Thanks for the support! I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's more lighthearted than the last.
The Red-Haired Pirates were in for a shock when they arrived again two weeks later.
"What happened to your hand?!" They collectively shouted, some with more swear words than others. Those who did got a stern look from Makino. They cowered under the bartender's stare.
"I broke it," Sabo said as if they were all idiots. It was obvious, especially with a cast still on it. Even with a faster healing rate than her or the average civilian, two weeks wasn't enough time to heal a broken wrist. At least they could doodle on the cast.
Luffy took to it with great abandon and covered the majority of it in unintelligible scribbles that were actually meant to be something. Both Ace and Sabo could not decipher it yet and they were afraid to ask in case it hurt Luffy's feelings. Ace tried to draw a hibiscus and a spade from a card. He achieved a better quality than what Luffy's efforts produced, though it wasn't perfect. Which made it look better in their eyes.
Sabo had stencilled and then coloured in three letters on the cast. A red A, a blue S, and a yellow L. It wasn't set in front of a pirate's crossbones yet, but it was meaningful enough to the others already.
Sabo set down the Queen of Hearts and Ace of Diamonds they had. "I win."
Luffy pouted, setting down his Five and Six of Clubs and Eight of Spades. Ace grinned and set down an Ace of Spades and Jack of Spades. "Nah, I win. Pay up!"
Shanks sat next to them, blinking at the realisation they were playing something looking like Blackjack or Twenty-one. Sabo couldn't remember which was the proper name and didn't even know if she remembered the correct rules, but they taught it to Ace and Luffy and were enjoying it anyway. It also served to teach Luffy some maths, which was always a struggle. Even with meat as a teaching aid, read: Bribe.
"If you both have twenty-one, why does Ace win?" He asked.
"Cause I got cards from the same suit." Ace said. He held up the Ace of Spades with a grin. "Also, I got the best card, so I would have won anyway."
Sabo rolled their eyes at that, hiding it from Ace but deliberately showing it to Luffy. The kid snickered at it. Assuming the cause of the sound correctly, Ace scowled at them. They smiled brightly at him. He pointedly took his winnings, a combination of random things they'd all found. Luffy's contribution was simpler but there were a few eccentric things in there. Ace was using some coins from their pirate fund. He had wanted to feel like an actual pirate, gambling with real gold.
Sabo put in some coupons they made and some sweets they collected in Edge Town. Sabrina's sweet tooth had somehow become well known and people liked to give some to Ace to give to her. Honestly, Sabo was getting a little creeped out by how much people 'helped' and talked about them and Ace.
Sure, Sabo knew from stories in her memories that childhood sweethearts were cute, and it could be nice to see how it goes and feel the fluff. This was beginning to feel like something else. They all felt way too invested in them.
They resolved to see if they could use their age to get some answers next time. If not, then they could practice some true stealth and eavesdrop. Sure, Skyrim stealth archers were technically the easy route, but maxing out those skills in the game took time and dedication. She wanted to reap the results it garnered her, and she enjoyed it.
Although they did know they shouldn't base their stealth on a video game. Crouching does not hide a person. Unless you crouch in shadows and get turned invisible, but Sabo wasn't a Nightingale so that was clearly off the table.
"Aside from the broken hand, you look better. More present." Shanks said, thanking Makino after she delivered some rum and juice to the table.
"Well, I was dissociating a bit at the time." They confessed, grabbing their cup of apple juice.
It drew some looks from their tablemates. Ace briefly paused from where he was shuffling the cards, their birthday present to him that year, and silently asked for some elaboration.
"What's dissociating?" Shanks and Luffy asked, almost in sync. They shot a look at each other for it, but they kept their attention on them.
"Loosely, I get disconnected from reality," Sabo said. "The type I'm sure I have is Depersonalization-derealization disorder. Either the world feels wrong, or I feel wrong. I'm detached from either my body or the world. I lose my sense of smell every time it happens, so I can actually tell when it's happening now, but episodes can last for years."
