Work Text:
Sometimes, a promise is just a promise. It’s just words and the breath they’re carried on.
But sometimes, in a world where nothing is impossible and fruits grant magic powers and you can be anything at all, if only you wish hard enough, a promise can be—
Ace blinks up at the sky, then sighs and hauls himself to his feet. He’s—he has no idea where he is. Luckily, he’s not alone.
“Oh, hey, Koala, right? We met that one time, I think,” he says, and sticks out one hand. “Nice to see you again! It’s been a while.”
Koala stares at him, face white and hands wrapped tight around a bloody knife.
Ace‘s grin stretches, crinkling his eyes, and he lets her take her time. She must’ve killed them, and that’s hard enough; he can afford to be patient.
…can’t he? “Uh, not to rush you,” he says, and drops his hands to scrub his palms across his shorts. There’s blood under his nails again. “But I don’t—really know what’s going on. Are we in a hurry?”
“You don’t—” she repeats, and then with a full-body shudder, she comes back to life and lets the hand holding the knife relax to her side. “You don’t share memories, then?”
“Ah, no,” Ace says. He digs through a side pocket for a handkerchief, one that’s already stained beyond any hope of whiteness, and offers it to her.
She stares at him, then at it, and he gestures it towards her again. “For the blood,” he says. “Aren’t we supposed to be unnoticed?” That’s probably why it’s him here, after all.
“Unnoticed. Yes.” She takes the handkerchief and wipes off the knife, and then her hands. “Sorry, I’m not usually this…” she trails off, and hands him back the ruined kerchief.
“No worries,” he says easily, tucking it into a pocket and wiping his hands off on black shorts again. He offers her a smile and his arm, and though she hesitates, she takes it and allows him to steer her out of the alley. “it’s a weird situation; I get it.”
“Weird,” she repeats, and laughs. “Yeah, you could call it that. Sabo’s happier, now, like this, I think, but—”
“But it’s weird,” Ace finishes for her when she doesn’t. “I’m happy, too. We made a promise, and we’re keeping it, and that’s all that’s important.”
“Yeah,” she says. “He said that, too.”
A handful of Marines appear at the other end of the street, and she slips into a smile that’s either genuine or the best fake he’s ever seen, and she leans into his side and giggles.
He’s not Sabo, to lie with a silver tongue, but he can still pick up a cue. “Then Haruta told Thatch that his hair gel could easily be mixed with glitter,” he says, picking up an old favorite story right in the middle, like they’d been having a completely innocuous conversation the whole time, nothing to see here, not suspicious at all, officers. “Thatch screeched; you should have heard it—”
He keeps it up while she leads them towards the docks, and when the alarm is raised behind them, she tugs him on towards the harbor.
They’re at the docks when someone yells “Hey!” and whether it’s aimed at them or not, Ace puts his head down and moves faster. Koala drops his arm and sprints ahead. Ace follows, keeping pace, but she knows where the slip is and how to cast off their craft better than him.
When she makes the jump onto the deck, Ace swivels on the ball of his foot and plants himself in a ready stance. There’s a commotion growing, but no one watching.
Yet, anyway.
“C’mon,” Koala hisses at him, and he vaults onboard as well as the sloop takes off. It’s fast and nimble, and they’re halfway out of the harbor when the chase begins.
Halfway is not gonna be far enough. “Keep going,” he says, backing up to middeck and squinting towards the Marine ships.
“What…?”
“Keep going,” he says, and with a running start, he leaps for them.
“How are you planning to get back, you moron?!” she shouts after him, but she keeps going.
Ace laughs as he goes; he always has loved the wind. He’s grinning when he hits the first deck and lights himself up.
He jumps from ship to ship, making a u-shape as he takes them out, one by one. When he’s fire, he’s lighter than air, he’s untouchable, he’s unstoppable , and he revels in the feeling and keeps going.
By the time the last deck starts to creak below him, Koala’s sloop is too far away to make, even for him. He takes off anyway, gets as far as he can, and then crashes into the water with all the finesse and grace of a drunk hippo.
He chokes on the salt, goes weak and limp, and it's just like falling asleep, really. He never realized how similar the ocean and narcolepsy were before all this, but both were inevitable.
