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Sabo groaned internally, the heat was almost unbearable but, hopefully, they’d be heading out soon. He made his way down an unknown street of Nanohana towards a crowd of people.
Weird, they’re all gawking and staring at something inside, but it's a restaurant so he shoves his way inside. Ooo, poisonous strawberry, cool, that’s fine, they’re literally asleep at the counter, not safe at all, but at this point in time he could care literally less.
Sabo has not slept in days, his log pose broke exactly 63 hours, 23 minutes and 15 seconds ago - he counted because he’s so fucking tired and of course they couldn’t get a replacement until now . And of course, the only island he seemed to come across was Alabasta , he doesn’t have enough sunscreen to survive this place.
He will literally attack anyone who looks at him right now, he needs something to drink, like now. Or maybe he could follow the man beside him and fall asleep, that sounds nice, of course it sounds nice. Sleep .
“Do you serve coffee,” he asks the man who’s also gawking at the sleeping man, they startle before nodding, he sits beside the man with the shit ton of food. “ Please ,” he almost begs the man before they rush away.
The sleeping man bolted up without any warning before wiping his face and had started to eat again. There was a freshly brewed cup of coffee in front of him. Finally, he could weep tears of joy before dumping half of the sugar container into the drink and stirring. The rest of the restaurant is still gawking at the sleeping man who is about to fall face first into his meal again, immediately— instinctively? He pulls the plate before he can hit it and slides it right next to the man's head.
“How-?” The server’s now staring at him, and he takes a nice, deserving , sip of coffee. Sip, not a sip, he chugs the sugary monstrosity of a coffee cup before placing it back onto the counter, empty.
“Another please,” the server just nods meekly as the people finally start to dissipate around them. The man beside him - no longer sleeping, bolts up again alarmed.
The man turns towards him, “huh? Thanks man.”
“No problem,” Sabo replied easily before dumping six tablespoons of sugar into his drink, best to ease up now, and stirring it. He takes a look at the man who is still staring at him. He kind of wants to laugh, “nice hat?”
The man is slack jawed for a few seconds before nodding, “thank you, yours is pretty cool too, l-love the goggles,” he almost chokes out. Oh wow, Sabo thinks, no one ever comments on the goggles. He takes a sip of his drink.
“-I’ll get you another,” the server rushes away again, right before Sabo places his cup down again. There is a slamming sound behind them, huh? Oh a Marine, not that important.
Oh, the nice man beside him is a pirate, right he should have noticed before, considering the fact he literally had a tattoo of his jolly roger, on his back . He’ll chalk it up to his lack of sleep. Huh, there’s another tattoo A S C L, with the S crossed out, he stared at it for a few more seconds trying to figure out why it felt really important. Eh, the Marine is so loud, Sabo rubs his ears annoyed, his head is killing him .
The man shifts, realizing how loud gives an apologetic look towards Sabo who is somewhat grateful someone is being nice to onlookers.
“Portgas D. Ace,” the marine obviously doesn’t care and he is literally so close to hitting the man over the head with his pipe, where is his pipe? There’s another noise, oh no. “And… Revolutionary Sabo-?” No, he is literally not there, nope, nadda.
“You can’t prove shit,” he says when his brain finally catches up to his mouth, the pirate is obviously shocked. I mean he’s not that well known but wow. “God you smell like shit-“ he gets enough smoke from Dragon. Absolutely disgusting, “could you, like, put that out please, isn’t there like a law against smoking in restaurants-?”
The pirate snorts as if coming back to his senses, and a loud bang and the marine is down flat on his face and there is a kid sitting on top of him. A teenager? Wearing a strawhat? Feels kind of familiar but he tries not to dwell on it.
The pirate blinking again, sighs and grins. The straw hat kid is also staring back at the pirate, “ACE!” The nice pirate- Portgas is also thrown to the ground as Sabo finally gets his next cup of coffee.
The marine is about to get back up, damn, he puts money on the counter, how much? Sabo literally cannot tell you, the server both horrified and excited at the prospect of what is probably way too much money, bows excitedly as Sabo. He’s gonna duck out as fast as he can before anyone else can realize he’s here.
The pirate- Portgas laughs loudly beside him, and it’s obvious he wants to start talking with Strawhat, does he advise them to leave or just- “…you should probably leave before Marines start swarming-“ he did, he absolutely just told them they should leave. Portgas once again turns his start back to Sabo, Strawhat blinking at him.
“Right,” Portgas grabs the younger pirate by his shirt, pulling him up to his feet, before grinning. Oh, no, Portgas is dragging him along with them, why? “So, Revolutionary?” The pirate asks and Sabo is ready to collapse, Marines are swarming the restaurant’s where they were just at. Strawhat is trailing behind them as they find a place to finally stop running.
“Yeah, chief of staff,” Sabo says as he lets his lungs finally breathe, why is he telling him this? Eh, who cares, hopefully he can get out of here as soon as he can. He almost squawks when Portgas snorts, completely unimpressed, he worked hard for that title.
“So what? Fake your death and show up a decade later?” Portgas finally says, Strawhat is eerily quiet as well.
“Fake my death?” Sabo raises an eyebrow, “this is my first time meeting either of you?” Probably not considering the two very much are acting like they do know him. Portgas takes a deep breath, and Sabo has a faint realization of what the hell is going on. “Wait, how old was I?”
