My first fics! Whoo :D Please R&R :) One Piece is Oda's.
Sabo can remember now.
He can see Ace's freckled face stretched to a grin in every man he passes, and hear Luffy's distinctive shishishi-laugh in every snicker that leaves his companions' lips. He doesn't feel he has the right to forget, nor does he want to. He has done his fair share of forgetting, so he clings onto the newfound memories like a lifeline, no matter how much they wound him.
He accepts the nightmares of his family dying over and over again, of his younger brother screaming insults and accusations in his face while his other brother's prone body gets colder and colder, the fire quenched but a macabre, yet so serene smile still on his lips nonetheless.
It terrifies him to know that his brothers went through hell without him. It pains him to know his brother died before they had the chance to meet again and he could apologize, set things right. It makes him want to cry to know that his little brother, the one he asked Ace to protect, was alone with his grief after the other had fulfilled his promise and paid for it with his life. And it disgusts him to know that he should have been there but wasn't, makes him feel so ashamed and so fucking sorry that it kills him.
He doesn't know if he could have changed things, but he knows that he should have been there, as well as he knows that the sky is blue and the ocean is wet. It haunts him to know that maybe, perhaps, possibly he could have served a purpose to save and protect those closest to him, but he didn't remember - didn't have the memories that would have made all the difference before it was all too late.
What good does training like a madman for a decade do, if you don't use those skills to protect the ones you love? What merit do his own aspirations for liberty hold when he was unable to break the chains of the one person who deserved all the freedom the world has to offer?
Those thoughts have kept Sabo company from the moment he laid eyes on that newspaper article about the war, his only solace remaining with the knowledge that at least Luffy is safe, he is okay, he is happy.
So when Luffy asks the question he has wanted to ask for two years now, reveals that, despite his energetic exterior he, too, is haunted by the same demons of fear and regret, it breaks Sabo's heart.
"Sabo… Do you hate me?"
He freezes, his heart pounding and blood rushing in his ears. The question is whispered into a pillow, muffled but not muted, and his Luffy's voice is so broken and hoarse that it takes the revolutionary a long time to process the words.
'No, of course not Lu, I'm sorry, I'm the one to blame, I wasn't there…'
"I didn't save him… Do you hate me?" Luffy sniffles in a voice that doesn't belong to someone close to their twenties. No, this is the same seven year old boy that used to wake him up after a nightmare with a quivering lip and red rimmed eyes. This is the little brother of Ace and Sabo, not the notorious Straw Hat Luffy, and neither is Sabo the chief of staff of the revolutionary army at that moment, but a big brother in all his heart and soul.
Why would Luffy ever think like that? He is the one that failed, that left his brothers on their own for all those years, who didn't remember, who… Years of self-doubt and anger course through Sabo's veins like poison, clouding his mind. He stifles a groan. Why would his -sweet, innocent, compassionate, undeserving of all this shit- little brother ever blame himself when he all but lost his life to save Ace?
When he was there and Sabo was… not.
"Sabo?"
His whispered name rips Sabo back into reality. There is no time for speculation, not when Luffy is still sobbing softly into the pillow he is clutching onto with a white-knuckled grip, hard enough to break the fabric. A stray feather lands on the blonde's hand, and he stares at it for a second before his vocal chords remember how to transform his thoughts into actual, audible words.
"No Luffy, why would you even think that, no, of course not…" He hurries to answer, and brown eyes swimming with tears meet his own, holding the eye contact for no more than two seconds before Sabo's arms are occupied with shivering rubber limbs. He holds his brother tight, so close that anyone but his elastic brother would have broken a bone or dozen, and Sabo doesn't want to let go. Not ever.
"Are… you… sure?" Luffy mumbles through his tears. Sabo wipes them away with his gloved hand and smiles somberly. The younger brother goes limp his arms, his entire form racked with relieved sobs.
"Of course I'm sure, idiot." He says fondly, and Luffy smiles at him, reassuring his brother without a spoken word that he doesn't blame Sabo either. The elder can hear himself babbling, muttering close to incomprehensible words of reassurance and comfort to his only remaining brother. Tears burn in his eyes, and he lets them fall.
They stay like that for hours, until the Straw Hat's resident swordsman comes searching for the captain who has apparently missed dinner. And when even the prospect of meat doesn't make Luffy break the borderline choke-hold Sabo has on him, the green haired man just smiles and nods in understanding.
Luffy's tears have long since dried, and so have Sabo's. There's nothing left to say and they can hear their stomachs growling in unison, but they don't want to let go. Not then, not ever.
"I miss him." Luffy says, and Sabo smiles softly.
"I miss him, too."
TBC right now!
