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Chapter Text

The marine base courtyard bakes in the sun. The cobbles are parched, the gravel coughs dust, and over the compound wall Luffy climbs, rubber body sizzling and sweltering in the heat. His footsteps fall heavy, flip-flops flapping and smacking against the dirt, but there is nobody around to stop his saunter into the square - not even an animal at his side, a ferret or a dog or a bear ambling in the shadows, hushed and whispering hey Luffy, as a daemon of his should do.

Thrust crocked through the ground is a cross, two wooden stakes the centrepiece of this thirsty, blazing yard, but it is the man that's tied there that catches Luffy's eye. Slouched into the restraints like he's waiting, like he's lazy and bored and well, the man lifts a hanging head to meet Luffy's gaze high. Sweat dribbles off his chin, skin blistering and sore from the sun, but his eyes are proud though tired, stubborn and yet hinting to a pain that must be impossible to hide.

Luffy surveys the courtyard one more time, peeking out from beneath the scratchy brim of his hat, but the pirate and the prisoner are all there is to be seen.

"Hey," he greets, considering this half-starved, animal of a man bound before him. The ropes are cruel around his wrists, wound tightly to bloody the skin, and he must have been here for days to smell so bad, abandoned to heatstroke and torture out here in the sun. Regardless, Luffy smiles as if this is enough to stitch the man back together, heal his wounds, have him fed, but the prisoner just squints rather dubiously as the pirate rocks back onto his heels.

"You're the pirate hunter, Roronoa Zoro, right?" Luffy asks, probably not imagining Coby's distant whimper.

"What of it," grumbles the man at the stake, clearly not doing a very good job of pirate hunting if his current condition is anything to go by. The people in the bar spoke highly of him though (spoke of loyalty and kindness and a heart that only beats to dare) so Luffy merely snickers at the threatening rumble and continues to grin.

"Join my crew!" he announces, extending out a hand, and Zoro stares at it with flabbergast, limbs bound and too tired to even laugh.

"No," is the unwavering answer; are you crazy, is left unsaid.

Luffy just gives his hand a wave, waggling it in the space between them. Zoro isn't in any position to take it, but Makino always said that it's the thought that counts.

"I'll release you," laughs the straw-hatted boy, but despite this attractive offer, the pirate hunter only sneers.

"No way," he stresses, the invitation seeming to have offended him. Truthfully, Luffy can appreciate that; he, too, would refuse an "easy" way out, but the pride they share isn't exactly assisting his recruitment of a first mate right now.

"I made a promise and I'm not going to break it," Zoro snaps by way of explanation - and it's a good explanation, one worth commending, really, but what good will dying out in the sun do for a promise like that?

(There's a fine line between dying recklessly and recklessly dying and maybe Zoro's yet to find it - maybe Luffy's yet to find it, too).

"What if I got your sword back?" Luffy tries, still waving his hand as though to entice Zoro into agreeing. "Coby said you're a swordsman - so you've got a sword, right? I could get it back."

Rope creaks as the hunter shakes his head, his body pulled taut and immovable into agony. Glaring from beneath his bandana, Zoro growls, "Get lost," with all the strength he can muster, which Luffy notes isn't exactly a no.

Still - "What if I got your daemon back?"

"Pax?" Zoro replies, likely an involuntary call as he jerks against the stake, shoes clawing against the ground. Luffy remembers how his brothers had done the same whenever their souls had wandered, unable to resist throwing their hearts out in search to the places that their daemons had bound. How strange it must be, Luffy thinks, watching Zoro clench his hands in the rope (unclench them and hiss at the pain), to feel such a pull but be helpless to answer.

But then Zoro barks, "Forget it," and Luffy folds his hands behind his beloved straw-hat, only growing more curious about his first-mate-to-be.

"We made a promise that nothing is going to get in the way of our dream," Zoro explains, tugging at his restraints with a growl. Sunlight catches on his face as his bandana slips, hollowed cheekbones and a sharp, hungry jaw twisting into a snarl. "Not even this."

"But what if you die out here?" Luffy asks as he tilts his head, squinting in the sun.

The hunter attempts a shrug, shoulders twitching in pain. "So be it."

Well that's dumb, Luffy doesn't say, scratching his nose and vowing to protect his first crewmate until Zoro's promise can be fulfilled. It's his duty as a captain, after all, to choose a crew with dreams as magnificent as his own to sail with him to Raftel, and then ensure that they find their heart's most greatest desires.

"Okay," he says to Zoro, pleased with the decision he has reached. If Zoro's frazzled expression is an apt indication, then the pirate hunter is clueless of his captain's conclusion (clueless that he even has a captain now), and Luffy just smiles as he finally lowers his hand.

Zoro's eyes track the motion with a dark and wolfish gaze, suspicious of Luffy's actions as a dog is cornered and abused and beaten by the hand that feeds it - or doesn't, perhaps, in this case.

Captain Morgan, was it? Luffy recalls, vowing that the man will die before laying another hand on his crew.

"I'll get your sword back so that you can join me! And if I see Pax, I'll tell 'em that you're pirates now, okay?"

"Err," says Zoro, and that's good enough for Luffy, who promptly reels back a rubbery arm and flings himself into the marine compound, his first mate's exclamation bellowing loud and dumbfounded behind him.

He locates not one but three swords which may or may not be Zoro's, so he takes them all to maximise his success and charges back through the compound with his spirits high, clobbering any flabbergast marines that stand in his way. Daemons in all shapes and sizes scamper out of his path, their furry, scaly, or feathery expressions mirroring that of their soul's, but not once does Luffy spot a wayward daemon, and not once does one respond to his summoning call.

Luffy doesn't worry. It is merely a daemon's nature, after all, to be loyal to no one but who they complement, and if this Pax had come running at Luffy's shout, then what would that say of its loyalty - what would that say of its soul?

(Yes, what would that say?)

Zoro claims all three blades when he's freed. Luffy laughs because that's the best thing he's ever heard of, and then only continues to laugh as Zoro unsheathes them at once and clamps the white one between his teeth. The swordsman's smile is more of a snarl now, canines and smirk on full display, but he fights when Luffy asks and calls him captain though Luffy doesn't, and then when Morgan is smashed face, axe, and all, Zoro sheathes his swords and collapses - crumples - to the ground.

Luffy catches him; lays him down carefully with the swords at his side. Coby wheezes as he scurries over, hand at his chest and hissing oh my god Luffy we almost died! but he, too, kneels down to check the unconscious swordsman, hands moving restlessly over Zoro's wrist, his neck, and the pulse struggling there.

"He must be exhausted," Coby mutters, frowning at the sweat on Zoro's brow and the shadows bruised beneath his eyes. The swordsman doesn't so much as twitch as they manoeuvre him into Luffy's arms, but Luffy does, flinching visibly as he overestimates his first mate's weight; half-starved is accurate, he realises, half-starved and tired and sick.

"He needs a doctor," the captain says, shifting Zoro's terrible weight so that the three katana are secure.

"He needs his daemon," Coby adds, scanning the courtyard as the captain had not an hour before, eyebrows furrowing as only marines and their cowering daemons can be seen. "He's not a Devil Fruit user, is he?"

He shoots Luffy a questioning gaze from behind the thick frames of his glasses, and then glances at his own daemon as if she may know where Zoro's has wandered off to. Tail swishing against the gravel in apparent disinterest, the lioness merely blinks at her companion and roars out a yawn, lolling pink tongue sliding against her teeth.

"His daemon's called Pax," Luffy replies, and while that is all he knows for sure, he has a feeling that the daemon will appear in its own time, when it's safe or when it has decided that Luffy is not, unwilling to linger too far from Zoro now that the swordsman has been freed.

Coby looks uncertain, scratching the top of Fallon's sandy head to reassure himself, but he doesn't argue when Luffy urges them towards the town. The bartender at the inn is quick to offer a room to the recovering swordsman, and her daughter is swifter at fetching a doctor, but if Zoro's daemon is on its way, then it is slow and minding its time. Still, Luffy refuses to worry, no stranger to the strange behaviours of daemons, but he will be glad to see this Pax live and well when it does find its way, if only for reassurance over Zoro's dwindling health.

He leaves Zoro in the doctor's capable hands, and when he returns with his arms laden with food (for himself, not for Zoro, even if he hadn't sworn not to feed the first mate without strict supervision), his patience and optimism are greatly rewarded. For there, snoozing beside its human counterpart, is a daemon in the shape of dog; a large dog, bulky and refined where Zoro is not (where he should be, where he will), but curled up on the bed all the same. It is an unusual mix of whites and greys and ragged, almost-gold tinted fur, but when the dog lifts its head to turn the sharp gaze (the sharp eyes, muzzle, and teeth) of a predator towards him, it is all Luffy can do to freeze in the doorway and think - wolf.

(Or - something of a wolf, anyway; something more than a dog, no doubt).

Pax watches Luffy for a moment, watches him recover from surprise and amble into the room, and then recurls on the duvet to match Zoro's slumber breath-for-breath.

Luffy stuffs a sausage roll into his mouth to stop himself from cooing.

"So you're a Devil Fruit user?" is the second thing out of Zoro's mouth upon waking, the first being a groan, a mumbled where...? and then a yelping curse of Pax gerroff! as his wolfdog daemon rolls over and flattens him into the bed. Luffy smiles at the affectionate display, pleased as the daemon is that Zoro is finally, truly awake; he's been unresponsive for days, somewhere not quite asleep but unable to wake, and he must be hungry, Luffy thinks, just as he must be relieved to have his daemon back at his side.

Even if Pax is slobbering all over him.

"Uh-huh, I'm a rubberman!" Luffy replies, offering the swordsman a glass of water. He should probably call the doctor right away, but this is the most alert he's seen Pax all week, let alone Zoro, so giving them a moment to reunite will only do them good. Plus, Pax hasn't much appreciated the flurry of strangers, Zoro's exhaustion heightening her wariness to growling and snarling at anyone who approaches.

"It's true then?" the first mate asks, sipping carefully at the water. He's dog-tired, dehydrated with a deathly sort of colour still lingering in his skin, but still manages a smile when Pax tries to dig under the duvet to lay closer to his side. "What they say about Devil Fruit users and daemons, that is."

Luffy tilts his head, sun-guard brim of his hat slipping over his eyes. "Ah? Depends what they say," he says, dazzling Zoro's suspicion with a smile. "I've not met many other Devil Fruit users!"

"They say you haven't got daemons," Zoro claims, eyebrows rising to exaggerate his questioning, well? "That you give them up for power."

Oh? breathes Luffy, continuing to smile. Pax is watching him now, her eyes warning danger from over Zoro's thigh. It would be cute were she not an animal of silver and bronze, a snout of knives and a coat of blood, a daemon with a swordsman's unbending will, but it does endear her to Luffy, unused to a daemon's enduring presence as he is.

"Weird," the captain says, picking his nose in disinterest. He elaborates no further, disinclined to discuss such a controversial matter, and Zoro sighs his acquiescence just as the door clicks open, bidding Coby and his lioness daemon inside.

"Oh! Zoro-san you're - you're up!" the boy squeaks, beginning to fiddle with the end of his sleeve. The marines had outfitted him with a uniform just the day before, and like any child thrust with wide, wondrous eyes towards their dream, Coby has yet to take it off.

"Has the doctor been up here yet? Have you had anything to eat?" he asks, glancing pointedly at Luffy. He rolls his eyes and presses on before the captain can answer, however, apparently deciding that asking after Luffy's forethought is a waste of time. "I could go and get him - I should go and get him! Yeah, I'll - err - I'll just -"

He almost trips over his daemon in his haste to scamper out, which is quite a remarkable feat considering Fallon's size.

"Great," Zoro sighs as boy and lion pad down the hallway, clearly thrilled about the inevitable check-up. Being men second only to the sea, they could make a quick get-away (once a pirate, always a pirate it seems), but Luffy values his nakama's health over racing to their next adventure, and he isn't sure that Pax will let Zoro escape the bed anyway.

(He'd say good dog except that would both be patronising and likely to result in her tearing his throat out. After all, if she's inherited even an ounce of Zoro's stubbornness, then she'll be the kind of daemon who will fight and challenge and die for what she wants - for what Zoro wants, for what they both want, and for what they're prepared to risk everything for).

(As Luffy continues to smile, he glances just briefly towards the open window, the clouds, the sky, and the horizon rising purple and pink and gold over there, and he cannot help but think that they are all going to get along rather well).

Daemons rarely interact with those beyond their other half, so it doesn't surprise Luffy to receive only silence from the wolfdog. Zoro, himself, says little beyond what's necessary, instead grunting and growling almost as much as his daemon, something that certainly doesn't encourage Pax to be any more conversational. In fact, the daemon is quiet even around other daemons, seeming to hold no interest in meeting and greeting the many souls that bound past, although it should be noted that few do approach her mountainous form, instead cowering into themselves to offer the hound a wide berth. Neither man nor wolf so much as blink at the fear, long-since used to the stares that follow them just as Luffy is used to the ones that follow him, whispers and pointing and mutters of dear god.

(Dear god, where's his daemon?)

Zoro hasn't enquired about the matter since the first time; in fact, he hasn't really asked at all about Luffy's upbringing, preferring instead to follow the captain without so much as batting an eyelash, so Luffy returns the favour. Truthfully, his first mate's past is his own, and Luffy likes Zoro for who he is now, regardless of who he was or may have been.

He learns a lot about the swordsman in their first few months together (food preferences, sleeping patterns, how he behaves towards the world) but still somehow seems to know very little. Zoro's family is a mystery; his friends even more so. His favourite colour is anybody's guess (although Luffy could probably guess), and his hobbies beyond swordsmanship are completely unfathomable.

Unless drinking and getting lost count as hobbies, because both are pastimes in which Zoro excels. A wolfdog daemon is particularly useful in terms of achieving the former, something that still amuses Luffy weeks after the swordsman explains the reasoning behind his bar-finding knack.

"Her nose is a lot better than mine," Zoro had said, shrugging as though training up an alcoholic scent hound is an acceptable use for a half-wolf mix of a daemon.

Pax's heightened sense of smell has its uses beyond sniffing out alcohol. Telling Zoro not to bounty hunt now that he's a pirate means their financial income is limited, and as such, this had been the topic of their first "real" argument.

"We can hunt for food," Luffy had argued, raised in a jungle and adapting to foraging as he is. Having a wolfdog to track their prey only helps, but neither Zoro nor Pax had shared his enthusiasm.

"We can't hunt for everything," Zoro had countered, looking more like a first mate in that moment than he ever had before, expression hard and steady and his shoulders tight, arms crossed before the captain's easy smile. "There's more to worry about than food - clothes, medicine, supplies for the ship."

"We don't have a ship."

"Yeah because they cost money."

Ah true, Luffy had thought, conceding to that one. The chances that they will get even a half-decent ship for free are laughable. "But we don't need clothes or medicine at the moment."

Zoro had looked about ready to strangle him - but with the captain's bounty-less head, that wouldn't have exactly solved the problem. "But we will. You're gonna have to let me get cash somehow, captain. When you're travelling at sea, you can't just live in the present!"

They had failed to reach a compromise at the time, Zoro only growing more incensed with each insistence that pirate bounties were off-limits, but by the next morning he had been oddly complaisant over the matter, and Luffy hadn't pressed. He didn't ask for insight into his first mate's mind; with Pax's growling, Luffy probably wouldn't have received it anyway.

Since then, Zoro hasn't complained about their money even once, so Luffy continues to pretend that he hasn't noticed that the funds don't seem to deplete.

Recruiting Nami and her money-smart, no-nonsense, pirate-hating outlook comes as a relief, despite the aforementioned duo she joins being nothing but pirates. (One day they'll be more than pirates - they'll be the World's Greatest Swordsman and the Pirate King, but not today - not yet). She's a breath of fresh air on the crew, the chilling north wind and the summery south slammed together to produce a girl of lightning and storms, and Luffy likes her instantly. Zoro doesn't seem to hold her in the same regard, treating her carefully, warily, expecting her to leave, and Nami returns the suspicion in kind, her red fox daemon unafraid of hissing when Pax maunders too close.

Pax and Jasper do not get along.

"She's dangerous," the fox whispers one night, curled up on Nami's lap like a cushion. Luffy tries not to listen but it's difficult when their boats are tied together, eavesdropping an inescapable pastime when the sea is sleepy and calm. Jasper doesn't seem to notice that Luffy is awake, and thus neither does Nami, petting the worrying fox under his chin.

"They're pirates," she argues; they, she says, not we. "They're all dangerous."

