#masbingo

Vista shakes his head, “I’m jealous, I don’t think I’m going to have anytime off until we get another doctor to replace the one that retired last month.”

“I know, it was rather sudden, was it?” Ace says pulling his hair from the ponytail it had been in for most of his shift. “But you know, he did have a massive heart attack, you can’t blame him. Anyway, I’ll see you on Thursday, Vista.”

“You too, Ace.”

Ace yawns again, his sweater thrown over his arm as he headed out the building, waving to one of the other nurses on shift, feeling far too tired. He steps to the side when he gets outside, squinting at the too bright sky and trying not to groan. It was too early and the late night had given way to dawn, the light searing his eyes.

“Home,” Ace mutters to himself blinking rapidly as he hurries into the crowd, fumbling his phone from his pocket and smiling as he slid the name to the left to call.

“‘Lo?” Sabo yawns, sounding like he’s been woken by the sound of phone. “Ace?”

“Morning sunshine,” Ace says grinning as he pauses at a crosswalk for the light. “I’m on my way home from work right now. Do you want me to stop for coffee? I’m gonna need caffeine to make it home and through breakfast with you both.”

“Mhm, don’t know,” Sabo mutters. “Marco.” Ace can hear Marco, already awake and probably in the shower, call something back to Sabo. “Have to hold on. He’s brushin’ his teeth.”

Ace hums, “Work today?”

Sabo snorts, “Don’t member.”

“Poor sunshine.”

“Not sunshine,” Sabo yawns again. “Marco, Ace wants to ask ya somethin’.”

Marco laughs, “Thank you, sunshine. Go back to sleep and I’ll wake you up when it’s time to eat, alright?” Ace can hear the muttered, not sunshine, as Sabo buries his face back into a pillow. “Morning love.”

“Morning Marco,” Ace smiles twisting out the way of bicycle. “I wanted to know if you wanted me to pick up coffee. I needed some if I was going to make it through my trip home and breakfast and I know we were running low at home since we hadn’t been able to go shopping recently?”

“That would be a good plan actually. And we’re having breakfast in bed this morning, so if you want to get the coffee and I can get breakfast made. Sabo looks like he’s going to be sleeping in and that’s fine too. It’s going to be a lazy day for all of us anyway.”

Ace grins, “I can do that. So we’ll get coffee and from there it’s an easy day at home. Maybe a short time out to get some groceries?”

“I’m running out to get them now,” Marco answers. “I should be back before you. So I’ll see you when you get home, love. Thank you for the coffee and I’ll see you in about twenty minutes.”

“You’re lucky that neither of you like hot drinks,” Ace teases. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Ace balances the cardboard cup carrier that the barista had given him in the crook of his elbow, his other hand fumbling for his keys. He knew they were in his pocket, he had used them to enter the apartment building and check the mail before he had gotten into the elevator, he knew he had, but he couldn’t remember what pocket he had shoved them into afterwards. It had to be one of them however.

“Ace?” Marco asks curiously.

“I can’t find my keys,” Ace says tiredly, his free hand digging into the pouch of his hoodie and coming out the other side grasping at his phone. “I swear that I-”

Marco held them up, smiling softly, “You left them in the mail box again, love. Come on, inside and you can put on your pajamas and cuddle with Sabo.”

“I’m gonna leave them in the front door one day,” Ace mutters darkly following Marco into the apartment and kicking his shoes off at the door. “And then where will I be?”

“Perfectly fine,” Marco rolls his eyes. “Come on. Put your coffees down and take off your sweater. Do you want to shower before you lay down?”

“Too tired.”

Marco nods as he snatches up Ace’s drink and pushes it into his hands, “Pajamas and cuddle Sabo, in that order, love. Jeans aren’t allowed in bed and you know it.”

“Fine,” Ace grumbles, bouncing up on his toes to kiss Marco before hurrying off to the bedroom, pausing in the doorway. “You didn’t say to take them off, so I’m gonna wear my socks to bed!”

“Brat!”

Ace laughs as Sabo blinks sleepily at him from the bed, face mostly hidden by one of the pillows and a mess of blond hair. He sets his drink on the bedside table and resists the urge to brush it down because he knows that Sabo will drag him down into bed and he’s not going to be able to escape, not until Marco forced him to.

“Ace,” Sabo whines as Ace finally finishes changing and drops into bed.

“Sabo?”

Sabo glares at him, “Cuddle.”

“Of course, sunshine,” Ace agrees moving closer to him. “I missed you. Sleep well?”

“Not sunshine. Missed you too,” He yawns, burying his face into the crook of Ace’s neck. “Coffee?”

Ace hums, nose wiggling and trying not sneezing as Sabo’s hair tickled it, “WIth Marco, he’s gonna bring it when he brings breakfast.”

“But coffee!”

“I know, but he would let me.”

Sabo sighs, tangling their legs together, “Fine,” He yawns. “Sleep.”

“Sabo?”

“We’re cuddlin’,” Sabo mumbles. “Sleepin. Marco will wake us up when it’s time to eat.”

Ace snorts, “If you say so, sunshine.”

“I say so. An’ I’m not sunshine.”

Marco smiles watching the two of them for a long moment before setting the tray on the bedside table so that he could wake them up. Ace stirs at the first touch of a hand in his hair but Sabo is stubborn, refusing to wake up.

“Morning to you both,” Marco says smiling when they both blink tiredly up at him. “Breakfast is ready.”

“Food?” Sabo asks looking slightly more awake than he had a moment before.

“Food,” Marco agrees as Ace makes a face trying to get all of Sabo’s hair out of his mouth. “Come on, up both of you, you need to scoot over to for me.”

Sabo groans, rolling to the left and bumping into the wall and a softer groan, “Aw, wall.”

“You’re the one that refuses to let us become real adults and move the bed into the middle of the room so that there isn’t a wall on one side,” Ace says scooting over. “I’m still wearing socks, Marco.”

Marco shakes his head as he joins them, pulling the tray off the table into his lap, “You’re lucky that I love you too much to break up with you now. That’s usually a deal breaker, socks in bed,” He kisses Ace’s cheek as he cuddles into his side to snag a slice of bacon. “Sabo, do you want your coffee, sunshine?”

“I’m a thundercloud,” Sabo groans into a pillow, hair sticking up more than normal, pausing for a long moment. “Please?”

“Here you go,” Ace offers. “I even stole you a bendy straw.”

“True love,” Sabo purrs, moving to lay his head in Ace’s lap, shifting his drink to rest against Ace’s thigh so that it wouldn’t fall and that he could drink it without having to worry. “Food?”

“Cuddly aren’t you, sunshine,” Ace asks rubbing his hair. “Alright, food. Thank you for this, Marco.”

Marco smiles, “You’re welcome. You’ve both been working hard, I thought we could have a nice day off. Cuddling and breakfast in bed isn’t hard to do, you know.”

“It’s still sweet,” Sabo yawns.

"You're here!" Ace whispers, with affection and love in his voice.

Oh, how Sabo missed the warm bodies around him, oh how Sabo only wanted this for months. The happiness on their faces never fails to brighten his grey days.

His body relaxes into Ace's gentle hug before Ace takes off his coat.

"Somebody is really enthusiastic to get off my clothes," Sabo teases with a small smile in the corner of his lips but at Ace's deadpan look he laughs for the first time in months.

He laughs, heart lighter as he finds his own clothes which he left a few months back here. Wearing long pants and a shirt with a sweatshirt, he lies down between Marco and Ace, kissing Marco’s shoulder in greeting before closing his eyes.

“Glad you’re home, yoi,” Marco murmurs, lips touching his forehead. Sabo hums in answer but doesn’t have the strength to form sentences, exhaustion grabbing him tightly and dragging him down to finally sleep.

“Are you hungry?” Ace asks, ready to stand up and get food for him but Sabo puts his hand on his thigh to stop him from moving.

He shakes his head. He wishes he could feel hungry again but the hole gnaws on his stomach without feeling any pain.  

Sabo has gotten used to it in the past three months.

The little meals he had got if he succeeded with the job he had to do, only helped to stay on his feet instead of fainting at the lack of food. His throat is tight with anxiety which finds the smallest cracks to seep into his thoughts, poisoning his time with his boyfriends.

He falls asleep with body trapped between them as Marco pets his hair and Ace nuzzles closer.

Sabo sleeps without any nightmares. While Sabo's night went fine, sitting front of his plate, his stomach clenches at the smell of the food, nausea curling in his throat. Every bite slides down roughly and he's full without eating half of the food from his plate.

