Warnings: nothing explicit, violence and cursing

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Chapter 4 – The Selfless Child

"Shanks…!" Ace tries to say, but his voice comes out as a quiet croak. "Shanks!"

The man pauses on his descent down the hill, hands holding the motionless Sabo still on his back, and looks around. "Hello?"

"Shanks!" This time, Ace's voice comes out clear and firm. That's all it takes for him to sprint across the remaining ten feet or so between him and the sailor, skidding to a stop just before he hits his legs and staring up at the man incredulously.

Shanks' brows furrow for a second before his face melts into shock. "Ace?! Is that you?!"

Ace doesn't know what question to voice first. He settles for, "What are you doing here?!"

"What are you doing here?!"

"I live here-"

"Ace!"

Luffy comes running full-pelt out of the hut, obviously having heard Ace's desperate yell. He comes to a stop beside his older brother, pipe clenched in his hands. "What's going-" His eyes land on Sabo. "Sabo!"

Luffy moves to start towards Shanks, probably to try and lamely threaten him, but Ace holds him back. "Luffy, this is Shanks. He's a friend."

"But he's got Sabo!"

"I know, but-"

"Wait, wait!" Shanks' voice grabs their attention again. "Look, I came by to visit you again, Ace. You and the girl I love. We know that the eastern seas were taken over by Blackbeard, and we wanted to make sure you were alright. On our way through the city, we found Sabo here-" (he indicates to the boy slumped across his back) "- knocked out in the street. We set the doctor on him and when he woke up for a little while, he asked us to take him to the trash heap, where he and his brothers lived." Shanks runs a hand through his familiar red hair. "Are you saying that you're those brothers?!"

Luffy nods vigorously, always up for defending their bond as brothers. "We're Sabo's brothers!" he says, like it needs any clarification.

"I just-" Shanks struggles. "Ace, what are you and some kids doing living out on the trash heap? What happened while I was gone?" His voice softens. "Are you okay?"

Ace opens his mouth, then closes it again. Is he? It's been a while since anybody has really asked him that. He swallows. "Look, maybe you should come inside. I'll explain everything." Shanks shoots him a dubious look – god, Ace still can't believe it's him – but follows Ace and his little brother back to their tiny home, which he'll probably barely fit into.

It's never really hit Ace how much has changed.

After a few months with Sabo, Shanks came back. He felt really, really guilty for leaving me, especially after seeing what had happened to us, and I guess that meant a lot to me. It's safe to say that I had a lot of explaining to do.

Shanks looks uncomfortable as he squeezes himself into their small hideout, but he manages it. Ace lights their single lantern, saved for when it's desperately needed, and in its dim light, Shanks' face is clearly visible. After seven years he looks a little more harried, eyes darker and forehead more furrowed, but apart from that he looks largely the same. The man hefts Sabo off his back and lies him gently on the floor. As Luffy immediately starts poking and prodding at his unconscious brother, Shanks turns to Ace.

"He's just asleep," the sailor says, crossing his legs. "Luckily it was only some street thugs who got to him and not one of Blackbeard's men."

"Did you see his…?" Ace trails off.

"What?"

It's evident that Shanks hasn't seen Sabo's mark, and Ace'll keep it that way for now. Things are confusing enough already. "Nothing. It doesn't matter." Ace shifts forward. "Did you really come to visit me and Makino?"

"Yeah, I-" Shanks tilts his head. "How do you know her name's Makino?"

A memory enters Ace's head unwarranted (a dark alley, rain dripping through dark green hair, misty eyes rolling back and a small, shivering body against his own). God. Shanks doesn't know. He doesn't know that the 'girl he loves' is dead, died giving birth to the boy only a few feet away. How the hell is Ace supposed to break it to him?

Ace glances to Luffy and Sabo. "Look, can we talk outside?"

Shanks narrows his eyes but nods, still looking vaguely overwhelmed. Ace knows that he looks the same way. Luffy doesn't pay them any mind as they slip outside, still shaking Sabo.

The night air helps to clear Ace's head. Shanks sits down in the dust and Ace plops down opposite him, sighing silently. "What is it, Ace?"

"Makino…" Ace grits his teeth. "A few months after you left, I met Makino after she was kicked out of the hospital for not having enough money. She was going into labour, and she had her child successfully – I took care of him, and left the bandits so we could start a new life away from them."

