I think this is the last part of this; for everyone who wanted a reunion. Title is a slightly botched quote from the same song, The Drowned Lovers by Kate Rugsby, although how I got them in reverse order i'm sure I don't know.
Ace steps off the gangway and onto the dock. The ground is steady under his feet and it takes him a second to adjust, but the salt in the air is as familiar as ever. He glances around the docks, but all the slips are full up and he doesn't get but a once-over before an arm gets slung across his shoulders.
"Where're you off to, then?" Thatch asks, propelling him forward. "We've got 'til they get here, so stores? Bars? Restaurants?"
Ace grins at him, then plants his back foot and ducks his head. Thatch's arm slides right off, and Ace laughs at him and the look on his face.
"Something like that," he says, even though his plans are nothing like that at all. "You?"
Thatch grimaces and says, "Do you have any idea how much food it takes to feed all of you, even without company coming? I'm off to the markets. I'm always at the markets. The sheer volume of food you, specifically, go through, personally offends me, and-"
Ace makes noncommittal humming noises and lets the monologue wash over him. He follows Thatch anyway, right up until town, and then he slides sideways into the trees while Thatch waves wildly and yells something about cheeses.
It's soothing, out in the trees, in a way that no ship ever has been. There's greenery everywhere and he can track the wind by the leaves. There's sounds, too; there's birdsong and quiet plant rustling, and a bit of turned earth next to marks in the dirt that he knows means a boar is around.
It's easy to follow, big and blatant, probably because it doesn't have much to fear on such an island as Franjibelle. It's a mild day, pleasant out, and Ace loses an hour or so to tracking. It's nostalgic, and by the time he catches up to the animal, he's deep in the woods. Everything is quiet forest noises and the boar snuffling and the familiar sound of Sabo pacing his steps just out of sight. It's like any hunt from ages back, and he falls into the pattern easy as blinking.
He always starts by going left, and he does this time, too. He falls from the branch and spooks it right. It squeals and rears enough that he's sure it's a female, and then turns and runs.
Ace knows this dance, though, and when it hits Sabo and he turns back left, Ace is already in place and waiting. He's got fire now, and it's easy enough to surround it with a ring. Then it's a simple matter of finding the weak spot of the skull, and his eyes trace the lines from ears to opposite eyes, and then it's just a matter of spinning his dagger hilt into the spot those lines cross.
Everything is fire and noise and danger for a swirl, and then he's bleeding her out and making sure she stays down. He takes a second to thank her as her eyes go glassy, and doesn't even blink when boots thud down next to him.
"The fire's new," Sabo says, and Ace looks up into scars and a smile he knows like breathing.
"Oh," Ace says, and if his hands weren't busy supporting the boar's head, he'd probably punch that smug face. "What," he says instead, knees in the dirt.
"Hey, remember a few days back?" Sabo asks, swinging his pipe out of the way and falling to sit next to him. "When you accidentally wished a memory-me into being?"
Ace squints over at him. "So I'm dreaming this time?" he asks. "Or just hallucinating? I don't think I pissed off any other fae recently."
"I don't think you pissed one off at all," Sabo says mildly. Ace wipes his hands off and tucks his dagger back away. "Seemed more like a favor to me."
"You'd know," Ace says and heaves the boar up and over his shoulder. "Being made of magic and all."
"I'm not," Sabo says, still sitting. "I'm actually here, Ace."
"Of course you're not," Ace says, trying a step to see if he can manage. He shifts it a bit until the weight distribution isn't throwing him off and then keeps going. "You're kinda dead."
Sabo finally moves, planting one palm in the dirt and using it to pivot both feet under him in a movement they both learned from Gramps. Ace turns his eyes away and glances up. He's lost quite a bit of time, according to the sun, but they hadn't intended to leave until nightfall anyway so he's got plenty of time to get back to the ship and offer Thatch his boar as an apology gift.
"I'm not dead," Sabo says, falling into step but not reaching out to help. "You think a little thing like fire could kill me?"