Marco eyes his plate but Sabo gives him a small smile. “I'm full.”

Marco doesn't look away from him but Sabo has had a crappy week to deal with any questions. He stands before anyone could say anything, telling them he will go back to sleep and escapes with their eyes burning in his back.

Halfway back to the room, he knows he's eaten too much. He tilts his head up, looks forward and doesn't stop only when he has reached their room.

He only has two moments to get the bucket and he's throwing up in the next.

Body trembling with the heaving, tears rolling down on his cheeks, Sabo hates himself a little more.

He saved more than fifty people from slavery.

But he can't save himself.

Sabo doesn’t mention it to Ace and Marco. He keeps it a secret and buries it deeply, pretending he’s fine, pretending his stomach doesn’t clench at the sight of the food.

Everything is fine.

He wakes up in the middle of a night, only taking two steps from their bed before he’s kneeling in front of the bucket and heaving, bile rising in his throat.

He’s exhausted and his eyes burn with tears but Marco is there to hold his hair with a warm hand on his back. Ace comes back with a glass of water which Sabo drinks dutifully, leaning his head on Marco’s chest.

“Are you getting sick? Let’s get you to one of the doc,” Marco says, worry evident in his voice.

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” Sabo murmurs but it doesn’t look like it helps as Ace is ready to call the doctor anyway.

“You’re throwing up, it doesn’t look fine from here,” Ace answers sharply with eyes never straying away from Sabo.

Sabo groans. “You’re a worrywart.”

“He’s not wrong,” Marco says. Sabo rolls his eyes but smiles as the warmth spread in him seeing them caring so openly.

It doesn't make it easier to tell them that he's been throwing up for days and didn't want to share because everything will be about his stupid problem and Sabo just wants to cuddle and sleep with his boyfriends while ignoring his problems.

"Just go back to sleep, I will be fine," Sabo says, smiling as he stands up like everything is fine. He glances at them sitting on the ground, stomach churning with self-hate as he sees the badly hidden disappointment in Ace's expression. He plans to clean up after himself, to wash the bucket out but Marco grabs his wrist before Sabo could go.

"We're only worried, love," Marco says, standing up, not letting go his hand. Sabo's eyes burn at hearing the pet name, his build up walls to hide, crumbles down. "You aren't eating your usual amount of food, you've been quiet which is fine, everyone has those days." Marco caresses Sabo's cheek with his thumb, wiping off the tears sliding down on his face.

Ace hugs him from behind and the only thing he can do is cry, quietly sniffing as his boyfriends hold the broken pieces of him together.

They don't let Sabo go even when he'd finished crying, they're standing in silence, warmth emitting from their body, lulling Sabo to sleep. His eyes drift closed but he starts to talk, this way he doesn't have to face them and their intense emotions Sabo isn't ready for.

"I was undercover for months, I told you last time I called," Sabo starts, his arms tighten around Marco, gripping his shirt to ground himself. "It was risky and stupid and we didn't get a lot of food. Everything tastes too rich or greasy and I can't keep it in myself."

"Fuck, Sabo, so this isn't the first time you've thrown up?" Ace asks, voice filled with hurt. "Were you hiding it the past days?"

"I didn't want to talk about it."

Ace sighs and Sabo knows, of course, he knows, he's too much trouble, he's always giving them new problems.

"I'm sure Thatch would be happy to help to get you used to food again," Marco says, arms sneaking around Sabo's shoulders. "It's going to be okay, we're here, you're fine, we're going to get through this."

Sabo laughs wetly. "Every time I visit I always fuck up our free time with my own stupidity. How do you even deal with my shit?"

"Sabo, you've been starving for months with minimal food." Ace lets him go, stepping next to him so he can look into his eyes. "You don't have to deal with it alone, that's why we're your friends, your boyfriends."

"Sucks to be you," he says sharply, frustration welling in him hearing the words he wanted but not expected. Why can’t they just already dump him for bringing so much emotional baggage all the time? When will they say, ‘Sabo, get yourself together’ like it’s so easy to do?

“What’s wrong?” Marco asks with his oh-so-observant eyes, clearly seeing the change.

“When will you two have enough of me? When will you just kick me out for always bringing more and more problems?” Sabo asks harshly, looking in Marco’s eyes but instead of the disappointment he expects, there’s warmth and sadness.

“Never,” they answer the same time with confidence.

“That’s a lie,” Sabo says with a hoarse voice, so close to crying again. “You can’t just do this all the time.”

“What, Sabo? Loving and supporting you without expecting anything back?”

Ace’s words cut him deep but he only purses his lips, not answering.

“We love you, Sabo, we will always love you.” Marco tilts up Sabo’s head. “Why would you think we would ever leave you for asking for help?”

“Because I’m stupid?”

“How many times do I have to kiss you to stop your self-deprecation?” Ace asks.

Sabo snorts. “If you only kiss me to shut me up-”

Marco puts his hand on his mouth, stopping his bitter words. Shoulders slouching, Sabo avoids meeting their eyes. “It’s okay, Sabo.”

“It’s not, it’s really not, I’m sorry.” Sabo’s voice break over the apology. “I’m being an asshole when you’re only trying to help, I hate it, I hate this, I hate myself, I hate my stupid brain being stupid when I don’t have any reason to doubt you.”

“Hey, hey,” Ace puts his hand on the back of Sabo’s neck, pulling his head closer, their forehead touching. “You’re right, you shouldn’t doubt in us but we’re here to tell you we love you as many time you need. We will never get tired of repeating ourselves. We love you.” Ace kisses his cheeks. “We adore and appreciate you more with every minute you spend with us.”

Sabo deflates, the weight lifts off his shoulders, a small smile appearing on his face. “You’re so cheesy.”

“It’s the truth,” Marco says, pulling Sabo to the bed. Ace lets him go, hand resting on Sabo’s back as they return to bed. Sabo lies between them, warm bodies pressing close to his. Head resting on Ace’s chest, he listens to his heartbeat, drifting off slowly as gentle hands play with his hair. “Sleep, please, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Sabo murmurs.

Sabo’s heart swells hearing Ace laughing, his previous worries slowly fading from the front of his mind. Marco kisses the back of his neck, bringing a smile on Sabo’s face.

They were also well known for outliving their spouses, which was why no one was surprised when Rouge D Gol, Rouge D Portgas once upon a time and just as cursed as her husband had been though they weren’t related, died on New Year’s Day giving birth to her only son. The whole town had known it was coming, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen it with Roger D Gol’s parents or with Garp D Monkey’s wife. After came the waiting, because they all knew that Roger would follow her, because everyone knew that the D clan loved too hard, too much, and eventually followed their spouses far too soon.

“Daddy loved mommy too much,” Ace tells Luffy softly, holding his cousin close as they balance in the cold plastic chair beside his father’s bedside, careful to make sure that Luffy didn’t look over at Roger. “Loved her even after she died.”

Luffy blinks tear-bright eyes at him for a long moment before he pulls his thumb from his mouth with a sniff, “Mama wasn’t strong ‘nough.”

“I know,” Ace whispers hugging him closer and letting Luffy hide his face.

They both know what it means to love in their family, to have someone love them, it’s one of the things that’s detailed in their bedtime stories all the way back to the great-great grandmother that had come to the island, was banished to the island for witchcraft, Roger would whisper to Ace when it was dark and no one was around to hear them in the park the memory of Rouge haunting the house and making it too uncomfortable to go home, and cursed them all.

At least, that’s how the story went. Their family loved too much, too hard, and in the end, it killed them.

“No one is strong enough,” Ace adds softly, glancing at his father and regretting it. Roger looks like he’s made of wax, like he’s no longer human, and Ace feels bile rise in his throat as he buries his nose in Luffy’s hair to chase away the urge. “No one ever will be.”

“We could love someone who loves us enough, not too much,” Luffy mumbles around his thumb.

Ace snorts but doesn’t answer, watching the nurses move past the doorway, none of them stopping or stepping into their room to look in on them. They should have been escorted to the police station to wait for their aunts, distant cousins really but Ace had always called them aunts, but Ace had refused to leave the hospital. Not even when he had been told that his father was dead, he had insisted on staying there to wait for the aunts.

“Do you think that’s why Auntie Makino always pretends that she doesn’t like Mr. Shanks?” Luffy asks finally.

Ace hums thoughtfully, “It doesn’t matter, everyone knows that fate will catch up with them.”

“D-do you think we’ll end up like our daddies too,” Luffy whispers, hand curling in Ace’s sleeve, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust at the spit from his thumb, trying to peek down the hallway that Dragon had vanished down hours ago and they both knew he wouldn’t come back from.