"The captain's a Devil Fruit user," Jasper continues, scarlet ears twitching under his other half's hand. "Buggy didn't have a daemon either, but…"

"But?"

The daemon wiggles, nuzzling his snout further into Nami's tummy before murmuring, "Luffy doesn't seem so bad - for a daemon-killer."

Nami clicks her tongue, holding back a disbelieving snout lest she wake the crew. "He still ate a Devil Fruit."

"But Arlong's never had a daemon, and he's awful," Jasper mutters, which appears to have some significance if Nami's sigh is any indication. "And the swordsman's got a wolf. One wrong move and Pax could eat me."

While that may theoretically be true, Luffy has to stop himself from rushing to Pax's (and by extension, Zoro's) defence. More wolf than dog though she may be (though they both may be, perhaps, her and Zoro together), she is kind at her core, Luffy is sure, because she wouldn't be on his crew were she not.

Nami seems just as unconvinced. "What's your point, Jas?"

"I just think that maybe we should give Luffy a chance," the fox whispers, almost sighing, almost - resigning himself to this. "His daemon could've been a bear or something."

"A bear would've been better than nothing," Nami replies, but she doesn't sound so sure.

Carefully, Luffy rolls over and tries to discreetly block his ears. On the other side of the boat, half-flattened over Zoro as is her favourite spot, Pax's tail thumps once against the deck. Jasper squeaks a curse and almost flies a foot into the air, and only Nami's quick hands stop him from tumbling overboard.

Like Zoro before her, Nami doesn't inquire into Luffy's daemon-less state. She keeps to herself, reserving her affections solely for Jasper as he nips at her heels, but Luffy is sure that she'll open up in time. He can't say when, or why, or even how she will, but she'll come to cherish her place upon his crew; his navigator, his weather-wielding nakama with tangerine hair and a fiery soul. Zoro, too, will come to appreciate her presence beyond a wary tolerance, but by then they'll have two more within their crew - a sniper and a cook, and two more daemons to question the lack of Luffy's own.

Until that time, Nami will keep her secrets and Zoro will withhold his concerns, and it is Pax who will watch the crew with an attentive eye, who will growl at their enemies and prowl between them and the world, a hulking silence in the corner of their vision, following Luffy's gaze up to the sky.

"You've got a daemon," she'll say to him - the first thing she'll ever say to him, mouth of canines and knives grinning wide at her conclusion; at how Luffy smiles with his eyes for once, hat tipping forward to hide it from his crew.

"She'd like you," he'll confirm, and the wolfdog will laugh something savage, less like Zoro in that moment than she ever has been, apart from him just as all daemons are apart from those that complete them; two halves of a whole, but not one and the same.

"Yeah?" will be her snarl, vicious and yet oddly fond as though Luffy has passed some sort of test; gained her approval as well as her attention, and encouraged her to disregard the social expectations that force them not to interact.

"She'd be a fool to like me," Pax will say with a terrible smile, and Luffy will only laugh.

Usopp's mountain weasel daemon can't seem to decide which of the crew's two current daemons should be more feared - the wolf or the fox - and Luffy finds this more entertaining than he probably should do considering that the timid sniper is the newest member of his crew. It's just as well that his daemon isn't here, he thinks, watching Morgandy's adorable ball of dusty fur and terror scamper around the Merry, but eventually he takes pity on the finicky duo and ushers Pax and Jasper from the deck.

(Jasper snaps at him, hissing rude, but Pax only plods off like a sleepy, old Labrador and flops down in the shade where Zoro is training).

"They're big and scary but they won't hurt you," Luffy reassures his newest nakama, patting the boy on the shoulder, and Usopp's laugh wobbles like a lie in the air.

"Y-yeah, of course!" he cries, striking a heroic pose that Luffy wants to believe but really, really doesn't. (He will one day - but just with Zoro and Nami and Raftel and gold, not yet). "We would've been able to take them!"

"We would've!" Morgandy echoes, noticeably less enthusiastically as she zips up Usopp's leg to hide in his dungarees. "We're gonna be brave warriors of the sea!"

"Sure are!" Luffy agrees, because that, if nothing else Usopp and his daemon say, is true. He punches the sniper affectionately before springing across the ship, rubber body and flip-flops smacking the loved decks of the Merry as he bounds to the helm. "Come on, come on, let's set sail! Hey Nami, hey Nami, can we go yet?"

Elbows leaning on the wheel, Nami holds up a hand at the captain's approach; Luffy skids to a halt immediately, laughing boisterously as his hat tips forward to hang precariously from her arm.

"Where to?" Nami asks, plopping the hat back onto his head. Her hands linger on the brim for a moment, fingertips marvelling at the scratchy edges of straw, but then she shakes her head to rid herself of whatever thought had caused her to hesitate. Quiet and intent, Jasper head-butts her leg like a cat, and Nami's expression resumes its typical smirk.

Something is troubling her, but Luffy doesn't ask. (It's not his place to ask, really, when she's not yet comfortable with her place on the crew). "You're the navigator," he replies instead, adopting a gleeful cheer as she blinks, taken aback. "You decide!"

"Well all right," she drawls, but Jasper emits a chirpy little sound at her sound, disclosing her happiness. She sighs at the captain - sighs at them both, looking at her daemon as though to curse, thanks a bunch Jas - then flicks Luffy's elasticated skin hard enough for it to ping. "Go and make yourself useful and pull up the anchor or something."

Luffy bounces away to do just that, mindful to avoid the scurrying of their now-smallest member of the crew. Morgandy would be safer on Usopp's shoulders, it's true, but the Going Merry is just as much her ship as anybody else's (or more so, perhaps; the Merry will always be Usopp's at heart), and she should feel safe to roam the ship despite her small size. There will probably be accidents because there are always accidents; daemons are masters of moving in the shadows - in their other half's shadow, and weaving around everybody else - but Zoro has tumbled over Pax more times than Luffy can count, so care should be taken.

Admittedly, Pax does seem to intentionally put herself in Zoro's way, be it through a desire to be seen - to be recognised and known - or through her need to protect the crew extending even to Zoro, only for the swordsman's stubbornness to clash with and refute the daemon at every turn.

They live together, man and wolf, and will die together of that there is no doubt, so it's bizarre and funny and terribly, terribly sad to see them squabble over who must perish first.

Neither of you, Luffy wants to say, but he holds his tongue as he does for all the other demons that shape, define, and haunt his crew. Rather, he says nothing of Pax's vigil (of Zoro's fierce independence, Jasper's uncertainty, Nami's suspicion), just as he says nothing of the daemon-less air that surrounds him, his rubber body strong and hard against the feathers of a shadow that should be at his side.

At the Baratie - or, what's left of it once the Straw Hats arrive - they meet a young man with a heart of gold and hair to match, who grumbles and curses but gives a piece of himself to every person who walks through the door. Luffy is no exception - or he will be no exception once the sous-chef accepts his place upon their wayward crew, a place that has always been waiting for him, just as it waited for Zoro and Nami and Usopp before. Sanji's dream is as elusive and unattainable as the captain's own, so surely it deserves to be fulfilled by the Pirate King and his crew, just as Sanji's heart deserves a place to be kept - somewhere safe, for himself, and the motley band of pirates (idiots) that he will come to call crew.

The Baratie is also home to the largest daemon Luffy has ever seen, but Arabella is something of a softie if what Sanji claims holds true. Apparently the man she exists beside is anything but, although Luffy isn't sure about that as he listens to the head and sous chefs bicker on the scattered remains of the deck. Zeff does seem unapproachable in every sense, tall and gruff and prone to wrecking things with his awesome peg-leg, but the fact that he hasn't kicked Luffy out and didn't allow a crew of one hundred to starve on his doorstep speaks volumes.

Plus, for all of Arabella's hulking around the Baratie, her growling, her temper, and the way her four great paws patrol plod plod plod behind Zeff's uneven pace, there is tremendous care in how she interacts with Sanji's smaller daemon - shoves and swats and snaps and sighs, but never enough to cause truly cause harm.

Zeff and Sanji argue almost constantly, cursing and grumbling and threatening violence, but it is their daemons that Luffy watches, Zeff's bear hardly twitching as Sanji's sea otter tumbles around it.

"They love each other a lot," Luffy remarks as the chef duo spit fire, their bickering over Don Krieg and the state of the ship as unceasing as the waves pulling the tide up to the shore. At Usopp's flabbergast, what makes you say that, Luffy gestures, not to the men, but to where the sea otter is bumbling at Arabella's feet. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Arabella squashes Sanji's other half onto the deck; the otter squeals, little paws wiggling beneath the Kodiak bear's hefty mass, and Arabella huffs a sound of laughter and only rolls further onto the boisterous daemon.

"That's…" Usopp replies, struggling to find the right word to describe the daemons' play. "That's pretty sweet, actually. But are daemons… usually that close?"

"Raquel used to climb over Evs all the time," Luffy muses, not seeing anything wrong with the chefs' daemons. To touch somebody else's daemon is taboo, yes, but daemons are free to interact with one another as they wish - theoretically, at least. Daemons are subject to their own set of social norms; their behaviour, intentions, and personality reflects that of their other half, so for Arabella and Sanji's daemon to be in such casual contact reveals a great deal of the men's attitudes towards each other.

"Who?" the sniper asks, and Luffy responds with huh? before realising how vague his statement had been.

"Oh, my brother's daemon," he clarifies, laughing as the sea otter flops across the deck, finally wrenching itself to freedom. It wails a noise like a half-drowned cat and scampers over to Sanji, and Arabella follows after a moment, movements hulking and smug as she comes to rest beside Zeff's wooden leg.

Usopp nods, humming an oh okay. His expression settles from bemused to understanding, only to morph back into astonishment as his nodding slows, umber curls bobbing over the pinch of his brow. "But wait," he begins, rubbing his chin. "Is Evs or Raquel -?"

"Hey, you two!" Zeff bellows, waving his hand in a come here or a what are you doing motion; it's hard to tell given the chef's grumpy demeanour, but Usopp squeaking in terror is likely the appropriate response. Beside the large-hatted chef, Sanji seems to have resorted to smoking out his frustrations now that the argument has ended, but the otter at his feet is lounging happily, big eyes and fuzzy nose observing the two pirates curiously.

Morgandy asks, is he talking to us? just as Zeff follows his first roar with: "You kids just going to stand there? Come help with cleaning this dump up!"

"This dump is our restaurant," Sanji mutters.

"Still a dump right now, isn't it?" Zeff shoots back, arguing over the top of Luffy's straw hat as the captain ducks past, dragging the reluctant sniper behind him. "Go scout the waters or something if you're just going to be miserable."

Sanji's expression darkens, but whatever he says next is lost to Luffy as the Baratie's doors swing shut behind him. Inside the desolated restaurant, the clean-up is already well underway; most of the customers are crowded around one of the few intact tables, whispering and cursing to themselves at their wrecked afternoons, but some are assisting the rowdy gang of chefs with sweeping. Taking in the splintered floors, the cannonball shaped holes in the wall, and the glass and china shattered over the decking, Luffy bounces over to where Zoro's daemon is curled up on one of the tables, the delicate tablecloth snagged and muddied under her paws.

"Hey, hey, what should we do with Don-what's-his-face's armour d'you think?" the captain asks at large, Usopp trotting along behind. "It's gold right? Do you think Nami would like it if we kept it? We could give it to her when we get her back!"

Ears twitching as the duo and daemon approach, Pax blinks as though she had truly been asleep amongst this chaos. Luffy hops up onto the table beside her (coincidentally rather than consciously leaving enough space not to be in contact with her fur), and Usopp makes an uncertain sound from the side, eyes darting around the restaurant's ruckus.

"Err, Luffy, aren't we meant to be cleaning?"

Luffy smiles carefree, kicking a chair out in invitation. "Yeah, in a mo!" he says - only, the chair collapses at the assault, four rickety legs unable to withstand the thought of Usopp reaching to sit upon it. Usopp's oh god has the captain shrieking with laughter, and even Pax, slouched half-asleep as she seems to be, huffs a hoarse sound of amusement.

"Maybe we should use the gold to pay the head chef for all the trouble we've caused," Usopp suggests meekly, his mountain weasel daemon squeaking an agreement from inside his dungarees.

Yet, the captain pouts, shaking his head so that his hair flops over his face. "But we're pirates!"

"Err, yes?" Usopp replies, one eyebrow quirking as though to ask, what of it?

"Soooo," Luffy goes on, swinging his legs from the tabletop. Usopp's expression scrunches as though the sniper is already aware of where this is going, and Luffy grins. "We can get away with this sort of stuff, right? Plus I already did the dishes!"

Pax laughs, tucking her snout under her paws to smother the sound. Luffy rounds on the wolfdog immediately, barely refraining from poking her in the side to pester her into explaining.

"What, what?" Luffy prompts instead, hearing Morgandy begin to laugh nervously behind him. "What'd I say?"

"Is it always going to be like this?" Usopp bemoans - only, like what Luffy never gets to know, because with Pax's next breath, Zoro comes crashing into the Baratie like a thunderous reckoning, three katana clacking against the wonky doorway like the crack of a lightning bolt splitting open the sky. Pax rises up immediately, dog to wolf as she seems to grow twice in size, charcoal-grey and bronze highlights like a mountain surging up from the earth, and Luffy mirrors her as Zoro charges panting and wild into the room.

"What's wrong?" the captain asks, unsure how to react to Zoro's crumbling composure. But his first mate disregards the question, his eyes only for his daemon and his attention captured elsewhere - by what he's seen, or heard, perhaps, by something that has shaken him or threatened him in a way that Luffy doesn't like. Only months he has known the swordsman, and slightly less than that (truly) has Zoro embraced his role as both a first and the second - but not once has Luffy seen Zoro so impelled, so -

Alive.

"He's here," Pax snarls, Zoro snarls, lips curling up to reveal a grin of wicked knives and canines. The daemon vaults from the table, matching Zoro's frantic pace beat-for-beat, two beasts stalking this territory of ruin and rubble. Pax is thunder on the floor, they both are, and just for a moment Luffy feels like he's intruding on a moment as though he had reached for Pax himself; felt her fur beneath his fingertips beyond the sweep of her coat past his arm.

"Right now," the other pants, almost crazed with excitement; they're a spectacle together, man and wolf side-by-side. "We could do this right now."

"Do what?" Usopp asks, regarding the duo with caution. He glances between the first mate and his daemon, and then looks to Luffy for reassurance, Morgandy rustling restlessly within the folds of his clothes.

"Challenge him," Zoro breathes, sounding as though he could choke with the weight of his words. "The Greatest Swordsman in the World."

Usopp doesn't appear to find any reassurance in this, instead whispering, "He's here?" with such a nervous titter that he might pass out at any moment. Poking her little head out of Usopp's pocket, Morgandy whispers, "Sounds like bad news," and the young sniper nods weakly.

"But aren't we going after Nami and Merry?" he asks.

"Yeah," Luffy replies, itching to reach for his hat. It feels heavy at his neck - heavier than it has been all this time, and it must be the weight of Zoro's dream, he realises; Shanks' hat must be weighed down and reinforced by all of his nakama's dreams. "We all are - Sanji too."

He doesn't know if he can guarantee this - he can't force Sanji to join them, and he can't tell Zoro to throw away this opportunity for his heart's greatest desire - but Usopp relaxes at the captain's firm words. Zoro certainly doesn't, although a twice of Pax's jaw, a clink of her claws, and a twitch of her ears are the only indications that Luffy's insistence has bothered him - that is, until Luffy tries to smile, and then the swordsman and his wolfdog release a growl.

"You said you wouldn't stop us."

Luffy nods; he remembers their deal and intends to keep his promise, no matter what Zoro may assume. "I'm not going to stop you," he assures, smiling kindly.

Pax and her other half appear unable not to glance at each other. "You think we'll win?" she asks the straw-hatted captain, and Luffy blinks for a moment, stunned that she has even asked, but then he laughs. These past months have been enough to learn how Zoro gives his loyalty and trust; he differs from Usopp, who will do anything for his friends, and he differs from Nami, who fights and denies but wants desperately to trust, and he differs from Sanji, too, who seems to trust so openly and allows himself to hurt. Zoro's loyalty is solid, steadfast, and unwavering, but hard to gain and keep and call it your own; more challenging to earn than maintain, and Luffy doesn't think he's earned it yet - not like Zoro's dream has, anyway.

But that's - okay.

"D'you care what I think?" the captain asks them both.

Zoro barks, no, urging his daemon to follow as he strides back out. Pax does so without question, fierce and battle-ready like her human half, his fingertips drumming restlessly against Wadō Ichimonji's hilt. Her pace never falters, confident in herself and too full of pride to stumble, but just for a moment - for the slightest of moments - she glances back through the Baratie, dark eyes finding Luffy across the battle that has already taken place on this ship.

