Work Text:
“Enjoying that?”
Drake started and looked up from the copy of the Sora, Warrior of the Sea comic he’d apparently been so engrossed in that he hadn’t heard the Fleet Admiral arrive. He’d been surprised when a nurse had handed him a small pile of the comics, but she’d given him a teasing smile and said the staff kept them around for patients from the North Blue.
“Oh, Fleet Admiral!” Drake sputtered, the comic falling from his hands. He was tempted to salute, but he wasn’t a Marine—not yet, anyway—and he didn’t know if that would be inappropriate.
“No need for titles, son,” Sengoku said. “You’re a guest, after all. Sengoku is fine.”
“Yessi— er, Sengoku,” Drake replied, correcting himself lamely. He dropped his gaze to the blankets in his lap as his face burned and hunched in on himself, waiting to be struck for his mistake. But when no blow was forthcoming, he cautiously peered up at the man standing at his bedside.
Sengoku was frowning. For a moment, the expression set Drake’s pulse racing… until he realized that the Fleet Admiral wasn’t angry. In fact, he seemed tired. Exhausted even. His features were drawn, and there were bags under his eyes. His uniform was wrinkled, and Drake briefly wondered if the man had slept or changed his clothes since Drake had arrived at Marineford four days earlier.
Sengoku sighed as Drake hesitantly met his gaze. He glanced at an empty chair next to the bed. “May I?” he asked.
“I… of course.”
Sengoku nodded and dropped into the chair. “The infirmary staff is going to release you tomorrow.”
Drake wasn’t surprised. Though there had been some kind of battle between his father’s crew and the Donquixote Pirates on Minion Island, Drake had gotten away relatively unscathed. He could still hear the sounds of violence inside that monstrous cage echoing in his ears, but he hadn’t been caught up in it. Instead, he’d acted like the coward his father had always accused him of being—he’d run.
“I see,” Drake said.
“What will you do?” Sengoku asked.
Drake swallowed. His father and all his men were dead, not that he had any interest in returning to that life. Drake had long wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, not as the pirate he’d ended up becoming but as the heroic Marine he’d been when Drake was young. The events that night on Minion Island only cemented his belief that the Marines were necessary. While the North Blue was a wartorn sea, it would be even worse without Marines patrolling its waters with the likes of the Donquixote Pirates and Germa 66 preying on innocents.
Drake met Sengoku’s gaze. “I want to become a Marine, like my father.”
“Your father, huh?” Sengoku murmured, his gaze going distant for a moment before he shook himself and focused back on Drake. “That’s a big decision to make, son, especially so soon after what you’ve experienced.”
But Drake was shaking his head before Sengoku finished speaking. “I’ve wanted this for my entire life. I’m more certain now than ever. Please, let me enlist.” Now that he’d started talking, the words wouldn’t stop tumbling out. “I know what my father was at the end, but he was once a good man. A good Marine. Let me honor that legacy.”
Sengoku looked Drake over, his gaze assessing in a way that made Drake feel like the Fleet Admiral was looking right through him to his core. Being on the receiving end of that look was more than a little intimidating. Still, Drake was sure about what he wanted, and he would do whatever it took to make sure the Fleet Admiral understood that.
Finally, Sengoku shook his head. “There’s no need to make a decision now.” Drake opened his mouth, but Sengoku raised a hand to forestall his arguments. “I believe that you believe you want to enlist, Drake. But I’d still appreciate it if you’d take some time to think about it.”
Drake knew no amount of time spent thinking would change his mind, not on this, but it didn’t seem the Fleet Admiral would be moved, so he simply nodded. He would wait as long as he needed to for the man to let him enlist. Until then, though…
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he admitted.
“I assumed as much,” Sengoku said with a nod. “I came to offer you a place to stay. With me.”
“With you ?” Drake gaped. He was a nobody. The son of a pirate. Why would the Fleet Admiral take an interest in him?
“Of course, we can make other arrangements for you as well, if that is not…” Sengoku said awkwardly, and Drake belatedly realized how his reaction must have come across.
“I’d like that very much,” he interjected.
Sengoku cut himself off, momentarily startled. But then a small smile pulled at his lips. “Oh. Okay then.”
Sengoku’s house, it turned out, was huge. Drake supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, considering the man’s position, but it still seemed excessive for one man.
“It wasn’t always just me,” Sengoku had said when Drake said as much, not meaning anything by it; however, there had been something fragile underlying the words, and Drake resolved to be more careful with his words. Barrels had always said he was better keeping his mouth shut.
There were barely any personal touches to make the house feel homey; between the lack of pictures and the monotone color palette, Drake got the impression that Sengoku didn’t spend much time there.
