Chapter Text
“I have a kid juuust about your age, Luff!”
Luffy looked over from his plate of heaping food to the man sitting across himself at the bar, the rest of the restaurant filled with rowdy pirates, each talking over each other in loud voices with golden liquid leaking out of the sides of their cups. The man talking to him was no different, with a red glow stretching horizontally across his face, eyes dopey with the effects of a constant onslaught of alcohol.
Like every other 7 year old, Luffy had little-to-no interest in whatever was going on with the man, other than the fact that he was a pirate. A badass-looking one that actually worked as Shanks' sharpshooter.
The child leaned forwards with a gleam in his eye and a large grin, only recoiling a centimeter backwards when the pirate in front of him let out a disgustingly hot breath as he started to speak again.
“You’re seven, right? He’d be…” He started counting with his fingers, only to pause for a moment, then throw them in the air a second later, giving up, “...something like that.”
“You have a kid?” Luffy shouted, his food forgotten for the moment as he leapt out of his chair. “Shanks said there weren’t any kids allowed! I knew he was lying! When can I meet him? Where is he?” The words flew out of his mouth so fast that the man in front of him blinked rapidly as the conversation caught up with him. Luffy took another look around the chaotic bar, finding no one but rowdy adults and spilt alcohol.
“Oh… no. He isn’t here. I never really met him.” The man had a small smile to his face, his lips pursed in a way to alleviate Luffy’s disappointment. He ruffled his own hair as a nervous tick, then suppressed a loud hiccup in the crux of his elbow in one sloppy motion.
Luffy groaned and looked away, the need to continue the conversation suddenly lost to him, having been replaced with the growing urge to hunt down Shanks and ask him again to join his crew. It wasn’t a big deal, really. He hadn’t known his father either. Dadan, and more recently, Shanks, was enough to keep him company.
“I bet he’d be just as adventurous as you, though!” The man cut through Luffy’s thoughts, seemingly having misunderstood Luffy’s sudden change of heart. “Yeah, what else would I expect of my son, huh? He’d grow up to be one of the best marksmen of the seas.”
~ . ~ . ~
“Pirates are coming! Pirates are coming!” Usopp screamed at the top of his lungs, running down the street at the fastest pace his legs could carry him. “It’s Kuro! He’s going to attack the village!”
Oh, what a fool he’d been. He actually meant it this time, but the distrustful stares of the townsfolk felt like nothing compared to the ones who paid him no mind. No amount of screaming brought him any worthwhile attention, and his best friend was going to die because of it.
Usopp tried to overlook the fact that she had ignored him, too.
He had to get help. Her life depended on it.
Usopp’s heart skipped when someone’s door slammed open, revealing a neighbor with an absolutely livid stature, holding a pitchfork in a tight grip in her hand. “I’ve just about HAD IT with your lies, Usopp!” She shouted, and Usopp’s eyes skirted from door to door as more houses revealed angry townsfolk.
“Get out of here, Usopp!” Another man shouted, “That’s all you say, all day, every day! You are too old for this shit!”
“We’ve held off in respect of your mother for far too long! Now you’re bringing Kuro into this mess?!”
Usopp flinched backwards at the mention of his mother, his lips pressing together to keep himself from speaking out in anger. “I mean it this time. You’ve gotta believe me!”
Another man brandished a shovel, angrily digging it into the dirt. “No, Usopp. We don’t.”
As Usopp got chased out of the village for just about the hundredth time in his life, he pushed down the rising emotion of shame and a newer, scarier feeling of loneliness, knowing that he had no one to blame for it but himself.
10 years ago, he’d asked his mother where his father was, she’d said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, with a wistful upturn to her lips and a faraway look in her eyes: “Following his dreams.”
‘That don’t include us?’ The words were at the tip of his tongue, and he opened his mouth to say it, but his mother blinked a few times, turning her pale, pale face towards him with that same smile on her face.
The words stayed firmly where they were, and Usopp swallowed heavily and re-adjusted himself. “Adventure.” He said instead, with a hopeful lilt to his tongue. He’d hoped it didn’t sound as dry as he felt.
What was adventure worth, when he’d watched his mother wither away to nothing over the past few months?
The sparkle was back in Mom’s eyes. “Adventure.” She said back, reverent. She studied Usopp for a moment, her eyebrow coming downwards when she sensed Usopp wasn’t as impressed as he was letting on.
“He’s someone who craves adventure like a man starved. Who am I to tie him down, the love of my life? This is a path of my choosing, Love.”
Usopp blinked back tears. “Wouldn’t you want to see him at least once again?” He’d asked it without any tact, and he’d beat himself up over it whenever he’d think about that exact moment, every time he’d go to sleep for the next couple of years.
His mother’s eyes shuttered for a moment. “I could never ask that of him.”
‘It’d be too much to ask’, is what is mother meant. Usopp swallowed again and again, but the pit at the back of his throat wouldn’t allow him to speak as his mother fell asleep. “Mom?” He was finally able to push out past the raspyness of his throat.
“She’s gone under; she doesn’t have much time left.” The doctor whispered, and Usopp gasped and sprang to his feet.
He was too young; he couldn’t bear to watch it.
He ran out of the room and down the street, as fast as his legs could carry him. He made it to the edge of the island, with endless water sparkling perfectly with the sun’s reflection. He made a decision, then took a deep, deep breath and turned around on his heels.
“PIRATES ARE COMING!!! PIRATES ARE HERE!! THEY’RE HERE!!!”
He hoped his mother was conscious enough to hear.
~ . ~ . ~
“Well? Are you coming?”
Luffy had a hand on his hip, and Zoro had a grin set on his face, like he knew exactly what Usopp’s choice would be. Even Nami was waiting with her arms crossed and a small smile on her face.
It was a life-changing, dangerous, and absolutely ridiculous offer. To the ocean? Waves get, like, 100 feet tall if there’s a storm! With a guy who is one month younger than him as his captain?
Usopp looked back at the village, then back to the endless water, perfectly sparkling, and made a decision.
“Yup, yeah, I’m coming. Hold on, lemme bring my things.”
‘Maybe he’d find his father’, a small part of his mind supplied, ‘maybe he’d find out what kinds of adventures that man had been craving.’