the only one who’s given me any sort of information on them, so you need to tell me now. ”

Dadan glared at him from across the table, standing up to face him. “Don’t you dare raise your voice at your mother-”

“You’re not my fucking mother!”

Dadan slammed her fists on the table with a crack, startling Ace and causing him to jump back. “Go to your room! You wanna know about your parents, well your father’s temper is showing through!” 

Ace gaped at her before silently turning and walking back to his room, leaving Dadan to curse and mutter under her breath in the kitchen. Ace slammed the bedroom door behind him, marching over to his bed and throwing himself on top of it with a yell. He shakily held up the picture of Rouge to his eyes, and tears began flooding down his face as he saw the state of it. The force of his grip had caused the edges to wrinkle and tear, and a large rip ran from the edge, cutting directly into his mother’s freckles. Into him.

When Dadan apologized that night over dinner, Ace hadn’t said anything back. Her words barely registered in his brain as he nodded and continued eating.

If she wasn’t going to tell him anything about his life, then he wouldn’t share that information with her either.

Sabo’s little crush ended up blooming into full blown affection; Sabo introduced Koala to Dadan, who accepted the bubbly girl with open arms, her heart warming at how she giggled at Sabo’s baby photos and kissed the seventeen year old’s blazing red dimples. Although Dadan simply adored how sweet her son had grown up, she was perfectly content with her other two sons enjoying their own pace at life. Ace didn’t go to highschool with Sabo, so he didn’t get the chance to talk to many girls or boys. Although he occasionally did see some kids his age when he went out on a walk from the cottage, he rarely brought anyone home and never really grew an attachment to any friends. He’d significantly distanced himself from Dadan, but she mostly blamed that on him being a moody teenager. She hoped that it was the reason, at least.

Dadan had thought Luffy to be the same as Ace in regards to romance, always too haywire to gain any attraction towards anyone, but as Luffy began his first year of highschool, he had clearly attached himself to someone.

“Did you know that people can use three swords at once?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, you’re sixteen, Luffy.”  Luffy quickly swallowed his dinner, excitedly bouncing in his seat at the table.

“My friend can do it! He holds the third one in his mouth, like this!” He shoved his dinner knife into his mouth, baring his teeth like a dog. Ace burst into laughter from across the table and Sabo quietly giggled at his brother. Dadan shook her head, continuing to eat, “you’re gonna cut your tongue if you do that, boy. Now finish your dinner.” The second time Luffy brought up his friend, he’d been doing homework in the living room. “I don’t have to walk everywhere anymore, mama. My friend has a truck, he named her Mikiko.” Dadan snickered and flipped through the TV channels, “does your friend have a name? Or did he give it to his truck.”

“His name’s Zoro! He’s a cool swordsman, he has these big wooden sticks he carries around a lot that he practices with! Sometimes he just uses his pencils though, and the teacher gets really mad when he tries to slice through stuff.” Dadan smiled at the description, happy that Luffy found someone to share his antics with. “That sounds nice, Luffy. I hope he’s treating you nice.”

Zoro must have been, though, because he’d been all that Dadan had heard about for at least half a year.

“Zoro learned how to slice bottle caps off! He opened my soda for me like that today!”

“Zoro knows all about samurai, he drew me a picture of a sword today in science!”

“I watched Zoro slice stuff in half today, he cut a leaf into perfect halves! It was so cool, it was just fluttering by and he went ‘whoosh’!”

“Zoro cut a tree branch today so it’d fall on Sanji’s head, it was really funny shishishi!” Dadan pinched Luffy’s cheek at the sound of his giggling, smiling at how cute her boy was. “Who’s this Sanji? I haven’t heard about him, yet.” Luffy shrugged like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world, “‘cuz I don’t like him like I like Zoro. I like Zoro a lot.”

It seemed like it really was the most obvious thing in the world. Luffy constantly talking about him, Luffy constantly telling Dadan how much he admired him, Luffy outright telling Dadan that he liked Zoro for crying out loud. However when she came home to a frustrated Luffy staring at a sheet of paper on the couch, she was completely unprepared for the conversation she’d have with him.

“Whatcha got, boy? You need help on homework again?”

