Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gravel crunches beneath his feet. Luffy yawns absently, skin hot beneath the Texan sun, and glances around. The long road he's on is empty, and it stretches far into the distance, lined with vast, dry fields. There are no farmers left to tend to the crops but nature is a survivor, and the plants are growing out of control, the stalks of the overgrown corn folding over into the road, dusty in color. It's quiet. The smell of smoke is thin on the air.

Whistling, the seventeen-year-old fingers the strap of the shotgun over his shoulder. He's not particularly worried (not that Luffy ever really is - it's not in his nature). But it always pays to be ready. Trooping through the heat, he glances through the wide fields, all-too-aware of what lurks in them. It's pretty creepy.

Subsequently, he finds it all too cool.

It's been, what, ten years since all this started? Too long. But Luffy has to admit - it hasn't been all that rough. At least, not for him. He never lost anybody, mostly because he didn't have anybody to lose - and when it all began, he was fortunate to join a group within the first few days. Luffy was lucky, incredibly so. He wasn't like Nami, who lost her mother and sister, or Brook, who lost his whole family. He was more like Zoro, who only gained a family through all of this.

The only problem is that right now, that family is nowhere to be found. It's been four or five months, no more, since they separated. It was bad planning (Nami would call it recklessness, Luffy likes to call it experimentation). A stroke of bad luck. They ran into a horde and Luffy got pulled into a warehouse in the chase, got caught up there. By the time he regained consciousness in the morning, the crew was gone.

There's always been an agreement within the group - there's always a meeting point. If anybody is ever lost, they're all to head there, no matter what. It changes depending on where they are. When they separated, the meeting place was a lodge just outside of Austin, where they stayed previously. So Luffy picked himself up and started to walk, following his compass north, hoping to run into somebody or something that could help him find his way. It's a warzone, a wasteland, but he's pretty used to it. The only thing that sucks is being alone.

The sun is going down. The bottoms of his feet are aching sharply now, with a harsh, flat kind of pain that makes it all-too tempting to stop. But Luffy doesn't falter, yawning as the night creeps in. Eventually, his yawning tails off. In the sunset, the desert road looks red beneath his feet.

Suddenly, there it is - the sound of an engine.

Luffy looks behind him and says, "Fuck!" There's a small, dark dot on the horizon, speeding towards him, throwing up dust into the darkening sky. With a small yelp, the teen throws himself into the tall grass, rather ungracefully, scrambling to hide himself. A car means people – uninfected people – but he can't know that they're friendly. Many aren't.

Feeling his heart pound in his chest, Luffy holds his breath and listens the car come closer. Every nerve in his body is on high alert, ready to fight. The engine grows louder and louder until it feels like it's right on top of him, and suddenly it cuts out – right there, in the road only feet from him. Cursing, Luffy scrambles backward just as he hears the door of the jeep open, and then slam closed.

A male voice, relatively young, with a British accent. "Is there anything there?"

"Nothing. Look, I'm sure you just imagined it, Sabo."

There's a little, irritated noise and then another door opens, from the other side. Luffy can hear the British man's boots as they hit the gravel and he slowly pulls himself to his feet, still concealed, balling his fists.

"I didn't! Look, if there's another survivor-"

"There isn't. I wouldn't be surprised if it was only us in this whole damn state," the other man grumbles. There's a lilt of something foreign in his voice, maybe Spanish.

"I- Wait!"

Luffy knows in that moment that he's been seen and he stumbles backward, reaching for his gun - but his fingers scrabble and slip on the strap and then there's somebody in front of him, pushing aside the tall grass. The guy is blonde, tall and lean with overgrown hair and tanned skin. He looks as surprised to see Luffy as Luffy is to see him and they stare at one another for a moment, Luffy still clutching at the strap of his gun, the other man's hand hovering over his knife. The silence is short and thick and then the air breaks, and a second man - shorter than the first, with caramel skin and a scowl - is cocking his gun right between Luffy's eyes.

"Don't move," he commands. "I won't hesitate."

Luffy closes his eyes for a moment, sure he's going to die, sure that the world is going to black out. When it doesn't, when the silence only stretches on and on with seemingly no end, he makes a split-second decision and suddenly swings his leg up, knee sinking into the second man's crotch. The guy falls with a shout and then the blonde has his knife out, and he's swiping at Luffy like a cobra, movements quick and precise. Luffy flips back onto his hands and rolls to his feet in a swift movement, heart pounding, and makes to sprint into the corn - but suddenly his ankle jerks inwards on itself, twisting roughly, and a lance of pain shoots through his leg.

The teen falls to his knees, and then his torso slaps down to the ground roughly. With a mouthful of dust, ankle throbbing, Luffy twists over and swings his gun over his shoulder - but then the second guy is there, apparently having recovered, and he yanks the gun from Luffy's hands with such force that the strap snaps. Defenseless and injured, Luffy curses desperately and shuffles back on his elbows, dry grass scratching his skin. His own gun his being pointed at him by the shorter one and he scowls, looking right up into his grey eyes. His mind rebels against it. He can't die here. Not now.

Silence. Then, the blonde sighs and shoves the other man away, and the tension breaks.

"Don't shoot - look at him, he's just a kid." The man kneels down and extends his hand slowly towards him, like he's approaching a wild animal. He's the British one. Luffy realizes vaguely, mind foggy, that he has very blue eyes. "You alright? Sorry about Ace - he's a tad trigger-happy."

"Oi!"

"You're the one who tried to cut me into pieces," Luffy tries to joke, but it comes out accusing. He coughs, and gravel is thick in his throat. His whole body is aching.

"Well - you hurt Ace. And... I might be a little quick-to-act, too."

"A little?" Ace asks irritably. He's messing with Luffy's gun, flicking the safety on and off. "Talk about a lot. You're worse than me!"

"Whatever you say," the blonde shoots back airily. He turns back to Luffy. "Look - I'm Sabo. This is my… friend, Ace."

"I'm Luffy." He tries to stand but his ankle feels like paper, like the joints aren't lined up properly. Sabo catches him under the arms when he slips. "Look, give me the gun back-"

"Like hell!" Ace frowns.

"Lay off," Sabo shoots back. "Look - it's getting dark, and you can barely walk. We're headed north. Ignore Ace - how about you come with us? At least for now. It's my recklessness that you got you hurt."

"God, you're a sap," Ace mutters under his breath, but he doesn't look too upset about it.

"I…" Luffy hesitates.

If, miraculously, they're telling the truth, then it could be the stroke of luck that he needs to get to the lodge. But as careless a person as he is, a knife in the back in their car wouldn't be pleasant, either. Still…

"Sure." Luffy smiles and accepts Sabo's hand, and lets the older man support him into the jeep.

It's silent in the car and Ace keeps his eyes on the window, watching the dark fields flash by. The kid is in the back. Ace knows that he isn't asleep - he can feel his gaze on his back. Sabo is driving, doing his best to maneuver the faulty vehicle, and doesn't seem concerned about the stranger in the back of their car. It took a long time to get hold of this car and Ace hopes, inwardly, that Luffy doesn't do anything foolish. He would rather not get more blood on the seats than there already is.

He and Sabo have been lucky for the last few days - this is a barren area, and they've only run into a few of the infected. Southern Texas is hot, swelteringly so, dusty and choking, but at least they aren't dead. Getting the abandoned hunk of a jeep to start was a miracle in itself, as the thing seemed to be on its last legs. It's been a good few days for them, better than most. At least - until now. Until Luffy.

Hands taut on the wheel, Sabo is staring straight ahead. Ace stares at the moonlight framing his face and bites his lip and looks away, back towards the window. It's dark in the car - all the lights are shattered or dead - but Sabo's eyes still seem kind of bright, and Ace stares down at his hands, scratching at some grime on the kid's gun with his fingernail. He's determined not to stare, not to make this more complicated than it already is.

"I'm hungry," Luffy suddenly complains from the back. "Hey, Ass, do you have any food?"

"It's Ace!" Ace growls, while Sabo stifles a laugh. "And no, we don't - you're gonna have to wait until we stop for the night."

"Aw," whines Luffy. There's a distinct little rumble from the back. "My stomach is mad at me!"

How stupid can this kid be? Ace asks himself, but there's a little bit of fondness there, despite himself.

Sabo snickers and points out, "We're all hungry. You're gonna have to wait."

"Sabo's mean…"

"You get his name right!"

"Of course! It's easier to say!"

"How the hell is it easier to say?!"

Sabo keeps his eyes on the road, but it's obvious that he's holding back a laugh. "You're an interesting guy, Luffy."

"Thanks!" When Ace shoots a look behind him, he's met with a wide, sunny smile that makes it hard to hide his own. He turns away, trying and failing not to let his lips quirk up.

"I wouldn't take that as a compliment," he warns.

"It sounds like one," Luffy defends. Then, "You guys seem cool. Thanks for the lift!"

"Thanks for not shooting me earlier," Sabo responds dryly. "Seriously, it's okay. Anything we can do to help other survivors, we will."

"Speak for yourself," Ace mutters. "Not all of 'em are all that friendly, Bo."

"Yeah, well, it's worth a try," Sabo shoots back. "There aren't many of us left. We have to try to help one another."

"Sure…"

Luffy watches the conversation silently, then interjects, "I've got a group I need to reunite with - we got separated a few months back. We've been together since the beginning. We're gonna meet just outside of Austin."

"Austin? Ace and I are headed there." Sabo struggles around a sharp left turn - the roads are getting harder to maneuver. "You can join us, if you want."

"Why are you going to Austin?"

"We heard there's a stronghold there," Ace responds, "Heard another group talking about it in a shelter a few months back. We figured that we could settle there for a while, get our bearings, y'know?"

Luffy nods, grinning. "Well, it'd be awesome to come with you guys!"

"Then it's settled," Sabo decides.

There's still a little mistrust in Ace's chest. It was so quick, such a sudden decision to let the guy come along with them. Ace finds it hard to trust; he always has. The only person he's ever truly trusted is Sabo, even before the outbreak. Inviting the kid along could be their downfall, and they barely know him, but… something about it feels right, somehow. So Ace doesn't protest.

They end up talking about the past - about where Luffy came from, about how his group got separated, about his life before the outbreak. The kid is sixteen, so he was only six before it started, and he doesn't remember much. He tells Ace and Sabo, forlornly, that he only remembers his grandpa after the man had turned. Luffy was seven. Something in Ace's chest twinges at that, but he doesn't say anything.

The conversation lightens after that. It turns out that Luffy, like Ace, is originally from Brazil - Luffy whoops when he finds out and challenges Sabo, from Fenny-Bentley, in England, to a fight. All three of them moved to the states when they were kids, before the outbreak, and ended up with no way of getting out. Sabo laughs and says, "You're on."

"He'll tear you apart," Ace warns, laughing. "The only person who can beat him is me."

"Like hell you can! We're neck-and-neck, at the most."

"I'll beat both of you!" Luffy says confidently. Ace glances back again and sees that the kid has curled up on the seat, legs tucked up to his chest, and looks very small. He's young, only sixteen. Only a kid.

Suddenly, taking him in doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

They drive on. The engine of the jeep gives in just as morning light is showing. Ace is half-asleep, taking his turn to drive, and Sabo is passed out in the back. In the front seat, Luffy is yawning and rubbing his eyes, and looks like death warmed up. He jolts when the car stops, and he and Ace look at one another for a moment.

"We're walking," Ace decides, holding down a yawn. "C'mon, I'll wake Sabo. Do you think you can walk?"

"Of course I can!" Luffy opens the door as Ace reaches back to shake Sabo awake, and then promptly collapses the second he puts weight on his leg.

Sighing, Ace calls, "You alright?"

"I'm okay!" Responds Luffy's voice, from out of sight. "Nothing broken!"

By now, Sabo is stirring slightly, face scrunching up. His hair is sticking up everywhere and his eyes are bloodshot but Ace doesn't take much notice of that. When Sabo wakes, the pair stare at one another for a moment, half-obscured by the low light of morning.

"You alright?" Ace asks quietly.

The burn scars, fresh and deep red, stretch as Sabo yawns. "Yeah, 'm okay. Sorry for falling asleep - I should've stayed up-"

"It's okay." Ace grins playfully. "I'm holding you to it, by the way - we're totally sparring later."

"I'll win," Sabo warns.

"Bring it on!"

Outside, Luffy is sitting in the dust and staring at his swollen ankle with a frown, as if trying to will it to heal. "My leg is being stupid!" he whines.

"Come on, idiot," Ace says. "I'll carry ya. But only until we find shelter!"

Luffy whoops and it takes a little effort, but they eventually get him onto Ace's back. Wandering down the road, the trio don't speak too much - they all feel too tired for that. Ace glances at Sabo occasionally - he can't help it. The blonde is looking at the ground a lot, and picking at the loose threads of his cargo pants. He's carrying both his and Ace's packs and dragging his feet with fatigue. His arms are bare and Ace traces the scarring with his eyes, taking in the deep red trails that lace his skin, taking in the lean muscles that come from years and years of living like this.

Sabo and Ace have known one another for a very long time - since even before the outbreak. They were both the new kids where they lived and they bonded over it. At nine years old, both of them, they were teased relentlessly for being from far away and they stuck together like glue because of it. Ace taught Sabo about his home and Sabo found a refuge, a shoulder to cry on when his parents were particularly bad. It was only natural that when the world was suddenly coming to an end, they stuck together - they always had. The pair traveled with groups for a while, staying protected by people who really thought that they could rebuild. But by the time Sabo was celebrating his fifteenth, they'd both seen so much betrayal and sabotage that they traveled only with one another, not trusting anybody else.

Until now.

"Hey - check it out." Sabo guards his eyes against the morning sun and points out across the fields, towards what looks like a farmhouse. "Reckon it's empty?"

"Probably, 'cept for a few infected."

"Let's explore it!" Luffy beams. He tries to jump off of Ace's back and promptly crumples pathetically to the ground. "Ow…!"

"Moron," Ace mutters, letting the younger climb back on as if he's been doing this his whole life.

"We might as well try," Sabo reasons. "We all need a break."

It's decided. Sabo, Ace and Luffy trek through the tall grass together, swatting away tics. The farmhouse is small and wrecked, ransacked by survivors who must have come across it before them. There's only one of the infected in the house, a rotted hunk of flesh scrambling across the floor towards them with its hacked-up arms when they walk in. Sabo pushes its head into the ground and then stomps down, hard, hard enough to break through the rotted skull and crush the brain. Thick, congealed blood leaks onto his boot. The thing goes still.

Luffy winces. "Ouch."

"Glad you're not squeamish," Sabo responds, wiping a little blood off his boot. "Alright - let's search the house. And Luffy, for the love of god, stay put."

Sabo and Ace search the whole house, while Luffy hobbles around and falls over and knocks shit over. The walls are covered with grime, coated in layers of the stuff. After ten years, most evidence of the life of the family who used to live here are gone. There are a few pictures lined up along the mantelpiece. They're covered in limescale and cracks lace the glass, and the photos are faded but Ace can make out the faces of the people in them. An old man with a kippa and a kind smile. A girl with very red hair grinning at the camera. A blurry ultrasound picture of a baby. The lives of people who are most likely dead now, most likely wandering through empty cities as the infected.

Ace can't look at them for long - he has to glance away. Sabo can barely keep his eyes on them, too. It's harrowing, to look at snippets of the world before all this. People like Luffy are lucky - they grew into this. Their lives have always been hard, and they always will be. But Ace can remember a better time. He knows that somewhere, something good exists. Or, existed. And pictures like this, evidence of the dead, only make it seem worse.

(At some point, Ace's hand finds Sabo's as they look at the mantelpiece. It only lasts a moment but when he pulls his hand away, the palm burns like fire.)

Ace is too tired to cook anything, too exhausted to eat. With a yawn, he warns Luffy not to try anything, and troops upstairs to one of the bedrooms. He doesn't take time to observe the room and pointedly looks away from the photos on the not to take in how grimy the sheets smell, Ace collapses onto the covers and closes his eyes, and tries to let his mind come down from overdrive.

When Sabo joins him a little while later, slipping into a familiar position against him, Ace doesn't even have to think about it as he adjusts to the change, slipping an arm around the other, avoiding the areas that he knows are burnt the worst. It must be midday by now, and Ace has no doubt that he'll probably wake in the middle of the night but he doesn't care too much. All he wants is sleep.

"Night, Sabo."

"Goodnight, Ace," Sabo sighs in his familiar accent. They fall asleep as one.

Luffy wakes up in the middle of the night, panting hard, harsh red images flashing before his eyes in the dark. The couch is lumpy and hard beneath him. He does his best to slow his breathing and manages it eventually, teeth gritted. He finds himself pacing at some point, near the door to the main room, trying to work off the excess energy. His leg is close to giving out and it feels fragile and he uses a broken board of wood like a crutch. The house is dark and the sky outside the window is scattered with thousands of stars, and Luffy can taste them in the air, can feel the emptiness. The area is so still, so quiet. It's eerie.

When pacing in the small main room runs out of appeal, Luffy wanders upstairs, into the only bedroom in the house. Sabo and Ace are sleeping in the same room, packs in bed with them too, probably to ensure that Luffy doesn't steal them. It's dark but as Luffy stands in the doorway he can see their forms - blonde and black hair are splayed over the same sheets. The burns on Sabo's face are dark on his pale skin. Ace's arm is thrown over him and Luffy can't tell whose legs are whose.

Scratching his head, the teen limps back down the stairs and back to the couch he was sleeping on. It's only really now, in the silence and the stillness and the dark, that he realizes how much he misses them. Luffy and his group have been together since the beginning. He can't remember being away from them for this long, not since before the outbreak. He wonders what they're doing.

Zoro is probably asleep, Luffy decides. He is most of the time. And Sanji is probably cooking, or scavenging for food supplies, or nursing a black eye after getting punched by Nami. And Nami… she's probably punching Sanji. Robin is probably reading - she always manages to find books somewhere - and Franky and Usopp are probably trying to build some kind of cool gadget out of leftover parts. Chopper is probably with Zoro; maybe they're asleep together. The only one missing from their mix is Luffy.

He wonders if they miss him and decides after a minute that they do - they have to. Maybe they're already at the lodge, waiting for him.

"Please just wait a little longer," Luffy says out loud, flopping back onto the couch.

"What was that?"

Luffy jolts upwards and Sabo walks into the room, pushing his hands through his messy hair. "Ah, sorry, I was talking to myself," Luffy explains.

"Whatever you say." Sabo yawns. "I found some instant meals under the floorboards upstairs - come on, tonight we feast like kings."

"Yay!" Blues fading away, Luffy throws himself upwards, staggering on his injured leg. "Should we wake Ace?"

"No - let him sleep. It's been a tiring few days."

"Aren't you tired too, then?"

Sabo wrinkles his nose, opening the door to the kitchen. "Nah. I'm more used to missing sleep than that nerd. I'll be okay."

The kitchen is dark and so Sabo lights a candle, carefully using a match from a box in his pocket. Matches are rare nowadays, incredibly so, and valuable too. With no electricity, the world is run by the next tier of technology. He and Luffy sit down opposite one another at the kitchen table, candle burning between them, and Luffy nurses his throbbing ankle with his hand.

"Why are you more used to it?" he asks.

"A few months back, I got these-" Sabo points to the gruesome scars on his arms and face. "Hurt like a bitch. And I couldn't lie down, so I stayed awake for most nights for a long time. Soon Ace just couldn't keep up, so he'd sleep and I'd stay awake and keep watch."

"That sucks."

Luffy watches Sabo rip open a sachet of instant noodles, chin on the table. The twenty-year-old stands and moves to the sink, turning the tap - a glob of a brownish-black goop drops from the facet, making a wet sound as it hits the metal of the grimy sink. Sabo grimaces and covers his nose, stepping over the crushed zombie corpse that he killed only hours ago.

"How'd you get them?" Luffy asks. "The scars, I mean."

Sabo's shoulders stiffen for a moment, and he pauses. Then, he says, "There's some water in my pack upstairs, and some fuel tablets. Look around for some kind of travel stove. I'll grab the stuff."

The older man leaves the room, and Luffy watches the tight set of his shoulders as he walks away. Sighing, Luffy stands, supporting himself against the table. The conversation is decidedly over.

Sabo and Ace definitely have their fair share of secrets.

Chapter Text

“The world is shit.”

“Good morning to you too,” Sabo says matter-of-factly. “You’ve got a bit of dust… everywhere.”

“The goddamn ceiling fell on me and all you say is-”

“The ceiling didn’t fall on you!” Luffy pipes up from the doorway. “Just… a bit of it! The dusty bit!”

“Yeah!” agrees Sabo. “And now the dusty part is...all over you.”

“I hate you,” Ace assures him as he shakes dust out of his hair.

“Love you too,” Sabo shoots back playfully.

The easy banter abruptly becomes awkward and Luffy leaves in the wake of the tension, whistling uncomfortably. Sabo hesitates for a moment and then walks forwards, sitting beside Ace on the bed and starting to pick out the bits of dust settled in his hair. They’re both silent for a while.

