rxvolutionarysabo:

the brothers’ reunion contd. for @pxrtgasdace

“Traitor!” That one word burned as hot as fire. Sabo’s skin remembered the pain from the flames that had licked the flesh off his bones. Though this pain was a different one.

He kept looking at Ace, sure this single word wasn’t all he had to offer, and right he was. His brother’s eyes were dark but blazing with pain and anger, Sabo was almost taken aback by how much they looked like the eyes of the young boy he had met all those years ago. Truly, he had never known Ace without the hurt shining through, his brother burdened and cursed by his father’s legacy.

The pain in those eyes now was caused by Sabo, the words yelled at him confirmed it. The question of if he even knew what a decade of such emotional scarring was like was unanswerable, so Sabo stayed silent.

Ace arose, leaving Sabo sitting in the dirt, glaring down at him. The blond let his gaze follow but did not move otherwise. Ace was towering above him, even in the darkness of the alley, Sabo could see the muscles straining in his arms underneath the tanned skin from how hard he was clenching his fists. Was he trying to refrain from hitting his brother? Why, he had every right to do it.

When Ace started to move, Sabo first thought he was about to receive the awaited punch but his brother started to pace around him instead. It felt like an eagle circling his prey, with Sabo just being a dirty little rat. He lowered his gaze to the ground in front of him, unable to keep his eyes on Ace once he had stepped behind him.

His brother continued to answer the previous question for him, saying that he had no clue what it was like and that Ace would’ve been all alone if he hadn’t had Luffy. Sabo kept listening and waiting for more than just words to be thrown at him. But those weren’t just words. Everything Ace said, echoing off the walls of the alley, washed over him like a wave of the ocean, leaving him feeling colder and colder with every sentence.

The memories of that fateful day intruded into his mind again. He had fought the flames so hard, even as their smoke was stinging his eyes and biting his lungs.He was still wondering why they had shot at him when the second one was fired, causing a big explosion that destroyed his ship and body and dreams, sending the young boy flying into the waves.

The icy water had instantly knocked the breath out of his damaged lungs, rushing in to suffocate him. The salt in his burned flesh, the pain of his lungs trying to get some air and only filling up with water, the current dragging him down to the depth of the ocean, taking him aways from the sunrays shimmering through the surface, darkness claiming him - dying was as painful as living.

That day Sabo had not been able to say his goodbye to Luffy and Ace in person, instead he had sent off a letter in the morning explaining his sudden departure as best as he could, aiming to leave them with a sense of hope to one day reunite in the freedom of the ocean. Instead of hope he had left them despair. No, Sabo did not know what that must have felt like, he tried to imagine it a million times and that mental exercise was already immensly painful but could never be even a fraction of what Ace and Luffy must have felt. Did his letter ever reach them? Did it make things worse?

A sharp yank on his collar drew Sabo’s attention back to Ace, who was angrily crouching in front of him, twisting the fabric tight. Everyone had cried over his loss, he told him. Not only Luffy and Ace but Dadan and the mountain bandits as well. He had not been with them for long and they were always scolding the boys, yet they seemed to have accepted him faster and more than Sabo could have ever dreamt of. Had truly everyone shed tears over him? Had his parents? No, he was sure they had not cried and if they did lose some tears over his death after all, it was probably only because of their ruined reputation.

The old anger still burned hot in Sabo’s chest. It was all their fault in the end, the rotten nobles of their island and this world. Ace was seething, gritted teeth and fury in his eyes as he asked Sabo for any words of defense against the accusation. The “brother” was spat out at him like venom.

Defense? There were no excuses for his past mistakes. Sabo could see that Ace wanted to beat him, wanted to give him a taste of the pain, but he could also see the pure disdain in his expression, deeming him unworthy of even that.

It triggered something in Sabo, his own fury - not at Ace but at the whole situation - and he gave up his apathetic stance. His guilt was not gone, he would not tell his story as an excuse for his life. But Sabo did want to tell Ace what he had been up to until now, he wanted to hear what Ace was doing in those ten years, listen to stories about Luffy.

