#rhubarb turnovers with ice cream my beloved

[goodlucktai]

sabo luffy prompt if your still accepting them:

Luffy about Ace's death: it should have been me.

Sabo wide eyed and scared cups Luffys face: never ever say that. Don't even think it.

x

It lingers in the back of Sabo’s mind, in the furthest, darkest corners, as persistent and sticky as a spiderweb. 

Luffy is his crybaby little brother, always will be. Sabo wasn’t there to watch him grow up, grow out of childish old habits, so the sight of that precious face crumpling and flooding with tears was familiar—expected, even. There in the underbelly of the colosseum, Sabo’s body remembered what his useless brain had forgotten, pure muscle memory guiding his hands up to catch the human cannonball without missing a beat. The act of it was tried and true, even now. Of course Luffy would fly into his arms, would cling to him and cry. Sabo’s job was to be bigger and stronger and hold him up for however long it took him to feel brave again. 

He might have been afraid to approach Luffy at first, but it was a stupid thing to be afraid of. Anyone else might have had good reason to be petrified of meeting their only remaining family—of facing the condemnation or betrayal or hatred for not being there when they were needed most, for only showing their face now when it hardly mattered. It would be a scary thing, reaching out the thing you had thought lost, knowing that to reach out would mean to lose it for real, but to stay away forever would be unthinkable.

But holding Luffy, looking at him, Sabo’s brain remembered how little he had to fear from this person. His heart opened up, like a flower unfolding for the sun, because it was safe to open and be gentle here. Luffy would never think to blame him or hate him, not for Ace. Not for anything. 

No, instead he would clutch at Sabo’s jacket with shaking hands, ruined chest heaving, and apologize. 

“I was right there,” he sobbed. “He died right in front of me and I couldn’t save him.”

At the time, Sabo smiled, and said, “I’m grateful you’re alive,” and let Luffy cry himself out. He helped Luffy out of his silly competitor costume and rubbed at his sticky face with the hem of his own jacket until the smaller boy was laughing and wrestling to get away. Luffy’s friends were waiting for him, and he had a job to do, so they parted ways not long after meeting again. 

Responsibility was an odd look on Sabo’s little brother, who used to find trouble in every single nook and corner of the mountain they grew up on like it was his job, but not a bad one. And when he ran off, shouting, “I’ll see you soon, Sabo! I swear!” Sabo knew he could pile oceans and mountains and decades on top of that promise and it would never break. 

Entering the colosseum, Sabo’s mind was focused forward—Ace’s fruit was waiting, Luffy was counting on him, Dressrosa was about to become a warzone. He was very good at compartmentalizing, at doing what needed to be done, his mind, as Koala affectionately put it once, like an unforgiving steel trap.  

But it lingered, that spiderweb thought; invisible except for when the light was just right, when the angle was perfect, when Sabo’s mind was clear and he had a moment to himself to breathe and noticed it cluttering up the corner. 

Luffy apologized. 

The chance to discuss it came eventually, when Sabo found himself at the end of an intel-gathering mission with news of the Straw Hats in the waters nearby. He cleared it with Dragon, endured Koala’s smug face when he let her know to go on without him, then backtracked to catch up to the ostentatious brigantine that was already famous in the New World. 

Luffy’s crewmates are a friendly sort, and the Thousand Sunny as a whole is happy to have him aboard. Franky waves him ahead and jumps down onto his vessel to secure it himself, and Chopper and Carrot and Usopp all call out to Sabo cheerfully, more curious about him than anything. He returns greetings as he makes his way across the busy deck, something in his chest easing like a sigh of relief to know that this bright, beautiful place full of bright, beautiful people is his little brother’s home. 

Zoro nods at him once, all the energy he has to spare for someone who isn’t one of his own, then tilts his head toward what must be the galley door. 

“Surprise, surprise,” Sabo laughs, and makes his way to the kitchen. 

It smells amazing, something rich and spicy wafting from the simmering pans on the stove. Luffy is sitting at the huge, scarred table, gnawing on a piece of dried meat and talking with his mouth full, while his skeleton musician strums something unobtrusive and cheerful on an acoustic guitar. Sanji is working diligently on what Sabo can only assume is dinner prep. The dangerous Trafalgar Law sits across the table from Luffy, with a book open in front of him that he appears to have largely given up on. He’s watching his fellow Supernova with dark, clinical eyes, but there’s much more warmth in them than Trafalgar is probably aware of. 