“What do you think of Luffy?”

Sabo thinks for a minute. “Good question. I don’t know. He’s a good kid, definitely, and a good fighter. And if he’s got a group to get back to then we should help him get to them. But…”

“He’s still a stranger,” Ace finishes. “And the last time a stranger came along with us…”

Sabo shudders, and his burn scars feel as though they’re tingling slightly. “Please don’t.”

“Sorry - I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Taking a deep breath, Sabo shakes his head. “No, I know what you mean. But this is different. What happened back then… we were stupid. We didn’t see the signs. But Luffy’s just a teenager - he isn’t like that-”

“But we can’t be sure, Sabo-”

“Why are you so paranoid?”

“Because-!” Ace cuts himself off with a frustrated little groan. “Because I don’t want to see you get hurt like that again. He got away and I couldn’t do anything, I just had to watch as you spent days in pain - I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. I don’t want to go through that again, I don’t want you to go through that again. Okay? That’s why.”

Sabo’s hands still, and then fall into his lap. “Ace…”

“Look, I shouldn’t have brought it up. The point is… let’s just be careful. Play it safe. Alright?”

“Alright,” Sabo repeats. “And if it means anything, Ace… it wasn’t your fault. What happened.”

Ace’s face tightens and now Sabo knows that they’re edging into dangerous territory, into land that neither of them have dared to stray close to since back then. “It wasn’t yours, if that’s what you’re trying to say-”

“It wasn’t either of us,” says Sabo, firmly. “It was him. It was his fault, because he’s the one who did it.”

“But if we had- if I had only foreseen it-”

“You couldn’t have. Ace, trust me on this, none of it was you,” Sabo says emphatically. “And none of it was me. It’s happened now, so we just have to forget it. That’s what I’m going to try to do.”

“But-”

“And I know you want revenge,” he continues in a loud voice, “But I’m trying to move on. So stop blaming yourself.”

“I’ll… okay. I’ll try,” Ace lies through his teeth. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you.” With a small laugh, Sabo reaches across and brushes a little bit of plaster out of Ace’s left eyebrow. “That stuff got everywhere.”

“I’m gonna be finding it in my clothes for days,” Ace grumbles. “The world is shit.”

The atmosphere is suddenly a little sombre again. It’s bright outside, and the air is thick and hot, and Sabo can smell the coppery smell of dried blood as he rests his head on Ace’s shoulder. The smell is everywhere now - in the folds of people’s clothes, in the air, scattered through the crops. The smell of death is everywhere now, and he can feel it coating his skin.

“Yeah,” Sabo agrees quietly. Neither of them moves for a while.

It’s hot outside so they stay in, all of them. The lodge is quiet, miles from the big city, and it’s the nicest place that any of them have stayed in for a very long time. Zoro sits in the boarded-up window sill and polishes Wado, peaking out through the cracks in the wood occasionally. They’re just down the road from a small town - New Sweden, Texas - and Zoro can see a small, black and white chapel down the long road, surrounded by a small cluster of trees.* It’s somewhat peaceful. Creepy, and too empty, but peaceful.

“Zoro!” Usopp’s voice suddenly whines from across the room.

The swordsman doesn’t bother looking up. “Yes?”

“Shouldn’t we… at least try going back?” The seventeen-year old sounds uncomfortable.

“Elaborate.”

“I mean… Luffy’s still not here. He might be in trouble - he might be hurt-”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Zoro asks in a stern voice, still not looking up. “The rule’s always been that we go to our safe place, and we regroup there. And the rules say that we wait, no matter how long it takes, no matter what.”

“But… but Luffy might be-” Usopp’s voice cuts off.

“Might be what?”

“He might be hurt,” Usopp settles on cautiously. “He might not be able to get to us.”

“If we set off and he gets here, he’s going to think that we left him. And we can’t let that happen.”

“But what if just a few of us went back, what if-”

“And leave us even more fragmented than before?” demands Zoro. “I’m sorry, Usopp, but we have to wait. We can’t do anything risky. There are food stores here, plenty of them - we can make it. It took is five months to get here. We can wait for five more.”

“Alright…” Usopp grumbles, “But just know that I don’t like this!”

“I know, I know.” Zoro goes back to peering out of the window. The overgrown crops are slightly grey, dying from lack of water. The chapel rises from their midst like a giant, drawing Zoro’s gaze - it’s the only landmark on the road, the only building aside from their own ramshackle little lodge. “Have you seen Chopper?” he asks after a moment.

“No, not today…” Usopp’s voice fades a little, and footsteps follow the sound deeper into the shack. “I’ll look for him!”

And then Zoro is entirely alone again, still cleaning his swords, basking in the heat of the Texan sun. The lodge is nice. It’s not much of a lodge per se - it’s more like an abandoned garden shed with a few extra rooms. But after travelling for months, after worrying so much about Luffy and stressing over so much… it’s a good place to rest. To regroup. To find their feet.

They’re planning to head into the city on occasion. It’s occupied and the guys that own it may not be the most friendly, but they’ve met the group now and hopefully they’ll allow them back in. Zoro has a good feeling about the guys occupying the city - when they met on the way to New Sweden, they seemed to get along.

Internally, however, Zoro begs Luffy to hurry up so they can get moving again. The group have been travelling together since the very start, since all of this began. They’re not used to being seperated. They’re not used to staying still. And as agreeable as their neighbours may be, Zoro doesn’t like doing this one bit. He just wants to get back on the road; they all do.

“Hurry up and get here, Luffy,” Zoro asks quietly. The church down the road is an eyesore, so he looks away.

Sabo, Ace and Luffy walk all day. It’s slow going, as Luffy has to use a wooden plank as a crutch, but they stumble onwards anyway, headed north. After nine hours - ten until seven in the evening - they’re all too tired to do much more than wander into the nearest house, scour it sloppily for the infected and then crash. Cities are always dangerous so they don’t penetrate inner Brownsville city, skirting the outside instead, setting up camp in the suburbs. Brownsville is right in the south, boiling hot, drenched in overgrown greenery. The suburban street they stop on has been overrun by nature - trees break through the brick drives and weeds force their way through concrete, and ivy creeps through the broken windows of the house they stop in.

“Alright,” Sabo yawns just as Ace is about to pass out. “Don’t go to sleep just yet. I gotta go through this.”

“I hate you,” groans Ace.

“Love you too.” Coughing, Sabo reaches into his jacket pocket. “Okay, so when we were searching the house, I found this.”

He holds up a rolled-up map. Sabo is standing in front of Ace and Luffy, both of whom are lying on their backs on the couch, exhausted. The house is small and dingy but strangely homely, and it’s relatively secure.

“What’s tha’?” Luffy asks tiredly.

“This,” Sabo proclaims, “Is a map. Okay, I did a few calculations. We’re about 350 miles out of Austin, give or take. If we walked at a completely normal pace, without sleeping or taking breaks, it’d take us about five days to get there.”

“Five days?” Luffy seems to come alive in a second. “Five days! That’s awesome! I’m gonna see my friends in five days-”

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Sabo interrupts, “But we’re not gonna be there in five days. Not even close.”

Luffy falls back onto the couch. “But…why?”

“A few things. For one… we need to sleep. We walked for nine hours today and frankly we’re all dead, and that’s when we do have food. It’s gonna be a lot more tiring out there, away from any cities. So even if we do manage nine hours a day, we’d only be doing…” Sabo counts on his fingers for a minute. “About 26 miles per day, if that. It’d take us just under two weeks.”

Luffy starts to perk up again but Sabo continues, “But… it’s not gonna be that much, either. That would be if we were going at a normal pace with a normal amount of food. We’ve got a kid with a broken ankle on our hands.”

“What do you mean?! My ankle’s not broken!”

“You see that lump?” Sabo asks. “That’s a bone. And it’s not meant to stick out like that.”

Pouting, Luffy turns away.

“As I was saying - we did about ten miles today. The terrain was pretty flat but the way to Austin is mountainous-”

“Can I get a ‘too long; didn’t read’ over here?” Ace interrupts, face pressed into the cushions of the couch.

“In short… with everything considered, it’s probably going to take us just over a month to get there, if there are no problems. However, I am kind of considering problems-”

“Because Zombies?” Ace asks.

“Because Zombies,” Sabo finishes. “And, y’know. Starvation. Dying of thirst. Being murdered by travellers. Being-”

“Alright, sunshine,” Ace cuts in, “Let’s go to sleep. We boarded up the windows, you explained your brilliant plan, now please, let’s just sleep.”

“Alright, alright,” Sabo concedes. “Luffy - me and Ace are gonna sleep upstairs, so long as Ace can get his lazy butt up the stairs. Will you be okay down here?”

“Of course!” Luffy crosses his arms and frowns up at Sabo. “Me and my totally-not-broke-ankle are gonna be great.”

“I’m no genius and even I can see that that’s broken,” Ace chips in, extracting himself from the couch.

“If it was broken, wouldn’t it be bleeding?”

“No, it wouldn’t,” answers Sabo shortly. “I’m gonna leave before my head explodes. Night, Luffy and the totally-broke-ankle.”

“You’re seriously a dick,” Ace tells him quietly as they troop up the stairs. He’s grinning.

“Not as much of one as you,” replies Sabo. “Come on. Let’s get some rest.

The fires are over now. It’s very, very quiet.

He stays very still, curled up on the ground. He can feel the ash on his skin, in his hair, in his clothes. Earlier, when the sun was in the sky, there were voices. People yelling, calling out for loves ones. Eventually, screaming. But now the voices are gone, replaced by the smoke that covers everything - mercilessly, completely.

Ace barely managed to get away.

The world is dark and he doesn’t move, staying perfectly still. He’s terrified that it he twitches even a finger, those things are going to jump on him. They were everywhere earlier - he could smell their stench from the police department earlier, even through the barricades that people put up. Now, however, all he can smell is ash.

It happened so quickly. One minute half of the town were crowded into the police station, pressed up against one another, and Ace was wishing for Sabo to be there. The next the doors flew open and there were foreign bodies in their midst, shoving and biting and clawing and scratching and tearing them apart. And people were falling, then, hitting the ground around Ace one after another after another and he was running, screaming, throwing himself out of the open doors and then he hit the ground hard and then the world went black.

Sight and sense came back eventually, slowly, The sky was burning - the entire police department was on fire. Ace scrambled away in horror and watched it burn, listened to the screams, took in the smell of burning flesh, until he couldn’t look anymore. And now he lies still, in the dark and the silence. He prays for something, anything. Some kind of sign to prove that somebody is alive. Something to show him that he isn’t alone.

“Hello?”

Ace freezes. The voice is distant, too far away to see in the night, and it echoes loud through the streets. But it’s very, very familiar.

“Hello?!” It calls again, more desperate this time. “Hello? Ace?! Anybody?!”

There’s a choked noise like a sob and then Ace is on his feet and running, hard, towards the noise. He hears Sabo’s gasp - they’re so close - and then they meet eyes and then Ace’s body hits his, hard, so hard that they both crash down into the dust. Ace clings to his best friend so hard that he feels as though he can’t breathe, sobbing and shaking and terrified, but somehow so incredibly relieved.

“Sabo!”

“Ace? Ace?!” Sabo holds him in return, small fingers digging into his shoulders. “Oh god, Ace, please say it’s you-”

“It’s me, it’s me, I promise it’s me.” Ace pulls away and looks Sabo in the eye. Their legs are tangled together and the ground is hard and grimy but neither of them cares. “I’m not one of them.”

Sabo breaks down into sobs then - little, wet hiccups that rock his whole frame - and soon Ace is crying too. The infected are burnt - or at least, the ones on this side of town are. It’s just them.

And by morning, they run together.

Ace wakes slowly - the dream stretches and distorts into reality slowly. When he realises that he’s awake, he’s greeted with the view of Sabo’s sleeping face inches from his own. The burns are shiny in the light. His blonde hair needs a trim, and there are small, indistinct scars cross-hatched across the lines of his face.

Ace can tell the story of every one of them. The pinkish line across Sabo’s forehead is old, from when he was attacked by one of the other boys in a survivor camp. The small, white blemish on the corner of his lip is from a nasty scratch when he had to force himself through a broken window - they both did, to get away from a particularly bad horde back in Memphis. The tiny, raised line across his ear is from a comical accident with a broken microwave. The story of their journey is mapped out across his face, and Ace knows that the same applies to his skin, too.

Shaking himself out of his sleep-tainted thoughts, Ace pulls his eyes away from Sabo’s face and sits up. It’s early morning. Outside, the red brick of suburbia is faded in the sun. Clambering out of bed, Ace creeps past Sabo and down the stairs. The house seems very large, somehow, when there’s nobody awake. Luffy is still passed out on the couch downstairs, ankle purple and swollen, mouth lolling open. Ace wonders if he or Sabo should set the bone, or at least do something. But, at the end of the day… neither of them really know anything about broken bones. They might just fuck it up more.

For now, he decides to leave it.

Yawning, Ace wanders into the kitchen and sits down in front of the map on the table. Sabo’s marked the route from Brownsville to Austin in pencil - they’ll be following the TX-123. Ace traces it with his finger and realises, for the first time, how far it is. Before, there was never any hurry. But with Luffy here now… it’s like there’s more pressure. Like he and Sabo actually have something to commit themselves to apart from one another. The feeling is foreign, but Ace kind of likes it.

When Sabo and Luffy wake up and stumble, dead on their feet, into the kitchen, they finally decide their route out of Brownsville. The trio pack their things, shoulder their packs, and set off. It’s still slow - Luffy’s leg will take next to no weight, and his crutch is inefficient at best - but they’re well stocked on instant meals, and optimistic, and they have a plan.

The day passes surprisingly quickly and they make good time - nine miles are out of the way by the time they take a pit stop at a gas station outside of the city. Sabo kicks in the boarded-up door and immediately shoots two of the infected, right on the spot - it’s efficient, and both of them fall immediately. Sabo holsters his gun and glances around. “We’re clear. Pull the blinds - I’ll get the back door.”

It’s dark inside with the blinds down, with only a little golden sunlight hitting the floor in streaks. Sabo bolts the back door and moves the broken slushy machine in front of it, just in case. Ace and Luffy push an empty metal rack against the main entrance and Ace ties it in place with the bandana around his arm. The place is secure, and Luffy gives a huge, comical sigh of relief as he shifts to sit on the counter by the cash register.

“Finally!” he says loudly, propping his wooden crutch up beside him.

“I’m gonna check through the back-” Sabo starts to say, but Ace snags his arm.

“Sabo! Take a minute to breathe! We just got in.”

“Ace, no- I-” Sabo groans as he’s pulled to the ground and doesn’t put up a fight as Ace wrestles him down. “Please don’t sit on me,” he says in a tired, muffled voice.

“Too late,” Ace grins.

There’s a small ‘thwump’ when he sits and all the air seems to leave Sabo at once. “Ah- Ahhhng, Ace, get the fuck off-”

“Nope! Not until you sleep!” Ace teases.

Suddenly, Sabo twists over. Ace yelps as he’s dislodged and his knees hit the floor and then he’s on his back, Sabo on top of him with a victorious grin on his face. He’s sitting on his chest but it doesn’t hurt much - the blonde doesn’t weigh too much. Sabo leans forwards and says, “I win.”

Ace stares as his lips as he says it and then suddenly he suddenly has that stupid, brilliant surge again - a reflex that shoots through his bones and urges him to lean in and-

Ace pushes himself up. Sabo topples off of him and takes his offered hand to stand up. It’s suddenly awkward and Ace doesn’t know what to say, and he kicks himself for being so stupid in the first place.

With a small cough, Sabo says, “I’m gonna… I’m gonna go look in the back, for some stuff to sleep on.”

He leaves quickly and there’s a moment of silence. Then Luffy whistles, low and loud. “So, when’re you two gonna get married?”

“What-?!” Ace goes bright red. “We’re not getting married!”

Luffy blinks. “That’s what you do when you love somebody, right? Like Nami and Vivi always said they would!”

“Yes- I mean, no- I mean…” Ace makes a frustrated little noise. “It’s not like that! I don’t love Sabo. No way in hell. He’s like a brother to me.”

Luffy blinks again. “Whatever you say, I guess.” In quieter voice, he mumbles, “Touchy.”

“I-” Ace sighs. “Forget it. Point is, we’re not getting married-”

“I found a few sleeping bags,” Sabo says, coming back into the room. “Looks like somebody set up camp in the back room. And, Luffy - I’ve got a surprise for you…”

“You do?!” Luffy tries to jump off the counter and immediately topples to the floor, but he doesn’t seem to care. “What is it?! Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

Sabo drops the sleeping bags and then retrieves one more item from the back room - a grimy but intact crutch, the kind issued at hospitals.

Luffy whoops loudly, throwing his hands up in the air and scrambling to get to his feet. Sabo wipes down the dirty-crusted handle on his trousers and then helps Luffy to his feet, smiling. Ace sits back to to watch.

“Put your hand through there - yep, that’s it - and grab the handle. Alright, now try to walk forwards…?”

It comes slowly at first - Luffy is like Bambi on the ice from that stupid movie. Slowly, however, he gets the hang of it. Soon, the teen is hobbling around and around the gas station, laughing every time he stumbles, getting more and more steady as he goes. Ace cheers and jokingly tries to trip him up, and Sabo perches on the counter and claps with every lap of the room that Luffy manages.

When they finally go to sleep, all three of them are happy.

*just as a reference, this church and this town both exist! This church is actually one of the most photographed churches in Texas. It’s pretty awesome! And New Sweden is really creepy, in a kinda empty way… so of course i had to include it. The town legit, like, 5 miles out of Austin.

Chapter Text

The city is pretty much empty. It's going to take a lot of work to get it fenced off properly, and more work than that to get it completely claimed as ours, but we'll manage it. The group seem comfortable. Not nearly as tense as they were before we got here. We're going to expand, hopefully - but I'm not going to put too much faith into it.

One good thing - San Antonio does have a library. I can continue my studies here. There's a huge section I find interesting, and I'm already half way through an analysis of Batson's studies. He was a firm believer in the concept of altruism, even having written 'The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer' in 1991.

In my humble opinion, the man is a babbling idiot.

Innate, unconditional selflessness?  Please . Spare me. Batson preaches that people can deal with their own problems by stepping outside of themselves and helping others - but pray tell, when have humans ever dealt with anything like that? We work through the Id; our brains are hardwired to destroy. If humans were gentle, caring creatures, this would never happened like this. Humanity would have banded together, not broken apart.

Selflessness in itself is a painfully abstract term - nobody is selfless. If anybody truly didn't care for themselves, then they wouldn't have survived this. We're all dirty, violent, selfish creatures - that's the nature of the human race. As a fellow psychologist, it's laughable that Batson thought otherwise.

We're all bad people. Especially those of us left behind.

Signing off.

The days pass like the wind, quick and imperceivable. Sabo, Ace and Luffy leave Brownsville in the dust, and the crutch makes things a lot easier, though they're still not making as much progress as Sabo would have liked. The terrain is perilous and the area only this far from a city is packed with huge hordes. The infected wander down the TX-123 in clumps, dragging mutilated limbs, organs spilling out for broken ribcages. The trio eventually decide to ditch the road - they walk about 100 metres to the side of it, and move further away whenever there's too much activity.

Even with all the precautions, however, there are incidents. The infected are everywhere. Ace nearly gets his leg bitten off when he stands on one lying sprawled in the grass - it's only Luffy's quick reflexes that stop it. Luffy's crutch gets splattered with zombie-muck when he has to use it to bat one of them off of Sabo. Ace runs out of ammo for his shotgun.

"It'll be fine," he says in a relaxed voice. "Honestly. There's probably a store for this shit somewhere, we'll find it on our super-adventure-roadtrip."

"Please never say that again," Sabo tells him.

"Super-adventure-roadtrip? Come on, you know you love it."

"Super-adventure-roadtrip! Ayy!" Luffy cheers.

"Why am I even friends with you guys," Sabo asks himself.

"Friends?" Ace puts a hand over his heart. "Sabo! I thought I meant more to you than 'friends'!"

"Fuck off."

The day continues with much of the same - joking and trekking through the wilderness under the hot sun. Ace points out the sunburn lines on Sabo's pale skin and Sabo, in return, uses Luffy's crutch to whack him over the back of the head. Hobbling along enthusiastically, Luffy doesn't complain about his ankle even though it must hurt like a bitch - Sabo can admire that. They get eight miles under their belt before it gets too dark to go on, and they stop in a town called Los Coyotes.

Los Coyotes seems large and spaced-out when it's empty - the houses are almost intact, save for a few broken windows here and there, and the dusky sky sets a strange, purplish glow over the whole place. The trio stay close to one another as they walk through the streets. There's an abandoned high school in the centre of town, and Ace doesn't bother suggesting that they explore it because it's probably already been squeezed dry - or worse, it could be occupied. They walk past it and into a quieter area, where the houses are smaller and don't look like they've been rinsed yet.

"Let's stop here," Sabo yawns. "I'm beat."

