Chapter 6: Unbelievable

Sabo leaned forward onto the palms of his hands. Ace laid sleeping on the on the futon mattress on the deck as Koala and Lindbergh were asleep in the cabin. His head hurt from everything that Ace had told him earlier.

"I'm going to die." Ace felt his heart freeze at those words.

"That's no-" Lindbergh began only for Sabo's voice to cut him off.

"Out!" he shouted his voice laced with authority. Both of his subordinates and friends gave him a questioning look before silently leaving the cabin.

"You've got to believe me 'Bo, had I known sooner that you were alive I would have found you." Ace stated as Sabo sat across from him.

"Tell me everything." Sabo asked with a pleading look.

"Luffy, he visited me from a not too far away future." Sabo raised an eyebrow at him. "I know." He chuckled. "I was in Wano visiting a friend when he showed up. You should've see him. His hair was white, so were his clothes. He claimed to have awakened his devil fruit completely. It was crazy. He was flying. The ground was reacting like rubber." He shook his head. "He stated that I couldn't be real because I had died. That he had failed in saving me." Ace felt his eyes water. "He tried saving me. A guy with bad blood in him. A guy who is the blood son of the devil king himself." Ace's shoulders began to shake as his emotions began to get the best of him. "My little brother almost sacrificed his life for mine. His dream Sab', he almost sacrificed being King of the Pirates for me!"

Sabo's eyes were wide from this revelation. What on earth had happened to have this occur? What event that hadn't even happened yet, but would happen could cause him to almost loose both of his brothers? Seas was the world that off kilter that it took their brother to slip through time somehow to give Ace a message from the future in order to save him? Clearing his throat he spoke. "They say, that with a D comes the impossible." He grinned at Ace. "There's three of us in our family." Ace lifted his face to look at his brother. "If it were anyone else I would think they were dead ass drunk." Ace rolled his eyes at Sabo's words. "But this is Luffy. I don't know what made him be able to do what he did, but I'm glad it happened." He grinned impossibly wider. "I've got my brothers back and I'll be damned if I let anything happen to either one of you."

"Sabo-!" Ace exclaimed as he held a hand up to stop his brother's train of thought.

"Ace!" Sabo yelled with frustration evident in his tone. "I only just got you and Luffy back! I'm not losing either of you, ever again!" Ace's eyes widened. The elder of the two swallowed the whimper wanting to come out. "You both are worth so much to me. Damn it! You're my brothers! I know you'd sacrifice yourself for us and damn it we'd do it for you." He saw the pained expression on Ace's face increase. "This is what family does." He spoke softly. "I get it. You didn't find me to save yourself. You searched for me to save Luffy from whatever pain you impart on him in your death." Standing Sabo reach into an overhead cabinet and pulled out some sake. "Well, too bad." He said tossing a cup to him before filling it up along with two others causing Ace's expression to soften. "We made a promise a long time ago and I intend to keep it this time. So I'll save both of your asses and kick the ass of whoever is going to try and kill you both!"

"You're an idiot." Ace stated as he tapped his glad with Sabo's.

"Well, nobody said I was intelligent, just that I'm smarter than my brothers."

Sabo chuckled as he sat on the mattress next to his brother's already sleeping form. Koala and Lindbergh were going to be upset once he told them he was leaving in the morning with Ace. As big of an idiot Ace was, Sabo knew he was smart in getting some allies rallied around Luffy. They were going to need a lot of them too. Thinking of allies, Sabo began thinking of everyone he had in his arsenal. There weren't a lot but there were a few who could help his little brother out perhaps even help Ace. Looking at the older teen, Sabo wondered just how differently things could've been had he remembered sooner. Would he have returned to Dawn or stayed with the revolutionaries? A pout formed on his face as he thought of all of the hardships his brothers had gone through without him.

"Yer overthinking." Ace's voice slurred.

Sabo snapped his head to look at him. "Huh?

Ace's eyes cracked opened. "You're overthinking." His voice revealed his tiredness.

"Sorry." Sabo could practically feel Ace's grin. "What."

"Remembering something." Ace mumbled tiredly. "Remember that first night when we finally gave into Luffy's whims of sleeping together."

Sabo grinned as that memory easily came forward. "He wanted to sleep between us."

"And he did." Ace said as he tried to fall to sleep.

"Then we woke up with his arms wrapped around half dozen times around us." Both young men chuckled at the shared memory. "Tomorrow we'll head to Dawn."

"You might be," Ace continued to chuckle as he rolled onto his back. "but I have a certain red haired man to talk to."

"Oh boy," Sabo suddenly shook his head. "You're going to get him involved."

"Last time I spoke with him, he seemed genuinely concerned about Luffy." Ace stated as he recalled the last time he spoke with Shanks. "Luffy idolized the man and from what I could gather, Shanks sees our brother as a really good friend."

"Huh." Sabo thought about that for a minute as he went over a few memories he had of Luffy talking about Shanks. "From what I remember I always thought that Luffy saw the man as some sort of father figure."

"Wait what?" Ace looked at Sabo questioningly.

Sabo shrugged his shoulders. "The way he always talked about him left that impression on me."

Ace sat up and mulled over that little bit of information for a while. He began going over the stuff he could remember Luffy saying about Shanks. The way the man had treated Luffy to the things Shanks and Benn Beckman or the crew had taught him over the year or so they been had going back and forth to Foosha while they were in the East Blue. Having been with the Whitebeard Pirates for less than half a year, Ace had been taught similar things by Pops or one of his new brothers. "Shit. He sees Luffy as family; doesn't he?"

Sabo chuckled before closing his eyes. "You really are slow."

Ace's anger flared. "Whaddya say?!" As Ace's anger heated up Sabo just grinned before completely ignoring his brother's words and going to sleep.

M-Angel: Yay! Another chapter pushed out! There probably won't be another update until Monday. Please enjoy your weekend my lovelies!

Guest - It's never too soon for a cliffy. lol