Chapter Text
The phone was ringing. The small red rotary phone that collected dust in the corner and never received calls ever. Was ringing.
“Bo? Has that ever rang before?” Ace had come in from the coop, he was covered in hay and smelled like he had been rolling around with the chickens, which he had likely been doing.
“Nope.” Sabo popped the P before drying his hands and walking towards the phone. “Hello, Sabo speaking.”
‘SABO!!!!” The response was so loud, Sabo nearly threw the phone away from his face and Ace cackled, making his way to the kitchen to finish what Sabo had started.
“Lu! It's good to hear from you!” Sabo returned the phone to his face, a smile spreading so far it hurt his cheeks. “We miss you.”
“Bo guess what day it is!” Across the line a quiet laugh could be heard, a laugh neither man had heard in the three years since they had moved to the farm.
“Hmm.” Sabo let out a thoughtful noise, scratching his chin and tilting his head a little upwards. “Its the beginning of strawberry season, isn't it?”
“It's Marco the chicken’s birthday!” Ace shouted from the kitchen, holding a pan with half fried eggs still sizzling.
“Nooo you're both wrong!” A cheer was heard from the phone, despite both wrong answers the voice seemed very excited. “It's my birthday! My 18th birthday! You know what that means!”
Sabo laughed, sliding off his gloves and running his fingers through his hair. “Really? Man time really does fly! Have Makino and Dadan given you the good to go?” He had already known what day it was, he just wanted to tease his brother.
“Noo, Makino said I should check with you and Ace, make sure you’re ready over there.” The voice whined, Sabo could almost picture the younger deflating into the old arm chair that sat next to the phone.
“Would you mind putting Makino on the phone?” Sabo could hear his brother’s loud groan, imagining the rolling eyes as he heard the shout of Makino’s name.
“Sabo? What's up?” Makino’s voice always seemed to calm him down, probably because she had been with the boys since the beginning.
“Hey Makino! I wanted to tell you about the present we prepared for Luffy.” Sabo smiled at the sound of the woman's small gasp, “Yes we are prepared to take him in, we had Franky build him his own room and he fixed up our old treehouse!”
“Awww that's lovely, I'm sure Luffy will be excited to hear.” The smile could be heard in Makino’s voice, she was truly very excited. “I think when we drop him off me and Dadan will spend the night, is the guest house still there?” Sabo’s curse could be heard not only across the farm but across Makino’s home too.
“Haha, it’ll be prepared when you get here!” Sabo covered the bottom half of the phone, turned his head to the kitchen and shouted. “Ace, we gotta get the guest house ready!” He returned to the phone. “If you guys leave tomorrow morning you’ll be here around lunchtime, that should work.”
Makino, who had been laughing, caught her breath before humming in agreement. “I think Luffy’s been packed for weeks in preparation. But I'll tell Dadan. Would you like to talk to Luffy some more?”
“Yeah, but not for long.” while the phone was being passed back to Luffy, Ace wandered over, a grin spreading across his sunkissed freckled face. When Luffy had the phone back the two took a synchronized breath.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUFFY! WE”LL SEE YOU TOMORROW!” Luffy laughed, they said their goodbyes and the phone was returned to the dusty stand.
“Shit Sabo, when was the last time we even went into the guest house?” Ace wiped a hand across his forehead, clearing the sweat that had accumulated in the time he spent in the kitchen.
“I think the week we moved in. Remember? Lu, Makino and Dadan stayed there while we all got the farm up and running again,”
“So three years?”
“Yeah give or take.”
“Shit well I guess I know what we’re doing today.”
~{☀️}~
“Are we there yet?” Luffy leaned forward from his seat in the back of the car so his face was between Makino and Dadan’s seats. They had been on the road for a few hours, the landscape going from the bustling busy city to calm grassy planes and mountain ranges. It had been 5 hours, and Luffy was bored.
“Stop asking brat, we’ll get there when we get there.” Dadan was behind the wheel, leaning her arm over the open window, hair tied back and a lit cigarette hanging from her mouth. Makino had told her not to smoke with Luffy in the car, but they had compromised with the window after Luffy ate all the trip snacks before even leaving the city.
“We have about 30 more minutes, Luffy.” Makino smiled at him, reaching over to ruffle his hair. “Why don't you rest your eyes for a bit?” She had been trying to sleep for the majority of the trip, but with Luffy unable to sit still or be quiet she had resigned herself to knitting instead.
