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“So, how good are you at juggling?”
Ace shifted around in his car seat, his neck stiff from an impromptu nap. “...juggling? Like that thing with the balls?”
“Yeah, that thing with the balls - how good are you at it?” Sabo’s voice was irritated and short. He clenched the steering wheel with a white-knuckle grip, cursing under his breath as he wove through traffic.
Ace knew Sabo was probably a liability on the road, especially considering the fact he hadn’t slept in the last 36 hours. They all hadn’t, in fact. While Sabo had been busy doing whatever it was he did best, he and Luffy packed up all of Ace’s belongings, the three of them surviving on caffeine and adrenaline to get them through the all-nighter.
Common sense told him to take over the wheel for the sake of their safety. He’d been able to get in a few hours of sleep and they were about halfway through their road trip. Sabo could definitely use the break - functioning on little sleep wasn’t exactly abnormal for him, but it was clear he was running on fumes.
But, well, Ace was a little scared of his brother at that moment. Sabo’s eyes were a little too wide, his posture a little too perfect - it felt like the small amount of control driving granted him was the only thing keeping him from a total crash out. Ace would need to tread carefully if he wanted to get to his college alive.
“Well, I can juggle two balls if you know what I’m sayin-”
Wrong. Answer.
He was cut off by a flick to the side of his head. That normally wouldn’t be enough to make him shut up, but Sabo knew how to make it hurt.
The car swerved slightly as Sabo tore his attention from the road. “Well, you’re gonna have to learn, dumbass. Drums too. Also chess - please tell me you know how to play chess?”
“Same rules as checkers, right?”
Sabo’s expression remained the same, poised and sharp, but something in his eyes died. He turned back towards the road, entirely too calm and quiet. Suddenly, a manic sort of smile broke through the mask. Ace subconsciously braced himself for the impending feeling of danger which spread through the interior of their sedan.
“Nope! Not checkers! Not at all!” He gave Ace an overly enthusiastic side eyed glance. “Do… do you even know how to play checkers?”
A tense moment of silence was shared between them both. It wasn’t as though he and Luffy had a traditional upbringing in any sense of the word, especially not when compared to Sabo’s childhood. There wasn’t much time to play board games when having to survive Dadan’s death trap of a foster home.
Sabo laughed. “Ha! We’re fucked!”
Uh oh. Sabo laughing was never a good sign.
“Well, that’s okay, right? I won’t need chess or whatever. I’ll just be there for a year anyways and it’s not like I’ll be in some dumbass club or anything-”
“Oh, but you will be!”
“...huh?”
“You’re gonna be in a dumbass club - you have to be in a dumbass club. It’s the only way we’re gonna be able to afford this shitshow.” Sabo’s fingers thrummed along the dashboard, tapping out a nonsense rhythm.
“Okay okay, you’re losing me here-” Ace was cut off as Sabo continued on, seemingly unaware he’d even started talking.
“That was the hardest part, you know. It’s easy enough to hack you into classes and sign you up for meal plans - dozens of people don’t even show up the first day. All I needed to do was plaster your name over a no-show. But finances? Whoooole other story. Can’t just make money where there isn’t any!” His voice rose a pitch with every word. Ace was beginning to think it had been a mistake to take a nap and leave Sabo alone with his thoughts for so long. He’d clearly been spiraling for a while now.
“You make one wrong move, attract the wrong person’s attention, and suddenly you’re arrested for fraud! And then Garp’s gonna swoop in to ship you off to academy and we won’t be able to do shit about it!” His smile was wide now, laughs interrupting words.
Ace flinched slightly at the mention of Garp - the old geezer was likely tearing up Dadan’s as they spoke. Had Luffy discovered his flyer for military school even a day later, Ace would have been none the wiser to Garp’s schemes. Rather than conning his way into a random college on a day’s notice, it was likely he’d be on a bus full of other unfortunate souls, all of them headed towards their own personal hell.
Thankfully, the academy had strict application requirements. First years had to be between the ages of 17 and 18 in order to attend classes, meaning Ace just had to lay low a year to avoid that entire mess. As long as he looked to be doing something an upstanding citizen would do, attending college for example, Garp would lay off and watch from a distance.
How hard could it really be? He’d already gone through highschool and barely passed - what was one more year of classes?
“So, what, I play board games with a bunch of nerds and they give me cash?”
“Yup!” His grin as he turned back to Ace had a threat present that hadn’t been there before, at least not as intimidating. “And you’re gonna do it, too. Chess, drums, juggling - I searched through 78 organizations for whatever bullshit scholarships they were handing out and signed you up for all of them. And miracles behold, Portgas D. Ace qualified!”
He could feel the glass of his window press against his back as he created some distance away from his brother. Sabo’s attention was decidedly not on the road, instead trained on Ace as he leaned in closer. It was becoming all too clear that Sabo had been pushed past his limits with this half baked plan of theirs if the way his eyes were twitching was any indication.
