Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dragon’s ‘escape’ to another country had been necessary, but it’d brought about its own slew of problems along with it.

Among the list had been contact with the few friends he’d made, all revolutionary agents. They’d decided to stay and let Dragon leave like a coward, but he could only sigh at the time and accept their good intentions. Then there’d been adjusting to the new country as well, which was all but easy. People certainly didn’t go into revolution for the money, and he’d handled the money donated responsibly — which meant that he had been poor as dirt when he first came. In the beginning, he did car washing, which had occurred to him strongly that he was somehow finding the task difficult for someone who’d, somehow, managed to lead a successful revolution.

And then finally, he hadn’t been able to visit his own father since. That in itself wouldn’t have been a problem, as he remembered very clearly just how eccentric the old man was, and so stubborn as well that Dragon would join him and bow his head to the then corrupt government, but there was, again, the reason for why he’d left the country in the first place.

His son.

It was all for his safety. With his tracks well-covered, there should be no one coming after him, and especially would not even catch wind that he had a child in the first place. And for his efforts, Luffy had been able to build little ships out of construction toys and learn his alphabet in peace.

And even though Luffy was great at making friends, and able to often enough bring home playdates, it was obvious to Dragon that his son often felt that the house was too empty. There was no more mother, after all, and no more children to go along with that. There was nobody else, except for the old man.

Family was important, Dragon begrudgingly understood from Luffy.

Just as well, he didn’t have to keep him waiting forever, or much longer, at that. They were nice and settled now, what with his new job at the local university and being able to start working towards buying a house. And with Christmas finally coming around again three years later, Dragon thought it was about time for Luffy to actually meet his grandpa.

Sure, grandfather and grandchild did technically meet before, but it was when Luffy was just born. So Luffy remembered none of that while Dragon was certain that Garp remembered holding his tiny fingers and trying to make him laugh when it just ended up making him cry. It’d been the first time Luffy had ever cried, too, and Dragon was grateful, in hindsight, since it made it so that the second time he’d cried was for his mother instead of his first.

Dragon looked at his phone long enough for his eyes to burn, and when nothing came to mind, he shut it off. Massaging his eyes, he set his elbow on the windowsill and his chin in his hand, turning to see Luffy. He was entranced in his TV time and loosely holding his toy sheep, Merry.

They hadn’t gone Christmas shopping yet. So he glanced outside for the weather — light snow — and stood up to walk over to him.

“Luffy.” He crouched down by him.

Luffy looked up at him curiously. “Daddy?”

He ruffled his hair and left his hand on his head. “Want to go out? There’s not much snow today.”

Luffy’s attention immediately turned to the windows and he gasped, standing up quickly. “Snow! Snow! I wanna go!” He ran towards the door.

“Luffy,” he said, getting back up, “the snow isn’t going anywhere.”

Fetching their winter coats from their rooms, he went back to where Luffy stood by the door as if he was a puppy waiting to be let outside and helped put his coat on for him. It was one where its hood had bear ears, and he fondly smiled at the sight. Once he had his own coat on, he picked Luffy up, fetched his camera and exited the house. There would be plenty of pictures to take this Christmas.

The shops today bustled with activity. There were so many people that Dragon regretted not doing this sooner. Luffy was unhappy with not being able to go off on his own and actively try to get himself lost. It was one thing he wouldn’t not put his foot down on as well, so all he could do was weave through the crowd as fast as possible until they could duck in a shop that looked interesting enough.

“Daddy, Daddy.” Luffy tugged at his coat from his shoulder and pointed at a stall outside selling warm food. “Can I have that?”

Dragon, balking at the crowd there, said no and had to caress him a little to calm him. He found a chocolatier where at least they could find a place to sit by themselves and let Luffy indulge in a little. The day passed with them going from store to store until Dragon bought all his presents and Luffy was tired enough to sleep in his arms.

On the walk home, he typed out the message he had been composing all day with his other hand and sent it before he could rethink it over.

The morning after, Dragon was woken up from a pounding on the front door.

Peeking through the curtains with a knife in hand to make sure it wasn’t someone trying to kill him, he dragged a hand down his face at what he saw. He opened the door and looked impassively at the old man outside.

Garp opened his mouth about to say something but pointed. “What’s with the knife?”

