Chapter Text
Sabo stares at him, looking confused and annoyed and bone-tired. Ace wrestles his confusion down enough to let out a strangled, "Sabo?"
Maybe he's wrong, maybe this is just an odd look-alike, maybe it's just a sibling Sabo didn't know about- Dogra saw him sail, Dogra saw him drown, Dogra saw him die. It can't be Sabo. The man is too pristine, too well-put-together; his boots look like they've never stepped in mud, his face like he's never seen Ace. It can't be his brother.
"Yes, that's me," answers apparently-Sabo, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know my name? Nevermind, you should be gone already."
And oh, would you look at that. His anger is back, and with a revenge.
"What the hell," hisses Ace, and stalks closer. "I thought you were dead- you said you were going to escape! You said- and Dogra saw you! You were okay that whole time, and you just- left us? Stayed here like a coward?"
"Who are you," asks Sabo, no recognition in his gaze. Ace freezes a moment, before shaking himself out of his horror with already-practiced ease.
"I don't know you," continues Sabo. "We've never spoken- and what are you doing here, again? You definitely don't live in Goa," he snorts, looking Ace up and down with contempt evident in his gaze.
"I'm your brother," says Ace. Doesn't let himself linger on the fact that it sounds more like a plea.
"I don't have brothers," retorts Sabo.
Ace punches him in the face.
It's one thing to pretend to not recognize him, to leave him behind and cast him away and live life as if they had never met. It's another to do that to Luffy.
Sabo spits out blood. "What the hell?" He exclaims, nose bloody. The street around them is too quiet, and Sabo's voice rings out loud and shocked in the silence. Ace glances around, out of some ages-old instinct, but nothing moves around them.
"You don't get to do that," he hisses, refocusing on Sabo.
"What the fuck," says Sabo, blood running down his nose, tilting his head backward, probably to avoid getting any on his ridiculously fancy clothes. "I don't know you!"
"You- stop lying!"
Sabo scoffs. "Stop ly- I'm not in the wrong, here! Stop punching people you don't know first!"
"I know you!"
"Good for you! I don't!"
"You bastard-"
Sabo still has his head tilted backward, and it would be extremely easy to clock him in the jaw. Ace hesitates; now that the initial shock and anger has passed, he's left confused and hurt, and apparently Sabo isn't a safe person to be around anymore.
He turns his back to Sabo and starts to walk away.
"Oh, wait a fucking minute," says Sabo, furious, going to grab his wrist. "No, asshole, that's not how it works," and then his skin touches Ace's and he hisses in pain.
"How are you so cold?" He asks, and Ace doesn't answer, focusing on the way the fingers around his wrist feel a bit like getting his fruit and his life back, all at once. "Is that a tattoo? Wait- I do know you, you're that one Whitebeard pirate- what's a Whitebeard pirate doing in East Blue?"
Ace blinks, rips his arm out of Sabo's grasp absently. "I guess ghosts haunt their home islands," he answers. Sabo raises his eyebrows at him; it looks funny, with the streak of blood across his face from when he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
Pristine clothes, bloodstained fingers; nobles.
"Ghosts," says Sabo, deadpan. "Ghosts, that's what you're going with? I got punched in the face because you're a ghost?"
"Because you're an asshole," corrects Ace. Insulting Sabo is familiar in a way that aches. He feels on the edge of some sort of void.
"I've never even met you!"
Ace just stares at him. He used to know when Sabo was lying, he used to be able to read the tenseness of his shoulders and the way he looked at you straight-on, because people believed that you wouldn't lie to them when you did that. Sabo laughed at them, and lied and lied and lied, and Ace supposes he was stupid, to have believed himself to be an exception.
Bluejam was right in the end. That's perhaps the most infuriating thing to come out of this.
"You didn't answer me," sighs Sabo, exasperated. "What're you doing here?"
"I died."
Sabo scoffs. "Come on, Firefist, I recognized you. You clearly didn't die, the Marines would have a field day. Getting to one of Whitebeard's commanders, and without starting a war? They'd never let that go."
Ace stares. "Well, yeah," he settles on saying, incredulously.
The Marines did in fact not let it go. That's an accurate rendition of what happened, sure. "There was a war," he eventually says. "Shouldn't you know that? There was a war."
"No there wasn't," protests Sabo. "Even we would know."
"There was a war," he repeats, and Sabo looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, and says, doubt dripping from his voice, "Okay, sure. If you say so. I- you know what? This is none of my business. I don't care about this. Whitebeard can invade Goa and burn it to ashes for all I care, let him have his fun."
And then he turns around and starts to walk away.
"Wai- where are you going?" Calls Ace after him.
