Work Text:
Sabo knows there's something strange in that kid that keeps tailing his friend, that he can't yet put his fingers on. It feels, — smells, sounds, seems, tastes, — like nothing else he had experienced beforehand, and he can't exactly keep the weakening of his knees at the first sight of that oddball that introduced itself as Monkey D. Luffy, nor can he explain it.
The boy is a bit of a weird mix of stupid and smart, proportions uneven and weighting more towards the Stupid. He is persistent, like a particularly old mold, or a clingy bastard, as far as Ace's accurate description of him goes. Hair raven, eyes deep brown threatening to turn black not unlike fertile soil, scar on the cheek looking as gruesome as ever. He calls himself a rubber man, which is at least partially true, since he does stretch like there's no tomorrow, but-
But…
But Sabo finds him weird for a different reason, and he doesn't think Ace understands what he means by that.
Sabo wasn't the child of the jungle, no matter how he wished he was. Sometimes it means that his senses are a bit dull, not used for tracking prey or keeping himself out of harm's way without relying on something else. Sometimes it means that he can hide the sharpness of his smile behind a small quirk of his lips, leaving some lonesome asshole none the wiser of the storm he was about to cause. Sometimes it means he saw through lies and didn't see through obvious aggression, confusing grins with baring of the teeth and vice-versa, like an animal may confuse friendliness of a human with a threat.
He is bound by chains that were drilled in him almost since his birth, and he hates them with all his heart, but they make him human to Ace's beast, — social instinct to wild instinct, — and the Human in him tells that whatever Luffy is, it's not like him. Or any other human for that matter, something bordering that Uncanny Valley effect he read about in books.
Granted, the same Human also says some stuff similar about Ace, but it's more along the lines of this wild thing is hurt and may lash out against Luffy's dangerdangerdanger danger-error-wrong.
Which is weird. He'd think Ace of all people would notice this first, his feelings are sharper than Sabo's after all. Maybe he did, and thought nothing of it, because everything is weird or whatever, and because he probably did.
He might be a dumbass, but Sabo refuses to think that Ace's senses hadn't warned him about that. Society is just glorified, if dull, pack instinct, and if he could pick it up with that, it's impossible for his friend to not know. He can believe that he just refused to dwell on that, though. Like always.
Because Ace is a dumbass.
Anyway, obvious facts aside, the mystery that includes one particular rubber child continues to drive him mad.
Until, one day, it doesn't.
Sabo's small hand, compared to the hand of an adult, holds one of the three cups full of sake and wonders at which point his life made one-hundred and eighty turn, and which of his soon-to-be brothers, — brothers, what a word to make him choke on, — he should blame for that.
The answer to that question is obvious, and is quite literally sitting next to him with a little shishishi on his lips.
It's another thing that made him wary, at the start. That laugh sounds too close to drums, and nothing like a melody — just something, and that creeped him out. He couldn't put a name to this feeling, and watched with both relief and nervousness when Ace tensed at that too. It was something primal, then, something that installed fear even in the bravest of the beasts.
Now it sounds more endearing than anything else, and one of the most beautiful sounds Sabo had ever heard. It might as well warm him from inside with affection, like the sun did at day.
Ace quirks his mouth in a smirk, and he repeats the tale of shared sake and family, of bonds drawn together by one force or other. The clinking of porcelain is almost mute on the background of bursting-with-life jungle Sabo found his true home to be, but in his ear it's deafening. It sounds like a bell that signals a storm, a crack of thunder and a splash of water that breaks the ship's wood in half.
Maybe it was yet another sign among many more before, along with Luffy's smile turning just a little sharper and bigger than usual, raven hair turning ghostly white on the tips. Maybe it was not a bell but a drum, loud and thrumming, with the ocean and sky themselves echoing its beat across the entire world for everyone to hear.
Maybe it wasn't anything at all.
But it roared in Sabo's ears like nothing ever did before as alcohol made its way down his throat. It felt like dying and being reborn, felt like killing and being killed, and the sake splashes heavily into his stomach and far too loud for it to be normal. He thinks there might be tears in his eyes from how much it was just burning him inside out, traveling like lava through his veins, like hell suddenly decided that it was time to visit mortals and it began with him.
(For some reason, it also felt like being set free.)
If every type of booze feels like that, maybe he should never drink again, pirate traditions be damned.