“But that's boring.” Luffy leaned back into his seat, surrounded by candy wrappers and bags of his own luggage. He had packed up the majority of his belongings and stuffed them into the trunk, but a few bags had to be sat on the backseats with him.
Luffy pressed his face into the glass of the window, watching the world fly by around him. He was excited, overwhelmingly so, he was returning to the farm he grew up on. He had spent eight years on the farm before his grandfather died and he moved to the city to live with Makino and Dadan. Right before Garp’s death, he left the farm to his three grandsons, to be taken care of when they were old enough to do so.
Ace and Sabo had left to the farm to take care of it when they had turned 18, and Luffy said he would move to the farm when he was 18 to join them too, that was their promise. Luffy couldn’t wait to see his brother’s again, it had been three years with only letters and the occasional phone call.
“Alright Luffy, we’re here!” The truck came to a screeching halt right behind the old bus. Standing between the trees on the old dirt path waiting for him were Ace, and Sabo. Before the car was even properly parked Luffy had launched himself out of the open door and wrapped all two of them in a crushing hug.
“Sabo! Ace! I missed you!” Luffy’s eyes welled with tears but his smile stretched from ear to ear and shone brighter than the sun. Ace stumbled when Luffy crashed into them but recovered with a loud laugh, Sabo stood firm, his smile widening as he wrapped an arm around Luffy.
“We missed you too, Lu!” Ace ruffled his brother’s hair, pushing back his straw hat to hang on his back.
“We’re excited to have you with us, it'll be like old times.” Both Ace and Luffy nodded enthusiastically. Sabo turned his attention to Dadan and Makino, who were standing off to the side. “Hi Dadan, hi Makino.”
“Oh Makino! Dadan!” Ace exclaimed, he had not noticed them standing there. “Come on, join the hug!” Luffy popped his head out of the tangle of limbs and smiled, nodding enthusiastically.
“No, it's just so sweet to watch, we’ll get our hugs in later.” Makino gently shook her head, strands of hair falling from under her bandana.
“You brats are helping carry in all of his stuff.” Dadan pointed her cigarette at them and then the truck, still full of stuff.
“I brought all my stuff.” Luffy laughed, letting go of his brothers to scratch his neck. He wasn’t at all sorry, he planned to spend the rest of his life on the farm, why wouldn't he bring everything?
Sabo and Ace just laughed. “Yeah we’ll bring all his stuff in later. Why don't we all go to the house and have some lemonade?”
“We also have booze.” Ace interjected, a smirk growing on his face.
“Ace it's barely noon.” Sabo rolled his eyes, hands planting themselves firmly on his hips.
“It's five o’clock somewhere! C'mon let's go!” Ace grabbed Luffy’s hand, all but dragging him down the dirt path. Makino laughed, patting Sabo’s shoulder before pulling him into a hug.
“Its good to see you Sabo, you've grown. Ace has too.” Makino smiled, releasing the hug. “Dadan come- oh she already left.”
“The promise of booze must have really gotten to her.” Sabo mumbled, his brows pinching together in slight annoyance. “Well we should catch up with them.”
“I suppose so.” Makino laughed softly, making her way down the path to the farm, Sabo hot on her heels.
The farm itself was vast, bordered on all sides by forest, only broken by the paths to the north, south and east, and two small clearings separated by a patch of trees. Every part of the farm was organized, no doubt by Sabo, there were two different crop fields, separated in the middle by a lake. Just above the lake was a patch of trees, grown in neat orderly rows, and below the lake was the animal area, full of a lot of different animals. In one of the far clearings grew a large tree with a treehouse nestled between the branches, and in the other clearing was a guest house and play area.
“Wow Ace this place looks awesome!” Luffy couldn’t see very far as he was dragged to the porch of the old farmhouse, where the old porch swing was. He remembered the farm how Garp used to have it, the layout had been slightly different, more boring.
“Thanks! Me and Bo spent ages getting it to look this good.” Ace oozed pride as he spoke, because it was true, it had taken the majority of two years to get everything in place, and an extra year to get into the flow. “And a lotta money but don't tell Makino.” Luffy nodded seriously, knowing that if Makino asked he wouldn't be able to lie to her anyway.