They set up camp with their new sleeping bags in a small bungalow on the edge of town. There's a pouch of three or four instant meals and half a bottle of water stashed under the pillows in the couch, and a relatively newly-turned walker stumbling down the stairs. Luffy shoots it before Ace can even raise his gun, and grins sheepishly at the other two.

"Sorry! It's just so fun!"

"Only you would get excited about shooting the undead. Only you." Ace snorts and turns to Sabo. "Let's all sleep in the main room?"

"Alright," Sabo agrees. "Me and you can take the larger couch, and Luffy, you can take that one. Okay?"

"Sure!" Luffy bellyflops onto said furniture, dropping his crutch on the ground with a clatter. "This is awesome. Like a sleepover!"

"Sure, sure."

Sabo sits down on the floor, cross-legged, and pulls out his map. "Okay, if we're in New Coyote now… there's a big town nearby. Well, more like a small city. Raymondville. It's about eight miles north-west. We'd be going a bit off track, sure, but I bet we can find some supplies there. Maybe even another car."

"Alright, then it's settled. We'll head to Raymondville early tomorrow, maybe set up camp there for a few days," Ace decides, from beside Luffy. "But right now, I just wanna eat."

"Aye." Yawning, Sabo reaches until his pack and starts unpacking the trangia stove they got from the gas station. "Grab the fuel tablets, will you?"

Sabo and Ace share a cup of instant pasta and Luffy has sachet soup. The air in the small living room smells like fuel and artificial spices, and the trangia burns for a while so the small group stays warm. Ace decides to use a rare novelty - he pulls out a small candle from a pack of ten in his bag and lights it on the coffee table, and they eat by candlelight.

"So, how did you guys get here?" Luffy asks at some point, shovelling piping hot soup into his mouth. "Y'know - how did you end up in Texas? Where were you when the outbreak happened?"

"Oof." Sabo laughs slightly. "Y'know, Lu, you ask too many questions."

"I do?"

"You do," Ace confirms.

"Oh. Anyway - how did you get here?" continues Luffy, unperturbed.

"Well… Ace and I both came from a town near Buffalo," Sabo starts. "I moved there when I was seven, so did he, so we got along really well."

"Your stupid accent was even worse back then," Ace supplies.

"Yeah, well, you could barely speak English."

"Oi!"

"Anyway," Sabo continues, "When the outbreak started… we were pretty much the only survivors from our town. If anybody else made it, we didn't see them. We were only ten and we didn't know what to do so we mostly moved through different survivor camps. We never stayed too long, mostly 'cause this doofus would piss off the leaders half the time-"

"Are you talking about what I think you're talking about?" Ace growls.

"I definitely am."

"That kid attacked you! He nearly cut your damn head in half! I couldn't just do nothing!"

"We nearly died, you bloody prick-"

"What?" Luffy cuts in, uncomprehendingly.

"Some kid attacked me in a survivor camp." Sabo points to a thin scar on his forehead. "Gave me this. Ace nearly killed him. Only problem was, he was the son of the two people who ran the camp. We had to hightail it out of there - we were lost in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, Kentucky, for a month!"

"He deserved it," Ace grumbles.

"Maybe he did, but things only got worse when we got kicked out-"

"Foda-se-"

"English, please, Portuguese D. Ace!"

Ace throws his hands into the air in frustration and looks away, done with the argument. "You two bicker a lot," Luffy tells Sabo solemnly.

"We don't really mean it. I guess it just kinda happens when you're with somebody for ten years," Sabo laughs. "You're not really mad at me, right?"

"No," Ace admits. "I'm used to you being annoying."

"Bugger off-"

"We're not in bonny-wee England anymore, Sabo dear," Ace mocks. "If I'm not allowed to speak in Portuguese then you're definitely not allowed to speak in… British."

Luffy sniggers. "You guys are great."

"What about you?" Sabo asks, curious. "Where did you come from?"

"I moved here from Brazil when I was five," Luffy explains. "And the outbreak started when I was seven. It was pretty much just me and a few people from my town for a while - a few adults, but mostly kids."

"Where did you guys come from?"

"Ne- Nevo-" Luffy scrunches his brow. "I can't really remember. Something beginning with 'Ne'."

"Nevada?" Sabo guesses.

"Yeah, that's it! I don't really remember it. Pretty much all my memories are from Brazil or from after the outbreak."

"So you stayed with that group from then on?"

"Yeah - we never split up. It was just me and Nami, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Vivi, Robin, Franky and Brook," Luffy says, in one breath. "It's great! Though, we did get separated from Vivi a few months ago. We were looking for her when I lost the group too- we were about to head for the lodge, so they should be there now. Maybe Vivi's already there, too!"

"Yeah, maybe." Sabo and Ace exchange subtle looks.

If somebody is entirely alone out here, with nobody to watch their back, they're pretty much fucked. It's a fundamental rule in this new, strange world. You never, ever walk alone. There's no doubt in Ace's mind that had they not found Luffy, he would be dead by now. And if this 'Vivi' is alone, with nobody to rely on, trying to reach Austin from the Mexico border...they're not in a good place. Not at all.

Neither of them says anything.

"Should we get some sleep?" Sabo asks the room at large.

"Yeah, yeah," Ace agrees, blowing out the candle. "Night, guys."

Luffy stretches out on his couch with a contented sigh. "Night, Ace! Night, Sabo!"

"Goodnight," Sabo says, pressed between Ace and the back of the couch. He falls asleep smiling.

Raymondville definitely doesn't feel like much of a city. Even a town is pushing it. Torn-up buildings line every street, squashed together like sardines in a tin. From the second they enter the more dense area of the city, Luffy feels like he's being watched, and he makes sure to be very vocal about it.

"Look - I'm creeped out too," Sabo says eventually. "But we gotta find somewhere to pick up supplies, and somewhere to sleep. So just hang in there?"

"Fine." Luffy tries to cross his arms, but his crutch gets in the way. "I don' like this, though."

"Me neither." Shivering, Sabo glances at Ace. "Do you feel it too?"

"Yep," Ace replies, sounding grim. "We're not alone here."

"Reckon it's anybody dangerous?"

"I think we should be asking if it's anything dangerous." Ace's mouth stretches into a thin, agitated line. "I've got a bad feeling."

"Me too."

Sabo grits his teeth. "Let's find someplace to stay for the night. Whatever's here, we can fight it tomorrow."

"Deal."

The city is hard to navigate - every street looks the same, every corner turned feels like they've done it a million times. Eventually, Sabo brings out his compass and navigates them to the northernmost stretches of the area. The trio seize a smallish, abandoned motel and set up in one of the upper floor rooms. Sabo has to change the sheets for slightly less bloody counterparts, but apart from that, it's liveable. And like last night, the trio end up sitting around on the floor, talking.

Ace peels off his boots and nurses his blisters, cursing. "My blisters have blisters have blisters. Christ…"

"That's what happens when you walk for ten hours a day," Sabo quips. "You'll be fine, you big baby."

"Prick."

Luffy pokes at his ankle curiously. "The bone's still poking out. That sucks."

"It ain't just gonna heal overnight." Shrugging off his jacket, Ace stretches to nurse a sore spot between his shoulderblades.

Sabo watches him struggle for a minute. "Oh, come here."

As soon as Sabo starts rubbing the tight spot, Ace melts, stretching out his blister-ridden feet with a sigh. "You're the best and my favourite."

"I thought I was a prick?"

"You're my favourite prick."

"I thought I was your favourite prick!" Luffy accuses.

"Nah," Ace sighs contentedly, "You're just a prick."

By morning light, Raymondville still feels wrong. Off, almost.

Sabo decides to scout it out before they venture deeper into the city, and he promises to return quickly. When he does, however, it's not with good news. Out-of breath and with a grim expression, Sabo closes the door and explains the situation.

"There's a horde - a large one. Wandering through the centre of the city. There's no way this place could be occupied with that lot stumbling around. By the looks of it, the horde has been wandering around for a long time."

"Are you okay?" Ace asks, looking him up and down for injuries.

"A few saw me, but they're not freshly turned - they're slow little buggers, so I could get away." Sabo stretches a little. "I'm alright, Ace, really."

"Yeah, well, you always say that." Nevertheless, Ace backs off. "Alright, so what's our plan?"

Sabo thinks it over for a minute, waving hello to Luffy as he and Ace move away from the front door. "Okay - there is one upside to all this. With that huge horde wandering around, the chances are there's nobody here. And it's also probably likely that most shops haven't been completely rinsed. If we can try to get around them, maybe into a large convenience store, we could stock up on rations. And ammo for you, Ace."

"Sounds like a plan." Ace glances at Luffy. "One problem. How're we gonna be stealthy with a kid on crutches hanging around?"

Sabo smirks a little, getting that look in his eye that Ace very much doesn't like. "Oh, I've got a plan for that part, too."

"Hey, you shits! Look over here!"

There's suddenly a horrible, grating racket, and Sabo can hear it clearly even from all the way up the street. Luffy looks like he's having the time of his life, smashing two broken pans together on the roof of the public library, and the infected all turn their greyish heads in unison and start stumbling towards him. The noise is so loud that it attracts the whole horde and Ace and Sabo exchange silent grins. The plan is working perfectly so far.

On silent feet, the pair dart through the shadows, across the boarded-up shopfronts on this side of the street where the horde just were. Sabo points to the entrance to the convenience store - a relatively-large, abandoned Walmart - and Ace nods. They run in together, Sabo shooting Luffy a thumbs up over his shoulder as the kid continues to scream his lungs out at the zombies.

After the double doors slam behind them, the shop seems very large and very empty. The walls drip with sludge and limescale - sunlight filters through gaps in the grime in the windows. Shafts of light seep through cracks in the ceiling, catching on the thick dust, lighting up the empty aisles. Ace shudders slightly.

"Creepy…"

"I know... " Sabo shakes his head. "C'mon. There's gotta be something left here. Or maybe somebody's stashed something in the back - this place could be a gold mine."

Ace reaches across to a mostly-empty stand near the door and grabs a faded but intact halloween mask, painted to look like some kind of demented clown. "Oh, yeah, sure. Goldmine. Gotcha."

"Let's just take a look around," Sabo says, rolling his eyes.

There're only two infected in the whole place and Sabo kills them with a knife through the skull, so as not to make too much noise. Altogether, it's a good haul - they manage to snag just under thirty IRMs, enough food for the next week or so, and a few cans of fresh water. Ace also manages to scare the life out of Sabo twice with the mask, until Sabo eventually loses his cool and smacks Ace across the side of the head.

"The look on your face!" Ace laughs, as they walk back towards the entrance.

"Shut up!"

"You scaredy cat-"

"I'll smack you again."

Swinging his pack over his shoulder, Ace grins and opens one of the doors, letting Sabo through first. On the roof, Luffy is still yelling and generally being a nuisance but he sounds a lot hoarser now. Ace shoots him a signal and the teen nods, backing away from the edge of the roof. Slowly, as the racket fades into nothing, the infected disperse and spread, and Ace and Sabo exchange looks before taking off back north, up the road towards the motel.

"The kid isn't useless afterall," Ace jokes, slightly out-of-breath, as they approach the edge of town.

"I never thought he was," replies Sabo.

Luffy is already in the motel room, trying to straighten out the dented metal of the pans he was smashing together as he sits on Ace's bed. He looks up as they walk and in beams, opening his mouth to speak.

"Hey!" His voice is pitifully scratchy, completely worn down, but he sounds proud of himself. "How'd it go?"

"Give your voice a break, jeez." Ace shifts the crutch off the bed and sits down beside the teen, shuffling through his bag and spreading the IRMs out on the bed. Twenty-nine packets. It's more in reserves than they've had for a while. "And...it went pretty well."

"Couldn't have done it without our distraction, though." Sabo messes up Luffy's hair as he passes. "You did good."

"Thanks!" Luffy coughs. "My throat hurts…"

"No shit!" Ace sits up. "Sabo, grab the trangia. Tonight, we feast!"

Evening slips into night easily. Sabo and Ace end up sharing again, bickering over whether the pasta is done but then unintentionally Lady-and-the-Tramp'ing it when they get to sharing. Luffy laughs so hard that he falls off the bed. Ace doesn't stop blushing for about an hour afterwards.

"You're the tramp," Sabo tells him, completely seriously.

"You're saying you're the lady?"

"Well, I mean, I am British-"

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

"She was English in the film! Right?"

Ace rolls his eyes. "Fuck if I can remember. It's hard to watch films when there's no fucking electricity."

"Hey, maybe they've got electricity in Austin!" Luffy says excitedly. "We can watch it there, right?"

"It's a deal," agrees Sabo. Then he leans back, putting a hand over his eyes. "Fuck, I'm tired."

"That's what happens when you walk for-"

"Don't even try, Ace."

Ace laughs. "Touchy, touchy."

"What's the plan for tommorow?" Luffy asks. "Are we getting to Austin soon? Are we, are we, are we?!"

Sabo thinks for a moment. "Well, we've gotta take the 69E outta here, and then follow the 77 north. There's a pretty long stretch of just nothing there - no towns or anything - so we'll have to keep a pretty good pace do we don't get left out there when it's dark. Then we reach a town called Robstown, where we can rejoin the 69E, and then it's just a matter of following the 37 at Calallen-"

"Words, Sabo. Please use them."

Sabo flips him off. "We walk. You complain. We sleep. You complain. We reach Austin. You complain more, because you seem to have a thing for complaining."

"Y'know, it's so easy to forget why I tolerate you sometimes."

Sabo laughs. "Because you love me?"

"Yeah, sure. Because I love you."

Sabo and Ace stare at each other for a moment. A moment too long.

Then Ace breaks the moment, glancing to the side, cheeks still a little pink. "We should… we should go to bed."

"Alright," Luffy agrees slowly, glancing between them. "Are you two okay…?"

"Yeah!" Sabo coughs a little. "We're fine. Just… fine. We're fine."

"Totally fine," Ace agrees, "Absolutely."

"Okay…"

"Yep. Fine."

"Okay, I got it!" Luffy laughs, a little uncomfortable. "I'm gonna… sleep."

"Night!" Ace shrugs off his jacket, still red in the face. "We're gonna head in, too."

"Mhm." Sabo pulls off his sweatshirt, folding it on top of Ace's jacket. "Sleep well, Lu."

"Goodnight!" Luffy says in his croaky voice, rolling over.

Ace blows out the single candle. As always, Sabo and Ace get under the same covers, falling into a familiar position. Sabo presses close to his best friend and sighs, concentrating on his breathing, feeling Ace's pulse. It's warm. Sabo stares at the ceiling, wondering what he and Ace are. Wondering how Ace feels. Wondering how he feels.

The apocalypse really isn't the best time to fall in love.

Chapter Text

It rains in the morning. It pours like mist over the empty town, and drips noisily from the gutters. Sabo wakes up early to watch it – rain is rare and something about it is distracting from everything else. It's kind of nice. The air is thick with humidity and every surface is coated with stringy, silvery dew. In the rain, dreary southern Texas becomes a tropical rainforest, overrun by uncontrolled nature. It's peaceful. In a morbid, apocalypsey-kind of a way.

It isn't often that Sabo thinks about his family, but today is apparently just one of those days. Sabo's pretty sure that he's one of the only people in the world who is truly… not too upset over the state of things. Sure, they suck. The world is going to end. Everything has gone to hell and they're all going to die soon, no doubt about it. But at least now, Sabo has a world at all. If he had stayed with his parents, he would have never had had Ace. He would never had had freedom. At least that's something to be thankful for, even despite the dire state of everything else.

The rain makes him think stupid things, Sabo decides. Thinking too much nowadays never leads to anything good. It's better not to think about the world, or you end up hating it even more.

With a deep sigh, Sabo stands and stretches. The doorstep outside of the motel room is shaded from the rain but his skin still feels wet, hair sticky with condensation. Yawning, Sabo pulls his hands through his hair and wanders back into the motel room, taking in the drab space passively. Luffy is curled up like some kind of monkey on his bed, one arm thrown off the bed. His broken ankle is still worryingly swollen, and creates such a distinct lump that Sabo can see the indent of it under the covers. Ace is curled up where Sabo left him, one arm thrown over the place the blonde slept, face surprisingly young in sleep. Sabo forgets sometimes that Ace is only twenty. He sometimes forgets that he's only twenty.

Sabo glances at the light outside, frowning. It must be past nine by now; they really should be moving. But at the same time…

It's raining. And the rain does strange things to Sabo's mind, so he sighs and slips back into bed, letting Ace pull him back in, pressing his face into the other's neck. The motel room is warm and safe and not many places are so Sabo decides, for once, to fuck it. Maybe they should take a break. Slipping an arm around Ace's neck, Sabo closes his eyes and soaks up the warmth, and drifts back to sleep to the sound of the rain.

God hates them.

When Sabo wakes up again, the rain has stopped. The apartment is no longer warm – there's a draught rushing in through the open door. And there's somebody standing in the doorway who is definitely, without a doubt, a human.

It takes Sabo a fleeting moment to get his bearings and then his hand is on his knife. The man in the doorway is tall, with long, dark hair, and he looks as surprised to see Sabo as Sabo is to see him. He's broad-chested, broad-shouldered, with the scruffy starts of a beard lining his chin. Sabo rolls out of bed and ends up standing between the man and Ace, knife poised in front of him, crouching and ready to spring.

A second passes and then the man says, calmly, "We're not here to hurt you."

"Get out, then," Sabo snarls.

By this point, Ace is slowly waking up, shifting a little on the bed. "Sabo?" he asks in a sleepy voice.

"Stay back, Ace."

The man in the doorway puts his hands up, slowly, taking half a step back. There's no fear in his face. "We're not here to hurt you," he repeats again.

"Then why don't you leave, old man," Sabo growls. "Get out of here, before I make you get out."

The air is tight. The man doesn't budge. Sabo can make out the silhouette of somebody standing behind him, but can't distinguish the details of the person's face.

"One of my people is hurt," the man says calmly. The words cause a shiver to creep through Sabo. The man is part of a group. He's the leader. "We ran into the horde in town-"

"Are they bit?" Sabo asks, now stumbling back.

Ace is fully awake now, standing up, and he puts a hand on Sabo's arm protectively. "Stay the hell away from us. Luffy, get up!"

"She's not bitten," the man says quickly. "We just need someplace to rest for-"

"We're in a motel," Sabo deadpans. "Find another goddamn room and stay away from my-"

He cuts himself off because he doesn't know whether to refer to Luffy as a friend or not, and he has even less of an idea about what to call Ace.

The man in the doorway hesitates. "Do you have any medical supplies? Anything at all?"

Sabo takes a small step forwards and then he sees her – a young woman, maybe around his age, leaning heavily on the shoulder of another just behind the man. She has short, auburn hair and her face is very pale, and there's so much blood coating her shoulder that Sabo hesitates…

"Fuck it – just come in. But the first person who tries anything loses their eyes," Sabo threatens. "And like hell am I letting you all in. You, old man, and the girl. That's it."

"Alright." When the man turns towards the door Sabo can see a strange, jagged tattoo on the side of his face – or maybe it's a scar. He can't see too well.

He supports the girl into the room and onto Ace and Sabo's bed. By now, Luffy is awake and standing, leaning heavily on the wall. His crutch is across the room, to far for him to get, and his ankle is very purple and very swollen. Ace positions himself slightly in front of Luffy and Sabo follows, and all three watch as the man kneels beside the near-unconscious girl, hands wet with her blood.

"Koala?" His tone grows more commanding. "Koala, you need to wake up."

The girl gives a soft groan. "Dr'gon?"

"How are you feeling?"

One of the people in the doorway, a woman with frizzy purple hair, tries to take a step inside. Sabo raises his knife and she takes a step back, hands raised, but still explains, "She got caught on a piece of shrapnel on the east side of town. Things are torn up over there."

"Do you have anything that can help her?" the leader asks Sabo, face still strangely calm.

Ace sighs. "Only some bandages - but we can't just give them away to some strangers-"

"You can have half of the roll we've got," Sabo decides. "And that's it. And then me and my...friends are going to get the hell out of here."

The girl stirs a little. "Where are we?" she slurs, looking at the leader with half-lidded eyes.

"I'll get her wrapped up," Sabo tells the leader, "So long as you get your people out of the doorway and into another room and away from the injured kid I've already got on my hands."

Luffy complains in the background that he isn't a kid but Sabo completely ignores him. He and the leader lock stares for a minute. The girl is getting paler by the second. Ace is very tense at his side.

Then, the leader nods slowly. "Don't try anything," he warns.

Then he stands, in a smooth motion, and moves towards the doorway. Sabo keeps half an eye on him as he moves to get the bandages out of his pack. Luffy, however, seems to notice something - the kid stumbles forwards, hobbling on his injured ankle, saying excitedly, "Nice jacket!"

He reaches the doorway and then something happens, quicker than Sabo's eyes can process. One minute Luffy is on the landing outside, reaching out to grab the shoulder of the purple-haired lady, and then there's blood on the ground. He stumbles backwards with a yell and Sabo can see the light glint off of the woman's knife. The kid hits the wall, clutching at his face.