Sabo shook his head trying to clear the sudden haze, almost distantly hearing Ace's coughing and swearing. Good to think he's not alone in his suffering, he'd gladly swore a storm too if it wasn't for the nausea coming to him in waves, with alcohol still sitting too heavy inside, not unlike a rock.
He groans.
What was in that fucking thing, for God's sake?
The same drum-like laugh that began this whole mess is the thing that finally lets him divert his attention from the clusterfuck that was his first instance of drinking, and perhaps the last. Definitely the last.
"Ya 'right?" Luffy giggled in the way only he really could, and Sabo was about to retort that they were fantastic, don't you see how good I am that I'm about to lose my guts, eyes heavy and unusually tired, when every word ever to be said dies on his tongue.
Copper-red stared at him from the face of the newly appointed younger brother, gleaming and illuminating his face that sat against the light, back to the sun. Wisps of airy white danced on his shoulders lazily, almost invisible if you don't know what you're looking for, compelling with the way his hair also seems to slightly glow, smoke-like and light.
The image burns into his eyelids the same way the sake burned into the tender skin of his belly.
It looks close to divine, to be honest.
And ah.
That's… Um.
…How exactly is he supposed to react to that, again?
"...Sabo?" Luffy tries again, face twisting with confusion. The slight shift was enough for the sunlight to hit him just right and reflect the already red eyes to look even redder, more blood than copper. Now that he thinks about it, didn't Makino once tell them that his brother's eyes were gray? And they changed colors slightly, for some reason?
Suddenly, it was like all of his questions were answered all at once, and none at the same time. Sabo sits straight, ignoring already snoring Ace close to him that may or may not sound like he decided to play an old man or a motorboat, and also a brewing headache he always gets if he happens to not sleep enough, and mentally pokes at the stone in his stomach that may once have been booze. It's a weird feeling, imagining poking something he knows is there but is actually not, but not as weird as the stuff that's happening in reality right now.
Definitely not weirder.
The reaction isn't instant. Luffy just blinks at him, slow but not exactly confused anymore, and cocks his head to the side with, with- amusement, maybe? Curiosity? Dancing in his expression. Not the usual Luffy-expression anyhow, either.
Then Sabo feels something poking back.
It's like the spell has suddenly been broken, and for all Sabo fucking knows, maybe it has.
"You're shitting me."
Luffy burst out laughing like a madman. His teeth are whiter than they should ever be, and every breath he haves is like a pause between hits of a drum, and his face is split open enough to take half of it, and Sabo would've feared this new form, and these new sounds if it wasn't for the image being so Luffy. Of course he'll laugh like tomorrow will never come, of course it will be with enough force to shake the ground and sea and sky.
As if bursting from laughing too much will stop him from doing so.
Sabo feels energized just from looking at him like that, completely contrary to what he felt a minute ago. He just sits and blinks and stares at Something that is his new brother. And then stares some more.
Because what the actual fuck.
The poking inside renews with sudden vigor, sending pulses through his body of the bonfire and sunny beach and warm blankets. Goosebumps rise on his hands and spine, and Luffy blinks at him with one red eye from behind his hand as he lies on his back, fallen from laughing too hard, smiling so wide with some emotion he can't yet interpretent. Sabo can't remember anyone looking like that.
Then he blinks again, and, actually, no. Sabo does know that emotion. Makino looks at them like that, when all three of them greet her on the way to or from Dadan.
Love, it's called, and another wave of the warmth pulses in his body with a distinct shishishi in its wake.
…
Ah.
Sabo doesn't know what face he made, but it must be funny enough to send Luffy into another fit of giggles.
That's too many revelations in one day. He might as well curl up and die.
"Nooo," The giggling child(?) whines lengthening his rubber hands, coiling them around Sabo like a particularly clingy snake. "Don' die. Or it'll be sad."
Maybe agreeing with Ace to drink that sake for once was a mistake. A mistake he'll gladly repeat as many times as it'll be necessary, but a mistake nonetheless. Well, at least there will be an easier way to break through his brother's thick skull with affection, he supposes.
And speaking about Ace, he looks at the motionless form of his other brother, who's still snoring like a bear.
"Luffy?" Sabo calls tentatively, as calm as he can be. Good thing he's a good actor. "What's with Ace?"
