Chapter Text
Ace was willing to admit, he hadn’t spent as much time on this plan as he probably should have. He was man enough to acknowledge this, but he was also man enough to know that his impulse control had always been sketchy at best, he was itching for a fight, and he’d left most of that control behind with Sabo on the Royal. He hummed and tucked himself further into the gap between crates he’d made his nest for the journey and wondered how much trouble he was going to be in with Sabo when his slowpoke brothers caught up. He grinned and tipped his hat down over his eyes, kicking his feet up and letting the swaying of the boat lull him into a doze.
He felt bad that he’d gone back on his and Sabo’s plans but it was time for him to see the strength of the man who stood on par with the Pirate King. He loved his brothers, but this was an opportunity he couldn’t let pass him by.
He knew Luffy, at least, would understand.
Sabo had never carried his anger the same as Ace, which wasn’t to say that Sabo was ever any less angry than Ace. Struggling for survival and then being hunted by his father’s men in his formative years did as much good for him as Ace’s whole… well, life, after all. But Ace wore his heart on his sleeve, or, more accurately, his rage and Sabo had been told probably since he was born that showing genuine emotion might as well have been social suicide, so Sabo had always kept his anger close to the chest. Probably no less intense than his brother’s but kept at a simmer instead of being allowed to boil over.
Now, however? Now, Sabo was pacing across the deck of the Royal, his crew - their crew, that absolute bastard - watched him with bated breath. For the first time that any of them had seen, Sabo’s arms and shoulders were ablaze, not burning strong, but burning hot, shifting from orange to red to blue the closer it got to his body. It was the first time he’d ever been so furious and while it made the Mera Mera bend to his whim easier than ever, it made the stark absence at his side more prominent. And it only served to make him even angrier that he had reached this point because of his supposed best friend and co-captain rather than, say, an enemy.
The only good thing was that Banshee and Skull were working to distract Luffy below deck, so that his littlest brother wasn’t quite aware of how serious the situation was.
Yet.
It was only a matter of time. Luffy was good at reading situations and people, he’d know something was up eventually.
Sabo snarled at just the thought of having to break this news to Luffy and did another lap of the deck to try and calm down.
To think, after everything they’d discussed, all the plans they’d made hinging on ‘until Luffy’s older’, he’d run off after goddamned Whitebeard anyway! It wasn’t as if they had been sitting idle in Paradise either! They’d been making a name for themselves as the Spade pirates, they’d been working on expanding their proficiency with the Mera Mera fruit. But now, with no idea what to really expect, they were going to have to chase Ace across the Red Line and into the New World and hope they were capable of surviving. They’d sailed out to Sabaody to get a feel for the place a few times, sure, but to think-
A hand landed oddly on the front of his shoulder, closer to his sternum, stopping Sabo dead in his tracks. He glanced up and met Deuce’s eyes, realized that he must have been trying to be reassuring while dodging the parts of him that were still smoldering. “C’mon, Blue,” Deuce wrapped his hand up in Sabo’s waistcoat and used the leverage to shake him gently, “no need to freak yet, Ace’ll realize he’s in over his head before long.” His lips split into a crooked grin and Sabo can feel his lips twitch too, despite his still burning anger. “If we’re lucky, he’ll bail out at Sabaody and we’ll be able to just pick him up and everything will be fine.” Sabo clenched his fists but began taking deep breaths, working on wrestling the flames and anger back under the veneer of control he typically hid it behind.
“Okay,” he breathed, then rolled his shoulders back and straightened up, glancing over his crew where they waited for his plan of attack, “okay, everyone, get ready to sail! We don’t know for sure how far ahead of us he is, but we know these waters, so if we move and move fast we’ve got a chance of catching up with whatever ship he’s stolen away on.” He placed his hands on his hips and considered their position off the top of his head. “Sabaody’s about a week and a half away for a normal ship, but for our good ole Royal we can probably make that a week.” He didn’t say that they would have to hope that the ship they were chasing couldn’t do the same. The riggers were starting to move and he nodded and waved them off, his orders would carry whether they were right there or not.
“Think of this like one of our usual hunts, until Sabaody we’re only landing for an absolute emergency.” He faltered for a moment, chewing at his lip, but a nudge from the blurry figure that had taken Ace’s usual place on his left side, got him talking again. He let out a breath and shook his head. “I know that none of you signed on to be babysitters but Luffy’s not gonna take this well. We’ve already got one fool in the wind, we don’t need another.”
