Work Text:
- LUFFY -
“Sorry Luffy-san, but my old self-defense and fitness instructor asked me to help out with a client.” Koby apologized without even looking back at him; too busy with grabbing some workout clothes from his own wardrobe.
Luffy pouted at the younger teen’s back.
“Why does he need your help? Couldn’t he just ask someone else to do it?”
Now finished packing his duffel bag, Koby zipped up the thing before slinging it over his shoulder and turning to face Luffy.
“I’m sure he could have if I said no, but I wanted this opportunity to check back in. It’s been a while and I figured it would be nice to catch back up with everyone. Besides, Marco-sensei told me this newbie’s been having trouble getting the hang of certain escape moves and techniques,”
When Luffy pouted harder in response, Koby frowned in the way he did whenever he was worried Luffy was genuinely mad at him. But this only lasted for a moment before he perked up.
“Oh! Why don’t you come along, too? I’m sure Marco-sensei would appreciate having another assistant for the day.”
Now that… that didn’t sound too bad, actually. He’d get to hang out with Koby and meet this Marco-sensei he talked so highly about.
“Hm, fine. Why not? I’ll even get to see you in action. Even if it is just sparring or whatever.”
Koby smile at Luffy’s response, the whole thing lighting up his face alongside the dusty pink blush across his cheeks.
***
After the two made their way to the gym, Koby led Luffy around the back of the building and to the employee entrance.
“Marco-sensei told me to use this entrance because he didn’t want me to distract the newbie from training,” Koby explained as he pulled out a plain metal key from his corgi wallet, “this entrance should also put us directly into the employee changing room as well. You can just head straight into the main gym room from there while I change into my training clothes, okay?”
Luffy shrugged.
“Sure. Just don’t take too long, okay? It’s gonna be boring if I’m just standing around watching everyone else have fun.”
***
It took a total of less than five seconds after Luffy closed the door behind himself to lock eyes with Ace.
Ace, who’d told Luffy just an hour earlier that he had an errand to run and couldn’t hang out. Ace, who was currently pinned to the ground by the thighs of an older blond man smirking down at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Do you need me to loosen up on you, Ace-yoi? You look pale.”
There was no response from Ace, who instead stared back at a now visibly-confused Luffy.
There was an awkward silence before both Luffy and the man pinning Ace down attempted to say his name at the same time. They only managed to get out the letter ‘A’ before Acebslid out of the leg lock with practiced ease and jumped to his feet.
“Sorry Marco, just let me talk to my brother real quick.”
Luffy only had a moment to see the surprised look on Marco’s face before Ace’s face was right there and blocking his view.
“What are you doing here, Luff?” He hissed, “I thought you were going to hang out with Koby?”
“I am hanging out with Koby! He said his old teacher needed help with some newbie who couldn’t figure out how to break his choke holds,” Luffy huffed and crossed his arms, “what are you doing here? You said you needed to run an errand! Why are you here instead of taking care of that?”
Ace’s face reddened darker than a tomato and he began stammering some sort of excuse that he eventually just gave up on before sighing.
“Luffy,” Ace sighed and rubbed the backs of his eyelids with his thumbs, “look. While you’re here, can you just pretend I don’t know how to fight?”
“What? Why?”
Another sigh and Ace put a hands on Luffy’s shoulders.
“It’s not something I think you’d understand, Luffy.”
Luffy scowled at his brother.
“So what? Even if I don’t, that doesn’t mean you can just ask me to do something so stupid.”
“It’s not ‘stupid,’ Luffy. You just-” Ace cut himself off. Judging from the way Ace rolled his eyes, it seemed he realized Luffy wasn’t going to agree without an explanation. “Luffy, have you ever heard of the saying ‘thicc thighs save lives’?”
Anger was quickly replaced with confusion and Luffy tilted his head as he thought about the question.
“Hm…Yeah I have, now that you mention it. I’m not quite sure what it means,” Luffy spared a glance at Marco who was standing now but hadn’t otherwise moved, “and it looked more like his legs were crushing you. Not saving you.”
Instead of getting annoyed at Luffy’s confusion, Ace actually grew a goofy smile on his once-again red face. Although this time it wasn’t as bright a shade.
“Trust me, Luffy. Whoever said that was right on the money. I promise.”
To Luffy’s chagrin, Ace was right in that he didn’t really ‘get it’, but at least he’d given some sort of explanation.
Even if it had been vague as all hell.
It obviously made sense to Ace, though, so Luffy let it slide with a shrug.
“Fine, whatever. I’ll pretend you don’t know how to fight. But you’re probably gonna have to ask Koby, too, you know.”
“Ask me what, Luffy-san?”
The brothers turned to see Koby had finally finished changing. But Luffy didn’t respond, now too busy looking back and forth between Koby and Marco’s exposed thighs. Both men had shorts that only covered their thighs halfway and the rest of their legs down to the tops of their high-rise socks were completely exposed.
Eventually Luffy’s eyes landed on Koby’s legs before he gave them another once-over and said, “ohhh. I get it now!”
To which Ace slapped a hand over his face, muttering annoyed curses and insults under his breath.
“Ace-yoi. Koby-yoi. Are we going to get this training going or what?” Marco questioned, putting a hand on one of Ace’s shoulders, who jumped at his sudden appearance. He gave a quick look at all three of the other men before raising an eyebrow. “Do you all know each other?”