Glaring back at Ace, Sabo grabbed his brother’s wrist tight, not hurting him but firm enough to come across as aggressive. He pulled the hand away from his collar, almost choking himself in the act since Ace’s fist did not loosen around the fabric. They always gave each other tit for tat in their fights, he remembered their daily sparring sessions as well as their team-ups against thieves, pirates or other scoundrels. Ace sometimes had the same crazy look as he did now, reckless, self-destructive, insanely dumb or brave or both. Angry from the soul.

Sabo let go of Ace’s hand, standing up, straightening his collar and almost nonchalantly brushing the dirt off his trousers.

“I have nothing to say in my defense. Your anger is justified and I can’t rectify my mistakes no matter how much I want to.” He looked straight at Ace, his expression softening a bit again while his brother’s remained hardened. “I don’t have excuses to give to you, but…I do think we should talk a bit.”

Sabo looked around, the dark alley really was not the ideal place for this, if Ace would even agree. He spotted his hat lying in the dirt to the side. Sabo stepped towards it, picked it up and dusted off the sand before setting it back on its place atop his blond strands.

Turning back to Ace, he admitted: “In those ten years there was not a day I wasn’t thinking about Luffy and you.” And before Ace could call him a liar, he added: “I wanted to see you guys so badly, you don’t even know. At least Luffy still had you and you him.”

He left the ‘I was all alone’ unspoken. After all, Sabo had taken off on his own, leaving them behind. But he had always planned to meet his brother’s again, right from the start. With the small but excruciatingly important difference of them knowing that he was out there somewhere, waiting for them.

Fearing that his emotions might take over again, Sabo straightened himself up. “My hotel is not far from here, I still haven’t checked out of my room. It’s a better place to talk.” Ace had not even affirmed that he did want to talk with him. “Also, this country is sweltering and I could use a shower. So…what do you think?”

After the mission for the revolutionaries, spotting, stalking, recognizing and facing Ace and all the crying, Sabo really felt a need to freshen up. He was absolutely emotionally drained and exhausted. But for all he knew this could be it, the first time in a decade that he met one of his brothers again and possibly also the last time.

With tense shoulders, Sabo looked at Ace, waiting for any reply at all or maybe even the attack he had been holding back on.

Sabo’s silence felt like the only possible answer to what he was being charged with - indifference, bad brotherhood, overall failure as a human being. There was nothing he could say that could even begin to excuse such wicked behaviour and nothing Ace would like to hear neither out of want or need. So why did Sabo’s silence angered him so much?

Ace could be a hard man to please. The ‘doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t’ kind. Alas for Sabo, for the time being, he was fated to play victim to this impossible and irrational stance where nothing could ever result in satisfaction. 

Ace’s platysma muscle inflated with all the tension it had gathered. His will to punch Sabo hit him like a fever and took a toll on his anatomy, forcing every fibre to work itself out to maximum capacity. In flashes and blurs, he saw himself going for it, doing it, constraining his brother’s neck, not to prevent air from entering his lungs but to force it out of them, such was the strength of his grip. 

These visions made him feel sick to his stomach and it was not because of their graphic nature. He felt disgusted at himself for thinking of hurting Sabo - his beloved brother Sabo! - revolted at the idea of touching him when he occupied so low a position in the human chain, beneath maggots and shit; and flaming loathing at the other man for instilling such contradictory feelings of will to slaughter and refusal to give in.

Sabo was his brother. Maybe the word 'murderer’ would be thrown at Ace sometimes in virtue of his piratical ways and it was fine by him most of the time, even if he took no pride in the title. Rotten blood. What to do about it? That’s how life was. No matter how strong the desire to do Good was in him, Ace was still a pirate and only an innocent little boy - the kind he’d never been - would believe in such a thing as a world without violence. Confrontation was the daily bread on the seas. 