“I thought my enemies had finally caught up with me. Luckily, the last words my son said to me won’t have to be ‘I like Mr. Pirate more than you anyway’.”

“He does?”

He deadpanned, “Well, I hope not—”

“Anyway, brat! It’s so good to see you again!” Garp cut him off by pulling him into a hug and nearly crushing him with it.

It was right in the middle of it that Luffy’s sleepy voice came from the stairs. “Daddy?”

Garp let him go then and kept his arms open wide for Luffy. “Fluffy!”

“It’s Luffy!” Dragon glared.

“My grandson! Oh, look at you!”

Dragon sighed heavily as he followed him towards the stairs. Garp caught Luffy walking down there and brought him into a hug which he watched warily. His father wasn’t totally mindless though, it was clear he was watching his strength and Luffy was giggling at the apparently welcome surprise.

“Who are you?” Luffy said between laughs.

“Huh?!” Garp gaped, holding Luffy up and away so he could look into his eyes. “You don’t know who I am?! Dragon, how could you not tell him?!”

“Who’s Da-gon?”

“I showed him your picture, I think he just forgot…”

“And how many times have you shown him my picture?” Garp looked around the house. “You don’t even keep a picture of me up?”

“I read him picture books to get him to sleep, not to give him nightmares.” Dragon sighed again. “Why are you here already? I texted you yesterday afternoon and you show up at” —he glanced at the clock— “six in the morning? And let him go already.”

“No!” Garp held Luffy close again. “This is the first time I’ve gotten to hold my grandson in three years! Three long years you’ve had him all to yourself!”

“Because I’m his father…” he said under his breath.

“Anyway, Luffy, I’m your dear old grandpa, remember that!”

“Wow, really?!”

Seeing that Luffy was enjoying it well enough, Dragon went to the kitchen to make some coffee, since it was quite obvious by now that he was not going back to bed today.

And after breakfast, Dragon opened the box of decorations he’d gotten yesterday. He crouched down by it and the Christmas tree, pondering how to go about it when Garp and Luffy walked back in, having been to Luffy’s room to check it out at his insistence.

“What’s this?” Luffy crouched down unnecessarily by the box and poked his hand around in it, ending up just grabbing a simple red bauble.

“It’s for the tree, to make it look pretty.” He hung a bauble as demonstration.

“Ooh, can I put Merry on it?” Luffy stood up and went for it on the sofa before he got an answer.

“I don’t think Merry would enjoy being strung up all week, Luffy.” In truth, it was simply too big.

“Oh.” He hugged the toy to him. “You’re right. ‘Sides, I can’t sleep with him if I do that.”

“You’re a smart one.”

Garp was grinning as he joined him on the floor, sitting with his legs crossed. “Bwahahaha! It’s great to see you doing so well as a father! Why, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you this young.” He was watching Luffy as he said so.

Dragon raised an eyebrow as he hung another ornament. “You think this is me doing well? You’ve barely been here even two hours.”

“I didn’t need five minutes. You can tell from how happy he is.”

He followed his eyes then to where Luffy was, who had found a snow globe somewhere and was showing it to Merry, chattering nonstop like he was talking to a real person. He looked happy; he was happy.

“And he’s got everything he needs here. You’ve done well.” Garp clapped him on the shoulder, and for once, he appreciated it.

He did think, sometimes, what if his revolution hadn’t been finished when Luffy was born? Under threat of assassination at any moment, there was not a single chance he’d been able to have Luffy by his side under such dangerous conditions. He’d have to send Luffy out of the country to a trusted ally he didn’t have, raise Luffy by his side, or leave with him…

So. Maybe he was just a good father out of circumstance.

Luffy joined them in decorating, more interested in playing with the things than actually helping them out though as he were, and the morning was soon gone from them. There was the rest of the day, and then Christmas Eve was tomorrow. Maybe it was just as well Garp had caught the first flight he could, he hadn’t expected him to make the eve with the lack of heads up he’d given him.

“So, what are we doing now?” Garp asked him.

“Tomorrow we have to make the food,” Dragon said thoughtfully.

“All day? What, you’re going to cook up something gourmet?”

“For your information, I’ve actually gotten quite good at cooking. I have to do a lot of baking anyway, Luffy likes decorating the cookies.”

Garp scoffed. “You spoil him.”

“I… don’t, actually.” He didn’t think he did anyway.

