One Piece Strawhat Crew Drabble

One Piece Strawhat Crew drabble

~1.8k words, gen fic, no ships

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It was on one of the calmer days at sea, when the weather was perfect and there were no marines imminently attacking that the transponder snail started ringing. Everyone who was on deck perked up at the sound because it was not often that they actually got calls from others.

Luffy turned at the sound of the noise and immediately threw his fishing rod that he had been using at Usopp. Of course Usopp complained, but Luffy didn’t listen. He hopped off where he sat on the ledge of the ship.

“I’ll get it!” Luffy yelled as he ran over to the snail. He picked it up excitedly, seeing that it was a call from his brother, Sabo. “Hello!”

“Hey, Luffy.” He said with a smile that was reflected on the snail. At this point the whole crew had quieted down and gathered around the snail, not even pretending to give them any privacy. They were still curious about his brother after all, some of them not even having met him in Dressrosa.

“I was just in the area and I was wondering if I was allowed to stop by?” He said, asking purely out of politeness because he had a feeling he knew the answer. He was proved right a second later.

“Yes!” Luffy yelled excitedly into the snail, no doubt injuring its eardrums in some form or another. The crew reflected his excitement in the background, all a bit less intense. They were happy for their captain and for some of them at the prospect of finally getting to meet the long lost brother. By this point Luffy had begun asking how close he was.

“I’m only a couple of kilometers away right now. I’ll probably see you in an hour or two. Sound good?”

“Yep, shishishi! See ya’!”

—

His eventual appearance exactly an hour later was met with a lot of fanfare. The crew all stood peering over the edge of the deck as soon as his small ship came into view, waiting to pull him up and tether his boat. Luffy hadn’t been able to sit still from the anticipation.

Finally, when he reached the ship he came aboard to immediately be met with a hug—closer to a full-body tackle—from Luffy. It was a much happier reunion than last time, which was filled with a lot more tears and bittersweet feelings. After he had finally pried himself free from Luffy he made his rounds introducing (and in some cases reintroducing) himself to the crew. Even the ones who had met him before were blown away by his polite attitude. If they thought that Ace was surprisingly polite, Sabo took it an extra step further. If they hadn’t learned that they weren’t really blood brothers, they would have been blown away by the lack of resemblance—both in demeanor and appearance.

(The resemblance would only start to appear once the light faded and dinner was served, with the ferocity of his eating habits only familiar to the likes of the Strawhat crew.)

—

As the night progressed and alcohol began to flow more liberally, the conversations started to get increasingly off the rails. Somehow the conversation had turned to Sabo working for Dragon.

“It sure is a coincidence that you turned out to be working for Luffy’s dad of all things!” Nami yelled a bit too loudly, no doubt under the influence.

“Yeah, imagine how I feel. It’s a small world I guess!” He said laughing.

“Hey, Sabo…” Usopp said conspiratorially, “If you work for Dragon…do you know who Luffy’s mom is?”

At that the whole table started to tune in to the conversation, definitely curious. Ironically, Luffy seemed to be the one who cared the least. He definitely had not started caring any more after Water 7.

Sabo stared blankly at Usopp for a second before pursing his lips to hide a slowly forming smile. When that failed he covered his mouth with his hand. The crew was definitely interested now, with that body language being the most suspicious thing they could think of. At this point even Luffy was beginning to be interested, less so because of the actual implications and more because it was a fun mystery to solve.

“Wait. Do you actually know!?” Usopp cried in surprise, despite him being the one to pose the question.

“Well, I have a guess.”

They all stared at him expectantly, eyes wide and brows raised, waiting for him to continue.

“I’m not telling.” He said, a brow raising challengingly in response.

At that the whole crew broke out into exclamations. To have such precious information dangled in front of their faces so cruelly, only to be taken away. Sabo wasn’t polite at all. He was a monster!

The indignation continued, still only being met with a blank stare from Sabo (although his eyes seemed so smug), before he finally seemed to crack, just a little. He sighed and they all waited with baited breath.

“Fine. I’ll give you…a hint.” The anticipation was killing them at this point, as Sabo sat there and thought for a moment longer about what the perfect hint would be. Finally he settled on, “You’ve met them before.”

As the room broke out into chaos once again after processing that information, Sabo settled back into his chair, arms crossed, and watched the disaster unfold. The table began spouting their theories left and right and trying to recall every woman they’ve come across in their journeys. Luffy had joined in as well, but he was no help because he could only give horrible nicknames, most of them not being actually traceable to any particular woman. The original members led the conversation, as they had been there the longest and would have a better chance of guessing. They turned to Zoro who had the best chance of guessing since he had been there since the very beginning.