There's utter silence for only a second and then Ace is there, pulling Luffy closer to him with a growled, "Don't fucking touch him!"

"Whoa, wait-"

"Wait, they didn't mean to-"

"Infected! Look out!"

Everything explodes.

Sabo catches a glimpse of the group scattering, breaking formation as they try to get into the room. But Ace is faster. In a quick movement he slams the door, holding Luffy tightly by the arm, and there's a horribly loud pounding on the door. Then, more yells - running footsteps up the landing and away. Low growls and gurgles. The sounds of the infected, giving chase.

The room is quiet for a moment. Luffy reaches up and feels his face and his hand comes away bloody. There's a long, curved gash underneath his right eye that's already bleeding heavily, trailing deep ready down his face, and Ace looks practically murderous. He grabs the kid by the shoulders and practically carries him over to the bed, because his ankle seems just about spent by now, and Sabo suddenly has to make a decision; two injured people, him, Ace, and a horde of the infected outside.

What the hell are you meant to do in this situation?

Sabo cracks his knuckles reflexively and tries to stay calm, trying not to look at the blood on Luffy's face or listen to the little noises of pain coming from his throat. "Okay. Ace, grab the first aid kit - that thing probably needs stitches-"

"You think I know how to stitch shit up?!" Ace sounds both angry and panicky and Sabo takes a deep breath.

"You're gonna have to learn," Sabo replies grimly. "I'm gonna bandage the girl up, and then we'll just have to wait it out. Make sure the door's locked."

Ace doesn't look happy about it, not by any means, but he follows Sabo's orders. Heart pounding hard, Sabo turns to the girl and moves closer to her, cautious. She still seems out of it, but her consciousness seems to be coming back slowly, and Sabo knows that he doesn't have much time before she starts asking questions, starts resisting.

Sabo gets to work, trying not to think about the monsters outside or the blood on Luffy's face or anything but his goal. He's not going to let the girl die.

Luffy needs only four stitches and though he doesn't like the needle, he thinks the scar looks cool and keeps poking at it until Ace tells him off. Ace who, try as he might, can't get the kid's blood off of his hands. The trio sit in the corner, waiting for the (now bandaged) girl to wake up, and Sabo doesn't feel like talking much so he looks at the ground. There's blood on his hands, too.

The girl, Koala, had a nasty gash across the front of her shoulder. Luckily, however, it wasn't deep, so Sabo was able to stop the bleeding relatively quickly. She never did come fully to consciousness (at least, not yet), so Sabo moved on to Luffy, helping to get the wound on his face bandaged and to stop the bleeding. The kid looked to be in a lot of pain but he didn't complain the whole time and Sabo gave him a short hug afterwards, just as a way of saying thank you for letting them do what they had to do. Luffy really is very, very skinny.

So now they sit, knees touching. Ace spins the half-depleted roll of bandages around his finger. Luffy looks pale but cheerful. And Sabo keeps glancing back at Koala, wondering when she's going to wake up. There are still infected outside but there's no banging on the doors. They don't know the trio are here. The rest of Koala's group are nowhere to be seen - or, rather, heard. Sabo hopes internally that they found somewhere safe to hide.

"Assholes," Ace mutters. "Cutting up a fucking kid-"

"I'm fine!" Luffy defends. "Look, the person who did it sucks but it didn't even hurt!"

"Like hell it didn't, you were crying!"

"Yeah, well… it don't hurt anymore. And I snuck up on 'em, so of course they got upset!"

"Upset isn't-"

"Can you two can it for one minute?" Sabo asks dryly. His head is pounding with the beginnings of a migraine.

"Sabo?"

"Sorry. It's… been a long day."

Ace shuffles closer and punches Sabo's arm lightly, before slipping an arm around his shoulders. "Ya' big baby," he says, though not without affection in his voice.

"Oi!"

"It's gonna be alright."

"How can you know that?" Sabo asks. "Ace, there are fucking zombies right outside that door."

"Yeah, that's the thing - they're outside the door."

"You're impossible," Sabo says, but even as he does he wraps an arm around Ace in return and he can feel the smile pushing at the corners of his lips. "Why I even put up with you I don't know."

"You guys are weird," Luffy interrupts, "I like you!"

"You've told us, Lu."

"'Lu'?"

Sabo shrugs. "I don't know. Lu, Luffy."

There's an awkward silence for a moment. Ace leans back against the wall, sighing. Only feet away, the infected troop up and down the landing. Hopefully they'll get bored soon enough and move on. For now, however, the trio just have to wait it out.

Luffy yawns a little. "I wanna sleep."

"Mmhm." Rubbing his eyes, Ace wrinkles his nose. "We can't. Gotta wait for her to wake up, gotta make sure we don't die, gotta generally do… zombie-apocalypse stuff."

"You're not wrong," Sabo says. "Oh, yeah, Luffy - how's your ankle?"

Luffy wrinkles his nose and pokes at the swollen area. "Hurts," he admits, and Sabo knows just from that that it must be very bad because Luffy is rarely bothered by anything, least of all pain.

"Can you still not put weight on it?"

"I don't think so. If the bone's sticking out, don't you think we should… I don't know, set the bone?"

"Yeah, well, even if we tried, we would probably just mess it up more," Ace snorts. "It's not like me or Sabo are doctors."

"Shouldn't we try, though?"

Sabo shifts uncomfortably. "I don't think so. We don't want to make it worse."

Sighing, Luffy leans back against the wall. "Hurts like a bitch."

"I know," Ace sighs, "But your group has a doctor, right? I'm sure he'll be able to help. Or, at least, we'll find somebody who can in Austin."

"Okay!" Luffy doesn't sound like he completely believes him, but he doesn't object. "I hope we do."

"Me too."

Koala wakes a few hours later. She's mistrustful, obviously, but friendly enough (though she doesn't seem to appreciate being separated from her group). Her eyes are jaded and she's stocky and strong and generally intimidating, but she has some cool stories and she doesn't seem even close to losing her cool about their predicament.

Her and Sabo really hit it off.

"Yeah," Koala smiles, "Me and my group are headed for the boarder. We heard there's some kind of stronghold in Brownsville."

"Brownsville?" Frowning, Sabo says, "We were there not long ago - though we didn't go into the city centre."

"Did you meet anybody?"

"Nope, nobody. We stuck to the suburbs mostly," Sabo explains. "Where did you hear about it?"

"There's a small group setting up base in San Antonio; y'know, near Austin?" Koala wrinkles her nose. "Their leader is not a friendly guy, let me tell you. Nearly killed Iva-chan when they first ran into him. But once we sorted out an agreement with him, his group gave us some info. You might run into them if you're headed north."

"Our destination is Austin - or a few miles out of Austin, I guess. By the sounds of him, I'm not that eager to meet the guy in San Antonio."

"You're headed to Austin from Brownsville?" Koala frowns. "You're a little off track, right?"

"Well actually, yeah - but how did you know?"

"Oh." Koala turns a little pink. "I plot most of the routes for my group. I guess I've got most of the major roads memorized."

"Seriously? That's awesome!" Sabo grins. "Your group is lucky to have you."

On the other side of the room, Ace rests his chin on his crossed arms and watches. There's a tightness in his jaw that he can't find an excuse for. Sabo looks very, very happy - and goddamnitt, Koala is blushing again-

Luffy pokes his cheek. "You're glaring again."

"No I'm not, twerp. Leave me the hell alone."

"We're locked in a hotel together, though - I can't," Luffy says, infuriatingly matter-of-fact. "And plus, I can't stand up. Anyway - why are you so angry?"

"'m not."

"You totally are."

"I'm not!" Ace growls, so loudly that Sabo and Koala glance over. He doesn't meet their eyes and eventually they lose interest, going back to being wrapped up in one another, complimenting one another and smiling and blushing and-

Okay, so maybe Ace is a little angry.

"I'm just… we're… me and Sabo aren't used to being with other people. I'm used to it being just me and him and I'm uncomfortable, okay? Sue me."

Luffy snickers into his hand. "You're really dumb."

"Shut up!"

"It's true!"

From across the room Sabo bursts out laughing at something, grinning under his mop of hair. He looks happier than he ever does with Ace, something vibrant about him, so bright that it almost hurts Ace's eyes. Ace can barely look at him without something hot and intrusive burning a hole in his chest. Sabo's hair is unwashed - his clothes are dirty and his skin is scarred and everything about him is cracked and chipped - and he's one of the most amazing things Ace has ever seen.

"Let the zombies kill me soon," Ace mutters to himself.

It's long past dark when there are suddenly gunshots, distant and muffled but definitely there, from the street outside. Koala and Sabo break off their amiable conversation and even Ace lifts his head from his knees, sour-spirited but curious.

"Do you think that's them?" Koala asks.

"Yeah, no shit it's them." Ace stands and moves to the door, listening. "The infected are still out there."

"Hopefully not for long." Sabo puts a hand on Ace's arm and there's a tiny pinch of electricity shooting through Ace's veins that he does his best to ignore. "Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Sabo raises his hands in surrender. "I was just wondering. You seem tense, is all."

"I'm fine." Ace turns to Koala. "You can go to your group when they get up here, but no way in hell are we letting them in. Not after what they did to the kid. Understood?"

Koala nods and stands, using the wall to support herself. Her jacket is thick with dried blood. Ace knows that he's being unreasonable and generally unbearable and he knows that he has no right to act like this but he can't seem to help it. Luffy tries to stand too, because everybody else is, and slips back down to the ground pathetically.

"Ankle's still broken," he says pointlessly to the room at large.

"I'd guessed that." Ace listens harder. "Okay, they're close. It sounds like they scared off the infected. You can leave now."

"Okay, okay." Koala turns to Sabo. "It was good to meet you. And if you really do agree with what our group stands for that much… you know where to find us. Brownsville. Okay?"

"Alright," Sabo agrees. "It was good to meet you, too. I doubt I'll be abandoning these losers anytime soon, but… I'll bear it in mind."

Koala beams. "See you again, Sabo. Luffy." She turns to Ace and nods. "Ace."

"Bye," Ace says as she leaves, striding confidently onto the empty landing. Her jacket is a little too big for her small shoulders. Ace suddenly feels like a dick - she didn't deserve that. "We'll see you again!" he calls after her, on impulse.

"Aye, aye." She waves a hand without turning around. "See you, Ace."

They watch her until she's out of sight.

Ace closes the door with a sense of finality. The room feels small again, more homely, less crowded. Sabo yawns and says, "Fuck, I'm tired."

"Same. Sleep?" Ace asks.

"Damn right." Sabo turns to Luffy. "If your ankle isn't feeling any better tomorrow morning, tell us, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's fine, though!"

"It absolutely isn't."

"We can still travel, right? So it's not a problem."

"Yeah, we can travel, at the pace of a snail." Sabo rolls his eyes. "And that's not the only problem here. We kinda don't want to cause any permanent damage, y'know?"

"I still don't see what the big deal is," Luffy says dubiously. "It's just an ankle."

"'Just an ankle'? 'Just an ankle'?!"

"Yeah, that's what I said!"

Sabo looks like he wants to slam his face into a wall. "How did you survive this long?"

Ace breaks up the argument with a pointed cough. "Let's get some sleep. We can head off early tomorrow."

"Alright, alright, I got the hint." Sabo traipses over to their bed, grimacing a little at the specks of blood on the pillowcase and turning the offending item over. "G'night, Luffy."

"Night!"

Ace helps Luffy over to his bed - 'not a big deal' my ass, Sabo thinks privately - and then crawls between the covers of their own bed. There's no heat in this building and his fingertips are freezing. Sabo holds them tightly in his own and breathes warm air onto them a few times and Ace whispers, "Thanks, Sabo."

"No problem."

Something's slightly different about Ace tonight. He holds onto Sabo tightly, presses as close to him as he can. Sabo doesn't bother to ask why. He knows Ace very well, better than anybody in the world, and he's got a bit of a clue as to the reason why Ace is acting like this. And if he's right… he doesn't know what to think. It's all too complicated.

Barely able to keep his eyes open, Sabo clutches the hands in his own tightly and drifts off to sleep.

Chapter Text

The barrier is coming up. It’s taking a while, and a lot of planning, but my men are eager to build up this stronghold and they’re working hard. Of course, our territory is far from completely impenetrable, but we’re getting there.

Some men from Austin passed through earlier today. We didn’t give them any trouble, but I made sure to make it clear that this city is ours. We may not be as powerful as those occupying Austin, but we will defend what’s ours. They got the message and treated my men with respect, and me especially. I hope they remember what I told them - it won’t end well for them if they do not.

Of course, the Austin stronghold is still going strong. Rumour has it that it’s completely impenetrable by now. It's leaders are very strong, and they have an advantage over us in terms of sheer numbers of people. We have the advantage, of course, of tactics. I say this in confidence of my own skills. It’s not like I would attribute much to Kidd, the lumbering idiot that he is.

So things are going well. Hopefully, San Antonio will be able to rival Austin in size and power someday. But for now, we’re going to carry on building.

Signing off.

The trio leave early in the morning, as the dawn is just beginning to show. Ace laments his blistered feet and Luffy hobbles along, hands red raw from the hard handles of the crutches. Sabo doesn’t say much, still tired - he just listens to Ace’s footsteps and the sound of his own steady pulse beating in his ears. He’s got a headache, sharp and persistent, right in between his eyes. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to fade anytime soon; on the contrary, it only seems to be getting worse. The sunlight is too bright in his eyes, intrusive and painful.

“My hands hurt,” Luffy whines, three miles out of Raymondville. They’re behind schedule.

“Yeah, well, suck it up,” grumbles Ace. “All of me hurts and you don’t see me complaining, twerp.”

“You just did!”

“Yeah, well, after all of your whining I get a free pass.”

“Let’s keep moving, guys,” Sabo cuts in, just to get them to be quiet. “If we push we can make it to Robston by nightfall, but only if we make better pace. We need to get there, or we’re going to be stuck out here in the dark.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know.”

“Hey,” Ace says suddenly, “You know when you were talking to Koala, she said you admire their group’s principals?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Sabo frowns. “Why?”

“What are their group’s principals? What part of them did you like?”

Sabo thinks for a moment. “Their aim isn’t setting up base or finding some kind of stronghold. I guess that appealed to me. They pick up survivors as they travel and they move together, keeping a steady pace and not stopping for long anywhere. It’s a kind of outlook I guess I haven’t seen before - not counting you and I, and Luffy’s group, I guess. Apparently their leader, a guy called Dragon, is the one who coined the idea."

“Dragon?” Luffy’s head snaps up.

“Yeah. Weird name, right?”

Luffy nods, looking kind of thoughtful, and says nothing. The trio walk on. Sabo kind of wants to ask, but at the same time knows that he shouldn’t. If Luffy wants to tell them, he will.

Ace stretches. “Ugh. It’s so hot.”

“You’re from a hot country - you’ll be fine.” Sabo rubs his peeling, sunburnt nose. “Robston’s a pretty big place, and pretty off the beaten track in terms of roads. It should be alright there - I doubt we’ll run into anybody. So let’s just keep walking.”

Suddenly, there’s a small yelp. Luffy’s crutch slides on the dusty ground and he falls forwards onto his injured ankle, yelling with pain as he crumples to the side. Sabo just manages to catch him under the arms, lowering the (surprisingly light) kid to the ground as Ace runs over. Luffy has gone abruptly pale and his face is tight, and his hands are reaching out towards his broken ankle as if he wants to guard it from harm.

“Are you okay? Lu, are you alright?” Sabo’s hands hover just over the injured area, and it’s obvious that he’s unsure as to what to do.

Luffy grimaces. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Ow.”

Ace goes to grab the abandoned crutch while Sabo tries to tentatively peel back the trouser leg. It’s a delicate operation and Luffy is grey with pain but eventually, he manages it. The ankle itself is still swollen as hell, and still discoloured, and the bone is so obviously broken that Sabo has to force down a little bile in his throat. He feels utterly helpless.

“There’s not a lot I can do,” he tells Luffy grimly. “I don’t want to make it worse. Sorry, Luffy.”

“It’s okay!” Luffy tries to stand and immediately falls again, and it takes both Ace's and Sabo's help just to get him back on his feet. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re an idiot,” Ace says bluntly. “You can barely stand up. Not the best situation when there are zombies everywhere.”

“But it’s been fine so far!”

“That means literally nothing.”

Luffy clenches his jaw, grabs his crutches and hobbles forwards determinedly. Sabo watches his back for a moment. His short arm is stretched as far as possible, perfectly straight and rigid, just so he can keep his hand awkwardly wrapped around the handle. His injured foot is an inch away from the ground at all times, as though he’s afraid to let it touch it.

Sabo and Ace exchange glances, and Ace rolls his eyes, the corner of his lip quirking up, as if to say, ‘idiot’. Sabo nods in reply, and they both grin and take off after their youngest member.

Sabo suddenly feels a lot better.

Days roll on. It’s been a long time since any fresh meat found its way to Robston, and most of the infected there are barely holding themselves together, trailing detached arms and legs, packed together in the streets. It’s an unpleasant town in every way imaginable and the trio are glad to get out of there. As soon as the sun rises after one unpleasant night, all three of them take off into the morning sunlight, leaving that particular brand of hell behind them.

Calallen is the next town, but it’s quite a way further along - they arrive nearly twenty-four hours after leaving Robston. Sabo is so tired that he can barely string a sentence together and Ace laughs at him, before promptly passing out on the doorstep of their chosen safehouse. Luffy is so exhausted that he drops his crutch six times while walking through the house alone, and Sabo doesn’t have the energy for tenderness as he dumps Ace onto his sleeping bag and helps Luffy with his crutch.

Light is growing outside. They walked all day and all night and Sabo can feel the ache in his bones, even through the haze enveloping his senses. His eyelids are heavy, drooping every few seconds, and he can feel merciful sleep calling for him. Luffy and Ace are already snoring. Sabo practically collapses onto his sleeping bag and then the world goes dark, and his body loosens up, and sleep comes quickly.

Correction; sleep comes quickly, but it doesn’t last long.

Sabo snaps awake to the sound of glass shattering. For a moment, the room is still and he can see it in perfect clarity. Midday sun filters through a single grimy window. Ace is on the floor, sleeping bag tangled around his legs, and Luffy is a few feet away. They both appear dead to the wall. Sabo gathers his senses, eyes aching with fatigue, and only has a split second to wonder what that sound was before-

The door to the room flies open.

Sabo scrambles to his feet, hands fumbling with his knife to steady it in his hands. Neither Ace nor Luffy wakes, though they both shift a little in their sleep. His heart is pounding hard. There they are - two of the infected stumble in, broken jaws hanging from their rotted faces, pale eyes wide and unseeing as they stagger towards Sabo. He tightens his fingers on his knife and lunges forwards, purposefully stepping on Ace’s foot as he goes in order to wake him.

Sabo goes for the first of the infected with a swipe so harsh that he feels something in his arm pop. It’s rewarding - the knife sinks satisfyingly into the zombie’s skull, hitting something wet and fleshy beneath the bone, and the thing collapses to the ground. The second one is right on top of him; Sabo pulls his knife back out of the crack in the skull and slams the handle up into the zombie’s chin. Something in its neck cracks and its head is thrown backwards at an unnatural angle. Sabo keeps pushing, harder and harder, until the back of the infected’s head hits the wall. It doesn’t take much force to crush the bone altogether, and Sabo lets the still, dead thing slide to the ground, wiping his bloodied, pus-covered hand on his trousers.

He listens hard for a moment. There’s no movement in the house. The two were probably alone. But just to be safe, Sabo closes the door tightly, and props a nearby stool under the doorknob.

“You awake, you big loser?” he asks Ace as he turns around.

Ace is sitting up, nursing his foot, and he looks like he’s going to scowl at Sabo before he notices the blood on his hands and clothes. “Uh...what?”

“Eloquent,” Sabo quips. “And, well, I guess I was getting some early exercise done while you slept like a baby-”

“Shuddup!”

“I mean, it’s true-”

“Alright, alright, take your head outta your ass,” grumbles Ace, “I’m just tired. Sue me.”

“Aww. Cute.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Yeah, yeah, I love you more. Shift over.”

Ace moves over, unwrapping the sleeping bag from around his legs, and they slip into that all-too-familiar position - Sabo’s arms around Ace’s torso, head under his chin, Ace’s legs curled around Sabo’s. So physically close that awkwardness is all but impossible, because they’re used to living like this. Used to being so close, so alone but for one another. Used to having nobody but each other.

“I’m so tired,” Sabo yawns into Ace’s neck. “Ugh. Why did we walk for so long?”

“Luffy and I asked you that about a million times when we were walking,” grumbles Ace, “And you told us to stop complaining.”

“Yeah, well, you two are always complaining. I’ve got the right to tell you to tone it down.”

Ace can’t come up with a good reply - his brain is too sluggish. Instead, he just says, “You’re getting blood on my shirt.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Here’s me thinking zombie guts were romantic.”

