Pheasant and Dragon

Brother

Dragon watched the train go under the bridge because his father would obviously have a model train set in his office. He was waiting for said man, who had a 'surprise' for him. The son was understandably nervous as those 'surprises' rarely constituted good things for him. Once, it was throwing him off a cliff.

After waiting for an hour, Dragon was ready to leave, as it seemed his father was a no-show and there was barely anything to do in the man's office. He had no clue how his father got his own private office, as the man barely did any paperwork at all. The stacks and stacks of dusty paper in the corners were proof.Then he heard footsteps coming from the direction of the door. Speaking of the devil, the door swung open with all the gusto that his father was known for.

The man stood in all his glory, with a bright grin on his face. Nothing out of the ordinary, but on a closer inspection, Dragon saw a nervous figure peeking out from behind his father. His father then proceeded to grab the boy by his shoulders and place him in front of him. Dragon could take a much better look now.

"Dragon! This is your brother, Kuzan! Kuzan say hi," his dad announced.

What the actual hell-

His father had just kidnapped someone. No one in their right mind would willingly get adopted by Garp the Fist unless...

GARP HAD BEEN HIDING HIS BROTHER FROM HIM ALL THESE YEARS.

Yes. Yes. That is a more plausible theory.

"I adopted him from the South Blue! Now say hi to each other," Garp ordered.

Ah, so kidnapping. They greeted each other, although the boy was rather nervous. The boy was rather unkempt with the state of his clothes. Did this man not know how to take care of children????

"Good, now you two know each other. Ok bye. I'll leave you guys to hang out!" Garp said.

He watched Kuzan give the Marine a panicked look, but he just grinned at the young boy.

"Nothing to worry about, Kuzan. Dragon is a very good person," Garp said and left.

The two stared awkwardly at one another. Dragon didn't know how to deal with kids, and said kid was left with someone who was essentially a stranger to him despite assurances. Dragon wracked his brain for things to do with the kid. He watched Kuzan fiddle with his tie, and a thought hit him. He could get the boy clothes! Yes, that is probably a good idea as the ones he was wearing were old and torn, plus it was the dead of winter.

"C'mon kid, let's get you some new clothes because yours have holes in them," he said.
"But I can keep my old ones, right?" Kuzan asked.

He was so exceptionally quiet that Dragon had to strain his ears to hear the boy. He had no idea why the boy would want to keep his old clothes, but he assumed they must hold fond memories.

"Yes, let's go, kid. Give me your hand," Dragon said.

Marineford was big and losing the child was not an option, but he noted that Kuzan had quite hesitantly reached out his arm to him. They quickly navigated their way through the huge Marine base, with the Marines around them barely giving a glance as they had become quite used to the sight of the scary teenager stalking the halls. Dragon attempted to make small talk with the child as he was going to assume this would become a common occurrence.

"How old are you, Kuzan?" he asked politely.

"I'm 10," Kuzan replied.

They went back and forth with the responses being only a few words, as the child clearly did not trust him enough to act all chummy with him, but slowly and surely, the responses got longer with even more elaboration too. Dragon learned that Kuzan was adopted by Garp when the Marine saved him from drowning and that he was essentially homeless until that point. He could see the pure joy and respect that radiated from the child when he talked about Garp. Dragon reluctantly gave a point to his father that, although his father was tough and eccentric, he was not a bad person at his core.

This, however, made him suspicious of who the child's parents were, as who would supervise their child? It wasn't like Kuzan was the rambunctious type with too much energy that it had to go somewhere. Well, he was going to ask as they had been holding a conversation for a good while and felt like their budding relationship was there now. Enough to unlock the tragic backstory.

"Why? What happened to your parents? " Dragon inquired thoughtfully.

Kuzan kept silent and did everything to not meet Dragon's eyes. His answer was barely above a whisper.

"My father didn't want me and my mom is gone. I have nobody," he whispered.

Something gripped Dragon's heart as most likely the authorities of the child's island probably shunned the poor like Goa Kingdom. No one should live like that. Abandoned by the people in the upper echelons of society, he stopped walking and gripped Kuzan's shoulders. The boy visibly flinched and cowered, which made Dragon loosen his grip and feel a bit guilty about it, but mostly angry as that reaction meant that bad things were associated with that action.

"You have people now. You have me and Garp. We'll be your family. Ok?" Dragon affirmed.
"Yes!" Kuzan said as he smiled brightly.

"Also sorry for scaring you," Dragon apologised.

Kuzan accepted the apology. They finally made their way out of the main building and were now strolling towards the tailoring building. Marineford had one as they supplied all of the clothes that the marines wore on the island. Sure, there were other clothing shops, but they were just smaller branches of the main tailoring building. They entered the building and walked in. Dragon rifled through the children's section and managed to find clothes that fit the child. He's using his dad's money to good use, alright.

He was going to have a winter jacket made for the child, but Kuzan shook his head aggresively.

"Aren't you cold?" Dragon huffed.

He hoped that the exposure to the elements did not fuck with Kuzan's sensitivity to the elements, or he might actually stab someone.

"No?" Kuzan said with confusion, but then his expression lit up as if he had reached an epiphany. "Oh! I ate the Hie-Hie no mi. It is a logia type devil fruit which turned me into an ice human and I have cool ice powers. "

Dragon stood there watching as the boy held out his palm and a small bird —'Pheasant,' his brain suggested — flew around the top of their heads.He watched Kuzan close his palm and the bird crumbled into miniscule pieces. Of course, Garp couldn't adopt a perfectly normal person, but someone who had the rarest type of devil fruit and probably had some experiece fighting.

"Cool right? I practised very hard to be able to do that," Kuzan said cheerily. "So, I'm not wasting more money by making you buy a winter jacket too."

"You're not wasting money. Garp never really uses it anyway. Only on snacks, so it's not a waste, and spending it on you isn't a waste either," Dragon corrected. "Now since you have no need for a winter jacket, I'll just get you a normal one."

Dragon bought a trench coat for the child, much to said child's protests. They raided Garp's snack cabinet later. They sat side by side as they waited for Garp to find them, whilst munching on his rice crackers. (Dragon felt some childish glee while doing that.) They were silent as they basked in one another's presence. A comfortable silence, if you will.

"So that means we're brothers, right?" Kuzan asked.

Dragon nodded his head. His heart was fluttering with happiness.

"You'll always be my brother, right?"

"Always."