Chapter Text
On hot days like these, Portgas D. Ace finds himself wanting a simple straw hat. The type that people wore when traveling to the Bahamas or any other paradise that he could remember being printed on those miscellaneous pamphlets that decorated the entrance of most airports. His bright orange cowboy hat suffices as enough to shade his face, but it feels less luxurious and more… country . The charms on the brim feel somewhat cool, but style isn’t really valued anymore when it comes to the state of the world. It’s not really practical, but it’s alright.
His lips are chapped, his palms feel rough against each other. There’s dirt beneath his nails and his fingertips feel cold despite the summer heat.
The government-run checkpoint is rather lively today, full of people bargaining over their food tickets and stuttering over their words as they begged military soldiers at the gate that they weren’t infected. Spit flickers over the plastic shield of their soulless helmets as they beg, tears fall down into the cracks of whatever’s left of the sidewalk.
It’s become a natural sight to merely go into the street and see people kneeling against the ground, hands behind their head with government-lended weapons poking the back of their skulls. They’re screaming at them, yelling at them to stay down or else they’ll get exterminated.
It’s weird talking about humans in insect terms, lowly and almost insulting. Ace cringes when one of the weapons goes off and someone screams their final cries, scarlet spilling over the asphalt as if it were a fucked up portrait of life. People hide away in the rotting apartment buildings above and around, behind moth-eaten curtains and struggling to accept the world as it is now. Surviving on rations that aren’t nearly enough to suffice as “healthy”, but if the government decides that it’s enough, what effect does a crowd of protesters have on a mob of undead and soldiers covered head to toe?
The infection spreads through fluids and bites, a continuous cycle of whatever the hell was unleashed on mankind. The decaying grey of their skin, the overarching hunger that couldn’t be normal, a slow spread of fungi stretching over their body until they’re no longer human and more alien .
Ace, for the two years that he’s been living in what some would define as “the end of the world”, finds that it’s absolute hell.
“A zombie apocalypse,” the man whispers to himself softly, as if telling a joke. “Who would’ve thought?”
To think society would fall thanks to something that Ace remembered being in movies; the classic “bite and infect” becoming a reality. It was just a silly little thought that was only a mere concept, like the comic books and whatever else that a teenager could come up with.
(“Farmer’s market is closed.” Sabo had said one night, a failed grocery trip ending with rather pitiful results. Dinner was sad that day, but when it came to their non-picky stomachs, food was food.
Ace, face full of the pasta that they managed to make. “How come?”
“Apparently no crops are good, all molded. Even the FDA’s saying it’s bad.”
Luffy, with a face also full of pasta, had complained.
“No food? Bummer!”)
The door of Ace’s provided apartment swings open thanks to the turn of the knob, which makes the man sigh. Leaving the door unlocked either means that Luffy forgot or Luffy just got back as well, and then that led to him forgetting. Surely an apocalypse would have driven someone to grow some wit, but guess his little brother never changes.
He steps into the space, closing the door with one hand and facing the shoddy attempt at a home. He draws a freckled hand away and spots the sight of a fat bottle of brandy sitting wonderfully on the kitchen counter. It’s open, sitting beside a roll of gauze.
“Looks like you had fun.” Ace starts, watching as Luffy uses the alcohol to clean his knuckle wounds. The boy snaps out of his fury-filled actions, pausing his wiping away of the blood and immediately turning to his brother. The only color on him is the red splotches of blood all over his face and skin, and the tattered red zip-up that sat over an old white shirt that he’s pretty sure is from Ace’s minimal collection of clothes. “Didn’t give the military another reason to hate us, did you?”
“That was only one time and this time, it wasn’t my fault.” Ace’s gaze feels heavy, but it does get Luffy to avert his eyes and shrink a bit. “At least, not entirely my fault.”
As a big brother, Ace has to give the younger one a look over and find everything wrong with him. Luffy’s big round eyes stare at the rotting floor, a mix of shame and frustration on his expression.
He sighs, plopping the bag onto the counter and swiping the makeshift medical tools. The smell of alcohol makes his mouth water, but he resists the urge to pour himself a glass and instead soaks a spare rag with the bronze liquid. Luffy has a terrible history with patching himself up, but he knows the basics.
Luffy lets Ace wipe the red off his arms, which garners some hissing and whines from the young boy. The alcohol definitely stings a lot more than probably hydrogen peroxide, but it’s a good replacement for the hospital-given stuff. A rare replacement considering how everyone just loved to rot away with the help of some booze.
It’s not like the infected were going to drink it up.
“What happened?”
There’s a magical thing about the way Luffy blinks a few times and huffs, sighing as he begins to speak. The youth isn’t good with storytelling, but Ace manages to pick out bits and pieces of what matters. Sabo is more talented at picking out Luffy’s jumbled words and energetic tones.
Ace, whilst wrapping Luffy’s knuckles tightly, stiffens midway and sighs.
“I hate this place as much as you do, trust me.” Luffy and his antics, though according to his retelling, it really wasn’t Luffy’s fault. Guess even while an apocalypse is going on, you can still get called a slur for merely bumping shoulders. “We’ll get out of here soon.”
The younger boy scoffs, frowning.
“You said that last week.”
Ace chuckles. “You're tracking the days?”
“Oi! I’m not that dumb.”
“Your brain is made of rubber, or probably plexiglass.”
Luffy gives him an odd stare.
“Do you even know what plexiglass is?”
Ace snorts.
“Do you ?”
“Yes, I do, actually!” Luffy, with his arms crossed and grinning wide, proudly exclaims. “Sabo said that it was like.. plastic glass! Ack… ack-curl…”
There’s some silence on Ace’s part, listening to Luffy attempt to sound out the word that’s come to mind.
“Acrylic?” He finally helps, earning a glitter in Luffy’s eyes.
“Yep! Sabo said it was that!”
(Two years ago, Sabo went missing during the height of the chaos. He had gone out to check on a family friend, who had gotten so sick that they couldn’t even leave the house, much less their bed. Makino was dear to them, so a cold to them was terrible news to the three. Luffy was insistent on going with, but as fate would make it, Ace told him to focus on his scholarship letter instead.
It was pizza night, but none of them were hungry and even if Luffy was, he somehow wasn’t able to make it through half of the boxes they ordered.
It didn’t take long for things to go straight to hell just an hour after Sabo had left. Ace wanted to forget the look of fright on Luffy’s face as the news broadcaster on the television got blown up in a gas leak, the colors of fire reminiscent of a campfire as the explosion was a small blur outside of their apartment just a few miles away. People going batshit insane, red laced around their lips as they devoured each other.
Texts weren’t going through, probably because the servers were so full from people frantically calling their loved ones.
“Where’s Sabo?” Luffy had cried, lumped in the passenger seat of their rusted old truck. Ace, with all his soul, didn’t want to leave. He wanted to wait for Sabo, he wanted to leave with all of them alive.
Where are you, Sabo ? What an amazing question.
It’s also the last text that managed to get through as Ace was forced to drop his phone into the sticky cup holders and speed out the fastest way he knew. Luffy, who had never cared for a cell phone even after getting a job, seemed to be regretting it as people and corpses blurred by.
The only thing that kept their hopes up was when a text from Sabo came a week later, just before cell towers were destroyed, saying that he was safe.)