Being called 'the murderer of your brother’ though… Ace would never bear such infamy.

I’m burning, he thought. For the first since always, maybe. For the first time in forever he felt his flesh being roasted by a fire he could not escape from, nor extinguish and the pain it caused. How it hurt! What he breathed in smelt foul. Was it just him or did the air smell of sinners slowly roasting in a pyre?

Sabo wanted to talk, he said, causing in Ace even more aggravation. Was he… trying to be blasé about it? Making light of life after death, turning it into a topic for coffee shops and verandas, to be discussed between one and two cups of cappuccino? How Sabo had changed! He’d gone from a little boy who knew how to reign in his brother’s temper to a man who knew how to set ir loose.

Ace was still unwilling to offer Sabo an attentive ear and calmness; and this he was about to say when his brother unlocked the door to understanding ever so slightly through absent words. 

'At least Luffy still had you and you him.’

Implying he’d been all alone.

Even though he had not seen his brother depart and therefore had no flashbacks in store, Ace’s brain still provided alternative footage for illustrative purposes, playing its own cut of the day Sabo had been shot at by a World Noble. There was Dogra’s account to fuel Ace’s imagination and there the bandit was, playing narrator to the cheap movie his brain was projecting. 

If Ace willed partiality out of himself, he’d see a small boy in an equally minute vessel set aflame. He’d see it capsize and the boy falling to the water, his lungs filling with liquid… How had Sabo reached firm land? What had followed then? Coming to think of it… Sabo being alive, here in the dark alley before his brother of the past was nothing short of miraculous.

How the fuck had Sabo survived? He was not bound to; his odds were very little. But Sabo had always been someone special with a will of his own that kindled inspiration or so had been little Ace’s opinion. (Would it still ring true?) It couldn’t have been easy…

The café talk went up a notch at the mention of a hotel, the very same Sabo was staying at. If everything up until then hadn’t felt right and true, the suggestion of them continuing their talk there felt surreal. It was a reasonable request proposed in a bad timing. 

Curiosity crept up on Ace. But the pride and anger he’d been born with had not dissipated with time. He did not want to admit his curiosity; didn’t want Sabo to feel he had any right to Ace’s life anymore. That he was still trustworthy and deserving of brotherhood.

“Yeah… You stink” Ace stated with an obvious double meaning he did not grasp, the words spoken out of automatic wit and need for stalling the a 'yes or no’ answer. He did not want to be with Sabo… Yet, if that was true, why then was he still in the alley, wasting his time talking to a dead man? “If I accept it… It’s for what we were and not for who you are. I do not recognise you as my brother”

Harsh words he would regret, and it was not for no reason he always spoke of 'living without regrets’... Regrets, they were parasites that would never stop gnawing at you, consuming flesh and soul alike. All the wrong Ace was doing Sabo… He would never forgive himself for it no matter how hard he swallowed it and washed it down with a spoonful of his own poison.

To offer his performance a finale with some dignity, Ace dusted nothing off his hat and ran his index under his nostrils to wipe off the drop of snot which had followed the tears before the rage. He pointed at Sabo.

“You will tell me everything and you’d better explain it right. Not just for me but for Luffy too” 

What would Luffy make of this? Nothing, Ace tutted. The forgiving idiot would jump onto Sabo’s frame and wrap his legs around it, sob strongly on Sabo’s chest and in a baby dialect confess just how much he’d missed him! But Ace, now, he was the big brother who had the duty to protect Luffy’s elastic heart. He wouldn’t allow Sabo to go anywhere near Luffy and reveal his very non-deceased state unless his tale was a good one. 

Even if Luffy came to hate Ace just like Ace was hating Sabo now, it was still preferable over him being hurt by the same brother twice. Fuck. Ace would feel proud of himself if his shitty personality revealed useful for Luffy’s sake!

“Don’t think I’m being meek” he warned “I’m never forgiving you”