“Nah, it’s a flyer. It’s for prom.” Dadan grinned at the word, setting groceries down onto the table before she turned excitedly to Luffy,

“You wanna go? Your brother went with his girlfriend, and he loved it. I got a picture for the photo album and everything,” she sat beside Luffy as he stared at the flyer, “want me to see if we can save up to rent a suit again?” 

Luffy shook his head in frustration, “no, I don’t wanna go. It looks stuffy, and it says that you have to pay for the food. I wanna do something else with Zoro.” Dadan patted Luffy on the back, nodding in understanding before she leaned back over with a worried look. “Are you sure you don’t wanna go? It’s not too much trouble baby, I can assure you we have enough money for the suit this time.” 

“No, it’s ok. Zoro doesn’t wanna go either.” Dadan narrowed her eyes at her son. “You know you don’t have to do whatever your friend does, right?” Luffy shrugged and leaned back onto the couch, starting to fold the flyer back and forth.

“I like doing stuff with him though. If he doesn’t want to go, I’m not going either.” Placing her hand onto Luffy’s shoulder, she took on a more pleading tone with her son.

“Luffy, if you really want to go, just tell him. You shouldn’t have to stifle yourself to be more acceptable for your friend.” Luffy tossed the paper at his feet and knocked his mother’s hand off his shoulder, stomping away in annoyance,

“I’m not stifling myself, Dadan. Zoro’s my boyfriend, he wouldn’t care what I wanted, so stop acting like I’m weak like that.” Before Dadan could scold her son on slapping her hand away and addressing his mother by her name like that, she stopped in her tracks. “Boyfriend?”

She was responded to with the slam of the boys’ bedroom door. Collecting herself before she moved, she took a deep breath in before standing up to go to the boys’ bedroom. She knocked on the door before opening it, revealing Luffy sprawled on his mattress with a pillow smacked on top of his face. Sabo had finally had enough of his brother kicking him off of the bed every night, so Dadan had finally caved and bought a separate mattress for Luffy, who was yelling into his pillow in frustration. “Can I sit with you, boy?”

Luffy scowled at her over the corner of the pillow. “Oh, are you actually gonna listen when I tell you I like Zoro eighty times in a row?” he huffed slightly, “even I’m not that oblivious mama.” Dadan sighed in relief as Luffy returned the title to her name, but still sat on Sabo’s bed with apparent distress. “I’m sorry baby, I know you said it but- I thought you were just being you, is all.” Luffy sighed in exasperation as he threw the pillow across the room with a stretch of his arms. “I know I’m me, but that me is also seventeen. I’m not a baby anymore mama. When I say I like someone I know what it means, and I know that by liking someone I can’t give up my decisions to them.” Dadan looked downcast as she toed her son’s hand with her shoe. “I’m sorry Luffy. You’re just growing up so fast and- and I thought you were like Ace, honestly. I’m sorry I acted like you couldn’t handle yourself. You don’t have to go to prom if you don’t want to, Luffy.”

Luffy gave her a soft smile as he leapt into her arms, startling her with how heavy he was. “You look too lanky for your own good, boy.” Luffy laughed as he wrapped his arms around his mother, resting his cheek on top of her ginger curls. “I’m ok with missing prom, mama. Me and Zoro were probably just gonna get gas station food and lay in his truck again, we like making fun names for the constellations even though Nami knows the real names.” Dadan chuckled and pulled Luffy down to press a smacking kiss onto his cheek, snickering at the exaggerated squeal Luffy emitted as he tried to push away.

 He paused his struggling for a second as his eyes clouded over in thought, like he was confused about something. “What’s wrong, Luffy?” 

Luffy said his next words slowly, like he was trying to work out something in his brain, “what did you mean, when you said you thought I was like Ace?” 

Dadan let out a light laugh as she explained to Luffy, “well, that boy doesn’t like near anybody! He never brings anyone home, much less tell me about anybody.”

“Why would he?”

Dadan looked at Luffy like he was insane. “Well, because he’s my baby of c-”she froze mid sentence. She looked her son in the eye, and knew that Luffy had already made the connection himself. If Luffy wasn’t her baby then… and Ace was already three years older… when was the last time she even talked about friends to him…

Realization hit her. When was the last time I talked to him at all? She desperately tried to remember the last time she had spoken more than a few words to Ace, more than a few muttered questions or quick answers. She could barely remember that far back, she could barely remember- She could barely remember when Ace had grown up, and she didn’t know when he had left her behind, either. She didn’t know when she had become such a bad mother.