Luffy sniffs, suddenly not looking like a god made flesh, but like his normal self, hair and eyes black.
"Sleepin'." Is all he says, and judging by the pregnant pause after, he is not going to elaborate.
"...Right."
Oh, this is a long fucking day already.
Ace wakes up to the sound of Luffy's laughter, — which isn't new, — and Sabo bashing his head against the walls of their treehouse, — which is new, — and it's all chaos incarnate from there.
Sabo is yelling, and Luffy is yelling and laughing, and Ace is so confused that he doesn't notice the comfy heaviness in his stomach, nor he pays attention to the flooding warmth in his body. He barely processes that he is, in fact, awake, because he feels like he soundly slept through an apocalypse. He checks the sky to make sure it didn't fall and looks at the ocean to make sure it didn't dry, and makes a face of a newborn kitten that just understood the existence of the world.
Ace is so lost that, for a second, or many, he doesn't even remember what happened before he was down.
It never really hits him, because everything comes back slowly, lazily, and not even on the same day. The sake cups, the burn inside, the sleepiness and dimly, the person with white in their hair and red in their eyes.
The instincts in Ace whisper to not question whoever that was, to ignore the pulses of warmth he feels from time to time, even if the smile of too white teeth and copper eyes sometimes haunts his dreams. The thrumming under his skin tells him it's okay if he never questions it, too, bonfires and sunsets humming with acceptance of whatever choice he decides to follow.
But isn't the son of a D. for nothing, because he always does exactly the opposite of what he's asked, even if it's his own instincts and that strange warmth. So he questions.
Unsurprisingly, Luffy just laughs. Surprisingly, Sabo has no concrete answers, either.
("What it was," Sabo says over sleeping, and drooling, Luffy. "I have no idea."
Ace humms. "But you have some theory." He is the brains, after all.
Sabo shrugs.
"Dunno if I do." He says, brows furrowed and looking at the youngest's face hard. "I might've been awake, but it all felt like sleeping. Like it wasn't real. I know it was, because that kind of shit can't appear even with a running fever, but I was staring at something that definitely wasn't human." Sabo sniffs. "Like, at all."
"You tellin' me you saw god that day?"
The other falls silent.
"...I might have."
Ace dreamed of the person with white hair and red eyes that night.)
Sabo doesn't know, and Luffy wouldn't tell.
Neither seem to talk about the warmth that pulses under his skin, despite Ace knowing for a fact that they're both aware of its existence, too. Luffy smiles softer when it starts, and Sabo flinches slightly at the same time as Ace does, and Ace just knows.
They're aware.
There's just no confusion about it.
"Alright," Ace says sitting near the fire that roasts their hunt for today. "Spill the beans. What's it all about?"
Luffy tilts his head.
"What's what about?"
"Y'know," He says, hands flapping, and the heat starts to spread in his veins once again, and Luffy's eyes lose some confusion, and- "That."
His brothers blink at him in union.
Ace groans.
"The thing." He repeats. "The heat. Or whatever it is!"
"That's just the thing that happens when I think 'bout caring 'bout you." Luffy says, like it's not some random bullshit. Like the heat doesn't flare again.
Sabo noods like that makes sense.
"Makes easier to accept affection when you can feel it."
Ace just gapes.
(It takes time to accept that.)
He knew he was something bigger than a boy with a dream of freedom. It was a weird thing to know, but he knew it all the same because that's just what his life was.
Knowing stuff he was not supposed to know.
So when Shanks brought a box with a fruit that was part of him, it was only natural to return what was His. It's a part, he is not complete without it, and knowing that the Part of him was called Gomu Gomu Fruit nowadays was equally funny, insulting and flattening. Of course they'll try to conceal Him, but by erasing even the Part that was dormant? That will never be eaten by anyone but him alone?
That was desperation. They knew what to fear. What to guard.
And, obviously, they had not guarded it with enough fervour or strength.
He laughs with the sound of drums, and those drums were his own heartbeat, brushing away the hair of two boys from their faces. Warmth spreads under their skin, and they both breathe deeper, calmer.
"Mine." He whispers drawing closer to them, with a spark of copper in his eyes and a wisp of white in his hair.
Yours, echo the Sea and the Sky and the Earth.
Yours, echo two hurting souls under his fingertips.
"Mine." He continues, knowing. "And nobody takes what's mine."