Chapter Text
"No!! No, you can't make me!!" Sabo screamed, pulling on his father's iron grip. He would rather die than get in that car.
"I'm sick of you! You're going, Sabo. That's final. End. Of. Story."
Sabo wailed, trying to drag himself to the ground with his weight. But, he was only a prepubescent 12 year old, there wasn't much he could do.
"ACEEEE....ACEEEEE..." He screamed, screamed until his voice was ragged, and his throat was sore.
Ace was too far away. Sabo didn't know where he was.
His father boxed him over the ear. "Just get in the damn car… Honey, would you lock the doors while I put him in?!"
Sabo scratched him. Bit him. He earned more hits, as tears streamed down his face. He felt something painful collide with his eye, and a hot ache seared. Reaching for it, he could feel swelling.
It stunned him for a moment, just long enough for his father to force the last of him into the seat.
His ears rung a bit. Angry mumbling was all around him, his parents complaining.
"I don't know what he sees in that boy…"
"Don't worry, this mess will be behind us soon enough."
Sabo hurt, he hurt so bad. His knees were scuffed, there were cuts and bruises on his arms. Now there was something wrong with his face, an eye he could hardly see out of. It was spreading, a headache throbbed on his scalp.
"Ace…" He warbled, barely coherent.
The doors were locked, the engine starting.
He looked out the window, one last time. Ace was running, down the block.
He started screaming again. "ACEEEE!! ACEEE-" He scrambled for the window button. With terrified hope, it rolled down about halfway.
"Honey, honey, lock the windows!! He's trying to get out!!"
The space wasn't big enough for him to crawl out of. But he kept trying. Ace was still too far away. He stuck an arm out, desperately waving. The look on his face was sickly. Twisted horror was visible, even from a distance.
"Sabo!! Sab-" He heard his yelling, running faster, eyes wide.
"ACE, I'M GOING TO-"
"MAKE HIM SHUT. UP." His father seethed, raging at his mother. She unbuckled quickly, throwing herself over the console to cover his mouth.
Sabo thrashed around, grappling and biting again. She shrieked in pain, slapping him. His father rolled the window up the rest of the way, putting his foot on the gas.
Ace was a hundred feet from their car, running as fast as he could. Sabo stared out at his brother, fingers to the glass. His heart felt like it was being ripped to pieces, and all he could do was stare.
The car was going 30. He watched Ace drift further and further away, his hand pressed to the cold window. He wished they knew some secret language, that they were telepathic, anything.
Ace looked heartbroken. It made more tears run down, crushing him. He watched every moment, until the corner rounded and he disappeared from view. Sabo stared down at his hands, balled in fists.
That was the moment he vowed to never, ever speak to his parents again.
The airport was quiet. Sabo looked down at his shoes, Converse that still were crusted with mud from yesterdays rain. Him and Ace, playing in the rain. He sniffled, quietly. His blue newsboy cap sat low on his forehead, hiding his swollen face.
All his belongings amounted to a duffle bag. Most of the things inside were gifts from Ace. Old t-shirts, pine cones, rocks. A book about field dressing big game. They had wanted to go on a hunting trip.
The ten-hour flight was silent, and Sabo buried his head in pages covered with scribbled notes.
With the darkening sky, he drifted into restless sleep; plagued by monsters and chases, and Ace always two paces behind.
He woke in the night, and his dry eyes mistook the plane window for a car's. He panicked. Thunder crashed, clouds rolling over the impossible sky with unnatural light. His eyes stared through his parents, sleeping in the row before him.
Trying to calm his breathing, Sabo grasped for the window-blind, pretending it wasn't there. Bringing his legs up, he crawled into the fetal position, clutching the book to his chest. The rest of the night, he poured over Ace's notes like scripture.