“I regret to inform you that you are very much wrong. I mean, that’s gotta be, like, at least number five on the list of things to ruin a first date.”

Sabo presses a little closer. “I dunno, wouldn’t it add a little… mystique? Character?”

“If you think zombie guts are a good tactic to woo somebody, I think you’re doing okay for character already.”

“You act like I’m the weird one, but you’re the guy with zombie blood all over his shirt,” Sabo says airily.

“Wasn’t that your fault?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Ace yawns, perhaps even wider than Sabo, and closes his eyes. “I’m gonna sleep and deal with the blood later.”

“Alright, alright.” Sabo closes his eyes too, tuning out the smell of blood and enjoying the warmth filling the room as the day wanes on. “See you in a week.”

“A week?”

“As in, when I wake up.”

“Ah.”

“Goodnight, Ace.”

“Night, Sabo. And for the record, I still hate you.”

“Okay, okay, and I still love you. Zombie guts and all.”

“Ditto. Zombie guts and all.”

By the following morning, the trio emerge from the safehouse, disorientated but eager to get back on the road. Luffy’s crutch is still holding strong, though the end is crusted with mud and zombie muck from where he’s used it as a weapon. His ankle, however, is another story. The swelling is looking more severe than ever and the skin is a nasty looking purple colour, tinged with yellow. The bone looks more pronounced than ever and Sabo knows that it must hurt like a bitch - and of course it’s Luffy, stubborn little idiot that he is, isn’t admitting how bad he is. He’s perfectly willing to complain about everything except for the one actual problem he has. Ace… doesn’t understand him.

Calallen is completely empty, with no uninfected people to speak of, and even the infected are few and far between. They rob a department store and come away mostly empty-handed, though Ace does pick up a cowboy hat that he grows quickly fond of. He wants to make some kind of smart comment, maybe try to joke with Sabo about how it looks, but then he promptly remembers the previous day and has to force down a blush. They were flirting. Ace wants to scream at the mere memory of it.

So instead Ace just straightens his new hat and stays silent, watching Luffy clamber along on his crutch. The kid obviously misses his group. He talks about them in his sleep a lot; Nami and Sanji and Zoro - especially Zoro. Ace is glad that they’re on track for Austin, of course, but some small part of him isn’t too eager for them to get there. He can’t imagine it going back to just him and Sabo, somehow.

“Alright - plan.” Sabo turns, walking backwards so he can face the pair. “If we set off now, we can make it a good few miles before it gets dark.”

“How far is the next town?”

Sabo chuckles uncomfortably. “Pretty far, but I’m hoping we can find a gas station or something to settle down in…”

“And if we can’t?”

“Then we’ll just walk until we find somewhere,” Sabo decides.

Luffy throws his arms up in the air. His crutch goes flying and Ace sighs, going to fetch it. “I don’t wanna do all that time again! Ace is boring and stupid when he gets tired.”

“Oi!”

“I mean, you’re not wrong.” Sabo turns back around. “Alright, let’s head north and catch the 37 out of here. Then it’s a long haul to the next county, and then it should be a few days of trekking through one of the more town-filled areas.”

“Who made you team leader?” Ace asks.

“Me. I was the only one who voted.”

“But are you even allowed to vote?”

Sabo laughs. “I mean, none of us are, technically. We are but humble foreigners.”

“So isn't the ‘team leader’ referendum kinda illegitimate, if none of us can vote?”

“Big words there, Ace.”

“Question.” Luffy wrinkles his nose. “There’s no government. Or laws. So aren’t you two just being stupid?”

Sabo bursts out laughing, while Ace growls, “Oi! I don’t want to be called stupid by you, of all people!”

Luffy shrugs, but the movement lifts his crutch from the ground and he topples over, unbalanced on one leg, hitting the floor in a cloud of dust. Sabo helps him up while Ace laughs, hard, at the ridiculous picture the event made. Luffy laughs too, unbothered by his mistake, and all three of them make for the 37, aiming to get away from Calallen as soon as they can. The road out of the town is very quiet, and very long under the clear Texan sky, and there's something hopeful in Ace’s chest as they walk.

A few miles down the road, as the sun is beginning to descend through the sky, Sabo stops and pulls out his map. “I got a little blood on it yesterday. Damnitt, it’s hard to read.”

As he attempts to scrape some of the blood off with his fingernail, Ace laughs. “I always knew that stupid blood would be the end of us.”

Sabo squints at the map. “I think we’re closer than I thought. There’s a particular symbol for city, and there are no other cities around here - so Austin should be only a few more days up the road.”

“You sure?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.” Sabo pockets the map. “Let’s keep moving. And, Luffy, you’re doing great.”
Luffy blinks. “I am?”

“You are,” Sabo confirms. “I know that leg must hurt like a bitch, and you haven’t complained once today. It’s only a few more miles to go and then we should be back with your group, so just keep going, okay?”

Luffy beams. “Okay! Thanks, Sabo!”

Ace, however, is frowning. “You said we should be there soon, but… at the beginning, you predicted that we’d get there in a little over a month. It’s only been a few weeks.”

Sabo shrugs. “We probably just made better time than I’d predicted. Come on - let’s keep moving.”

Like they had hoped, the group find a gas station a little further down the road, and Luffy kills three of the infected just inside the door, grinning maniacally as he does. Of course, immediately afterwards he loses his crutch and then his balance, but it doesn’t stop the little flash of pride in Sabo’s chest. They find a few more rations inside, standard IRMs, and Ace gets to cooking them while Sabo sharpens his knife and Luffy gleefully tells the story of when his group met a really weird ‘giant-zombie’ that spewed poison everywhere and nearly killed him.

Ace looks unconvinced. “No zombies have ‘poison’.”

“This one did!”

“And if it ‘nearly killed you’, why do you sound so happy about it?” Sabo laughs. “You’ve been smiling since we got in here.”

“We’re nearly in Austin!” Luffy beams. “I’m gonna be able to see my friends soon! I can’t wait…”

Ace’s shoulders tighten a little - Sabo notices immediately, while Luffy doesn’t pay much heed. Sabo shoots Ace a worried look but the man just shakes his head, obviously unwilling to talk about it, so Sabo doesn't question him about it, turning back to Luffy instead.

“What are your plans after you get back with your group?”

“We wanna stay in Austin for a while, at least,” Luffy explains. “Then… I dunno. We don’t really plan ahead much.”

“Hm,” Ace says simply. “Sure.”

“Reckon you’re gonna miss us?” Sabo jokes.

“Yeah.” Luffy wrinkles his nose. “I like you two! You’re like older brothers.”

Ace makes a little choked sound. “Sorry, what?!”

“You are! Sabo’s really nice but also kinda scary but really nice too! And I love annoying Ace! Ace is the best.”

Ace is very obviously blushing but he hides it behind a scowl. “We’re not your older brothers, kid.”

“Okay, okay! Bro,” Luffy snickers.

“Hey!”

“Calm down, bro.”

“Stop calling me that, you lil’ nerd-”

“Jeez, bro, chill!”

“You’re not getting any food.”

“Touchy…”

Sabo looks up. “Do you really feel that way?”

“Yeah! You guys took care of me and all that, and you’ve patched me up a lot and you’re helping me find my friends. You’re definitely like brothers!”

“Well, me and Sabo aren’t brothers,” Ace says flatly. “I mean, we are, but we’re- and we-”

“Yeah, definitely not brothers,” Sabo agrees, “As in… I mean-”

“Yeah, we-”

“I-”

“I get it!” Luffy intercepts cheerily. “You two can’t get married if you’re brothers!”

The room goes silent. Ace looks like he’s going to punch Luffy, right then and there. Sabo buries his reddening face in his hands and groans, “Luffy, shut it…!”

“It’s true!”

Ace practically throws the little plastic plate of instant noodles at Luffy. “Eat, you prick. Why are we even travelling with you?”

“I don’t get why you’re angry! I’m right!”

“You’re not!” Sabo yelps, but then hesitates and says, “You might be... I don’t know-it’s none of your business anyway!”

Luffy wolfs down his noodles at double speed, still grinning. “Okay, okay!” he says, through a mouthful of food. “Sure. I toootally believe you.”

“Asshole.”

Something slightly strange happens when Ace hands Sabo’s food to him. Their fingers brush and something inside of Ace prickles, like his heart has goosebumps. Sabo meets his eyes and for a moment, Ace is sure that he’s going to do something he’s going to regret very, very much. In the candlelight, Sabo’s face is sharply outlined and every inch of him seems alive somehow and Ace feels his own body clench up as a wave of something he can’t describe takes over his systems.

Nothing happens. Not really. The feeling doesn’t fade - it lingers beneath Ace’s skin like some terrifying, brilliant curse. But Sabo takes his food and looks away, cheeks a little pink… and when Ace tries to withdraw his hand, Sabo takes it, holding it tentatively in his own. Ace can’t breathe and for a moment something hot soars upwards from his chest into his throat. He accepts the gesture and they both drop their arms, hands entwined on the dusty ground, not looking at one another.

Sabo squeezes his hand, tentatively. Ace squeezes back a little harder. The blonde takes this as something of an invitation, weaving their fingers together and holding Ace’s hand very tightly. All of Ace’s senses seem to blur - the firelight is but a reddish-orange hue in his vision, and all sound seems to dull a little, and the only thing he can feel is his hand in Sabo’s (or maybe it’s Sabo’s in his - he can’t tell anymore). Ace is lost in the feeling of it. He can’t think straight.

Luffy says, “Uh, are… are you two okay?”

Ace blinks. He and Sabo exchange glances, and then Sabo smiles and something inside of his chest melts.

“Yeah, we’re alright,” Sabo tells Luffy. “We’re… we’re just fine.”

Chapter Text

It had all seemed too good to be true - Sabo should have known that at some point, it had to go wrong.

They leave the gas station and the memories of the previous night behind them. Sabo tries to forget that he and Ace ever held hands in the first place but a part of him (a very large part, as a matter of fact) really doesn’t want to. Still, they don’t talk about it the morning after, and nothing more comes of it. The little shred of hope in Sabo’s chest fades until he can barely feel it anymore, and they go back to how they’ve always been.

The calm is broken in the night. They reach a roadside motel and all three are so tired that they decide, fuck it, they might as well call it a night. Sabo kicks the door open and immediately they’re forced back outside, fighting - the place is packed. Ace has a remarkable aim and his every shot downs another of the infected, but they just keep coming and Sabo’s ears are ringing as he tries to fend them off. Even Luffy is fighting hard, leaning on Ace, using his crutch as a makeshift weapon as he stabs it through the eye socket of one particularly rotten zombie. It goes right through the cracked skull and out of the other side and Luffy yanks it out with a yell of victory, watching the infected one fall.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t celebrate yet!” Sabo grits out.

One of them manages to snag his sweatshirt and he struggles madly. There’s the sound of ripping fabric and a pair of jaws snap together an inch from his nose and in that moment, Sabo is sure that he’s going to die. He braces himself for the bite-

Another gunshot and the thing holding him falls. Sabo barely has time to shout a ‘thank you’ to Ace before they’re fighting again.

Finally, after what feels like hours, they stop coming. Sabo pulls his boot out of the skull of the final one and turns to Ace and Luffy, who both look winded and a lot more tired than before. Stretching, Sabo says, “Well, that went well.”

“No shit.”

Luffy wipes his crutch on his pants, grinning cheerily. “C’mon, let’s go inside!”

Inside the motel, it smells like rotten flesh and gone off food, the air thick with a stench like curdled milk. There’s the top half of an infected woman scrambling across the floor towards them, nails scraping on the wooden floor as she gnashes her jagged yellow teeth at them, and Sabo crushes her skull easily under his boot. Ace raises an eyebrow at him but doesn't comment, and Sabo is glad of it.

“C’mon,” Sabo decides. “Let’s scope the place out.”

They decide not to split up this time. Luffy stays close to Ace and Sabo walks behind them, making sure nothing can catch them by surprise, watching their backs. It hits him at some point that Ace actually does care about the kid, and a lot at that. It’s startling but strangely heartwarming to watch them walk together, Ace sighing and offering a supporting arm as Luffy slips up, the kid grinning up at him as if he’s the best thing since sliced bread. It’s good.

On the staircase, however, Luffy freezes.

There’s an infected girl at the top of the stairs, stumbling down towards them, spine curled. Ace raises his gun to stop her but Luffy yells, “No, wait!”

“Luffy, what-”

Luffy tries to push the barrel of the gun down and Ace’s shot hits the thing’s leg instead. It stumbles, hands hitting the ground, and as it hisses and spits and snarls Luffy calls out, “Stop! I know her!”

Sabo exchanges a worried glance with Ace but before either of them can do anything, Luffy has ripped himself out from under Ace’s arm and is staggering up the stairs, towards the girl, trying to reach out to her. Ace tries to grab him but the kid is fast, even when he’s injured, and he evades him.

“Luffy! Stop!”

Luffy reaches the step a few below the girl and stretches a hand out towards her and for a terrifying moment Sabo thinks this is it, he’s going to be bitten, he’s going to die. The infected girl stares at his hand for a moment, jaw still contorting, and then just as she lashes out, Ace grabs Luffy under the arms and yanks him backwards and both of them stumble back down the stairs. Luffy yells and fights against the hold, but Ace doesn't let go.

“Wait! Please!”

“She’s gone , Luffy,” Ace grunts, an elbow flying into his stomach. “She's gone!”

Sabo steps forwards and lets Ace push the kid onto him - and fuck , Luffy’s crying, body jerking against Sabo as he hyperventilates. There’s movement from the girl as she starts to get up and then the sound of a gun being cocked, and Sabo makes sure Luffy isn’t looking as Ace fires.

And just like that, it’s over. The girl falls heavily on the stairs, blood smearing on the wood, and her blue hair is filled with grime and guts. Ace steps back, breathing hard and holstering his gun, and Luffy cries harder, trying to turn around to look, trying to see what happened even though he must already know. Sabo keeps the kid facing his chest, knowing that seeing it is only going to make it worse, not wanting to put Luffy through any more pain.

After a moment, Ace is there too, holding on tightly from the other side. His forehead ends up rested against Sabo’s. And it hurts. And Sabo’s breath rattles through his chest and there are too many emotions inside of him to name and Luffy’s choking on his grief, his panic.

Sabo hates this.

At some point, Luffy tries to hit Ace, tries to pound his fist against his chest. But his hits are weak and sloppy and Ace just takes it, and it's obvious that the only thing that’s actually hurting him is seeing somebody like Luffy like this. Because he’s Luffy . He’s not meant to break down. He’s not meant to be sad. He’s not meant to cry like this.

Eventually, Luffy’s sobs tail out and he’s just holding Ace, barely able to stand up. Sabo blinks hard himself. Days like this are hard. He’s used to seeing Ace cry, even though it is rare, because there will always be days when the reality of it - the end of the world, the death, the whole shabang - hits them. And they get by. They always have. It’s just a part of life. But both of them are completely unused to grief like this because they’ve never really cared about people like they care about each other.

And apparently Luffy, too

They troop up the stairs like a funeral procession; Ace is at the front, carrying Luffy with the kid’s arms looped around his neck, and Sabo is behind them, carrying Ace’s gun and the crutch. There’s something solemn in the air as they step past the girl’s body. They stop at the first room they can find and Ace lays Luffy out on the bed, stepping back. Luffy curls up into the covers and buries his head in his knees, and doesn’t look at either of them.

Sabo glances at Ace and their eyes meet and Ace’s hand brushes Sabo’s, and there’s something so very sad in his gaze and Sabo almost can’t bear it. Ace’s pinky finger worms its way around Sabo's and they both squeeze tightly, so tightly that it hurts a little. On the bed, Luffy sniffs, and Ace’s face contorts.

“Ace,” Sabo whispers. “Ace, it’s not your fault.”

“Let’s go to bed,” Ace murmurs.

Wearily, feeling like something very raw has cracked open inside of him, Sabo agrees. They don’t let go even after Ace falls asleep, and Sabo stares at the ceiling and asks himself how he’d ever thought this could go as smoothly as he’d hoped.

Her name was Vivi.

Ace can’t stay asleep for long. After a few hours he extracts himself from Sabo, resisting the urge to do something stupid as he looks down at the blonde’s sleeping face. Luffy is passed out, exhausted, curled up very small on the large bed. Ace tries not to look at him for too long.

The motel feels very large as he walks through it alone. It’s old, with a structure more like a hotel than anything, and the staircase smells like death. She’s still lying there, crumpled on the steps, and for some morbid reason that he can’t place, Ace finds himself sitting beside her. Her blood gets on his jacket.

There’s a name tattooed messily onto her wrist; ‘Nami’ . The name of one of Luffy’s group. Ace wonders about the story behind it. Wonders how Nami would react to a scene like this. How she would feel if she could see the girl right now.

Her name was Vivi.

Luffy was saying it over and over as Sabo held him back, as Ace pulled the trigger, as if saying it enough times would be enough to bring the girl back. Ace wonders whether Nami’s got ‘Vivi’ tattooed onto her somewhere.

Without warning, an image of Sabo with a ‘Ace’ tattoo comes into his head. Sabo, alone in the motel. Sabo, shot dead by a stranger. Ace, miles away, unable to do anything. The picture makes his stomach clench and Ace squeezes his eyes shut, immediately wanting to go back to the room, just to make sure Sabo’s alright, just to make sure that he really is still there-

“Her name’s Vivi,” says a voice at the top of the stairs, and Ace jumps, twisting around. Luffy’s standing at the top of the staircase, and doesn’t look eager to come down. His eyes are bloodshot and swollen.

Ace stands and walks up the stairs to him. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“How’re you doin’, kid?”

Luffy plays with a loose thread hanging from the seam of his pants. “‘M okay. Tired.” He looks Ace in the eye. “Her name was Vivi.”

“I’m sorry,” Ace says. “I’m so sorry, Luffy.”

“Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault.” Luffy wrinkles his nose. “It’s okay. She’d rather be dead than one of them. I know her.”

Ace sits down on the top step and Luffy sits next to him. “She was travelling to Austin too, right?”

“Yeah. Same route as us.” Luffy speaks with a painful kind of candor. “If we’d been a bit faster, we could’a got here.”

“I’m s-” Ace starts to say, but he cuts off the - orry because he knows that it’s not going to do any good. “She’s not in pain,” Ace says.

“People aren’t in pain when they’re dead?”

Ace looks sidelong at the smaller boy for a moment before sighing, moving an arm to wrap it around him. The top of Luffy’s head burrows into the crook of his neck. “Nah. It’s meant to be great. People say it’s someplace awesome, up there.”

Luffy stares at him for a moment and then smiles a tiny little smile. It’s not much, but it’s enough. His hand comes up to play with the bloodied hem of Ace’s jacket. “I’m glad.”

“I used to think it was easier,” Ace says suddenly, in a rush. “Back when it all started. I used to think it would be easier to just be dead.”

Luffy is abruptly silent. Ace can’t seem to make himself stop.

“I used to want to stop the pain, I guess. ‘Cause the world sucked and I didn’t want to live in a world like this. And I was young and tired and hurt and I didn’t want to hurt anymore, I didn’t want anything to hurt anymore.”

Ace reaches up hurriedly and scrubs at his eyes. Luffy is still silent. The air is thick.

“Sabo got me to stop thinking it. Because...Sabo’s great. He’s goddamn amazing. He’s funny and stupid and and smart and an idiot and- and- and he means more to me than anything on earth and I care about him, so goddamn much, and I… love him. More than I can say in words. And if I died, he would be alone and...and that hurts more than anything. And I couldn’t leave him.”

Ace coughs, suddenly uncomfortable. Luffy still hasn’t said anything.

“I’m sorry. I guess what I’m trying to say is…if I died, I would want Sabo to live. I wouldn’t be sad about myself - I’d be happy that he was still here. So… you should live on. For Vivi. Because she would’a wanted it. Because she doesn’t blame you and she doesn’t hate you. She probably just wants you to live.”

And now Luffy moves, rubbing his nose, and something wet hits Ace’s shoulder. “Okay.” A shuddering breath. “Okay. I’ll try. I promise.”

“I’m proud of you, kid.”

“Hey, Ace, can I ask you something?” Luffy’s voice is a little thick, wobbling with every syllable.

“Sure.”

“When’re you gonna tell Sabo?”

Ace is half tempted to make it into a joke, to laugh off the comment or tell Luffy to shut it or something. But he somehow can’t make himself do it. Not now. Not after saying all that.

He sighs, running a hand back through his hair. “I don’t know,” he settles on. “I don’t know. Someday. When things are less confusing. When we’re in Austin.”

“He likes you, too. You know that, right?”

Ace snorts. “What makes ya think that, little idiot?”

Luffy doesn’t laugh for once, head still resting on Ace’s shoulder. “It’s true. He looks at you, when he thinks nobody’s watching. And he goes all red when you’re getting changed, and he held your hand and he always says your name when he’s sleeping. And you guys might die someday and you might leave it too late and then you’d hate it and… you should say it. Because you don’t want to run out of time, Ace.”

