A/N: This work was inspired by Nerdismysafecspace-01's beautiful art of a 5+1 scenario where Luffy mentions Sabo to his crew before they meet up. I added one more out of self-indulgence, hehe. This work is posted with their blessing!

...

ONE

Luffy sits on the railing of the Going Merry, cheerfully whistling an old pirate song Shanks and his crew used to sing back at Foosha. It's a light-hearted shanty about a man who returns to his home town every year to drink the same sake.

He can't really remember all the lyrics, but the tune is stuck to his head well enough to make up for it. He can make up the words as he goes, anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Next to him, his new cook is drying himself off after fishing his — and he's quoting here — idiot, dumbass, just-above-brain-dead captain out of the water for the second time that day. It's only a day after the fight with Arlong, and their bond is new, still finding its shape. Yet Sanji has saved Luffy's life twice, just today. Knowing that makes Luffy feel warm inside, and there's a weird pull of familiarity and belonging growing in his chest.

Sanji mutters a couple of choice words as he wrings his socks dry and sets them on the railing beside Luffy. He leans against the Merry's white wood, then, a cigarette already between his lips. The smell of cigarettes is familiar, and it reminds Luffy not of pirates, but of bandits.

Sanji's hair is curly when it's wet, Luffy notices, and it glistens in the sun. His hair is blond, like glazed corn or sunflowers. That's familiar, too, but this time Luffy's reminded of something else entirely.

"Sanji?" he calls, a grin already stretching on his face.

"What is it, shithead?" Sanji sounds mad. Luffy supposes that's understandable. "You planning to go for another swim?"

Luffy's eyes crinkle shut with his wide smile. "No! I was just thinking that your hair is really nice!"

"Wha…" There's a pause as Sanji tries to comprehend what Luffy's just said. "What?"

Luffy's already reaching out, rubber arm stretching to touch Sanji's wet, blond locks. "I like your hair! It's the same colour as the sun."

His hand is slapped away. Now Sanji sounds dumbfounded, and Luffy thinks it's funny. "What are you blabbering on about, shitty captain? I'll kick you right back in there."

Luffy snickers. "It's nothing. Thanks for saving me!"

The smile on Sanji's face is almost too small to notice, but Luffy doesn't miss it. "No problem, captain."

...

TWO

"Long time no see?" Luffy repeats, confused. Usopp nods back at him, tells him that they've all been waiting for him to wake up.

He's in Vivi's home, and the last thing he remembers is that Crocodile has fallen and Luffy had fallen with him. The difference there is that he's getting back up now, after three days of feverish dreams that have left his mouth parched and his stomach a black hole.

He demands for food, and he gets it. Only the best for the saviours of Alabasta, the King tells him. Luffy doesn't care what he's stuffing his face with, not after fifteen missed meals. It's not as good as Sanji's food, anyway.

There's going to be a banquet later, and Luffy looks forward to that. Real pirates always have banquets after a big fight, and Luffy is determined never to be an exception to that rule.

Chopper wants to check him over first, though. He seems worried, and so do the rest of his nakama, so Luffy tries to sit as still as he can as Chopper unravels the bandages that cover him from head to toe. It was a tough fight, and he's still feeling the aches that have come as a cost.

Luckily, he has the best doctor in the world.

"Luffy," Chopper starts, tender hooves working around the edges of the wound left by the hook that ran him through in the desert. Yuba was not defeated by mere sand, Luffy thinks victoriously. He almost misses what Chopper says next because he's thinking about that cool guy with a shovel who inadvertently saved his life.

But then Chopper says the one word he will never miss but always long for, and Luffy's attention snaps back to his doctor.

"Luffy? What's a Sabo?"

Chopper's voice is uncertain, tentative like he's not sure what kind of a response to expect for. Luffy's suddenly grateful he can't remember his fever dreams. He guesses they weren't pleasant. He pulls Chopper closer until he can wrap his arms loosely around him in a kind of hug and he can smile into Chopper's fur.

"It's nothing. I guess I had some funny dreams, huh?"

He doesn't continue. Chopper doesn't press.

...

THREE

He must have blacked out for a second there after that huge cat-guy stabbed him with his finger, because one second he's flying through the air and the next he's squished between two buildings with a bleeding wound in his stomach.