"And what happened to Makino?" Shanks looks like he already knows the answer. His head is tilted down, eyes shadowed.

"She didn't make it." Ace can barely keep his voice even.

Shanks doesn't move for what feels like a lifetime before he sighs heavily and looks up at Ace. Sorrow swims in his eyes, a deep pain that Ace feels physically uncomfortable looking at. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

Ace shrugs. "I've seen worse."

Shanks lets out a world-weary sigh. "Of course you have." A pause. "I'm guessing one of your 'brothers' is my son, then?"

Ace nods, dragging a finger through the thickly-caked dust. "The smaller one with black hair. His name's Luffy, and he doesn't know you're his father."

For the first time since he got here, Shanks cracks a smile. "'Luffy'? He seems like a handful."

Ace rolls his eyes, feeling the atmosphere relax slightly. "You have no idea."

"What about Sabo?" asks Shanks.

"He came from the west," Ace says, echoing Sabo's own words. "And he was really, really lucky to get out."

Shanks' eyes soften, and he ruffles Ace's hair. "I'm glad you three found each other. Brothers aren't people you can find easily. Should we head in?"

Ace nods, suddenly feeling a whole lot lighter.

Shanks stayed with us for a good few months, and while he had been a father to me in the past, he was fond of Luffy (his actual son) and Sabo, too. He mourned Makino, and shared stories with Luffy about her – he's the only person I've ever seen who can get Luffy to shut up for a few seconds. He told Sabo stories about the west too, about how things were getting better there. Me and Sabo both knew that it was all bull, and Shanks knew it, but it was comforting either way.

Shanks' whole crew are here too, so staying in the hideout doesn't seem like the most logical option. Sabo and Luffy – the former who has been on the run for more than a year and the latter having never slept in a proper bed – find the spare room in the bowels of Shanks' ship to be the lap of luxury. Ace vaguely remembers this place, so it doesn't come as so much of a shock; he still feels like he could drown in the soft, warm covers of the spare single bed, though. Luffy spends about half an hour just wandering around the East Wind, beaming at crewmembers and balancing precariously on the figurehead.

While most crewmembers remember Ace, none of them know Luffy or Sabo, and there's a betting pool going around about which one is actually Shanks' son. There was never any proof that one of them was his son in the first place, but the crew know their captain well. Most people bet on Luffy, because of his carefree nature and, just like Shanks, deep brown eyes. Some vote for Sabo simply because of how well he and Shanks get along.

While Sabo and Luffy are his family – Ace knows this, fiercely defends it, reminds himself of it every day – Ace can't help but fall into a familiar routine with Shanks and his crew. He and his brothers wake with the sun, the anchored ship rocking beneath them as they lie in a tangle of limbs on the bed with the sun on their faces. They eat fish for most meals – fresh, clean fish that isn't stolen or made up of more mould than meat.

The trio are still reluctant to enter the city, but Shanks seems to sense this, and spends long, damp days filled with pale sunlight on a quiet beach on the other side of the island, teaching them how to swim. Sabo picks it up quickly and soon falls in love with the water, staying under the waves for long enough to give Ace a heart attack sometimes. Ace isn't too bad at swimming himself, but the water's too cold for his liking and the salt stings his eyes.

Luffy, of course, is an abomination. Ace didn't think it was possible for somebody to flail every limb and jerk around like they're being electrocuted and not move in any direction, but apparently his little brother will continue to defy both his expectations and the expectations of the laws of physics. No matter how hard Shanks tries to teach him, Luffy is so bad at swimming that it's painful to watch him try. Shanks looks near tears by the end of it.

Between mornings on the sand and afternoons spent fishing for humble meals, Sabo teaches Ace how to read and write. The symbols and sounds refuse to line up in Ace's mind for the first few sessions, a mess of scribbles that make no sense to him, but soon they start to connect in his mind. He learns how to write 'Luffy', then 'Sabo', before learning his own name. He keeps mistaking 'A' for a triangle – something Luffy is quick to make fun of him for, despite the fact that the kid can't read at all – and takes to doodling triangles on the corners of his pages, throwing them together into nonsense drawings.