Those eyes flick past Luffy as the door opens. When he sees Sabo, Trafalgar stands, picks up his book and his mug, says, “There’s no way I’m dealing with two of you,” and leaves through the other door. 

“Fair enough,” Sanji says, which is rude, but not unfounded. 

Luffy swallows his mouthful, turns in his seat, and then lights up like the dawn.

“SABO!” he shrieks, leaping over the back of his chair like one of the monkeys he grew up with back on Mt. Colubo, instead of getting up and going around it like a person. 

Sabo is already laughing by the time he catches the armful of little brother, squeezing Luffy tight for a moment before playfully ruffling his hair and tussling with him. Brook the skeleton tips his massive tophat and leaves them to it, but Sanji clearly can’t abandon his multiple stations, even just for a few minutes. That’s all right. An audience of one is more than he could have hoped for with all the bodies currently on his brother’s ship, between his own people and the visiting allies. 

“How have you been, Lu? Staying out of trouble?”

“For now!” Luffy says happily. “I bet our next adventure will be fun, though!” 

His body is battered and bandaged, but he looks a lot better than the last time Sabo saw him, in that little hidden-away cottage in Dressrosa, the night after he and his crew won peace for a people they barely knew. He’s already looking forward to the next adventure. 

Whatever Sabo did to deserve him in a past life, he’s grateful. 

He gives Luffy a push back towards the table, and draws a stool up next to his. The dining hall is cozy, and a cup of something steaming and fragrant appears in front of him the second he sits down. Sanji only hums when Sabo calls his thanks, already halfway back to the kitchen proper. It’s either the worst place to start a potentially difficult conversation, or the best one. 

“I’m here for a few days,” Sabo says, “if you can spare the room.”

“Of course!” Luffy declares. “Always room for Sabo! Sanji?”

“Your new friends left us pretty well-stocked,” the cook says without looking up from something complicated he’s doing with a knife and a fish the size of a small horse. “We could probably feed an army for a few weeks if we wanted to.”

Luffy looks up at Sabo with a glowing smile, as if to say ‘see?’ and Sabo reaches over to shove his hat down over his eyes. 

“Thanks, Lulu.”

He’s glad he remembered the nickname, because just like when they were kids, Luffy is immediately outraged. 

“DON’T CALL ME—” 

“I did want to tell you something kind of important,” Sabo cuts in smoothly, grinning inwardly at Luffy’s flustered, frustrated face. “I’d rather say it now and get it out of the way then hang onto it for my whole visit. And after I’ve said it, if you’d rather I didn’t stay anymore, that’s okay, too. Your ship, your rules.”

Luffy’s expression clears to one of confusion. The sound of Sanji’s knife has slowed. 

“Okay,” Luffy says. “What does Sabo want to tell me?”

Sabo has practiced this half a dozen times on the way here, but it’s still very difficult to start. 

“When we met, back at the colosseum,” he says, “I was so sure you would be angry. I thought you’d hit me, at least. I deserved that much, right?”

Luffy’s brow furrows. “Why would I hit you?”

Taking a steadying breath, Sabo says, “Because I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. Because I only showed up two years later when it suited me, when I would get Ace’s fruit out of it. Because I let Ace—”

“You didn’t,” Luffy says loudly. “You didn’t let anything.” 

“I didn’t do anything,” Sabo replies, wrestling with his voice to keep it even. “I didn’t help you.”

He watched the transponder recording a hundred times. He relives it every time he closes his eyes. The gaping hole in Ace’s chest, the blood on Luffy’s hands, his childish, frightened plea of Ace’s name, the wounded animal sound of pain and grief he made right up until his mind took mercy and shut his body down. 

A nightmare. An actual documented living nightmare. 

And Sabo wasn’t there, because the two of them were strangers to him, and he had more important things to do than wonder about the execution of Gol D. Roger’s son. 

He should have flown to Luffy the second those memories flooded in. He should have turned heaven and earth upside down to find him. Instead he chose to be a coward. 