They didn't add that the portion of them that was just her had Dissociative amnesia. She couldn't and wouldn't be able to remember her family, her friends, or the majority of her life. They didn't add that in the books they'd read on the subject, the only known potential cause of dissociation disorders was trauma in childhood. Which, even without Outlook and Didit and the servants plotting against their son, was terrible due to their recurring nightmares, escaping to the Grey Terminal, and the fear and tension that came from living in that place and near its people.
"Although it can be a symptom of something else, Dissociation disorders can be its own thing." There's a glazed look in Luffy's eyes. They put down their cup so they can add gestures (more like charades really, they were planning on introducing them to the game and they were getting their cheating prepared early) to their explanation. "Luffy, sometimes the world doesn't feel real to me so I'm distant mentally, even if I'm physically here. That's all you need to know."
He nodded in understanding. Sabo absently wonders what Luffy actually thought they meant but left it immediately. That way lies madness, and they already had a mental health issue to tackle. They didn't need multiple.
"You're hiding something." Ace said while dealing out cards, he even gives two to Shanks. The gesture brightened up the man.
Sabo pointed at Shanks. "Yeah, but I'm not going to say it in front of him." They looked at him. "Sorry but I don't really know you."
"Dahaha, that's fine. Now what rules are you playing by and how do I buy in?" He laughed, unbothered by the blatant lack of trust.
Ace shot Sabo a look at the unfamiliar term, they explained that first then explained the game. Soon enough, more of the Red-Haired pirates were buying in with knickknacks and little treasures of their own. With one deck of cards and more players than there were supposed to be, the game was chaotic, and Sabo couldn't cheat whenever it was their turn to deal.
Yes, they cheated. If Ace and Luffy weren't observant enough to spot them doing it, then they deserved the win. Besides, Pirate~.
"What's the story behind that flower, Spitfire?" Shanks asked Ace. It was Storytime - Luffy coined it back in July, they seconded it – and Shanks, Yasopp, Luffy and Lucky had already told stories. Sabo was being left to last because Luffy had confessed they had a long, cool pirate story and they all wanted to hear it.
Yes, they had told them about Dead Man's Chest and left them on a cliffhanger ending before At World's End. Yes, they were letting him and Ace stew on it for a while before telling them. If they left it a bit longer, until September, then there would have been roughly a month in between each of the stories. It gave them time to decide whether they were going to tell On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales.
They're thinking they won't at the moment. Tides would require major rewrites considering Blackbeard and the mermaids. While with Tell No Tales they honestly couldn't remember it well enough. They were already trying to figure out how to re-write the Pirate King aspect of World's End, they didn't need more on their plate.
Presently in Party's Bar, there were short stories from everyone else in the meantime before they got to the "main event" which was The Curse of the Black Pearl. Again, not their words, but it wasn't Luffy's this time. He'd have replaced parts of that saying with meat and feasts.
Ace looked suspiciously at Shanks. There was a bit too much amusement in his voice. As if he knew something they didn't. The captain could be an open book when it came to teasing them. Luffy would fall for it a lot, but they and Ace were able to catch it most of the time.
"What specifically do you want to know?" A quick side glance at Makino showed that Ace would have sworn if he could have.
Shanks' grin was too gleeful. "Oh, just if you got it from someone?"
Some of his crew looked as lost about that as the landlocked people felt. Others seemed to have conned on to something as they just grinned with interest but didn't divulge anything.
"Sabo got it for me." Ace proudly stated. Sabo didn't know whether to feel embarrassed or giddy at the pride in his tone. "Mum wore one all the time and it was her favourite flower."
That just made his grin sharper, unable to grow any bigger but trying to anyway. "Oh, was your Mum from the South Blue by any chance?"
Ace nodded slowly, confused. Sabo narrowed their eyes at Shanks. Trying to figure out what his point was in this line of questioning.
"Did you know in the South Blue and on some of the Grand Line, people would wear flowers on the left side of their head to show they're married?" It was phrased as a question, but it really wasn't.