Pax says nothing, but Luffy wonders if she wants to.

(He wonders if letting them go is okay).

Mihawk nearly carves Zoro in two. Blood bespatters the deck of the Baratie, scarlet splatters of agony seeping hot through the cracks of the wood (of Luffy's decision, of Zoro's will) and down into the ocean below. The waves churn, seafoam suds surging up over the battleground, spraying salt and icy water over where the swordsman has fallen. His daemon lays quiet beside him, pride beseeching her not to whimper where she'll be heard. Her opponent - though brief, their meeting only a clash of fangs and will and a monstrous strength - is worthy of walking beside The World's Greatest Swordsman; a daemon to match Pax in every single way, the black panther is a predator the likes of which are scarcely seen. A shadow at Mihawk's heel, she had struck like lightning at his command, formidable, lethal, and tearing into Pax's coat as her other half had severed Zoro head-to-toe, blade and claw moving as one.

For a moment, Zoro lies still, reduced to nothing but an attempt sprawled there on the deck, blood sullying the dispassionate clip-clop of Mihawk's boots. For a moment, he doesn't breathe, and neither does Pax, and neither does Luffy from where he watches from afar, able to intervene but fighting not to. For a moment, it seems that Zoro's journey has come to a terrible end, but then he lifts up his beloved blade and his daemon raises her bloodied head, and they both howl out a promise to themselves, to their captain, and to anybody close enough to witness this moment in history.

(Any problems with that, Pirate King?)

"Forsythia," Mihawk says afterwards (not muttering, of course, it being impossible for him to do so), calling his daemon to him. The panther prowls over, tail swishes like a sword through the air, and not once does she look back at the daemon she almost slayed as they depart.

Her paws stick to the wood as she slips away.

Nami returns to them with bruises and tears. Arlong Park experiences the reckoning of the Straw Hat pirates, and the crew of five (of nine - of ten, truly) stand strong in the aftermath of the damage they have wrought. Thank you, Nami says once the Merry has sailed away, but with Zoro sleeping away his pain, Usopp occupied at the helm, and Sanji settling into the kitchen waiting for him, only Luffy is there to hear her quiet plea - but maybe she intended for that all along.

"You're my navigator," is Luffy's simple response. His hat is still in Nami's possession, sitting crooked atop her tangerine crown, but he has no desire to take it from her; she'll give it back when she's ready. "We can't go anywhere without you."

She smiles and nods, scratching behind Jasper's ear. The daemon is lounged out over her lap, little paws sticking up in the air and white-tuff belly aimed content to the sky. It's the most relaxed Luffy has seen him to date, and he grins back at the teary-eyed navigator, glad for Jasper's peace of mind.

Sanji's daemon, too, like Jasper and Morgandy before it, takes time to settle into the crew. Playful and gentle and so very, very kind the otter may be, there is a nervousness that haunts it now that they have left the Baratie. With time and good company, Luffy is sure that the daemon will return to its free-spirited self, but it seems to have taken the decision to leave home particularly hard. Sanji betrays little of this unease, immersing himself in his role upon the ship, but maybe the elaborate meals and many hours he spends slaving away in the kitchen discloses his need to impress.

The sea otter will talk to anybody - daemon or human or fishman alike - and though this breach of social conduct is somewhat queer, Luffy is happy to indulge the daemon in conversation. Usopp, too, only falters at the otter's first question, but Zoro and Nami take longer to adjust to the odd behaviour, although Zoro keeps to himself for the most part anyway, and Nami continues to feel wary in the presence of daemons larger than her own.

"I'm Wilhelmina," is the first thing the sea otter ever says to the crew at large, wrinkling its button nose. "But that's a mouthful so you can call me Will, or Willa, I don't mind."

"You're a boy?" Morgandy asks, glancing up at Usopp before edging closer to the new daemon. Wilhelmina leans down to greet the mountain weasel, emitting a noise of amusement as Morgandy adopts a brave face to consider the larger daemon.

"Sometimes," Wilhelmina says, fuzzy tail curling close. "But not really. That's okay, right?"

Morgandy seems taken aback for a moment; overwhelmed to have the entire attention of the deck fixed upon her. Even Pax has perked up from the corner, although Zoro hasn't ceased with groaning and heaving beneath the ridiculous weight of the dumbbells. The mountain weasel flusters, shrinking under the stares, but still tries to bumble through a response for Wilhelmina's sake.

"Sure! If that's what you're happy with, right? But… what shall we call you?"

"Will," the otter says, clearly confused at having to repeat this. "Or Willa. Either's fine…?"

"That's not what she means, idiot," Sanji interjects, sweeping past with a plate of drinks and sweet treats from the kitchen. He pats his daemon's head fondly as he does so, unable to resist smiling at Wilhelmina's dazed little sound.

"They/them is good," he says, crouching beside Morgandy. The weasel tenses, aware that with one move from the otter she could be trapped between the cook and his daemon, and Usopp, too, makes an uncertain noise as Sanji pulls something from the tray. "Here, do you want something to eat? You should let me know if you like it."

Flabbergast, Morgandy takes the offered piece of food from the chef. Sanji smiles, moving with a care not to touch Usopp's daemon, and then holds another treat out for Jasper to inspect. The fox hesitates, ears pulled back, but then shuffles forward to take the snack at Nami's nudge of reassurance.

"How… is it?" Usopp asks his daemon. He crouches opposite the chef, holding out his hand, and Morgandy zips up his arm to settle in her favourite spot in his pocket, still clutching the treat between her teeth.

"I like it," she murmurs, and Wilhelmina laughs a relieved, I told you she would! "Thank you. But I don't need to eat, you know."

"You're welcome," Sanji says, almost glowing at the praise. "And it's my duty as a chef to feed everyone on the ship, so that includes you - and Jasper, and you, Pax," he adds, calling over to the wolfdog half-snoozing beside her other half's shadow. "If you want it."

"Or if you don't," Wilhelmina says, still laughing, and Pax merely flicks her tail before lowering her head to her paws once again.

Over Reverse Mountain they go, screaming all the while. At the base they nearly crash into a whale of monstrous proportions, and it's only Luffy's quick (and perhaps dim-witted) thinking that saves the Going Merry from destruction. The crew's daemons are oddly subdued in the whale's overbearing presence, but they don't learn why until lonely Laboon and the doctor who cares for him are but specks on the horizon, and it is only then that Luffy has an explanation for why touching the whale's scarred body had felt… strange.

"He's a daemon," Jasper mutters, the first of the daemon-half of the crew to speak up. "But not Crocus'. He must have gotten separated from his…" The fox shivers, appalled with the very thought of Laboon's desperate wailing, but as Jasper tucks himself into the safety of Nami's side, he startles with the recollection that Luffy's daemon is one that the crew have never seen.

The rest of the crew seem to realise this at the same time, but nobody goes as far as to mention it. Luffy wouldn't mind it if they did; it's not as if he's keeping a secret. Rather, he keeps quiet merely because he still hears the whispers whenever they go ashore, whispers of daemon-killer and worse, and though he loves his nakama dearly, he fears that they wouldn't understand the decision that some make to eat a Devil Fruit.

Not, that is, that Luffy had a choice about his.

With Reverse Mountain and Laboon soon behind them, the crew encounter the island of Whiskey Peak and the ruckus occurring there. Well, the ruckus doesn't occur until they arrive, but the Straw Hat crew are quickly learning that this will always be the way; without hardship they cannot progress, and without challenges they cannot lift their heads with pride.

(They'll shout, our captain will be the King of the Pirates, and one day the entire world will hear them).

The lateness of the hour does nothing to dampen the spirits of the people living in the town. Welcoming and open, they encourage the Straw Hat crew to drink and eat to their hearts' content, and the crew are eager to take them up on the offer. Free food and drink are not things to be passed on lightly, so Luffy leads his crew of merriment and glee through the dusty streets, stopping only to marvel at the gigantic cacti that cast their thorny shadows over the town.

"Ooh, Zoro, someone's just opened a bottle of Alabastian Straight Bourbon Falcon Whiskey," Pax says, excitement building as she sniffs the air. "I think it's Number Nine - or Seven. I hope it's Seven, that one's my favourite."

"Should go find it," Zoro grunts, hand resting on the hilts of his katana in an almost lazy fashion, but Luffy knows that he could draw any of those blades without a second's hesitation. "I'm sure they'd be happy to share, hmm?"

"Depends on your definition of share," Nami says, and Zoro laughs, agreeing with her wholeheartedly.

The rest of the crew follow the townspeople to drink and eat long into the night, Zoro and Pax soon returning with the fabled bottle of whiskey. By the turn of midnight, the Straw Hat pirates are strewn about the sofas and tables sleeping soundly, bellies full and bulging. The people of Whiskey Peak plot around them, muttering and scheming over the oblivious crew: maybe it is this that wakes Luffy, or maybe it is something else, he wonders, sticking his head out the door at the sound of wings rushing in the night.

He doesn't call out to the sound.

Instead, he can only plod through the streets at the urging to his gut, his instincts alone pushing him along. In the open lane, many of the villagers are lying stone-cold on the ground, pistols and knives scattered about them, and Luffy rushes to each person he finds to see them bruised and cut - and then, just a few, with their clothes shredded by claws.

Zoro and Pax.

Drunk? he ponders, thinking of the whiskey. Uninhibited? he dares not think, the Baratie not long behind them. Mihawk's presence had revealed a side of Zoro that Luffy had only glimpsed before, something dangerous, something worthy of the wolf at his side.

Or is this justified? Luffy reasons, sure of Zoro's loyalty and Pax's gentle heart. Hemming and hawing to himself, the captain leans over his rubbery belly to inspect the slice of Pax's claws, and beneath his hand the townsman breathes.

Alive.

Luffy releases a breath, steel tension sighing out of his body. The man on the pavement stirs, twitching into consciousness, and so Luffy sits back on his heels to let him, waiting like a coil to have his hopes confirmed.

The moment the man lays eyes on Luffy, he curses, wheezes, and startles violently enough to scrap the gravel, and that's all the answer Luffy needs.

"Hey, hey, thanks for the food, that was awesome," he singsongs, smiling mischievously at the villager, and nervously, like a mouse cowering from a cat, the man quirks his mouth in something of a smile.

Luffy punches him.

Then, delighted with the crack of bone and the crunch of teeth, the straw-hatted captain springs off to join his wayward first mate.

Carue is an even bigger daemon than Zeff's Arabella, but he exemplifies the notion that bigger isn't always better - or fiercer, as the case may be. A super spot-billed duck of a sunshine yellow disposition, Carue is a joy to have on the ship - nervy, but kind, playful and sweet, and standing almost as tall as his other half. Vivi is a new light within the crew, a princess of pearls and blues with a heart strong and gold. Soft-spoken, at first, a little shy around the Straw Hats, but driven by ideals and promises with an enthusiasm that Luffy can appreciate. Vivi is proud of her beliefs, her country and her people, so Luffy knows that she will succeed in saving the citizens she so dearly loves.

And they will help her, or they will die trying.

Luffy's ideals will accept nothing else.

"Guess we'll have to step-up our training," Sanji concludes as the plan to overthrow the Baroque Works is laid out. Dinner has long-since finished, the chef now only polishing the glasses to busy his hands.

"Guess we'll need a doctor," Usopp mutters, his grumble wobbling the surface of his hot chocolate. A touch of the whipped cream is still dotted by his mouth, but he has yet to notice why Luffy and Wilhelmina keep sniggering.

"A doctor wouldn't be a bad idea," Nami agrees, slurping her own drink. "We've been lucky so far, but now that the crew's getting bigger, we really need someone who knows what they're doing."

"Zoro's been lucky so far," Jasper amends.

The wolfdog curled beside the other end of the table reveals her teeth. "You insinuating that we get by on luck?" she warns, and Jasper, realising that he has misspoke - realising that he has challenged Pax's pride - flattens his ears under her heavy stare. Carue, too, startles at the wolfdog's snarl, unused to both the occasional break of Pax's self-imposed silence and the daemon's noteworthy set of fangs.

"Pax, that wasn't what he meant," Morgandy whispers, attempting to soothe the wolfdog before she starts to growl. Usually so level-headed as she is, her temper on such a long-fuse, Pax's anger is an emotion they seldom wish to evoke.

"Got a point though," Sanji says under his breath.

"Speak up, cook," Zoro calls, and Wilhelmina does actually get as far as opening their mouth before Sanji hushes his acquiescent daemon. Zoro huffs (I thought so, it seems to say) and then reaches down to ruffle Pax's fur to calm her.

"A doctor would be cool!" Luffy exclaims, feeling the need to make his opinion known as an awkward pause arises.

His crew sigh around him, clearly having expected nothing else, but the tension lifts as they return to their drinks. The following lull in conversation is comfortable, human and daemon relaxed side-by-side, the quiet broken only by the sounds of their mugs clunking against the tabletop.

"You think everything is cool," Nami eventually remarks, giving Luffy's smile a pointed look.

He denies her with a pout, causing the navigator's eyebrows to rise dubiously.

"Only the cool things," he insists, and Vivi laughs louder than them all.

Halfway to Alabasta, disaster strikes, Nami deathly ill for a reason they cannot fathom, and the need for a doctor becomes more pressing than ever. They all do what they can, Usopp and Vivi exhausting all the medical knowledge they have at Nami's bedside, and Sanji working tirelessly in the kitchen to cater for their sickly navigator, but Nami and Jasper only continue to worsen.

They change Merry's course to the legendary island of Drum and hope whoever they find there will be enough to cure their nakama.

Zoro and Pax pick up the watch shifts - day and night, any that they can manage. The ship is vulnerable without its navigator, threatened by the Grand Line's erratic weather now more than ever, and Luffy cannot make heads or tails of Nami's maps and notes. Vivi steps up to the challenge with her sleeves rolled up, expression nervous but firm, hair sweaty and as windswept as the sky she tries to predict; a navigator she is not, but together with Zoro at the helm and Usopp as their eyes, the Merry safely traverses the seas.

For the most part, at least. Luffy soon discovers that a temporary navigator with the weight of her country and the lives of the Straw Hat crew on her shoulders, and Roronoa Zoro at the helm, is a match that runs a high risk of catastrophe. Truthfully, it is just as entertaining as it is disastrous, but with hailstones the size of buildings and water that sizzles like acid raining down on them, there are more important things to worry about.

" - starboard?" Zoro roars at one such time, full weight shoved against the steering pole in a desperate fight to keep the ship on course. Pax is half-drowned but steady at his side, and across the ship Vivi is hollering directions at them, Luffy and Usopp doing all they can to protect the sails.

"Starboard means nothing to me!"

"Right, Zoro, rig - I SAID RIGHT."

The steering pole rocks to the side, the ship swaying with it. Waves crash and pour over the deck, the storm drowning out Zoro's answering shout:

"That was right!"

Carue cries out, skidding across the deck to shield Vivi from the next wave.

"No!" the princess bellows from within her daemon's daffodil coat, spitting feathers from her mouth. "That was LEFT! USE YOUR HANDS."

"Wha - I'M HOLDING THE GODDAMN LEVER, OF COURSE I'M USING MY HANDS."

"L FOR LEFT!"

"L for lost," Luffy hears Usopp despair, and the captain is helpless not to laugh.

Afterwards, when the sea has rolled to calm again, an exhausted Vivi offers the swordsman a bow that she almost doesn't have the strength to rise from, and Zoro is so thrown for a second that he stomps right on Pax's tail.

"I'm sorry I shouted at you," Vivi says, sodden hair dripping over her face and shoes.

"Eh, sometimes I deserve to be shouted at," is all Zoro has to say to that, rubbing the back of his neck. Pax whimpers at his feet, fussing over her tail, and both swordsman and princess smile despite how close to death they had come.

"Do you think Sanji-san would be kind enough to put a pot of tea on?" Vivi asks.

"Well, he will for you," Zoro replies, but he follows the princess and her daemon into the lounge anyway. He pauses only to shake out his hair like a dog, and when Luffy drops inside just a little later with a towel around his shoulders, all of them are sitting there - Zoro, Vivi, Sanji, and daemons - with half-empty mugs sitting beside them.

"Hey, hey Sanji," Luffy calls, interrupting the quiet conversation at the table. "When's dinner gonna be?"

The chef sits back in his chair with his arms crossed, but in the chair next to him, Wilhelmina squeaks a cheerful noise as Luffy coos over the prospect of dinner.

