Chapter Text
Southampton, England, 1902.
---
The first thing his mind registered after the initial shock was the pain.
Pure, blinding, unimaginable, blooming across the left side of his face from the blow that sent him sprawling to the carpet.
The burning sensation came immediately after.
Sabo shrieked in agony, writhing on the floor of his father's study. Tiny, calloused hands pawed at his face in a helpless attempt to stop the burning, stop the pain, stop the flames from spreading, stop it stop it stop it—
He was only half aware that his father was still watching him from the fireplace. Still and silent as a pillar of stone, not even twitching towards Sabo at the sound of his screams. His bodyguard—the thug turned hired muscle—chuckled under his breath, idly waving the burning log in his hand like it weighed nothing. Like his actions just now meant nothing.
Tears left scars down Sabo's cheeks. Salt mixed with the burning flesh, doubling the pain. He couldn't stop them from falling, couldn't even wipe them away.
Why?
Why had his father allowed this? Why did he just let Bluejam hurt him, burn him? Why was he just standing there? Watching him writhe and scream and cry, frowning down at him like he always did—like Sabo was throwing a tantrum, being unreasonable.
Help me, he wanted to scream. Nobody would listen, not in this house, not in this town, not in this life he'd been born into. Somebody save me, help me, make it stop, take me away from here, he hurt e, my own father HURT me, please, help me it hurts it hurts oh god it hurts make it STOP—
"I sincerely hope you've finally learned your lesson," he heard his father say, once Sabo's wailing faded into barely stifled sobs that he buried into the carpet. The patch was damp with tears, streaked with remnant specks of soot and splinters of charred wood from the log. Sabo wondered if it'd stain. He wondered if it would always smell of burning, of tears, of blood. "If you pull a stunt like this again, dare to make a fool out of me, there will be further consequences. Are we clear?"
Sabo didn't reply at once. His throat was clogged with saliva and a new, trembling fear that he'd never felt before. Not for this man, for either of these men looming over him like gargoyles. He couldn't stop whimpering, pleading silently for someone, anyone, to save him. Free him from the wretched prison he'd once called home. Instead, he curled in on himself like a wounded animal, pressing both hands against his mangled left eye. It didn't help at all.
He flinched as his father's cane slammed down inches from his nose. He'd been well acquainted with that cane before this. Before he'd seen the truth behind the lies he'd been fed since he was an infant. To see it again after five years within striking distance was almost as frightening as the flames he could still feel crawling across his skin, threatening to consume him.
"When I address you, I expect an answer," the man pressed, glaring down at Sabo with familiar disdain. "I said, are we clear?"
Through the haze of pain and terror, Sabo finally forced himself to speak, nodding weakly against the floor. "… yes s-sir," he croaked. He couldn't look up at the man. He could barely see at all through his left eye.
Oh god. Am I going to go blind?
His father—no, Outlook—nodded once. "Very good," he said, both hands resting on his cane, every inch a civilised gentleman. Like he wasn't watching his child burning on the ground right in front of him. "You'll be escorted to your room. I expect you to return to your studies within the week; you have much to catch up on. From now on, your bedroom will be guarded, and your windows bolted shut lest you get any more nonsensical ideas. You will not leave this house unaccompanied, and you will obey every order I give you without quarrel and with the utmost respect. Anything less, and you will be punished."
Outlook jerked his chin at his bodyguard—Sabo's captor, Bluejam—who casually weighed his weapon in his hand, as if the threat hadn't been clear enough. His smirk was dark and thoroughly amused.
"You belong here, Sabo, and here you will stay," Outlook continued. His glower darkened further until all Sabo could see was the looming shadow of a creature not unlike the kind that hid under beds and preyed on little children in the night. "If I have to beat it into you for you to understand, then I shall. Is that clear?"
Sabo was ten years old. He had barely begun to live, and he wanted to die. He didn't care if it hurt. He wanted the flames to swallow his body whole, reduce him to ash, wipe him from the face of the earth and erase his existence. But the gods weren't so kind as to grant him even that, to give him the freedom he'd come so close to attaining.
Instead, he submitted.
"…y-yes sir…"
—
It took more than a week for Sabo to be released from bed rest. It took another two for the bandages to come off.
