The moment they're alone in the room, Ace visibly relaxes. Sabo tucked his coat out of the way and sat on the bed, gently nudging any limbs out of his way. Luffy is immediately clambering over his lap in order to still reach all of his brothers at once. Ace huffs as if begrudgingly allowing the movement, but one of his hands not resting on his injured brother's blanket covered leg rests light and hesitant on Sabo's own arm. "We can't stay here any longer," Sabo tells the boys carefully.
"Of course we can't," Ace declares, rolling his eyes. "We don't know these people!"
"No, Ace," Sabo shook his head. "We can't stay on Dawn Island. It's too dangerous." Ace jerks back, startled, but luffy only nods. His younger self watches them, listening quietly with a furrow in his brow.
"Is this... because of me?"
Both the brother's eyes snap towards their injured third. Immediately protests start, but it's Sabo that cuts them off with a gentle hand on his head. "Sabo," he starts quietly, "look at me." It's weird, looking at himself, as a child, but he knew he needed to hear this when he was younger, just as this Sabo does now. "You are not at fault."
He flicks his eyes to the side to stare Ace down until the boy squirms. "None of you are." He watches Ace open his mouth, eyes shadowed, but beats him to it. "Blood does not determine anyone's worth— not yours, not mine, not Luffy's. The world—" his nose scrunches up, unable to stop. "—is rotten. It is this world that wants to push us down, and chain us;" he breathed in shakily. "...or swallow us whole."
Carefully, he meets every boy's eyes. Even luffy is uncharacteristically quiet, having latched on to the serious atmosphere.
Sabo risked a smile, shaky and memory burdened as it is. "The world awaits our answer," he tells them, and watches with unsuppressed happiness at the fire that lights up in each of them.
He looks down when a tiny hand weakly grabs onto his coat. Child-him looks drained, as exhausted as Sabo feels. But even as he grits his teeth from the pain his grip grows tighter.
"Even if I don't remember, you will take me with you?" He asks. The desperation is unmistakable. Sabo swallows hard. "Wherever you go, you won't— wont leave me behind—?"
Ace makes an offended sound, throwing himself carefully at his brother until the three boys are again wrapped up as tightly as possible.
"Brothers," Luffy declares.
"Brothers," Ace reaffirms.
The child version of him clearly has not a single memory of these people, of his "brothers" nor the man who brought them here. But their touch is familiar to his body, when not to his brain, and something cold and torn in him visibly stitches itself together in their arms.
"Brothers," he answers back, and drifts back asleep.