“I don’t ever want to fall in love,” Ace whispers to Luffy. “Not ever. It’s too painful, you’ll get hurt and your heart will break and shatter. I don’t want that. You know that none of our family can survive that, at least I can’t. Not like your dad.”

“I’m gonna love everyone,” Luffy says leaning further into Ace. “I’m gonna love everyone and have hundreds of friends who love me back.”

Ace smiles sadly into Luffy’s hair because Luffy loves too much and with something that feels more like burning than love, “I’m sure that you will, little one. I’m sure you’ll love more people than I can ever imagine.”

“I’ll love you most,” Luffy promises Ace. “You’re my big brother, daddy said so.”

“Did he?”

Luffy nods, “Daddy told me that when he went away that Ace would be my big brother and he and the aunts would take care of me. You will, right? I think you’re gonna be the best big brother ever.”

“It’s fate then,” Ace agrees softly, his hand curling into Luffy’s shirt as he thinks of Dragon planning his departure for some time. Planning to leave Luffy like this. It burns but it’s already happened and they can’t change it now.

The door opens quietly and Ace looks up, expecting a nurse, but spotting Makino smiling sadly at them, Dadan on her heels, “There you are boys.”

“About time too,” Dadan huffs. “Was starting to think we were going to get lost in this forsaken place. The hospital is big enough that I can’t even tell which way the entrance is,” She pauses kneeling down in front of them both. “I’m sorry for your losses, children.”

“S’not your fault,” Ace mutters ducking his head and squeezing Luffy closer. “It’s the curse.”

“Fate,” Luffy adds solemnly.

“I’m sure it’s both,” Makino agrees brushing a hand over Ace’s hair. “Shall we leave? I’m sure you’re both hungry and tired.”

“I’m not hungry,” Ace mutters softer than Luffy’s agreement, letting Luffy bounce out of his grip and blinking when Luffy held out a hand for him. “Luffy?”

“Aren’t you coming?” Luffy asks softly, careful not to look at the bed. “You promised, Acey.”

Ace snorts, taking Luffy’s hand, “I’m coming.”

“Now,” Makino says softly as she leads the way out the hospital, her eyes glittering with magic, Dadan ushering them into the car. “In our house, we have chocolate with our breakfast and dessert with dinner, and we never worry about homework.”

“Unless it’s math,” Dadan corrects. “We always worry about math.”

“Why math,” Ace sniffs, squeezing Luffy’s hand tighter as they crowded together in the backseat, feeling tired. “Isn’t math hard?”

“Because math is important for magic. You need it to complete your spells and that is something you’ll need to know when you’re older. So we do our math homework, but don’t worry,” Dadan glances at them both in the rearview mirror and winks. “We’re good at math and we can teach you.”

Luffy pouts, “But I don’t even go to school yet!”

“Then you don’t have to do any math yet,” Dadan assures as they pull into the driveway of the old family home on the outskirts of Raftel, and putting the car into park. “But Ace goes to school and he’ll need to do his math homework, the rest isn’t as important.”

Ace frowns as he climbs out the car, Luffy on his heels, “I don’t like math.”

“Math isn’t suppose to be fun, Ace. It’s suppose to be hard work,” Dadan says calmly. “Magic is just the same. It’s hard work.”

Ace blows on the wick of the candle, smirking at Luffy when it lights under his mouth, bright white flames turning orange after just a few short moments. Luffy pouts back at him, the brightly painted cardboard swords on his back flopping all over the place where they had gotten wet from where he had insisted on dragging them into the bath.

“How did you do it, Acey?” Luffy asks frowning at his own book.

“Talent,” Ace answers smugly, flipping to the next page in the spell book like the aunts had taught him, taking his time going over the next spell. “And reading. You have to read it, stupid.”

“Ace,” Makino states from the kitchen.

“Sorry Lu.”

Luffy frowns, blinking at the words on the page again, obviously trying to make them stop swimming, but even magic couldn’t stop dyslexia and there wasn’t a spell in their arsenal that could aid them. It didn’t help that the teachers refused to help the witch boy and there was only so many things that the internet could give them to try that would work with Luffy’s ADHD, but they hadn’t given up yet, not when Luffy was trying so hard. He wanted to learn and that meant something didn’t it?

“I’m not stupid,” Luffy mutters finally.

Ace looks down, “I know. You’re smart, you just have trouble reading. I shouldn’t have said that and I’m sorry.”

“I suppose I can forgive you this time, but,” Luffy frowns at Ace, eyes narrowing at him. “Next time, don’t be so mean, I don’t make fun of you for stuff. Not even when you have nightmares.”

“That’s true. I suppose that I was quite unfair, I’m sorry, Lu.”

Luffy smiles brightly, “I forgive you!”

“Good, come here and I’ll show you a trick to lighting fire to your candle like that, it’s not hard and maybe you’ll understand it like this,” Ace says scooting his chair back to let Luffy scramble off the table and into his lap, flinching when a still damp cardboard sword slapped him in the face. “Alright, now-”

He stops, they all do, at the knock and then scrambling of hands on the backdoor. It’s always on the backdoor when people want them to use magic, letting them know that someone was there.

Makino sighs, “Dadan, send the boys upstairs.”

“You heard her, brats, up. Go on, you know the rules. Get,” She waves them off, waiting until they reach the first landing before opening the door, her eyebrow rising as she allows the young man, desperate and shaking, to enter the house. “Why are you here?”

“I want him to love me,” he says when Dadan and Makino finally have him sitting down at the table, his hands shaking around the cup that they press into it. “I want him to love me more than anything. More than life, more than work, more than his reputation.”

“Some people need time to admit these things,” Makino says softly, patiently, trying to coax him. “I’m sure that he loves you.”

“Not enough,” he insists pushing his money over the table at them. “It’s not enough and he needs to love me more. Love me more than that, more than anything. He needs to love me more than anything.”

“Take the money, Makino,” Dadan states as she takes the dove from it’s cage, her hands firm as she holds it tightly and Makino presses the pin, the biggest one that Ace has ever see into the man’s hand, “Make your wish.”

“I want him to love me more than anything,” he whispers stabbing the bird with the pin, Luffy’s head ducking to avoid seeing it die. “More than anything.”

Makino sighs, more to herself than anything, her warning too late to be listened to, “Be careful what you wish for.”

The young man doesn’t seem to hear her, already pulling out his cellphone as he hurries out their backdoor and vanishing back into the dark, leaving the aunts to clean up the dead bird from the kitchen.

“I don’t ever want to fall in love,” Ace whispers, shaking as he holds Luffy closer.

Luffy grins up at him, “I can’t wait to fall in love.”

Ace frowns at his spellbook, taking careful note of what he was going to need to do, but it wasn’t anywhere near as complicated as some of his other spells. However, it was also the first one that he had made on his own and he wanted it to be perfect. Needed it to be perfect.

“You made a true love spell,” Luffy asks, trying to peek over Ace’s shoulder, and when that failed, wiggled between Ace and the table, trying to read the spell. “Why?”

“Because, if I make a true love spell for someone who doesn’t exist,” Ace answers plucking a bright blue flower from one of the plants in his reach, “then I can never fall in love. Someones. No one can fall in love with two people, it’s impossible. It’s the perfect plan!”

Luffy frowns, “Are you sure that’s how it works? I thought Dadan said that you could love two people.”

“Dadan says lot of stuff,” Ace shrugs grabbing a sprig of mint. “It won’t work and I will never fall in love. Not ever.”

“I guess it’ll work then,” Luffy says slowly. “Tell me about them?”

“They’ll be,” Ace frowns at the flowers before plucking a buttercup. “Blond, both of them. Maybe different shades, but blond. One will have eyes as blue as forget-me-nots and the other will be mint green. One will be able to flip pancakes midair and the other will be able to read Latin. One will be scarred, burned, and the other will have a crest that he will keep close.”

“Those are real sp-sp,” Luffy frowns around the word.

“Specific. It’s supposed to be, Lu. I don’t want them to be real. I want to make someone that can’t even hope to be real. I don’t want to fall in love with them,” Ace repeats himself.

Luffy pouts, “I’m gonna have hundreds of friends.”

Ace doesn’t know when Luffy started to equate love with friends but he isn’t going to ask, “I know you will,” They all know Luffy will. Luffy loves people more, just as intensely as any of their clan, but spread out, not condensed down to one person. “But I don’t want to love someone like my dad loved my mom.”

“What else will they have?” Luffy asks finally.