The moment Sabo's mother, Didit, took in the state of him, she ordered the servants to keep him secluded in his quarters until they could come up with a solution to hide the "unsightly blemish" that was Sabo's ruined left eye. He figured that would take another week.
In the meantime, his meals were brought to his room. His tutors dutifully brought his workbooks daily.
Sabo put his head down and worked. Listened. Read. Went through the motions of living.
He was the eldest son of the Outlook family. Born into wealth and status, and holding a measure of power few could only hope to gain in their lives. He had money, inherited from his father and his father before him. He would grow into high society and establish connections through countless extravagant dinners, gatherings and parties. He would never have to worry about the future—everything was planned out for him the moment he was born, from where he would go to school to whom he would marry.
He had everything one's heart could desire. The world could be his if he demanded it so.
Sabo stared out of his barred bedroom window and wondered when the punchline to this joke of an existence would land.
If he could have everything his heart desired, if the world could be his, what was he doing behind bars? Why did he carry the evidence of his father's contempt for him on his face for the rest of his life? Why couldn't he leave? Why couldn't he be free?
Standing from his desk, Sabo yanked the curtains shut, walked across the room and all but threw himself onto his bed. His throat closed up, eyes burning, but he had no tears left to cry as he turned his still-tender face into his pillow. There was no use in crying. No one would heed them. No one would care.
Sabo had everything and nothing at all.
Sabo was alone.
~0o0~
The brat was still crying.
Even after Ace had begrudgingly cleaned and bandaged every scrape, cut and bleeding wound those thugs had plastered him with, the kid was still crying.
Then again, spiked gloves were no joke. It was bad enough being hit just once by those things. Try being hit over and over again for hours. Ace would probably bawl his eyes out, too. Probably.
Even so, he grimaced against the noise, fingers tightening around the metal pipe he carried as he leaned against the alley wall. The kid sat on the muddy cobblestone across from him, wrapped nearly head to foot in what bandages Ace had to hand, some of them already spotty with fresh blood.
He was still crying.
Staring at the red dots soiling the (mostly) white wrappings, Ace clenched his jaws shut to keep them from grinding again. The reminder of just how brutal those bastards had been with the kid—seven years old and barely reaching Ace's shoulders—just to get him to talk…
His blood boiled. It was an odd sensation. He never felt like this for anyone before. Not even for Dadan, his foster mother, who in turn barely gave a damn about Ace beyond her agreement with his grandfather.
The old hag—a washed-up leader of a band of outcasts and crooks—was approached by the naval officer seven years ago with a freshly orphaned toddler in his arms and a deal: "Raise this kid for me, and I'll keep you out of jail."
So she did. Between herself and her 'family' of criminals who were similarly deathly afraid of Monkey D. Garp, they managed to somehow keep Ace alive by doing the bare minimum.
As for raising him to be a respectable member of lower-class society, well… ask the dozens of homeless muggers or punks currently hospitalised how well that went.
A child of the streets through and through, Ace cared for no one and nothing. He was poorer than poor, hardly above 'urchin' status in the eyes of most. He had no family beyond his adoptive grandfather, who visited once or twice a month when he could swing it, and the men and women squatting in a shack by the water that leaked, groaned, and never held heat in the winter. He fought, scraped and stole for food and profit. He hated the world, and the world hated him back.
For seven years, Ace merely existed. Too often, he wondered if there was a point to it.
Then, three months ago, Garp came by and dropped off another kid. A scrawny little thing in too-big clothes and a too-big straw hat sitting lopsided on a mane of fluffy black hair. His big brown eyes—the left one bearing a curved scar on the cheek—had looked around the musty shack with undisguised curiosity and only a hint of distaste, little nose wringing at the smell of smoke and alcohol that clung to every surface.
His eyes landed on Ace, the only other child in the room, and stayed there. Ace stared back.
"Ace, m'boy!" Garp boomed with a grin that stretched far too wide. He placed a beefy hand on the kid's head and said, "Meet Luffy! He's gonna be your new little brother!"
… What?
Dadan shrieked. Makes and Dogra, her right and left-hand men, wailed. Ace stared at the slip of a boy standing in the crooked doorway and scowled.
For whatever reason, Luffy's eyes brightened. And he smiled.
From that day onward, Luffy followed him everywhere.
