PELAGIC - Ace x Reader x Law

CHAPTER SIX: No Girls Allowed

"So, you're gonna stand there and tell me that I've gotta help you build this thing, but I'm not allowed to live in it?"

Despite our slight moment of understanding in the bath a month prior, Ace still treated me like crap. Not as bad as he had done before Makino's little intervention, but still crap. The boys had unanimously decided that they were going to live on their own, and now I was helping them slave away to build a tree house.

"Well, duh! It's our pirate base! No girls allowed!" He replied, as though it were an obvious answer. Glaring absolute daggers, I dropped the plane of wood I was carrying, pretending it didn't hurt like hell when it landed on my foot.
"Then I'm not helping you."

Dropping down like a spider, using his rubber powers, Luffy pouted.
"No fair! (Y/N) should live here too! She's like a sister!" Hearing Luffy say that made me grin happily. We had become much closer in the past few weeks, so much so that he would even start fights with Ace to defend me. I'd be proud to call him my little brother.

"She ain't no sister of mine, that's for sure!" Ace grumbled, starting to climb back up the large trunk of the tree, hammer in-between his teeth. Leaning over the partially constructed window, Sabo smirked down at him.
"Aw, why not? Cuz you wanna marry her instead? Either way, she'll still end up as mine and Luffy's sister. Just in law instead!"

Choosing to ignore the ridiculous teasing comment Sabo made as he ran screaming from a hammer-armed Ace, I decided to continue helping Luffy lift planks, then put my braiding skills to use to make a ladder.

Two days, it took. Even though each and every time Ace told me I was banned from entering I insisted I wasn't going to help, I still did. For Luffy and Sabo's sake, since they asked so politely. By the time it was complete, dark clouds loomed above, threatening more than just a little rain.

"But Aceeeeee! If we leave her down there she might drown!" Luffy relentlessly pawed at his older brother with one hand, pointing down at me with the other.
"Nah, she's tiny. She'll float." He replied nonchalantly, returning the favour when I flipped him a very passionate bird.

Feeling the first drops of icy rain, I grimaced, knowing there was no way I'd be able to make it back to the Dadan House in time before it began to pour.
"Just let her in, man. It's two against one, and it's starting to get way too cold." Sabo reasoned, and I could see Ace beginning to wear down.

"I'll keep to myself, okay?! At least let me crash here for the night?!" I called up, flinching when a rumble of thunder rolled through the mountains. Sweeping a hand through his hair, Ace's shoulders slumped, motioning his hand for me to climb up.
"Fine! Just for tonight! You can sleep in the corner or something!"

Honestly, I didn't even care in that moment. I just wanted to get inside before getting soaked to the bone. Once I was up, I was wet, but not completely dripping like I would have been if I had taken any longer.

The sky broke open with flashes of lightning, the horizon blurred by torrential rain as it came crashing down. I just hoped our tree house could take it.

"We...didn't catch anything for dinner, did we?" Sabo piped up, causing Luffy to start wailing almost instantly.
"But I'm so hungry! We're gonna die!" He whined, clutching his bottomless pit of a stomach and rolling around across the floorboards.

Sighing, I reached into my pocket, pulling out my snail friend before retrieving the handful of berries I'd picked earlier that day. I only knew they were safe because Magra had taught me which were edible and which were very much not.

"Here, Luffy. It isn't much, but it's something." One moment the berries were in my hand, the next they were already paste in the boy's mouth as he hugged me.
"See?! Best sister! Better than you, Ace! You almost made me go hungry and die!"