A/N~ Hello, all! This is just a small thing I needed to get out of my head (a warm up for writing other things I suppose? XD) It's nothing but crack, I assure you, but something I like to think Sabo would absolutely do if given the chance.

I call it Three Times Sabo was the Dad and 1 Time He Wasn't.

I OWN NOTHING. ESPECIALLY NOT THE CLIPS/GAMES/VINES THESE WERE BASED OFF.

Enjoy!

Part 6

(1)

"...and then she says, I swear on my life, she says – 'if you're gonna say something, say it with doughnuts'!"

Sabo blinks the same time Koala does, both freezing in the doorway to the intel department, reports (finished and/or otherwise) in hand. He's pretty sure they've walked in on the end of a good story, if the bouts of laughter from three of their colleagues are anything to go by. No point in egging them for an explanation, but still – "Say it with doughnuts?" he parrots, bewildered, to Koala.

The older woman shrugs, carrying on towards Elric's desk and expecting Sabo to follow. "Probably a dumb joke about how you should always apologize with food," she says, handing her reports to Elric who smiles and nods in greeting, repeating the gesture with Sabo. She slides a sly grin at the taller blond – "Bet you'd fit right in that category," she adds.

Elric snorts a laugh, and Sabo pouts but doesn't dispute the fact. She knows he won't and skips on ahead back the way they came to the mess hall. Still pouting, Sabo follows her.

It's only later when the three of them – Hack never fails to sit at least one meal with the younger two, book in hand begging to be snatched and read aloud by a certain blond, punishment be damned – are finishing up their dinner that Sabo musters an appropriate retort. He grins, wholly wicked and pleased. "Koala, Hack."

They lift their heads. "Hmm?" they chorus, only to instantly regret even acknowledging him at the sight of his smile. Koala sighs, a heavy thing from her soul that Sabo can feel. "What, Sabo?" she drawls.

Sabo makes a show of straightening his cravat and hat, building non-existent tension. Despite themselves, his little audience leans in. Unbeknownst to all, Dragon sweeps into the room's dwindling crowds with silent grace when the blond asks – "Do you know what I like to say with donuts?"

Koala rolls her eyes and Hack looks between them, confused. "What?"

He draws a breath, stands up, spreads his arms – "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Silence. Those that remain in the mess hall turn to stare at their table, eyes drawn to the beaming nineteen-year-old.

Then Koala bursts into gales of heaving laughter. Hack (and others who'd caught the tail-end of the joke) facepalm and shake their heads with reluctant grins they fail to hide.

Gasping, Koala reaches for Sabo's shirt and shakes him hard. "You – you dumb piece of crap!" she manages through her laughter, tears in her eyes. "I can't believe we breathe the same air, you make so angry!" She lets him go to bend over, supporting herself with her hands on her knees as she wheezes. "I – I hate your guts!"

The boy in question can't keep up the grin and soon follows her lead, tears streaming as they cling to each other for support in their fit of hysterics. Hack, head down and buried in the pages of his book, fails to stifle his own mirth as his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

(At the back of the room, Dragon barely quells a snort behind a polite cough.)

(2)

Robin feels his approach before she can think to use her powers, and a smile paints her lips. She doesn't look up from her book. "Hello, Sabo."

She hears the young man tutting, though not upset in the slightest. "How'd you know it was me?" he asks; she doesn't need to look to know he's smiling, but she does, and it's wide and full of warm mirth. He's so different and yet so much like his brother – impossible resemblances aside – that it makes the separation easier to bear on bad days.

She smiles in return. "It's been months now, Sabo. I can feel trouble pouring off you," she teases. He pouts in reply, plopping gracelessly into the armchair on her left with a huff and shifting to sit cross-legged (again, so much like her boy captain that it hurts).

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not always up to something," he mutters. "I can be sensible."

Robin giggles softly and returns to her book, a phantom hand emerging from his shoulder to pat his hat-less head. "Of course you can." She flicks to the next page. Sabo will take no offense, knowing she's listening; a born multitasker, among other things. "What brings you hear, Mr. Chief of Staff?" she probes a moment later, smiling at his chuckle at the title hardly ever used without jest from her. "Hiding from Koala's wrath already? It's only noon."

"No, nothing like that." The armchair creaks a little as he leans forward. "I was just wondering if you'd seen the updog anywhere?"

Robin pauses, frown, looks up and meets the boy's gaze. "Pardon?"

Sabo smiles, and it's impossible to read him. "We've been looking all morning for it," he says, "but we just can't seem to find the updog anywhere. Was wondering if maybe you've come across it at all. So have you?"

Robin blinks, still processing. "...have I...?"

"Seen the updog?" the blond insists, leaning closer.

Robin will curse herself for this later and every time Sabo catches her eye and beams at her for the next week. But now, unwittingly, she asks – "What is 'updog'?"

Sabo wheezes and bursts into gales of laughter, nearly falling out of the chair as he hugs his gut. Only then do the pieces come together and Robin realizes. "Oh good lord," she sighs, pressing her fingers against her temples and a reluctant grin that only has Sabo laughing harder, and then he really does fall out of his chair in a ball of giggles. Eventually the laughter bubbles out of her, too, at the sight of him. "Gracious, Sabo," she says through her own giggles, leaning forward to look at him, "this is the happiest I've seen you today."

Still wheezing, the young man climbs to his knees, grinning madly. "I have never in my life," he cries, "ever gotten that to work!"