Ace fixes his eyes on the ground ahead of him, picking his path and not looking at the specter walking beside him. "You did kinda blow up," he points out reasonably. "And if that didn't get you, the drowning would have. The scars are new, though."
"Mmhmm," Sabo says, sticking both hands in his pockets. "Got 'em from that time I didn't die."
That's reasonable, as far as justifications go, but Ace knows better than to get his hopes up. "Sure," he says, "but I see your hat made it through just fine."
The fake Sabo huffs and tugs the brim of his hat. "It's a new one," he says, which is a blatant lie if ever Ace heard one. "You wouldn't believe how much it cost to get it made."
Ace shakes his head and keeps walking. He's done arguing with the shade of his dead brother, and the fake Sabo's silence is as comforting as the real one's was. He even walks with his eyes turned the way Ace's aren't, just like the real Sabo would've. "How's Luffy?" he asks instead.
Sabo lights up and talks with his hands, just like he used to. Whatever is causing this illusion, it's really thorough, but so was the last one. In any case, he seems to know a lot about Luffy, and Ace whistles at his baby bro's new bounty.
Not-really-Sabo shifts into a story of Luffy visiting Lougetown that takes them all the way back to the forest's edge, finally winding it up with a quick, "-and then he got them back to ship and they tore outta there," in just enough time for Ace to skid down a slope and land right beside the small group of Commanders standing on the side of the road.
"Hey!" Ace says cheerfully, swinging the boar around and down at Thatch's feet. "Look what I brought you!"
Thatch stares at it, then at Ace. "Why," he asks flatly.
Ace blinks back. "You were complaining about the cost of food. I thought I'd help."
"So you pulled a disappearing act that gave us all heart attacks and went off into the woods without telling anyone so you could hunt a boar alone, yoi," Marco says.
Ace looks down at it and them back up at Thatch. "Do you not know how to cook boar? It's pretty easy."
"Do I-" Thatch closes his eyes and brings a hand up to massage the bridge of his nose. "That's not the point, Ace."
"I can help," Ace offers, reaching out a hand. "It's better slow-roasted, but-"
"Don't do it like that-" Sabo starts, reaching out, and Ace steels his nerves and doesn't flinch. It's fine; the hand'll pass right through-
Sabo's fingers catch on Ace's wrist, and the world flips inside out.
There's a whole bunch of strange people who are taller than him, and Ace hisses on instinct and puts his back to Sabo's.
"Who're you?" Sabo's asking, and Ace tenses further. It's Sabo who knows people, but he apparently doesn't know these guys and that spells trouble.
"What?" one of the strangers says, leaning in to loom over them. "What just happened?"
"Sabo?" asks one with weird hair, crouching down down get closer, and then his gaze switches. "Ace?"
Ace hisses again and Sabo tenses. "Those aren't our names," Sabo says, taking a step back.
"Of course they are," the first one says again, and throws his arms out. "You think we don't recognize you?"
Ace flinches and Sabo glares, and they both back up another step.
"C'mon, yoi," says the second, still on the ground. "Let's get you back to the ship. Maybe Pops will know something-"
Sabo's hand flies to Ace's wrist, and they both turn and bolt.
"Hey!" someone yells from behind them, but Ace puts his head down and runs. He doesn't know where they are; this forest isn't familiar. It's still a forest, though, and he knows those better than any stupid adult.
They make the tree line and keep going, and both make for the first big bush to break line-of-sight. It's sitting on the edge of an incline, and Ace takes the turn too sharp and slides down just a bit..
Sabo's hand is still on his wrist, though, and Ace pulls, scrambling upright and planting a hand on the ground to get enough momentum to turn the fall into a swing. Sabo drags him up and around as they make a hard left and keep going further into the forest.
The trees here aren't as tall or as dense as the ones he knows, and Ace decides climbing them'll be a pain. They probably won't have to, though, because it doesn't seem like anyone's caught up with them.
