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Having met more than one, Yamato could say this about Ace’s brothers: they were both really cool guys.
Luffy was fun and loud and almost overwhelming. It was easy to see how he and Ace were related. Same dark hair and eyes, same warm spirit. Sabo is not like that. Sabo is about as blonde as they get, with one bright blue eyes & the other slightly milky. Not so much warm as burning, like sitting far too close to a fire. Pale as they come too. Yamato originally thought it was just because he didn’t have a tan, but Sabo didn’t seem to ever get one, going red instead of brown.
It took Yamato time to piece just how close Ace and Sabo were. He knew what the crossed out S stood for on Ace’s arm, but still. All stories he had had a much younger Sabo from years ago, it sometimes didn’t fit with the man in front of him. There was still the siblings' utter urge for chaos & a breath of fire to them all, but differences, plenty of them.
“Ace talked about you, you know?” Yamato didn’t recognize Sabo when he first saw him, like he said, he didn’t look much like his brothers.
Sabo looks incredibly pleased, like few things could make him happier. Sometimes Yamto wishes he had a sibling, it seems nice, like a lot of loneliness gets dragged out of you with it.
“And what did he say?” Sabo folds gloved fingers into a triangle, like a gossiping lady at a tea house.
“He talked about you being the planner, the smart one. How he tried to fill in your shoes after…whatever happened,” Ace was vauge with it, but it wasn’t happy by Yamato’s assumption. He was more clear with how Sabo not being there made him want to mature a lot. He’s met a few twins in his life and they were often reflective of each other. Yamato doesn’t say anything about it but he silently figures Ace and Sabo are the same.
“Not smarter…just provided more opportunity, though probably smarter than Luffy if he had it,” Sabo chuckles. “Being a run away from a noble family I know I got more on a baseline than Luffy or Ace. I was the only one who could read before the age of seven.”
“Oh. He also said you were the well behaved one, but I don’t see it,” Yamato knew Ace as a friendly, well behaved young man who dressed like a beach bum and used his Logia to make fire animals to entertain young children when he wasn’t passing out into the sand. Sabo was a man open about his desire to burn, if not it all, a good majority down.
“No no no. I am very well behaved! He took after me, that’s all!” Sabo slapped his knee with more force than necessary. Yamato had a feeling he wasn’t being honest.
“Could you tell me more stories about him then?”
“I’ll tell you stories of when he was young and you’ll tell me stories about an adult Ace. It’s fair trade.”
And so the two men traded and mourned with a laugh. Drank to the life of Ace over the edge of a cliff. Snow fell on the sea and they were kept warm with company and history.