Robin was kind, more so than he deserved, and the two of them spent dozens of late nights in Baltigo trading stories about that same wild, relentless little person who owned the most real estate in both of their hearts. She filled the black hole inside him with better stories than the one in the papers, sun-filled stories, about triumphs and hijinks and heartaches and unconquerable love. She showed him the newsprint photo that he’d already looked at no less than a million times, of her beloved captain paying his respects to the fallen at Marineford, only this time she pointed out the message on his arm. 

“I want to run to him right now,” she said. “I want to break everything and everyone in my way and not stop until I’m beside him again. But he wants me to wait. He isn’t ready yet.”

Sabo stared at the photo, mindlessly rubbing his finger over the 3D2Y he hadn’t understood until someone who actually knew his brother explained it to him. Robin let him have a moment, her eyes knowing and grave and full of a sympathy he didn’t think he deserved. 

“It’s okay not to be ready,” she said. “Just don’t make him wait too long.”

Now, Sabo says, “I want you to know that you can be angry. You can yell and scream at me and blame me and that would be—it would be allowed, okay? Even if you just want me to go away, or you don’t want to see me for a little while. It’s all on your terms. Just don’t pretend. Not with me. Okay?”

Luffy’s face is blank and Sabo isn’t sure what to make of it. He dares to reach out and lay a hand on Luffy’s slim shoulder, impossibly small for the weight of the things it carries. 

“Okay, Lu?”

“I’m not pretending,” Luffy says, loud and sudden. “I don’t do that, it’s dumb. I was happy to see Sabo, because I thought he was dead but he was alive and it was a miracle. Robin told me you had ameesia so you forgot all about me and it wasn’t your fault. I dunno about that stuff but if Robin said it, it must be true. It would be scary not to remember important things. I bet it hurt a lot when you finally remembered and it was already too late. I bet it was really lonely. I would never hate Sabo or hit him or blame him for that.”

Sabo’s next breath shudders, and the one after that, and he has to bite the inside of his lip hard. When he’s certain he won’t fall apart, he says, “Robin only told you that afterwards. You didn’t know I had amnesia when you first saw me.”

“You’re my Sabo,” Luffy stresses, like Sabo is being particularly dense for no good reason. “I’ll always be happy to see you first.” 

It’s one of those Luffy-isms, Sabo thinks, leaning forward to put his face in his hands. One of those unexplainable, unquantifiable things that so many people hang their faith on. It would make sense for Luffy to be angry, because grief is heavy and horrible and doesn’t disappear into a fine mist just because something good happens. But there are so many things better than anger for him to hold onto instead. He’s surrounded by better things. 

A plate is set down somewhere in front of him and he lifts his head. Sanji lingers after the delivery this time, slouching into a chair and pushing the platter of lemon curd cookies and fresh-from-the-oven turnovers to the brothers’ side of the table. 

Luffy beams and picks up a turnover, but he doesn’t eat it right away. He turns it over in his hands a few times, warm against his fingertips, and begins to shred the flaky pastry into pieces. 

Sanji sits up a little straighter in his chair, as if an alarm has gone off in the back of his head. Sabo is right there with him, because he’s never seen Luffy deliberate with food before, not ever. Especially not something home-cooked by someone he loves. 

“If Sabo is angry,” Luffy says slowly, “he can tell me, too.”

“What?” he says faintly. 

Looking at his hands, at the dessert falling apart into a loose pile on his plate, the young captain tells them plainly, “Ace died back then, instead of me. He might have lived if he didn’t save me from the magma man. Everyone was there to rescue him and ended up rescuing me instead. Because I wasn’t strong enough. I’m glad I didn’t die, because I still have my nakama, and we still have promises to keep. But I bet that some people, who fought in that war for Ace, who loved him and didn’t even know me, wish that it had happened differently.” He still doesn’t look up, expression unreadable as he burns the tips of his fingers on the hot rhubarb filling dripping from the mangled turnover, when he adds, “Sabo loves us both, but he loved Ace longer.”

If Sabo had been stabbed with sea stone, it would have hurt less. If he had burned with the Grey Terminal, or drowned at sea in front of the Celestial Dragons, it would have hurt less than this. 

