- ̗̀ ROTTEN WORK

In all the time Sabo has known Shou since their reunion after a twelve year long absence, never has he been so inclined to request her presence be dismissed. He hears her approaching from several feet away, his ears pricking to the slightest sound of movement, adrenaline coursing through his veins and heart hammering in his chest like the pounding of a war drum.                   He’s being showcased on a discernible podium inside his mind, and she’s his sole audience, bearing witness to his stooping, gasping, quivering form, his clothes embellished in tie-dyes of blackened reds and his body garnished in gaping wounds that, right before her eyes, he’s barely able to internally cauterize with what little strength he can muster to use on his devil fruit abilities. The podium bears a single plaque, exposing the word ‘SHAMEFUL’ in striking, mocking scripture, calling him out as guilty of everything he knows she was previously so afraid of.

                  She doesn’t speak when she enters, but he flinches all the same. He registers the sharp intake of her breath; the panic resonating in her throat as she looks her brother up and down. Her brother.                   Her brother.                           Her fucking brother, despite what the Faye clan is so damn insistent on trying to sell to him, and disregarding what Sasha, golden child of nothing more than a pack of wild, feisty dogs likes to tell himself so he’s able to sleep at night.

                  He’s her brother, and he’ll protect what’s his, no matter what they throw his way in the sake of trying to make some kind of statement.                   Well, he’d survived, hadn’t he?                   He’s still breathing, isn’t he?                   So evidently, his mentality has yet to alter in the slightest.

        They can howl and snarl at him as much as they please, but Sasha and his entire legion of mindless followers are little more than ticks, chewing at the skin on Sabo’s arm.                    They can bite if they want to. They can try and eat him up as though they think he’s their God damn chew toy if they so wish, and it still doesn’t mean a single damn thing. For Shou’s sake, there’s no questioning whether or not he’s capable of beating every single one of them one by one, or all at once if they prefer to make their inevitable defeat go by a little quicker.

                  There’s a gouge in his right cheek from a canine’s tooth the size of half his palm, and the pain accompanying it resounds so prominently that he can barely discern where the injury begins and where it ends, but he presses on all the same, forcing his jaw to remain as stiff as he is able whilst still able to have his words perceptible.

        ❝I did  — what I had — to do—…❞

                                      He heaves between words, and swallows fresh blood bubbling against his tongue.

        ❝— To protect you.❞

                  To protect her freedom. Her livelihood. To keep her from the world she’s fought to be unchained from time and time again, and reprieve her of all the burdens that would inevitably follow if they were to apprehended her once more under the pretense of taking what they feel they’re owed due to the name she was born under.         To keep her in his life.

                            Sabo steadies himself against the wall at his side, slumping his shoulder against the brickwork to catch the breath that mere standing around and speaking depletes.                   Underneath layers of coats and shirt, row upon row of several inch deep lacerations from haki-imbued wolf teeth blubber iron dribbles, and he feebly tends a shivering hand to his torso, as if it could possibly cease the blood flow. He can sense Shou’s eyes piercing into the slices on the back of his overcoat in the form of humongous scratches from a claw sizable enough to pin his entire midsection to the ground in a single swipe, but he would rather she fret over those rather than directly meet his face.

        He can’t look at her.

                  ‘SHAMEFUL.’

                                           She could remain as terrified of the Faye clan as she was as a young child, unloved, unappreciated, neglected by the very people who claimed to hold the importance of their blood ties above all else, but Sabo knows there’s no plausible way she won’t hold him partially at fault for the sorry state he’s in as he barely stands before her. He can already feel her asserting that he should have let them have her, he should have let her go.                   Those words don’t mean a single thing to him.                   His options were to let her be taken back to the life they both know she isn’t fit to survive in and make peace with never seeing one of his most beloved treasures ever again, or to fight the soon-to-be new leader of the Faye clan and all of his subordinates until they were completely convinced that they just aren’t capable of removing Siobhan Faye from his side. If Sasha wasn’t going to relent, what other choice did he have?

                  ‘SHAMEFUL.’

                                          He hadn’t killed Sasha. He’s sure she knows that already; if Shou had been able to find him here, on the outskirts of their territory whilst the havoc following the battle is barely diminishing, surely she must know that he hadn’t killed her so-called half-brother.                   But there’s no way this won’t hurt her. He had no other conceivable options available, yet Sabo knows she won’t ever entirely forgive him for what he did to selfishly keep her. He can’tafford to feel woeful over a single moment of it. He fought for her. She has to try to registerthat. He’s always been there to protect her, and she can’t possibly deny that she knows nothing awaits her in the life the clan would construct for her but her own despair, isolation, and anguish.

        Yet, he’s still sorry.                   He doesn’t regret a thing, but he’s still sorry.                             He knew it would hurt her to agree to the terms of the battle. He knew she would feel piercing jabs of betrayal in her heart if he injured Sasha. He was aware that she would be beyond devastated if her own brother was the sole cause of Sasha’s affliction, but he still went through with it, because he couldn’t afford to lose her.                   Sabo has long since grown tired of mourning the loss of a sibling. He isn’t willing to repeat the process of suffering with two separate loved ones.                             He can’t afford to regret agreeing to fight the future head of the Faye clan, but he will forever be apologetic for performing actions that cause her sorrow, disregarding that he was pressured into the position of needing to.

                            If he hadn’t known better, Sabo might have questioned if this wasn’t all a ploy in Sasha’s plan to begin with; to create a distance between the two siblings, believing that if he couldn’t have her, then neither could the revolution’s Chief of Staff.                             If he hadn’t known better, that might potentially have concerned him. If that truly was the other man’s goal, then evidently he has severely misjudged and underestimated their bond.

