Work Text:
vivens
{ living; being alive, surviving. }
“If I could, I would like to be reborn as a normal kid.”
Sabo stares at him, eyes wide and ears perked up, always ready for all of Ace’s nonsense, low-volume shared secrets alike. Sabo is always like this; his lips will part, tooth gap showing and concern spilling out of his clever, oh so beautiful blue eyes. And yet, Sabo will always listen silently, without judgment and disgust, with a bleeding honesty. Like now. Especially, at times like now.
“No demon as my parent. No malice on the townsfolk’ eyes. Only,” he stops. Pauses. Ace takes a deep breath, and lets go in one, two, three seconds of exhaling. “Only,” he starts again, “only—”
The wind flaps Sabo’s blue coat. Its color is too dark to be matched with the sky; somewhere deep under the sea would resemble the color more (or for it, to match the color of the ocean, instead). Ace’s bangs get into his eyes. He frowns, itching to get them off his face. Wondering if it’s better to have shorter cut like Sabo’s hair.
Sabo holds onto Ace’s hand, pulls Ace closer toward him, as close as they can get while sitting high on a tree’s branch. He tidies Ace’s hair a little and tucks stray black strands behind Ace’s ear. Sabo smiles, not all teeth like usual, but still—smiles.
“Sounds like it’ll only come after so much time have passed, Ace. Why don’t we make the most of our time now instead?”
Ace breaks their eye contact first. He focuses on the stupid little crybaby, snoring like he has no care at all in the world, sleeping underneath the tree branch he and Sabo are currently resting on. Ace is still keeping his mouth shut.
Sabo doesn’t let go of his hand.
“I don’t want to wait for some uncertain years. Let’s focus on what we have instead: our treasures, our dreams. Luffy. Our journey together. Our own power,” Sabo speaks, voice clear, unyielding spirit fueling every single words he utters. Ace can’t help smiling a little. This is what he likes from Sabo, his brother and best friend. His very first friend, long before Luffy even entered their life.
“Right,” Ace replies, eventually. “You know me. Just forget about what I said before.”
Sabo smiles back, but Ace knows that Sabo will never forget.
“It’s good to be alive, Ace. Our future awaits for us. Our future is in our own hands.”
When Ace stares at Sabo, he can’t help being drawn to Sabo’s brilliant blue eyes. It’s like the color of the sky, or the sea, as he inches closer and they grow darker when Ace lands his lips on the corner of Sabo’s mouth. Sabo blinks, but he doesn’t pull away.
Sabo lets out a soft laugh.
“That feels nice, Ace,” he says. A grin splays across Ace’s face in response.
“I know. That’s why I did it.”
Sabo cups Ace’s cheek, stroking Ace’s freckles with his calloused thumb. The wind blows again, drawing out sounds from leaves meeting leaves, branches hitting branches. A bird squawks from afar as it soars high up to the cloudless sky. Even without the sunlight streaming down right to his body, Ace feels warm.
“Ace, you—”
Then: Ace falls backward.
A strong current pulls him down to the earth—no, the sea. The scenery around Ace changes rapidly; it’s now dark blue everywhere, pitch black inching closer and closer towards him. Ace immediately reaches out for something, anything that he could hold onto. Little, growing, firmer limbs protrude out his body. Trying, doing anything to make a parting movement, swimming back to the surface, just—just anywhere but the cold ocean floor—
Ace gasps loudly, only that no sound is coming out from his throat and he is able to breath underwater. Ace realizes, a few seconds later, that he has no trouble breathing whatsoever. Realizes that he does not need to swim when he can just float and remain still.
“What,” he manages. Bubbles of air shoot out of his mouth and disappear to the vast deep sea.
It is strange. Because at this depth, the pressure should be crushing, like what Sabo told him before. Therefore, we should avoid drowning at all cost, Ace, it rings close to Ace’s ear.