Before either Ace or Luffy could stop him from saying anything, Koby’s eyes lit up and he nodded. “Yes! Luffy’s my friend and Ace’s younger brother. He came along because he wanted to hang out, but I’d already promised to help you. So we figured he could help out, too. Maybe the two of us could show your new pupil how it’s done from a different angle or something. Is he showing up soon, by the way?”
Ace’s shoulders lifted and he ducked his head while Marco’s expression went from calm to a fake smile.
“He is, actually! But he had to postpone for a bit,” as Marco spoke, voice full of fake cheer, Ace’s face grew steadily paler until it looked like the life had been sucked out of him completely, “that said, Ace-yoi told me he could use a bit of a refresher and I still need to see how you’ve been keeping up with your own training.”
Koby nodded.
“That sounds like a good idea. Do you still want to help, Luffy-san?”
Luffy hummed, gaze dropping back down to look at Koby’s thighs again. On the one hand, Ace was glaring at him despite still looking like a ghost. On the other, Luffy really liked the idea of having his head resting between Koby’s thighs. He knew Koby’s self-defense lessons had helped him grown taller and into shape, but Luffy hadn’t realized just how much they’d done so.
Lifting his eyes to see Koby giving him a confused look, Luffy grinned back at him.
“Sure! Sounds like fun!” He replied while happily ignoring the angry aura now surrounding Ace.
- KOBY -
“Luffy-san, are you sure you’re okay? You haven’t even tried to get out of the leg lock,”
Koby was currently leaning back with his hands placed behind himself while his legs were extended in front of him. Luffy was laying on his back in between Koby’s extended legs, face poking out from between the thighs squeezing his cheeks together as he stared up at the ceiling.
The two of them had been like this for a solid three minutes and Koby was beginning to worry. But instead of responding verbally, Luffy gave Koby as thumbs up and then continued to lay right where he was.
Despite Koby’s misgivings, Luffy clearly didn’t have any problems with whatever was going on, so he wasn’t wasn’t exactly worried, per say… That didn’t mean he wasn’t confused, however.
Even before they ended up in this position, Luffy had been acting a bit… out of it.
He’d spent more time watching Koby’s warm-up stretches than actually attempting to fight back once they started sparring. Granted their sparring sessions were always short, but that was because Koby was so much weaker than Luffy. Most people didn’t stand a chance against him, even when he wasn’t trying.
So for Koby to be the one coming out on top was… very surreal. Especially since Luffy seemed very much content with the situation.
Upon looking over to see if Marco was appraising the situation, Koby found that the man wasn’t even paying attention to them. Instead, he had had a grin on his face while he said something to Ace who looked more embarrassed than in any physical pain.
Even despite the fact Marco had him in a calf slicer. Marco hadn’t even taught Koby that lock despite having been praised as one of Marco’s best pupils and here Ace was, seemingly more embarrassed to be stuck in it than anything.
Ace said something- face becoming cherry red as he did -which Marco laughed at before nodding and releasing the man. When the two of them stood Ace was still red-faced but the small smile he had told Koby he wasn’t upset.
“Luffy-san, it looks like Ace and Marco-sensei are done.”
“Aweady?” Luffy whined, mouth twisted in a pout despite his squished cheeks making the movement difficult to make out.
Luffy also lifted his eyes to look at Koby who couldn’t resist the fond smile that made its way onto his face.
“Yes, Luffy-san. Sorry we didn’t exactly get the chance to do much.” Koby apologized before relaxing his thighs to release Luffy’s head.
Luffy’s pout stayed, but he still let Koby untangle their bodies and stood up as Ace and Marco walked up to them.
“Sorry Koby-yoi, but it looks like we’re going to have to cut this time short. It looks like something came up but I have the feeling we’re going to be seeing more of each other from now on.” Marco apologized with a smile.
“Really? Did something happen between you two? You and Ace looked like you were talking about something over there.”
Ace’s face flushed a light pink and Marco let out a short bark of laughter.
“We were, actually. Ace-yoi invited me out to dinner and I accepted.”
As expected by the mention of food, Luffy’s eyes lit up.
“Dinner?”
“I invited Marco to a dinner date, Luffy. Me and him. Alone.” Ace said with a scowl.
Koby fully expected Luffy to pout and try to worm his way into an invite; remembering how Luffy’d tried doing the same when Franky and Robin first started dating. But he surprised not only Koby but Ace as well when he turned to the younger man and said, “that’s a good idea! We should do that, too!”
For a moment, Koby’s mind went blank as it attempted to process Luffy’s words in a way that made sense.
“Luffy-san…” He began, pausing for just a moment to figure out how to word his next sentence correctly, “you do realize how that sounds, right?”
“Shishishi! Of course I do! Plenty of people go out to eat when they go on a date. And Sanji can get us a discount for us at the Baratie!”
The whole room went silent for a long moment as the weight of Luffy’s words sunk in.
And then Koby’s felt his face grow hotter than the fire Ace had saved him from the day he’d met the ASL trio.
Koby let out an embarrassed whine and covered his face with his hands; Luffy’s happy laughing ringing in his ears as the older man wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
END