                  ‘SHAMEFUL.’

        If she hasn’t already, then it won’t take long for her to come to the realization that if Sabo isn’t fleeing from the battle, then that, surely, must mean that a victor was determined, and if that victor had been the other man, he would undoubtedly have been secured in some kind of cell suitable only for the most dastardly adversaries.

                            She knew the fate of her mother. She knows what they do to those who oppose the clan.

                  This is not a gratifying victory. There is no glory found in his success. Only deafening silence between the pair, other his wracked breathing, and unspoken apologies at the tip of his bitten tongue.

                  ‘SHAMEFUL.’

                                          Sabo did not kill Sasha, but it would be inaccurate to assume that the blood that keeps his clothes sticking to his wounded body is exclusively his own.

                  ‘SHAMEFUL.’

What an infuriating thing to be asked.

                        He shouldn’t be expected to be willing to openly discuss something that confidential solely for the sake of satiating another’s intrusive curiosity.                           This could only be defined as overtnosiness.

                            Still, for the sake of not acquiring a negative reputation of being perturbed by recalling the event, Sasha’s reply displays exemplary equilibrium. In fact, there’s even an air of irony in his words, a single half-laugh in the back of his throat as if he’s just been on the receiving end of an example of painfully shoddy witticism.

                    ❝Why would you ask?                             Are you planning on outdoing it yourself?                          …Or maybe you just wanted to know if I had any weaknesses?❞

                  He doesn’t flinch, attentively eyeing the other for any form of substantial reaction. They can do or think whatever they like. He can’t say he’s remotely concerned. He doesn’t particularly care for their presence.

                     When they are no longer observing him and have erased both the query and his answer from their immediate thoughts, he will discreetly stretch and curl the gloved hand under the tabletop. It’s mostly healed now, spare the leathery texture of previously scorched skin that’s now scarred over, but lack of use during the recovery stage has left it prone to regular cramping and stiffening.                  The remaining damage is hardly grisly; it could be a lot worse. It will fade in time, perhaps even to the point of being nearly immaculate. It isn’t a sense of vanity that drives him to keep the damage concealed, but rather a preference to not have people inquire on how and where it was first received.

                              It’s becoming increasingly onerous to entirely avoid all discussions of him as of late. He’s successfully made quite a commotion for the Pack to deal with among themselves.

                         Since that event, all of the broken and splintered bones have realigned and strengthened considerably. Occasionally, when the rain has left the air particularly damp, an afflicting ache will settle through one of the previously injured limbs and remain for a few hours at a time, but it’s nothing debilitating. Sasha has dealt with breaks of a similar nature before.                                   Mere inconveniences.

                  He won’t deliver his opponent the satisfaction of thinking a few damaged bones would make a dramatic impact on his life. His hands weren’t nearly as powerful as he claimed.                              Capable of crushing a human skull? What a load of dog shit.                    If that had been the only physical damage attained from their fight, the future Faye Clan leader may have been left almost underwhelmed. He would have expected better from someone who had a bounty as high as his.

                            Pride will perpetually prohibit him from divulging it to anyone, but in blatant truthfulness, the burn he caused had rightfully earned its title of the worst damage Sasha had ever sustained.

                              Initially obtained whilst transformed into his Zoan type state, the flames had licked and sweltered up from beneath his front right paw and enveloped the connecting leg up towards his shoulder blade. In his commonplace human form, his hand and forearm bore the brunt of the damage, with taught skin tightly stretched over weakened muscles and veins. It had blistered and swollen with bulbous liquid pouches that had to be drained. Despite regular cleaning, for nearly a week, the lingering, unmistakable stench of scalding flesh remained within his chambers.                     It had been vile.

                      Nurses had restlessly come and gone in the days following the fight, repeatedly seeking to fret over his wounds until he swiftly dismissed them and graciously assured them that it was unnecessary; he was doing just fine. Even the consequential waves of white pain could be readily overcome by sheer will, though he was frequently offered pain killer or two if it was becoming something of a true nuisance he didn’t feel inclined to deal with. He consistently denied them all.                       He’d wanted to be alone; to rest in a chair by the open window, two decorative jade Boading balls tenderly clinking and ringing against one another in his unaffected hand. There had been a breeze that the medical staff had been adamant he best avoid, but he’d paid no mind to their admonitions and suffered no ill consequence as a result.                      For hours, he surveilled a multitude of autumnal shades of deceased leaves drift from the wispy tree branches before getting caught by the wind, like lethargic dispersing cinder sparks from an upside down fireplace that somehow lacked its signature warmth.                                                                     He had been humiliated, and he was incensed.

                                  More than just another acquired scratch to join a preexisting list, the burn was a singular in its appearance. It uniquely symbolizes his insolence; a memento of him disgracing the Faye clan by trespassing on their domain and blatantly disrespecting their existing Head Family members.                    He                           knows                                        NOTHING                                                            of their people, nor their history. He has no RIGHT to speak as if he can even begin to understand a single thing about them. To be permanently reminded of his unsought presence in their lives does nothing but infuriate the Black Shuck. He never should have acquired any form of marking from him.

                     When the ghost hound had ground his canine teeth down against his opponent’s body and felt his cheek tear and split open in his jaws, he could taste his sister’s name inside his mouth, and it made him feel sick.               Her affection was wasted on him.                               She was wasted on him.                                           He did not deserve any single shred of her presence.

                         Had he thought there had been any feasible way Siobhan could have found it within herself to forgive him, he would have torn off his head and spat it straight back out to the dirt in that moment. Perhaps he, who bore so much loathing towards the household he was born into, would find final solace in knowing his blood ran metallic red rather than blue.