“Aye, Captain!” Came the response and he twisted to his left to be able to see Deuce clearly, meeting the man’s eyes before motioning towards the hatch that led below deck. To which Deuce nodded. Between him and Cornelia, they were more than proficient enough to get them underway without his assistance, while he spun on his heel and headed to face his next problem and his new favorite brother.
Walking into the galley to find Luffy, Banshee, and Skull perched on various crates and barrels, playing some sort of card game would have been amusing if Sabo wasn’t ultimately in a shit mood.
...who was he kidding? Between Banshee gently reminding Luffy, who wore an amusingly determined expression, of the rules and Skull holding their cards so close to their face they were practically pressed up against one of the holes in their mask, it was a pretty great scene to witness. It made him all the more sure of just how much Ace was going to owe him for this. His co-captain would be lucky if he wasn’t demoted to cabin boy until Luffy turned seventeen or until Sabo was feeling generous.
He really, really didn’t want to disturb the moment but he didn’t have a choice for once. He cleared his throat even though at least Skull was sure to already know that he was there. They all glanced up at him and Sabo kept his attention on his two crewmen for the time being. “We’re getting ready to set sail, soon as possible.” He looked to Banshee in particular, who, while decidedly not a cook, same as the rest of them, had put herself in charge of both their supplies and the rotation of chores about the ship. Really she was the only one with the patience for it. Occasionally, she dragged Mahir along to do math for her. “Check the stores, we’re on a hunt so I don’t want to have to stop until we absolutely have to.”
“Gotcha.” she grunted as she recollected the cards and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll see what I can do, Captain. Might be a few light meals in the future for us.” She clapped a heavy hand on Luffy’s shoulder, muttering a quiet, “Good game, kid,” before moving on to her task.
Which wasn’t going to be an easy one. Even with the number of people they had aboard and their infamous bottomless pits, it wasn’t often that they kept more than a week or so of food stuff on board at any given time, along with maybe a couple extra days of emergency rations. They were a ship built for speed, pursuit and quick maneuvering, so every pound counted. In Paradise they island hopped enough that it didn’t typically affect them, but, well, desperate measures. And who’s to say how their usual routines would need to change when they entered the New World.
Skull, he simply waved off, they knew how to make themself useful somewhere.
And then, finally, he turned his attention onto his littlest brother, who was watching Sabo with an unusual, but not unheard of, grim expression. He tipped his head down and his eyes disappeared behind the brim of his hat.
“Luffy…” he sighed, plopping down onto one of the crates across from his brother.
“Why are we setting off? Where’s Ace?” he asked, the million Berry question.
“Ace is…” He bit his lip and pulled off his hat to run a hand through his hair. “You know how Ace is always picking fights to test his strength?” He started, figuring more context would soften the blow. And he needed this to land softly as possible. Luffy nodded. “Well, there’s one man he’s been keeping his eye on recently, but we promised when we started all this that we wouldn’t be making big waves until you were 17.” Luffy looked a little offended at that and Sabo laughed, bumping his brother’s shin with his foot. “Don’t give me that look, you may be strong but we weren’t about to take a fourteen year old into the New World.” Sabo sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging as he muttered, “And it’s really the only reason Gramps hasn’t stolen you back yet.”
That had been one lengthy argument when Garp had finally caught up with them, thankfully somewhere out of earshot of Luffy, seeing as they’d all said more than a few things they regretted. It was the only other time that Sabo could remember being mad enough to show it like Ace did. Which didn’t help matters, seeing as Garp then turned his focus on them and their impossibly shared Devil Fruit. Deuce had spent most of that night patching them up and berating them for picking fights with marine heroes, grandfather or no.
“Then, Ace went off to pick a fight?” Luffy asked, seeming to calm down a bit at that assumption. Which, well, Ace stirring up trouble just about everywhere they went wasn’t the most surprising thing anymore. Sabo had learned well how to adapt to such trouble seeing as he had ended up with two brothers who had the devil’s own luck. “So, we just need to go find our stupid brother.” he said, sticking his tongue out, and Sabo snickered. If Ace wasn’t careful when he got back, he might get more trouble from Luffy than anyone else.
Finally, Luffy pushed the brim of his hat up and met Sabo’s eyes. Luffy even plastered a smile on his face and Sabo could already tell that no matter what it was going to be a whole ordeal trying to keep a handle on this situation. Luffy set one hand atop his straw hat, as if reassuring himself that it was still there as he grinned and said, “But that’s fine, ‘cause Ace is strong! And if this is Ace’s dream, we can’t stop him, Sabo!”