Ace sighs pulling his spellbook closer, checking his bowl and grabbing the last of the things he needs for it, “They’ll,” he swallows harshly. “They’ll love me. And they won’t care that I have magic and I won’t ever have to lie to them.”

“I like them,” Luffy decides with a firm nod.

“They aren’t real, Luffy.”

“They should be!”

Ace rolls his eyes, “I’m sure they sound like they should be real, but they aren’t. Come on, I need to finish casting this and you want to see me do it, don’t you?”

“Please? You’re real good at casting,” Luffy says following him to the balcony. “Makino says that part of the reason that people are so scared of you is because you’re so good at magic that it makes you scary to people that don’t have it. Which is why people like me more, cause I’m not as talented as you.”

“You’re talented,” Ace insists stepping out onto the balcony. “Just it’s different is all. We’re all different, you know that. All right,” He takes a deep breath and his magic starts to work, the ingredients lifting up and starting to vanish out of sight. “Done, now I won’t ever fall in love.”

“It was pretty,” Luffy says throwing himself at Ace with a grin. “I think it’ll be good, when they finally come and find you.”

Ace sighs, tired of trying to explain that they weren’t real already, it didn’t matter, Luffy could think that Ace had two true loves somewhere out there in the world and when they never appeared, Luffy would think that they got lost. Luffy still thought that his father was lost after all, even after all these years and without a single word from him.

“Come on, time for bed,” Ace says instead. “We have school tomorrow and I know you have a math test.”

“You’re going to get yourself into trouble,” Ace states lowering Luffy’s bag down to Zoro with a sigh, waiting for the idiot to hustle it to his car before turning his attention to Luffy directly. “At least you waited until you graduated. Makino would have tracked you down and dragged you back by your ears if you had left before graduating.”

Luffy grins crookedly, “Makino made me promise to stay until I graduated, she said that otherwise I wasn’t allowed to go on an adventure.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” Ace whispers, letting Luffy pull him into a hug. “Don’t do anything stupid and make sure you keep us up to date on what’s going on. We want to know about what you’re doing, Lu.”

“I’ll send lots of postcards and I’ll call every week,” Luffy repeats the promise they’ve all pounded into his head. “Oh, there’s a spell.”

“A spell,” Ace asks curiously because spells were usually his area of expertise. “What spell?”

“Uh-huh,” Luffy waves his hands at Zoro. “I need to borrow a knife,” Which isn’t really a question, they all know that Zoro has more knives on him then he has anything else, not even counting the three swords the he kept firmly attached to his hip. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Zoro states, hands going back into his pockets as Luffy fumbles the knife open.

“My blood,” Luffy slices his palm open and turns the knife to Ace’s hand. “Your blood,” And repeating the action, clasping their hands together. “Our blood. Now we’re connected and you’ll know if something happens.”

“I’ll always know if you need me anyways, stupid,” Ace teases.

“I’m not stupid,” Luffy pouts, throwing himself at Ace for another hug. “I love you, Ace. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too. Go have adventures and I’ll make sure that your stupid orange tree stays alive until you send for it, along with all the rest of the things you’ve picked up over the years.”

“Not stupid, it’s for my nakama. They’ll love it!”

“I’m sure that they will, now get going before Zoro decides to drag you off,” Ace whispers hugging Luffy one last time. “Keep safe.”

“You too,” Luffy shouts, jumping into Zoro’s arms. “Don’t forget to have fun!”

Ace rolls his eyes. “I’m not even leaving Raftel, Lu, I think that I’m the only one of us that is going to be safe here.”

Luffy’s laughter echoes long after he’s gone and Ace smiles to himself as he goes back inside, it would be so much quieter without him around anymore.

“You would think,” Ace says looking over their newest letter from Luffy. “That he would tell us more about his nakama instead of asking us just to ship him all of his odds and ends when he needs them for whoever he’s collected next.”

Makino laughs, bouncing her son in her arms, “Are you feeling jealous?”

“No of course not. I”m just tired of shipping him things. It’s expensive. The orange tree alone almost ate up all my savings,” Ace mutters darkly. “And he keeps expecting us to send the rest of it. I mean of course we will, but that’s a lot of shit.”

“Language,” Dadan shouts from further in the kitchen.

“Is she actually allowed to say that?” Ace mutters. “She’s the one that taught me how to curse.”

“She is,” Makino agrees brightly. “She taught me too. Dadan is the best older cousin. She always has been.” She pauses as the broom fell down. “Someone is coming.”

Ace bounces to his feet at the knock on the front door, throwing it open and blinking at the two men on the front step in confusion, “Can I help you?”

“I apologize,” One of them says smiling almost apologetically. “I’m here for Shanks, my name’s Marco. This is a friend of mine, Sabo, I don’t know why he’s here.”

Sabo bows with a flourish, smiling almost too brightly, “And I’m here to talk about Luffy, if you have the time?”

“And who wants to know about Luffy?” Ace asks suspiciously. “And who says that we would tell you, or whoever you’re working for, anything about Luffy? You can come in though, Marco, Shanks said he would send you around.”

“Let the boy in, Ace,” Dadan shouts. “It’s about time that good for nothing showed some interest in his son!”

“You work for Dragon?” Ace frowns harder moving out of the way to let them both inside, his eyes tracking them both before snapping to the front yard and clearing it, closing the door. “I was hoping he was dead. Hadn’t heard anything thing from him since he walked out on us the day my dad died.”

“Dragon never mentioned that,” Sabo offers slowly, his top hat in his hands. “I just, Marco had already promised to come see Makino and I thought I could do this now too?”

Makino shakes her head, “Dragon doesn’t mention a great many things to his men. But it’s not your fault, so take a seat. Sabo, was it? Is there a last name to go with that?”

“Outlook. Sabo Outlook, I work for Dragon as an investigator at his firm,” he answers, brushing his hair behind his ear. “It’s a good job.”

“And you’re Marco Newgate,” Dadan asks coming out the kitchen, cup in her hand as she moves to take the baby from Makino and into another room for his nap. “Correct?”

“Yes ma’am. Shanks said that he would let you know about me, but I trust him about as far as I can throw him most days.”

Makino laughs, “That sounds Shanks. Well, in all honesty, we’re doing fine. If you want to stick around for a few days, you’re more than welcome to do so. We have plenty of guest rooms. And Sabo, if you want to know about Luffy, I suggest Ace.” Ace pouts. “You know more about your sweet little brother than I do, Ace.”

“But Dragon,” Ace whines.

“I’m sure you can ask Sabo nicely and he’ll even carry the guilt trips back to Dragon for you,” Makino says patting him on the shoulder. “Now, show our guests to their rooms.”

Marco clears his throat, deliberately looking away from both of them, “We, we can share a room. It’s perfectly fine. Sabo and I have done it before.”

“You must work together a lot,” Ace says brightly as he stands brushing off the invisible crumbs. “I think we have one of the bigger guest rooms all set up, come this way and I’ll grab some towels too. If Dragon sent you, he’s not anywhere close by, Garp would have told us about him long before now.”

“Who’s Garp?” Sabo asks in confusion.

“Dragon’s dad, Luffy’s gramps. Garp D Monkey, a bigwig in the military. He usually lets us know about things like Dragon or what Shanks is doing or,” Ace gestures as if that would hopefully explain what he meant and maybe it did. He hopes that it did.

“Dragon never said he had family before, we, me and the rest of the people at our work, didn’t even know about Luffy until Dragon said that he wanted me to come and look into how he was doing. Something about him turning up in the news?”

Ace nods, “Luffy was in Alabasta a few weeks ago. Took down Crocodile.”

“That was Luffy!” Sabo shrieks, Marco slaps a hand over his mouth, the sudden silence ringing in their ears for a moment. “That was Luffy?” Sabo says again when Marco removes his hand.

“That was Luffy.”

Marco shakes his head, “He’s certainly causing quite a bit of trouble, isn’t he?”

“That’s Luffy, he and his nakama are causing quite a stir as they,” He gestures. “Adventure. They don’t seem to have an actual goal beyond that, honestly. I’ve tried to ask him, but he doesn’t say anything about it.”

“I suppose if he’s having fun then it doesn’t matter?” Sabo offers.

Ace grins, “True, he’s happy and that’s the most important part.” He pauses, opening the hall closet. “Well that’s where I put my hat,” He shoves the garishly orange cowboy hat on his head before looking back in the closet to pull out the towels.

“You often lose your hat?” Marco asks.

“It’s a big house,” Ace counters. “And between Auntie Makino needing help with the baby, Aunt Dadan needing help with the side business and the actual job that I have, I tend to forget things sometimes.”