Sabo doesn't turn around as he answers, "To a fountain. Wasn't supposed to, but some fucker punched me in the nose for no reason, and I need to clean up."
"You know why," hisses Ace, and Sabo, deadpan, retorts, "Actually, I really, really don't."
Ace catches up to him. Sabo raises an eyebrow at him. "Really? You're following me? I mean, I don't know if you're supposed to infiltrate the city, but you're not exactly inconspicuous. Nobles aren't the smartest bunch, but even they are going to notice the shirtless tattooed man walking their streets."
"No they won't, because they won't be able to see me."
And if they do, what's going to happen? They'll kill him? Good luck with that.
"That's not your fruit," just says Sabo. "Suit yourself. You could at least apologize for punching me."
"You could not be an asshole," suggests Ace.
Sabo sighs.
They walk on.
oOo
Ace isn't exactly sure why he's following Sabo, actually.
He supposes he could go back to Dadan. He guesses- but at least Sabo can see him. Nobody else can, he doesn't think.
There's a part of his mind that's also whispering- what if they don't care that he's dead? What if he goes back and they're celebrating? What if-
He follows Sabo to a busier street, where his once-brother ducks his head and hides his bloodstains, periodically glancing at Ace.
At the third person that Ace has to sidestep because he hasn't tested if people can walk through him and doesn't particularly wants to, Sabo stops dead in the middle of the street.
"Uh," he says.
"Uh," he repeats. "They really can't see you."
Ace raises an eyebrow. It's not every day he gets to be smug at Sabo, and it's a lot more satisfying when Sabo is an asshole.
"You're really a ghost?"
Ace gestures broadly at the ten people looking straight through him, and at Sabo apparently having a conversation with empty air.
Sabo swears under his breath. Ace laughs at him. Sabo glares at him. It feels like old times, except it isn't.
Ace's anger his a steady fire, but his fear of silence is a more constant companion. It could make him a hypocrite, to stay around a brother that threw to the fire all they were, but Ace supposes he can understand why Sabo would reject him.
Sabo sighs and walks into an alley. Ace follows him, if only to mock him.
"So you died."
"That's how ghosts work."
"But- but you didn't. We would have known, unless it was recent, or it was kept secret for some reason."
"Check the newspaper, if you want to be sure. I mean, I have it on good authority that I did die, but if you don't believe me," Ace shrugs.
Sabo frowns at him. "I don't have a newspaper," he says, and walks off. Ace follows him. Sabo glares at him.
"You look like you're glaring at nothing," comments Ace. Sabo tries to trip him. Ace dodges. For someone that can't see the ghost, it must all look very strange, especially when Ace trips Sabo back and he doesn't manage to avoid it, and faceplants right in the middle of the street.
"Fucker," he hisses between his teeth. His clothes are all dirty now, his face still bloodstained, and still he looks nothing like the boy Ace had once trusted. It's sobering, and Ace steps away and closes himself off. It must be obvious, but Sabo doesn't point it out, just walks on.
Ace follows still, to a deserted fountain. It looks neglected, in that way pristine things are. Not one bit damaged, though, just too empty; nothing in here is allowed to be weathered, Ace supposes. Either the illusion of perfection, or nothing.
Sabo sits on the ledge with practiced movements, reaches to scrub at his face and wipes the blood off. He sighs, looking at the dirtied white of his shirt, and doesn't even attempt to wipe off the dirt.
And then he rests his head in his hands, and breathes, in a pattern. Ace frowns.
"What's going on?"
Sabo straightens. "Wha- you're still here?"
"Where else would I go?"
"I don't know- not here!"
"Why not?"
Sabo scowls at him. "Leave me alone."
Ace crosses his arms. "Why do you look so tired?" He asks instead of doing as ordered. Sabo closes off even more, if possible.
"Seas, you're annoying," he retorts, which Ace can't help but notice isn't an answer. "Don't you have anyone else to try your lies on?"
"I said I wasn't lying."
"Yeah, that was a shit lie."
"I'm not- I'm not the liar, here! You are! You just- never left! Stayed in your precious city! Never even warned us!"
Sabo stares at him. "I don't know you," he repeats for what must be the fourth time, at least, but hurts just as bad as the first. "I don't know you! We've never talked, I've never even seen you! I don't owe you shit!"
"We grew up together," whispers Ace. For once, instead of dismissing him, Sabo stops in his tracks.
Says:
"No. No, we really didn't."
And as much as Sabo feels like a stranger, Ace can still recognize the truth in his words.
oOo
"I'm not an amnesiac!" Shrieks Sabo softly, walking towards whatever it is he's walking towards. "I would be aware of a ten-year gap in my memory!"
He glances around. "And stop talking to me, people are starting to whisper!"