Ace quickly unlocked the front door of the farm house, dragging Luffy inside, and being followed by Dadan, not that they really noticed her. The inside of the farm house was large, to the left a kitchen with a connected dining room, and stairs down to a cellar, and to the right, a living room, with a staircase going up and a short hallway going further right.
The decor of the house was eclectic, but clean. It was obvious the two residents of the house couldn't agree on decorations and both did what they wanted. It was not recognizable as the house Luffy had once grown up in.
"Oh hey pops.” Luffy turned to Ace, who was speaking to a large, old, great Pyrenees dog wearing a purple collar. The dog walked right past Ace, over to Luffy, sniffing him. Luffy giggled, crouching down to let the dog sniff his hands. “Lu, this is Newgate, or Pops as we call him. He's our farm dog.”
“Why do you call him pops?” Luffy began petting him as soon as he was allowed, scratching behind his ears and under his chin. “He looks like he has a mustache.”
“The old guy who runs the ranch said he acted like a dad to all the animals down there. When we took him to retire up here he kept doing it to our animals so we called him Pops.” Ace was now also petting him, running his hand over the soft fur of his face.
“His health is surprisingly really good despite his age.” Sabo cut in, finally coming by with Makino. “Hes usually pretty lazy.” Pops slowly made his way over, sniffing Dadan first before sniffing Makino, accepting pets from both the women. “Ace, I hope you didn't start the tour without me.”
“Nah, Pops distracted us before we could start.” Ace took off his hat, scratching the hair underneath and throwing the orange cowboy hat onto a stand by the door. “But now we can start!”
The tour started with the kitchen, all the basic amenities, a fireplace and a coffee maker. There was a round table with four seats in the middle. “The kitchen! Sabo does most the cooking but I make a mean sunny side up egg.”
Down the kitchen stairs was a cellar, filled to the brim with barrels and sparsely decorated. “This is the wine cellar. We age our wine here for 2 seasons. It makes the quality and the price go way up.”
Back in the kitchen, but to the left, was what could be assumed to be a dining room, but was instead taken over and turned into a game room. Two low to the ground tables with 4 pillows on the sides, a fish tank, two retro arcade machines, a bookshelf overflowing with board and card games, a fireplace and a couch, and a door with a sign helpfully saying ‘BATHROOM :)’ hanging from it. On the wall was a chalk board tallying up how many times Ace and Sabo have won against each other, it was very evenly matched. “This was a dining room but with just the two of us we changed the space to be more cozy for game nights.”
Back tracking right, they went to the living room, a TV stood on a low shelf, flanked on both sides by two cabinets full of Garp's old antiques, there were two couches, one black with orange pillows and one white with blue pillows, as well an old weathered brown arm chair, all around a small coffee table, in the corner was a small table with the old rotary phone. “The living room, we watch TV here, and Pops likes to sleep on gramps’ old chair even though he has a bed.”
Through the hallway to the right was a room full of book cases and comfortable chairs, there was a retro box TV in the corner, as well as a couch and a very large dog bed. “I brought a lot of books with me, they needed somewhere to go.”
There was a small stairway going down from the book room. The room itself was small, a continuation of the book room with more shelves and couches. But to the left of the door was a glass case with a sword in it, and to the right a fossil. “The sword was Roger’s, apparently he gave it to Gramps before he kicked the bucket.”
There was another staircase in the book room, going up. Through the door at the top was a bedroom that was clean and very neat. There was a bed with dark blue sheets and blankets, a nightstand between the bed and the wall with a clock and a book on it, next to the bed but under a window was a desk with a laptop and papers neatly stacked, between the desk and the wall was a lamp, at the foot of the bed was a dresser and a chair, there were also book cases lining the walls. Everything was in darker colors, blues and blacks with white accents. “This is my room! It's usually messier but I wanted to clean it for you guys.”
Through the other door in the room was a thin hallway, on the right side there were two doors, on the left there was a thin, small cabinet with a ship in a bottle, a photo album, and an old dusty family picture, and on the walls on both sides were paintings, some of people, others of landscapes. “Some of the paintings were here when Gramps was alive, as you can see from the one of him with Mr Roger, and another with the governor. Others are new! Like this one of Ace and Yamato!”