Luffy wrapped his arms back around Dadan as she sat in silent thought. 

He’d sit here for just a little longer, just enough that Dadan could maybe feel like she had that five year old in her arms one last time.

Ace was rarely around the cottage anymore. He was nearly twenty, and he had already saved up enough money from odd jobs to buy a motorcycle. How he got those jobs, Dadan didn’t know. She didn’t even know he’d gotten a motorcycle until he revved the engine in front of the house, causing Luffy and Sabo to come running out in excitement as they begged him to take them for a ride. Dadan watched from the porch in silence.

Dadan hardly even saw him when he was inside the house, hiding under the brim of that wide cowboy hat he had bought, or already fast asleep in his bed when Dadan returned home. It didn’t even feel like it was his bed anymore, not to Dadan. Not to Dadan, who woke up to an empty house and came back to it as well. Luffy was the only one of her sons that still consistently talked to her, and as she helped him fill out his first resume she realized that it’d probably be the last time she ever spoke to him on a regular basis.

“It’s a kid’s restaurant, mama! I barely even have to work anyway, I can just hang out in the ballpit if I wanted to!” Dadan silently wished she had her kids back as she sent Luffy off to his first day of work with a congratulatory pat. She silently wished she had her baby back, as Ace walked through the front door without so much as a wave, drenched in rain from outside.

“What, not even a ‘hello’ to your mama, boy? Did I raise you right?” She nervously chuckled, “do you want a towel or anything? How’s that storm out there, looks pretty nasty!” She realized she had only begun to talk to herself as Ace shut the bedroom door behind him, leaving her in silence. As the storm picked up outside, the windows began to rattle, and Dadan felt something spark in her. She wouldn’t let this boy ignore her like this anymore, not when she had taken him in as just a baby and raised him here.

Not when she had kept him safe from the horrors of the world, letting him hold the lighter in his hands and burn every last bit of pain written in that letter to the ground.

Not when she loved him too much.

Stomping over to the bedroom, she threw it open with determination. “Now listen here boy, your brother’s aren’t here so I’m gonna say this right here, right-” She stopped, staring at the scene in front of her.

The light was off, only the lightning from outside illuminated the dark shadows of her son’s items dumped across the floor. Ace’s bed had been taken apart, the sheets and pillowcases made into a makeshift pile on the edge of the bed. The boys’ closet had been ransacked, the boxes inside open and half sorted through in the corner, hangers leaving a trail to Ace’s feet. Every dresser drawer was open, the boys’ clothes strewn across the floor as if they were sorted out in haste. Dadan noticed it was only Luffy and Sabo’s clothes, because all of Ace’s were-

Ace sat in the middle of the room, his hands over the pile of his possessions as he shoved it into a suitcase. Fiery red pearls lined his knees where he kneeled, the broken string of his necklace shining under the flashes of lightning. The remains of the necklace looked like blood pooled on the floor, and the look of horror in Ace’s eyes was enough to convince Dadan that it could’ve been.

“What are you doing, Ace?” God, why did her voice sound that small, it shouldn’t sound that small- “What are you doing?” Ace remained silent, his hands firm on the contents he was shoving into the bag. “Tell me what you’re doing right now! ” The yell ripped from Dadan’s throat was even worse than the quiet whispers she’d uttered. Thunder crashed outside, reiterating her point. 

“I’m leaving.”

The lights in the cottage went out. Ace’s stare of terror remained illuminated by the lightning outside.

Dadan wanted to ask where he was going, who he was going to stay with, why he was so obviously aware that what he was doing was wrong as his breathing quickened in the dark. Dadan’s yell echoed through the house as thunder clapped. “Why? What did I do wrong?!” Ace remained silent. “You didn’t even tell me, you’ve told me nothing for the past two years Ace! What was I supposed to do, guess?!” Ace remained silent. “Why would you do this to me, Ace? Why would you do this to me?” Ace remained silent. “Am I not your mother anymore?” 

Ace finally spoke, his voice barely audible against the sound of the rain assaulting the windows. “I’m not your baby any more.”