When Ace went out to earn his living, swindling the upper-class pricks in the streets or picking pockets of vendors and thugs in the alleys, Luffy was always two or three steps behind—five, if Ace ran.
If Ace was taking the garbage out, Luffy would be chatting his ear off about everything and nothing the whole way, having found his voice a few days into his stay and hadn't shut up since.
Hell, if Ace went to the bathroom, the kid would be waiting for him outside to ask if he wanted to play.
Ace hated him.
He tried ditching him. The streets were a maze at best, a death sentence at worst for little idiots like Luffy who got distracted by pretty lights in shop windows and rats in the garbage. It worked, and Ace returned to Dadan's alone for the first time in weeks. Until two days later, when Luffy showed up at the front door, drenched from the rain and covered in all manner of grime and bruises from a tussle with a mangey dog, but otherwise still in one piece. Ace was equal parts impressed and pissed.
He tried everything, from locking the kid in their shared bedroom every morning to outright beating him up. Nothing deterred him. And every time, regardless of how much Ace swore and screamed at him to leave him the ever-loving hell alone, Luffy would persist.
He would cry when he was hurt, sure—Ace was no slouch, he never pulled his punches—and he would whine about the cold and the damp and the lack of food. Hell, when he finally got the memo that Ace wasn't going to share his spoils, Luffy would give back as good as he got and fully wrestle with the older boy until he ultimately lost, hungry and bruised.
And at the end of it all, he would smile. Every time.
Ace didn't get it.
And now here he was, three months later, after the little dipshite had followed him again. Only this time, Ace had picked the wrong group to mess with.
He'd run off with his stolen loot, thinking Luffy would be right on his heels just like every other time. It wasn't until he reached Dadan's hut and noted the silence that Ace turned around to find an empty street.
Ice pierced Ace's heart for the first time in his life.
The next few hours were a blur. He barely remembered the desperate search for an otherwise unremarkable kid that no one cared to notice. Or the ensuing violent scuffle once Ace finally tracked down Luffy's captors.
He blamed being around the cry-baby for the last three months for his actions: the constant chatter and cheer that seemed to follow the kid like sunshine after a storm had… grown on Ace. A little. At least to the point where he no longer snarled, screamed, or actively dissuaded the younger boy from following him. He'd gained a new shadow, and he'd gotten used to it. That's all.
That, and Garp would literally kill him if he found out his actual grandson had gotten snatched and murdered under Ace's watch.
Obligation and routine. yeah. That's all it was.
Yeah, okay. Because Ace had always stuck his neck out for others due to routine and obligation. No, this was different. This wasn't like Ace. These feelings weren't normal.
What the hell was wrong with him?
"That was scary!" The kid wailed—he was still at it? "I-I thought I was gonna die~!" Another bout of fat tears followed, dripping down his scarred little face like a waterfall.
Growling, Ace decided he'd had enough. It was the middle of the night, and if people started getting curious or irritated by the constant noise, they were gonna be in even bigger trouble.
"Would you shut up?! Yer not hurt that bad, so stop yer bloody cryin' already!" he snapped, inwardly wincing at his accent. He blamed Garp and Dadan, both hailing from Ireland. They at least sounded intimidating (and comprehensible), whereas Ace sounded like a squeaky leprechaun.
"When're ya gonna stop bein' a feckin' baby?!" He yelled again when the kid showed no signs of stopping. "Want me ta kick yer ass?!"
Luffy sucked his lips in and promptly shut the hell up. Ace blinked, startled by the abrupt silence.
"T-thank y-you," the kid whimpered in a tiny voice that made Ace's heart, for whatever reason, clench tightly. The kid wiped his messy face with his bandaged arm. "You… y-you saved me!"
"Don't you feckin' start cryin' again," Ace warned. Luckily, the kid didn't let out more than a hiccup or two.
Once Ace was sure he wasn't going to start up again, he stepped forward. "Right then, what gives? Why didn't ya tell 'em what they wanted? Think they wouldn't kill ya just 'cus yer a kid? Those guys don't give a damn!"
Sniffling hard, Luffy shrugged his little shoulders. "…'cos… I was afraid you wouldn't be my friend if I told them where you hid their money," he admitted softly.
Ignoring the vicious pang in his chest, the hundredth one in the last few hours, Ace scoffed. "Still beats dyin'. Besides, why do you wanna be my friend so bad? I've been givin' you hell since day one, and all you do is follow me around like a lost pup. I don't give two shits about—"
"I got no one else to turn to!"