“Thank you, for letting us stay,” Sabo says softly.

“Well, Aunt Makino likes you and if she says you can stay then who am I to argue?” Ace says with a shrug. “This is your room for your stay. I’m the room down the hall with the orange name plate and the aunts are above us. If you’ll excuse me, I have work.”

“Have a good day,” Marco says bemused.

Sabo collapses onto the bed, bouncing slightly, “This is nicer than an inn.”

“Ace is cuter than an inn keeper too,” Marco teases, moving the towels to the bathroom that Ace had shown them that was attached to their room. “You think so too.”

“Shut up, he hates me.”

“He hates Dragon.”

“Same thing,” Sabo groans, “Did you see the face he made when I mentioned Dragon? He looked like he would rather I was working for a telemarketer or something.”

Marco tips his head to the side, “He’ll warm up to you, it’s not about you and you know that. He just needs to get over the idea that Dragon walked out. I don’t think it was as simple as he just walked out. Dragon would never just walk out, he probably did it at a very, very bad time.”

“You think he would?”

“Shanks mentioned that Luffy and Ace came to live with Makino and Dadan on the same day, the day that Ace’s father died. Which means, Dragon probably walked on or around the same time as Ace’s father’s died. How do you think he would feel about Dragon after that?”

Sabo waves his hand in the air, “Honestly? I would probably hate him.”

“So you can’t blame Ace. Of course he hates Dragon. You would too,” Marco says, cupping his cheek. “But I think we could like Ace.”

“You’re getting sappy on me.”

Marco laughs, “Give him a chance.”

“Fine, but only because you asked me to.”

“Thank you,” Marco whispers kissing him softly. “You never know. Maybe he’ll be the one that finally makes that hole in your heart close up.”

“Our. Don’t act like you don’t have a hole in your own heart,” Sabo shakes his head. “You do know, that you’re going to have to be the one to start flirting with him.”

Marco groans, “You know the last time I tried to flirt with someone,” Sabo snickers. “He ended up with stitches.”

“I do remember, there were twenty of them, in my hand.”

“Maybe we can get fewer stitches this time around,” Marco mutters softly. “Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” Sabo says kissing him again. “I’m going to nap.”

Marco smiles, “Sleep well, I’ll have a progress report when you wake up.”

“Welcome back,” Ace startles, glancing at Marco, heart pounding in his chest as Marco moves through the kitchen. “Sorry, your aunts said I was welcome to cook if I wanted to, I thought you saw me when you came in.”

“I was lost in thought,” he admits, taking a seat on one of the stools and resting his head on his arms. “You, what do you do? When not doing something to be kind to Shanks?”

“I work for my father. A shipping company, Newgate Industries,” Marco answers shifting the pan in some complicated move that made the pancake he was working on flip in midair. “Which is nice, but it means that I have to deal with my siblings more than most people do.”

Ace nods thoughtfully, “I only have Luffy and I can understand that. He, he can be a little much, sometimes.”

“I looked into Alabasta, that was good of him, I mean, overly complicated and obviously not the work of the military even though they said that it was, but it was good work. You must have been proud of him, when you heard.”

“I’m always proud of Lu, even when all he’s doing is going around and picking people up to join his merry band of jokers. He’s happy and that’s what I want for him.” Ace pauses blinking in confusion. “He’s a good person, just over zealous and he loves people too much.”

“Sabo says that Dragon can’t love anyone.”

“He could. He loved Luffy’s mom, had to since the curse killed her, but I wouldn’t doubt if he can’t anymore.” Ace adds. “I’m sure Sabo knows all about the curse.”

“Curse?” Marco frowns. “Sabo hasn’t ever mentioned a curse.”

Ace sighs, leaning his head onto his hands, “Might as well tell you then, someone else will if you go into town, it’s not like you won’t hear about the witches of Raftel and the evil spells we cast,” His smile feels bitter. “We’re cursed, the whole,” He twists his hand around in the air. “Clan. When we fall in love, it’s like a, like there’s a countdown until the person we love dies. It’s why Makino hopes that by keeping Shanks away so often.”

“He’ll live longer?”

“Sometimes, when it kills the person we love, it takes us with them. My dad lasted until I was seven, they said it was a wasting illness, but we all knew he was dying of a broken heart,” Ace waves his hand at the pan in Marco’s. “How’d you learn to do that?”

Marco laughs, it’s out of place with what they’re talking about, but it’s a nice laugh, nice and Ace likes it, “My brother taught me. Something about women liking men who can cook, he just changed gender when I brought home my first boyfriend. I have yet to see it work.”

“Because people fall in love with a pancake flip.”

“You would be surprised,” Marco says brightly. “But you were talking about a curse?”

“The first of the Clan to arrive on Raftel, family history says that she was banished for witchcraft from her home village but no one knows for sure anymore, started the curse but we don’t know how or why. We say it was our great-great grandmother but it’s been so long that it was almost seven hundred years ago and the story’s missing a lot of details.”

“What do you think happened?”

Ace tilts his head to the side, “If she was banished, maybe she had a lover that she thought was going to rescue her and when they never came, that’s how the curse started. I do know, that we haven’t broken it yet and that it’s going to be a long time before we break it.”

“When you fall in love, you must be so worried that they’ll die.”

“I won’t. I,” Ace smiles distantly. “I took care of my ability to fall in love a very, very long time ago. I’m more worried about Luffy, he… Even if you don’t love people romantically like I do, you still love them. And he loves people, including Zoro, who’s been with him for years now.”

“Oh.”

Ace tips his head, “At some point, Zoro is going to die and then Luffy’s going to be heartbroken.”

“And you can’t fall in love?”

“I made a spell, an impossible love spell so that I could never fall in love and so that I could never be heart broken. I don’t want to be my father. I could never be him, so I asked for qualities that couldn’t exist, I asked for people that couldn’t exist.”

Marco doesn’t respond for a long moment, flipping another pancake in the pan, his eyes darting between it and Ace, his face thoughtful, “Pancake?”

“I would like some.”

“Would you give Sabo a chance,” Marco asks when he sits down, his own plate piled with pancakes. “He’s not a bad person, no matter what Dragon might have done. He didn’t even know that Dragon had a son until he was asked to come here.”

Ace hums, “I, I didn’t mean to be so rude to him in the first place. I just, Dragon walked out. He left Luffy with me in the hospital as my dad was dying and he never came back.”

“He walked out on you in the hospital? When your father died?” Marco repeated slowly. “He just left and never came back?”

“Lu was four, his mom had died the year before and he just left. But I’ll apologize to Sabo when I see him next, I shouldn’t have been rude him like that. It wasn’t fair to him.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ace rolls his eyes, smiling softly. “These really are good pancakes.”

“You’re not allowed to die,” Luffy states sitting by Zoro’s bed as his hands shake. “You’re not allowed to die.”

“Luffy,” Zoro says slowly, his voice low to try and keep from drawing Chopper’s attention. “You know that’s not how it works. You know your family’s curse better than I do.”

“You should have longer. It’s not been long enough.”

“And you’ve loved me for years,” Zoro reminds him, brushing his hand through Luffy’s hair and smiling softly at him. “You can love someone before they love you and that still counts, Luffy, even I could have told you that. Unless you can break a curse,” He pauses because he knows that look. “Luffy.”

“It would be good. For you and Makino and Ace. We could save them all.” Luffy mutters moving closer. “And you would live.”

Zoro sighs tiredly through his nose, staring at the roof, “We can go back to Raftel, but Luffy in the hundreds of years since the curse first was cast, not a single member of your family has ever found a way to break the curse. Do you think that you can?”

“You’ll help me. And Robin too! She knows lots of stuff about magic and history and research.” Luffy says brightly. “We could save you.”

“We can try.”

“I’ll tell Chopper that we’re leaving and call Ace, I think we have guests at home,” Luffy says hurrying out the room and leaving Zoro to stare at the ceiling again.

Zoro had known what he was getting into the day that Luffy had bounced up to him in the hallway with too bright eyes and a smile a touch too wide, he was the same age as Ace after all, had known the older of the D Clan, known what it meant to be loved by one of their family and still walked into it. At least if he died, he would die in comfort, the slow deaths took time, but the D Clan made sure that they were comfortable.

Sabo makes a quiet noise that is almost a scream low and in the back of his throat, hands holding tight to the book he had been looking over as a second book zooms past him and deeper into the library accompanied by muffled cursing and a shower of dust.

“Ace?” He asks curiously.