They slide into a small ditch, just a shallow holler below ground level, and they stop to catch their breath.
"You think we lost 'em?" Sabo asks, and Ace holds his breath for a second to listen.
"Yeah," he says. "I think we did."
Sabo nods, then starts going through his pockets. "Where are we?"
"I dunno," Ace says, going through his own. He's got a sharp rock, a handful of coins, a half-empty box of matches, and a band-aid-everything that he should have. Sabo's turned up a knife and a handkerchief and some other odds and ends.
Ace squints up at the sky. "We're gonna need shelter soon," he says; the sun's dipping low. "And food."
Sabo nods. "Hunting? I don't have my pipe…"
Ace doesn't either, and they don't have time to make traps, not when they don't even know if anything around here is worth trapping. "Let's keep moving," he says. "There were people, so there's gotta be a town."
"Hunt to hunt," Sabo agrees, their shorthand term for making towards a town while trying to find something else on the way.
They scramble out of the ditch and Ace looks around, trying to get a feel of the land. Sabo stands back and lets him. Ace knows forests better and they both know it.
Given what they ran past getting here and the pattern of the underbrush, the thicker part of the forest is back that way, so he heads the opposite way, and readjusts as they go. There were people, so there's bound to be some kind of town or something, and chances are it's not in the forest.
Sure enough, by the time the sun's sunk a thumb's-width towards the horizon, they've broken out of the forest and found the outskirts of a settlement just a bit away. It's too big to be a village but not quite big enough to be a city.
Ace makes the swirl-over-eyes gesture that means scope out a soft target and Sabo nods once, sharp, and disappears down a side street. Ace sticks both hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders, and works his way into the market area.
The crowds aren't as big as he'd like, but he's small and quick and knows how to be invisible.
"Gotcha!" the redhead yells, bodyslamming Ace into the ground.
He's got a couple feet and a lot of weight on Ace, but Ace has no shame and fights dirty. He sinks his teeth into the closest limb and uses his nails as claws. The man squirms and yells, and Ace gets his legs free.
It's enough, and he's scrambling away before he's even upright. There's a flash of blue on the other side of the square and he starts for it. "Sa-!"
His legs are still pumping, but he's not moving forward anymore. He's moving upwards instead, being lifted by his collar from behind.
He hisses and spits and swings both arms over his head to get his nails into the wrist supporting him. It does no good, though; he can feel flesh yielding beneath his fingers but the perpetrator just keeps him aloft. "Can you not, yoi?" the person behind him asks.
"I can kick your face in," Ace hisses back and squirms harder. "Lemme go!"
"What'd we ever do to you?" Sabo is yelling as a moving chunk of shiny white stone stomps over to them, Sabo in hand. "Put us down!"
"After we went through all this trouble to catch you?" the redhead says, one hand over his eye. "Damn, kid; you've got good aim."
Yes, yes Ace does, but he just huffs and crosses his arms. He doesn't have to accept compliments from kidnappers.
"Why are you after us?" Sabo asks, still dangling, and oh, that's something Ace hadn't thought to ask. "Neither of us are worth anything."
It's a good thing Ace knows to let Sabo do the talking, cause he'd never sell a lie that big.
"You're not?" the person holding Ace asks. "Neither of you?"
"Street brats," Sabo says, grinning a sharp grin. "No money, no bounty, no ransom, no useful skills. So you may as well let us go."
The redhead huffs. "I know you're lying and I still can't tell."
"He doesn't lie!" Ace lies, struggling again.
The person holding him shakes him, just a bit, and says, "We've got to get them back to the ship somehow, yoi. Anyone got any rope?"
"I've got cuffs," the redhead says, stepping forward. "Not the right size, but they'll do if we run."
"I am not chasing them all over this island again," the first guy says. "Cuff them."
"No, no-" Sabo starts scrabbling at the stone arm holding him, trying it climb it to get away from the cuffs. "No, don't, no-!"