He narrowed his eye in thought, trying to remember anything or anyone of significance that far back. Most of what he remembered from the East Blue was fighting Mihawk. Suddenly he remembered someone and his eye widened, face dropping in shock.

“Wait…Tashigi?!”

The rest of the crew stared at him for a moment trying to remember that name. Sanji remembered first and smacked Zoro upside the head.

“No, you idiot! How old do you think she is? In what world would that make sense!” He yelled, defending the honor of the beautiful swordswoman.

Suddenly Robin, who had been sitting in thoughtful silence for most of the conversation(her outward apathy not belying the true interest she felt in this conversation), turned an analytical eye on Sanji. “Cook-san, surely you remember the names of all the women you’ve come across. Maybe you should be the one leading.”

“Of course, Robin-chwaan~” He said lovingly, before taking the advice seriously and getting deep into thought. It is true that he remembers many of the beautiful women he had met along his journey, but whether or not Luffy knew them as well or if he had just wandered off on his own, he couldn’t recall. Before he could say anything, Robin spoke again.

“And keep in mind: It’s not just any woman we’ve met. It’s someone that Revolutionary-san knows that we’ve met.”

The whole crew was invigorated by this revelation. How had they not thought of that! That narrowed down the options considerably.

“You’re so smart, Robin-chwaan!” Sanji cried out, drawing out the honorific even longer than last time. As he leaned over to Robin, he bumped into Zoro as well, who immediately shoved his hand into Sanji’s face pushing him away. Sanji’s previously loving expression was wiped off his face in an instant, already getting ready for a fight. As they fought and Nami pushed them into the corner, Brook chimed in for the first time.

“Ohoho! But because you’re a revolutionary, you might know more than we think. Is that correct?”

Sabo was still smirking in delight, but perked up at being addressed. “Hmm, possibly.” He said, merely shrugging his shoulders.

After that they decided to just brute force their way through it.

“Alvida!”

“Who?”

“The soap girl from CP9!"

“Definitely not.”

“Doctor Kureha!”

“Nope.”

“Old Lady Kokoro?”

“Hahaha! Now that’s funny!”

“Big Mom!”

Sabo just looked concerned before shaking his head no.

“Yowahoshi!” Luffy chimed in for the first time in a while.

The crew just gave him disbelieving looks, still shocked by the stupidity of their captain. “Little bro…do you even understand the concept of motherhood?”

Luffy just ignored him before continuing on with the worst guesses yet. “Hammock! Robin! Makino!”

In the background Robin finally seemed a little baffled, a near impossible feat. “How old do you think I am?” She implored genuinely.

Sabo only responded with glee. “I don’t know who that is. Definitely not! And good guess…but no.”

Luffy visibly deflated after that, pouting and crossing his arms, not being able to think of anyone else.

The rest of the crew seemed to be running out of ideas as well. After all, out of the women they fought, many of them were not nearly old enough to be Luffy’s mom. Seeing defeat wash over them, Sabo decided to give them one more thing to latch on to.

“I’ll give you one more hint. They’ve got a mean left hook.” He said, winking at a specific archeologist (aka their best shot at guessing). She caught the gesture and was visibly perplexed. She tried to give him a questioning glance, but he only smiled before turning away to focus on the hopeless guessing game that had been reignited.

“A lady that can fight, huh?” Franky said with no small amount of respect.

“So she must be some sort of martial artist.” Zoro pondered, glaring daggers into the table.

“Have we fought any women who use their fists?” Nami wondered aloud.

But Robin knew there was something more afoot. After spending some time around him during her stay with the Revolutionary army she knew that Sabo didn’t mince his words. He was a very intentional speaker. She repeated the words to herself silently.

As she did, a realization slowly dawned on her.

Very slowly indeed because there were too many things that didn’t add up. But when she thought about it maybe it did make sense. A few accidental glances and purposeful digging led her to have some theories about a certain ex-employer of hers. And she supposed that if that much were true, then it might not be too much a stretch of the imagination to think…

As the pieces slowly came together, she looked up to meet Sabo’s eyes, seeing that he knew she knew now. He covered his mouth again to hide a smile—a very obvious tell that he should really get rid of—and Robin found herself smiling as well, after a brief moment of shock.

She now acknowledged his decision to not share this information with the crew. It would surely cause too much chaos. Hopefully the universe would work itself out and they may meet again. But until then, she thought it was best kept as their little secret.

She chuckled to herself.

“What’s so funny, Robin?” Chopper asked from beside her.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out eventually.”

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Cross posted on ao3

(BTW this is my first post on tumblr, so I don't know all the etiquette or formatting. Hopefully this is set up correctly!)