It takes a lot of effort and self-discipline to force yourself to breathe water, or a lot of experience.
He closes his eyes and inhales.
Sabo breaks the surface of the water, gasping and spitting water. "Dammit, Ace," he says, and gets water in his mouth. His coat is heavy, weighing him down, and his top hat is floating a good ways away. "Hate it when you do this to me."
“Hey!” yells a voice that means safety, and Sabo strikes out for it. It’s a good thing he’s a good swimmer; of course, he had to be when both his brothers will sink.
It’s Koala waiting for him, leaning out over the side of their boat. She’s got a rope in her hands, and the second she sees his eyes, she’s tossing it.
Her aim is true and he grabs on, pulling himself through the water as she hauls him in from her side. She keeps up a steady rant while she’s at it, full of insults and swears.
He hauls himself over the railing with her help, then flops over to lay, wet and exhausted, on the deck, loosening the cravat so it stops strangling him. “I hate it when he does that to me,” he repeats to the sky.
Koala leans over him. “You’re breathing,” she says grimly, and pats at his chest and shoulders. “Are you bleeding?”
“No? Bleeding—why would I be—?”
“I don’t know, Sabo,” she bites off, and Sabo blinks and refocuses.
Her hands are shaking.
“I don’t know why you’d be bleeding,” she says, then takes a deep breath and puts her hands on her hips in a bid for normality. “I can’t begin to understand what you’ve done or why you’d be bleeding, or drowning, or alive!” She turns away, suddenly, and just as quickly turns back. “You’re okay, though, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, careful and calm. She’s strong, is Koala, and she’ll get over this and move on with the same focus and determination she applies to everything else in their lives, and the least he can do is grant her the time to do that.
She closes her eyes, breathes out, and sits on the nearest box.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She breathes out, slow and long, and doesn’t look at him. “No, you’re not.”
“No,” he echoes. “I’m not.”
She doesn’t ask him not to do it again. He doesn’t offer it. They both know it wouldn’t be true.
Koala nods once, then stands and claps her hands. “Okay. For now, let’s get underway. We still have two days’ leave to lose pursuers, and we’re not terribly far from Punk Hazard.”
He scrambles upright, dripping everywhere. “You’re the best, Koala!”
“And don’t you forget it. Now go dry off and talk to your brother somewhere I don’t have to watch, okay? Shoo!”
He does, slipping belowdecks and shrugging out of his soaked clothes. He wants a shower, more than anything, or maybe a nice long soak, but that’ll have to wait until after the conversation.
It’s not long, not really, just messy, and Ace sighs and gives up with a very dramatic flourish.
Sabo blinks sticky eyes until they open properly, then sits up at the desk. It’s all over blood, just like the rest of the room, but the smell doesn't really register for him anymore.
It's everywhere these days, after all, and neither of them can quite wash the scent off. Ace is more meticulous, most of the time, especially if he knows he's gonna be around for a while; he’s forever complaining about blood under his nails.
It’s odd; Sabo doesn’t remember him being this much of a priss when they were younger.
He reaches forward for the back-and-forth book, reads over the spiky, familiar handwriting, and laughs. "So dumb," he says, shaking his head, and grabs the pen to scratch out miss you too Ace.
Then he gets up, stretches, and goes to take a shower and find some clean, dry clothes.
Koala is, in fact, the best, and when he comes back up on deck, there’s a familiar ship in the distance.
“I can’t wait to see him again,” Sabo says, leaning into the wind and tipping his hat down. He couldn’t find any clean gloves, so he’s bare-handed.
“Yeah, about that,” she says. “You probably should. He saw Ace die, didn’t he? Maybe Ace should see him first.”
It’s a very good point, and he’s waited this long; he can wait longer. It also probably makes more sense to have Ace explain the situation first. “Fine, fine,” he says, grinding down his impatience. “Be right back.”
He goes down below to the abattoir he calls his cabin, and it’s Ace who comes back up. “Hey, you made it!” he says. “Good. I was worried!”
“No you weren’t,” she says flatly because she may not have any idea how this works, but she knows it’s not like that.
“I would have been, if I could have been! That’s basically the same thing!”
She sighs, a heavy sound, and says, “Just go. You can clearly make that jump.”
