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Five levels of hell, and one just for pure boredom.
Typical, which of those Ace found himself dumped into.
Impel Down unleashed all sorts of horrors on its prisoners, inflicting an ocean’s worth of pain and misery until those trapped inside just gave up and gave into death, the only escape available. Unless, of course, someone attained truly special attention, or else were already slated to be executed.
Someone like him.
Pirate. Whitebeard Commander. Son of the infamous Pirate King.
Ace knew damn well which of those had actually gotten him taken down to Level Six, shoved by guards with every step of the way. The seastone cuffs already left him weak and chilled; being placed in a cell made of the stuff and chained to a wall was just the icing on the cake.
And then- quiet.
He could still hear other prisoners shuffling in their own cells, of course; a few stray snippets of conversation drifted through the dark halls, but no words aimed at Ace himself. Why bother talking to a dead man, after all?
Why bother talking to the spawn of the worst pirate ever to sail the seas?
Maybe that was the real torture of Level Six - being so cut off from everything else that one couldn’t help but listen to their worst thoughts. Ace grit his teeth and stared at nothing, kneeling in his cell. Trying to ignore twenty years of self-doubt and hatred from rising up and choking him.
Emphasis on try.
He didn’t remain alone for long.
Cruel fate, or just cruel people, decided that the best place to put a new, troublesome prisoner would be right next to Ace. He could hear the guards coming, dragging the unlucky soul along, making cruel jokes about at least you’ll have a friend to wait for your execution with, yeah?
Wasn’t until they stopped in front of his cell and were unlocking the door that Ace could hear a muttered, indignant response: “Not friend- brother.”
His head snapped up.
The barred door swung open and Ace tried to lunge forward, only to be brought up short by the chains holding him back, yanking on his arms painfully. The guards all flinched, several of them reaching for weapons, but that didn’t matter, none of it mattered, not when two of them were holding onto- “LUFFY!”
“Ace!” His little brother grinned, grinned, hanging limp from the grips on his shoulders, looking like he’d just gone ten rounds alone against the crocodiles back home and then fallen down the whole mountain. And normally Ace would be glad to see him smiling even while beaten to shit, but not inside fucking Impel Down! “Found you, Ace!”
The guards seemed to regain their composure, realizing he couldn’t actually get more than two steps away from the wall behind him. Several smirked, including the pair who dragged Luffy and his own cuffs and chains to- to the opposite wall. Away from Ace. Out of reach.
“Wait- damn it, don’t-” He choked on the words, don’t leave him over there, he hates being alone! Bunch of moron marines who weren’t anybody didn’t deserve to claim they’d gotten Fire Fist Ace to beg, even if it cracked his heart in two, watching them bolt Luffy to the other side of the cell. Fuck’s sake, he didn’t even have the strength to kneel - the moment those smirking bastards let go, Luffy just tipped over, landing on his side with a muffled ‘oof’. A sob tried to claw free from Ace’s throat; he hauled it back ruthlessly, demanding instead, “Idiot, what are you doing here?”
“Came t’ rescue you,” his little brother mumbled into the stone floor. The guards laughed uproariously, like that was the greatest joke they’d ever heard.
Ace’s heart shattered.
“Enjoy your company while you can,” one of them sniggered on her way back out the door. “Few more days, you’ll both be heading to Marineford for a double execution.”
No.
No, no, no-!
Maybe Ace deserved to die, maybe he never should have been born, but the same did not apply to Luffy, not now or ever. He strained against the chains again, instinctive, every fiber of his being demanding to get over there and put himself in-between his baby brother and anything that would try to kill him-!
Not until the distant laughter of the guards faded away did Ace hear himself, his own gasping breaths, the hitches that weren’t quite sobs but came pretty damn close.
On the other side of the cell, just barely out of reach, Luffy blearily peeled his eyes open. Ace didn’t know when they’d closed. It took an achingly long moment for his brother to blink and focus, and then all Luffy managed to do was slide one battered hand a little closer across the floor. “...Ace?”
“Yeah,” he choked out, “I’m here, Lu.”
A fainter version of that same grin came back. “Ace. Found you.” Then his eyes slid closed again, and Luffy shuddered, a full-body tremble that made it very clear something was Wrong.
“Lu? Luffy, wake up. Open your eyes, Luffy. Luffy.”
No dice. His brother didn’t stir. Ace felt colder than ever.
Once a day, a trio of guards came around, one carrying a cauldron of soup, the second a stack of bowls, and the third a gun to discourage any funny business. They paused at every cell to ladle cold, watery gruel into a bowl for each prisoner, and then slid them inside through the bars. Just enough sustenance to keep someone alive, more or less.
Didn’t mean much if said someone couldn’t move enough to actually eat.
“Luffy, come on,” Ace said in his best Second Division Commander voice. “You gotta keep your strength up, idiot.” He’d yet to touch his own food. He’d eat when Luffy ate.
Luffy moaned, and mumbled something, fingers on one hand flexing more or less in the direction of the small wood bowl. Any other time, any other place, Ace could imagine this was just a reluctance to wake up from a really good nap, and those fingers would stretch at any moment to snag the food so Luffy could scarf it down while still half-asleep. But not with seastone sapping their strength and Devil Fruit powers. Not in the bottom level of Impel Down.
“Don’t do this to me, Lu,” Ace growled, scrunching his face up. “Come on, you little shit, you of all people are not allowed to pretend you aren’t hungry!”
A muffled whine. The itchiness in Ace’s eyes stung worse than ever.
He didn’t notice the single set of approaching footsteps until they stopped.
“Fuck do you want,” came out automatically, before Ace turned and glared. And promptly recoiled. “Gramps?”
Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp stared down through the bars, expression eerily blank. Everything seemed to pause, balancing on a knife’s edge - suspended between one heartbeat and the next, as the two of them only looked at each other. The Marine, larger than life in his white uniform. The pirate, scuffed and bruised and hunched close to the ground. Winner and loser. Grandfather and grandson.
Then Luffy coughed wetly, and the moment broke, Garp’s eyes flicking over to his other grandchild instead. A sharp breath burst from Ace’s lungs, and to hell with anything like dignity- “Gramps, please, you gotta get him out of here.”
Garp twitched.
“Please,” Ace repeated, throwing every shred of emotion he could muster into the word, letting his tears finally escape. “He doesn’t deserve this, Gramps, you know he doesn’t! They can do whatever they want to me, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter, but Luffy- don’t let them kill Luffy, please! You can’t let them!”
The old man didn’t say a word.
But after several seconds, his hand came up. Holding a key.
Ace hardly dared to breathe as Garp slowly stepped into their cell. As he went to Luffy’s prone form, opened the lock keeping his chains secured to the wall. Large hands that once thumped the both of them for doing dumb shit gently scooped Luffy up off the floor, prompting another cough and mumble.
And then the sudden hope blazing in Ace’s chest sputtered out, because Garp didn’t leave the cell.
No, he turned around, and came three steps closer. Nudged Ace to sit up and back, and eased Luffy down into his lap. For a moment, Ace could only blink, baffled. Then the pressure on his arms went slack, his own chains released. Automatically, ignoring the ache of strained muscles, he brought them forward to curl around his little brother.
The cuffs stayed, though. Both sets, on him and Luffy.
And Garp turned away.
“Gramps,” Ace said, too stunned to say anything else. The door swung shut. “Gramps?” Garp started to walk back up the corridor, and a roaring fire that had nothing to do with his Devil Fruit took over Ace’s mind. “GRAMPS!”
The Hero of the Marines didn’t so much as flinch.
(He also didn’t relock the door, but Ace wouldn’t realize that until much later.)
One meager meal marked the passing time in Level Six, but in-between, there wasn’t much of anything to count away the hours with. Still; Ace figured most of the day had gone by, Luffy clutched desperately close, before someone else approached their shared cell.
He’d at least been able to pour some of the cold gruel down his brother’s throat, but otherwise there wasn’t much Ace could do besides hold him, facing away from the bars to try and shelter Luffy in some small way. Light steps and startled murmurs from other prisoners marked the passage of a new arrival; Ace doubted it was his grandfather returning with a change of heart. Maybe some other Admiral, or one of the wardens come to gloat.
Whoever it was didn’t say a word when they reached his cell. Nor as they pulled open the door. That made Ace frown, suspicion squirming into his gut, and he reluctantly shifted his head enough to peer over one shoulder.
Big enough to be Garp. But dressed in dark green, not white.
“Fire Fist,” the stranger rumbled, stopping just inside the cell door. “Can you walk?”
It took a minute for the dots to connect. Not a marine. Not a warden or guard. Not- not someone supposed to be down here. In that minute, Ace only stared, dumbfounded, which apparently provided enough of an answer to the question.
Big stranger stepped closer, and with a bitten-off yelp Ace found himself plucked off the floor, Luffy still in his arms.
More footsteps. More rising murmurs from other prisoners. The stranger turned, left the cell, headed for the stairs at a steady, measured pace. Additional figures scooted past, moving quickly, pausing at cells and bending down by locks.
Jailbreak, Ace realized in a distant way. Holy shit.
Someone darted up alongside them, and said in a hushed tone, “All clear so far.”
Ace jerked.
Top hat. Blonde hair. A nasty looking burn scar over the nearest eye. “Oh,” Ace heard himself say, “I’m dreaming.”
Both the stranger carrying him and the one who looked like his dead brother turned identical raised eyebrows in Ace’s direction, and that just wasn’t fair. If it was his dream about an unexpected escape, he shouldn’t feel like a dumb kid who just said something everyone else knows is stupid.
“Hardly,” hummed the guy who looked like the adult Sabo never got to become, “But I imagine the explosions will help change your mind soon enough.”
Oh, explosions would just turn the dream into a nightmare. That was normal, and very much unwanted. Shaking his head, Ace huddled down further into the secure hold around him, clinging to Luffy for all he was worth. “No. No explosions. That’s how Sabo always dies.”
The blonde guy immediately tripped with a startled swear. The bigger stranger didn’t, but being pressed against his broad chest meant Ace could hear the skip in his heartbeat. “Perhaps we should discuss this later,” he rumbled, and fuck, it really did remind Ace of being tucked against Garp, the very few times he’d ever deigned to pick up and carry his mostly-asleep grandsons back to Makino’s bar or Dadan’s hideout.
Gramps wouldn’t save either of them in real life. Apparently Ace’s subconscious knew better than to pretend he would in a dream, and came up with a decent substitute instead.
...he could appreciate that, for however long he stayed asleep.
So Ace humored the Garp and Sabo stand-ins, letting everything else fade into the unimportant background as they climbed a series of narrow stairs, passing the other horrors of Impel Down and leading a growing array of prisoners up out of the dark.
(Many hours later, after the fore-mentioned explosions and a mass exodus onto waiting ships and the Revolutionary Dragon, Monkey D. Dragon introduced himself, Ace will stare with wide eyes at the young man who looks like a dead boy, and croak “Sabo?”
The following explanation and scuffle and hugs will prove very, very worth it. Especially once Luffy receives medical attention to deal with the poison he’s been fighting and wakes up and adds his own extra chaos to the reunion.)