Sabo's face slammed into the table and loosely covered their heated ears. It didn't stop noise from getting in, so they heard the pirates laughing, but it prevented them from seeing how red they got in embarrassment. Suddenly, giving Ace a flower over two years ago had proved more embarrassing in the present than it had at the moment. They didn't regret it, never would, but it still burned their face.
"So does that mean I'm married to Sabo?" Ace asked, too unbothered by their laughter to possibly be offended by the suggestion.
"Not really, you're both kids." Benn Beckman reassured them. "When you're older, some might actually think you are. If you wear it on the right instead, you'll show you're available."
Sabo was just getting out of their position and revealing their face again when Luffy asked what being married meant. They should have either spoken up faster so they could have explained it all or just shut their mouth for the whole explanation.
"People get married as a promise to be loyal to each other for the rest of their life. To support each other, in sickness and in health, and help the other aspire to their dreams. It's a partnership." Yasopp said, there was a wistfulness in his voice that made Sabo know he was speaking about his wife, Usopp's mother. "That person then becomes a part of your family."
Luffy looked at Ace and Sabo and opened his mouth. Sabo spoke up first, unknowing they'd regret it later. "You can't marry Ace or me. If you do ever get married though, you should marry your best friend. You would be promising to spend the rest of your life with them and be partners in everything after all. Makes sense for it to be with someone you know you get along with."
Something was tucked behind their left ear after that explanation. Interrupted as they were, they couldn't add on that marriage was an adult-only thing or that it wasn't done between siblings. They reached up to feel it was a flower. They spun around, almost falling off their seat. Ace was there to prevent them from doing so though. He looked weird without a flower in his hair.
It was a different sort of weird to the scarless and hatless Luffy, but weird all the same.
"We're married." Ace stated, his voice not leaving any room for arguments.
The whole room laughed and some gasped. Makino looked a little worried, she knew them as twins after all. Luffy just said they needed a feast to celebrate and the pirates, most partially drunk, cheered in agreement.
So much regret, but they hadn't said no. Although whether it was because they didn't have the opportunity to because they had been shocked silent or not would change in retellings later, depending on their mood and current feelings towards Ace.
If he was in trouble with them for whatever reason, it'd be the former reason.
And yes, they did still tell Shanks and his crew about The Curse of the Black Pearl. They're glad to report it went over well. Even with the revised names such as Lamington because for the life of them, Sabo couldn't remember the Commodore's actual name during the telling of the story. Sorry Norrington, but you're going to be known and referred to as a dessert henceforth.
…Wait a minute, did this world even have lamingtons?
If Sabo had considered her birthday theirs, then the nightmare featuring Ace's death and Luffy's screams was a poor gift indeed. As it was, they woke up screaming – which was progress considering the alternative was to be biting their wrist – but it was thanks to the fact that both of their arms were bound under warm bodies. Warm bodies which said screams had just woken up.
They thought they had another week before their nightmare would return. They hadn't planned to do it in front of Luffy, let alone in Foosha just yet. Bloody hell. Huh, looks like Ace's and the bandit's foul mouths were affecting their mind.
Ace was used to the nightmares already and just pulled them into a hug. He ran a hand through their hair while they tried to compose themself with their face buried in Ace's neck. Something Sabo had noticed, now that they were consistently more present to notice it, was that Ace seemed to hold the neck in a special place. They had asked, and it turned out it was something he saw as the ultimate sign of trust considering how the neck was the most vulnerable part of the body.
That explanation just made them see the neck in the same light as him. That Ace trusted them with his life even when they had just woken up from one of those nightmares that never failed to force them back into dissociating for a few days afterwards, meant a lot to them. Especially since sometimes they got violent afterwards. There was an actual risk involved but he did it anyway.
It kept Ace as one of the few things that still felt real. Even when the rest of the world felt like it was playing on a screen.