(If he's managed to get Nico Robin of all people, she can't image why. Then again, Baltigo has housed Sabo for years; they know his tricks and tells, the mischief all to easy to catch.)

He wipes a tear from his eye with a gloved finger, out of breath and flushed with happiness. "Thank you, Robin, thank you so much, holy – Koala!" He stands suddenly and rushes to the door, leaning out and yelling. "Koala, you owe me 200 Bellie!"

Koala's voice, startled and disbelieving, echoes down the hall. "What?!"

"I did it! She said it, Robin said it!"

"No! No you did not, you are LYING!"

Sabo digs into his pocket and pulls out – oh lord, is that a Tone Dial? "I recorded it! All of it!" he shouts back. A stream of curses answers him, followed by a very familiar laugh that might be Hack's.

Robin gasps, grinning now despite herself. "You fiend of a boy," she says with mock rage. Sabo whirls on her, beams back, and rushes out of the room to collect his prize from a reluctant Fishman Karate instructor. The older woman shakes her head and returns to her book, the smile all but stuck to her face.

(If this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Sabo's cheek and lightning wit, Robin has no doubt she's in for a ride.)

(3)

Hey, Koala."

She doesn't even want to look. She just wants to eat her breakfast in relative peace, for a change. But the longer she tries to ignore him, the longer he'll pester her until he gets his way. He's selfish like that, always has been, and has yet to find a reason to change.

"Koala. Koala. Koaaaaaallaaaaa –"

She sighs, lifts her head and pins him with a look. "What?"

He's not grinning, oddly, standing by the open cupboards full of spices, carefully organized in alphabetical order by the head chef whom even Dragon dares not cross on a bad day. He's looking at her hard, as though she's accused him of treacherous deeds...which is not something to even joke about, not in their organization, so she turns in her chair to face him fully. "Sabo...?"

He gestures the open cupboards and their contents. "All these spices," he says, shaking his head at her in a manner that's decidedly exasperated. "All these spices. And you choose to be salty? Really."

Koala looks at Sabo. Sabo looks at Koala.

"I hate you so much!" She's up before he can blink and then she's punching him repeatedly in the shoulder while he ducks his head and laughs like the loon, the idiot he is. It doesn't help that she's grinning just as hard.

(+1)

"Sabo."

Pausing mid-step, Sabo turns on one heel as his leader and teacher sweeps through the hallway, cloak billowing behind him with each steady stride. The blond tips his hat once in greeting. "Sir," he says. "Anything amiss?" The older man shakes his head, a shadow of a wry smile quirking his lips, and gestures for Sabo to follow him. Where, only god knows, but he easily falls in step with their leader as they continue down the hall.

They eventually reach Dragon's favored balcony – it's almost funny, now, knowing what they do, but also a comfort sometimes knowing that Sabo's not the only one thinking about Luffy, wherever he is – and Sabo jumps up to sit on the stone railing, looking out into the vast expanse of rocky mountains that shape Baltigo. Wind sweeps through their hair and coats, the silence between them a companionable one; rare moments like these, side by side with his mentor, savior – father, in all the ways his own never was or will be – that Sabo holds dear and close. He wonders if Dragon feels the same, but never dwells too much...

"I've been meaning to speak with you, lad," Dragon says after a moment. Sabo lifts a brow and turns to him, one hand on his hat to keep it from blowing away. Dragon doesn't look at him, eyes trained ahead. "I've never doubted you'd grow into your role as my right hand. But in the last year alone you've exceeded even my expectations. I'm confident, should anything arise that not even we are prepared for, you'll do well in my place as the leader of our army, carry on the battle for freedom."

Sabo, for a moment, feels something clench in his chest, hard enough that he might be reeling from it were he a weaker man. But he's honed his skills, grown stronger now than he was even a year and a half ago, when the news of his brothers tore into him and ripped his soul from his body and rendered him useless – and he's known there might be a day, always has, in which he'll be forced to take the mantel and bury their leader. So this rattles him, but he banishes the ache and smirks, all cheek and no remorse just like always – "Sounds like someone's read to retire," he jests.

Dragon smirks back, just barely. "I'm still breathing, aren't I?" he says. Sabo chuckles, until the mirth in Dragon's eyes abruptly fades. "However...I've been hearing things, lad, that I suppose I should expect from you but still surprise me. As is your habit of doing so."

It really, really is, but Sabo slides off the rail and meets Dragon's hard gaze. "What things?" he asks.

Dragon turns to face him proper, and his height, the hard lines of his ageing face and the bright, angry tattoo along his face make him all the more imposing than he has any right to be; his name and what he stands for is intimidating enough.

Then – "Your incessant Dad Jokes have become the bane of everyone's existence, I hear," he says.

Sabo blinks at him, and with a whoosh of breath he wasn't aware he's been holding, he sighs a laugh and grins hard. "I see. Oh well, can't please everybody," he says with a shrug, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Really though, they should thank me. Dad jokes or no, I'm doing everyone a favor by lifting the mood up in here. If you of all people won't, I might as well take the chance. You're not gonna scold me from stealing your thunder, are you?"

Dragon shakes his head in an attempt to hide the beginnings of a grin as he turns, cloak swishing, to go back inside. "I suppose not," he says. "But even so...spreading jokes like that when you have no children of your own..."

He stops in his tracks. Sabo watches, tilts his head. Dragon looks at him over his shoulder.

"...you could say, you're...a faux pa."

Dragon steps inside without looking back, Sabo's hysterical laughter chasing after him all the while.

I hope you enjoyed that. I certainly did XD

Reviews are writer chow :3