"Soon, so pipe down," Sanji says, the way Wilhelmina's eyes peep over the tabletop detracting from the chef's apathetic grunt. The sea otter's presence means he is ridiculously easy to read, and Luffy grins as he swipes a couple of biscuits from the table and plops one into Wilhelmina's paws.

"I have to say, I've never seen a group of daemons so comfortable around other people," Vivi muses with a note of awe, Carue's curiosity revealing her own as the daemon sniffs at Luffy's hand. "How long have you been sailing together? Years?"

"Couple weeks," Sanji admits.

"Months," Zoro adds.

"Zoro and Pax joined me at Shells," Luffy provides, still swiping the biscuits as though his crew aren't acutely aware of this. "They were first - then Nami and Jasper, and then Usopp and Morgandy. Sanji and Wilhelmina were before you! Neat, right? I've got an awesome crew!"

Vivi blushes faintly at being included, Carue's feathers ruffling beside her, but Luffy's compliment hardly seems to faze the other members of the crew, long used to the captain's declarations of affection. That doesn't mean they aren't the tiniest bit flattered, and Luffy grins as both Pax and Wilhelmina nudge their respective partners into nearly spilling their tea.

"Shells? Shells Town?" Sanji echoes, abandoning his drink to hide his embarrassment behind a cigarette instead. "Wasn't there an explosion or something back there recently? That was you?"

"Technically, the marine base," Zoro deadpans, and crumbs splatter over the table as Luffy laughs.

Howls of the wind picking up outside interrupt their chatter; by this point, another pot of tea has been poured, even the daemons appreciating the calm of the storm ("Luffy, if I see you trying to give Willa caffeine again, don't expect to get seconds at dinner.") but the Grand Line waits for nobody.

"Is there anyone out there watching the weather?" Sanji eventually asks, an unctuous denial of Vivi's offer to help with the dishes swiftly replacing his sombre expression. "It's okay, Vivi-san, don't worry yourself -"

"I want to help, it's the least I can do."

"But -"

"I insist, Sanji-san, please."

"Ah," Luffy utters, trying not to smile at the hushed conversation to the left ("It's like having another Nami on the ship," Pax mumbles, and Zoro replies with a laughed, "I don't think Nami knows the word please.").

"I think Usopp's checking up on Nami," the captain says with a shrug, which is a no if the crew ever heard one.

"I'll go," Zoro volunteers, chugging the last of his drink. He cringes at the taste, lukewarm and entirely his fault, then bends to remove a towel from Pax's back and throws it over the top of the chair, scooping up his katana as he passes.

Luffy watches them go until the lounge door clicks shut behind Pax's gentle steps, listen to Sanji and Vivi's half-hearted argument of pleasantries, and then bounces out after man and wolf, calling, "Zoro, Pax - Zoro!"

The first mate stills, earrings chiming together as he turns to address the holler. "What?" he grunts, side-stepping just in time to avoid a rubbery bodyslam from the captain. Yet, the missed opportunity doesn't deter Luffy for long; a second later he has his arms wound around Zoro's stomach twice-fold, wiggling gleefully as the other man tries to worm away.

"Can I do the watch with you?" Luffy pleas into the sweaty, rain-soaked depths of Zoro's shirt. Pax is sat just a foot away, one ear flopped forwards as though she cannot decide how to react, and when Luffy blinks excessively innocently at her, she only blinks back.

Zoro shrugs one shoulder, the gesture about the most he can do. "Sure, whatever. Don't fall in."

(Let me go, he doesn't say).

(Let him go, Pax doesn't say).

Luffy laughs his signature laugh and gives his first mate another squeeze. "You'll catch me!" he says, of this he has no doubt. A Devil Fruit user though he may be, Luffy does not fear his entrapment on the Merry; Zoro has never failed to have his back, be it on land or within the throws of the sea.

"Yeah, yeah," Zoro drawls, meaning a promise of always and a sigh of but you don't make it easy for me, which Luffy snickers at, knowing that to be true. "Just as well that Pax and I can be so far apart, huh?"

"Nami'd complain about the wet dog smell if I went in after you," Pax points out, and Zoro smirks, ruffling the daemon's head roughly as he leads the trio up towards the figurehead.

"Doesn't it hurt?" Luffy asks, interrupting their bickering to consider the pair them curiously. Pax has always moved fairly independently from Zoro, lounging in her own space even far out of sight, but he supposes when comparing her to the other daemons aboard the ship, the extent to which she and Zoro can walk apart is bizarre. Morgandy, for example, remains close to Usopp at all times, but maybe her size and temperament play a factor in her willingness to roam the outer reaches of their bond.

"We trained for it," Zoro answers, which is probably more of a yes than a no.

"Axe-man keeping Pax away hurt you," Luffy remembers, visualising that fateful meeting all those months ago. Zoro had been tired, beaten, and half-starved, yes, but it had been his daemon that he had called for - not sleep, respite, or food.

"There's a limit. We're not separated," Zoro admits, plonking himself down at the bow for a long, restless watch. Pax curls herself down beside him, shaggy head almost poking through the gaps in the banister. He doesn't say anymore, doesn't ask the obvious question, doesn't turn the conversation onto Luffy, onto the daemon that should be here, and Luffy is grateful for that. The captain springs himself up onto the banister above Pax, letting his legs swing over the open water, and maybe it is Zoro's silence that encourages him to answers for once - to finally explains this not-secret that his crew have never asked for.

"I am," he says, the subsequent moment of silence filling in the word. "From my daemon."

Zoro is quiet for a moment, acting as if he hasn't heard his captain, or maybe giving Luffy the option to continue, if he wants. But Luffy doesn't, allowing his nakama to choose whatever question he wants to ask - if Zoro even wants to ask any, that is - because he'll answer it, he realises, if Zoro is the one to ask.

"When you ate your Devil Fruit?" the first mate asks, and Luffy smiles because that's an easy question to answer; a question that doesn't hurt as much as some could, a question closely tied to happy memories of Makino and Foosha and Shanks.

"Yeah. I didn't know what it was when I ate it though! Shanks was really mad!" Luffy laughs, maybe understating that a little bit, and Zoro's solemn expression is momentarily eradicated by total surprise.

"Red-Haired Shanks?" he blurts, Pax rumbling, what, really? at his side.

Luffy nods, gesturing to Shanks' gift for emphasis. "Yeah! He gave me this hat, you know? We're going to give it back when I become the Pirate King."

"We're?"

"Me and Raquel," Luffy confirms, feeling a twinge of longing (of melancholy and glee) at the sound of his daemon's name dropping from his tongue. He hasn't uttered her name since the Baratie, but back then it had only been in passing, Mihawk's entrance having distracted Usopp from considering the significance of the name.

"All of us," he amends. "We're all going to be there."

Zoro's stillness is prolonged, even Pax unmoved as the Merry rocks beneath them, Luffy's declaration impelling them to silence. Luffy can only guess as to what is going through their minds; he understands his swordsman well - he knows he does - but there's something in Zoro's eyes that he hasn't seen before.

(Or maybe he's just never stopped to think about Zoro looks at him).

"So it's bollocks then, what they say?" is what the swordsman concludes, audacious as hell and raising one, severe eyebrow at the rubberman above him, and Luffy - laughs.

Goddamn, Raquel's going to like Zoro a lot.

Drum's resident daemon-less Devil Fruit user, a reindeer with a blue nose who some call "monster" and some call "son", introduces himself as Chopper, a doctor with a little voice and a big heart. In Luffy's opinion, Chopper is one of the coolest people he has ever met (because only cool things are cool), but if he were to ask the rest of the crew, they'd probably just coo and swoon.

"He is pretty cute," Usopp remarks, Morgandy squeaking a helpless agreement.

Sanji just huffs around a cigarette. "Yeah, for emergency food supply."

Chopper's lack of a daemon does draw unwanted attention from the townspeople, but the Straw Hat pirates hardly bat an eyelash, long-since accustomed to their captain's solitary life. Questions are raised though, both to the woman that Chopper considers family and to Chopper himself, but if the crew are discomforted to learn that their newest nakama never had a daemon to "kill" in the first place ("He is a reindeer, you know.") then this doesn't change how smitten they are over his tiny hooves and ears and bubblegum pink hat.

Only Luffy asks, what's that like? and Chopper just blinks his endearingly large eyes and fusses over the brim of his hat, muttering back, what's it like for you?

Luffy grins, conceding to the point, and bops the reindeer on the nose.

Something in the crew begins to change after that - although, it isn't until Vivi has retaken her country and Robin has tricked, bartered, and saved Luffy's life to earn herself a place on the crew, that Luffy notices.

He notices it in the way that, when Usopp paints, both Morgandy and Jasper sit and watch him; when Sanji and Zoro bicker, Wilhelmina sticks out their tongue and Pax laughs; and when Nami shows Chopper how to tend to her tangerine trees, Jasper and Pax can be heard sniping at each other, joking together, hissing and growling in good spirits, and as Nami admonishes Jasper for being too loud, she admonishes Zoro's daemon too.

The taboo not to touch another's daemon still restricts them (the taboo not to scratch Morgandy's head or pet Jasper's tummy, and definitely not to scoop Wilhelmina up or use Pax's fur as a pillow), but the crew are growing closer, the bridge between man and daemon crumbling more and more every day. Vivi was right after all, and seeing his crew and their daemons so merrily interact heartens Luffy - makes him proud to be the captain of this motley group, and proud to have them sail with him to Raftel and beyond.

Robin too - although she is yet to feel comfortable amongst the crew. She immerses herself in her books as though they could protect her, and she hides behind her smiles and the crow's feet around her eyes as though Luffy can't see straight through the façade. Luffy's yet to point this out to her because while Robin may or may not be a lot of things, unobservant she is not, and Luffy trusts her truths and lies, and trusts that she will come to want her place on his crew just as all his nakama did before her.

"Hey, Robin," he says one afternoon, popping a ice lolly out of his mouth to address the woman perched rather than lounged on the sunbed. She's not particularly social by any means, but then neither is Zoro, but he, at least, is a constant presence about the ship, snoozing, training, or generally lying in the way, whereas Robin sets herself apart.

"Yes captain?" she replies, lowering her book but not lifting her sunglasses, unable to be entirely defenceless even in his presence. She's watching him though, a hawk's eye in the shadows, a viper coiled and waiting for reason to strike, so Luffy smiles and waves his ice lolly at her, never wanting to give her that reason.

"Can your daemon reach us at sea?"

He asks can deliberately, not will, and he knows that she, more than anyone else on the crew, will understand this distinction.

"Yes captain," she answers, considering his lazy lapping at the popsicle a moment before deciding to explain. "I consumed my Devil Fruit before he settled, and while I don't have the means to clarify whether there is a causal relationship between the age at which a Devil Fruit is consumed and the daemon's settled form, it is true that my daemon is not land-bound."

"He's free, huh?" Luffy says, nearly missing the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Mine too."

"Then I will consider that evidence towards the matter," Robin replies monotone, returning to her book to end the conversation. Only, Luffy has something he still wishes to say, something he wonders if she still needs to hear, but he lets her dismiss him and continues to enjoy his icy treat for a minute or two.

A page turns over.

"Hey Robin," he begins again, and at her next, ever-patient murmur of, yes captain? Luffy asks, "Do you miss your daemon?"

This time, the archaeologist doesn't lower her novel, but he sees her eyes flick towards him from beneath her tinted shades. He's still smiling; she's not, but then Luffy is aware that this isn't a topic that they've ever felt the need to smile about.

"Dreadfully, captain," Robin admits, flicking through another page of her book to feign disinterest. "Do they call you daemon-killer too?"

Luffy crunches through the tip of the popsicle, and Robin twitches as though worried that she has succeeded in angering him.

"Yeah," he says, calm as he is in the face of the slurs; rage and aggression would only reinforce the hatred towards Devil Fruit users, and while Luffy doesn't care for what people think of him, he cares about Robin, and Chopper, and the safety of the rest of his dearest. "But my crew don't 'cause they're my nakama, and they're your nakama too now. No one here's gonna think any less of you because of how you grew up or anything. Okay?"

Robin seems unsure on what to say, but it's not like he's expecting her life story to come spilling out. Rather, she just nods her assent and returns once again to her book, her privacy, and thoughts, but when Luffy whines upon finishing his snack, she is there with the ice-lolly bucket offering more.

Chapter Text

Skypiea’s trials of thunder and lightning bring the crew together, the mythical bell in the clouds tolling a golden, harmonious sound at their victory, but Water 7 tears them apart. A beautiful blue and haven for the creator, the city gleams with waterfalls and canals. Built up from ruin, she is a proud city that welcomes all, and teetering on the edge of her own ruin, Merry is a proud ship, but broken, her freefall from the skies a fitting final voyage. The best carpenters in the city cannot save her, so it is with the weight of his captaincy pressing on his shoulders now, more than ever, that Luffy breaks the news to his crew.

How the colour drains from Usopp’s face is worse than any fearful expression that Luffy has ever seen.

“We can fix her!” the sniper insists, goggles clattering around his bandaged chest as he argues, the rest of his nakama standing solemn around him. The shipwright’s - Franky’s - reasoning is sound, Merry is unsafe on the seas now, but she has achieved more than Franky could believe just by carrying her crew this far.

“Usopp, please,” Nami says, reaching out to offer comfort. Usopp shrugs her off and Jasper whimpers, tucked between her feet and wit subdued by the grave news. “This isn’t what we want either -”

“Then do something else!”

“We can’t,” the navigator stresses, pushing one hand through her hair. You think we haven’t thought about that? her exasperation asks, but Usopp, colour returning to his complexion in blots of queasy scarlet, seems not to notice. “Look, the ship will have to be entirely rebuilt -”

“Then we’ll rebuild her,” Usopp challenges, and both sniper and navigator huff, throwing their gazes out to the rest of the crew for assistance. A full-blown argument is not a favourable outcome, but hopefully it won’t come to that as Chopper braves stating his opinion, speaking up from where he is half-hidden behind Sanji’s legs.

“But then she won’t be Merry anymore,” he mumbles, ears drooping with this realisation, Nami and Sanji providing soft mutters of agreement. “Not really.”

Usopp’s eyes boggle, twitching and shaking like the mountain weasel in his dungarees more and more with each counter-argument, unable to accept the truth that’s creaking, groaning, and falling apart around him. It pains Luffy now to see how much Usopp adores the Going Merry; he knew it would be hard for Usopp to let go, for all of them to, but the sea is a merciless mind that doesn’t discriminate, and there’s nothing they can do to deny that.

“That’s better that scrapping her!” Usopp retorts, and how the present crew recoils at the idea is a marker of how they all don’t want to let their beloved vessel go.

“Scrap her?”

“We’re not going to scrap her.”

“We wouldn’t do that to Merry!”

“It’s Luffy’s decision,” Zoro interjects, voice soft but firm, and making plain the point, although perhaps not the best thing to say to spare Usopp’s feelings, but apt at driving the decision home.

“It’s not just Luffy’s ship though!” Usopp wails, thrusting an accusing finger to where Luffy is standing solemn and silent opposite him. Wilhelmina and Chopper jerk at the movement, and Nami snaps her mouth shut, aborting a reprimand of Zoro’s phlegmatic tone, but it is the captain that Usopp singles out, springing up from the cargo pile brandishing a spanner and a face spilling with tears:

“It’s not just YOUR DECISION TO MAKE.”

Luffy flinches, the crew’s discord bellowing at him as one. Zoro is a stable presence behind him, saying nothing further in the face of Usopp’s rage, but as Morgandy hisses and bares her little teeth, Pax lunges merciless and massive between the captain and sniper, saliva-soaked canines pinning Usopp’s daemon to the ground.

“Don’t - !” Usopp screams, but Nami wrenches him back before Morgandy’s terrified squealing can implore him to leap at Pax in a reckless attack.

“Zoro, for god’s sake, calm down,” Nami hisses.

“No.” The first mate is unflappable, silencing the dissention in the room. “You all need to calm down. Face the facts.”

“You’re talking about abandoning Merry!”

Pax snarls and Morgandy whimpers; impulsively, Usopp swings his spanner, to do what it isn’t clear, but Zoro seizes the tool before it can become anything else - a weapon or a regret in the sniper’s anguished hold.

“Hit my daemon -” Zoro growls, cutting off the threat abruptly and vague.

Usopp takes a wobbly step back, hands clenching to stop or fuel his anger it isn’t clear, Morgandy’s continued whimpering spurring him not to bow under the first mate’s glare. “She’s hurting her!”

Zoro’s upper lip curls as he puts the spanner aside. “Oh, you’d know if she was hurting her,” he barks, but now that the almost-weapon is out of their hands, he seems to calm again, beast laying low in wait for whatever comes next.