It was awkward at first, moving into Sengoku’s home with nothing but the clothes on his back and the Sora comics the nurses had insisted he take with him. One of their first tasks after Drake moved in was buying him new clothes. As they stood in the middle of the clothing shop, Drake had nearly had a panic attack remembering his father’s anger at him for quickly outgrowing his clothes once he’d hit his growth spurt; Barrels had beaten him as though regular violence might stop Drake from growing, but it hadn’t worked. Sengoku seemed to understand and had simply given him the time he needed before they finished the purchases.
In the mornings, Sengoku let Drake sleep as late as he wanted—unlike Barrels, who’d demanded Drake be awake before dawn to make breakfast for the crew—and would be sitting at the dining table nursing a mug of coffee and reading the newspaper when Drake appeared.
As the days went on, Drake began finding issues of Sora left around the house; meanwhile, he took on work to keep himself occupied and earn his keep. One afternoon, Sengoku found him chopping wood and commented on Drake’s skill with the axe. Drake admitted he was better in a fight with it, and the two had ended up sparring. It had felt good to get his blood flowing. He knew Sengoku was holding back, but it didn’t matter.
And so, the days had been good. At night, however, Sengoku retired early to the master bedroom and didn’t come out until the following day. One night, Drake had gone looking for Sengoku with a question only to hear the unmistakable sound of muffled sobs on the other side of his door, and he’d hastily retreated.
In the morning, Sengoku gave no indication that anything was amiss, and Drake wondered how long that had been happening while he was none the wiser. Still, Drake didn’t want to risk angering the other man, not when he needed his approval to enlist in the Marines, so he kept his concerns to himself.
Once Sengoku returned to work, Drake found he had a lot of time to fill on his own in the big house—and he ended up with another mystery to ponder: one room in the house that remained locked up.
While Drake had told himself he would respect Sengoku’s privacy, eventually, his curiosity got the better of him, and he ended up picking the lock—his father’s lessons coming in handy for once. He opened the door to find a bedroom in near-perfect order. The large bed was made with pristine hospital corners, and the desk had books piled neatly atop it.
Stepping inside, Drake made his way over to the desk. He swiped a hand across the surface, noting the dust. Sengoku must have kept the maid from cleaning. When he noticed a picture frame peeking out from behind the books, he picked it up, and his eyes widened. There were two men in the picture; the first was unmistakably Sengoku, though he was at least a decade younger in this picture. The smile on his face was bright and wide. The man next to him was several heads taller than Sengoku; he wore a Marine uniform, and he was blonde. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but Drake couldn’t place it.
“Who are you?” Drake wondered aloud as he looked down at the picture.
“That’s my son, Rosinante.”
Drake spun around to see Sengoku standing in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the picture in Drake’s hands. “Sengoku, I—” Drake stammered, trying to get an apology to form on his stunned lips.
“He was killed in action.”
The words died in Drake’s throat as he remembered the exhaustion on Sengoku’s face the day he’d come to the infirmary and the sobs muffled behind closed doors. Drake’s gaze dropped back to the picture, to the smiling man, as the pieces came together.
Sengoku was grieving.
Though his father’s death was recent, Drake had only felt the barest minimum of grief once he’d learned the man was dead. Despite years of trying to see the best in him, Drake knew deep down Barrels was a bad man and parent. He hadn’t loved Drake; in fact, he’d blamed Drake for his mother’s death, though Drake had only been three at the time.
But Sengoku had lost his son. And if the man had been killed in action, there was a good chance Sengoku had been the one to send him into action in the first place. The guilt…
Drake was an idiot, and he shouldn’t be here. He put the picture down and turned back to Sengoku. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough—nothing could ever be enough—but it was all Drake had to offer.
“Me too,” Sengoku replied before pulling his gaze up to meet Drake’s. “I know you want to enlist, Drake, but I can’t tell you it’s worth it. Your father figured that out for himself.” With that, Sengoku turned and left, leaving Drake standing alone in a dead man’s room.
Though the incident in Rosinante’s room was never far from Drake’s mind, he eventually convinced Sengoku to let him enlist. He started on the lowest rung with the other recruits and steeled himself against the whispers and sneers about his traitor father and his connection to the Fleet Admiral. Drake was no stranger to being the subject of ridicule, so he simply put his head down and worked harder and longer and smarter than everyone else. He remained behind after training each day to continue working; he would show Sengoku he hadn’t made a mistake by agreeing to let Drake enlist.
And to make sure Sengoku didn’t lose another son—because, somehow, in the short time since Drake had come to live at Sengoku’s house, the Fleet Admiral had been a better father to him than Barrels had ever been. (And maybe a small, vain part of Drake hoped Sengoku might be proud enough to show him the affection Barrels never could. In private, Drake could tell Sengoku had come to care for him as a son, but he kept his distance in public, which hurt more than Drake expected.)
Drake moved up the ranks quickly, and despite the snide whispers, he knew it was on the basis of his own hard work alone. He was the first to volunteer to do grunt work and take the most difficult and dangerous missions. When Drake’s squad recovered the Ryu Ryu no Mi: Model Allosaurus on a mission, the fruit was given to Drake, and he ate it without hesitation. Sengoku had simply nodded and patted his shoulder when he’d made the decision, and something had tightened uncomfortably in Drake’s chest.