Most nights, Sabo helps Ace read from a novel he borrowed from Shanks, leaving Luffy to pout in the corner. On some nights, though (and these nights are always the best) Shanks tells the trio of brothers some story or other of his time as a young sailor. Ace suspects that most are just fairy tales – after all, whoever heard of somebody born with a bright red, round nose? And surely elephants aren't that large – but they're still entertaining, and Luffy adores them

In fact, Luffy adores a lot more nowadays. Though Luffy is rarely without his blinding grin – rarely meaning never – he seems so much more alive. The kid smiles wider, talks louder, exudes so much love that it hits Ace in the gut every time he sees it. He's at his happiest, dancing in the rain that comes more and more frequently as the days go by no matter how many colds he gets.

Ace can see it in Sabo too. His nightmares become less and less frequent, his smiles brighter and brighter as the days go by, and Ace feels that now he has all of Sabo, instead of just the part ravaged by the horrors of the west. Who knows? Maybe Ace is changing too, and he just can't see it. He hopes, somehow, that he is; if he's not entirely happy, Sabo and Luffy won't be either, and that's the opposite of what he wants.

Life is good.

Luffy never starts calling Shanks his father, even after he finds out what his relation to the man is. As time goes on, sure, he starts saying 'Shanks' in the way that somebody else would say 'dad' – but it's never quite official. Shanks doesn't seem to mind too much. He doesn't really mind much in general as long as his crew and 'his kids' are safe (they've been dubbed that by both the crew and Shanks on multiple occasions. Ace has learnt to roll with it.)

Sabo jokingly calls Shanks 'pops' a few times, and the man takes it in his stride, albeit with a larger smile than usual. He and the man get along well and after a few weeks on the East Wind, Shanks tells Ace quietly that he chose a damn good pair of brothers. Ace rolls his eyes and says 'of course I did', even as he flushes slightly with embarrassment.

Even in this sudden happiness that Ace can't help but bask in, however, the silver lining comes with a grey cloud. Shanks and his crew are sailing south in only two or three more months, leaving Ace, Sabo and Luffy to go back to how things were before. They'll survive, no doubt about it. Ace doesn't doubt that he and his brothers could survive just about anything.

But they'll still be two eleven-year olds and a kid going on eight, going back to living in a trash heap with nothing but a tree and a promise for company. Ace knows that while Luffy hasn't thought that far ahead (he's Luffy, of course he hasn't), but Sabo is probably hardly looking forward to leaving this ship and Shanks seems reluctant for time to pass too quickly, too.

Ace's time with the one man he'd call his father is dwindling, and he hates it.

Ace scratches a messy triangle into the table with his fingernail as Sabo finishes telling their story. Luffy fell asleep a few hours ago, and Sabo and Ace have only now agreed to come clean with Shanks about their Marks, and the strange similarities between them.

"That's pretty interesting." If Shanks is shocked, he doesn't show it. If anything, he looks inquisitive. "I've never heard of two people with the same Gift before. Hey, have your powers awakened yet?"

Ace wrinkles his nose, digging his fingernail deeper into the table. "Nope, not even close."

Shanks laughs. "Just wait and see, firecracker. I mean, I've seen some people with the stupidest damn powers you can imagine. But I doubt that the one split Gift in the world will be completely lame."

"'Firecracker'?" Ace repeats, shooting Sabo a look.

Shanks whistles out of the corner of his mouth and insists that he never said anything of the sort.

"I'm tired of you guys teasing me!" Luffy's young voice rings out in the early morning, and Ace ignores it determinedly as a yawn forces its way out of his mouth. "I'm gonna grow up to be a strong sailor some day!"

"Oh yeah, Anchor?" Shanks laughs heartily. "You don't look like much to me!"

Luffy growls – Sabo and Ace exchange looks that say, 'that's cute' – and raises-

"Luffy, wait is that a-"

"Why do you have a knife-"

Silence, before Luffy cries out in pain and topples off the figurehead.

"Our little brother stabbed himself," Ace says dumbly to Sabo a few minutes later, outside the ship's infirmary.

Sabo shoots him a deadpan look and goes back to worrying.

Four months pass in a blur. Sabo and Ace's birthday is celebrated with one of Shanks' infamous parties, loud enough to keep the whole city awake. It's nice – if unusual – that people are this happy that Ace is alive. He's not complaining by any means.

All too soon, Shanks and his crew have to leave. Déjà vu floods Ace as Shanks hugs him, tells him that they'll meet again soon, messes up his hair. Sabo smiles through slightly misty eyes as he gets the same treatment, already-unruly hair sticking up everywhere. Luffy looks surprisingly solemn when Shanks drops his straw hat onto his head, and clings into him for a long time when they hug.