“Oh, hey Sabo. I thought you were going into town with Marco today,” Ace says swiping dust from his face as he opens the book, on the stand, flipping through it with one hand as he held another open in his lap. “Something about ice cream?”

“We were,” Sabo agrees. “But the weather made my scars ache and it’s not good to go out when it’s like this. Last time I tried, they ended up tearing open and bleeding. Not the best way to end a date.”

“I could probably make you something for that,” Ace offers slowly. “Not a spell, just a cream, it’s one that the aunts taught me for burn scars. We usually make it to help people in the ICU after fires, but they don’t ever have the issue. It’s pretty simple and you can try it out if you like?”

“Maybe later,” Sabo says smiling at him, leaning closer. “What are you researching?”

Ace sighs, “Luffy’s coming home to try and break the curse. It’s going to take his friend soon and he’s,” Ace pauses for a long moment over the wording. “Stubborn. He wants to try again before he loses his friend.”

“And you’re going to help him?”

“Of course I am, I’m his big brother, I can’t just let him try on his own,” Ace says glance back down at the books. “But I suck at Latin and most of the information we need is in Latin, so I’m trying to read between bouts of translation.”

“I know Latin, if you want me to help,” Sabo offers. “I needed a language in college and I didn’t actually want to use it in my daily life. Don’t tell Marco, he thinks I took it to be sophisticated, I just didn’t want to have to deal with it daily like Spanish or French.”

Ace snickers, “I won’t tell him, come help me, I need all the help I can get. I, I also wanted to apologize for how I was acting before. It’s not your fault, what Dragon did, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you like that.”

“I forgive you,” Sabo grins. “Now let me see the book and tell me if I say anything of interest to you. We’ll see if we can’t find a cure to this curse in here somewhere.”

Ace nods, grabbing his note book and his pen, scribbling notes in shorthand as Sabo spoke, taking care to have him repeat things when he fell behind, not wanting to miss anything that might be even the slightest hint.

“I don’t think there’s an exact translation for this word,” Sabo states as he studies the page they’re on. “Your brother has someone with him that knows Latin too, right? We can ask them too, see if maybe they know more than I do. It’ll make sure that we have it as accurate as possible. But it think it means,” He rambles off his translation and Ace grins brightly, nodding as follows along. “And that’s the whole thing.”

“Thanks,” Ace says still grinning, “It would have taken me hours to get through that on my own. Now I have time to cross check a few of the other books that have been translated and make sure that we have something to go on when Luffy finally gets here.”

“You’re welcome,” Sabo says smiling back at him, his heart stuttering in his chest. “I’m glad to be able to help. If you need a translator again all you need to do is ask.”

“Really?” Ace asks hopefully.

Sabo nods, “Sure, I’m willing to look over more books and translate them for you. Marco might dislike Shanks, but they’re friends too, he would hate to see him dead. And I want to help. It’s not every day that you get to say that helped someone break a curse.”

“Tried to help someone break a curse,” Ace corrects. “I don’t think we will break it.”

“You never know, you might get lucky,” Marco states suddenly from behind them, startling them both. “I brought you both ice cream. Makino says that you’ve been in here for hours. I hope you like cookies and cream because that was the only kind that I know Sabo will eat without complaining.”

“It’s my favorite,” Ace says brightly. “Thank you.”

Sabo grins, “Thanks Marco.”

“You’re both too sappy,” Ace sighs, jabbing his spoon at them. “Get. Get going. I can’t deal with you. Go be gross and romantic else where.”

Marco smiles, “Of course. I’m glad you two had fun.”

Ace watches them leave, humming softly, his eyes following them out the door before he looks back down at his notes and sighs. There was still so much to look through. So much to find. How were they suppose to break a curse when so many generations of their Clan had failed? Surely Luffy didn’t think that they would make that big of a difference?

“Oh my,” Dadan says holding open the front door as Luffy helped Zoro limp into the house, his eyes glowing. “You are close to death aren’t you brat? To think you had made it this long with the boy loving you so much and for so long.”

“He’s not allowed to die,” Luffy frowns at Dadan. “What room are we setting Zoro up in? The room closest to Ace or?”

“That one is taken, we cleaned up the floor below that and your nakama should fit there. Unless you haven’t told us about some new members?” Makino states standing on the staircase with her son balanced delicately in her arms. “And Zoro, it’s good to see you again.”

“Makino,” Zoro nods slowly, blinking his one eye slowly. “Did you and Shanks have a kid?”

“We did,” Makino says softly. “He’s only a year old. Come on, we’re going up stairs. I’ll take you to your rooms. Thank you for escorting Luffy home,” She smiles at Luffy knowingly. “You’re lucky that your older brother is distracted currently.”

Luffy blinks, “Ace is distracted?”

“He is,” She pauses. “Oh, here he comes.”

Ace bursts into the front room with two blond men on his heels, “Luffy!” He pauses raising an eyebrow at Zoro. “I see the curse really has been catching up with you, Zoro. The rest of Luffy’s nakama.”

“Ace,” Luffy stares at the blonds for a long moment, frowning as if he was trying to remember something before brushing it to the side. “I need your help. Help me get Zoro to bed?”

“Of course Lu. Marco and Sabo, I’ll be back in a few minutes, I need to help Luffy.”

One of the men grinned, “Take your time, Ace. We’re going to be in the library when you’re done, Sabo thinks he might have found something in one of the books and I’ll be taking notes for you.”

“Thanks Marco,” Ace says moving to Zoro’s other side and taking his arm, helping him. “Been loosing weight there, Zoro? You’re lighter than air.”

“Fuck off, Gol,” Zoro groans leaning more heavily against him. “I don’t need to hear about how I’ve been losing weight and getting lighter.”

“Aw, I love you too, Zoro,” Ace coos helping him and Luffy up the stairs. “Where’s the rest of your people, I didn’t see them in the doorway. Don’t tell me that I didn’t notice them.”

Luffy shakes his head, “They stopped in town, Robin wanted to pick things up and Chopper heard something about your shop, wanted to see what you had for sale.”

“Anything we have for sale would be here at home,” Ace mutters prodding the door open with his foot. “Here we are, think you can hold him while I pull the sheets down real fast? Easier if they’re down before we get him down.”

Luffy nods taking Zoro back from Ace, balancing him carefully, “You’re making friends.”

“Who?” Ace asks in confusion, tugging the sheet and comforter down out the way and moving to help Luffy get Zoro into bed, the two of them easing him in. Keeping him from hurting himself more than he already has. “What friends?”

“The two downstairs?” Luffy says slowly. “Are, are they not your friends?”

“Marco and Sabo? I mean, kind of? Marco is one of the people that Shanks is close with, Shanks sent him to check up on Makino and the baby, you know it’s suppose to keep the curse from acting as quickly if they’re separate more often,” Ace says dropping into one of the chairs by the bed, his head falling into his hand. “Sabo works for your dad.”

“My dad’s alive?”

“Apparently, he heard what you were doing in Alabasta and wanted to see how you were, I suppose. Sabo’s not bad however, he didn’t even know that Dragon had a family until he was asked to come with Marco to check in on you.”

Luffy frowns slightly, “And they’re in the library?”

“Sabo knows Latin. He’s able to read a great many of the old texts that we aren’t able to translate and I can make notes on them. It’s good. He’s helping me a lot trying to find anything to help us with this.”

“You like them,” Luffy says slowly.

“I like people,” Ace says rolling his eyes. “I have made friends over the years.”

“Not a lot,” Luffy mutters.

Ace rolls his eyes, “I’m going back to researching now. You might want to get back to your people, they’re probably going to do something stupid without you to do it for them.”

“I’m not stupid,” Luffy mutters darkly.

“You aren’t,” Ace kisses the top of his head before heading to the door, “Behave and don’t break anything while you’re here with your friend.”

Zoro waits the long moments to hear Ace thump down the stairs before raising his eyebrow, “Luffy?”

“I,” Luffy frowns harder. “There was something and I can’t remember what it was. It was important. What was it?”

“What was it about?” Zoro asks curiously.

Luffy glances at the door, at the distance where Ace had vanished toward, “About Ace and love. I don’t remember all of it, but he wanted to never fall in love so he made a spell. I just can’t remember.”

“Remember the spell?” Zoro finishes for Luffy.

“Yeah,” Luffy shrugs, “I’ll remember it later. Come on, you need to relax or you’ll die before we can get you uncursed and that’s something that I can’t allow.” Luffy bounces to his feet and moving to fluff Zoro’s pillow. “We’re going to save you.”

“Of course, captain.”