Through the first door was a full bathroom, a shower, clawfoot tub, toilet and two sink vanity. The tiles on the floor were alternating black and white in a chessboard pattern, and the tiles on the walls had flower patterns. Everything in the bathroom was weirdly decorated with flowers, except for the blue and orange respective towels and hygiene products. “We didn't change anything about the bathroom when we came, it's still the old man's weird flower bathroom.”
Through the second door was another bedroom, this one noticeably more messy. In the center of the far wall was a bed, with orange sheets and red pillows, on the left side of the bed was a desk that was more orderly than the rest of the room, on the right side was bedside table with a clock and lamp, at the foot of the bed was a dresser, there was also a book case on the wall next to the desk, not full of books, a table to the right of the bed and a couch. Everything was in warm tones of orange, yellow and red. “Behold! My bedroom! So much cooler than Sabo's.”
The end of the hallway led to an open room, with two staircases, one leading back down to the living room, and the other leading up. But the room itself was cozy, two couches around a fireplace, a bookshelf and a piano. It was all Garp's old things, including old nick nacks that littered the mantle and the shelves.
“And now, the grand finale.” Sabo turned to Luffy, a smile wide on his face.
“Luffy, to prepare for your arrival we had Franky build a new room.” Ace rested his hand on Luffy's back, gently shoving him towards the stairs.
“Happy birthday Luffy.” The two said in sync as Luffy rushed up the stairs.
The room itself was the same size as Ace and Sabos, an empty bed on the right wall, a dresser, a desk and an empty book case. It wasn't decorated at all, left open until Luffy's arrival.
“So what do ya think?" Ace was leaning on the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. Sabo stood beside him, hands planted on his hips.
“We didn't decorate it at all, that's your job! We'll eat a snack and then get your stuff from the oof-” Sabo's voice was cut off when he was rammed into by Luffy, who was hugging him tightly. “I take it you like it?”
Luffy gave no verbal response but eagerly nodded his head. Ace joined the hug on the other side of Luffy, ruffling his hair.
“Let's go join Makino and Dadan downstairs. We still have work to do today.”
~{☀️}~
The day had been eventful, after lunch they got Luffy's stuff and gave a tour of the farm, but now they were relaxing around a dimming campfire in front of the guest cabin, Dadan and Makino having already retired for the evening.
“We were gonna sleep in the treehouse, right?” Luffy was sat upside down in his seat, hair hanging just out of touch of the grass and feet hanging over the top, already missing shoes. “Thats what you said we'd do Ace.”
“I did say that, didn't I?” Ace laughed, slapping his knees before standing up. “Bo, you put the spare blankets up there, right?” Sabo, who had been nodding off in his chair, hummed in the affirmative before slowly stretching to stand up.
“I even put spare snacks for you and Lu.” He groaned, stretching his hands over his head. “We heading over?” At Ace's nod, Sabo put out the remnants of the fire.
The walk to the treehouse was calm, one they had taken since they were itty bitty kids. Garp had said the treehouse had been there since he was a boy, and had renovated it for Dragon, and then again later for Luffy, Ace and Sabo. When Ace and Sabo had returned it had been unstable, they said they would fix it, but hadn't had the time. When planning for Luffy’s arrival they knew it would be perfect. The inside of the treehouse was generally unchanged, barely big enough to fit the three of them grown, but they would sleep in a pile, as they had done when they were kids.
“So what was the plan for tomorrow?” Luffy asked, laying on his stomach between his brothers. His straw hat laid just out of reach, on the wooden bench that sat underneath one of the windows.
The response he received from Ace was loud snoring, Sabo however had a real response. “Well Makino said Dadan said they'd leave right after lunch. I think after they leave we'll go into town, there are some people you should meet, and we should visit Dragon and Shanks, let them know you're back in the Valley.”
“That sounds busy.” Luffy looked out the windows to see the stars, rolling onto his back for a better view. “It'll be cool to see Shanks again!” Luffy laid his head against Sabo's shoulder. “And dad too.”
“Mhm. And there's a lot of people in the valley who weren't here 10 years ago.” Sabo rested his head on top of Luffy's. “I think tomorrow we'll prioritize shop owners, like Franky, Mihawk, Jinbe, Kid and Kaido, they run the carpentry shop, general store, fish store and blacksmith and ranch. It'll be busy but we'll have fun.” Sabo paused when he heard Luffy snoring, looking out of the corner of his eye to see Luffy sound asleep.