Ace hums distractedly. "So if it isn't a lie, and it isn't a fruit, and you haven't been blackmailed, and you haven't been brainwashed, and you're not an amnesiac-" he lists off, and Sabo groans, but ducks into yet another deserted alley between two way-too-huge mansions.
"Have you considered," he spits out exasperatedly, "that it's you who's weird here?"
Uh.
"Uh," says Ace. "How so?"
"Not my problem, I don't know you, stop harassing me," hisses Sabo before resuming walking. Ace keeps up. Sabo glares at him. It's become a bit of a routine during the past ten minutes.
"Is it the ghost thing," asks Ace straight on. The ghost thing is weird to him, to be fair, but he's found not lingering on it is the best course of action. Ace has always been resourceful, had to be to survive, really, and right now figuring out what the hell is going on is higher priority than whatever he's feeling.
Sabo sighs. To an outsider, Ace guesses it looks like Sabo is perpetually annoyed for no reason. "It's not that we never met and I imagined it all," decides Ace. He has a tattoo to prove the contrary, not that the tattoo makes much sense now that Sabo is apparently alive.
Sabo visibly restrains from commenting, instead veers off suddenly, enters another high building, and stalks off to some ostentatious room. "I hate you," he hisses at Ace, and Ace, right on his heels, replies cheerily, "Plenty people do!"
Sabo ignores him and crosses the room.
There's a newspaper thrown across the wooden, golden, ugly-looking desk. Ace reaches towards it, and freezes at the title.
Emperor's Apprentice Strawhat Luffy Crosses Onto New World!
"What," he manages to get out. "Emperor's apprentice?"
People aren't supposed to know about Shanks and Luffy. He doesn't tell people, he's Luffy, it's not like he would brag, and Luffy absolutely isn't strong enough to take all the people that are going to come after him if that gets out, nevermind the Marines-
"Yeah," confirms Sabo, leaning over to see what he's looking at. "He sailed with Red Hair when he was young, didn't you know?"
"He what." Asks Ace. "No he didn't."
Sabo frowns at him. "Yeah he did," he argues. "Heard he's been at sea since he was 10, at least."
And that- that right there can't be right, because Ace has distinct memories of ten-year-old Luffy waking him up in the middle of the night, and for that matter, of eleven, twelve, and fourteen-years-old Luffy doing the exact same thing right up until Ace left Dawn Island.
"What the fuck," says Ace, feeling a very unpleasant sense of déjà-vu. "Are you lying?"
"We've established I'm not," states Sabo, tone flat. "Why would I lie about Strawhat anyway?"
"Why not?"
Sabo rolls his eyes at him. "If it'll get you to leave me alone, sure, I'm lying," he ends up settling on.
"So you're not lying."
"Oh for the love of- make up your mind!"
"No, but you don't understand," stresses Ace. "I grew up with him."
Sabo levels him with an unimpressed look. "You sure grew up with a lot of people."
Ace scowls at him. "I'm not lying, asshole."
"Wonderful! I don't care. Leave me alone. I have work to do."
"So you really don't know me?"
Sabo ignores him to sit at the ridiculous desk. Ace feels distantly like the ground has disappeared under his feet, again. "But, but- but we met in Grey Terminal. When we were young. We both wanted to be pira-"
Sabo puts his pen down. Says, deceptively calm for the way Ace can read anger in the line of his shoulders, "I never wanted to be something as stupid as a pirate. I've never been that naive."
Ace sets his jaw. "What do you mean," he retorts, more a threat than a question.
"I mean that dreaming to be a pirate is a stupid thing for a kid to do. As if it'd make you happier- as if they aren't all selfish and cruel- a pirate burned Grey Terminal, you know."
Ace freezes.
There's fire in his memory, and words he hasn't ever been able to forget written shakily on a letter. "No," he says. "No, he didn't."
Sabo scoffs. "And how would you know?"
"He didn't. He- I was in there."
Sabo falters, and then blocks himself off all over again. "No you weren't," he protests, disdain coloring his words. "You never set foot on that island."
"Bluejam, right? And it happened just before the Celestial Dragons came to visit, and your parents tracked you down, and-" Babbles Ace.
"That never happened," interrupts Sabo, looking pale for some reason. "That- that never happened."
Ace blinks at him. "But it did," he pleads, and Sabo, looking through him, says "No." He shakes his head. "I never left the city- I never escaped- I never escaped. And Grey Terminal-" He bites his lip. "You should get out. You should get out, you should go away, leave me alone, leave me alone-"
Ace frowns at him. "What-"
"You're not from here, you don't know," shrieks Sabo. "You don't- you don't belong here, this is dangerous, you're dangerous, go away-"
Ace reaches out to touch him; Sabo shrinks away so violently Ace flinches in time with him, and when his once-brother raises his head again his eyes are murderous.