He absolutely can, and he does. He uses fire to control his descent, adding and subtracting weight to make sure he falls at just the right speed to touch down on the railing.
It’s rude to come aboard when not invited, after all.
“Luffy!” he hollers. “Hey! Luffy!”
“What,” the blond chef says, staring at him. “Hey, wait, aren’t you—?”
Luffy’s head pops up from the other side of the ship, quickly followed by the rest of him. “Ace?” he asks, and the hope in his voice is painful.
Ace grins at him and holds up his arm.
“Ace!” Luffy yells, shooting out his hand to wrap several times around Ace’s arm in a gesture as familiar as his smile. “Ace!”
“Yeah, Lu,” he says, and hops down fast enough to brace himself against the railing before Luffy pushes them both over. He catches his little brother and sinks down to settle the kid in his lap. “Hey, long time no see!”
“They killed you!” Luffy sobs on him. “I saw you die, just like—like—!”
“Ah, yeah, about that,” Ace says, wrapping his hands around Luffy’s back. “He’s, uh, not dead either.”
He winces at the way the words sound, but Luffy just freezes and looks up at him. “He’s not…?”
“You’re useless without a big brother, Luf. We swore we’d never leave you alone. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember!”
“So? Don’t you trust us?”
“Of course I trust you! But where’s—if he’s alive—”
Ace grins at him. “Trust me,” he repeats, and then he unholsters his gun.
“I trust you, I do,” Luffy promises, and Ace rubs his hand through his little brother’s hair, leans back, and shoots himself in the head.
The report is loud, sudden, and everyone on deck flinches except Luffy. Ace jerks and flickers, and the person sitting there is suddenly someone else entirely.
The hand holding the gun falls limply to the deck, but before anyone can react, the person Luffy’s sitting on sighs, scrubs his other hand through his blond hair, and says, “I’m gonna need another shower, ugh.”
“Sabo?” Luffy asks, grabbing Sabo’s scarred face in his hands. “Sabo?! Is it you?”
“Yeah, Luf. Ace and I trade places now.”
“Uwah,” Luffy says, and he hugs Sabo tighter despite the blood. “You do?!”
Sabo nods, picks up the gun, and in unconscious imitation of Ace, sets it neatly under his jaw and pulls the trigger with the casual grace of experience.
“Hey—” someone starts to say, and someone else is yelling, but Ace catches Luffy when he lunges forward. “See? We’re both here, and we’re not gonna leave you. We can’t both be here at the same time, but—aw, Lu, are you crying?”
“No!” Luffy lies, rubbing his face against Ace’s bare chest and smearing all kinds of liquids on him. “Ace! You didn’t leave me, and Sabo didn’t leave me, and—and—!”
"Don't cry!" Ace says, poking Luffy. He grabs one of Luffy's cheeks and pulls it out-out- out . "Never grew out of being a crybaby, I see!"
"Ace!" Luffy complains, taking a deep breath and wiping away tears. "That's not fair! Lemme talk to Sabo again!"
"Sure," Ace says, and hands over the gun. "Go for it, Lu. He's missed you too." Luffy grins, big and bright, and puts the gun to Ace's head, just like his brothers had.
“Captain!” several voices shout, but he’s already pulled the trigger. Somewhere very close by, someone throws up over the rail. Koala must have gotten close enough, because she climbs over the rail to join the Strawhats on deck.
“Captain,” Zoro says, stepping forward and grabbing at the back of Luffy’s vest. “Maybe you should—”
“Sabo!” Luffy says,ignoring him, and there’s joy in his face, tears in his eyes, and blood on his hands. “Sabo! Hi!”
“How’ve you been, Luffy?” he asks, grinning and rubbing his little brother’s hair. “It’s good to see you again! Well, again-again!”
Luffy cries and clings some more, and Sabo looks up and grins around at the people on the deck. “You must be Luffy’s crew. It’s nice to meet you! Thanks for taking care of my troublesome little brother here.”
There’s a pause before anyone answers, and it’s Zoro who speaks, crouching down beside them. “He’s our Captain,” Zoro says. “Of course we look after him.”
Sabo’s grin sharpens just a bit and he nods.
Zoro’s got one hand not quite on his swords, but certainly near. “Is this—” he says, waving a hand to demonstrate, “some kind of trick?”
