Whenever Sabo was touched by nobles, it always felt cold and uncaring, which he hated. Their touch felt like the cold metal of a jail cell.
When he met Ace, Ace was warm... terrifying, angry, and dangerous, but warm, and even though Sabo didn't understand the strange boy, he thought, that warmth is what freedom feels like. I want to feel more of it.
When Sabo first met Ace, Ace had a gun to someone else's head, and Ace was threatening to fire.
"Stop!" Sabo raced forwards. Ace turned and eyed him with apathetic disinterest, before curiously asking why. "Because he's got someone who cares about him." Sabo mumbled. "He—he must, right?"
Ace laughed. "Who are you?" He asked darkly. "This is the Gray Terminal. Nobody cares about the trash."
When he talked to Ace for the second time, he shared his dreams. Ace eyed him, and in a hesitant voice, shared his, before flushing and threatening to kill Sabo if he told anyone else.
Sabo laughed, and they spent the rest of the day racing around the Gray Terminal, pretending to be pirates and watching the sea as they talked about freedom.
When he saw Ace the third time around, there was a gun Ace's temple and tears in his eyes.
"Don't come closer." Ace threatened angrily as he stepped back. "Don't try to stop me, either."
Sabo swallowed, pulled out the knife that he kept in his pocket, and mimicked Ace as he lightly touched the tip to his temple. "Alright." He agreed, hands shaking. "Then don't try to stop me, either."
For a moment, Ace looked confused, before the confusion turned to disbelief. Shock fluttered across his features, before fading away. Then, pure terror shone through Ace's eyes as he screamed, "No!" and dropped the gun. "I can't—you can't—I don't—no!"
"No, what?" Sabo asked, quickly tucking the knife back into his pocket as his heartbeat returned to normal, the fear of killing himself along with the boy he barely knew (but the only one who he had ever truly opened up to) slowly, painfully, fading away. "No, I can't die? How come I can't die, if you can?"
Ace shook his head. "You don't get it!" He exclaimed. "I don't deserve this—I don't deserve to live—I'd be better off if I didn't live, you'd be better off if I didn't live, if I had never been born, everyone would be happier and—"
Sabo slapped him. Then stepped away, and angrily snarled, "What do you think gives you the right to say stuff like that? What makes you think that dying's okay with me? Because it's not. What happened to freedom? To your dreams?"
"I don't deserve them." Ace replied, his voice numb and soft.
Sabo swallowed, and even though he had never been given one that hadn't felt cold, unfeeling, and only there for show—he put his arms around Ace's body, and even though Ace swore at him and struggled for a while, after a moment all the anger seemed to die down, and the only thing Sabo could feel was sorrow and his shirt getting wet as Ace started to cry.
Still, Sabo didn't let go, even after Ace tried to pull away and apologize, because in that moment, Ace had gripped his shirt like he was terrified that he wasn't real, Ace had apologized for being alive and making Sabo sad, and at the same time begging him like a child to stay.
And even when Ace finished crying and seemed embarrassed, and uncomfortably shifted, and after Ace had swore at him a few times (again), Sabo still didn't let go.
"I'm not weak!" Ace exclaimed. "You don't have to act like I'm a child! I don't need a hug!"
"Who said you needed one?" Sabo mumbled as he buried his face in Ace's shoulder. Ace's body was warm, and even when Ace was swearing it didn't feel fake or stiff, it felt kind and gentle. "I'm not letting go."
He could feel Ace's scowl, but it was only a moment later that Ace wrapped his arms around Sabo's and mumbled, "Well… if you need one, I guess it's okay…"
Later on, they swore that it had never happened.
But it had.
And as he stood over Ace's grave, ten years later, he could still feel the ghost of the warmth of a suicidal idiot enveloping a lonely noble in a hug.
He pulled the familiar knife and gun out of his pocket, and set them on the cold stone.
And he started to cry, wishing for the familiar warmth of a brother that he would see again.
A/N: The ending was iffy, but… uh, yeah? Suicide was on my mind, and I couldn't help but think of Ace, so I just wrote this so I could feel better. Actually, I feel sadder, but writing it out felt good… (not in a sadistic way, but more of like when you're depressed and you talk to someone, and you feel better.)