They ended up going outside, despite Dragon’s wariness of the weather since two people were against him now. The snow was falling harder than yesterday, so even though they were just going to the park Dragon held Luffy all the way since he’d have trouble meandering through the thick layer of snow with his little feet.

Garp coughed suspiciously. “Mother hen,” he mumbled.

Dragon retorted just as quietly, “Just because you had to walk through the forest with bears and tigers in it every day to school and back doesn’t mean everyone else has to.”

“We both did.”

“No, I took the long way around like a sane person.”

Garp sputtered at that before giving up. He gave him a hard look. “Look, he’s going to turn out soft.”

“Soft, how?” Dragon subconsciously wondered when he should cut this conversation in its tracks, Luffy was right there in his arms after all.

Garp made a gesture with his hands trying to find his words. “Soft. He’s going to cry every time he takes a little tumble.”

“Well, he doesn’t.”

“Well, why aren’t you letting him walk then?”

Dragon shifted Luffy in his arms, making it clear that he wasn’t being moved. “He’s three. Any day now he won’t let me, and a few years later he’ll be too old for this. Time moves fast, I’d like to enjoy every moment of it.”

Garp stood quietly, shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d stubbornly decided not to wear gloves.

“The world’s heading in a good direction. Luffy’s growing up in a better one than we did. Let’s not take it for granted.” Dragon started walking again, not caring if Garp followed.

Luffy sat up straighter in his arms and looked over his shoulder. “Grampy?”

“He’ll catch up later.”

At the park, Dragon sat on the bench with his arms crossed while he watched Luffy run around with another child. There was just a few of them there today, the snow coating the playground equipment made it a hassle to play on them. His mind didn’t stop running through the events of the day. His father was just as frustrating as he remembered him.

Something knocked into his shoulder which in turn knocked him out of it. He squinted up. Garp was there, holding out a small box of something. He was already eating from another. Mochi.

Dragon accepted the box and Garp said, “Had to stop over there.” He pointed to a food cart. “I hope you don’t have to stand out in this kind of weather to put food on the table.”

“I’ve been working at the university for months now. How did you think I was able to afford a place like that?”

Garp grimaced as he sat himself down beside him. “I forgot. But didn’t you have a job that was similar?”

“Are you talking about the car washing from three years ago?”

Dragon waved Luffy over before the food could get cold. He fed him since Luffy simply opened his mouth and waited, and this time Garp didn’t make a sound.

Once the box was empty, Luffy pulled him over to the swings.

“And what about me?” Garp pretended to be upset.

Luffy giggled. “You too, Grampy!”

Only after had Dragon wiped the snow off of a children’s swing that Luffy said he wanted to push him on it, so he had to wipe it off a bigger swing and sit down on it himself. Dragon made full eye contact with Garp as he swung himself every time Luffy pushed him.

Garp was chuckling. “Not the first time, eh?” He sat down on a snow-covered swing. “Alright, Luffy! Do me instead, I’m sure you’re strong enough!”

“Huh?” Luffy pushed him, stumbling forward and just stood there, causing Dragon to dig the heels of his boots deep into the ground before he could attack his own child. Even if it would be Luffy’s own fault.

Dragon swung himself as he watched Luffy be amazed with himself at being able to push a man of Garp’s size, feeling somehow a hole being filled within him that he’d never noticed was there in the first place.

And after, Garp was helping him drag their sled out to an isolated hill when Luffy stopped by the base of a tree and looked all the way up.

“What’s up there, Luffy?” Dragon stopped, forcibly making Garp continue walking until the rope he was grabbing was extended to its limits and he nearly tripped over himself.

He saw the head of a squirrel poking out before Luffy could answer. Luffy called out to it, “A coon!”

“No, that’s a squirrel.”

“A sqwah.” He reached out for it on his tippy-toes.

“Close enough,” Dragon said and dropped the rope to crouch down beside him.

“Are we still going sledding?” Garp grumbled from behind them.

Dragon had to convince Luffy to not bring the squirrel with them. His toddler wasn’t happy then until they finally got the sled up and Dragon, reluctantly, told him that he could ride it first. Luffy excitedly climbed in while he held it tight so it wouldn’t go until he was ready for it to.

“Alright, Luffy, just go straight down. Ready?”

“Ready!”