All too soon, Shanks and his crew have cast off, leaving the three brothers on the end of the pier. Shanks waves and waves until his arms must be getting tired, and Ace, Sabo and Luffy return the favour.

"See ya, dad!" Luffy calls.

Shanks nearly falls off the East Wind.

When Shanks eventually did leave, we moved back into our little hut on trash mountain. Me and Sabo's powers didn't awaken for a good few months – I'm pretty sure we were both at least twelve, maybe more – and it was frustrating as hell. We still sparred every day, 100 times without fail, but it's not as much of a challenge when you know somebody as well as I knew my little brothers.

Though battered, their hideout is still standing. Luffy makes himself at home relatively easily. Sabo and Ace, though they both miss the East Wind just about as much as they think it's physically possible to miss something, know that they have to get used to living here again. Flexibility is a virtue when living a life like they do.

They sleep for the first few nights in a familiar order (Luffy nearest the wall, the human radiator that is Portgas D. Ace in the middle, and Sabo on the outside so that his nightmares don't wake Luffy). The small band of brothers even go and visit the tree again, and it's testament to how much Ace has grown that he can reach most of the lower branches easily and climb up in a split second. Sabo's not far behind either, even though Luffy's still a pipsqueak.

And so, slowly but surely, life evolves into what it once was before Shanks and his crew returned to Edgetown. Food is stolen and stale and clothes are covered in three layers of grime, and muscles ache and sting from long days of sparring and hunting. Even though life is hard, it's also simple, and Ace tries to take joy in the little things; Luffy's ever-growing smile, Sabo's bright eyes, the light of the moon from their tree, the feeling of being surrounded by warmth in the now damp nights.

Ace scratches a triangle into the wall beside their makeshift doorway after Luffy says that the shape reminds him of them. There are three sides, connected and making one whole. Whenever he looks at that sign (and Ace knows that Sabo and Luffy alike feel the same way) he hopes silently that he'll never have to leave his brothers. They have so much love to give out that if he was witnessing it and not receiving it, Ace would feel uncomfortable. The triangle becomes a sign of their teamwork.

Another dry season and another rainy season pass, and while Luffy turns into a clumsy, giggling nine-year old, Ace and Sabo grow into gangly, long-limbed twelve year olds in a joint celebration that consists of some stolen sake and a concussion (Ace doesn't particularly want to think back to it). Sabo's hair starts to grow out, reaching just above his chin in soft blonde curls, and Ace's strength increases like there's no tomorrow. It's a little before Luffy's birthday when their powers finally, finally awaken.

It's a day wet and cold enough that the trio of brothers can make excuses to hide in their hut, under the fraying blankets that are in obvious need of replacements. The ground is hard and moist, and Luffy shivers violently, tucked in between Ace and Sabo. "C-Cold…!" he manages occasionally but aside from that, the kid is silent.

Ace is close to sleep when he smells it. "Hey, Sab, is someone burning something out there?" he slurs.

"I dunno- ACE!"

Sabo's panicked yell has Ace up and alert in seconds. Despite the yelp, however, no enemies have entered the hideout. Ace lets himself freak out for a few more seconds before turning to his brother, annoyed. Beside him, Luffy snores lightly. "What the hell, Sabo?"

"Y-Y-Your-!" Sabo points lamely at the blankets on Ace's shoulder, reaching out and pulling a slightly dopy Luffy closer to him. Unconcerned, Ace turns towards his shoulder, still twitching his nose at the smell of burning.

And he's met with the sight of his shoulder, completely engulfed in flames.

Later on, Ace will deny vehemently that he did anything even slightly uncivilised. When asked, the raven-haired boy defends his 'manly and completely reasonable yell of alarm'. If you were to ask his brothers, however, they would probably crack up laughing at the mere memory of the incident.

So, let's face it, Ace veritably screams and smacks at his shoulder madly, trying to snuff out the fire burning merrily on his skin. That he somehow can't feel. No matter how hard he tries, the flames refuse to die, and soon he turns to Sabo in desperation. "Help me here!"

"Don't look at me!" Sabo raises his hands in surrender, only now they're on fire too, and Ace is half-sure that he's dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or both.

If Ace screamed, then Sabo screeches. Flailing smoking hands like a maniac, he shoves Luffy out of his arms and desperately tries to…Wipe the fire off his hands? Something like that. The fugitive runs his hands along the ground in a panic but, as they did with Ace, the flames that coat his fingers like glowing gloves refuse to die.