Sabo! When we go out to Alaska, I'm going to get the biggest grizzly you ever saw. We'll eat the whole thing together. I know I'm not very good at sharing sometimes, but I'll make an exception. I'm excited to see the mountains. We could make a coat from its fur! You'd look stupid. Haha. Not as stupid as usual though. Practicing with squirrels in Dadan's backyard is getting old.
He smiled weakly down at the page, trying to avoid dripping tears and snot. His handwriting was so messy, that maybe they did have a language all their own. The teachers were always complaining it was illegible, anyway.
It would be okay, he'd write him a letter as soon as he got settled at the school. Then they'd write every day, and it would be like nothing changed. He wished he could hear Ace's voice. Dadan didn't have a phone.
The school was prestigious, massive. Sky as grey as he'd always heard it was, in his father's home country.
A hand rested on his shoulder, vicelike. Sabo scoffed to himself; as if he had anywhere to go, at this point. They acted as if he'd swim back across the Atlantic.
Then again…
Sabo was all signed up; ready to be thrown inside and then never thought of again. The tie was strung too tight around his neck.
Children filed inside the building. He was prepared to just trudge right on in, with no thought to his mother and father, but the hand gripped him back.
"Goodbye, Sabo."
He only glared.
"Well?" They cocked an eyebrow together.
Silence. How stupid did they think he was? Shaking him off, Sabo turned up his nose. Maybe he had one last thing to say.
"Unless it's about Ace, I don't want to hear it."
That shut them up. Sabo turned on his heel, leaving them in the dust.
Sabo made plans. When he wasn't in school, he wrote letters.
He wrote so much that multiple were sent at a time. Postcards, pictures, things he found he thought Ace might like. Foreign coins and poems.
Lying in bed at night, he nestled in; pretending things were back to normal. He pretended they were lying side by side, on the deck of Dadan's house, watching the hummingbirds fight over sugar water. He pictured the scuffles, the climbing of trees, the arguments over meaningless things.
He treasured the memory of Ace sneaking two glasses of whiskey from Dadan's stash, brandishing the bottle in his face like the rabbits he was so good at catching.
"What the hell do you have now?" Sabo grinned, messing with the stick he was carving.
"Alcohol. Grown-up juice." Ace smiled back, covertly.
Sabo paused, looking at his friend. He glanced between the bottle and his sleepy, dark eyes.
"You're crazy."
"Shut up and do this with me."
"Do what? Get drunk?"
Ace nodded his head from side to side. "Not…exactly…"
"Hmph. Dadan's gonna kick your assss…" Sabo singsonged.
"This is more important." He set the bottle and two classes down in front of him, on the stump he was using as a table. "And it's a secret, don't tell anybody."
Sabo gazed up at Ace, as he poured. His heart beat a little fast, watching the golden-brown liquid settle in the bottom of their cups.
"What is it?"
Ace glanced at him, still smiling. "This is how we become brothers."
Sabo cocked his head, his own smile spreading across his lips. "You wanna be my brother?"
"Mhm."
"Alright. Hand it over…"
They toasted, and the liquid went down harsh as hell. They both sputtered and coughed, and Ace retched a little, but the warm feeling sitting in his stomach made it all worth it.
They lounged about on the grass afterward, and maybe they drank a bit more, who knows. Dadan sure did, her gasp when her Jack Daniel's was mysteriously three-quarters empty was enough confirmation.
They spent all day in the woods, laughing as they hid from her wrath.
"S-Sabo…hic… do you know what it, it means, t' be brothers?"
Sabo rubbed his aching belly, grimacing. "It means doin' stupid stuff, like letting you do whatever y-you hic! Want… ugh…"
Ace rolled onto his side in the grass, close enough Sabo could smell his yucky breath.
"It means… we are… always… gonna be together! Always and forever…hic."
Sabo tried to resist his joy, as it crawled visible onto his cheeks. "You dingus…"
Ace definitely got more clingy when he was drunk. He sprawled over Sabo's chest, petting his sticky fingers through his hair. "You're my brother."
It sounded like "I love you", to Sabo.