Dadan gave him a skeptical look as she leaned forward to yell louder, her pink pearls catching the lightning like a warning signal, “I know that! I want to know that, Ace, but real men don’t leave their family behind without saying goodbye! Real men aren’t monsters like that!!” Ace faltered as another strike of lightning hit, setting the house ablaze as it’s bright light shone through the windows. Dadan couldn’t hear Ace’s voice over the clap of thunder, but his tear stained freckles moved with the formation of his words in the light of the fire.

My father was.

Dadan stood in the doorway, looking at the shaking silhouette of Ace as he sobbed quietly in the middle of the room. Walking with quiet steps, muffled by the storm outside, she crouched next to her son and pulled him close. She gently rubbed her thumb against his freckles, picking up his tears along with it as she whispered,

“You’re just like your mother, Ace. You have her personality written all over you.”

Ace inhaled a sharp breath before sobbing into his mother’s shoulder loudly, letting her remove his hat to stroke his hair gently. “You do, Ace. I’m sorry I never told you, I’m sorry I wasn’t the mother you wanted-”

“You’re everything I wanted! You’re everything I ever wanted,” Ace sobbed, leaning back to look her in the eyes, “I just- I thought you’d hate me if I turned into my dad, you kept him from me for so long-” 

Ace hiccuped as Dadan pulled him back into her shoulder, pressing kisses into his black hair, “Ace, I wasn’t worried about that at all! I just don’t want you to drift away from me Ace, I don’t want you to think of me as any less a mother to you than I already am.” 

Ace let out a wet laugh as he pressed a small kiss to his mother’s cheek. “You’re the only mama I have, Dadan.” 

Dadan smiled and showered Ace’s freckles in kisses, making him laugh and pretend to struggle against her. “Stop, I’m nineteen mama, I don’t need you to kiss me better.”

“You’ll never be too old for kisses, boy. That’s the price of being my son.” Ace laughed as he slowly stood up, immediately slipping on a stray pearl and falling back into his mother’s arms.

“Oh shit, yeah I uh- I panicked when I was packing, and I think the necklace caught and-”

Dadan felt around the dark room, her hand landing on a string of pearls as she lifted it up. “It’s alright, boy. There’s still a lot left on the string, we can just fix it when the lights come back on.”

As the words left her mouth, a buzzing sound emitted from the ceiling and light came from the hallway as the house relit itself. Dadan smiled down at her son, able to see his reddened cheeks and his teary eyes. He looked exactly like rouge when he smiled in the faint lamplight.

“C’mon baby, let’s fix up everything before your brothers get back.”

Dadan hummed as she tied together the string tightly, making a knot between each pearl so they wouldn’t go scattering if the string broke. “Tell me now, how were you planning to sneak that entire suitcase by me, much less fit it onto that bike of yours? What, were you planning to drag it along with you on the road?”

Ace nervously laughed as he fiddled with his thumbs, sat on the couch next to his mother. “I was actually going to have someone else get me with a car, and I’d come get my motorcycle in the morning,” he frowned as his voice shrunk, “that’s when I was… that’s when I was planning to tell you I was leaving.” Dadan gently stroked Ace’s hair, letting her son know it was okay to tell her. Finally, finally okay to talk to her.

“You went through the trouble of making one of your poor friends a getaway driver, hm?” Dadan noticed the way Ace’s fiddling hesitated for a moment and she smirked fondly. “Boy or Girl?”

Ace grimaced at his mother, “mama, I’m not thirteen-”

“You’re right, you refused to talk to me then, so you gotta tell me now,” Dadan smiled as she meant no hard feelings, but Ace was cornered either way. “So tell me, boy or girl?”

“He’s a man, mom, and he’s my boyfriend.”

Dadan chuckled as she flicked Ace’s forehead. “You sound just like your brother when I asked him about Koala.” She tied the final knot on the necklace and pulled it around Ace’s neck, pulling him in gently to kiss his forehead. “Is he nice?”

“No, ma, he’s terrible. He tortures puppies for a living and eats children for breakfast.” Ace flinched as Dadan flicked his forehead harder, pouting and lifting up his necklace to look at the knots.

“You’ve grown a lot of sass since you left, boy. You better be lucky you’re too old for me to warrant a spanking anymore.”

Ace chuckled as he fiddled with the pearls, “He’s great, mama. He’s a nurse, too, so you won’t have to bug me to go to the doctor anymore,” he looked up with a glimmer in his eye, “and he’s a writer, too.”