"Wait, wait!" Ace yells, as Sabo looks like he's about to hyperventilate. "Wait-"

"Oh yeah, Ace, I'll wait for my goddamn hands to burn off so you can talk!" Even on fire, it appears that Sabo's capable of sarcasm.

"Very funny, asshole." Shoulder still on fire, Ace takes a deep breath. "Look. It doesn't hurt."

Sabo pauses in his frenzied movements, before staring at his hands in disbelief. "Huh. It doesn't."

"Sabo, do you think this could be our…"

"I think it might be."

The pair look into each other's eyes for a long minute. "Well," Sabo says shakily, running his (still on fire) hand through his hair. "I guess Shanks did not mess around when he called you a firecracker."

Me and Sabo took a while to get used to it. I wouldn't be surprised if Luffy became fireproof because of how many times me and Sabo accidently burned him (and, honestly, he didn't seem to mind too much).

So we lived on for a few more years. Me and Sabo got our tattoos-

The tattoo artist only looks two or three years older than the thirteen-year old Ace and Sabo, but he still shoots them an unimpressed look from under the rim of his spotted hat. "Scram. I don't tattoo street kids."

The man looks like the picture of a typical easterner that somebody would find in a dictionary. With dark skin and hair, his eyes are shadowed from sleep deprivation and his young face is gaunt, limbs thin and looking slightly too long for his body. He's sixteen at most, and Ace gets defensive easily.

"You don't look much older than us! And we have money!"

The teen rolls dark grey eyes. "Sure. I don't take bottle caps as payment, kid. So scram."

Sabo decides to break up the inevitable argument before it begins. Taking out the heavy purse which holds everything the trio have earned in the last month, he offers it to the tattoo artist for inspection. The hat-wearing young man takes it cautiously, rifling through the coins and notes that line its seams.

After a second, he snorts but pockets the bag anyway. "Most of them are counterfeit anyway, so I don't know why I'm bothering." He stretches his long arms, the black and yellow hoodie he wears suddenly seeming too large for his skinny frame, and starts to rifle around in one of the draws behind the grimy counter. "Why not. But, fair warning, you will owe me more favours than you have fingers."

"Thirty-one favours comin' right up," Ace mocks petulantly, and the man ignores him completely.

As Sabo settles into the creaky chair, he apologises silently to his previous family, who would no doubt be scandalised by the fact that he's getting a tattoo at thirteen. His request is simple and, despite how young he is, the man is skilled. The triangle on Sabo's right wrist, one side blue, one side red and one side yellow, is bandaged deftly and with no small amount of roughness. Sabo loves it anyway.

Ace's request is a little more unusual but, of course, the tattoo artist manages it. In a way similar to how Ace used to mistakenly spell his name when Sabo first taught him how to write nearly two years ago, his name is tattooed vertically onto his bicep, a triangle replacing the first letter. He seems happy enough with it, and neither Ace nor Sabo will allow Luffy to get a tattoo at his tender age, so that's when the brothers take their leave. The tattoo artist's eyes follow them until they're long out of sight.

A smirk curls his lips.

-And Luffy honestly never changed-

Ace wakes up in the middle of the night, and before his mind even registers what's going on around him, he sighs, knowing what must have woken him up. Another nightmare. If one thing hasn't improved in these past years, then it's Sabo's mental state.

Cracking an eye open, Ace is surprised to find that somebody is already curled up beside Sabo, whispering the reassurances that Ace usually would as Sabo, half-asleep, slowly calms down. Luffy doesn't look too tired, but concern mars his features and makes him look older than his ten years.

"S'okay, Sab. Ace's okay. Luffy's okay," the black-haired child whispers, seeming not to have noticed that Ace is awake. It hits Ace hard; Luffy's imitating him, comforting their blonde brother, taking that responsibility onto his own small shoulders.

He's growing up but, somehow, exactly as kind as he always has been. If anything, that's the one thing that Ace admires about his brothers. They're good people, with enough light and love to blind you, who would give up arms and legs and hearts to help their precious people. Ace is the opposite. He's rotten to the core.

Even after Luffy goes silent, Ace doesn't get to sleep. He doesn't feel worthy of a visit to their tree.

-and, somehow, those were some of the best years of my life.

Well, strap in I guess, cause things go wrong.

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