“While your ass was sleeping, I was thinking up our get-out-of-jail-free card. We’ve got 4 hours to pull off the impossible - you’re gonna to follow my entire plan, got it?”
___
As it turned out, Sabo’s plan involved a lot of sneaking around and even more lying - Ace was great at only one of those things.
In his defense, he hadn’t had a lot of practice in stealth. Sabo had always needed it more, especially considering the amount of times he’d run away from home, dodging his parent’s hired help as he fled towards the outskirts of town. Ace could charm almost anyone but it was clear that Sabo was the more competent one when it came to moving around undetected.
That was the reasoning behind he and Luffy being left behind in the car as Sabo worked out the more difficult parts of his plan. He’d been able to hack Ace into their online servers, but that only covered half of it all. Things like securing a dorm and acquiring a physical ID card couldn’t be done digitally.
He wasn’t all that sure what his brother really did for a living. Sabo wasn’t one to talk about his work and Ace wasn’t one to ask questions people didn’t want to answer. All he knew for certain was that Sabo had a shady collection of skills he was highly adept at. Things like forging documents and altering official papers was basically child’s play to him.
So, he wasn’t all that worried about Sabo’s end of the deal. What he was worried about was the idiot in the backseat who had just woken up from his nap.
Luffy had been unceremoniously squeezed in with Ace’s packed boxes. Their sedan’s storage space left much to be desired, so Luffy had been forced to lay on the floor after they’d piled everything onto the seats. That would have been extremely uncomfortable for any normal person.
Thankfully, Luffy was the weirdest kid he knew. He started snoring away 10 minutes into their trip and had been blissfully asleep the entire way through, the very picture of comfort.
After the long night they had, only one thing could wake his little brother up before he was fully rested. That was the reason why his thoughts went straight towards food the moment Luffy’s head popped up from the floor.
He’d sort of forgotten what he and Luffy had packed. The two of them had no idea what all was needed at college. The only person in their lives with some semblance of a higher education was Garp and it was clear to everyone around that the man had brute forced his way through qualifications.
So, save for the singular box of clothes and essentials, Ace and Luffy had gone a little overboard with what they thought was important. Namely, an obscene amount of frozen pizzas.
They’d managed to clear out three separate convenience stores (in a perfectly law-abiding way of course) before Sabo corralled them into the car to start their trip. With how tired they all were, the 30+ pizzas had been forgotten in the back as the more urgent details took precedence.
After 8 hours on the road in a cramped sedan with a broken ac, those pizzas had earned a higher spot on Ace’s list of worries.
“Ace? Is it lunchtime yet?”
There was a faint smell of cheese and sauce in the air, the perfect pairing to Ace’s spiraling thoughts.
’What were we thinking?!’
Along with not knowing what to pack, neither of them really knew what a college’s living arrangement would look like. They’d assumed there would be some sort of big freezer around with how many students would be in one place. Seeing as how he didn’t even have a dorm at that moment, Ace knew now it probably wasn’t wise to go so hard on the meal prepping.
If they didn’t act soon, they were about to have a shitton of spoiled pizzas on their hands. As a pseudo-Monkey, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if that happened.
“Luffy, we messed up and we messed up bad.”
___
“Okay okay, repeat back the plan.”
“Uhhh we find a freezer?”
“Yeah, and?”
“We put the pizzas in the freezer?”
“Uh huh, keep it coming-”
“We make sure nobody sees us, right?”
“You got it - now what’s the backup plan? What if we don’t find a freezer?”
“Uhhhh…”
“C’mon Luffs - this is your favorite part.”
“Oh! We find an oven!”
“Yeah! And? And?”
“We bake all the pizzas and then eat them.”
“Perfect dude - we’re set.”
They had to get a little creative when it came to transporting 30+ pizzas without arousing suspicion. Sabo had been pretty clear about the need to maintain a low profile, his threat of violence being enough to make them wary about messing up their cover.
Ace was pretty pleased with his ingenuity in their operation. It turns out, taking the pizzas out of their boxes reduced the total volume by at least half. It did mean the thawed out and uncooked pizzas were rawdogging it up in their makeshift bindles, but Ace was far more concerned about food waste to worry about whatever culinary crimes they were committing.
They were both crouched behind a bush, watching the college’s front entrance for an opening. However convenient it made carrying everything, Ace had to admit their new getup was a little eyecatching.
No one around was carrying anything that resembled a sad sack of frozen food, so it was clear they’d be outliers should anyone see them. Sabo would have both of their asses if they got caught and accused of being some sort of 1950’s caricature of a burglar .
Thankfully, it seemed as though the majority of the student body had already moved in. Orientation week had already started and they were part of the last wave of incoming students. It should be easy enough to sneak onto campus without too many witnesses.