Ace doesn't have the same issue with handcuffs that Sabo does, but he fights just as hard for the exact same reason. "No! I'll go quietly! I'm the one you want anyway, don't put those on him-!"
But it's too late. One is clicking into place on Ace's wrist while the redhead slips the other onto Sabo's ankle.
The moment the metal touches skin, though, the world pops in place and turns right-side in.
Ace hits the ground face-first, one arm over his head, and groans. He tries to ask what's going on, but all he accomplishes is a mouthful of dirt.
There's an answering groan, though, and Ace goes to push himself up. His hand won't retract, though, so he tugs hard and looks up in just enough time to catch a boot to the face.
"What?" someone asks just as he yelps "ow!" and several someones laugh.
He groans and rolls over to his back. The sky is nice, at least. The sky isn't mocking him.
"Ace?" A head pops into his field of vision. "Is that you?"
He doesn't know the voice, but he knows the cadence, he knows the way his name sounds, and he knows that damn hat. "Sabo?!" he squeaks, sitting upright.
His forehead slams into Sabo's chin and they both recoil. "What the hell, Ace!" Sabo yells.
"What the hell, Sabo!" Ace says back, sitting up more carefully. "Aren't you dead?"
"Only as dead as your common sense," Sabo snaps, and Ace goes to cross his arms and yanks hard enough that Sabo yelps and falls flat as his foot going flying. Ace looks down to see the handcuffs connecting his wrist to Sabo's ankle. Huh.
That explains the kick. Ugh, he's gonna have a headache all night, isn't he? Sabo's giving him that look and Ace groans and flops back over. "What even," he says.
This time it's Marco who leans in to block his view of the sky. "You okay, yoi?"
"No," Ace says, but Sabo is here, so also, "yes," but also he's lost and his head hurts, so probably, "no."
"Make up your mind," Sabo says, but he scoots over enough to sit next to Ace and work his fingers into Ace's hair, so he can't be too mad.
"Are you a wish again?" Ace asks, reaching up to touch.
"Nah," Sabo says, and gives him that small fleeting smile that means he's truly happy. "I got a wish, too. Well, kinda."
"I bet you got cursed."
Sabo huffs. "I did not," he says. "I was given a gift, just like you."
The sun's blocked as someone crouches down towards them. "Hey," he says, and it's Thatch. "So this is Sabo, all grown up, huh?"
"Pleased to meet you!" Sabo says, dipping his head. "Or, well, it's good to see you again?"
"I'm sure it is," Marco says, hands on his hips as he looks down at them. "Now, how about we do this somewhere besides the middle of the town square?"
Is that where they are? Ace looks around and finds that, yeah, they are, and there's a lot of whispering and pointing going on. He sighs and bats at Sabo's hands until he can sit up. At least the headache's lessened.
"Don't suppose you've got the key for these, have you?" Sabo asks Thatch, gesturing at the handcuffs they're both still wearing.
"Depends," Thatch says, producing said key. "You gonna run away again if I unlock 'em?"
Ace very carefully doesn't look at Sabo. "No," he says, holding out his arm.
"Of course not," Sabo says disdainfully, straightening his leg.
Thatch sighs but goes ahead and uncuffs them. Ace huffs and stretches, and Sabo gets up neatly. He turns to Ace and offers a hand up.
Ace meets his eyes and takes it, and his lips quirk. Yeah, they're thinking the same thing. "You forgive me?" Sabo asks.
"I'm the one who's sorry," Ace replies, and Sabo pulls him to his feet, already turning."Meet you back at the ship," Ace says to the Whitebeards, and he takes off after Sabo.
A whole chorus of shouts raise behind them, but they duck through the people and around the stalls and are out of town long before anyone can catch up.
"Hey!" Sabo yells at him as they barrel towards the tree line. "Do you know where we're going?"
"No!" Ace shouts back, smiling fit to catch bugs with his teeth. There's magic in the wind and his brother at his back. "Why? Does it matter?"
Sabo's laugh is breathless but loud enough, and they keep running.