Robin is gone, and her parting words ring in Luffy's ears, the bitterness in them like acid against his eardrums. It has not been a great day so far. Usopp is gone, too, but there's nothing Luffy can do about that now. Not while he's stuck between these dumb walls, useless.

"Robin gave herself up for us!" Nami's voice somehow cuts through the wind and the rain. "She's sacrificing herself, Luffy, she didn't betray us! Robin is still on our side!"

"Really?" Luffy asks, hopefully. "Do you mean that?!"

"Yes! Stop lazing around and get down from there, we have to go save her!"

A confusing mix of anger and joy shocks Luffy's entire body, surpassing pain and fatigue. It floods strength into his weary muscles, and the adrenaline brings warmth back to where cold lingered. Luffy presses his palms flat against wet bricks, and he thinks of a gap-toothed grin and a fancy house that was not a home but a prison behind walls, walls that he couldn't get past in time.

The walls come tumbling down, this time, and Luffy is free. He starts running.

Robin is someone he can save.

As he carries Nami to safety, away from the Aqua Laguna, wind whistles around them and the roar of a tidal wave gets closer and closer with each step. Robin gave herself up to protect them. She didn't want to leave, but she was forced to.

"We're done talking. I'll never see you guys again."

The look in Robin's eye, when she'd said that… It reminds Luffy of something.

"I'll do as you say, I promise, but don't harm them! They're my irreplaceable brothers!"

"It's just like him, then," he mutters to no one in particular.

"Just like what, Luffy?" Nami asks.

Luffy blinks against the rain. He hadn't realised she would be able to hear him. Nami's looking at him with curious, sharp eyes. He knows that she would listen, if he started speaking, but he also knows that they don't have the time to dwell on the past. A determined glint flashes in Luffy's eye, and he clenches his hands into tight fists.

He grins at his navigator. "Nothing. Let's go bring Robin home!"

...

FOUR

"Don't eat it when it's raw, shithead!" Sanji shouts, his face turning redder than the crimson crab Luffy just dragged out of the water. "Go check if there's any room for this in the aquarium."

Luffy gives him a thumbs up, and then he jumps through the hatch that takes him to the aquarium. Robin is sitting on the couch, a blanket wrapped around her legs. She has a book in her hands, like she usually does, and the sunlight filtering through the aquarium water paints her skin with patches of light and shades of glistening blue.

Luffy hops in his place. One glance at the aquarium tells him that it's full, but Sanji can wait a moment to hear that, can't he?

"What'cha reading, Robin?" Luffy asks, cocking his head to the side curiously. "Is it a story book? Is it about an adventure?"

Robin chuckles into her hand. "In a way, yes. This is a book written by a sailor who sailed through North, East and West Blues in search of a magical fountain that's said to reveal to a person what their heart most desires."

She gestures at him to join her on the couch, and Luffy plops down next to her, an excited grin splitting his face. Robin's stories always were a treat. "Sounds cool! Did he find it? Is it far from us? I'll tell Nami to set a course!"

"Don't you already know what you want the most?" Robin asks, and Luffy laughs, nodding. "If he ever found it, he didn't write about it. The logs stop suddenly, and they were only found a few years earlier by some fishermen. The author is presumed dead." Robin smiles, as if that's somehow amusing. Luffy likes it when she smiles.

"Would you like me to read to you, captain?" she asks next, like he knew she would.

"Yeah!"

The book is interesting, but Luffy's attention span is only long enough to last him through the first half of the first chapter. After that, his mind starts to wander to an island with a cliff that overlooks the sea, and a brother who taught him to read and write.

"I want to see the world in all its glory and write a book about all the things I find!"

That had been Sabo's dream, too. Maybe this is what he could have achieved; a book of his adventures. Luffy's eyelids are growing heavier by the second, lulled to sleep by Robin's steady, soothing voice and the disembodied hand that cards through his hair at an even pace.

"My brother used to read to me, too," Luffy mumbles drowsily.

"Who?" Robin asks, her voice gentle and soft. "Ace?"

Luffy doesn't hear her. He's already fallen asleep, his head buried in the crook of her neck.

A moment later has Sanji barging into the aquarium only to find a sleeping Luffy with two disembodied hands shielding his ears from the loud, angry words Robin knew Sanji would bark at him. Robin levels a calm look at him, it shuts Sanji up.

"There's no room in the aquarium. How about we eat that crab for dinner?"