Ace waited until there was a break in traffic before hoisting his bindle up on his shoulder, reaching out to grab onto Luffy’s shirt. “Okay Lu, it’s go time. Remember, no one can see us if we want this to go-”
He froze in place when his hand met open air.
’No fucking way.’
Glancing over, he confirmed the worst case scenario had happened. Luffy was on the loose.
This was horrible for many reasons, namely their plan to keep a low profile was practically ruined already. Sabo, and the rest of the damn college, would see the chaos that is Monkey D Luffy sooner rather than later. It was unlikely the two of them would survive Sabo’s wrath after all was said and done.
Ace also felt personally attacked by this. Luffy had left with half of his pizzas after all and Ace highly doubted he’d find a freezer on his own before it was too late. He didn’t even want to think about Luffy attempting to bake them all without supervision. No amount of random scholarships would pay for whatever damages he’d no doubt cause.
Yeah, this was quickly spiraling past the need for stealth. Sabo would surely understand if he knew what all was at stake here. He just hoped he’d get there in time to both save the pizzas and also Sabo’s plan.
___
In his experience, if you moved with confidence you could wear anything. Ace would even go as far as to say you could make anything look cool as long as you wore it like it already was. It was how he got away with wearing an obnoxiously orange cowboy hat at all times. Sure, he got a few stares every now and then, but they were likely just admiring his avant garde style.
Did he maybe look a little weird at that moment, walking around with just his cargo shorts on, a weirdly moist bindle perched on his shoulder? Yeah, what of it? That was actually all on purpose and was a new statement he was testing out. Anyone who thought it was strange was simply just not with the times.
Ace’s confidence was contagious, if only to himself. After a few minutes of walking around campus while keeping an eye out for a certain menace, he’d begun to fully immerse himself into his new character here - the college Ace who had his life together and could pull off anything. The next year would be tough with his fully packed schedule but he could see himself enjoying a new change of pace here.
Eventually, his steadily dethawing bindle forced him to make a decision. He either had enough time to salvage the pizzas or track down Luffy.
The choice was obvious. It was time to find an oven.
While he was still unclear of how colleges really worked, he assumed he’d find a kitchen in one of the dorm buildings. There were a handful scattered across campus, a few co-ed while others looked to be gendered. He chose the closest one that had a couple of dudes exiting out the front entrance. It seemed like the safest option to avoid any more trouble.
He ran into his first problem before even entering the building.
Everyone was using key cards to unlock the doors, something he didn’t have yet. Sabo was likely working on that right now, either printing out a new one or altering a pre-existing card. One of his many skills was making fake IDs so Ace wasn’t all that worried about moving around campus in the future.
Ace was on a time restraint however. The pizzas were quickly forming into a sad lump of dough in his sack and he needed to take a risk. The open ground floor window close to the entrance seemed as good an open invitation as any.
Seriously, what kind of idiot just leaves their window wide open like that? They were practically asking to be robbed. And, from the looks of it, they had plenty to steal.
The dorm room Ace found himself in was only decorated on one side, the other half empty with just an uncomfortably looking bare mattress on the floor. Even with the small square footage, whoever lived here managed to squeeze in a lot.
A microwave, a mini fridge, a full set of dishes - hell, they’d even built their bed up high in order to fit a nice looking computer below. It seemed like the sort of prissy set up Stelly would have. Anyone would be lucky to share a room with whatever rich prick was living here.
Said rich prick chose that moment to enter the room.
It was a guy who looked to be Ace’s age. He seemed to have just taken a shower, wearing only a towel around his waist as he walked through the doorway. His hair was about shoulder length, dyed a bright blue which seemed to have already stained his white towels with the color. And, thankfully, he hadn’t yet spotted Ace as he began to sort through his closet space for clothes.
If Sabo was in that situation, he likely would have already found either a hiding spot or just fled the scene before he got caught. Ace wasn’t Sabo however - he didn’t do all that well being caught off guard, especially in a place he had no right being in. Normally his way about things included punching out a threat before they had time to squeal, but something told him that was a bad idea. It was all he could do to freeze in place and pray to whatever was out there that the dude wouldn’t notice him.
Ace was an atheist for a reason.
The guy had managed to pull on a pair of pants when he suddenly looked back towards the room, his eyes locking instantly onto Ace’s. He let out a frankly embarrassing shriek, landing back onto his ass as he scrambled away.
“Who the fuck are you?!”
His eyes fell onto the bindle - Ace could practically read his thoughts as he began to jump to conclusions. Just because he was dressed as a shitty robber didn’t mean he was one… usually.
“Woah woah woah - it’s not what it looks like-!”
Ace didn’t get a chance to explain himself as he watched the guy jump to his feet, quickly making his way to the door. There was no telling how bad things would get should he get a chance to rat Ace out to whatever security was on a college campus. He needed to do something and he needed to do it quickly.