"Get out," he hisses. "I never want to see you again."
oOo
First order of business is figuring out where he is. First order of business is not thinking of Sabo. First order of business is figuring out where he is.
First order of business is stopping feeling like he's dying again.
He doesn't need to breathe, he doesn't need to blink, he doesn't need- he doesn't need- Sabo hates him, Sabo's alive, Sabo hates him-
It's all hitting him at once. Hollowed ground, collapsing again; you'd thought he would have learnt his lesson.
He wanders down the streets, down the walls, jumps from roofs and doesn't break his bones solely because he doesn't have anything left to break. Breathe, breathe, he doesn't need to breathe anymore, but breathe, breathe, breathe.
The smell of smoke snaps him out of it. He stands in Grey Terminal's graveyard. Once here Luffy stood behind him; when he died Luffy stood behind him.
Seas, but he left Luffy alone. He broke his promise. And it looks like- it looks like he can't even wait him here, like the brother he left behind isn't here anymore, like this isn't the people he left behind, like-
Like he leaped worlds.
Grey Terminal gone, and Sabo's grave's disappearance, not a trace of the treehouse, Sabo's survival, Sabo's conviction that nothing had ever happened to Ace, the "Emperor's Apprentice" mention on the newspaper...
It would make sense, wouldn't it? It would make sense.
But it wouldn't, because- changing worlds? Because- as real as this seems it could be a dream, couldn't it be? It feels nonsensical and far away from him, and he remembers dying with cold, cold precision, but-
But people don't just change worlds.
Don't they?
This must be a dream, or a hallucination- and if it is how does he get out, how does he- he remembers dying-
He remembers dying.
He died.
It was the first thing he knew, waking up on the cliff, feet hanging in the void. He died. It was a certainty, an immutable fact, a pull on his heart and mind and veins, dragging him down, down, down. He died, the ache of it resonating in his bones; he could still feel the smoke in his lungs and the cold of the iced-over stones against his cheeks, the taste of blood on his teeth and the back of his mouth, the salt of his tears on his skin.
He died. He died, he did.
And this isn't the people he left.
It makes sense, in a way. The world wouldn't give Ace a second chance, what would he have done to deserve one? The world doesn't care about broken promises, when has it ever?
This isn't the people he left, this isn't the people who loved him. If he went to Dadan there would be nothing in her house. If he went to Pops, Pops would be alive, but Ace would already be there, alive, and-
This isn't the people he left. This isn't the people who mattered. What is he doing here, then?
Around him Grey Terminal is empty. What is he doing here?
Sabo's not alive, Sabo died- and he survived here, only because he never wandered away, because he never met Ace, because Ace never got him killed by being a coward and leaving him alone-
Around him Grey Terminal is dead. Sabo yelled at him to never come back, again, and Ace listened.
Sabo can see him.
Sabo- oh, but Sabo looks worn out, looks tired, looks faded; looks like he did talking about his parents, only of course it wasn't him. Sabo looks like Ace's brother did, when he had convinced himself Luffy and Ace were going to hate him for his family.
Sabo looks beaten down, Ace realizes. Sabo looks defeated, and resigned, and like he's long given up on something important, even if Ace can't begin to guess what.
And if Ace is right, if this isn't his brother, if this is just who his Sabo could have grown up to be-
Well, that's just it, isn't it. It's someone his Sabo could have been; it's Sabo; it's the only person who can see him; it's the brother Ace didn't fight for once, and that he lost as a consequence. It's Sabo, doesn't matter that he didn't have the same dream, that he never met Ace as a kid, that they never chased after treasures and beat up bandits and stole and laughed together.
He's Ace's brother, or he could have been. He's someone Ace failed to save. He's the only person who can see Ace. That has to mean something, Seas; that has to mean something.
The wind howls against the wall of Goa and Ace jolts out of his thoughts with a start. He has to go back, nevermind that he shouldn't have left in the first place, that he should have known better than to trust Sabo's words when there is fear in his eyes and urgency in his voice. He has to go back.
The cold of his skin hits him, and he shivers. If he's right, he left his world behind, and the grief still lingers on his skin, but Ace refuses to open his mouth and swallow it, let it choke him. He died; he shouldn't be the one grieving. He has no right to it.
The weight of absence settles on his shoulders, pulls at him, but he refuses to let it sway him. He has a goal, that's all he's ever needed. That's all he's ever needed.
Don't forget to blink. Don't forget to breathe.
Ace takes a deep breath that doesn't mean anything anymore, and heads into Goa once more, leaving behind the ashy graveyard of Grey Terminal.
No time for ghosts to be ghosts.