“So that’s Luffy,” Marco says softly when they get back to the library, settling down in the seat that he had claimed next to Ace’s. “He looks nothing like Dragon.”

“Oh thank god,” Sabo gasps into the book he was still holding, finger caught in the page that they had been on. “I thought it was just me and I must have missed something. I thought he was Dragon’s spitting imagine and I was going blind in my other eye too.”

Marco shakes his head, “No, he looks nothing like Dragon. He doesn’t even look much like Ace beyond the dark hair and eye color, but even that is fairly common in their family from what I understand.”

“Or orange,” Sabo mutters remembering Dadan. “I think Dragon says that dark hair and orange or red were also common.”

“At least not in this generation,” Marco says sighing and picking up Ace’s notes and twirling the pen between his fingers. “Alright, start translating again. We promised Ace that we would keep going.”

Sabo laughs, leaning forward for a kiss and pausing, “We, do we like Ace?”

“Sabo?”

“We like Ace, don’t we? I like him,” He adds nervously. “I wouldn’t mind if we, I mean, if you wanted, we could-”

“I like him too,” Marco says smiling softly. “I would like to have him with us, if he wouldn’t mind having us. At least try and convince him of it.”

“So, we’re agreed,” Sabo nods leaning back in his chair and opening his book. “Where do the notes leave off, Marco?”

“There’s several ways to deal with,” Marco answers. “You were going to give us a couple of translations because you haven’t run into the word and aren’t entirely sure.”

Sabo nods, rattling off his translations as he moves on, carrying on until Ace stumbles into the library carrying a tray of drinks with him, “Sorry I’m late,” He apologizes, setting the tray on the small table between them, his eyes bright. “I was coming back and Aunt Makino cornered me with drinks.”

“Thanks,” Sabo says smiling and snatching it up, sipping it happily, his throat aching. “Talking out loud all the time hurts. But the water?”

“Water with lemon, Aunt Dadan says it’s more refreshing,” Ace says rolling his eyes.

“It helps,” Sabo smiles. “It’s good. We’ve been making notes for you and kept going. I hope your brother’s friend who knows Latin shows up soon, I do want to talk some of these translations through.”

Ace nods softly, “Luffy says that they are looking around at the town proper and they’ll be here later today. She should be able to help us whenever that might be,” He drops into his own chair, taking back his notebook with a grin. “Thank you, for doing this.”

“It’s not a hardship, Ace,” Marco says smiling at him softly. “We’re here to help.”

Robin frowns at the translation, her finger tapping against her lip as she glance between the original text and the several different attempts that Sabo had made at translation, gaze inscrutable. Ace slips his hand into Sabo’s, raising an eyebrow when Sabo looked at him strangely, but squeezing lightly instead of speaking.

“I’m leaning more towards this one, but,” Robin states tapping one of the sentences with a delicate finger before grabbing a pencil and scribbling her own translation attempt and the differences she wanted to add. “Something more like this,”

“Curse breaking,” Sabo mutters leaning over to read it. “Can be done in several ways. By killing the caster, by destroying the caster, or by,” He pauses and taps her translation. “I don’t think that this word fits. I stand by immolate.”

Robin tips her head to the side, nose wrinkling as she thinks it over, “Immolate is closer? I don’t think it’s entirely accurate however. Something closer perhaps than I was thinking, but not as close as it should be.”

“I can deal with that. So do they mean the caster of the spell needs to be set on fire?” Ace demands interrupting them both. “Because if they mean that the caster has to be set on fire, I will go to the graveyard and dig up my great something grandmother and burn her corpse if it meant that Luffy got to keep his nakama.”

“We think,” Sabo says slowly. “We would need a little more time to double check and make sure there isn’t any more details that we’re missing. Sometimes it’s little details that mean the difference, Ace.”

Ace bites his lip to keep from snapping at Sabo because he knows it’s not Sabo’s fault, taking his time to breath before nodding softly, “Fine, do you have a time line? An idea of how long it’s going to take you or?”

“A few hours,” Robin answers. “You’ve both narrowed it down to a few books and that’s enough for me to look at it and get enough of an idea without worrying about too much. It’s only a few more hours. Go tell Luffy and we’ll be here. It’s fine.”

“All right,” Ace sighs. “Do you want me to send Marco to you too when he’s done in the shower, Sabo?”

Sabo hums quietly, already focused on his work and Ace accepts that as a yes, already moving out the room as the two of them start to argue over something in the details of the translations and details that Ace has never bothered to learn himself, heading back upstairs to let Luffy know what was going on, trying to avoid the rest of Luffy’s nakama.

“Ace,” Luffy asks shoving something under Zoro’s pillow. “What are you doing here?”

“Sabo and Robin are arguing over the translations but they’re sure that they’ll be done before the end of the night. We might have something to try,” Ace says softly, glancing at Zoro and away because he looks just like Roger had when he had died of a broken heart. “They wanted me to keep you up to date. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Luffy says brightly bouncing to his feet and staring at him. “You mean it? They have an idea?”

“It means grave robbing,” Ace warns.

“Like we haven’t done that before,” Luffy rolls his eyes. “We might be able to save Zoro! Did you hear that Zoro!”

Zoro snorts, “I heard, I’m sure you’ll come up with something captain.”

Ace raises an eyebrow but says nothing, sighing tiredly, “Lu, what were you up to brat?”

“Nothing?”

“Luffy?” Ace repeats, his eyebrow going higher. “I know you were in my room.”

Luffy sighs, clambering onto Zoro’s bed and pulling the small book out from under the pillow, to shove into Ace’s hands, already opened to a page, “I wanted to see your spell.”

“My spell?” Ace asks looking at the page in confusion reading over the title. “My true love spell? So that I would never fall in love?”

“I like them, they’re nice.” Luffy adds. “I just, I didn’t remember all of it, so I wanted to check.”

Ace frowns, “What are you talking about?”

“He thinks the spell is for Sabo and Marco,” Zoro explains softly, his eyes darting to Luffy for a short moment. “He was telling me about them, the spell does line up with them, at least what he told me about them.”

“I doubt that it lines up that much,” Ace laughs looking over his own handwriting. “Let’s see blond, green and blue eyed, flip pancakes, read L,” He stops staring at the page in confusion. “Read latin, burn scars. Marco doesn’t have a family crest.”

“It’s tattooed on his chest,” Luffy says laying across Zoro’s lap, kicking his feet back and forth. “I asked him about his family when you were in the library with Sabo the other day.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Ace says swallowing heavily, the page crinkling under his hand. “It, it could just be that it’s a coincidence.”

“Can you lie to them?” Zoro asks.

Ace opens his mouth to agree only to pause, because he hasn’t. He hasn’t lied to them at all in the time that they’ve been here. Not once in the short week that Marco and Sabo have been staying with them has Ace told them a single lie, he bites his lower lip, looking back down at his own handwriting instead, trying to find something to counter his brother’s argument with.

“He’s stalling,” Luffy whispers too loudly like he always does. Luffy’s never been good with secrets. “He’s trying to find something to throw us off.”

“I am not stalling,” Ace snaps at Luffy, closing his spellbook and shoving it into his pocket. “And stop going into my room. You promised.”

“I didn’t,” Luffy protests, smiling widely. “I promised to stop going in your drawers.”

Ace rolls his eyes because they both knew he kept his spellbook under his bed, “Promise to stay out of my room, Luffy.”

“I promise,” Luffy repeats. “You’re no fun, Acey. They could be your true loves. And if we get rid of the curse, then you could keep them and never worry about losing them.”

“You say that like I didn’t magic them into loving me,” Ace sighs, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll consider it later, Luffy, maybe never. First we need to end the curse and save Zoro. We’ll worry about this,” He gestures helplessly. “Later.”

“They would love you.”

“It wouldn’t be real.”

Luffy sighs and lets it drop for now, his head dropping back onto Zoro’s lap, “You’re the worst, Acey. The worst at all of this. We just want you to talk to them, don’t we, Zoro?”

“Aye,” Zoro mutters tiredly. “Just to talk. You already love them, it’s not like you can stop that now.”

“Shut up,” Ace hisses. “We’ll worry about that another time. I told you. This is about the curse, about Zoro, not about me.”

“You said we should multitask!”

“I want to keep him,” Marco states softly watching Ace move through the kitchen through the glass doors, his chin resting on Sabo’s shoulder. “He’s sweet and kind and he loves people so much. Do you think if the curse was gone, if he could love without people dying, that he could love us?”

Sabo hums, leaning back into Marco’s chest, watching Ace tap on the baby’s nose, cooing softly as he pauses what he’s doing, smiling and bright, “I want him to.”