Having only one weapon in his arsenal, Ace reached down into the sack and tossed a limp, uncooked pizza right at his escaping victim. It landed on the back of his head with an audible SPLAT, the odd sensation stopping him in his tracks.
They both stood in awkward silence as the pizza slowly fell to the floor. Ace had to keep himself from moving forward in order to salvage it.
“Was that… was that a pizza?”
The blue haired teen looked entirely flabbergasted as he looked back at Ace with a renewed interest. Ace gave a nonchalant shrug, trying his best to be subtle about inching his way back towards the open window. It seemed as though his initial fear of Ace was momentarily forgotten.
“Uh… what’s in the bag?”
“...nothing…”
“Is it full of pizzas?”
“...no…”
“Are they all just thrown in there? No boxes or wraps or anything?”
Ace was sweating now. He was onto him - onto his weird and now embarrassing plan to smuggle in pizzas. It had made perfect sense when he’d talked about it with Luffy, but now in the face of common sense he could only feel immense shame. He knew better than to go along with a scheme that Luffy approved of.
A short laugh made him look back at the teen. He was more relaxed now as he bent down to pick the fallen pie up, glancing at Ace with an amused expression. “Dude… what is up with that? What are you even doing here?”
Okay, he could work with this. At least he wasn’t seen as a threat anymore - he had some room to turn this situation over in his favor.
Ace glanced back towards the empty side of the room and suddenly a plan was formed. ’Sabo, I’m about to make your life so easy.’
“I’m, uh, I’m actually your new roommate? I just got here this morning…”
“Oh, okay!” He looked around the room, expression now confused. “Is that all you brought? No other boxes or anything?”
Ace could feel a blush settle on his cheeks as he took stock of what was left in the car. Compared to all the guy had brought, Ace only really had a sad little box with all his clothes and essentials. The pizzas had really made up the majority of his packed items.
“I mean… I have some other clothes?”
The teen laughed once again, this time unrestrained. Ace, although thoroughly embarrassed, couldn’t help but to join in.
___
Ace’s new roommate was named Deuce and the guy was cool.
After sorting out their rough introduction, the two had gotten along surprisingly well. He seemed to find Ace fascinating, taking his antics and odd behaviors with stride. All he’d needed was a brief explanation for the obnoxious amount of pizzas at hand before he led Ace to the shared kitchen.
They were able to set up a pretty streamlined operation. The oven was kept on the entire time, Deuce moving pizzas from the bindle onto the rack and depositing the freshly baked pies in front of a very eager Ace. In the time it took to eat one, another pizza was ready to be consumed. It was a sort of teamwork Ace had always dreamed about.
Eventually, they began to attract a crowd. Turns out eating 15 consecutive whole pizzas in a couple of hours was highly unusual. Ace wasn’t sure what was so spectacular about it - he and Luffy ate this amount and more on the regular. He wasn’t about to turn anyone away from cheering him on however, especially not once people brought over beers to watch the show.
In no time at all, a miniature house party erupted in the small kitchen. Ace was the goddamn life of the party, shoveling down pies like a champion while people shouted praise.
It definitely went against the plan, but he was just having too much fun to stop. Besides, he was learning some useful information as his time there went on.
Sabo had given him a list of his scholarship groups for that year, something that came in handy when people in the crowd asked him what classes he’d be in. They’d all been shocked at the sheer amount of items on the list. He was really starting to doubt his ability to last the year with all that would need to be done, but he at least was able to connect with people in his groups before they’d even started.
In any case, being friends with a few of them helped the chances of their plan working out. He’d be more likely to get away with knowing jack shit about his extracurriculars. And, as was proven right from the start, the students at his college knew how to party. Ace could definitely get used to a life like this.
He was just about finished with the pizzas and sufficiently tipsy when a familiar straw hatted figure sprinted past the kitchen doorway. Ace paused mid-chew, watching as Luffy slowly walked back towards the entrance, stopping once in view.
“You!” they shouted in unison, pointing an accusatory finger at each other.
“Luffy, you asshole! Where the hell have you been?!”
“I was finding an oven like we planned! Where were you?!”
“We were supposed to stick together, idiot! What if you messed up Sabo’s plan?!”
“I didn’t! I was super sneaky! Sanji even let me eat in his dorm so people wouldn’t see!”
“Who the hell is Sanji-?!”
“Enough!”
A new voice broke through their shouting match.
A familiar voice, one that reminded them all at once how royally they’d fucked up the plan. Sabo walked into the still lively kitchen, looking relaxed from an outside perspective but downright murderous to those who truly knew him.
He took a sweeping look around the room, eyes pausing on Ace’s open beer and the sauce stains on Luffy’s shirt. Then, horrifically, he let out a laugh.
Sabo laughing was never a good sign.