"Of course, Robin-chwan, anything for you!"

Luffy smiles in his sleep.

...

FIVE

There's a lot to see on Sabaody, and Luffy and Usopp are determined to see it all before the day's over. They've already ransacked three shops that sell knick-knacks for tourists, and they've made a mess of one restaurant that will never again seat someone wearing the Straw Hat pirates' emblem.

Now they're just meandering, walking up and down narrow streets and wide alleys, stopping to look at anything shiny or cool.

Usopp is telling a story about the time Sogeking defeated a whole island full of restaurant keepers, and Luffy's listening but at the same time Sabaody is very cool, and there's lots to look at. His head darts to every direction, taking in the lively people, the songs and the smells. He likes this island, so far. He likes it a lot.

"And then the leader of the gang brought out a huge spatula, bigger than a house! Sogeking wasn't scared, he pulled out his trusty weapon and jumped fifty metres in the air! He —"

"Sogeking is awesome," Luffy agrees, stars in his eyes. He's about to ask something more about how big the spatula actually was, when something glints in his peripheral vision.

Is that… Oh.

Usopp doesn't notice right away that Luffy's no longer walking beside him. He's stopped in front of a small shop with red walls and a large window that parades the best of what the shop has to offer. 'Sabaody's #1 Second-Hand Shop', a decrepit sign declares above the door frame.

There's an assortment of old swords and other weapons in the window, set out in clear display. There's even a battered helmet with a note that says that the full set of armour can be found inside. All in all there's a lot of things to look at that would unquestionably fit Luffy's definition of 'cool', and yet he only has the eyes for one thing.

There's a small, metallic item in one mannequin's hand, stretched to its full length and pointed to the sky. The lens glints in the midday sun, and Luffy squints.

"I want to find a telescope!"

"Idiot, we'll find nothing of value here. This is a trash heap!"

A rusty telescope, crushed under a boot.

"He said we could look for one," Luffy mumbles absently, his fingers brushing against the cool glass of the shop's window. He wonders what holding it in his hand would feel like. It's definitely in better shape than the one he lost among his brother.

"Did you see something interesting, Luffy?" Usopp's nose almost pokes Luffy in the cheek as he leans closer, peering at the shop's window. He follows Luffy's line of sight to the helmets and weapons, and he grins excitedly. "Ooo, that's all pretty neat! Do you want to go inside? I still have some money left over from what we won earlier, we could buy swords! Maybe I could teach you some of the tricks I learned from the time I spent with sword-wielding ninjas when I was only ten!"

Luffy thinks about it. It'd be cool to own a telescope after all this time, but he has no idea how to use one. He's sure that one of his nakama knows how, and he's sure that they would be willing to teach him, but it wouldn't be the same. He doesn't need one because he's no longer simply playing pirates.

Besides, there's a food stand a bit ways down the street and the smell of grilled meat is even more tempting. He doesn't want a sword, either. That's why he has Zoro.

Luffy shakes his head. "Nah, it's just something I once wanted. Let's go see what that old guy is grilling!"

"Okay!"

...

SIX

"We need to find you a good disguise," Nami says, leading him by his arm into a small shop. "You're the most recognizable out of all of us, and I'm not having this plan turn into a disaster because someone spots you right off the bat."

There's a toy working the register — a large tiger, with a patch over its left eye. A bit of stuffing is falling out of loose seams in its hind legs, and Luffy stares at it, wondering how the whole toy thing works.

"— Luffy? You're not even listening to me, are you?" Nami asks, her tone now sharp enough to cut through Luffy's blatant disinterest. Luffy listens to her tirade for another half a second and then something else, something way more interesting catches his eye.

It's a top hat. The blue fabric is so dark it's almost black, and the sash tied around it is a lighter colour — a deep ocean blue.

Luffy runs his hand on the soft velvet the hat's lined with, and it's on a whim when he lifts it from the counter and puts it on his own head. He puts it on his own hat first, but the straw hat is too big and the top hat almost falls to the floor. He takes Shanks's hat off his head and lets it hang off the cord around his neck, and he puts the top hat on his head again.

It feels familiar, he thinks, remembering the way an older, more weathered top hat was too big for his head. It used to get stuck on his nose — a fact Ace used to his advantage without mercy, shoving the hat on his head and over his eyes so that Luffy would run into walls and off the tree house just trying to get it off.