Luffy’s eyes flit down to Vivi and Ace says, “C’mon. Let’s sleep.”

Sniffing a little, Luffy nods and stands up, and lets himself be carried back to the room because the crutch can be exhausting and he’s never felt more tired. Ace realises with a jolt how much it feels like he’s carrying a child - Luffy is very light and very young and very small and the world feels incredibly unfair for a second.

Suddenly, further down the hall, there’s the ‘bang’ of a door slamming open. Running footsteps. Then, Sabo comes pelting around a corner, hair flying. He skids to a stop when he sees them, pale and panting, and manages to gasp out, “I thought something had got you- sorry- panicked-”

“Hey, it’s fine, we’re fine!” Ace closes the distance between them and Sabo meets his eyes, still panting hard.

“Sorry,” he manages to say, a little more composed. “Had a nightma- I’m fine. Sorry, I just panicked.”

Ace’s throat feels very tight and he tries to say something coherent and what comes out is a jumble of syllables that even he can barely understand. From his arms, Luffy looks unimpressed.

“What?” Sabo asks, confused.

“I- never mind. Let’s go to bed,” Ace says, face burning because he knows full well what he intended to say and he hopes to god that none of it came out properly. “We’re all tired.”

Back in the room, Luffy mouths to Ace behind Sabo’s back, ‘ whimp !’

Ace ignores him, clambering back into bed with Sabo. The blonde is shaking a little - whether with lingering panic or adrenaline, Ace can’t tell - and he holds him until the trembles stop completely and they drift off to sleep.

Luffy is surprisingly quiet for the next few days. It shouldn’t come as a shock. He’s tired and grieving and even somebody like him can’t just bounce back from something like this so quickly. Ace is pretty quiet too, and Sabo doesn’t bother to ask why, wrapped up in his own thoughts.

They don’t move on the motel for a while. Sabo doubts that any of them are ready to leave just yet. Ace digs a little grave on the patch of grass outside and they bury Vivi together. There’s no procession, no grandeur, but Luffy says he thinks she likes it. Sabo nods, not trusting himself to speak, and watches as Luffy gives a little speech as he kneels in the mud about how death doesn't have to be that bad and he hopes Vivi’s not too sad now. He tells the patch of earth that he’s got brothers that are going to protect him now, and that they’re awesome, and Sabo and Ace don’t interrupt, not even after it’s over.

The basement is stocked and Sabo, for the first time in a long time, has reached a burn out. It feels as though they all have. He’s bone-deep tired; emotionally, physically, mentally. He and Ace mostly just explore the rooms leisurely, looking for knick-knacks to jokingly give to one another, and Sabo spends long, lazy hours talking to Luffy - about his group, about his home, about Vivi. It’s obvious that he misses her a lot. It’s painful to watch.

Ace, the idiot, is still blaming himself. Sabo knows full well that both he and Ace are sufficiently messed-up, but the guilt complex is becoming an issue that Sabo is hard-pressed to ignore. He tries to tell Ace that it wasn’t his fault, of course it wasn’t. It was necessary. But of course, Ace ignores him completely. Typical.

Luffy says one day, out of the blue, “I don’t want to leave.”

“What?” Ace glances up, Sabo’s head in his lap. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t wanna leave,” Luffy repeats. “I don’t wanna leave you two. I love my group but I love you two, too.”

“Well you can’t just abandon your family, Lu,” Sabo says. “You barely know us compared to them. And even if we do split apart when you get back to them, there’s no guarantee that we’ll never see one another again. It’s a small world.”

Luffy sighs, flopping back onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“We’ll miss you, too,” Ace puts in. “As annoying as you are.”

Luffy sticks his tongue out. “You’re annoying!”

“You’re not wrong,” Sabo agrees.

“Oi!”

Sabo laughs and they settle into silence for a minute more. It feels as though none of them have enough energy to talk very much. He stares up at Ace and, on impulse, reaches up to brush something off the underside of his chin.

Ace glances down at him, surprised, cheeks reddening. Sabo’s hand lingers, fingers brushing Ace’s cheek, and for a moment he forgets where he is and why he’s here and who he is. Ace’s hand comes up and a hand brushes Sabo’s own cheek and Sabo’s heart is pounding very, very hard-

Luffy coughs and the moment breaks. Sabo sits up, face burning, and moves for the door, muttering something about securing the entrances again. The door opens and closes behind him and Ace flops back onto the bed, groaning, throwing an arm over his eyes.

“Ow,” Luffy sums up. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, no shit,” agrees Ace. “Ugh. Stupid, stupid, stupid -”

Luffy laughs at him, and though Ace still feels like an idiot, it makes him feel a little bit better to know that the kid’s feeling happy enough to laugh at all.

“Another day with nothing. Are they ever gonna arrive?”

Nami bites her lip, tries not to think of the worst. “They’ll be here. I promise. They’ll get here eventually, we just have to wait it out - we’ve got food to spare here, so just try to be a little less impatient.”

Usopp leans back against the wall and plays with the string of his slingshot. “Look, I’m sure they’re both alive,” he says nervously. “But… they’re taking ages to get here. Couldn't we just…?”

“No,” Sanji puts in from across the room, reaching up to pull his overgrown hair into a hair tie. “No way. Look, I know you hate staying still. We all do. But we can’t risk doing anything except what they know we’re going to.”

“But… but what if they’re-”

“Don’t even go there,” cuts in Nami, fiercely. “They’re alive. And we’re going to keep believing that they’re alive until we see their dead bodies. Got it?”

“But-”

“You know Luffy. He’s too damn stubborn to die. He’s strong and a fighter and he’s not going to let himself be defeated anytime soon. And Vivi…” Nami coughs. “Vivi won’t die. Trust me.”

“Okay…” Usopp sounds dubious. “But just know that I don’t like this…!”

“Okay, okay, we know,” Sanji grumbles. “Now stop thinking so much. We can’t keep dwelling on them. They’ll be here eventually, alright?”

“Alright, fine.” Usopp stands up. “I’m gonna turn in. G’night.”

“Night, Usopp,” Nami says, watching him go and brushing a hand through her hair.

As the door closes behind the sniper, Sanji asks suddenly, “What do you think Luffy’s doing right now?”

Nami shudders a little. She hates thinking about it - Luffy, out there, alone, with none of them there for him. The kid hates being alone. It must be torture for him.

Sanji seems to know what she’s thinking. “Maybe he’s found somebody to travel with…?”

“Maybe,” Nami agrees. “Or maybe he’s found VIvi?”

“That would be good.” Sanji seems too worn out to put on his usual womaniser front. “I’m going to sleep soon. Should I get you some water, Nami?”

“No, thank you, Sanji. I’ll be alright,” Nami says sweetly. “Goodnight!”

Sanji smiles at her, moving towards the door. “Goodnight. Night, Marimo.”

Nami is left alone in the room - aside from Zoro, who’s sitting silently in the windowframe, on watch. “I’m not gonna be able to sleep anyway,” Nami tells him. “I can do that.”

“Nah,” Zoro says shortly. “Trust me, I’m doing a lot of worrying about him too. And Vivi.”

Nami rubs the corners of her eyes. “Ugh.”

“I know.”

“Alright, I’m going to talk to Robin,” Nami decides, standing. “Talk to you later, Zoro.”

He doesn’t look up. “See you.”

And thus, the days roll on.

Chapter Text

Sabo remembers how it began. How things were at the beginning of this mess.

People were scared. Terrified. That much was natural. For those first few days, just after the outbreak, it was crowded - there were people everywhere, clustered in the roads, travelling in hoards, following behind people who were pretending to know what they were doing. Flocks of lost, confused survivors were everywhere. It's human nature to gather into packs, to find a leader. And that's most definitely what most people did.

By the time a few months had passed, the world felt a lot more empty. The biggest groups were clusters of five or ten, filled with haggard faces and wary, scared people with no idea what they were doing. Even those groups were few and far between. And even then, months after the outbreak, it was random; there was no trend in who had lived that long. There were old people and young people - pensioners and infants, women and men, people of all shapes and sizes and states of health. Sabo remembers running into one particular group housing a bodybuilder who looked like she could crush his skull between her thighs, and a newborn baby boy, carried in a broken shopping basket.

It was only after a year or so, when the world was so desolate that he and Ace would go months without seeing anybody else, that Sabo noticed it. Patterns began to emerge. The extreme ends of the spectrum began to drop off - there were abruptly no more children, and nobody over sixty or seventy. The extremely overweight and the underweight dropped off too, leaving only those with enough muscle and durable enough bodies alive. How Sabo and Ace, two skinny kids with no fighting experience, survived… Sabo will never quite understand how they managed it. But they somehow made it through.

He remembers, especially, the government. At first they were everywhere; there were twenty different radio stations offering advice and instruction from the White House, and the factories that weren't overrun were made to produce thousands upon thousands of IRMs - instant ready meals - and ship them out to more affected areas. It seemed like the people in charge had things under control. All this was happening for about a year and then, just like that, it was over. There was no more news from the White House, no more supportive messages from the president.

It was obvious what had happened.

Sabo is no stranger to death - he's seen it over and over again. He has a vivid, nightmare-inducing memory of holding a bitten woman's hand as she sobbed and pressed her shotgun to the side of her own head. That was near the beginning, when there were still people everywhere. Sabo didn't even know the woman but he cried for hours after she pulled the trigger. He even remembers Ace's grey eyes glinting with wetness as he pulled Sabo away from her body. Neither of them is unfamiliar with death because it lies heavy over this country - hell, it's taken over the whole world. The smell of death is fresh on everything and it's impossible to get away from and Sabo knows it all too well.

Grief, however, is another story.

Sabo has never lost anybody he cares about. Not really. He assumes his parents died that first night. And he's seen people die before - a lot - but none of them have been close to him. All of his care and concern has always been directed at Ace and while Sabo has always recognised in the back of his mind that the codependency is slightly unhealthy, it's never really been that much of a big deal. Ace dying has always been something so far away, so impossible. Sabo can't even begin to imagine losing him.

But as they walk away from the motel, leaving Vivi's grave behind, Sabo can't stop thinking about it.

The sky is grey above - the day is dark and gloomy and dull. Neither Ace nor Luffy speaks. The air is thick and it's not overly cold but Sabo can't seem to stop shivering so he pulls Ace's jacket tighter around himself and tries to push his mind onto other things. But it's hard. Because… what would Sabo do if Ace died?

Die, is the answer his mind supplies at first. I would die too. If Ace was gone, I wouldn't carry on living.

But Sabo isn't quite happy with that answer, not really. If Ace was gone it would be hard, but Sabo would manage to carry if for nothing but the fact that Ace would have wanted him to. But where would he go? Would he move into the stronghold in Austin, or join Luffy's group, or try to find Dragon? All three of those options seem livable, sure, but none of them are Ace. And there it is again - that strange, cold dread in his stomach at the thought of losing Ace. Because after seeing Luffy grieve for Vivi, the possibility of Ace dying suddenly seems ten times more real.

And… death really is everywhere now, isn't it? It's impossible to escape from. Death is constantly around the corner and it could take Ace as easily as anybody else. And that would break Sabo - he's sure of it. That would tear him apart.

How would losing Luffy feel, he wonders. It would be awful - of course it would be. It's hard to imagine a world where he's dead and gone. He seems almost too bright to die. But no matter how bright and sunny and loud he is, he's also small and skinny and weak and injured… and Sabo finds himself imagining them, Luffy and Ace, lying side by side, still in death. He wouldn't be able to shoot Ace. Not even if he was infected, and too far gone to recognise Sabo as anything other than food. Sabo couldn't do it. He couldn't.

Shaking himself out of his morbid thoughts, Sabo glances around. The day is depressing and dark and Sabo does his best to convince himself that that's the reason for his bad mood, and these strange, alien thoughts. After all, he and Ace have been in the south for about a year now, and they've got thick tans to prove it. A cold, grey day is about as rare as a blue moon. Luffy seems unused to it too, shivering and tucking his arm around himself as he uses the other to hold his crutch. Ace is surprisingly quiet.

Today doesn't feel like a day when any of them can talk, really. It's a little hard to leave the motel. After all, it's hardly a happy place. But for a while, it meant safety and security and warmth - it meant a place where the infected couldn't get to them, and a place where Luffy could grieve and Ace and Sabo could stick together and try to find a way to help him. It was comforting - at least, it was for a while. But places like that pop up all the time. Places at which you're so tempted to stay that it's hard to leave them behind.

And god knows Sabo is used to leaving things behind.

Stop it, Sabo, he tells himself angrily. Stop with the stupid, pointless thoughts. They won't help anything.

But it's hard. Hard to stay cheerful on a day like this, when all Sabo wants is to turn back and go back to a place that is warm and safe. And he realises that he's being self-indulgent and stupid and that his brain is generally fucking up today, but it's hard to stop it from doing so. It's been a hard few days. Harder than most, anyway.

To his left, Ace sighs. "How far?"

"Three more hours, if we keep pace." Sabo glances up at the greyish clouds above. They feel like they're pressing down on them. "It's about midday. Let's keep moving."

Luffy nods, head down, and he manages to keep pace with the other two even as his crutch begins to slip on the increasingly muddy ground as they trek back into farming territory. After the third time he falls over, Sabo moves to stand closer to him, ready to catch him under the arms when he does. His ankle looks even worse in the dull light, pale and drawn and grotesquely swollen. Sabo wonders whether they've done it irreversible damage by leaving it. He finds, startlingly, that he can barely remember when Luffy injured it.

Ace is looking more and more agitated with each passing second. He's scowling into the wind, Sabo's sweatshirt hugging his frame, and Sabo wonders idly whether all three of them have been affected by the blues that came with leaving the motel. After Luffy falls for the seventh time - this time slipping and reeling backwards, his head hitting Sabo's stomach - Ace stops in his tracks and growls, "Fuck it!"

Sabo helps Luffy to his feet. "Ace?"

"Fuck it. Fuck this. We're going at a snail's pace!"

"Ace, you need to calm down-"

"Ugh. Sorry." Ace runs a hand over his face. "Rough day."

"Tell me about it." Sabo offers him a small smile. "Look, we're doing the best we can, and it's not Luffy's falt. He's really trying."

"I know that, I do, it's just-" Ace gestures helplessly. "It's frustrating. I'm frustrated. I'm just used to moving quickly, and we're going at a snail's pace."

"I know, I know, I'm frustrated too. It's just… one of those days. Let's just keep our heads down, keep moving. Alright?"

"Okay." Ace exhales slowly. "Okay."

Luffy looks slightly put out. "Look, if you two want to go ahead I'll be fine-"

"No," both Ace and Sabo answer at the same moment.

Luffy looks from one to the other of them, worrying his lip between his teeth, before nodding and saying, "Okay…"

Without any more words, the trio move on. Sabo keeps close to Luffy, still ready to catch him should he fall, and Ace doesn't open his mouth again. There's a tenseness on the air that is almost as intense as the cold. It resonates right down to Sabo's bones, like a vibration from a tuning fork.

Eventually, the three of them reach a little settlement on the side of the road - a cluster of houses bisected by a main road. There's nursery and a primary school and all three of them automatically stay away from them, without discussion, because places like that generally spell bad news unless you enjoy the company of infected children. This must have been one of the first places to go - it's long abandoned and the houses are dilapidated, collapsing in on themselves, roofs fallen in. Eventually, after searching for shelter with no success for almost half an hour, the trio decide to tuck themselves away in a small, unharmed garage that extends off the side of a house that is little more than rubble.

The garage is small and baren, freezing cold and very dark, so after Sabo pulls down the garage door, Ace lights a candle and the stove and the three of them settle down. Rain begins to pour outside as Sabo unfolds his sleeping bag. He wishes they were back at the motel, where it was warm and light and there were real beds. Ace pours water into a sachet of a ravioli IRM and the trio settle down in their sleeping bags as it cooks, silent. For once, Sabo and Ace don't place their sleeping bags very close.

Sabo rolls onto his back, staring at the grime-coated ceiling, and sighs. Something about this town sets him on edge in a way that most others don't. Ace and Luffy don't mention it, but Sabo suspects that they can feel it too. As Ace places a plastic bowl of ravioli in front of Sabo and he immediately lets Luffy have it, the blonde wonders if he's just being paranoid.

"Sabo." Ace sounds stern but weary. "You've lost weight. Again. At least eat something."

"M'not hungry," Sabo lies, rolling over. The sleeping bag feels strangely claustrophobic. "It's fine, Ace, really. I just want to sleep."

Luffy puts down the now empty bowl, plastic spoon clattering to the ground. "I don't like this town."

"Me neither. But Sabo-" Ace apparently won't be deterred- "At least take my portion, please."

Sabo curls his legs up to his chest. "I don't mean to worry you, I'm fine. It's not a big deal, Ace, don't make it one."

Ace says, shortly, "Fine. Fine, I'll stop. Sorry I bothered."

There's hurt in his voice. Sabo knows that they're arguing about nothing, that all three of them are down and in bad moods and exhausted. He just wants, more than anything, to sleep. Maybe in the morning, things will be better, he thinks. Maybe they'll all be in better moods by then. He hopes so. With a sigh, Sabo tucks his head in and closes his eyes, listening to Ace and Luffy eating. Nobody speaks.

Sleep doesn't come for a long time.

Luffy wakes up quickly, in a rush, as though somebody has shaken him. For a second he is disorientated, with no idea where he is, and he sits up straight in his sleeping bag and stares around, eyes adjusting to the dark. There is the sound of rain outside, heavy and constant, pattering on the roof and the garage door.

Slowly, Luffy's eyes get used to the dark. He looks around. The stove and the candle have both gone out. At some point in the night, Sabo must have woken at some point in the night because now he's squeezed into Ace's sleeping bag with him, head resting on his arm. It's obvious that they've stopped being stupid and arguing and the sight makes Luffy grin, shuffling out of his own sleeping bag to stretch his legs. He's got the feeling today is going to be a good day.

Yawning, Luffy crawls across the cold floor to Ace's pack and steals an energy bar, leaning back against the concrete wall of the garage and nibbling it slowly. He feels full after the ravioli last night, but to the same extent he feels a little guilty. That was Sabo's food, really, and now Ace is worried and Sabo hasn't eaten and Luffy feels a little bad. Not bad enough to let it worry him, of course; it takes a lot to do that. But still…

Sabo shifts a little, shoving Ace in his sleep, and Ace frowns and shoves him right back, not even opening his eyes. Luffy laughs at them fighting in their sleep, not even alarmed or waking up panicking or anything like that. It's funny. And it makes Luffy happy to see them so comfortable, too.

Outside, the rain picks up. Luffy curls his knees up to his chest a little. He doesn't like rain. Rain means low visibility, and the hordes are always more active in the rain. Still, either way, it doesn't dampen his spirits too much. He's still convinced that today is going to be a good day, no matter how much the world is trying to make him believe otherwise. He finishes the energy bar and is just reaching for another when-

Ace sounds unimpressed. "Don't you dare."

He hasn't even opened his eyes. Luffy moves away from the bag at lightning speed, crossing his arms and saying, "I have no idea what you mean."

Ace opens his eyes, glaring at him. "Little brat. Stealing our food…"

"Aw, c'mon, you don't mind it too much!" Luffy grins. "You love me really."

"Hmph." Ace tries to pull himself out of his sleeping bag and Sabo shifts, murmuring in his sleep, face against Ace's collarbone.

Luffy mouths, do it! and Ace flips him off, squeezing the rest of the way out of the hammock, cheeks pink. Luffy flashes him a thumbs-down, shaking his head like somebody would at a toddler who had disappointed them, and Ace scowls at him and starts packing away Sabo's sleeping bag.

Sabo, meanwhile, sits up blearily and rubs his eyes. "Ugh, wha…?"

"Morning to you too," Ace says drily. "Luffy decided to start stealing our food."

"Ah, let him." Sabo opens his eyes, grinning a little at Luffy. "He's a growing kid."

"He's seventeen!"

"I've heard you call him 'kid' more than you call him his actual name," retorts Sabo, yanking the sleeping back off his legs and beginning to roll it up. "Anyway, isn't he one of us now? Our food is his food too, Ace."

"He could have at least asked," Ace grumbles, but when Luffy smiles at him, he smiles back.

The three of them pack away their supplies in comfortable silence. Sabo makes a joke about how it's raining in southern Texas, so when they go out, pigs will be flying. Ace swats at Luffy when he tries to take another energy bar. It's… nice. Like things have gone back to normal. The dark cloud that hung over them all yesterday is gone.

Sabo glances towards the garage doors. "They'll be more active, since it's raining. I doubt we'll run into anything, but…"

He leaves the sentence open. Ace finishes it with, "We have to be careful. I know, Sab, and we will."

"Alright…" Sabo says dubiously before standing, shouldering his pack. "Okay, we've packed everything, should we be off?"

Luffy struggles to his feet, awkwardly maneuvering his crutch around his back, and Ace puts on his own pack and nods. Feeling hopeful, Luffy stands behind them as together, they pull up the garage door.