It’s a helluva question to ask, and Sabo appreciates his bravery. “It’s not,” he says. “Ace and I made a promise to look after Luffy. I got my hands on some books I probably shouldn’t’ve, and, well.” He shrugs elaborately, or at least as much as he can with Luffy still draped all over him.
Zoro looks at him steadily, still not relaxing. “’And, well,’ what?”
Sabo sighs and tugs at the back of Luffy’s neck, getting the kid to sit upright. “You need to hear this too, Luffy, okay? Listen to me.”
The rest of the crew drift closer as well, Koala herding them, and Sabo sighs and projects. “You remember what Shanks used to call you, Luffy?”
“Yeah!” Luffy says, wrapping his arms around Sabo and then leaning back to see his face. “Trouble, right?”
Sabo lets Luffy hold tight and says, “I’m not going to disappear, you know.” Luffy grins at him and his arms tighten just a bit, so Sabo gives up. “No, the other thing he called you, after you ate the fruit.”
“Ah! Little Anchor!”
“Right,” Sabo says, booping his nose the way he used to when Luffy was seven. “You’re our anchor now too, okay?”
“Okay!” Luffy agrees, beaming.
“No, not okay,” the red-head says, stepping up towards them. She’s pale and has a hand in front of her mouth. “What does that mean?”
“We tied our lives to him,” Sabo says, looking up at her. “Luffy needs a big brother around, so he’ll always have at least one. As long as he still needs us, he’ll always have us.”
There’s a moment as no one reacts to that, and then a pale woman dressed in black that Sabo identifies as Nico Robin says quietly, “That’s sacrifice magic.”
And she would know, wouldn’t she? Sabo grins at her. “Blood-sealed, life-paid,” he agrees shamelessly. Is it dark, stain-the-soul kind of magic that they had to cut themselves bloody to cast when they were too young to know better? Yes, of course, but the real question is do they care, and the answer to that is absolutely not.
Sabo tugs Luffy closer and hugs him back. "Live for us, Luffy," he whispers. "All three of our lives are riding on yours."
"Mmm!" Luffy agrees, and when he pulls back his face is still wet. "I'll be careful with my life!"
"Thanks, Luf," Sabo says, and ruffles his hair. "Hey, tell Ace that too, okay?" Luffy nods, and Sabo snaps his fingers. "Oh, I got you a present! Here, it's a knife."
"The handle is blue and orange! Like you!"
"Yeah, exactly! Wanna try it out?"
"Yeah! I wanna thank Ace, too!" Luffy takes the knife and stabs at Sabo's chest, and it's a bit off center.
It nicks a lung and blood wells up in Sabo's mouth. "Missed a bit," he says, then turns his head to cough blood everywhere but on Luffy. "G'on, Luf, try again."
Luffy frowns but tries again, and this time Sabo closes his eyes and lets the darkness come.
It’s Ace that takes a deep breath, and he opens his eyes to a quiet deck and a massive smile.
“Ace!” Luffy says, and waves the knife. “Thanks for the present!”
“You’re welcome, squirt. Now you can see either of us whenever you need to, okay?”
“Mmm! I’m glad! Thank you for coming back!”
“A promise is a promise,” Ace says. “We’ll never leave you alone.”
“You know we can’t leave Luffy alone, right?” Sabo asks him one day when they’re seven, out of the blue.
Ace scowls at him, at the ground, and at the forest around them. “Yeah,” he admits after a long moment. “I know.”
“And not, like—not just today,” Sabo goes on like Ace doesn’t know exactly what he means. “In general. Ever.”
“I know,” Ace repeats. “Luffy’s useless without a big brother.”
“Yeah,” Sabo says. “So, we agree on it.”
“Yeah,” Ace echoes. “We can’t ever die on him.”
“It’s a promise,” Sabo says, and they seal it the same way they always do; Sabo cuts his hand a bit with his pocket knife, then hands it over for Ace to do the same.
“We’ll never leave Luffy alone,” Sabo says solemnly, and clasps their hands together.
“One of us will always be there for him, no matter what,” Ace agrees.
“It’s a promise!”
Sometimes, a promise is just a promise. But sometimes…sometimes it’s more.