Sure enough, when he tugs on the brim of this hat, it too falls down the bridge of his nose. This hat is bigger, though, and it covers Luffy's head entirely. It's pitch black inside, and when Luffy laughs, the sound is muffled by the velvet. It's funny. The dusty fabric tickles his nose, and Luffy snickers to himself.

The weight of it is different, and he's grown a lot since he was seven, so it's not completely the same. But it's close enough.

"Luffy, be serious!"

Luffy lifts the top hat with one hand so that he can peek at Nami from under its brim. She looks pissed. "This is no time to be joking around! Put that away!"

"Sorry, Nami." Luffy snickers and puts the top hat away with gentle hands. He gives it one last look. When he turns back to Nami, she's already shoving a fake moustache in his face, muttering something about clueless captains.

...

PLUS ONE

Luffy cries, and they're tears of happiness. His brother's smell surrounds him, familiar just as much as it is unfamiliar. The golden hair is longer, but it's still the same. Everything is the same.

Sabo's here, he's really here. Luffy can hardly believe it.

"I — I missed you so much," Luffy sobs, speaking past a lump in his throat that feels like it's at least the size of Goa. "I didn't know if you were okay, and, and…" his voice cracks, "I'm so glad you're here, Sabo!"

"He was worried about you," he hears Zoro say, his tone made lighter with amusement and relief. "When we saw that the paper started burning, I guess he thought of the worst."

"You don't say?" Sabo replies, ruffling Luffy's hair. "If I'd known giving my vivre card to you would have such an impact, maybe I would have kept it for myself." His words are teasing, the soft grin bleeding into his voice. When he continues after a pause, his tone is much fonder. "I don't need you to worry about me, idiot little brother. It's me who's supposed to worry about you."

Luffy shakes his head into Sabo's chest, tears and snot making a mess of his face and the front of Sabo's shirt. His cravat might as well be a handkerchief. Sabo is covered in bandages and there's a band aid on the bridge of his nose, and it's all just like when they were kids patching each other up with varying success. He'd gotten into a fight with a Vice-Admiral, Luffy learns later, and it hadn't been easy to get away this time.

"I missed you," Luffy tells him, voice thick with emotion.

Sabo chuckles, and Luffy can feel him pressing his nose into his matted, shorter hair. "I missed you too. Now stop bawling your eyes out, cry baby. It's embarrassing."

Luffy swallows his tears loudly and hugs Sabo tighter, if that's even possible. His arms are wrapped around his brother's torso so many times that Sabo's probably having a hard time drawing breath, but the hug his brother gives back would easily be tight enough to break the bones in anyone but a rubber man's body, so Luffy figures they're even.

"We have a lot of catching up to do, don't we?" Sabo asks.

Luffy nods. He's slowly calming down, mostly because he doesn't want to get teased more. His lower lip still quivers and his eyes are full of tears, but his breathing evens out with each shaky exhale.

This is the first time he's talked to Sabo since Dressrosa and it's the first time he's had the time to properly look at his long lost big brother, and the burning in the back of his eyes refuses to go away fully no matter how much he wills it to.

He's been on edge all of the past week, just staring at the burning vivre card of his only remaining older brother. Now, all that tension is leaving his body at once until he's rendered little more than a puddle for Sabo to drag up to the crow's nest.

There, with his head resting on Sabo's knee, Luffy listens to his big brother talk. He hears about the fire, the sunken boat, the lost memories and the new ones formed with the revolutionaries. He hears about Koala. He hears about a new family that accepted Sabo, that let him be free.

He smiles throughout it all. Sabo speaks like he's happy, like he's found his place.

A few hours later, Sanji calls them for dinner. He's prepared a feast, and Sabo's nakama are going to join them.

Luffy hops up and rushes to the door. He hangs onto the doorframe with one hand while the rest of his body hangs precariously above the deck, where his crew is gathered. They look up at their captain's call.

Luffy's grin seems too wide for his face as he pumps his fist — oops, almost forgot to hang on — and he takes a deep breath.

"SABO'S HERE!" he shouts, as loud as his lungs allow. There's silence for two seconds, and then Luffy hears Sabo laughing and half his crew scoffing exasperatedly.

"Yeah, yeah. We noticed."

Luffy just grins, and he can't stop.

Sabo's finally here.

...

A/N: Please leave me a comment!