“Pax, let her go,” Luffy orders, the wolfdog needing no further encouragement. Morgandy darts out from under her paws shaken, but yes, unharmed, but Pax remains exactly where she is between the captain and sniper, eyes watching the tense reactions of the crew. Luffy doesn’t think she’ll cease her sentry even if he asks - so he doesn’t, unable not to wonder how Raquel would retaliate were she here.

The attention of his nakama are on him, Usopp dismayed and the others resigned, and with far more than Merry possibly at stake, in that moment Luffy is reminded that he is a captain; Zoro is right, it is his decision that they await.

“Usopp,” he begins, and that’s really all he needs to say to his crew to understand. “We need to say goodbye to Merry and get a new ship so that we can keep going. Merry can’t take us any further.”

“Says who!” Usopp blurts, Jasper folding down his ears at the volume of his shout. “We’ve got money!”

Luffy shakes his head, wishing it were as simple as that. “It’s not a matter of money -”

“How can it not be a matter of money? We’re at Water 7!”

“No one can fix Merry. The carpenter said so!”

Usopp’s laugh is desperate, and both Sanji and Nami avert their eyes, looking uncomfortable. “Well he’s wrong. He has no idea.”

“We don’t want to leave Merry,” Wilhelmina whispers, attempting to interject some common-ground, and at once, Sanji and Jasper shush the daemon, Luffy throws out a hand to hush them all, and Usopp practically explodes, wild and terrified for the fate of Kaya’s gift.

“THEN DON’T.”

“We have to! We won’t make it to the next island with her!” Luffy shoots back, and then, trying to remain calm, he takes a breath to explain, “She’s done what she can, Usopp, and there’s nothing we can do.”

“I can fix her!” Usopp claims, but they all know that this isn’t the case. If Merry were fixable, they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place; they would have sailed from Skypiea and beyond the horizon without stopping here, and Usopp has to realise that.

He wouldn’t be fighting so hard if he hadn’t realised that.

“No,” the captain states. “You can’t.”

But Usopp insists, begging please. “I can! I care about her!”

“So do I!”

That humourless laugh returns. “NO - YOU - DON’T! What sort of captain would just give up so easily? I misjudged you!”

Luffy’s jaw clicks, hoping his nakama can’t tell how much that hurt. Before him, Pax breaks her unshakeable guard to creep backwards until she is almost sitting on Luffy’s feet, closer to defend him or in a better position to lunge, he doesn’t know. Her fierce desire to protect the crew would be heartwarming in any other situation; intra-crew disputes have never escalated to this level before, not even when he and Zoro were butting heads all those months ago.

“I’ve made my decision.”

And Usopp growls, “I don’t like your decision!” with Morgandy echoing him, and as Pax snarls and Nami sighs and Sanji makes to do - something, taking a step away from Wilhelmina’s uncertain form, Luffy makes another, far more reckless, decision.

“Well then if you don’t like it -”

A rush of wings from outside, but nobody turns at the sound. Sanji puts himself in front of Usopp as though to shield him from the captain’s ire, but it could never be enough to protect him from the blow of Luffy’s bellow -

“ - LEAVE.”

(Wait, somebody cries, but it’s too late).

“FINE. THEN I QUIT.”

The duel over Merry, over far more than the Merry, is set for that evening. Luffy flops into his hammock and lets his crew’s decisions ensure without him; Sanji clatters around in the kitchen, cursing and clanging and conversing in low tones to his daemon, but Nami cannot be heard at all, off-ship or tucked away with her maps. Worst of all is Chopper, who snivels somewhere below deck where he thinks he won’t be heard. Usopp and Morgandy are gone and Robin is still gone, but just for a few hours, Luffy doesn’t want to think about how terribly stupid this day has been.

He longs for Raquel - but it’s Zoro and Pax who come to him instead.

Luffy must nod off for a moment, legs hanging from the bed and straw-hat over his scowl, for when he wakes they’re both just there, tread of their wolf-silent approach insufficient to rouse the captain. Instead, he wakes to the hum of their conversation, the steady - always steady - beat of their breaths; they quieten before he slides the hat away to reveal his awareness, and Luffy blinks through the residue of his impromptu nap to locate them in Zoro’s hammock below.

“It's nine,” Zoro rumbles; one hour till Usopp returns to duel. Where the distraught sniper and his daemon have gone is anybody’s guess, but Zoro looks as unflappable as he did during the argument, only this time, Pax is calm beside him.

Luffy sighs and slinks down into the lower hammock, squishing himself into the space Zoro has left. Pax is on the floor at their feet, but she is sitting up so that her scruffy head pokes over the hammock edge. She has almost the same look she had way back in Shells Town, when she had leapt on her partner in joy of his awakening, and Luffy wonders what that means.

“The cook saved you some dinner,” Zoro says, gesturing to the tray of food near Pax. Luffy has never missed dinner before - Sanji has never not woken him before - but looking at the bread, the juice, and the stew steaming there, Luffy realises he doesn’t really want to eat it down here while his crew can't bear to face each other.

He thanks his first mate anyway, but doesn't stretch down for the tray. An insistence that he eat doesn't come; they probably knew he wouldn't want it before they carried it down, and Luffy feels himself smiling at this thought. Zoro has always known what to say or do when he needs it; he dealt with Usopp’s anger far better than Luffy did, that's for sure.

Still. “I said something stupid, didn't I?” he asks, running his fingertips around the brim of his hat.

“D’you care what we think?” Pax replies without missing a beat, and Luffy remembers this conversation at the Baratie, remembers Zoro’s unwavering answer and Pax’s opposing quiet.

“Always,” Luffy says; he doesn't know if their responses would be different now, but that doesn't matter because he's sure of his own.

“Then no, we approve of what you did,” Pax says, sounding sincere even though she doesn't lower herself to wagging her tail. In fact, Luffy doesn’t think he’s ever seen her tail wag, but she looks pleased nonetheless, mouth slightly open and ears perked.

“Could've used a bit more tact though,” Zoro supplies, not unkindly (Zoro doesn't really do unkindly), but rather, merely stating the undeniable fact that Luffy had let his temper get the better of him.

“Says you,” Luffy shoots back, and the first mate laughs.

“Just as well you’re not the captain, Zoro,” Pax says as though she’s telling a secret, cocking her head at Luffy to ask, right? and Luffy feels a smile creep onto his face.

“Thank god for that,” Zoro agrees.

“Can you imagine me as a first mate?” Luffy asks, happy to play along with the distraction, and the immediate response is a horrified no!

Luffy laughs. “Nah, me neither. I like Zoro where he is!”

He means, beside me, behind me, always at my side, but Pax lets out a weird guffawing noise and ducks her head out of sight, as though not being seen will muffle the sound of her laughter. Luffy leans over the hammock to see what the fuss is about; it rocks beneath them, creaking like Merry against the storm approaching outside, and Zoro hisses Pax! just as the daemon’s head shoots up, crown crashing into the underside of Luffy’s jaw.

Daemon and Devil Fruit user fling themselves apart, Pax bounding away just in time to avoid being flattened as the hammock tips, throwing Luffy and Zoro onto the deck. Blabbering apologies, Luffy scrambles to untangle himself from Zoro’s stupefied deadweight; his chin is tingling with a sensation he has never felt before, the prickle of Pax’s fur a gentle burn still lingering on his skin.

“It’s fine,” Zoro grumbles, heaving himself up after the captain. “Really, it’s - oh shoot.” He curses, extracting his arm from the overturned bowl of stew. Potatoes and dumplings are splattered over the deck, the roll of bread lying in a puddle of juice. He curses again as he peels himself away from the mess, expression stuck somewhere scarlet between furious and mortified - he’s embarrassed, Luffy realises, noticing Pax’s twitchy approach.

“Guess you’re not gonna want to eat this now it’s had my elbow in it,” Zoro mumbles, talking more to himself than either of his companions as he begins to tidy up. Luffy opens his mouth to argue, but before either he or Pax can get a word in otherwise, Zoro disappears back up through the hatch with the remains of the meal.

Luffy and Pax turn as one to stare at each other.

“Err, I didn’t mean -” Luffy begins, knowing he should properly apologise for that spectacular blunder. Touching another’s daemon without their explicit consent is a terrible thing, and though he very much wishes to ruffle Pax’s fur, it hadn’t been his intention to break that utmost taboo.

“You should kiss him when he gets back,” Pax says, interrupting with such nonchalance that Luffy can only say -

“What.”

“I know he’d like it,” the daemon goes on, using exactly the same tone. She begins to groom herself casually, digging out pieces of beef from her claws, and her tail swishes once against the floorboards as the wolfdog sits comfortably despite that landslide of a statement.

“What?” Luffy repeats, struggling to process the words kiss and he’d like it. “Zoro wants a kiss?”

Pax growls, sweet jesus, head thunking against the floor. “Yes - from you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you stuck your hand down his -”

The hatch opening again silences her - only, the howl of the wind and the moonlight spilling into the quarters reveals Sanji, not Zoro, hunched over at the top. His sea otter pads into view just beside him, and there is a long moment in which they all just stare at each other before Sanji sighs around his cigarette.

“Luffy,” he breathes, smoke spilling out of his mouth to perfectly emphasise the dark, almost burning anger in his eyes. Somebody says uh-oh in response, but truly, it could be any of them as Sanji continues, “Care to tell me why Zoro had kicked me out of my own kitchen to do the dishes?”

Luffy almost blurts what? again, but thoughts of the wolfdog’s reaction hold him back.

“You let him?” Pax despairs.

Sanji glowers, clearly insulted at the suggestion that he let Zoro do anything. “He had half a dumpling in his boot.”

“We felt kinda sorry for him,” Wilhelmina supplies more gently, to which Sanji adds, “Explain,” over Pax’s drawn-out whine.

“I knocked us out of the hammock?” Luffy tries, because that’s about the only thing he’s certain of at the moment, and Pax must look just as blatantly not-innocent beside him, slumped to the ground with a paw over her eyes, for Sanji only raises his curly eyebrow in disbelief.

“Is this… about Usopp?” he asks after a pause, taming his incredulity into a softer expression.

“Err, no,” Luffy replies, just as Pax blurts, “Yes!”

Sanji’s mouth opens, and then closes again.

“Right,” he drawls, and then, after ushering Wilhelmina and their squeaking laughter out of the way, he kicks the hatch shut and strides away.

“Damn,” Pax says. “Zoro’s in trouble now.”

If Zoro has any idea what transpired in the boy’s quarters without him, he doesn’t approach Luffy about it during the rest of the evening. The duel with Usopp ends in blood and tears, Merry’s fate decided by two friends brawling in the dirt, and by the morning that dawns the start of a day that the world will remember forever, Luffy has already had enough.

The World Government trying to take Robin away from him tips the scales.

“Sogeking,” the captain calls, pointing a punched-purple hand of shattered knuckles and throwing the gaze of the King up towards the marine-marked sky. He wipes blood from his chin, smudging the gore splattered there, and tips back his straw-hatted head to challenge all those who stand before him.

“Burn the flag.”

(Oh, it burns).

(It deserves to burn).

Robin returns safely to them - and Usopp too, in the nick of time, wailing apologies from the marine-bombed shores of Water 7. The Thousand Sunny’s maiden voyage blasts the crew of eight (of thirteen - of fifteen, truly) far up into the sky, and it’s all that Monkey D. Garp and the people of Water 7 can do but stare as the horizon clear and gold carries the Straw Hat pirates away.

The Florian Triangle and the New World beyond are days’ sailing away, but there is much to be done in the meantime. Sunny is a beautiful, grand ship to be explored, a vessel built strong with her crew’s hopes and dreams, and worthy of guiding their hearts out to the sun. Franky is proud to show them all her details and secrets, and happy to bounce along his tour is his daemon, Frigg, a small but enterprising ball of fluff and ears.

“Face it, Jasp, your ears are no longer the cutest,” Nami says, cooing over the arctic hare’s black-tipped fur. Frigg spends most of her time on Franky’s shoulders, for all intents and purposes the world’s most adorable pillow, but she courageously introduces herself to the crew all at once, unfazed despite her size at the attention she receives.

“At least you can play with my ears,” the fox grouses.

Nami laughs and scoops him up, offering his distraught grumbling a tickle under the chin. “Jealousy doesn’t do either of us any wonders, Jasper,” she says, carrying him off to chart their next course; behind her, the remaining daemons are quiet until they have disappeared from view.

“I thought my ears were the cutest,” Wilhelmina whispers with a wounded expression, paws dabbing against the sides of their head.

Seeming to take pity, Morgandy scurries close to consider the matter. “I dunno,” she says after a moment, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Do you even have any ears?”

“Says the mountain weasel to the sea otter,” Pax mumbles; the other two daemons shout, hey! but it is Frigg who puts an end to Pax’s teasing, one effortless leap plonking her almost nose-to-nose with the gigantic wolfdog. Pax yelps, skidding backwards over the deck in a frantic attempt to escape the hare’s tiny, scrunched-up glare, and Wilhelmina and Morgandy fall over themselves with laughter.

“Don’t be rude,” Frigg scolds the wolfdog, puffed up and fierce. “And don’t mess up my lawn!”

“She means well, I swear,” Franky mutters, rubbing his neck as Luffy and Usopp marvel at the hare’s daring, Pax clearly not sharing the sentiment as she skulks off to escape the sniggering. Frigg seems to have successfully nominated herself as the alpha-female, and Luffy grins helplessly as the daemon’s nose twitches, weasel and otter shrieking with laughter behind her.

“Sanji!” Wilhelmina wheezes, rolling about on the lawn. “Sanji, get out here! You just missed the most amazing thing! Pax just - oh my god, I can’t believe -!”

Morgandy hiccups. “And Frigg -!”

“I know!” cries the otter. “I know, oh god -!”

“Told off by a rabbit!” they both howl.

Franky and Frigg find a rhythm amongst the Straw Hat pirates without a hitch, but as the days roll past and Enies Lobby becomes but a speck of wildfire and smoke behind them, they are not the only ones to fill a space in this motley mob of a crew. While it is true that Robin has been sailing with them for some time, there is an calm about her now that she had seldom displayed, her past revealed to the crew, her demons exposed and accepted, and a war declared for her right to survive. Luffy will never regret his actions at Enies Lobby, just as he has never regretted allowing an assassin of an archeologist on his crew, but Robin knows that now, assured of her safety and belonging on this lion-headed, ram-hearted ship they call home.

The day that a hawk of a beautiful black-blue alights by the helm, its draping tail-feathers striped with a glorious hue, is a day worthy of the tears that Robin has shed. She is the first to notice it, relaxed on the deck with her nakama busy with hobbies about her, but as smoothie slips from her hand and shatters by the sunbed, the crew startle as one to rush to her side.

“It’s a bird,” is Zoro’s astute observation, Wadō Ichimonji waiting just out of its sheath. Behind him, Chopper fusses over Robin’s hand, checking her scratches, bruises, or maybe even shock, but as the archaeologist lifts a brilliant smile to the bird, Luffy mirrors her, understanding immediately, and the crew calm at the false alarm

“Actually, his species is that of the long-tailed hawk,” Robin says, and if her voice wobbles a little bit as her other hand reaches to where the hawk is scrutinising the crew, then nobody mentions it as she cries, “Oh, Aleksander.”

And the hawk - the daemon, swooping close - utters Robin in reply.

As the Florian Triangle approaches, Luffy lifts his gaze to the sky, glad that Aleksander made it to them before the fog swallowed up the sea. Even daylight cannot be found in that stretch of the ocean, waters and bog churning together to produce shadow and glum, hourless days; Luffy is confident in Nami’s skills of navigating it, but he cannot help but feel an envious, selfish blue.

He misses Raquel. The chances of her finding them in the Florian fog are laughable, and Luffy informs his crew as such when Aleksander’s presence drives them to finally enquire about their captain’s missing daemon. We’re separated, he explains, I can’t feel her, and at his nakamas’ gobsmacked expressions - Robin and Zoro the only ones to remain serene in the face of this bombshell - Luffy just slurps his hot chocolate a little louder.

“She’s free to go where she wants,” he says - just as he is, just as they both always wanted to be. “But I dunno where she is.”

“But she’ll come back, right?” Usopp asks, petting Morgandy’s dusty head with an agitated motion. “Surely?”

Aleksander is the one to answer, speaking as calm and eloquently as his other half, but with the tone of hesitation that Robin had used those weeks ago, unaccustomed to the rowdy comfort of the crew. “If she wishes,” he says, perched there at Robin’s shoulder as though he had never been away, and Luffy nods in agreement, trying to lighten the mood with a smile.