Despite that, Dragon’s hand remained resting on the sled until it was suddenly gone from his grip. Garp had pushed the sled with so much force that it got a little bit of airtime before it came crashing back down and went zooming down the hill, only Luffy’s peals of laughter left in its wake.

“Father!”

“Bwahahahaha!”

Dragon watched helplessly, but Luffy’s ride turned out relatively fine, and he stopped near the bottom of the hill still laughing as he tumbled out of it and got his boot caught in the snow, toppling over with an oof that could barely be heard over the distance. He side-eyed Garp, who was also still laughing and he wasn’t quite sure at what exactly.

But they did that over and over again until it was nighttime, and before Dragon could push Garp down again Luffy made a sound of awe. He looked up towards where he was seeing, a patchwork of stars that filled the skies as far as the eye could see, shining bright in the night sky.

“They are indeed beautiful,” he muttered.

Luffy held his arm out to it, and in his eyes, Dragon could almost see the same stars that were hanging above them. Those might be unreachable, but Luffy he had right by him, and he’d treasure him forever.

“What?” Garp strained to look at them.

Dragon sat down by Luffy and pulled him onto his lap, hugging him close, feeling his warmth against him. “Are you cold?” he mumbled.

“No, I’m not.” Luffy shook his head.

A shout suddenly rang in the air, and Dragon was instantly on his feet clutching Luffy close, but it had just come from Garp who had somehow managed to send himself shooting like a bullet down the hill.

Luffy swung his legs in his grip laughing while he said to himself, “I completely forgot about that.”

The first thing Luffy wanted to do the next morning was to build snowmen. With the snow coming down fast, they weren’t going to be spending much time outside, so Dragon figured might as well let the child have a little bit of snow time while he could.

“Keep rolling it, slowly now…”

Dragon watched him start rolling a small ball for a few before he turned to making his own. Garp had already gotten a head start; he’d dived into it with the gusto of a youth. He shook his head. It was typical.

Luffy managed quite far, but he didn’t stop even when the snowball was steadily reaching his height. When confronted, he said he wanted to build the biggest snowman in the world.

“Alright, let’s see how far you’ll go.”

Dragon finished his base and then the torso, and by then Luffy had already rolled a snowball that had long grown taller than him. He reached his base snowball with his second and there faced a problem his three-year-old mind hadn’t considered, which was that lifting a ball was significantly harder than pushing it. He certainly tried, though.

Dragon approached him as he struggled with lifting the snowball even an inch off the ground. “Do you want some help?”

“No.”

Expecting the stubborn answer, Dragon pointed out, “Well, it won’t look good on your snowman. It’s the same size. Not to mention it won’t be too stable.”

Luffy huffed at that and seemed to try to throw the too heavy snowball he was trying to lift, the movement causing him to stumble a little. He looked like he was giving his problem some thought, his eyes flicking from one snowball to the other and then looking over at Dragon’s unfinished work and Garp already getting started on decorating his.

Then, without warning, he grabbed a handful of snow from the snowball that’d been giving him trouble and chucked it in Garp’s direction, nailing him right in the arm.

“Gah!” Garp whirled around. “What the hell was that?!”

Dragon’s eye twitched while Luffy laughed out loud, not hesitating in throwing another and then another.

“Alright, brat, you asked for it!” Garp grabbed some snow from the ground, rolled it into a tight ball and hurled it.

It smacked Luffy right in the chest and forced him to the ground. Seeing his eyes squeezed shut in pain made Dragon immediately kneel down to him. “How much does it hurt?”

Luffy opened an eye, still pouty. “A little.”

“Come on! Don’t tell me you can’t take a little pain!”

Dragon ignored him and gathered Luffy in his arms to bring him back inside. He pulled up his coat and shirt to check him properly there, and sure enough, there was a bruise blossoming all over. He raised his head to stare at where Garp stood beside them watching and the only response he had was to whistle and look away.

“You broke a bowling lane once. You never should’ve thrown that and I never should have let you.”

It took a ban on Garp participating in any other snowball fights effective as of immediate and a brief treatment of the bruise for Dragon to acquiesce in Luffy’s desire to go back outside and finish their snowmen. When Luffy wanted his snowman to be bigger than Garp’s, Dragon took a chunk out of his before Garp could notice and struck the back of his head with it.