They reached out blindly and grabbed Luffy, dragging him into the hug too. Sabo clutched onto him and Ace with intense desperation. They calmed down eventually, and by the time they could recognise anything outside the little pile the three of them made, they could see Makino was present and the predawn light was beginning to shine through the windows.
The hot chocolate was greatly appreciated, although Ace had to make sure it wasn't hot enough to burn their tongue for them. Touch was always iffy when they could still feel the phantom pain of metal lodged into her gut, destroying her spine and disconnecting her from feeling her legs, even if the dream didn't continue on to stomach acid dissolving her insides and instead to watching someone else die from a hole in his chest, his insides almost certainly being melted by lava as he said his last words.
The connection was a realisation, and it just made them all the more determined to prevent it from happening no matter what. Although Luffy had become a focus of theirs as of late. So, they had to remember what Ace's death meant for him and his crew. It was what inspired the two-year training time skip and the war was what initially endeared him to his helmsman.
Who knew that it took reincarnation to properly realise this?
The only thing they could think of to help them in return, at least initially, was to make sure Luffy was stronger at the start of his journey than he was in the story. They're at a bit of a loss on what else at the moment, but they had time. They weren't pushing it off and procrastinating, they just decided to not stress too badly about it at the moment.
Luffy hadn't decided he wanted to become the Pirate King yet. Although between them, Ace, Shanks, and his crew, they had made him want to be a pirate. Baby steps.
Later in the day, Ace and Sabo were returning to the bandits with their soon-to-be second lunch in hand. They spoke up.
"There's two different nightmares now." They confessed. Ace stopped and looked at them. A part of him looked confused, he hadn't done anything to prompt them after all, but the rest of him was serious. "The first is of dying and that person. I'm feeling my insides spill out onto my lap and having to smell the stomach acid while it dissolves my arms and insides. The next, the worse one, is of surviving that ordeal. The person calls for help instead of being an arsehole."
That confession brings up more questions in Ace, but they can see he was trying to restrain himself from asking.
"She survives." They said, maybe the fact they didn't feel connected with themself made this easier to admit. Easier to talk about. "She survives, and Sabo's just male. He gets found by his father at ten and is dragged back home. He escapes and gets blown up by a Celestial Dragon. He survives but loses his memories."
Ace was looking more confused and bewildered by the second, they kept going. No breaks so he couldn't stop them or even just ask questions. They had to get this off their chest. It had been too long.
"Ace and Luffy hear from Dogra that Sabo died. They head off to sea at seventeen as pirates. At some point, Ace goes off alone to avenge a backstabbed crewmate. He gets captured and set to be executed, not because of his achievements or any crime he committed, but because he was the Pirate King's son, and he was bait for another notorious pirate.
"Luffy breaks into Impel Down, and fights all the way down to Level Six to save his brother. He loses several years of his life and almost dies because of Magellan and his poison. Ivankov and Bentham save him. He arrives on Level Six too late; Ace had been dragged off to be executed already. So Luffy staged the first and biggest break out of Impel Down. Sailing with a ship full of convicts to a war he was barely ready or strong enough for. Exhausted, half-dead, and only going on through sheer willpower, love for his only living older brother, and adrenaline.
"He succeeds in freeing Ace from the platform. But during the escape, Akainu taunts Ace. He stands his ground and fights the admiral. Even though he was starved, tortured, and hadn't even had a proper chance to recover from the fight that got him captured in the first place. Luffy's parentage was revealed, and the Admiral tries to kill Luffy because of it. But…" They couldn't say it. Couldn't admit it.
They grabbed their knife and jabbed the sheath into their leg. The brief pain forced them to continue, the action delayed Ace's questions so they could. They let him take the knife off them.
"Ace gets in the way, a fist of magma punches through his chest but it doesn't touch Luffy. He saved his little brother but he's dying now. He says his last words, thanking the people he saw as his family for loving him. He dies. Luffy goes catatonic in his grief, screaming."
Sabo could see again. They could see Ace's confused and horrified face. "Sabo finds out from the newspaper. He finds out Ace died and remembers then. He goes into a three-day coma. Luffy finds out he's alive two years later."