Immediately, the sound of the storm is deafening. It's raining so heavily that sheets of silvery grey sweep up the street in front of them. The pavement is wet, shining in the dull sunlight, and Luffy and Sabo laugh as Ace is immediately drenched (he's the only one without a hood). The trio step out onto the street and the cold water seeps through Luffy's sweatshirt instantly, chilling him to the bone. Sabo slips on a puddle and falls into Ace, both of them clutching each other to stay upright, and Luffy laughs, turning his head to look at them-

And then he sees it.

At the end of the street, shuffling through the rain, is one of the biggest hordes of the infected Luffy has ever seen. No, scratch that - it is by far the biggest, a huge clump of clumsy, mindless bodies scrambling through the muck and the rain, groaning and screeching, agitated by the storm. The water streaming through the gutters around them is red, clotted with bits of bone and scraps of skin. Their mindless eyes are wide, cloudy pupils dilated as they claw and scratch and bite at nothing, desperate for flesh to tear apart. God knows when the last humans came through here. They're all ravenous.

And they're coming right for them.

Luffy freezes up, terror sinking into him deeper than the cold ever could. They're moving quickly, some even running, and soon they'll notice them and then they'll really be running. Numb with fear, Luffy grabs Ace's wrist hard, shaking his arm, unable to tear his eyes away from the incoming horde. The howl of the wind sets him on fire from the inside out, making him almost unable to move.

"What? Luffy-"

Ace turns to where Luffy must be staring and curses, too loudly, grabbing Sabo by the upper arm. One of the infected's heads swivels in Ace's direction and it lets out an inhuman scream, matted black hair hanging into its face, and starts to run.

Luffy is frozen to the spot. He can feel himself shaking. Ace seems to have frozen up too and it's only Sabo who has the sense of presence to grab them, screaming for them to run as the horde starts to notice them. Many of them, Luffy realises with a jolt of horror, are freshly turned. They must be travelling through, not originally from here.

And if they're freshly turned, it means they can run like hell.

Luffy turns, forces his body into action. He hobbles as fast as he can, slipping in the rain, ankle burning like fire and he barely makes it three feet before the crutch slips out of his hand, crashing down into a puddle. Luffy swears and scrambles for it madly, falling to his knees, trying to wrap his hands around it but he's shaking too hard to grasp it properly. His eyes sting and burn and the terror sets in - Ace and Sabo are paces ahead and they're leaving him behind and the horde is closing in, and he's sure that he's about to die, sure that he's about to be eaten alive-

Then, Sabo is there, hauling Luffy to his feet with strength that must be fueled by adrenaline. He lifts Luffy and holds him half to his chest, so Luffy's front is pressed against his shoulder, and Luffy yells, "No, the crutch! Sabo, no-"

"There's no time!"

Sabo runs, runs so fast that Luffy feels for a second that he's going to fall, and Luffy wraps his arms tightly around the older man's neck and clings on for dear life, crossing his legs around the blonde's back, holding onto him like a koala. Through the rain and the gloom, over Sabo's shoulder, he sees the horde reach his precious crutch and trample it, still chasing them, and he realises with horror that Sabo's pack is gone too, that he must have dropped it so he could grab Luffy instead, knowing that it would have slowed him down too much to carry them both.

The cluster of infected is gaining on them, getting closer and closer and Luffy stares at them, eyes wide with horror. He curls his arms around Sabo and squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to listen to the groans and screeches and the tearing of flesh as the decomposed skin at their joints strips away with their movements. This is hell.

Ace is there, running alongside them with his gun drawn and Luffy slings his shotgun off his own shoulder, forcing himself to think straight. He fires madly into the mass, hands trembling too badly to aim properly, and the sound of the gun is deafening. Sabo reels to the side, stumbling, and Luffy curses as he realises that he just fired a gun right next to his ear. Fuck. That can't be good. Moving it higher and reloading, still moving through the rain sodden streets as Sabo regains his footing and carries on pounding the concrete ground as he runs, Luffy fires again, watching as more and more of their attackers fall.

Then-

Sabo swears, so loudly that Luffy can hear it over the pouring rain, and changes direction. Luffy scrambles to cling on and his gun slips from his wet fingers, falling to the ground and skidding away behind them. He stares after it, yelling out incoherently as the horde changes direction too and they trample it. Ace swerves to catch up with them, yelling, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"What?!" Luffy cries, "What is it?!"

"The school!" Sabo yells back, running faster than before with an apparent rush of adrenaline. "There are more coming out of the school! Fuck, fuck, can you see them?"

Luffy squints through the rain and then feels his body go tense with horror. Dark bodies pour out of the dilapidated school building, so many of them that they seem like one shadowy mass headed right for them through the storm. "They've seen us! They're coming, too - infected kids!"

Ace fires frantically over his shoulder. The rain is still falling, blanketing everything and making it impossible to see, and the grunts and screams of the infected split the air. Luffy clings onto Sabo tight, face pressed against his soaking wet blonde hair as the sounds get louder and louder, closer and closer. Ace reloads and fires - once, twice, three times - and there is blood in Sabo's hair; his ear is bleeding heavily, the one Luffy fired next to. The world dissolves into sound and movement and pain.

"There!"

Ace's voice is loud, powerful enough that Luffy can hear it clearly. He's pointing to a house on the side of the road and Sabo swerves to the right, sprinting for it. But the huge cluster of the dead follow them, gaining pace, and Luffy has to pull his arms up as one bites down an inch from Sabo's back.

"They're gaining on us!"

Luffy looks over his own shoulder and sees Ace, firing his gun at the lock on the front door and then kicking it open. Sabo staggers over the doorstep and Luffy ducks his head and then they're inside. The blonde collapses against a carpeted stairwell just inside the door, strength giving out, and Ace slams the door closed and shoves a bookcase over it, pushing the thing until no part of the front door is visible. Luffy tugs himself to his feet, breathing heavily, and slumps against a wall.

Ace is frantic. He drops his pack and sprints into the living room, and Luffy hears him tugging the curtains closed and pushing what sounds like a couch against them. Then he sprints into the kitchen, closing the blinds there too, and there's a low scraping noise that makes Luffy think that he must be pushing the fridge against the back door to barricade it. Sabo still isn't moving.

Luffy's heart pounds, adrenaline leaving him cold and shaky all over. He slides down the wall, curling in on himself as the pounding on the door and the shrieks and the screams fade, drowned out by the buzzing in his ears. They're alive. They really made it. They're still alive.

Ace stumbles back into the corridor - Sabo is still collapsed, half lying on the stairs. He curses loudly when he sees him and Luffy wonders why. Sabo wasn't hurt, right?

Then Ace is moving again, this time more urgently. Some part of Luffy's mind registers that something must have happened. What? Ace scrambles up the corridor to Sabo and he's turning him over, still swearing, muttering feverishly and brushing Sabo's hair back and pleading with him to stay awake, please god stay awake, Sabo please don't do this, please don't fall asleep you can't leave me like this-

And then, Luffy's eyes fall on it. His body goes still and cold. All other things rush out of his mind at once, leaving only a constant mantra of Sabo, Sabo, Sabo, Sabo-

Because on Sabo's right arm - the arm he used to scoop Luffy up, to protect him from the horde when he fell - is a torn, bloody bite.

Chapter Text

Sabo's vision is blurred with rain and everything is moving too fast. He is running; Ace is there, yelling and panicking and pounding through the rain ahead. When Luffy falls, Sabo doesn't notice for a second - when he does turn around, he sees the kid kneeling in the mud, scrambling to grab his crutch, the whole horde of the dead bearing down on him. A rush of terror shoots through Sabo and he throws down his pack, running to scoop Luffy up and away from danger, a protective instinct rising up within him and startling him in its intensity. Luffy clings to him tight, and as Sabo stands, there is a sudden, horrible, burning burst of pain in his right arm, in the flesh near his wrist. He kicks the zombie off, but it's too late.

Sabo's whole world comes crashing down in the space of half a second.

He runs without even thinking about it, clutching Luffy to him, forcing himself to keep moving because even if he's going to die, he can't let Luffy die too. The bite burns like fire, so intense that he has to fight back a panicked sob, afraid that Luffy will feel it. There's too much noise and it distorts in Sabo's ears, blurred by the horrible, crushing weight settling in his stomach. He's bitten. He's been bitten, and everybody on this goddamn planet knows what that means.

Ace and Luffy are shouting; Sabo is still running, so hard that the wind makes the tears in his eyes stream sideways across his cheeks. Then there are gunshots, and then a horrible ringing noise and Sabo stumbles, feeling like he's been punched in the side of the head, as Luffy fires his shotgun far too close to his ear. Luffy gives a panicked cry and Sabo forces himself to stay on his feet, running and running until he can barely draw breath, fingers and legs going numb with the cold and the adrenaline.

He sees them, in the distance - the infected are spilling out of the schoolhouse. Sabo curses and swerves, pelting down a sidestreet, Ace at his side - Luffy's gun slips from his fingers. The noises of the infected are loud, so impossibly loud, and the world blurs further. The corners of his vision are going black with the pain. The bite burns like it's been drenched in acid.

Everything is too fast. Ace yells something, and Sabo can barely hear him over the ringing in his left ear. His body obeys the order anyway, feet carrying him to the side of the road. The horde is right behind them now. He can feel his head spinning, his strength lagging, and Luffy is clinging so tightly to him and Sabo wants to cry again, so much, so desperately, because hopelessness is hard and thick and sticky in his chest. He's about to die - this much he knows acutely, terrifyingly.

Sabo stumbles over the doorstop and collapses. His face hits carpet and he realises that he's fallen half-sprawled over the bottom steps of a flight of stairs. There is the sound of a door slamming, then movement all around him - sound is fading away, along with the feeling in his arm. Sabo can feel the tears now, streaming hot and fast down his cheeks. His body shakes with a sob that rises in his throat until he can't contain it any longer and it racks him to the core, making him jolt and shake harder. He tries to get words out, but he can barely get his throat to work properly.

Then Ace is there, turning him over, swearing and pleading and begging Sabo to stay awake and through sheer willpower, Sabo manages it. The world is blurry and he manages to gasp out, through the tears, "Ace, give me your gun."

Luffy can't breathe. It feels like there's something hot lodged in his throat as he watches Sabo crying, face screwed up with pain and anguish and hopelessness, and Ace is there too, gripping him, pleading with him frantically not to do this, not to leave him now. Tears splash down onto the bite on Sabo's arm, and it leaks congealed, sticky globs of blood onto the floor.

Sabo reaches for the gun holstered at Ace's waist. Ace flinches back, grabbing it and throwing it across the hallway as if it's a burning hot coal. It hits the door to the kitchen. Sabo gives a terrified little moan and buries his face in Ace's shoulder, tiny, breathy gasps of panic escaping his throat. "Ace. Ace."

"Stay with us- Sabo, please, god please stay with us, you can't die like this-" Ace chokes on a sob. "What do I do, what the hell can I do-?!"

And just like that, the world rushes back to Luffy and he can breathe. He wrenches himself to his feet and drags himself over to Ace and Sabo as fast as he can. His injured foot drags on the ground and it hurts like hell but he ignores it, grabbing Ace by the arm, looking right into the older man's eyes.

"There's a way to stop it!"

Sabo freezes up. "What…?"

Luffy shakes Ace's arm, hard. "Ace, there's a way to stop the infection! Look, we gotta do it, we have to-"

Ace jolts back to life, head shooting up. "What?! What can we do?!"

"Okay," Luffy takes a deep breath, sits back on his haunches, breathing hard. "Okay, so I only saw it once but one time we ran into a doctor and- and, well, basically, we had run into a bitten guy. And it takes a few hours for the infection to set in, not like in the movies, so the guy wasn't dead or turned yet, and his bite was on his calf and the doctor-" Luffy visibly flinches at the memory, gripping tightly at the sleeves of his sweatshirt. "The doctor cut out the bite. Cut out a chunk of skin all around it. And the infection hadn't reached his heart, there wasn't enough poison in his body to turn him, and-"

"He survived?" Ace has gone extremely still. "He lived?"

Luffy bites his lip. "Passed out from the pain. Died of blood loss. But if we did it to Sabo, and we found a way to cauterise the wound…"

"Anything." Ace's eyes are desperate, almost wild, and he's gripping Sabo so tightly that it must hurt. "I'll do anything."

The world feels fragmented around Sabo, like every fibre of his being is being shattered like glass. All he can feel is agony. Ace is gripping his hand tightly, talking to him, telling him that he has to stay awake. But he can barely keep his eyes open, let alone reply, so he drifts on an ocean of oblivion, inches from sinking, barely able to make sense of his surroundings anymore. His ear is still ringing. He wonders whether Luffy burst his eardrum, then remembers that he's going to die anyway so it doesn't matter.

Where were they again? Sabo can't really remember. He opens his eyes a millimetre, expecting to see the garage roof, but instead he sees Ace. The guy is red-eyed and obviously scared as hell, and Sabo reaches up and tries to wipe his wet cheeks but his fingers are uncoordinated and they won't obey his orders and he ends up resting them on Ace's temple, his palm over his right eye. The contact soothes Sabo. If this was the last thing he ever saw, he knows he would be happy.

"No, nonononono, Sabo, don't say that…!" Ace's bottom lip trembles. "It's going to be okay, just… just stay awake, alright? It'll be over soon, I promise. It'll be over and we'll be safe."

Sabo realises, in the back of his mind, that he loves Ace more than pretty much anything in the world at this moment. His strength gives out and his hand flops to the ground - and Ace is pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, shoulders hunched, holding back what must be a cry of anguish. He's shaking so hard that Sabo can feel it and see it.

Then Luffy is there, swimming into his field of vision, so small in comparison to Ace's bulkier form. He sees the kid press something into Ace's hand - something long and silver - and he realises, without much feeling, that it's his knife. This is when they kill him, right? Sabo is… strangely relieved. He would hate for Ace to have to see him as a zombie. Ace looks at him, terror obvious in his blurry expression and Sabo tries to smile even though his eyes are stinging and he's fighting back tears. This is what's best. After Ace crushes his skull, the two can live on. They have each other.

Sabo is happy to die for that, at least.

But, surprisingly, death doesn't come. His vision fades again and Sabo feels somebody lift him, gently, over their shoulder. Then they're moving - he feels his arms dangle down towards the floor limply - and then somebody lies him down on something hard. A table? He can't tell.

Ace's voice. Scared. "Okay. Okay, Luffy, go get the stove, get a fire going. Need to heat the blade if we want to cauterise it."

"O-Okay." Luffy's worried little voice. Footsteps away from him - staggering and uneven. Luffy doesn't have the crutch anymore.

Sabo wonders idly what they're talking about. His mind feels muddled. Something closes tight around his hand, and he tries to squeeze it but his fingers won't listen to him. Blood is running down the side of his head from his ear, which is still ringing. Did he burst his eardrum? It feels like it. But either way, it doesn't matter too much. He'll be dead soon.

"Ace…?" he manages to croak.

The hand around his own squeezes tighter. "I'm right here, Sabo, I'm right here."

Sabo tries and fails to smile. "I'm… I'm sorry about all this, Ace, I'm so sorry. You two should just… get it over with. Get out of here. Leave me."

"No way in hell." Ace squeezes tighter. His face fades into view for a moment, contorted with anguish and determination in equal measure. "I'm not letting you die. No way in hell."

"Ace…"

"No, listen to me!" Ace's voice breaks. "I'm never leaving you. Not ever. You're not going to die. Okay?"

Sabo's eyes burn. "I'm so sorry…"

Luffy stumbles back into the room, balancing the stove in his hands and setting it down on the kitchen table next to Sabo. He looks down at him and then, seemingly on instinct, throws his arms around Sabo's neck. Sabo finds his face pressed against Luffy's shoulder and it becomes harder not to cry. Is this going to be the last time he sees Luffy? The kid is trembling. Sabo wishes he had the strength to raise his arms and put them around him but he can't, not when it feels like each is being weighed down by a 2000 tonne weight.

Luffy pulls away. Sabo's vision fades again. There's movement all around him, the sound of Ace and Luffy talking in hushed voices. The stove is hot near his leg. Sabo wants to ask why it's there, what they're going to use it for, but he can't even muster the strength to open his mouth. Then, gentle hands pry his mouth open and something cold and hard is pushed between his teeth; Ace's belt, he realises, coiled up tightly. He bites down on it, feeling the corners of his mouth strain. He doesn't even bother attempting to ask why he's got it.

There's more movement. Luffy limps (it's more like an uneven hop) around Sabo and there are hands on his shoulders, holding him down against the tabletop. Sabo wonders why. Surely they realise that he's hardly in a condition to move much?

A hand on his right arm, near the bite. Somebody - Ace? - stretches his arm out at his side, so the bite is facing upwards. Another noise, near the stove.

Ace. "Sabo, I'm so sorry."

And then it starts.

Sabo feels something cold press against the bite - but it's only cold for a millisecond and then it bursts into a fiery torrent of pain, tearing his very nerves apart, such a fierce agony that it takes his breath away. He feels his body arch upwards and his vision goes dark - he prays for unconsciousness, or death, or anything except for this. He hears somebody yelling, screaming so loudly that it sounds like their throat is tearing, and realises that it's him.

It's a surreal sensation. He can feel his skin sizzling away, can smell burning flesh, and the pain is so intense that it's hard to distinguish what is causing it. The screams tear from his throat endlessly, and he has no hope of controlling them and he bites into the belt so hard that it ruptures between his teeth.

Sabo opens his eyes for a moment, tries to squint to make out something in front of him. He sees Ace's face, and a little something inside him cracks.

Ace is in hell.

Sabo screams so loudly, in such unimaginable pain, that eventually it doesn't even sound like he's screaming anymore. Luffy is holding him down by the shoulders, tears streaming silently down his face, and Ace tries to finish it quickly, digging the red-hot knife deeper and deeper into Sabo's arm, trying not to gag as the smell of burning flesh fills the room. He presses a little deeper still, curving the blade, and Sabo throws his head back and a scream tears from his throat, and the sound of it rips Ace apart.

He realises that he's swearing, rapidly and viciously, in Portuguese. He doesn't try to hold it back, forcing himself to curve the knife further, pressing upwards. He feels tendons tear, strands of muscle and skin breaking beneath the knife, and every moment is worse because the only thing he wants to do is stop; the only thing he wishes he could do, more than anything, is take away Sabo's pain and stop hurting him. God knows Sabo has been hurt enough. Out of anybody in the world, he deserves this the least.

The tip of the blade breaks skin again, and Ace pulls up hard and a large chunk of flesh and blood tears from Sabo's arm and slaps down onto the table, smoking. The knife comes clean out, still slightly reddened with heat, and Ace throws it to the ground like it's about to explode. The wound where the bite used to be is gruesome, a mess of charred flesh and blood. There is a visible, horrible curve into the flesh of Sabo's arm, four inches long and about an inch deep, like somebody has raked an ice-cream scooper through his flesh and taken a chunk of it clean out.

Ace turns around and throws up everything in his stomach. Bile burns the back of his throat and specks of vomit smear across his knees. He struggles to stay on his feet, legs shaking, and it's only Luffy's arms that keep him standing as they come around him. Ace grasps him tight, feeling his head spin.

Sabo gives a low groan of pain, head tipped back, lips parted around the belt. Ace can see, over Luffy's shoulder, the sheen of sweat on his forehead. His cheeks are wet too, but that isn't sweat. The wound on his arm is bleeding sluggishly, but the blood is clotted and the cauterisation was successful. Hopefully, it won't bleed too much more. If it gets infected, of course, they're fucked…

Ace steels himself, forces himself to move. He pulls away from Luffy and both of them stare at Sabo for a moment, lost on what to do. Usually, Sabo would make decisions like this - he's the unofficial leader of their little group. And right now, he looks in no fit state to make any kind of decision.

"Okay." Ace takes a deep breath. "Okay, I'm gonna find a first aid kit. Stay here. Make sure…"

His throat closes up and he can't finish the sentence. Make sure Sabo is okay? Make sure the zombies don't get in? God knows both of those things are pretty much impossible. If the infected make it in, it'll be the end - there'll be no stopping it. And Ace is pretty sure Sabo won't be okay for a while.

Luffy nods anyway. Ace forces himself to leave, not looking back at Sabo. The smell of burnt flesh is cloying and thick in his nose and throat. He breathes through his mouth as he trails up the stairs, wiping his hand on his trousers. The blood resides, sticky, staining his palms and sinking into the lines of his skin. Sabo's blood. Sabo's blood, drenching his own hands- the smell of his burnt skin strong in the air- and Ace's hands are starting to tremble and he wonders whether he's going to fall backwards down the staircase as his head reels-

No. He grounds himself forcefully. Can't let himself be distracted at a time like this. He has to be strong, has to keep his mind clear. Ace pushes himself up the last few steps and stumbles into the bathroom. It's dusty in here and it makes his chest feel even tighter. He rummages in a few cupboards before finally finding the medicine cabinet - and luckily, there are a few rolls of bandages inside and a small disinfectant spray. Ace grabs them, piling them into his arms, and traipses out of the room and back down the stairs.