The if hangs heavy over the dining table - but like the whispers of daemon-killer before it, Luffy is used to that too. There’s no use waiting for Raquel - there’s no use waiting for anybody; he learned that a long time ago - so the captain urges his crew onwards to the New World. They grumble their sympathies but consent to the order; they are a unit revolving around Luffy’s will, planets and moons in an eternal orbit about the sun, and if he is happy to laugh and bounce and burn like a supernova, then they are happy too.

“Wait, does this mean that daemon-killer thing is nonsense? Do all Devil Fruit users have daemons?” Usopp asks after dinner, when the conversation has petered off and the crew have returned to their evenings. The table clear now, Sanji humming along to the washing up, Usopp has his paints laid out around him, a paintbrush twiddling between his fingers.

“Ah, probably?” Luffy replies, swinging his legs in the opposite chair. Sanji has yet to cave to the captain’s puppy-dog begging, but Luffy isn’t one to pass up an opportunity for extra ice cream wafers.

“Probably?” Morgandy repeats.

Luffy says, yeah, with a shrug, but taking pity on the sniper’s befuddled expression, Robin furthers the explanation from where she is waiting for the coffee beans to brew. “All rumours must start somewhere, no?” she says, smiling that not-smile of hers, and Sanji nearly drops a plate into the sink.

Usopp mutters, “Oh,” and the conversation is left at that.

Their enthusiasm for treasure releases a trap straight up into the sky, the flare exploding a warning red over the astounded expressions of the crew. Reminded of their meeting with Mr. 2 way back before Alabasta, Luffy sees only humour in the danger they’ve unleashed; his crew don’t share the sentiment, the bog of the Florian Triangle sweeping grey and ominous over them, but Luffy cannot help but be excited. Adventure is what he yearns for (adventure and freedom), and if the murky depths of the sea are prepared to take on the future Pirate King and his crew, then so be it.

“Your captain never sits still, does he, sis?” Franky asks, neon-blue mohawk flopping over his face as he whispers to the arguably more sane members of the crew.

Nami just snorts, shaking her head as Luffy bounces over to the figurehead. “He’s your captain too, Franky.”

“Welcome to the club,” Sanji sighs.

The Florian Triangle reveals an island of a ship by the name of Thriller Bark, and once again, Luffy charges straight ahead to investigate. Their newest nakama, a tottering, top-hatted, live skeleton of a man begs them away from these ghastly shores, his warning a ringing lament worthy of the musician of the Straw Hat crew, and so Luffy promptly ignores him and urges them on.

“Hey. HEY BROOK,” he yells as the skeleton runs over the sea’s grisly surface, the towering spires and turrets of Thriller Bark’s mansion looming ever-closer in the shadows. “If we get your shadow back, you’re gonna be nakama okay!”

Brook doesn’t answer, but then, Luffy hadn’t intended it as a question anyway. He laughs and spins to gauge his crew’s varying expressions of disbelief (Usopp is a gloopy puddle of terror on the deck, and Franky’s sighs suggests his temptation to turn the Sunny around), and then laughs in their faces too.

“I’m sure we’re going to have a lovely time,” Robin agrees, and Aleksander is the only one to join in with the captain’s laughter.

Franky introducing the Mini Merry lifts the spirits of the crew; with cries of Merry! and shouts of thanks, Nami, Usopp, Chopper, and their daemons soon take to the waters to to give the little boat a whirl, leaving the rest of their nakama to make preparations for going ashore. Truly, with Thriller Bark closing in around them and the Florian fog lingering low over the sea, they don’t have a choice about disembarking, and the Mini Merry’s disappearance into the gloom only reinforces this fact.

Yet, ever the first mate and tuned into the worries of the crew, Zoro is the one to voice his doubts. Sanji and Wilhelmina are busy in the kitchen and Franky and Robin are conversing by the helm, Aleksander far out of reach in search of their wayward nakama, and so it is only the captain who hears Zoro’s softly-spoken concerns.

“Is this a good idea?” he asks, standing firm in the face of Luffy’s hyperactive energy, arms crossed and eyebrows drawn together. He does not clarify what this refers to, but then he seldom needs to elaborate to Luffy, Zoro’s desire to protect the crew having never been, and never will be, in question.

“Eh?” cries the captain, skidding to a halt to consider his first mate’s rigid stance. Unhappy doesn’t quite describe Zoro’s expression; he is concerned for Nami and the others, of course, but there is something else in the set of Zoro’s brow. “Sure it is! Brook needs his shadow if he’s gonna come with us, and there could be treasure and stuff to find! You’re not going to stay on the ship, are you?”

“Don’t you think somebody should stay?”

Luffy pouts. That is usually how they operate, but leaving somebody alone in the depths of Thriller Bark may only result in more trouble. His desire to explore, discover, and challenge the world pushes Luffy on and on every day, but his nakama being injured should never, and will never, something he takes for granted. If he could, he would never have them hurt, but even his heart of the kings cannot protect his nakama from everything.

Zoro knows that.

“Well,” Luffy replies, tapping his chin in thought. “If you come with us, you can have some of my lunch!”

What, Zoro breathes, blinking at the captain with incredulity. “Some of your -?”

“Half of it,” Luffy negotiates, thinking better of giving away that much of his food. He likes Zoro - he likes Zoro a lot - but food is food and meat is meat, and Zoro looks funny standing there with his mouth agape.

“Half -”

“Maybe a bite?”

Zoro barks a laugh, unrestrained and astounded at Luffy’s innocent barter, and Luffy feels an oddly sweet sense of satisfaction warm him down to his toes. Pax is observing him with a keen gaze - but silent and wary, almost, or respectful of their space as she has been since her confession in the boy’s quarters - but it is Zoro who Luffy watches, the first mate relaxed now, head thrown back and unguarded.

(Maybe they should).

Pax nudges her other half with her snout, reprimanding him Luffy doesn’t think so, and Zoro seems to startle back to himself, tripping over the wolfdog as nobody else can. “Oh,” he says, and then, “Err,” and if it were anybody else an apology would follow, except Zoro only ever says what he means.

Pax too, Luffy supposes, and he smiles as the daemon’s tail thumps once, twice, against the deck.

“Maybe,” Zoro begins, rubbing the back of his neck. The Sunny rocks beneath them, Thriller Bark’s ensnaring currents battering against the hull, and the gales howl terrible and chilling above them. Grey haze blurs into the shadows, even the crow’s nest too far for their eyes to distinguish, but Luffy can see the indecision on his first mate’s face, just as they both can hear Pax’s encouraging sounds.

“Maybe we should - um - talk about -”

“Things,” Pax supplies sympathetically.

“Things,” Zoro agrees, and he may well have swallowed a lemon for the face he pulls.

Luffy’s smile would blind Thriller Bark and all of the Florian Triangle’s fog were it any brighter. “Okay!” he replies, rocking back on his heels. His hat wobbles on his head but he only laughs, excitement building once again at the prospective of this adventurous thing. Zoro seems to calm at the sight of his cheer, which is a good start, Luffy considers, if they’re going to be talking about kissing. “Pax said -”

“Once we’ve gotten Brook’s shadow back and everybody’s back on the Sunny,” Zoro interrupts, hands shooting up and covering Luffy’s mouth in a gentle, but resistant, gesture of holy hell please stop talking, abort, abort -

So, of course, Luffy mumbles around it. “But Pax said -”

“I know what Pax said.”

Luffy’s mouth opens beneath Zoro’s hand - then shuts again, wetting the palm there as it does so. Zoro cringes and jerks away, only to press back again in fear of his captain’s rambling response, and they must look ridiculous standing there, Luffy realises with a grin, noting the scarlet tinges burning on the tips of Zoro’s ears.

Kissing sounds like a great idea.

“Sanji’s coming this way,” the wolfdog interjects, ears twitching at click-clip of the chef’s boots, and this time Zoro pulls away just as Sanji appears to dump a sack of sandwiches into the captain’s arms.

“Ah, thanks Sanji!” Luffy cries, grinning at the chef on cue. If Sanji has any idea what he has interrupted, neither he or Wilhelmina give any indication, the sea otter daemon darting about at the chef’s feet emitting merry sounds.

“Is this all for me?” Luffy asks.

“Of course it’s all for you,” Sanji huffs, passing Zoro another bag with a quipped, here moss-head. Pax sniffs it as it passes over her head, so Sanji assures that her portion has been included before snapping back at Luffy: “When d’you ever share?”

“Err,” is all Luffy says to that. He quirks a smile up at his first mate, but Zoro pointedly does not look his captain in the eye.

Thriller Bark is home to a shadow-stealing Shichibukai and a reanimated army that chase and scream and disintegrate in the sun, and “later” becomes later as the mansion crumbles into ruin about the crew. Moriah’s ace is a giant who kicks and eats and does all things Luffy, which only Luffy thinks is hilarious as the Straw Hat pirates battle to earn back their captain’s stolen shadow. They’ll be fine, he knows, he trusts them, so he leaves the desolated courtyard behind to give Moriah a piece of his mind - his fists, rubber burning, blistering, and an unwavering will, have always been pretty good at that.

When a bear of a man strides over the mansion rubble, steps heavy and silent with cogs whirring beneath, a Bible clutched in paw-printed hands, “later” becomes much, much later.

There are no words to describe how Luffy feels when he hears Sanji’s scream. Heart in his throat as he clambers over the rock and skids on the concrete, his rubber body springing and bouncing too healthy over the ruin, it’s Wilhelmina’s frenetic form that Luffy sees first - or doesn’t see, almost crashing straight into the daemon as they rush over. They both yelp, the otter zipping away with apologies and half-lucid explanations on their tongue, and Luffy just catches Wilhelmina’s blurted Pax! before Sanji and Zoro come stumbling into view.

Sanji’s carrying - no, half-dragging Zoro likes he’s deadweight, expression haunted and bespattered with blood, his suit torn and oozing a blackened red. Zoro’s encounter with Mihawk is insignificant in comparison to this (it’s incomparable, it’s nothing); he’s a wreck, beaten blue and bled out to white, the scar that Mihawk left indistinguishable beneath the gore. His chest rises in fits and starts as though it’s Sanji’s staggering pace that moves it; his eyes are closed, blood dribbles out of his mouth, and somebody crawling up the rubble screams.

Knees give out, crunching into the gravel. Luffy swears they’re his until he feels his legs struggling but determined to hold him up, body frozen at the horrific sight. There’s talking about him, urgent and pained and wobbling with tears, but for a moment Luffy can hear nothing but Wilhelmina’s terrified shriek still ringing in his ears.

Where’s Pax?

“Lay him down, lay him down!” Chopper orders, ripping a medical kit from his waist. He demands a stretcher, an explanation, more supplies from the ship, and the crew scramble to life around him as Sanji sets their first mate at the doctor’s tiny feet.

Aleksander takes to the sky and Luffy’s eyes follow him, the hawk silhouetted in amber against the dawning sun.

“Pax,” Sanji hisses - and Luffy runs, scrabbling over the mansion remains with his hat jerking at his shoulders, the jagged edges of the straw scratching his neck and marring his skin, until Aleksander begins to circle a space just off in the distance where Wilhelmina’s whimpering can be heard.

“Luffy! Luffy, what do I do?” the otter calls, blubbering hysterically at Pax’s motionless side. What Pax is doing all the way over here is anybody’s guess - but she’s there, visible and alive, and that’s all that matters as Luffy throws himself to her flank. Like her other half, she’s bloodied and torn, fur scattered in clumps around her, and Luffy aches to comfort her wheezing breaths but hesitates, hands hovering just inches from her side.

“Jesus christ,” Nami gasps, Jasper echoing the curse as the duo skid to a stop behind him. Luffy hadn’t even realised that they were following, but he lifts a helpless expression to his navigator as she edges closer, one hand covering her mouth.

“What do we do?” Wilhelmina pants, darting around Pax’s head in the hopes that the bustle will rouse her. “None of us are big enough to carry her!”

“Stretcher?” Luffy suggests, but he already knows this is a futile solution before he sees Nami shaking her head in despair.

“We’ve only got one,” she reminds him. “And Chopper’s - Chopper’s using it. Will’s right, none of our daemons are big enough...”

“We can’t leave her here!” Wilhelmina wails, puffing up to a slightly less adorable size in anger.

Jasper growls, ears flicking back. “We’re not suggesting that!” he snaps, and Pax whimpers at the sound - or the pain, her’s and Zoro’s together - and they all turn as one to frantically not inspect her injuries with nervous hands.

“How is Chopper supposed to treat a daemon that he can't touch?” Jasper asks, padding closer to lie at Pax’s back, offering nothing but a warm presence for comfort, but far more than Nami and Luffy can provide.

“She needs to be with Zoro,” Aleksander states, alighting down just a few yards away. His eyes are topaz and sharp, and his beak clacks as he speaks, his midnight feathers and body too large for a harbinger of death. “We will have to take her inside the mansion. Swiftly too - Zoro cannot be moved beyond their limit unless we risk grievous harm.”

“I’ll carry her,” Luffy decides.

Aleksander is the only one present who doesn't cry, what? Rather, the hawk merely inclines his head at the flabbergast exclamations and announces that he will inform the doctor, before taking flight once again.

“Hang on a second,” Nami blurts, but if she was hoping to stop Aleksander as she reaches out, then she is too late, her hand only catching Luffy’s shoulder. “Zoro -”

“Won’t mind,” Luffy argues - hopes. If Zoro ever regains the breath to berate his captain for breaking the taboo, then Luffy will welcome whatever retribution Zoro deems fit to seek. “It'll be okay, Pax can look after my hat.”

He pulls his beloved possession off as though the wolfdog is really in any position to look after it, and lays it gently on Pax’s crown.

It looks… small.

“Wait, go to her other side, it’ll be easier for you to move her,” Nami instructs, halting the captain before he can attempt to lift the daemon. Luffy doesn’t hesitate to follow her word, and as Pax whimpers softly once again, Nami inhales a sharp breath through her nose.

“Gonna lift her,” Luffy says, and the navigator nods - agreement, perhaps, a consent that isn’t her to give or Luffy’s to take - but it’s all they have right now, their first mate and his daemon at the terrible precipice of death’s door. Jasper and Wilhelmina rush out of the way, the fox assuming his place at Nami’s side and the otter squeezing up beside him, and Luffy takes a deep breath, bracing himself for the weight of Zoro’s soul.

Pax is softer than he imagined, her fur of the reddish malamute and not the wolf within her. Luffy’s oh is involuntary, a noise of wonder that he cannot withhold, and Pax seems to respond in kind, unconscious but maybe instinctively aware of his touch, a warm, bloodied breath of air escaping her jaws. She is a heavy (but not as heavy as Luffy expects), and he manages to scoop her up without much difficulty. It feels weird and amazing for the split second it takes him to feel the blood seeping into his jacket; Pax’s next sound is pain, her cut and shattered form protesting as Luffy clutches her tighter, shifting carefully so that her head lolls against his shoulder.

“C’mon Pax,” he soothes, whispering against the fur tickling his neck. “S’okay, it’s okay.”

The trudge back to the mansion seems to take forever, Luffy murmuring soft nonsense all the while. Nami is silent at his side, carrying Jasper close to her chest as though terrified that he, too, will fall victim to whatever dared to hurt Pax. This fear must be shared between the daemons too, for when they finally reach the make-shift infirmary and Sanji stumbles over with his face as white as a sheet, Wilhelmina scampers to him immediately, diving straight into his arms.

Luffy would ask how’s Zoro, but the half-dead wolfdog he carries is a perfect answer to that.

There’s nothing to be done for an injured daemon except wait and hope that their other half recovers, Pax’s wellbeing tied exclusively to Zoro’s stubbornness, and Luffy feels a sickening regret as he lays Pax down near the first mate’s side, knowing but hating that they cannot ease her pain.

Chopper ushers everybody away to work in peace, but Luffy remains unmoving at the wolfdog’s side. He doesn’t want to see the extent of Zoro’s injuries, doesn’t want to hear the doctor muttering and cursing and desperately trying to save their nakama’s life, but he stays because it’s just about the only thing he can do. For hours Luffy sits there, curled up in a somewhat less-ruined patch of the castle with Pax at his side, and though he has no idea if the contact is helping or hindering, or if he is attempting to help his first mate or himself, Luffy finds himself stroking Pax’s fur without thinking about it, hand moving back-and-forth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth…

Nobody tells him to stop, but he doesn’t know if Zoro and Pax would, were they able. Luffy knows he should, knows this is not right, but he just - can’t bring himself to.

(He’s not letting them go this time).