“Ace might listen to us if we tell him after. When it’s no longer going to get us killed,” Marco whispers into his hair, kissing the top of his ear. “It’s the only things that I can think of.”

“He’ll at least let us say what we have to say before turning us down, I hope,” Sabo adds clinging to Marco’s sleeve for a long moment.

Marco kisses his shoulder, “We’ll ask. The worst that can happen is that he’ll turn us down and we’ve been turned down a great many times, haven’t we?” He asks voice hitching. “Maybe Ace will be kinder about it then the others would have been.”

“He’s already been kinder than most of them had been.”

“That’s true. We’ll just have to risk it,” Marco sighs. “After tonight, I hope we have a chance.”

“From what we can extrapolate,” Robin states leaning back in her chair, tapping the cover of the book in her lap, eyes flickering over the room for a brief moment before focusing back on Luffy instead. “You need to dig up your ancestor, salt her and then burn the corpse. That way the body will be purified, at least that’s what we think it translates into.”

“And you think that’s how we end the curse?” Dadan asks raising an eyebrow. “After years of nobody being able to solve it, you think that’s all it’ll take?”

Robin tips her head to the side, “It depends on how good they could read Latin. I know that by the time your family would have been banished here that it would have been harder to learn it and it’s less common. The knowledge might have been lost by the time it was really noticeable that it was curse instead of something else.”

“She has a point, death in childbirth would have been common,” Ace sighs into his hands, turning to smile when Marco runs a hand down his back. “And people dropped dead all the time, who would think it was a curse? No one, not until medicine got better. Besides, what have we got to lose?”

Makino glances away from Ace, gaze on something beyond their island for a long moment before she nods, “I agree. Even if it doesn’t work, it’s better than nothing. We at least tried. We did something more than sit around and let them die for another generation.”

“All right then. We’ll break into the graveyard and burn the corpse, will it be immediate or did the book not say?” Dadan sighs, squeezing Makino’s shoulder.

“The effects should show within a week if it worked, that’s when we’ll know if it worked or not,” Robin answers. “If it doesn’t, Zoro will likely die. However, the captain will probably demand that we help him figure out how to save the rest of the people that he loves.”

“We’ll go tonight,” Ace sighs. “There’s a meeting at town hall and I know that most of them will be there. I can probably arrange something to keep them there later, but we’re going to be suspects. Right until they realize it’s a member of our family.”

“Because we would never,” Dadan agrees smirking back at him. “Even if we aren’t at the meeting, it’ll clear us. Which is good. That’s a good idea.”

Franky, one of Luffy’s friends, raises his hand slowly, “And you’re okay with burning the corpse of one of your family?”

“She cursed our family and led to the death of my parents,” Ace counters. “And Luffy’s mother. Makino’s parents and Dadan’s. None of us have any loyalty left after all of this. It’s been years and so many of the Clan dead because of her lover leaving her, we’re all tired of her curse now.”

Marco hums nodding, “So we need salt, lighter fluid, and shovels.”

Dadan cackles, “Oh darling, if you think we don’t have all of those, you haven’t been paying attention to the histories that you’ve been reading over.”

“I’ll help you carry them,” Brook states tripping over his feet to follow Dadan out the room, ducking under the doorway and moving with her.

“I think you should all get some rest,” Robin says smiling mischievously, lifting the book up to cover her mouth. “I’m sure tonight will be far more fun than you can imagine.”

“Marco. Sabo,” Ace swallows, his hands shaking as he shoves them into his pocket. “Can I borrow you both for a few minutes?”

Sabo hums, “Of course you can, Ace. We’re more than willing to be borrowed.”

“Thank you,” Ace says slowly. “Follow me.”

Marco shrugs as they both follow Ace, the small room that he leads them to, the whole thing filled to the brim with flowers and herbs, brightly colored and comforting in a way that Marco almost hadn’t been expecting.

“This is my favorite room in the house,” Ace says smiling softly, touching the small work table in the middle of the room, his eyes looking anywhere but at them. “It’s where I cast a spell when I was younger. A true love spell, so that I would never fall in love.”

Sabo feels his heart stop for a short moment, hands clinging to his shorts, “You made a spell to never fall in love?”

“Yeah,” Ace snorts. “Do you want to see it?”

“Please,” Marco says in a tone that Sabo has learned in falsely calm. “I would like to see it.”

Ace slides the small notebook from his pocket over to them, already open to a page titled true love spell as he glanced away from them, “Little kids have stupid ideas growing up, you know, about love and how it works. I thought that two people would never love me, so I made up two people that could never be real with a list of qualities that I thought no one could have.”

“A list?” Marco says scanning the page slowly.

“They would both be blond,” Ace repeats from memory, closing his eyes. “One with eyes like forget-me-nots and the other with eyes the same shade of green as mint, one will be able to flip pancakes in the pan and the other will read Latin, one will have burn scars and the other will have a family crest that he keeps close, I’ll never have to lie to them, they won’t care that I have magic, and,” He glances up at them nervously. “They’ll love me.”

Sabo reads over the spell because there it is, written out and waiting for him to read them, “You wished for us?”

“I wished for a true love, true loves?” Ace pauses debating the name. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is, I don’t know if your feelings are real or if I made you care about me. And don’t say that you don’t care. Everyone knows you care. Luffy knows you care and he spends more of his time with Zoro then anything.”

“And,” Marco asks catching Ace’s attention. “And if we want to stay? If we don’t care?”

“I, I can’t do that to you,” Ace says looking away from them. “I care about you. I’ve probably cared about you since the moment that stupid spell was made and now I can’t bear the thought that you might only l-love me because of a spell. So after this, please, please.”

“What if we still miss you?”

Ace doesn’t answer, already vanishing down the hallway, the notebook still on the counter top before them.

Makino leans on her shovel over the grave, her gloved hands holding tight, staring at the coffin, old and broken in places, her teeth on edge and her hair standing on end. It burns to see the salt being poured down over the grave, enough to make it look like a strange snowfall in the middle of late summer as the rest of the others start to grab the gasoline, dumping it down on top of the mess.

“Will it light?” She whispers to Dadan, because she hopes it will, hopes it works. She wants her son to know his father. To have Shanks be more than another victim of their family’s curse. Like so many others. “Will it work?”

“I hope it burns to ash,” Dadan mutters back fiercely as Ace lights the match, Luffy refusing to join them, just this once staying behind as Zoro’s health got worse, and drops it into the grave, refusing to step back as it roared to life. “Well.”

Ace stares at it, his hands fists at his side and his duet of blonds watching him closely.

“They’re plotting.”

“Should we warn him.”

“No,” Makino says feeling a lightness in her heart for the first time in a very long time. “I think it’s fate.”

“Not a curse?”

She smiles as one of Luffy’s friends shout that Zoro was doing better already, “No, just fate this time.”

Ace spins the package on the table in confusion, the return address was blank and the house shivered with anticipation, the broom had collapsed several times over the last hour, announcing guests though none had yet to appear.

“I doubt it’s going to bite you,” Shanks states bouncing his son on his knee, Benn sitting close enough to make sure that there wasn’t any accidents with a too wiggly baby and the one armed man. “Just open it.”

“It could be a curse,” Ace says drumming his hand over the cardboard.

“Like this house would let an outside curse make it in,” Benn states frowning at Shanks and his son. “Sir, we are trying to feed him, not bounce him. If you would please stop?”

“But he likes it,” Shanks pouts. “Don’t you, baby?”

Ace rolls his eyes, opening the box, pulling out the letter first even though his fingers brush over something else, blinking slowly at the words on the top.

True Love Spell

He’ll have hair as dark as onyx

And eyes like silver

Ace dumps the box out on the table, scattering everything away from him as his hands shake, pulling things closer as he reads over the list, starting with the stone and the soft piece of silver as Shanks raises an eyebrow at him.

He’ll be loyal and kind

He’ll know how to cook

Ace bites his lip at the choices and can almost feel Luffy in the way things were picked, in how the spell is laid out. He won’t believe that his little brother didn’t help them plan this out. Luffy has to have helped them.

He’ll have magic

He’ll always tell us the truth

And he’ll love us.

“Ace?” Shanks asks slowly. “Are you-”

“They’re here,” Ace says already moving to the door, throwing it open and throwing himself into Marco and Sabo’s arms, burying his face into whomever was closer. “You, how dare you.”

“You didn’t come after us,” Sabo whispers into Ace’s ear, holding him tightly. “You didn’t come and so, we thought we should come after you instead.”

Marco’s arm squeezes softly, “Did it work?”