Ace whips his head around. And sees a large fire, burning all that’s left of a pitiful boat too near to the Celestial Dragon’s ship. Ace sees a burnt flag with a crossed S as its symbol enters the deep sea, floating to where Ace is unable to move, watching in horror and shaking madly.
“Sabo, Sabo, Sabo—” he screams, even though nobody could hear him, not even his own ear could catch the sound of his horrified screams. Ace could smell a burnt flesh and he feels hopeless, helpless, unable to do anything. He, Ace. Ace.
Ace screams again:
This time, Marco is frowning worriedly at him. “Were you having a nightmare?” the blond man asks.
Ace blinks rapidly. He extends his arms; they are bare, and he can easily see the ASCE tattoo on one of his arm, along with the crossed S.
Ace takes a deep breath, and then exhales. Sabo is dead (but not really, his mind supplies unhelpfully). He fell asleep again on the deck of the Moby Dick. It’s a usual occurrence.
“Thatch has been searching for you, Ace,” Marco says. “He—”
The door to the deck opens with a loud bang. “Ace!” Thatch screams at the top of his lung. “You never told me that today is your birthday?!”
Ace shoots a glare at Marco’s direction immediately. “You betrayed me!” he accuses.
Marco just stares at Ace impassively. “Pops also knows. Don’t look at me like that,” he calmly replies.
Ace is about to open his mouth to protest when a loud laugh rumbles all over the ship. It’s a laughter Ace knows too well, everyone on the ship knows too well. A laugh scary to other pirates, but warm and fatherly to the crew of the Whitebeard Pirates. No matter how mad he is at Marco, Pops’ laughter is always able to sooth the fire burning inside Ace’s ribcage.
“The day when one of my sons was born to this world should be celebrated at all cost! Come, Son. Let us enjoy today to its fullest!”
Ace sighs. He really can’t escape now. Beside him, Marco is smilling slightly.
“Don’t sulk again, Ace,” Marco says as he pats Ace’s shoulder and stands up, walking toward the center of the crowd.
Ace has no other choice but to follow Marco. Ace rises, a bright smile etching traitorously to his face. He takes a few more steps closer to the back of his awaiting crewmates—
A strong current brings him back to the depth of the sea.
Ace’s silver eyes widen. “Not again,” he hisses, bubbles escaping out from the gap of gritted teeth.
Ace feels his body drifting, drifting so quickly, drifting fast and deeper, drifting, drifting—drowning—
And his chest hurts. Painfully so. Ace is in pain. And though he is a fire itself, he feels like his entire body is burning to its very core, burning deep within his chest, searing the ache to his bones.
Ace blinks once. Twice, thrice. The ocean dissipates, and Ace can feel the smell of a burnt flesh again.
Luffy is crying loudly right in front of him. Or, his corpse, to be precise. Everywhere around them stops momentarily; Luffy’s scream is too loud and he is crying like a crybaby again and Ace hates, hates.
But he’s dead. And dead people can do exactly nothing.
Ace loathes—not his little brother, but the fact that now Luffy doesn’t have any brothers left in this world now. But—too many buts, too many buts—Ace knows, at that moment, a second before life left his body, that he is:
Loved.
Ace looks down at his own body. There are battle scars everywhere, no doubt from the recent war at the Marineford. A huge hole is now residing at where his lungs and heart should have been a few moments earlier. Ace wants to reach the hole with his palm to touch it, but a steady palm reach the hole first.
Ace looks down. Sabo’s small form is standing in front of him, one hand residing at his hollow chest. Sabo looks up at him, smiles, and turns into someone taller, with longer blond hair, but with the same pair of breathtaking blue eyes.
The edge of Sabo’s face, hair, eyes—everything about him—is blurred, yet Ace knows without a doubt that it’s Sabo, his Sabo. Ace looks around and finds that he is no longer in the middle of a raging battlefield. It’s now only Sabo and him standing in the middle of an infinite space of bright white light.
The Sabo in front of him is still smiling.