The smell is stronger down here. Ace steps back into the kitchen and the sickly-sweet odor makes him want to gag. Luffy is sitting at a chair next to the table, and Sabo is gripping his hand tightly - Ace can see that his knuckles have gone white. He's biting down hard on the belt again, eyes squeezed shut. The pain is obviously still there, worse than before. Ace wants to knock him out so he doesn't have to feel it, wants to take the pain onto himself so Sabo can be spared for one goddamn moment.

But he can do nothing.

Bandaging Sabo is hard. The blonde is so out of it that even when he does open his eyes, they're glassy and unseeing, looking straight through Ace. His voice is too torn up to scream. When Ace wraps his raw wound, Sabo's head tips back and a ragged, breathy groan of agony rips from him. He squeezes Luffy's hand so tight that the younger boy winces.

It takes five agonisingly slow minutes to wrap and disinfect his arm. By the time it's done, Sabo has passed out. Ace gently pries the belt from between his teeth. There are bite marks in it, made with so much force that they've punctured the leather. Luffy looks horrified, eyes red and puffy, still clutching Sabo's hand. Outside, the sound of the horde is louder; Ace realises, stomach sinking, that the smell of burning flesh and Sabo's screams must have attracted more of them.

He takes a deep, shaky breath. "Okay. I'm going to carry him upstairs. Try… try to see if you can find anything to barricade the doors anymore, okay, Luffy?"

The words are hard to get out. His voice doesn't sound like his own - it sounds weak and choked and strangely shell-shocked. Broken.

Luffy nods, and Ace takes a step towards Sabo but then the kid steps forwards, putting weight on his broken ankle, and throws his arms around Ace's middle, pitching into him as he staggers. Ace catches him, staring down at him for a moment in surprise. He can feel the tenseness in the arms wrapped around him.

It hits him that Luffy is scared. Scared and sad and shaken, having just watched somebody he cares about being practically tortured. Ace feels his face soften and he grips back, one arm coming around Luffy's shoulders, the other hand resting on top of his head. For a moment - or maybe it's a minute - neither of them moves. Ace brushes Luffy's rain-soaked hair back from his forehead absently, listening to the infected outside.

"This is messed up," Luffy mumbles. "Really messed up."

"I know."

"And… and I want him to be okay. I want this all to be okay."

Ace nods, taking a shaky breath, holding the teen a fraction tighter. "I know. I know."

"Is he gonna be alright?" Luffy turns his face up to him. There's rainwater on his face still, and the creases under his eyes are more wet than they should be. "I just want things to go back to how they were, Ace, I just want him to be alright."

Ace can't find the words to comfort him when he can't even comfort himself. They stand in silence for a moment more, still embracing, before Luffy pulls away. The moment is over. Ace turns and moves to Sabo, sliding his arms under his prone body and heaving him up into a bridal carry. Sabo groans softly in his sleep, turning his face to Ace's chest, one hand gripping the sleeve of his jacket.

Luffy limps out of the room (god, his ankle really is fucked up. It's barely even a limp anymore - more like a lame little hop). Ace shifts Sabo in his arms and moves into the hall, trekking slowly up the stairs so as not to jostle him. Outside the front door, the infected throw themselves against the walls and door, scratching the wood and screaming and groaning. Ace feels a tiny hint of panic bubble in his chest but he pushes it down. Not now. There's no time for something like that now.

Upstairs, there are two bedrooms, both with double beds. Ace lies Sabo on the bed in the larger room, pulling the moth-eaten blanket around him, tucking it around him tightly. Sabo's face is tense and taut even in sleep. Ace pulls the comforter around his shoulders and, looking down at his dimly-lit face, resists the urge to do something he'll probably regret. With a sigh, he stands and makes himself leave the room. The last thing he sees as he closes the door is the sight of Sabo's fingers twitching in his direction in his sleep.

Ace sighs, runs a hand back through his damp hair. The adrenaline leaves him in a rush. All he can do now is hope that the poison won't be enough to have any effect on Sabo anyway.

But...there's a bad feeling growing in his chest.

Chapter Text

I’m not the type to trust my instincts alone. However, this is growing hard to ignore.

Something is coming. Someone.

Signing off.

Time passes excruciatingly slowly. After Ace lies Sabo down upstairs, all he wants to do is sleep - however, he knows that that’s the last thing he can do right now. He makes his way down the stairs quietly. The infected may not have the best eyesight, but they make up for it in their sense of smell and hearing. They have surrounded the house now, throwing themselves against the front and back door and the windows and walls and every available surface. The sound of them is everywhere - screaming, screeching, howling. Nothing like the groans and mumbles of zombies in the movies.

With how much Sabo was screaming and the stench still thick in the air, Ace doubts they will leave anytime soon. The three of them are trapped in.

At the bottom of the stairs, Ace pauses and glances around, pulling off his boots to help silence his footsteps. He calls softly, “Luffy? Where are you?”

“In here.” Luffy’s reply is surprisingly subdued.

Ace makes his way into the living room - Luffy is standing near the door, staring out of the window at the horde gathered outside. The glass is smeared with blood - they press their faces against it, hurling fists and gnashing their teeth. Luffy is looking at them with an almost morbid fascination, face hard to read.

Ace puts a hand on his arm. “Lu.”

“Sorry.” Luffy shakes his head, not tearing his eyes away. “It’s my fault. My fault Sabo got bit. Sorry. Look, if you want me to go-”

“Are you crazy?!”

Luffy glances up at him, surprised. “What?”

“Do you seriously think either of us blames you?” Ace shakes his head, slinging an arm around Luffy’s bony shoulders. “Neither of us blames you and neither of us wants you to leave, okay? Sabo - he fuckin’ adores you. Thinks you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us. And… you’re like a brother to me. A stupid, awesome, idiot little brother. We helped us out and you’ve helped us too. And we’re sticking together for as long as we have to, whether you like it or not.”

Luffy hesitates, then nods, laughing wetly. “Sorry. S’weird. I just want him to be okay, and normal, and I just want everything to… just go back to how it was.”

Ace stares at the floor. “Like before you met us?”

“I don’t know.” Luffy sighs, pulls away, but he stumbles and Ace has to catch him. He steadies himself and says, “I dunno, I… I just don’t know.”

“Hey, it’s okay-”

Suddenly, there’s a loud noise like a gun going off. Ace and Luffy spin around on unison; there’s a huge hairline crack in the glass, and one of the infected is pounding on it, trying to shatter the windows, scrabbling madly to get to the scent of burnt flesh that must be permeating the air from the kitchen. Ace darts across the room, hauling the bookcase from the wall and pushing it against the window hard, blocking all light and the view of the infected outside. The noises continue, only a little muffled, and Ace turns to Luffy, breathing hard.

“Okay, upstairs. Now. I’m going to barricade all the windows, see if there’s any food or water here.”

Luffy shivers, eyes fixed on the window. “Are they gonna go away?”

Ace doesn’t answer - he can’t, because he would either have to lie or say the one thing both of them know already. Instead, he says, “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, of course-”

Luffy takes one step and trips. He hits the ground hard, sprawled out, yelping; his forehead hits the doorframe on the way down and then there’s blood - not much, but blood nonetheless - on his skin and on the carpet. Ace grits his teeth hard, running over and rolling the kid over, examining the wound. Luffy moans with pain.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three?” Luffy slurs dopily, pointing at Ace’s index finger - the only one held up. “Fuck…”

“My thoughts exactly.” Ace helps him sit up, back against the wall next to the door. The cut on the teen’s forehead is bleeding heavily, though it’s probably an artificial injury; head wounds bleed a lot.

Suddenly, outside the banging and screeching and crashing seems to pick up, until the racket is so loud that Ace’s head begins to throb. Against the wall, Luffy groans again and pushes his fingers clumsily against his forehead, trying to stop the bleeding. Ace realises with a horrible jolt that the smell of blood must only be adding to the creatures’ desperation to get in.

“Okay.” Ace says it mostly to himself. He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. Luffy, I’m gonna carry you upstairs, okay?”

Luffy gives an incoherent jumble of sounds in response, hands falling into his lap. Ace scoops him up - Jesus Christ, the kid weighs nothing , he’s even worse than Sabo - and settles Luffy in his arms, one wrapped around his shoulders and the other under his knees. Luffy mumbles something he can’t quite make out. Outside, one of the infected throws itself against the window, and there’s another crack. Luffy shifts closer to him, face creasing.

Getting up the stairs is tough; Ace’s legs are trembling. It’s hard to stay quiet. He pauses on the landing before deciding to put Luffy in with Sabo. Inside the larger bedroom, Sabo hasn’t moved, face screwed up with pain. Ace lies Luffy down beside him and realises in that second, with an unreasonable amount of surprise, that he trusts Luffy almost as much as he trusts Sabo. So much has changed.

And you still can’t protect them, taunts the little voice in Ace’s head that he loathes, the little voice he knows far too well.

Ace shoves it away. There’s no time for self loathing now - he can deal with it later. For a moment, he focuses on how the midday sun pouring through the window hits Sabo’s face, how it makes the pain there even clearer. He’s… beautiful, Ace realises. Almost too beautiful for this kind of story, this tragedy. People like him are meant to be the ones living in good worlds with good lives. They aren’t meant to be stuck in places like this, with people like him.

The walk back downstairs is harder than it should be - Ace falls twice, stumbling like he’s walking on new legs. The adrenaline of the morning’s events is rushing out of him, leaving him cold and shivery all over, skin crawling. His hands are still bloody, drenched red by both Sabo and Luffy’s wounds. He tries not to look at them.

Downstairs, Ace barricades all the windows, shoving anything he can find against any and all entrances, trying not to look at the scrabbling, crazed creatures outside the house. After that, he searches for some sign of food or water or something . Ace tries tearing through the cupboards, looking in the basement (it stinks of blood and Ace’s stomach turns and he tries not to throw up) and even checking under floorboards and in parts of the wall where the plaster has cracked to reveal little alcoves. He comes up empty-handed. Nobody has stayed in this place for a long, long time.

Swearing under his breath, Ace stands in the hallway for a minute, unsure of what to do and where to go. A part of him wants to go back up to Luffy and Sabo; a larger, more fearful part of him resents the idea. He couldn’t handle seeing them right now.

And just like that, with no warning whatsoever, Ace turns around and throws up everything in his stomach. His knees hit the ground hard and he heaves, curled over, throat convulsing, eyes squeezed shut. The taste of bile is harsh on his tongue and it only makes him retch harder, gagging and spitting and wheezing until there’s nothing left in his stomach and he’s just throwing up acid and water. His throat burns like fire. He spits, and there’s something red in it; blood. He bit his tongue.

The sight of the marbled red liquid makes Ace feel even more repulsed, and his body tries to throw up again, throat tight and screaming in protest. Nothing comes up. Ace feels completely hollow, drained of all feeling - his skin tingles uncomfortably like pins and needles, and the shivers come harder, harsher. His stomach contorts and he curls in on himself, gritting his teeth, trying not to let himself retch again. It hurts. It hurts so much that Ace can’t even think straight.

Finally, his body seems to give in. Ace collapses back against the wall, pushing himself away from the pile of vomit and blood, curling up into a ball. Wrapping his arms around his knees, he buries his face in them, trying to make himself as small as possible. Trying to feel human again. Outside, the sounds of the infected are dulled beneath the ringing in his ears.

Then and only then do the sobs come. When they do come, racking his body, Ace feels like they’re going to tear out his throat with their force. He cries openly, loudly, messily into his knees, not even bothering to choke back the tears, not caring anymore about who or what might hear them. His lip trembles and he bites it, tastes blood. Ace can feel his shoulders scrunch up with the strength of his heaving sobs, his gasping breaths. Salty tears run down his cheeks and into his mouth, and the salty taste makes Ace almost throw up again.

After a while, Ace doesn’t even know why he’s crying anymore. He tries to pull himself together, to wipe his tears away, to stand. Then, the smell of Sabo’s burnt flesh hits him and he’s on the floor again, gripping his head, pulling hard on his hair in an attempt to distract from the awful, sickly-sweet smell, edged with something like iron or copper. Ace doesn’t know what has come over him as he folds his arms over his head, screams raggedly into his knees. It hurts.

Eventually, after what feels like years, the panic fades. Little by little, the world flickers back into reality around him. Ace finds himself still curled up against the wall, arms over his head, shaking hard. The trembles almost take him by surprise. His body doesn’t feel like his own.

Taking a deep breath, Ace slowly opens up, letting his arms flop to his sides, legs unbending to stretch out on the ground in front of him. He takes deep breaths, focussing on keeping them even and regular, throat wheezing. The anxiety eebs away gradually, leaving him feeling empty and numb and small. In the house, nothing moves. Sabo and Luffy must both still be unconscious. Ace wants to go up to them - wants to feel Sabo’s warmth, wants to make sure Luffy isn’t bleeding anymore - but he can’t find the strength. His body feels glued to the wall with exhaustion.

A feeling of hopeless weakness rushes over Ace, but he doesn’t have the energy to cry. Instead, he just sits there against the wall, head tilted back, completely drained. He doesn’t even have the strength to keep his eyes open, and eventually, the world fades to grey and flickers away, like it was never there in the first place.

Before even waking, Sabo feels the pain.

It assaults him like a battering ram, makes his head throb. He realises that his teeth are clenched together tight - too tight, and it hurts. He tries to loosen his jaw but another stab of agony shoots through his arm and he bites down so hard that he feels like he might chip a tooth. He can’t think, can’t put his thoughts into order. Ace’s face, blood-smeared, flashes through his brain over and over and over.

The fear hits. Sabo opens his eyes, forces himself to keep a level head even though it feels like somebody has set his arm on fire. Above him, the ceiling is a soothing off-white, though limescale has seeped through the paint and Sabo can see cracks lacing the flat surface. With a groan, he forces himself to sit up, tries to figure out where he is and what happened and where Luffy is. Ace, he tries not to think about. That image becomes more persistent, and Sabo feels himself go cold with fear, though he doesn’t know why.

Luffy is on the bed next to him. There’s blood on his tan skin. Sabo swears quietly, and the action almost feels like coming back to life - the sound of his accent and the scratchiness of his voice startle him, as though he hadn’t realised he was a real person at all. Reaching across with his left hand, he wipes at the blood on the kid’s forehead, revealing the cut beneath it. It’s not deep or long (and there’s not even much swelling), so Sabo isn’t worried. The chances are anybody could recover quickly from a bump like that, especially Luffy.

Now that he’s made sure Luffy is alright, Sabo moves on to checking himself. His whole body aches, like he just ran for weeks without pause for water nor food nor sleep. The area where he feels the most pain, however, is the place he focuses on. His right arm scorches with a fierce agony Sabo can’t even begin to describe. It’s so bad that it almost seems to blur his vision. His breath comes in raspy pants, rattling in his throat.

In his right arm, under a swath of bandages, a long, deep concave is set into his skin, a few inches wide, almost as long as his forearm. It looks like somebody has carved a chunk clean out of his flesh with a knife, like one would when carving wood. The pain there is the worst by far. Sabo can feel the agony of bandages pressing hard on raw flesh, and a hot feeling like fire, and something cold and numb, like the nerves are pressing up against cold iron. It’s hard to describe, even to imagine how much it hurts. The pain is incredible. He prays for it to end, but it doesn’t even come close to stopping or fading.

Eventually, after sitting on the bed for a long time trying to remember how to breathe properly, Sabo swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, swaying. His head spins but he forces himself to ignore the exhaustion - now, Ace. He has to find Ace.

Memories return slowly as Sabo hobbles slowly across the room, arm clutched to his chest. The huge horde, looming through the rain towards them. Running hard, Luffy on his back. Pain in his arm. Hopelessness. Collapsing against carpeted stairs in a narrow hall, face pressed against the ground. Being carried by Ace to somewhere he can’t recall. The crackle of flames on the stove. Ace’s face, and pain.

Sabo shoves it all into the back of his mind. Out on the landing, he stands for a moment, listening. Outside, the infected scream and screech and retch, howling like wounded animals, scratchy voices reminding Sabo disturbingly of his own. He can see the top of a narrow flight of stairs, and recognises the cream colour of the carpet. Sabo moves slowly to stand at the top of the stairs and looks down - there’s a little blood on the carpet, maybe from the bite. It smells like vomit.

Making sure to stay as quiet as he can, Sabo picks his way down the stairs, wincing as they creak under him. In the hallway at the bottom of the stairs lies Ace, sprawled out on the ground, cheeks red and puffy. His face somehow manages to look agonised even in sleep, and there’s blood on his hands. There’s a pool of vomit on the floor beside him, peppered with more of the dark red liquid. Sabo winces, takes a step closer-

Ace is a light sleeper, and at that he jerks awake. His sleep-glazed eyes meet Sabo’s and he moves like he’s going to get to his feet, to run to Sabo-

Sabo takes an involuntary step back, then another. Ace scrambles to his feet, takes a step towards him, and Sabo staggers backwards until his back is pressed against the bookcase barricading the door. His breaths come tight and fast. Ace stops in his tracks, raises his bloodstained hands like you would when approaching a wounded animal.

“...Sabo?”

Sabo forces himself to stay calm, even as the image of Ace tearing open his arm with a knife is seared into his retinas. For a few tense moments they stand there, facing one another. Ace looks hurt and scared and everything he shouldn’t be.

“Sabo… are you okay?”

The fear fades, so quickly that it might never have been there. Sabo stares at Ace for another moment - Ace , brilliant incredible Ace - before launching himself forwards. He hits Ace with force more than an embrace (more like a rugby tackle) and Ace barely manages to catch him, to stay standing. His grey eyes are bloodshot and haunted. Sabo buries his face in Ace’s shoulder and stands there, arms around his neck, hands on the back of his head, holding the other very, very tightly.

After a long moment, Ace hugs back. It seems almost instinctive. His arms come around Sabo’s back gently, hesitantly, and then he’s abruptly squeezing the life out of him. Sabo coughs, midsection aching, but it’s a sweet kind of pain. The smell of Ace is overwhelming and the lingering remnants of fear slip away as they clutch one another, swaying together, crashing into a wall as one. Sabo loves him so much it hurts.

“I’m sorry,” Ace chokes out. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

Ace sniffs hard, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry.”

A lump rises in Sabo’s throat and he holds Ace tighter. Together, they slide down the wall and to the floor, landing in a tangle of limbs. Neither of them is crying but a sort of sorrow - horror-filled regret - sinks into his gut. The hopelessness comes back, and he doesn’t even know why.

“You cut the bite out of my arm?” Sabo finally musters the strength to say, body pressed between Ace’s legs, which are wrapped around his back just as tight as his arms. He is kneeling and Ace is sitting back against the wall and somehow, even in the awkward position, they manage to cling to one another still.

“I did.” Ace lets out a strangled little groan. “I’m so sorry. You were in so much pain and I couldn’t even- I didn’t-”

Sabo shushes him quietly, presses his face into Ace’s hair. “You did what you had to do.”

“Sabo, you were scared of me.”

“But I’m not anymore.”

“But-!”

“No, Ace.” Sabo pulls back, looks Ace right in the eyes. “No. If you hadn’t done that, I would be dead. And I’m not. I’m alive-” he grabs Ace’s hand and presses his against his chest, over his heart- “I’m right here. I’m alive .”

Ace looks like he wants to apologise again, looks like he wants to break down. Instead, he lets himself get tugged back in, and Sabo grips him until both of them have stopped shaking.

Then, suddenly, Luffy is there, piling onto them too. A laugh tears from Sabo, raw and real, as he messes up Luffy’s hair and presses Ace to his shoulder and forces the darkness away, forces the fear and doubt and memories far, far away. Luffy seems punch-drunk from his blow to the head, woozy and uncoordinated and goofy, and Sabo doesn’t ask how he got it, too busy reveling in the sound of Ace’s breathy laughter. The world feels okay again. Of course, Sabo knows this world too well to believe it will stay that way... but for now, everything feels right again. Whole.

Eventually, all three of them run out of energy. How Luffy got down the stairs in his condition, Sabo doesn’t know - he and Ace assume the kid tumbled down, which Ace slaps him lightly over the head for. They traipse back up the stairs, Ace carrying Luffy, Sabo trying to ignore the returning throb of his injured arm. The warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest… he doesn’t want it to ever end.

The trio collapse onto the bed upstairs. The sound of the infected outside is loud, but somehow more distant than before. Afternoon sunshine glares into the room but it feels like nighttime, and Sabo knows all three of them are exhausted mentally and physically. Ace especially. So he just holds Ace’s hand, lets Luffy grab him like a little vice and lets sleep come again.

(a tiny part of his mind is scared, being this close to Ace. a little part of him wants to scramble away, and he can still feel the phantom pain of Ace pushing the knife into his flesh. Sabo ignores the feeling, but it lingers long after he’s gone to sleep)