Usually, when you're on watch, you opt to get yourself to the highest point of the Sunny— just to be able to pick out trouble easier. You reckon it's the most you could do, not being one of the stronger fighters on the crew, you worry about them all, care about them a lot so you bundle yourself up in the crow's nest with a cup of cooling coffee and some entertainment so you don't fall asleep. You don't have the luxury that Luffy has, self assured enough, to just sit himself on the figurehead to watch for trouble, or maybe it was that it didn't matter where Luffy was sat, he'd do a good job at keeping his crew safe regardless. Either way, you didn't trust the figurehead— always afraid you'd end up slipping off the rounded head of the Sunny and getting hit by the ship as you fall into the sea.

Luffy finds your fear stupid, but he tries to make you feel better by wrapping a leg around your waist and then wrapping his other leg around the neck of Sunny's figurehead to really make you more comfortable. Luffy is talking about the sky island that he'd been to before you'd joined, but you're not really listening, squinting at his hand and trying not to cut his skin in trying to cut his nails that've grown long enough to trap dirt underneath which Nami hasn't been a fan of.

You push the clippers up against the meat of his finger, leaving a little bit of length, and turn his hand up to his attention. "This okay, Luffy?"

His words pulled to a stop, humming as he looked at your joined hands under the dull light of the moon and nodded. "Yeah—" and then he gets right back into his retelling of the golden bell that people were waiting to be rung.

You push down on the clippers.

You think, you're sure actually, if you asked Luffy, he wouldn't have an answer for you; he feels love all too easily, it's one of the most natural emotions for him, a constant state of his being. For you, it's almost awkward. Love was not a norm that you were so lucky to have been surrounded with growing up, but since joining the Straw Hats, it's been a rude reckoning. Love is not just with Luffy, it's been there when you play board games with Chopper, it's with running after Nami with all her shopping bags after docking, it's marvelling over Franky's latest upgrades.

With the Straw Hats, it's been impossible to avoid love.

With Luffy, it is a particular thing. Something you don't have the vocabulary for so it swells in your mouth, forces your tongue down your throat and leaves an awful plaque over your teeth, honey dripping from your salivary glands, makes your words stick to your gums when you want to spit them out.

Luffy tells you about how he punched God, you think about his leg around your waist, about how you want to share some of that sticky honey in your mouth with him— wonder if he'll ever be happy with that kind of love.