“You lived out your life to its fullest, Ace,” Sabo says. His gaze is fixated to the hand inside the hole in Ace’s chest. Sabo’s hand slowly lights up with fire, the same way Ace’s hand always did before he died.
“But you didn’t,” Ace says back. Sabo doesn’t regard Ace’s stare. He just keeps smiling that calm smile of his.
“Someday, you’ll find us again, Ace.” At this, Sabo finally looks into Ace’s eyes, blue eyes softening with fondness. “It’s truly good, right? Living, I mean.”
Ace feels a pang in his chest, even though his nerves are supposed to be dead by now. He chooses to stay silent and let Sabo continue talking.
“Ace, you need to remember always, that you are loved. You are loved. Until whenever.” Sabo takes Ace’s hand in his with his other hand, joining their flame together into one bright orange light from their linked hands.
“Until whenever,” Sabo repeats, “Ace. Ace. Ace.”
“Ace!”
Ace gasps loudly. This time, his voice reverberates inside their house’s dining room. Sabo is frowning deeply at him, annoyance fleeting across his blue eyes.
“Honestly. Falling asleep in the middle of making a wish? Your candles have almost melted, all of them! The cake is now dirtied by candles! How can—”
“Oh, I can still eat it, Sabo!” Luffy supplies unhelpfully. Sabo glares at him.
“Almost everything is edible to you, Lu.” Sabo huffs, and then redirects his attention back to Ace. He raises an eyebrow and asks, “And why are you still holding onto my hands now?”
Ace looks down to his and Sabo’s joined hands. He lets go immediately with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, Sabo. It seems like I’ve just woken up from a long, long dream.”
Sabo sighs. “You bet. Let’s just get this done quickly. I want that cake, too, after all.”
Sabo is about to take the knife to slice the cake when, suddenly, Ace presses a kiss to the corner of Sabo’s mouth. Due to that sudden kiss, Sabo’s cheeks gradually grows red. “A—Ace—”
Ace just grins. Beside them, Luffy whines, “At least wait until I can kiss Torao, too!”
Ace’s grin instantly falls. “Luffy, what do you mean—”
The bell rings. Luffy shoots out of his chair so quickly. “Oh, Torao has come! I’m gonna go greet him!” Then, Luffy disappears from the dining room just like that.
Sabo sighs. Ace hears this and looks back at him. As he stares at Sabo’s blond hair, longer than when they parted ways almost four years ago, and striking blue eyes. A smile works its way to his face easily.
“Hey,” Ace says. It doesn’t take long for Sabo to join him, smiling back with ease.
“Was it a good dream?” Sabo asks.
Ace hums, searching for a way to describe the abstract and slowly scattering memories of his dream. “I remember that there was you in it,” he chooses to say.
Sabo nods understandingly. “A good dream, then.” Ace doesn’t deny that at all.
The next second, it’s Sabo kissing him square on the lips. A smirk forms on Sabo’s lips, still when they are pressed to Ace’s lips. Sabo pulls away after three seconds pass.
“That is how you should kiss me, Birthday Boy.” A soft laugh escapes past Sabo’s throat. “Happy birthday, Ace. I love you,” he then says.
Ace feels something burning deep inside his core, but this time, it’s not consuming his chest until it leaves a hole. This time, it warms him and pulls the corner of his lips upward.
“Being alive is a good thing, don’t you think so, Sabo?”
Sabo stares at Ace, blue eyes lighted up with fondness. His expression conveys his love for Ace, even when they were still a child, even when he was being nonsensical and full of doubts. At that moment, Ace thinks that he does not need to be reborn as whoever’s kid. He only needs to live his life to the fullest, for he is loved, just like what Sabo said earlier.
Sabo takes Ace’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. He spreads warmth across their palm. It feels like a living, breathing flame is engulfing their joined hands.
It feels like, for once: all is well. And when Sabo speaks, Ace has finally come to truly belive that.
“It is.”
“Time can never break your heart, but It'll take the pain away. Right now our future's certain, I won't let it fade away.”
[ Golden Days — Panic! At The Disco ]