Their chest hurts, vision blurry from tears. "I'm lucky to die each month. It's so much worse watching you die, hearing Luffy's screams as he realises that he's been left alone since his brothers are dead. I hate my past life for showing me it. I hate that I remember it, but I know if I didn't it would all happen. You'd die at twenty. Ace…"
Sabo's brought into a hug and Ace shoved their face into his neck. He's tense, the grip's uncomfortable, but the message gets through, and they take the comfort that's being freely given. They freed a hand to guide his face into their neck too.
"Either I die in my nightmares, or you do. I hate my past life, but I can't help but be so thankful for it all the same. I don't want you to die, Ace." Sabo whispered.
"When you're better, you're going to fucking explain all this shit clearer, Sabo." Ace replied.
They nodded in agreement. It took until the end of October before they could though. They both resolved never to tell Luffy. Spoilers, first of all. Although Ace was a bit off for a while when he found out Luffy would be the Pirate King.
"I thought you'd be more weirded out about me being an adult woman in my past life or that you were characters in a fictional story in said life. How is Luffy being the Pirate King weirder?" They asked, snacking on the little edible bits of a hibiscus. Ace couldn't wear every flower that blooms on their bush. Although honestly, they eat them for the novelty of it, they could barely taste it and it wasn't much sustenance anyway. It's the exact same as was in her life so they know it's not dissociation messing with one of their senses. Her dad taught her about this, they/she remembered that.
"Sabo's weird, I expect you to do or say weird things. Luffy's a crybaby weakling, he couldn't be further from the Pirate King if he tried." Ace pouted. When he put it like that, they saw his point. Still, to take reincarnation and alternate worlds better than Luffy's status as the future Pirate King seemed blasphemous. Though they did have a past life where they were introduced to Luffy as the future Pirate King. It would be normal for them.
If this world had manga and Ace read it and knew that the protagonist was practically guaranteed to succeed at their dream no matter what, then maybe he wouldn't be so surprised. Or maybe not, Luffy was a part of reality and reality rarely played out as a manga would. It wasn't going to stop Sabo from putting all their bets on Luffy becoming the Pirate King though.
She might have died before the end was released, but they knew the only thing that would stop Luffy from being guaranteed as the next Pirate King, was if Blackbeard claimed it first and then Luffy stole the mantel off of him in a climactic final battle.
"You fucking knew Roger's my shitty father before we even bloody met!" Ace shouted, the realisation just dawning on him.
"I also know a bit of what he's like. He's a bit ridiculous all things considered. Also, your Mum's a badass even though I know almost nothing about her." They groaned. Disappointed they knew nothing concrete about the woman the Pirate King married. If they even got married at all, no wait. She wore her flower on the left side of her head. So Ace wasn't a technical bastard after all. Huh. "You looked funny as a baby."
Sabo had to run before Ace could tackle them for that comment. "Get the fuck back here, Sabo!"
"Really, I'd rather not." They got captured despite their best efforts. Ace was better at endurance than they were still. They needed to get on that. Maybe swimming would help?
"Did you get married in your past life?"
"Nah, hadn't even kissed anyone."
"Good."
…
"ACE!"
"Hahaha-oof!"
Ace is a possessive little shit (/affectionate).
Me: *Looks at the incomplete chapter 12* ...
Me: *Looks at the year I spent not finishing it* ...
Me: *Looks at you, my readers* I'll get chapter 12 done in time for next month but I must confess, I don't know if I can keep a 15th Every Month Update Schedule like I had this year next year. Although considering my New Year's resolution was to update my stories regularly (Ignores The Dream which I can't work up the will to write.) if I can finish this one chapter I'll have actually done a New Year's Resolution and done it for an entire year. How many can say that?
Last thing before I go, those familiar with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, how would you rewrite it to remove the Pirate King part? I'll write and credit any ideas in the next chapter. The one positive thing about it being incomplete I guess.