When the immediate danger has passed (when Chopper is exhausted, Zoro and Pax breathing easy, the ship ready to sail and the crew anxious to leave this desolated place), Luffy extends out his hand to skeleton who sings and laughs a yohohoho, and then tips down his moth-eaten top hat at the captain’s invitation to join the crew.

“I have a dear friend waiting for me,” Brook laments. “My daemon is an ocean away; I lost him once I ate my Devil Fruit, you see, and I must reunite with him. I can only hope that Laboon understands that I did not intend to lose myself in this sea for so long.”

Luffy isn’t sure which of his nakama cries Laboon? (although Sanji’s definitely the one that blurts, oh fuck!) but Brook’s wailing tears are worth recounting their near-death experience at the hands (the mouth and teeth) of Reverse Mountain’s gigantic whale.

“It seems even souls separated by the Devil Fruits have their means of finding each other again,” Robin muses, brushing Aleksander’s feathers gently, and Luffy feels himself grinning for the first time in days.

He still doesn’t call for Raquel, but he thinks she might be listening.

With the Florian Triangle drifting away behind them, the Straw Hat pirates once again turn their sights to the golden sky. The New World is closer now than ever before, Fishman Island just a few weeks’ sailing away, and Luffy tries not to worry as Zoro and Pax slumber on, their breaths in time but their bodies sleeping the hours away, just as he tries not to worry about the scorching vivre card that Ace has left with him.

Ace’s adventure is his own. Luffy shouldn’t interfere.

Zoro and Pax heal slowly over the passing days; Chopper frets and fusses and hardly seems to sleep, but the crew take comfort in the doctor’s efforts. Zoro’s bedside is scarcely without one of his nakama sitting quietly, be it the doctor with his medicine or Robin with her puzzle-books, Nami with her treasury log or Usopp with his sketchpad, but most of the time, it’s Luffy who sits, slouches, or snoozes in the chair. Sanji comes and goes with reminders of mealtimes, and Franky appears almost as often, scooping Luffy right out of the chair and lugging him to bed. Even Brook totters into the infirmary when the evening hours are too quiet, and he can often be found folded in the corner by Chopper’s deck with his violin when dawn breaks over the horizon.

Luffy misses the first time Zoro rouses, half-asleep as he is at the time, one rubbery cheek drooping over his hand. When Luffy wakes, the only indication that Zoro has even emerged from his healing slumber - if only for a moment - is that he has turned to face that captain, one heavily-bandaged hand stretched out to rest on Pax’s snoring snout. The wolfdog is still in possession of Luffy’s hat, the gift flopped over one of her ears, and Luffy smiles as he imagines Zoro’s face at seeing it dangling there.

He hopes his first mate won’t be too mad about the whole touching Pax thing. None of his nakama have said anything about it, despite how stroking the fur atop Pax’s head has become Luffy’s instinctual response whenever she so much as twitches, and Luffy hopes that they would speak up if they disapproved. Even the other daemons on the ship have said nothing about Luffy’s casual touching (it must be a stranger sight for them), although there’s no telling if anything has been discussed out of earshot. Wilhelmina, in fact, has even gone as far as encouraging Luffy’s breaking of the taboo, informing him of the places that Pax likes to be scratched when Zoro doesn’t think anybody is there to watch him rub the wolfdog’s belly.

Sanji and Wilhelmina’s openness to other daemons and people respectively has never been something that Luffy has thought about, but now he cannot help but wonder why Wilhelmina seems both so happy and so sad whenever Luffy dares to fuss over Pax. Sanji has never said anything about his upbringing beyond the little he revealed at the Baratie, but Luffy isn’t about to start prying into his nakama’s business.

The day that Zoro stays awake long enough to attempt his side of the conversation is a day worth celebrating. Granted, the conversation is technically a series of rapid-fire questions from Chopper and little more than the occasional grunt from Zoro, but it is enough to both appease the doctor and the chef, the latter who appears like magic with some sort of blended slop and forces the bleary swordsman to swallow the entire thing. Luffy perfectly exemplifies a rubber ball during the ten minutes that this lasts, bouncing rather than hovering at one side of the room, but Zoro doesn’t make a single comment about the location of Luffy’s hat.

Instead, he just blinks at where his daemon is resting, the hat now half-squashed under her paws like a chew-toy, and then slips back into his feverish dreams.

Luffy almost reaches over and shakes him awake again, but the beginnings of a pout on Chopper’s face prevents the captain from bellowing, ZORO ARE YOU ANGRY AND D’YOU STILL WANNA SNOG?

“Waiting’s not your forte, is it Straw Hat?” Franky sighs, smirk betraying his amusement as Luffy plods into the kitchen and lets his head thunk against the table.

“Why won’t he wake up.”

Franky pauses in tinkering with whatever it is that he’s holding to offer the captain a sympathetic look. “He will, bro. Give him time.”

Luffy whines, wishing he knew exactly how much time this would be. Fishman Island is only days away now, and they can’t enter the New World with two of their nakama unconscious! “But we need to talking about kissing,” he sighs, drawing out the last word like a childish tantrum, beginning to drum his fingers on the tabletop.

Opposite him, Franky’s nod is supplemented with a distracted uh-huh. “And you will, Straw Hat, just - wait what was that, bro?”

“Do you think he wants to anymore?” Luffy wonders, huffing forlorn.

The shipwright raises one hand as though to answer, but then seems to think better of it and returns to his tinkering.

(“Well colour me surprised,” Frigg breathes from Franky’s lap, tucked out of sight but her voice loud in the following quiet. The other daemons on the crew will echo the sentiment when the news is spread, but for now, Frigg sums up their disbelief with a befuddled, “They’re not already snogging?”)

Just the next day, Zoro and Pax are bartering with Chopper to release them from the infirmary (from the doctor’s clutches, Jasper supplies sympathetically) and Luffy decides it’s high time he got his answer. Franky is right, patience it not his forte, so once Chopper has triumphed in the bout of wills against his patients and left them to sulk, Luffy plonks himself at Zoro’s bedside.

Frankly, Zoro looks lousy, wound up in bandages and skin blotched an off-green from the bruises, but though he weary and prone to coughing saliva all over the bed, he is awake and on the mend, and Pax is gradually healing beside him.

“Here,” Zoro says, as Luffy rocks a nervous energy into the chair. The swordsman’s reach is painstakingly slow as he leans towards Pax, but he manages to lift Luffy’s hat and present it to its rightful owner. “S’yours, isn’t it?”

It’s a dumb question, and so is Luffy’s reply. With a yeah, thanks, he takes the hat and sets it back onto his head, and then neither of them seem to quite know how to go on. Luffy fidgets for a long period, aware that Zoro is waiting for something but unclear as to what, but glancing at Pax for help doesn’t shed any light on the matter. The daemon is asleep, or half-asleep, or pretending to be, and though Luffy has questions to ask, he isn’t sure he wants to know the answers anymore.

Zoro takes the matter right out of his hands.

“You carried Pax back,” he says, calm and a-matter-of-fact, but then Zoro’s true anger has always been quiet; his frustration is loud, a bellow of LUFFY! across the ship, but his anger is the click of his three katana and the silence of steel.

The set of Luffy’s jaw is firm. “Yeah,” he replies, keeping it simple, letting Zoro take the explanation from the blood he has lost, the fear his nakama felt, and the days he slept on the brink of defeat.

Zoro seems to understand, but his expression is revealing little. “You… comforted her,” he says, not asking once again, but still time there is a note of uncertainty in his voice; his eyebrows twitch, mouth thinning as though he isn’t sure how to feel about this.

Did she tell you, Luffy wonders. Or did you feel it too?

“I’m not mad,” Zoro adds before anything else can be said, and Luffy almost rocks himself right out of the chair.

“But you didn’t say I could.”

The swordsman shrugs - or tries to, achieving something akin to a grimace instead. “S’not like it makes a difference now. What’s done is done. It was just…” He trails off, casting a peculiar expression at Pax as he struggles to find the word. “Weird.”

Well, Luffy can certainly concur to that, although weird isn’t the word he would use. “A bit,” he agrees, smiling at Zoro’s deepening expression of bewilderment. Pax is still “snoozing” on the duvet, their sides pressed together but their intentions apparently not concordant as she ignores Zoro’s plea for help.

“I promise I’ll ask next time,” Luffy says, and Zoro’s gaze snaps back, eyebrows shooting straight up into his bandaged brow.

“Next time?”

Err, whoops, the captain thinks, attempting to backtrack with a mumbled, “Ah -”

“I know she’d like it,” Zoro says.

I know he’d like it, Pax had said.

Struck speechless, Luffy can only stare wide eyes as blush rises up onto Zoro’s face. Just a foot away, Pax is definitely awake now, her eyes still closed but her teeth revealed in a devilish smile, so Luffy presses forward at the daemon’s approval.

“Are we talking about the thing?” he asks, dropping his voice to whisper the last two words.

Zoro shoots him an, are you serious look, but this may only be to distract from his embarrassment. “Think so,” he concedes, then he coughs to cover a curse.

“Some of the others thought we were already snogging,” Luffy supplies, because it’s true and he feels like Zoro ought to know, and also because Zoro blushing is ever-so-quickly becoming one of his favourite things.

“What,” demands the swordsman. “Who.”

“We could be,” Luffy goes on whimsically, ignoring that growl. “‘Cause Pax said you want to and you said you know Pax said that and I think it’s a good idea.”

Err, what, Zoro’s expression says, and Luffy sticks out his tongue, trying to find the words to explain.

“Kissing,” he clarifies, making a sort of vague, not really kissing, Luffy what is that meant to be, hand gesture. “And - things.”

“Things,” Zoro repeats, somehow making it sound like oh my god.

“Yeah - stuff.” Luffy nods, feeling pleased that they’ve established something. “Whatever you want.”

“Stuff.”

“And whatever you want!” he reminds, unsure why Zoro is so caught-up on the wording. Pax sniggers into the duvet, clearly enjoying the captain’s pout, but Zoro’s confusion contorts into a scowl, and it’s their contradicting responses that has Luffy cocking his head.

“What?” he asks, just as Zoro sighs, “What do you want?”

Oh, is that all? That’s an easy question to answer, and one that Luffy does without hesitation. “For Zoro to be happy and okay again! We were going to share our lunch but we never got the chance because you got really hurt at Thriller Bark and that wasn’t okay. But we’ve left Thriller Bark now and you’re awake and everyone’s okay and - oh, Brook’s our nakama - and everyone thinks we’ve been kissing for ages and it sounds like a good idea.”

“Did he even take a breath,” Pax laughs, burying her snout in Zoro’s thigh.

Zoro sighs, but it sounds amused this time. “Sheesh,” he huffs, but Luffy hears thanks for nothing Pax, and, my captain’s a moron, both of which he can’t deny. Smiling somewhat crookedly now, but smiling all the same, Zoro lifts a hand and motions a beckon, and then repeats it when Luffy only stares blankly.

“Chopper’ll kill me if I get up, so if you want to do this then you’ll have to come here.”

“Oh!” Luffy cries, laughing as Zoro watches with a fond sort of shyness. He wiggles out of the chair to perch himself on the bed, but then kind of half-flattens, half-flops himself over Zoro when he decides that the angle isn’t working, squawks at the swordsman’s grunt of pain, and ultimately squishes himself in the Luffy-sized gap between Zoro and Pax, his rubbery limbs flailing between them both.

“Ah,” he concludes, recognising the difficulty in this endeavour. “I could reach you if I stretch my -”

“Please don’t,” Zoro interrupts, lifting his other hand to encourage Luffy to stop squirming. Luffy obeys, pouting at this change of plans, but the first mate seems content for them to merely lay there. “Just - stay there, okay?”

“Err, okay?” Luffy says, agreeing despite not understanding. It is kinda nice, he supposes, simply sharing such an intimate space with his first mate, so he hastens into a comfortable position while taking care not to jostle the man before him - or the daemon curled up at his other side, her back like a furnace against his skin.

Oh, Luffy thinks. “You’re warm.”

Pax smiles and nudges closer, sounding pleasantly satisfied. “You too.”

by ichnisunshine

Zoro is confined to his bed until the end of the week, but Luffy is nothing if not flexible. (Do you want them to get the wrong idea, Zoro despairs, to which Luffy replies, but I’m made of rubber!) They do, eventually, with more muddled elbows and knees and bouts of laughter that leave Zoro wheezing and exhausted, get around to kissing. Touching Pax is all sorts of weird, she’s silken and fluffy and so very, very real beneath Luffy’s hand, but kissing is something else entirely, wet and fun and nose-bumpingly awkward. Luffy doesn’t know which he prefers, if he were to be honest (although in what world would he ever have to choose?); there’s something very wrong about ruffling Pax’s fur in the way he has always desired, but at the same time, Pax and her other half both seem to relish in Luffy’s touch, how they sink into a lazy incoherence being something that he will forever cherish.

The crew isn’t exactly informed about this relationship change as they are unwittingly exposed to it over the next few days, Chopper being the first but certainly not the last to find the duo snoring into each other’s ears, Pax either squashed between them or free to snicker at their feet. By the time that everybody has thrown their hands up in exasperation (about time, they call), Franky has planned a refurbishment for the boy’s quarters and Chopper has scoured the library for anything and everything they own on safe sex with the aim to beat their heads with it until he’s sure that they’ll be sensible.

(“Sensible?” Jasper grumbles. “You know who you’re talking about, right?”

“I can’t believe we even own those books,” Morgandy whispers).

With the approach of the New World comes adventure once again, this time in the form of a regurgitated mermaid, her starfish companion, and the return of an enemy in the form of a friend. Keimi’s promise of takoyaki persuades them to give Hatchan a second chance - persuades Luffy, rather, his crew merely sighing and following along - and in return, Keimi offers to show them the way to Fishman Island.

Yet, with Keimi’s kidnapping and imminent fate at the hands of the slave trade, Sabaody Archipelago, the final island before Paradise meets the Red Line, becomes a detour that the Straw Hat pirates will not soon forget.

When a petty Celestial Dragon attempts to murder Hatchan for being a “disgusting creature,” Luffy cracks one rubbery fist into the arsehole’s knobbly jaw.

It’s the appropriate response.

“I would’ve cut him,” Zoro says, and Luffy laughs as he assumes his place at his first mate’s side, the shrieks of fleeing nobles and the thundering approach of the marines outside insignificant in comparison to the sounds of his nakama all cursing at the Celestial Dragon’s whimpering sounds. They brush briefly - him and Zoro, them both and Pax - but this is neither the time nor place for affection as the auction house descends into calamity about them.

“Serves him right,” Wilhelmina says, turning up their nose. The other daemons call out in agreement like the pack of wild animals they are, and their counterparts echo them, ready to take on the Celestial Dragons and the world.

“We’re in so much trouble,” Morgandy sighs, still picking bits of ceiling from her fur.

“Relax, we’ll handle it,” Zoro reassures, and as the marines storm around them and Wadō Ichimonji’s metallic shine slides from its sheath, Pax grins at the mayhem and it doesn’t even sound like a lie.

They get Keimi back, but the cost is more than they ever could’ve imagined.

One Pacifista is a challenge, a cyborg or something more of a machine wearing the skin of Bartholomew Kuma, a walking, clunking, laser-beam firing reminder of Thriller Bark, but it's the real Shichibukai that strikes fear into the crew’s hearts. Zoro and Pax escaped Thriller Bark by the skin of their teeth, and though Luffy doesn't know what transpired there, he would rather be damned before allowing it to happen again.

And then Kizaru almost obliterates Zoro, the admiral’s Devil Fruit power a bolt of white light, of lightning, crackling and formidable as it blazes just a hair's breadth from Zoro’s vulnerable form. Usopp screams, Rayleigh whistles low (well, says the Dark King, a shadow of silver and white protecting Luffy’s nakama where the captain cannot, that was close), and Luffy roars at the top of his lungs for his crewmates to flee.

We'll meet back here in three days, he has them promise, and as Kuma reveals his hand to tip the playing board (to tip the world more than they could ever know in that moment), it's the first of many promises that Luffy will break.

“Where would you like to go?” Kuma asks, and with his nakama fighting to defend him and his captain bellowing his name, Zoro is the first to disappear without a trace.

Except one - Pax, collapsing in his absence to writhe and wail and scream at the top of her lungs; a sound of pure torment that has the crew abandoning their escape, turning back to do anything as Kuma strikes again, air whoofing as Usopp dives out of the way.

Brook’s blade glints in Kizaru’s light and he’s gone, and Kuma’s next attack blasts open the ground.

