#look how fast and sharp Luffy's punch is redirected

[opbackgrounds]

I continue to hate how squish is used as the sound effect for hitting Kuma's paws

[midnightluck]

after that ace and tiny!sabo ficlet, could you maybe do a sabo and tiny!ace one. preferably before sbo regains his memories, so hes bewildered by this tiny child clinging to him. ( i loved the tiny!sabo fic, btw. that line about ace not being hurt that Thatch liked sabo better was killer<3)

The thing about confidence, Sabo thinks bitterly, is that the only time it’s not arrogance is when you can back it up.

Well, this is what he gets for going into things blindly. The mark isn’t the dumb minion they thought he was, and Koala’s still outside.

“You may as well surrender,” Sabo says, lungs heaving but pipe steady. “We’ve got you cornered.”

The guy just looks at him. “You lie,” he says. “And it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t.”

That’s--well, worrying. “You’re right on both counts,” Sabo concedes, “but it doesn’t matter, because I’ll be more than enough.”

“I’d like to see you try,” he says, so Sabo grins and spins in close. He swings a high round, but it’s baiting, and sure enough the guy gets up a hand to redirect so he pivots off his toes, twists from the hips and slams the pipe straight down instead.

The guy’s smile turns sour and his face flashes into something else altogether. “Iron,” he hisses, and Sabo hesitates a second and falls back a step. That’s not the usual reaction he gets when his pipe touches skin.

“It’s steel, actually,” he says. Well, lies, really; he doesn’t know what the pipe is made of, only that he coated it in powdered seastone.

The look the guy gives him is cat-eyed and creepy, and Sabo adds that to iron and backpedals hard. “You’re not from the Committee at all, are you?”

The guy also takes a step back. “The what?”

“The Committee,” Sabo says, letting his pipe fall out of the line of sight. “We were supposed to meet someone here, and--” he fades off into a gesture instead of top secret details.

“I am not,” the guy says, pulling himself up to his full height, which seems about a foot taller than was previously possible. “And I have no time for your games.”

Right, okay, that’s--this is fine. Sabo quick-steps back a bit and sweeps off his hat with his free hand. “I meant no offense,” he says, talking fast and trying to remember stories from long ago in a voice he’s long since forgotten. “If any was taken, it was given in error!”

The really not-human thing pretending to be a guy stops looming and starts listening, and that’s the only opening Sabo needs. “Offense was given freely,” he says, and Sabo shakes his head.

“I had thought you another,” he says. “I mean no disrespect to you or yours, really.” He’d offer to make amends but he knows better than to give an opening like that, and the only other thing he has to pull from is one exchange of blows. “You are an honorable opponent,” he tries because it’s all he’s got.

The far-too-big eyes narrow at him and that pupil is slit vertical, yeah, that’s not human at all. “You burned me,” he says.

“I humbly beg pardon for my trespass,” Sabo says, but his chin is up and his eyes are steady. “I had thought you a foe.” And then he takes a chance and adds, “I would that I were wrong.”

There's a beat and then the creature says, "Oh, I like you," and it's not a compliment. "In fact, I like you so much I think you deserve a gift."

Ah, yeah, no. How to refuse delicately…? “Surely I’ve done nothing to warrant such a gesture,” he says, careful not to flash his teeth.

That grin is bright and sharp and nasty, and he says, "That's why it's a gift. Freely given, of course.” And then he turns on his heel and is gone.

No smoke, no sound, nothing--just a blink and empty space, and a small shudder spreads across his skin.

“Koala,” he says, and heads for the door. What if the thing went outside, what if--?

He doesn’t make it because the breath's punched out of him. There's nothing visible, just force against his diaphragm and lungs, paralyzing him and he falls to his knees and he can't breathe and there's a blinding headache unfolding behind closed eyes and oh it hurts--

--but only for a second. Then he's on all fours, gasping and just barely stopping the retches from pulling up bile. The headache fades into a quiet kind of awful down at the back of his mind and there’s a soreness in his ribs and footsteps right in front of him.

He jerks backwards, overbalancing and sitting down heavily, but the feet are tiny and so is the kid standing there. “What,” Sabo says, for lack of anything better, and there’s an awful taste like ozone lingering in his mouth.