That afternoon, they got busy with the food. Dragon finished the gingerbread people and cookies first so Luffy could take as long as he wanted with them, then moved on to prepping the food for tomorrow. Garp couldn’t cook, so he sat with Luffy and mostly ate snacks and gave him suggestions here and there.

And when that was done along with a full cleaning of the house, they had dinner in front of the TV watching Christmas films. Luffy had wanted to wait until midnight but come ten he was out like a light.

With the volume turned down low, Dragon let Luffy sleep in his arms while he talked lowly with Garp.

When morning came, Luffy didn’t immediately come running into the kitchen. So Dragon covered the food and walked out, there Luffy and Garp were apparently having an argument over opening the presents.

“You have to wait until we’re all together,” Garp said.

“I wanna open mine now.” Luffy pouted, his present held protectively in his lap.

Dragon cut in, “I’m here now, we might as well start.”

“What? Da— …I’m hungry.” Garp rubbed his stomach in protest.

They all settled themselves around the tree. Its lights didn’t show very well in broad daylight, but the garland wrapped all around it, the little knickknacks hung up along with the baubles and the star on top more than made up for that. He shifted on the rug so he was facing Luffy, encouraging him with a smile to start opening his first.

He’d picked Dragon’s gift first, and his whole face lit up when he saw the pirate ship play set inside, his jaw dropping in wonder.

Dragon pointed at the sails. “There, you can draw your own flag.”

“Where’s your ‘thank you’?” Garp leaned in.

Luffy stood up at that and walked over to him, clumsily leaning in for a kiss on his cheek before pulling back and grinning. “Thank you, Daddy.”

He ruffled his hair. “You’re welcome, Sunshine.”

Garp, eying the play set, asked seriously, “Are you sure he’s not going to eat the small parts?”

Dragon had gotten Garp a shirt, because in reality he’d never gifted his father a thing aside from a really poorly-drawn card when he was still a young child and with the way he’d grown up, he had no idea what he liked.

Garp lifted the shirt to his eyes and started chuckling to himself, which only grew in intensity until it was clear he was truly enjoying a joke no one else in the room was in on.

“What?”

Garp fished out a present from the pile and tossed it over to him. “Here. From a dad to another dad.”

He opened it and lifted another shirt to his eyes, completely unimpressed.

Upon seeing that, Luffy said, “I want a shirt too! Grampy!” He turned to him.

“With shirts as garish as these, I seriously doubt it,” Dragon muttered.

“Garish, for just injecting a little colour in your wardrobe? Why are your clothes the way that they are when Luffy’s are perfectly fine?”

“It’s my style.”

Garp turned to Luffy and pushed him down. “Sorry, brat, I didn’t get you a shirt! Get one from your dad!”

“Luffy, go and find your grandpa’s present,” he countered.

Luffy was happy enough to change gears and do as instructed.

Garp put the shirt aside and picked his ear. “You didn’t tell me what Luffy liked, so…”

…so he’d given him a picture book. Of a story about a dragon.

Luffy gasped. “Da-gon!”

“Very funny,” Dragon said flatly.

Luffy thanked Garp with another kiss and then declared, “I drew your gift and Grampy’s gift yesterday!”

He ran upstairs for it and came back with two pieces of paper. The one he gave him was a crayon drawing of three people, which could only be deduced from context that it was them three.

“What!” Garp exclaimed and Dragon looked up. “This is supposed to be me?!”

“Yeah!” Luffy said with a proud grin.

Dragon glanced at the drawing; it was unsurprisingly an unrecognisable one of Garp.

Luffy put his hands on his hips. “Where’s your ‘thank you’?” He frowned.

At that, Dragon snorted. “Thank you, Luffy.”

“Bwahahahaha! Thank you!”

They opened the rest of the presents and Garp unexpectedly offered to clean things up. Asking Luffy to go to the kitchen to wash his hands, Dragon lingered behind.

“What is it?” came his father’s gruff voice.

His hand on the wall, he watched Garp bent over gathering the pieces of fluff into a box. Luffy was loud even from here, talking out loud about everything he was doing. He’d opened the fridge from the sounds of it, Dragon couldn’t dawdle much longer unless he wanted him to find the cake and ruin his breakfast.

So he said quickly, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

Garp’s hands stopped moving and he turned back to him over his shoulder. There was a smile on his face and a look in his eyes that was hardly readable. “Merry Christmas to you too, Dragon.”