Sanji bellows SHIT! and Luffy’s heart is in this throat and Usopp’s there, Kuma’s there, and Sanji’s gone but Wilhelmina is still screaming like Pax before her, tiny and so very, very alone as Kuma looms over once again. Luffy yells, Usopp yells and reaches out to do something, and then they’re gone too, all three of them, sniper, weasel, and otter in the blink of an eye.

Kuma doesn’t stop.

Chopper is next, a mountainous fury of helplessness stampeding through the grove. Franky and Frigg soon follow, blood and bolts scattering in the whoosh of Kuma’s punch; then Nami and Jasper, calling Luffy! in terror before Kuma gets Robin and Aleksander too, the daemon’s screeching cry deafened by Luffy’s howl:

“Stop it! STOP IT. BRING THEM BACK, THEY’RE MY NAKAMA, GIVE THEM BACK!”

Kuma stands triumphant and Pax is still there, but there’s nothing Luffy can do, absolutely nothing he can do except now or ever because he’s helpless, he’s their captain and he’s helpless but to dive for last of his nakama and grab the scruff of her fur just as Kuma’s paw swings around -

Earth crumbles beneath him into a paw-print crater, and Luffy cries whoooa as he crashes and bounces, a new and unfamiliar world spinning in front of his eyes. He clings to Pax, throwing an arm out to protect her in the fall, so when he rolls and tumbles and splats against the ground, she, at least, comes away covered in leaves but unharmed. Spitting dirt from his mouth, the captain hauls himself up, and as the wolfdog lolls unconscious against him, Luffy remembers the push of Kuma’s paw and the rush of air around him, his nakamas’ calls reduced to nothing in the distance.

His nakama.

“Pax, wake up. Are you separated? Can you feel Zoro? Pax? Pax?” he urges, fearing that Kuma’s Devil Fruit has the ability to separate the two halves of someone’s soul. He’s not sure if Raquel had screamed such an agonising sound upon Luffy consuming his Devil Fruit; it had tasted awful, he remembers, hearing Shanks’ flabbergast roar in his ears (did you eat that!?), but Raquel hadn’t been settled at the time - maybe she’d been too small to hear, or maybe Luffy had been too small to remember, pain ripping through him and burning his memory white.

He doesn’t know; he doesn’t know anything - the extent of Kuma’s power, where his nakama are, or if they’re safe. Their opponents at Sabaody Archipelago had been on a whole other level, a level that Luffy just couldn’t imagine, and for their arrogance and naivety, now they are paying the price.

Three days, Luffy recalls, feeling sick with the thought. Would it be wrong to pray that Zoro and Pax are separated? Their bond can stretch far, further than most but not that far, and as Luffy rolls the wolfdog frantically to see if there’s anything - anything! - that he can do, he remembers Wilhelmina’s awful shrieking as their other half was forced away.

Sanji.

“We need to get back,” Luffy breathes, shifting to protect the unresponsive daemon from their surroundings - a jungle, deep and dark like the place he used to call home, the trees guarding against the sun and the gigantic predators prowling wild in shadows. Foosha isn’t a possibility though; Kuma can send them far, but not that far, and Luffy longs for Nami and her maps to shed light on where all of their nakama may be.

If this is what defeat feels like, Luffy realises, then he never wants to experience it again.

Ace’s execution date is set and so is Luffy’s will, gaze thrown out to the windless horizon, the shadows and the setting sun, towards the impenetrable Impel Down enclosed beneath the waves.

“Take care of Pax,” he asks of the Snake Princess, the wolfdog daemon still unconscious. He wouldn’t ask her to accompany him to Impel Down anyway - he wouldn’t ask any of his nakama that, not even Zoro, his first, not even if he could, so he can only leave Pax with the Kuja tribe and hope to swiftly return.

Luffy ruffles her fur before he leaves, scratching affectionately behind her ears, and it feels almost as if Zoro is with him as the touch lingers like fire on his hand.

Ace says thank you.

(And even Evangeline dies with a smile).

“Luffy,” Jinbe says, voice mellow and countenance kind, sitting there steadfast as Luffy rages, bawls, sobs, and wrecks the jungle around him. Luffy wants to punch something, everything, the trees, the rocks, the Shichibukai, himself. He wants to it to hurt, he wants it to hurt so bad that it takes the pain away, and he wants to scream; DON’T SAY IT, he wants to explode, DON’T SAY ANYTHING. DON’T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING!!

Jinbe doesn’t dare. He doesn’t need to.

Luffy already knows.

Before the Shichibukai, the captain continues to wail, rubbery body barely held together by the bandages that bind it, straw hat abandoned, thick trails of snot and tears dribbling over his face. Blood has splattered his hands - his own blood, like Ace’s, staining his skin and scarring his soul, but Luffy doesn’t for the pain as he curls into himself, arms clutching a body that shouldn’t have been saved - that shouldn’t be here, alive, to feel this.

“Luffy,” Jinbe begins again, firmer now, the pain he feels for his fallen comrade bleeding through in the face of Luffy’s collapse. “Ask yourself not what have you lost, but what do you still have?”

Luffy sucks in a breath as he peeks at Jinbe, wiping watery snot all over his hand. Ace is gone, Ace is dead like Sabo before him, and never has he felt so alone in the world than he does here, in this moment, surrounded by the earth and blocked off from the sky. Jinbe is there, and Hancock is there too, back at the palace full of people that will welcome him, but they are not who Luffy wants as he stretches his hands out to reach the wolfdog waiting at Jinbe’s side.

“I have my nakama,” Luffy weeps, pulling Zoro’s daemon towards him. Pax curls up at his feet, allowing the captain to clutch her back and bury his tear-streaked face in her fur. He cries and blubbers and she murmurs back (I’m fine, everyone’s fine, Zoro’s fine, she assures, I don’t think we’re separated, it hurts so bad but I can feel him, it’s okay, we’re here for you Luffy, we’re here) and Luffy nods, snivelling into her neck.

“I want to see them again!”

“And you will,” Pax tells him, wagging her tail. “You will. You’re our captain, idiot - d’you think we’re going to let you go anywhere without us again?”

“I hope Zoro is ready to be clobbered,” Pax laughs the day they set sail for Sabaody Archipelago once again, Hancock and the Kuja tribe wishing them well. The shores around Amazon Lily have been kind to them over these past two years, although Rayleigh, arguably, has not, but it’s high time that the Straw Hat crew cast their hearts out to the horizon once again. The call to reunite was made so long ago now, amidst agony and the aftermath of hell, and Luffy can only hope that his nakama received it well.

He’s missed them. Even now he misses them, the sea to Sabaody Archipelago parting for their return, but with a sack of meat on his back and Rayleigh’s training guiding him through this final, lonely hours, Luffy is eager to see them again more than ever. He is sure that his crew will have their tales to tell, just as he has his own; just as he has the one he still cannot bear to tell.

“He’ll be happy to see you!” Luffy agrees - which is, perhaps, understating that a bit. Whether or not Kuma’s inability to actually separate daemons and their other halves is a good thing is debatable; on the plus side, Zoro and Pax still share a presence in this world, and one now that can extend a remarkable distance, but on the negative side, having a bond forcibly stretched by three days’ distance did not do Pax (or Zoro - or Sanji and Wilhelmina, no doubt) any immediate favours.

“He’ll be happy to see you too,” Pax counters. “I know he’s been worried.”

Luffy pats the top of her head, hoping that Zoro will feel the affection. “I’m fine!” he assures, and it’s not even a lie, not really, the pain of Ace’s death a muted burn within his chest. The wound Akainu inflicted has long-since scarred over, but Luffy still finds himself rubbing it absently whenever his thoughts return to the past.

Pax huffs and argues, “Well, I know that ‘cause I’ve been stuck with you,” which has Luffy squawking in outrage as the Sabaody Archipelago ever nears.

“Hey! I thought you liked spending time with me,” he whines, adopting a dramatic puppy-dog pout that barks a laugh from the daemon.

“Oh yeah, love you loads, but don’t get me wrong, Zoro has it coming.”

Luffy laughs, certain that he can imagine Zoro’s expression perfectly. “Make sure I’m there when you jump him, ‘kay?” he says, and Pax’s stare is far more incredulous than what a wolfdog should be capable of.

“Ah - what?” he asks, to which she snorts, “Well where else are you going to be?”

From the moment they disembark onto Sabaody Archipelago, Pax leads the way through the crowds, weaving and winding through the oblivious peace to locate the Sunny and the other half of her soul. The wolfdog’s hulking form is the townspeople's only warning that a force famed for tipping the skies to his will walks about them; the world has become comfortable in the belief that the Straw Hat pirates are gone, and though it is not Luffy’s intention to rock the world, he will gladly do so if it means reuniting with his nakama once again.

The Pacifista that falls at his hand is the first of many opponents that will come to face his reckoning, and as the people flee the clearing and Rayleigh watches on in approval, Luffy announces to the archipelago that he is going to be the king.

“Trust you to be at the centre of all this trouble,” Sanji sighs, tapping cigarette ashes onto the earth with a dispassionate quip, but as Luffy whirls around to greet his nakama with a grin worthy of rivalling the sun, Sanji eye roll is most definitely fond.

“Sanji! Hey - your eyebrow swirls the other way!”

“What,” says Sanji, and Luffy blinks at that response, wondering how Sanji doesn’t possibly know that his eyebrows are asymmetrical and awesome, but then the chef takes a drag of his cigarette and grumbles, “That’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

“Err, yep!” says Luffy, going for the truth. “But hey, have you seen any of -”

Pax rocketing past provides some answer to that question: with a bellow of ZORO!! at the top of her lungs (a bellow that the citizens echo, just who exactly has gathered at their island now terrifyingly apparent), she bulldozes into the first mate. They crash to the ground in a blur of grey-green and gold, marines and pirates gaping in flabbergast about them, and Zoro’s replying roar of holy shit PAX! is just as irrepressible.

“She said she was gonna clobber him,” Luffy explains, grinning brightly as Pax slobbers all over her other half, but Sanji’s laugh isn’t as resounding as the captain expected it to be. Luffy blinks and glances confused at the chef, but one look at Sanji’s face - his other eye - informs him of his mistake.

“Will was sent away with Usopp and Morg - they’ll be okay,” Luffy says, smiling now to reassure his nakama, and Sanji coughs around his next mouthful of smoke but doesn’t dispute the captain’s observation.

“Oi, Luffy, we should get back to the ship,” Zoro calls, still the first mate even with a daemon flattened over him and wolfdog drool dripping from his jaw, and Luffy grins as Zoro continues to tousle Pax’s fur despite this firm suggestion.

“Yeah, sure!” he calls, pumping a fist up into the air. Excitement to reunite with the rest of their nakama spurs him on, and Luffy had already barrelled through the crowd before he shouts, “Hey, hey guys - race you!”

“What, hey -!”

“You don’t know where it is!”

They are not the last to arrive, Luffy crashing into the deck with a holler of I WIN and the others stampeding in just seconds after him, Pax then Sanji with Zoro grumbling I don’t remember it being here at the rear, but they are not the first either. Franky and Nami are already discussing the improvements to the Sunny, and Robin is assisting Chopper unload what appears to be a mountain of books onto the deck, but they all cheer at their captain’s rather abrupt and joyous appearance.

Chopper is the first to hug the captain, but he is definitely not the last. “Luffy, you’re okay! I was so worried when I heard the news, I wanted to come straight back but then I got your message and I couldn’t believe it but everyone was really nice about letting me stay and it was so cool! You should’ve seen how giant these birds were - EIIIII, Zoro! What happened to your eye?”

“Relax, it’s fine,” Zoro grumbles, which is definitely not the answer Chopper is looking for as he scrambles to inspect the first mate. Dutifully, and before the swordsman can think of fleeing, Luffy plonks the little doctor right into the Zoro’s arms; he breathes dammit Luffy as Chopper begins to rapid-fire a series of questions, but Pax seems to approve of the underhand tactic from where she is practically stuck to Zoro’s thigh.

Safe for the time being from Zoro’s wrath, Luffy turns back to the ship just as the last of their nakama arrive - Usopp with a colossal slingshot and Morgandy perched on his shoulder, his call of heya! drowned out by Wilhelmina screaming SANJI! as they barrel up the gangplank. There’s a breath of oh god from the chef before he kneels to greet them; they crash together, Wilhelmina’s happiness crying loud and frantic, and Sanji hiccuping a laugh.

“Never again - never, never, never, no, not again, never -” one of them is saying, they’re both saying, voices indistinguishable between them. Apologies and reassurances jabber in the intervals of Wilhelmina’s squealing, and the crew watch on with their daemons by their sides.

“We didn’t look like that, did we?” Pax mumbles.

“Uh-huh,” says Luffy, and Pax curses damn as Zoro, having managed to worm himself away from the doctor’s fury for the time being, laughs and comes to stand at the captain’s side. There is a moment in which they say nothing to each other, but as they adapt themselves to the other’s presence once again, captain and first mate finally side by side, the silence is far more than okay.

“Thanks for looking after Pax,” Zoro eventually says, absently scratching behind the daemon’s ears, and though he’s saying thank you, it sounds more like sorry as the mumbles reaches Luffy’s ears.

The straw-hatted captain snickers. “You don’t have to thank me for that!” he replies, snatching up Zoro’s other hand. The swordsman huffs, Pax’s tail thumping against the deck beside him, and Luffy smiles wider to show that he has understood.

“I missed you,” he says, giving Zoro’s hand a squeeze. “Kissing Pax isn’t the same.”

Zoro laughs and ducks down, pressing his lips into Luffy’s crown. It’s such a subtle display of devotion that it only leaves Luffy wanting more, but he manages to refrain from snogging his partner in front of the crew.

“Tried did you?” Zoro asks, and for a second Luffy thinks he means the snogging until he recalls the conversation about Pax.

Yeah, replies Luffy’s nod, hat bouncing at his shoulders as he remembers the first time he dotted the wolfdog’s head with a kiss. “She’s all furry.”

“So’s Zoro,” Pax deadpans, and Luffy tips his head back just in time to catch a perfect angle of Zoro’s rising blush. He laughs, the daemon laughing with him, and Zoro mutters something rude that has Brook crying, oh my! as the skeleton strides last, but not least, into the awaiting crew.

“Hey, Luffy-bro!” Franky calls, diverting the captain’s attention away from admiring Zoro’s embarrassment. The cyborg laughs at the pair of them before pointing a thumb in the direction of the helm. “Just give the word - Sunny’s all ready to go! And hey, Sanji-bro,” Franky adds in his booming tones, Luffy’s resounding YEAH! not quite loud enough to deafen the crew. “You look suuuuper in those heels - where can I get a pair of boots like that?”

“Um,” Sanji replies, and though Wilhelmina emits a delighted noise in the chef’s arms, Franky seems to understand something from the downward quirk of Sanji’s mouth.

“Bro is fine, right?” the shipwright asks.

“Yeah, yeah - um - that’s fine,” Sanji replies, but then he pauses, returning the cyborg’s almost unsure look. “But I’m not going to kick you if you say sis.”

“But I will,” Nami reminds, and as Franky wails (but Nami-sis sounds cool!) and Sanji relaxes back into his typical slouch, the navigator gives a pointed cough as she holds out her hand.

“Damn,” Usopp grumbles, digging into his bag to pull out a pouch of beli, and even Robin’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline.

“Surely you didn’t -”

“Come on, I’m not that insensitive. I just bet on when he would tell us, that’s all,” Nami says, thanking the sniper as she pockets the money. Wilhelmina interrupts with they/them is good as she does so, to which Nami quickly apologies before continuing, “And since we have technically not left Sabaody Archipelago yet…”

Sanji emits something of a squawk and almost swallows their cigarette. “You knew -?”

“Well,” Nami says, and as the crew break off into merry conversation once again, Luffy hops over to stand tall in front of them all. As long as his crew are happy, then he is happy, so the captain takes a moment to appreciate the safety of his nakama as they bicker, jokes, and share their memories of these past two years, before calling to finally set sail.

“Aye, captain!” they reply, only to freeze and ask, what is it, what’s wrong? as one as Luffy pauses in his cheer, his gaze cast beyond the Sunny and up to the far reaches of the sky. His smile is the brilliance of daybreak, the hues of Raftel, and the gleam of gold, and gathered about him with questioning stares, the Straw Hat crew follow their captain’s gaze way up into the clouds.

“Is that - ?” they breathe, squinting at the silhouette circling the high afternoon sun. “- a bird?”

Luffy laughs loud and free and plonks the Pirate King’s hat onto his head, and as though she has been waiting for this moment all along, the peregrine falcon screeches a welcoming cry and dives down at the call of her name.

by ichnisunshine

by ichnisunshine