The kid sighs and props a hand on his hip. “What’d you do now, Sabo?” he asks.

Sabo blinks at him, but just then the door slams open and Koala steps into the gloom of the warehouse. She blinks, looks around, and then locks eyes on the kid. “You okay?” she asks Sabo.

“There was…” Sabo starts, and then takes a breath and sits up straight, tucking his legs into a tailor seat. “There was a fairy?”

Koala gives him a look for that, but the kid nods. When they both glance at him, he sighs. “Still doing stuff without thinking it through, I see,” he says, and then turns to Koala and bows. “Hi! I’m Ace; it’s very nice to meet you.”

She bows back, probably more out of instinct, but at least she doesn’t give him her name. “Nice to meet you too,” she says. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“There really was a fae,” Ace tells her. “And Sabo pissed him off, so the guy ripped out his memory into a person.”

Sabo blinks at him once, breathing. He doesn’t remember this kid at all, so it can’t be his memory. Unless…

“Sabo pissed off a fairy?” Koala asks, and he knows that tone, that’s the I-promise-I’m-not-laughing-at-you voice that means she’s really laughing at him a lot. “How’d he manage that?”

Ace just raises his eyebrows and tilts his head. “How do you think?” he asks disgustedly. “He opened his mouth, that’s how.”

Well, that’s hardly fair. “I didn’t--” Sabo starts to say, but Koala laughs and steps forward to ruffle the kid’s hair.

“I like you,” she says. “You can stay.”

Because the kid knows his name and clearly knows Sabo well enough to to be exasperated, and that’s not nothing. “I don’t know you,” Sabo says anyway, and the kid--Ace--turns.

“You--” he says, and stops. He closes his eyes and breathes and then opens them again. “You forgot us,” he says quietly. “You forgot us, Sabo; you forgot me and Luffy and--” and he can’t finish, turning his face away and clenching small fists.

It hurts his heart, kind of, which is weird because he doesn’t know the kid, he doesn’t, and he shouldn’t care, but, “I forgot a lot of things,” he says flippantly, because it’s not an excuse but it is a reason.

Ace turns back to him, sudden and sharp, and his chin comes up and his eyes flash. He walks forward, purposefully, right into Sabo’s personal space, and Sabo lets him. The kid goes in like he’s going to hold Sabo’s face, and then his hands go further back and he grabs Sabo’s ears instead.

“You,” he says, while Sabo squawks and flails wildly, “are an idiot. Now listen up, cause I’m only gonna say this once.” and he drags Sabo’s head forward by the ears and slams their foreheads together to stare directly into his eyes. “We’re your brothers, Luffy and I, and even if you forgot us, we never forgot you. My name is Portgas D Ace and if you forget it again I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Okay, okay!” Sabo says, probably too loud, and he swings up and over, using the kid’s arms as runways to pluck the hands off his ears. It hurts, but Ace ducks and steps back on his left foot, which is the perfect dodge to his usual follow-up hook. Which he didn’t throw this time, because it’s still a kid, geeze, but still. “You’re Ace! I’ll remember!”

Ace huffs. “And while you’re at it, remember the rest of your life. You forgot; how are you that careless? Don’t misplace your memories again, idiot.”

And Sabo sighs and rolls his eyes. “That’s not how it works, Ace,” he says, because that always happens; it’s not that Ace misunderstands so much as he interprets things differently. “You know what amnesia is, stop trying to sound smart.”

“I am plenty smart!” Ace yells at him, tiny arms flying up. “It anyone here’s not smart, it’s you!”

"Hey now," Koala says, "Just because it's true is no reason to be nasty."

"True--!" Sabo splutters, and they both ignore him.

"You're good," Ace tells Koala. "I like you. Thank you for being a reasonable person."

Koala grins real big at him, and Sabo can see the way her fingers are twitching. She probably wants to glomp him. Ace bites, but he's not about to tell a traitor like her that. Let her find out for herself. "You're a cutie," she says instead. "Hey, tell me about tiny Sabo. Was he always like this?"

"Yes, Ace says promptly, then squints. "Wait, like what? Hardheaded, with a sharp tongue and a temper to match? Yeah, no, he came that way."