Ace froze.
Luffy looked up from the ground with pleading, dewy eyes, tiny hands clutching the brim of his battered hat. "I—I can't stay with Gramps, 'cos he's always away. Miss Charlotte was so mean and scary back at the children's home, and I don't like the bandits either! I'd be alone all the time if I didn't follow you!" he cried. "Getting beat up hurts, b-but being lonely hurts more!"
Ace stared.
The kid was only seven. He was stupid, clingy and an insufferable crybaby. Yet he understood the same pain Ace had done everything to ignore growing up.
Garp only took Ace in as a favour to Ace's dying mother when he was three years old. Dadan made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. The world hated him for being born into poverty, and he hated the world right back.
He fought and stole and didn't care who he hurt. He didn't care if he hurt.
He was unwanted. He didn't really have any desire to stick around or feel that he deserved to.
And then Luffy came.
Ace regarded the little boy sitting on the grimy floor in his too-big clothes and the too-big straw hat he carried with him everywhere. Luffy stared back, breaths hitching.
Setting his pipe on the ground, Ace knelt in front of the smaller boy. Luffy blinked, confused, but his eyes were fixed on Ace's, drawn in like a magnet. His attention span was usually abysmal, but the way he looked at Ace, as though peering into his soul, as if he were the most important thing in the world… it was downright frightening.
"… so it's easy for you when I'm around?" Ace asked after a beat. "You… feel better around me?"
Luffy blinked again, then bobbed his head up and down in a rapid nod. "Uh-huh."
"And it's hard without me? 'Cos otherwise you feel lonely?"
Luffy sniffed and nodded again. "Uh-huh."
Luffy… liked being around Ace. He wanted to be around him. He wanted Ace around, even after everything.
"Do you think… I deserve to live?"
It was a question he'd asked himself every day since his mother died. She could've lived a better life had Ace not been around. She never complained, not once, happy to give everything she had to raise Ace, keep him happy, fed and clothed. Even if days and weeks without food sapped her strength and made her ill. She'd even died smiling.
He'd always assumed the answer to that question was 'no'. He sometimes picked at the scars marring the length of his arms and wrists from past attempts, but he never went all the way. Something kept him going. Maybe it was spite—he wouldn't die just because the world said he should—or maybe it was to honour his mother. He didn't really know. He supposed it didn't matter. Ace didn't matter.
But Luffy, the full moon reflecting in his impossibly wide eyes as he tilted his head, looked at Ace as though he were an idiot and said, "Of course I do!"
With those four words, Ace's world turned on its head.
"… I see."
He wants me to live. He wants me around.
Huh…
Drawing in a shaking breath and refusing to let the sudden wetness pooling in his eyes spill over, Ace snatched his pipe off the ground and stood. Then he slowly held out his hand, looking everywhere and anywhere but at the moon-wide eyes of the little boy at his feet.
When Luffy made no move to take it right away, he twitched his fingers. "C'mon," he mumbled.
"Huh?"
Heat crept across Ace's freckled cheeks. "The Old Man said I'm supposed to be yer big brother, yeah?" he stammered, and cursed everything for it. "W-well… I guess you can hang around me, if ya really want. And… and if I'm yer brother, like…aren't we supposed to, like, I dunno—?"
Warm, bandaged fingers clasped around Ace's hand, sending a sharp jolt through him like lightning. He snapped his head down to look at the grinning, scarred-faced boy. His round eyes were bright with joy, trust and something else that Ace wasn't about to put a name to just yet.
"'Kay! I like holding hands! Yours is real warm!" he chimed, and holy crap, Ace was going to die. "We goin' home then?"
Swallowing another lump in his throat, Ace nodded, turning his gaze to the mouth of the alley instead. "Y-Yeah." He cleared his throat when his voice caught against his will. "Yeah, we-we're goin' home."
He gave Luffy's hand a little tug, and soon the two were walking back to Dadan's. If Ace squeezed Luffy's hand a little tighter along the way, neither of them chose to mention it.
He really was getting soft. And yet Ace wondered—as he snuck a glance at the little boy who smiled back with a love Ace didn't consider himself worthy of in a million years—why he didn't really mind that at all.