He’s on his feet before he’s aware of moving, seat tipping over and rolling away behind him. His heart is racing, he can feel the steam start to lift off of his superheated skin as Ace’s fire inside him begins to react.

“Don’t say that,” he says, too loud, almost a shout. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think it.”

Luffy finally looks at him. His mouth is set but his eyes are wide, and Sabo may have twelve years to catch up on, may have failed both his brothers at every possible turn up until now, but he still knows what his little brother’s face looks like when he’s seeking reassurance.

How many thunderstorms and bad dreams did they weather together back on Goa? How many times had tiny hands shaken Sabo awake, only for him to look up into these eyes exactly? 

Back then they were both children, so Sabo would make fun of him, or he would groan and roll his eyes, and they would have a hushed argument about it, but ultimately Luffy would fall asleep safe under a shared blanket, the thunder or the nightmare the farthest thing from his mind. Sabo never regretted it, even when Ace laughed at him in the morning. 

The body remembers. He’s reaching automatically, and holding Luffy’s face in his hands. He isn’t afraid of burning him, because Ace’s fire would never burn him. 

“I wouldn’t trade you for anything,” he says. “Not for anything. It doesn’t work that way. If I ever had to choose one or the other, you or him, I’d kill whoever made the rules and choose you both.” Unspoken, forever unsaid, is the knowledge that he and Ace would always put Luffy first, because that’s an older brother’s prerogative. Luffy wouldn’t understand it, so Sabo simply says, “I loved Ace longer, but I don’t love him more.”

Luffy nods, his eyes glassy, the firm line of his mouth beginning to wobble. Sanji snatches the plate and the messy turnover scraps away with a bitten-off sound, stalking back into the kitchen. 

Reeling, feeling somewhat as if he’s backing away from the perilous edge of a five-hundred-foot fall, Sabo releases Luffy only to drag him forward by the shoulders into an embrace instead. Luffy scrambles to his feet to return it properly, wrapping rubbery arms around Sabo that loop a few extra times. Sabo buries his face in the top of Luffy’s head and breathes him in; sea-salt, warm grass, everything touched by sunshine. 

My brother, he thinks, with all the same wonder as the first time he thought it. 

“And if you ever say anything like that ever again,” he goes on, “I’ll fly here from wherever I am in the world and kick your ass.”

“You can try!” Luffy says, leaning back to look up at him. He’s beaming, untouched by everything he’s lived through—still, in part, that same stubborn little kid that Sabo and his best friend first met in the jungle, who decided they were all better off together. “I’m stronger now. I could probably beat you this time!”

“You think so, huh?”

“No fighting in my kitchen, idiots,” Sanji snaps, striding back to the table with a big dessert bowl in hand. “Do I look like I have time to babysit? If you’re gonna wrestle, take it outside.” 

He all but slams the bowl in front of his captain, revealing the deconstructed turnover folded into fresh vanilla ice cream and drizzled with caramel. It’s the most aggressive display of affection Sabo thinks he’s ever seen, and he grew up with Koala. 

“Ooh, thanks Sanji! I would have eaten it the other way, too, but your ice cream is the best!” 

“Of course it is,” the chef says shortly. “Eat it before it melts. In fact, go eat it in front of Zoro, it’ll be funny.”

“Sanji’s weird,” Luffy says, full of good cheer, but he hauls the bowl out the door with him and makes a beeline straight for where he somehow knows his first mate will be. “C’mon, ‘Bo, I want you to meet Sunny!”

He lets Luffy get a head-start out the door, listens to him join the rest of his crew on the deck, their voices rising together gladly. He picks up his chair and rights it, scooting it back into place at the table. He just needs a minute.

“None of us were there, either,” Sanji says abruptly. “We all wish we were. Would’ve given just about anything to be there with him. But by the time we got the news it was too late.” He crosses his arms, leans back against the counter, and says, “You can imagine what a failure that felt like. Leaving our captain out to dry like that.”

“He would never hold that against you,” Sabo says immediately, knowing the truth of it in his blood and bones.  

Sanji nods, looking Sabo in the eye as he agrees, “No, he wouldn’t.”