“Oooh, how fancy! My boy’s taking a step up from the cottage life, are you?” 

Ace chuckled as he squinted his eyes at the pearls, “hey, did you make this shorter than it was before?” Dadan grinned as she pulled out a second necklace from beside her, the pearls alternating between Ace’s fiery red and pink pearls from her own necklace. “Figured you could use a little extra love while you’re gone.” 

Ace beamed as he wrapped the necklace around the top of his hat, the string of pearls fitting snugly on top. “I love it,” he whispered, letting Dadan pull him into a tight hug. That of which was interrupted however, by a knock on the front door.

“Shit, your brothers must be drenched from the rain.”

Ace held out his hand as his mother rushed to the door. “I don’t think-”

Dadan flung open the door to be greeted by bright blue hair, accentuated by navy blue glasses perched atop the stranger’s nose as the lens were battered by raindrops. “...Evenin’?”

The stranger bowed his head in greeting, “hello, I’m Deuce? I’m here to, uh-” He leaned over, peeking behind Dadan’s shoulder to smile at Ace, “I’m here to pick up my boyfriend.”

Dadan loomed over him for a moment before speaking,

“Wow, if my boy had actually needed a getaway car, you’d be a terrible choice.”

Before the man could say anything, Dadan pulled him into a tight bear hug, laughing as her son’s boyfriend nervously placed his arms around her.

It was good to finally have kids of her own again.

When Luffy had described Zoro, she had expected a lanky, energetic boy. Maybe he was a little more athletic than her son due to the swords, but still matching her son’s endless laughter and raucous behavior as Koala matched Sabo’s passion and Deuce matched Ace’s… well, everything really. She did not expect to see the massive build of a man carrying four large boxes of Luffy’s belongings down the hallway, barely breaking a sweat. As sad as she was to see her last son moving away, she was completely baffled by how her son managed to find a Greek God and successfully date him for the last two years.

At least I know he’ll be able to take care of Luffy.

Speaking of taking care of things…

Zoro paused in the hallway as a large hand wrapped around his shoulder, setting down the box he was carrying and turning towards Luffy’s mother. “C’mere boy, I wanna show you something before you carry my son off away with you.” Zoro raised an eyebrow in confusion but let himself be guided towards the couch as Dadan slipped a massive binder from under the coffee table. “I don’t have baby baby ones, but I have them starting from when he was at least four or five.”

Before Zoro could question her, she flipped open the binder and Zoro nearly choked on his own spit.

Dozens of pictures of toddler Luffy lined the pages of the binder, and they were all the most fucking hilarious things Zoro had ever seen.

“There’s Luffy trying to escape from the bath; I made Sabo hold him down but he insisted on trying to bite everyone like a rabid animal.” She pointed to another photo, “here’s Luffy covered in mud because he insisted that pigs maintained a perfectly valid bathing method for him,” she turned the page to even more records of shame, “this entire page is just him shoving random shit in his mouth, they’re kinda blurry since his brothers actually took these while I wasn’t looking.” Zoro was trying so hard not to laugh, his shoulders shaking and his eyes tearing up at the corners. “Here’s Luffy eating his sixth birthday cake, not caring that the candles were inedible obviously-” Zoro fought to contain a snort, “-and here’s him twenty minutes later with Ace trying to feed him laxatives so he’ll shit out said candles.”

Zoro burst into uncontrollable laughter, unable to contain himself at the photo of a pouting Luffy being force fed prunes. Right as Zoro started cackling, his boyfriend stepped through the door with his brothers in tow.

“Hey Zoro, we finished loading up Mikiko, whatcha laughin’ a-” Luffy’s eyes widened at the book and he sprinted towards his mother. “NOT THE BLACKMAIL!!!”
Ace immediately held his brother in a chokehold, leaning over to try and see the binder as Sabo shouted across the room.

“Do you have the baby photos out?”

“DID YOU SHOW ZORO THE SHITTING ONE?!”

“SHOW HIM THE SHITTING ONE!!”

Dadan’s laughter rang clearer than anyone else’s in the room as she watched her boys fight against each other for the binder.

She lived her life with no regrets, and she was proud to surround herself with the greatest happiness in her whole life.

Her very own sons.