“Why does that matter,” Portgas demands, he looks hurt so Sabo would guess they were probably friends before he y’know, had fucking amnesia .
“Cuz I don’t know—“ fucking Marines, he still hasn’t caught his breath, fucking embarrassing, Portgas realizes something is wrong and picks him up.
He fucking picks Sabo up, Strawhat quickly using his devil fruit to knock the Marines back as they make a run for it. He’ll never admit his temptation to fall asleep, this is absolutely horrible, he needs more coffee to survive.
Sabo is fucking annoyed, and tries to argue about the whole thing but Portgas ignores him, ignores him. There's a lightbulb moment in Portgas’ brain, as they make their way to the docks, Dragon is so going to kill him. “It’s- it’s fucking Amnesia right ?” He got it in one, “Marco was telling me all about it, we just- gotta fix your brain right!”
“Wha’s amnesia!” Strawhat yells, how the hell does this kid not know what amnesia is? It’s not that uncommon, read any medical textbook, it appears everywhere .
“It means I don’t remember shit!” Sabo says back towards the Strawhat, he probably needs the dumbified explanation.
“Oh, so that’s why Sabo is being stupid?” He’s not— he’s not stupid, he’s got a legitimate medical issue.
“Hey Captain!” Strawhats’ crew is here, what a cool looking group. “Who’re they?” The green haired asks as the rest of the crew starts running towards port, him waiting for them to catch up.
And Strawhat laughs, “my brothers!” Brothers? “Except Sabo’s brain is broken!”
The green haired one looks confused before nodding, quickly joining them at their pace, dang, his ship is on the other side of the harbour. Strawhat follows the green haired man, who? Also got lost.
“How,” Sabo asks, his tone flat, as Strawhat and the green haired man both laugh sheepishly. Shaking his head, “put me down, I can walk fine .” Portgas hesitates for a few seconds before Sabo finds himself finally on the ground again.
“My ship isn’t far from here,” he continues, ignoring the way they all protest, Portgas finds his way beside him, obviously wanting to talk about this whole ‘brother’ thing. The two behind them are very loud whispering about the situation.
“What if you just hit him on the head?” Green hair offers, his hand moving towards his sword. He’s going to ignore them, he’ll be able to tell if they actually tried. “That might fix him!”
“Or it could make him worse,” Portgas counters, the swordsman shrugs, and Strawhat is busy staring at him in contemplation.
Finally they get to the dock, which is oddly clear of Marines - save for their ships. “You docked over here?” Portgas asks, quickly making his way onto the smaller ship, there’s only one room, a small deck, something you would expect from a fishing town, not the grandline.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sabo rolls his eyes as he goes to start untying the boat from the dock, the green haired one stops him before quickly grabbing it himself and kicking off, “huh, thanks.”
“So, amnesia,” Portgas follows as a conversation starter. He’s untying the sails,
“Yeah, so uh, who are you two?”
“Oh! I’m Luffy! We’re brothers, and I’m gonna be the king of the pirates!” Luffy proclaims, “Monkey D. Luffy!” No , his Boss’ kid is his brother, is Dragon secretly his father too? Or are they half siblings?
“Zoro,” the green haired man introduced himself, “and I plan on becoming the strongest swordsman in the world.” Cool, Sabo thinks before the green haired man adds on afterwards, “I’m also the first mate of the strawhat pirates.”
“Portgas D. Ace, 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard pirates, and your older brother.” Portgas offers, older brother.
“Older?” He immediately asks, “how much older?” It’s no longer making any sense, they look the same age, so unless they’re twins that should be right?
Portgas waves him off, “only a few months.”
“And we’re brothers?” Not biological? Then how—
“We drank on it!” Luffy clarifies, or at least attempts to clarify.
“—Drank? Like sake?” Portgas and Luffy both nod as if that makes any sense, “who gave children alcohol?!”
“We stole it,” Portgas sat himself up onto a barrel, rude , noticing his look the older smiled.
“And then we declared ourselves brothers!” Luffy was tearing up, Portgas placing a hand on his younger brother's back — Their younger brother's back? “We thought you died, your boat got shot down—“ Luffy obviously wanted to continue. And then Dragon saved his life and he joined the revolutionary army .
“He’s here now,” Portgas consoles Luffy, and Sabo can’t help but feel like a stranger, he just wants to go into his cabin, cry, and then sleep for three days. The pounding is getting worse, his head is absolutely killing him.
“Are you alright?” Zoro is holding his arms out as if worried he’s going to fall over. He’s not that bad? Zoro definitely seems to think differently, grabbing hold of his jacket and guiding him to sit down. Okay, he doesn’t need to be treated as a kid.
“I’m fine,” he lies, and Portgas frowns, “my heads just bothering me a bit.” He’s not going to pass out in front of them, brothers or not. That seems to get Portgas moving, quickly steering their boat closer to The Going Merry .
It’s a very pretty boat, he wonders if they already have their Klabautermann, “hey captain!” One calls out, orange hair, and Sabo can feel his headache growing, his nose is running and he goes to wipe it away - shit .
His nose is bleeding, and there are spots in his vision, what the hell , he quickly pushes himself up, Portgas reaching for him before he actually collapses, maybe Zoro had the right idea. Ace -? Ace and Luffy , he’s such a piece of shit, forgetting them.
Darkness finally completed swarms his vision as Ace is trying to keep him away, he’s a fucking asshole.