"I'm Koala," she says, sticking out her hand. "You're a blessing."

He takes it and bows over it and Sabo nearly chokes on his tongue. "When did you learn manners?"

"It wasn't from you," Ace bites back and straightens. "I know who you are, Koala," he adds. "I am kinda from him, after all. He thinks you're nice."

Sabo explodes forward out of his seat to try to tackle Ace. "Shut up!" He howls. "I totally don't! Ace, no! Come back here, Ace!"

Koala scoops Ace up instead and props him on her hip. Ace lets her, the little bastard, and makes a face at him over her shoulder. "Come on back to the ship with us," she says, "and tell me all of Sabo's dirty little secrets, won't you?"

"Of course," he tells her, smiling angelically.

"No!" Sabo cries, and runs after them.

He never had a chance, though; he's got stamina, but Koala's a sprinter. She keeps a few steps ahead of him, even with tiny Ace in her arms, whispering awful lies to her. Sabo catches a few words here and there, mostly things about lion pits and alligators and that one time with the cliff and the stream and that was Ace, not Sabo at all, the little liar.

"I hate you," he calls at them, but Koala just laughs and keeps going.

And as Sabo runs, he finds himself laughing. A gift, the creature had said, and meant it as a curse, but it isn’t really. He may not remember everything, but this is good.

Even if he doesn’t remember everything, he knows that.

He catches up to them on the deck of the little schooner he and Koala came here in. Koala laughs and sets Ace down, and when he swoops in to grab Ace, the brat kicks him in the shins and runs some more.

Sabo lets himself fall over onto the deck in a dramatic swoon. “You’ve hurt me,” he says, clutching his chest. “You hurt my heart.”

“Get up,” Ace says, but he comes to check on Sabo anyway, like Sabo knew he would. That puts him well within grabbing distance, and Sabo easily tackles him into a hug.

“Lemme go!” Ace says, fighting madly, but Sabo just hugs him tighter.

“Nope,” he says. “I just found you again; why would I want to let you go?”

Ace grumbles but stills in his arms, and Sabo squeezes once more and then sets him down. “You’re the worst,” Ace says once he’s back on the deck. He straightens his oversized shirt and crosses his arms.

“No, you are,” Sabo says, sticking out his tongue. “And this headache you gave me just won’t go away.”

Ace is unrepentant. “Small price to pay for my presence,” he declares, nose in the air. “Consider it a gift.”

"Yeah, sure, thanks," Sabo says, and for all he gives it a sarcastic lilt, he means it.

"Oh," Ace says, and turns to look at him. "Oh, you--I wasn't ready."

"Ready for what?" Koala asks, and Ace holds up a hand. It's glowing and breaking apart. "You're leaving already?"

"I was a curse," Ace answers. "Made from spite. Spite is strong but short in people like the fae."

"And I thanked you," Sabo says, because if Ace isn't gonna point out his failing, he will. "Fairy creatures contract can be broken with gratitude, freely given."

Ace looks at him with sad eyes but won't confirm it, and Sabo knows he's trying to make him feel less guilty. That'll never work, but he can let Ace think it did. He gives a small smile.

"Stop that," Ace says, reaching up to shove a small hand into his face. "Don't smile like that, Sabo. It hurts."

"Sure," Sabo says, and picks Ace up. He's so light, all glow and dreams.

"Love ya, bro," Ace says, and his smile is more blinding than usual. And then he shatters into glitterlight, and Sabo's hands close on nothing but air.

Koala stands behind him and rests one palm on the back of his shoulder. She says nothing, which is the exact right thing to say.

Sabo stares forward, not crying and not breathing and not moving. Finally he blinks himself out of it. "Hey," he says, leaning back just the slightest bit into the comfort his partner is offering. "Hey, the Moby Dick's still in Paradise, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Koala says. "Last I heard, over at Frangibelle Island."

That's not that far at all, really. "Think Dragon would mind if we were a bit late?"

And Koala lets her hand drop and says, "I'll make him understand."

"Thanks," he says, still staring forward. "You're the best."

"I am," she allows. "But it's not for you; I wanna meet the real him, too."