It was in the wake of that exchange that Drake took a post in the North Blue. He knew the waters and its brand of pirates better than those from the other Blues, and Sengoku had reluctantly signed the commission. More than just being familiar with the North Blue, though, Drake also knew it was the best place for up-and-coming Marines to earn a promotion to the Grand Line.
It did not take Drake long to start building a reputation. Barely two days after returning to the North Blue, Drake was already thwarting an attempted robbery by a rookie pirate crew he would come to know as the Heart Pirates. Their captain, Trafalgar Law, would become a thorn in Drake’s side. Same with Basil Hawkins and his crew.
But Drake wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge; perhaps that was why, during his second year in the North Blue, Drake refused to back down when he was the last member of his unit standing against Hawkins and his men.
“Your chance of survival is 11.4 percent,” Hawkins drawled, his straw sword held in one hand while he drew tarot cards with the other. His goons stood in a loose circle around them. “Why do you persist?”
Drake leaned heavily against his axe, its blade biting into the ground in front of him. He panted harshly as he wiped blood from his eyes. His body was too worn down to use his Devil Fruit any longer, and his arms trembled under the weight of his weapon. Still, he would not flee; he owed it to the men and women who had died under his command to see this encounter through.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand honor, pirate,” Drake spat.
“Honor,” Hawkins scoffed. “What is honor to the dead?”
The image of Rosinante’s empty room in Sengoku’s home flashed across his mind’s eye while the sound of Sengoku’s tears shed behind closed doors echoed in his ears.
I’m sorry, Sengoku, Drake thought as he forced his spine to straighten in the face of his impending death. I only wanted to make you proud. To make someone proud of me for once in my life. And I’ve failed even that.
“Have it your way,” Hawkins said.
Drake lifted his chin as Hawkins raised his blade, sending the razor-sharp straw directly at Drake’s chest. There was blinding pain and then—mercifully—nothing.
Drake blinked heavily, an unfamiliar white ceiling coming into focus above him. He was awake.
Why was he awake? He should be dead.
“Drake?”
Groggily, Drake turned his head, and his eyes widened when he found Sengoku sitting at his bedside, his exhausted disarray reminiscent of the day they’d met. And just like that day, Sengoku sat at Drake’s bed in a Marine infirmary.
“What happened?”
“You were nearly killed,” Sengoku replied tightly. “Luckily, your unit’s distress signal reached a nearby unit, and they arrived just in time to save you from bleeding out.”
“And my men?”
“There were no other survivors.”
Drake shut his eyes as a wave of grief for his unit washed over him. They deserved better than dying at the hands of pirates on a no-name island in the North Blue; they deserved a better fate than Drake’s father.
As Drake wallowed in guilt, Sengoku stewed next to him. The silence that fell between them was a tense, brittle thing that finally shattered when Sengoku demanded, “What the hell were you thinking?”
Drake frowned, confused. “I was doing my job.”
“Your job.”
“As a Marine,” Drake confirmed. And as a better man than his father had been at the end.
Sengoku looked like he wanted to snap in response. Instead, he pulled his glasses off and wiped them with the hem of his coat. Once he was through, he put them back on his face and looked back at Drake with exhausted eyes. He sighed.
“I’m sorry, son.”
Drake blinked. “What?”
“This is my fault.”
“No, it’s not—”
But Sengoku continued over Drake’s weak protest. “You’ve pushed yourself to be the best since the moment you enlisted. You’ve taken on the most difficult assignments and excelled beyond all expectations.” A wan smile tugged at Sengoku’s lips. “You’ve been an exemplary Marine, Drake, and I haven’t said a damn thing about it.”
Drake’s eyes widened. Part of him was certain that this must be the morphine speaking; after all the years of abuse hurled at him by his father and his crew and later his superiors in the Marines, the words didn’t feel real.
Yet, Sengoku went on. “I took you in when I was still raw with grief from Rosinante’s death, and I was never able to be there for you like you deserve. And for that, I am so very sorry.”
“Sengoku…”
Sengoku reached out and put a hand on Drake’s arm, squeezing gently. “I am so proud of you, Drake. I need you to know that. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone, not even me. You’ve proven more than enough.”
Drake swallowed against a lump in his throat. His father had never said anything half as kind to him. Drake had been nothing but a burden to Barrels but to Sengoku… He was so much more. And that meant everything.
“Thank you,” he managed to reply.
As Sengoku nodded, Drake felt something slot into place in his chest, like a picture frame that had long been ajar being straightened. It felt good. Solid. Whole.
And it was during his recovery, as he rested on the couch in Sengoku’s living room, that Sengoku first asked, “Tell me, son. Have you heard of SWORD?”