Luffy’s words were half-hearted at best, though anyone who hadn’t known the kid since he was seven likely wouldn’t have noticed the slight hunch to his shoulders, the way he kept fiddling with the fraying fibers of his shorts. It didn’t help that Sabo didn’t know how to explain to Luffy that there was a difference between Ace’s dream - which Sabo knew was freedom in its most basic form - and the occasional re-emergence of Ace’s self-destructive tendencies. Tendencies that Sabo has spent more than a few years trying to mold into more healthy coping mechanisms.
It hadn’t been successful.
And, at the end of the day, this wasn’t some random pirate they were talking about. This was Whitebeard, strongest man in the world, one of the four Emperors, a man who stood equal with the Pirate King at one point in his life and has stood at the top of this Era since its inception. There was no saying what state they might find Ace in if they were to just leave him to his own devices.
If they couldn’t catch up. If Ace made it aboard the Moby Dick, Sabo feared it would take nothing less than a miracle to get him back. And maybe Luffy was capable of pulling miracles from thin air, but Sabo wasn’t sure he could do the same.
Maybe they’d be able to barter for his freedom. But Sabo would have to come up with something the Whitebeards might actually want.
Maybe they’d be so tired of Ace by the time they get there that they’d just give him back. Yeah!
Maybe-
He shook his head. He was getting ahead of himself. “You remember the fight with Jinbe, right?”
It was sort of a dumb question to ask. Of course Luffy remembered. Everyone remembered, even the few crewmen who hadn’t been signed on yet knew, at the bare minimum, the relevant details of that clusterfuck of a week. He’d tried to pull Ace out after Jinbe landed a couple of particularly brutal blows, but Ace had been so lost in the fight, in surviving, that he’d nearly taken a few of Sabo’s fingers off for the effort. And Sabo was already down an eye, he didn’t need to lose any other body parts.
He’d tried to get Deuce to talk some sense into him but Deuce was one of the smartest men on the crew, and he’d gotten past Ace’s prickly exterior faster than anyone else. Meaning, he knew trying to sway a determined, pride driven Ace wasn’t worth the effort.
It had been enough of a task keeping Luffy from getting in the middle of it, but, of course, it had only taken a one-two hit that nearly knocked Ace flat for that fragile control to break.
The burst of Conqueror's haki that had burst out of their littlest brother had sent both men stumbling to their knees, days of fighting leaving them even more vulnerable. Ace had passed out instantly, adrenaline crash leaving him sleeping for just about three days. Luffy’s ability had been as surprising as it hadn’t been at all. If anyone had the sheer force of will needed to bend another’s, it would of course be the force of nature that was Monkey D. Luffy.
“Yeah!” Luffy cheered, only time distancing him from how upset he had been in the moment. “I told him that he couldn’t join your crew, ‘cause I called dibs.”
He laughed, but didn’t bother reminding Luffy that they had had no plans on recruiting the fishman anyways. And then he sobered again. “The man Ace went after… he’s even stronger than Jinbe.” Sabo rubbed a hand over his eyes. “It’s why we’re trying to catch up with Ace before he finds Whitebeard.”
The grin had dropped off Luffy’s face, his eyes had gone wide, and he was gripping the edge of the crate he sat on hard enough to make the wood creak. Sabo grimaced and waited for the meltdown-
-but blinked when Luffy bounced to his feet, sandals smacking against the floor, a fiercely determined expression on his face, and though it was hidden well, Sabo could just make out the barely suppressed worry lingering in his dark eyes. “Then I’ll go help too!” he declared. “The faster we can leave, the faster we can catch Ace!” And he bounded off without a backwards glance and Sabo slouched forward, scrubbing his hands over his face. He could only hope that Luffy kept up that mindset as reality set in on everyone. If not, well, they’d just have to be ready.
He took a few measured breaths, enjoying what was most likely the last moment of peace he would get for a long while, before pushing himself up to his feet. In the meantime, he brushed off his pants and headed for the ‘navigation’ room, or, more truthfully, the room where they shoved all his maps as well as other miscellaneous items that didn’t necessarily have a place to live when most of their space was taken up by living space. He made bets with himself as he walked - ignoring the hollow pang when he turned to seek out a presence that wasn’t there - over how long it would be before Luffy, in his need to be useful, would end up bouncing himself overboard.
(The answer, as it would turn out, was a respectable two hours.)