Work Text:
Memo to Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp
Subject: Immediate Deployment
Location: Goa Kingdom, Dawn Island
Garp,
Don’t complain, you’ll get a few days to spend on vacation after this circus is over - just ‘inspect’ the region to verify it’s safe for the World Noble coming for a formal observation, you don’t even need to stick around for the ceremonies around his arrival and departure. Give your neighbors something visible to be proud of, that’s all I’m asking. And DON’T cause trouble while you’re at it!
-Sengoku
By now, Sabo thinks he’s easily spoken to half the people in High Town, and all of them know about the impending fire. To them, it’s something as ordinary as the weather; they don’t understand, they don’t care, people are going to die because of this and his brothers are still out there-
“Hey, there he is!”
Dammit.
The guards converge, already cursing, because they’ve definitely figured out by now Sabo bites when they try to pin him down and drag him home. But he’ll keep fighting to get away, to get out, to warn the people in Grey Terminal and find Ace and Luffy- he just needs to find someone who cares, first, who might be able to help- Large hands grab at his shoulders, his arms, and Sabo twists, already snarling, already looking for the weakest link to break through and keep running. But there are more guards this time, surrounding him, caging him in. They’re learning, which makes this harder, but Sabo refuses to give up-!
A flash of white. A man bodily picked up and moved aside. A booming voice, familiar and terrifying but so very welcome right now, “SABO! What did you do this time, brat?”
If this were the jungle, he’d try to flee. If this were any other day with his brothers, Sabo would protest, call the old man a shitty geezer and yell for him to go away. But this is High Town, and it’s the day before a fire will be set in the Terminal, and all Sabo can bring himself to say is a half-sobbed cry of “Gramps!”
The wide grin on Garp’s face vanishes. He instantly reaches into the circle of frozen guards to pluck Sabo out of their hands, tucking him out of reach. “Hey now, what’s with all this? You hurt?” Actual sobs and tears are pouring out now, Sabo too relieved to try and stop them. Frowning deeply, Garp looks away from him to glare at the guards. “Just what were you all trying to do with my grandson?!”
“S-sir-!” One of the men squeaks. “We- that’s- we didn’t know, sir, we just-!”
“G-gramps,” Sabo sniffles, grabbing the collar of his uniform and tugging. “Theres’ no- time, we- we gotta find- Ace! Luffy!”
That frown swings back in his direction. “Find them? What happened?”
“Pirates,” Sabo croaks, and Garp’s eyes flare red.
Eventually, right about the time they’re leaping over rooftops in Edgetown, Sabo gets ahold of himself enough to explain, all of it, starting with his shitty noble father showing up, agreeing to go with him to protect Ace and Luffy, but then the Bluejam crew keeping them as Sabo walked away and now there’s going to be a fire and he doesn’t know where his brothers are doesn’t know if they’re safe or okay or what-
“We’ll find ‘em, brat,” Garp rumbles, his grim tone somehow reassuring. “And then we’ll get all three of you back on the mountain, where you’ll be safe. Where you belong.”
That’s the best thing Sabo has heard in two days.
So he holds on tight as his Gramps soars through the air, barely touching down long enough to propel them both back into the sky, and focuses on getting his breathing under control. Because soon enough, the two of them are bounding out into the Terminal, and turning, like Gramps knows exactly where he’s going, can sense where his other grandsons are. Sabo sees the ocean getting closer; catches a glimpse of a pirate ship anchored in a hidden cove, surrounded by mountains of trash; and then they’re coming down on top of one of those massive piles, crashing through it, through the roof hidden by garbage and into a large room underneath.
When the dust clears, Sabo uncurls, and sees Bluejam’s crew, staring with stunned expressions. More importantly, he sees his brothers, tied back to back against a thick wood pole.
“What the hell,” someone starts to ask, but it ends in an abrupt gasp as Gramps straightens from his crouched landing.
“So these are the pirates who took my grandsons!” There’s that too-wide, too-sharp grin that promises danger, which makes all the men around them stumble back a step. “Bah, you all don’t look so tough - want to test yourselves against a Vice Admiral instead of three little boys?”
Sabo tries not to take that personally, even as he hears Ace squawk with outrage at being called ‘little’.
“Hold on a minute, now,” that’s Bluejam, sitting tensely on the edge of a big chair, staring at Gramps with abject horror. “We have a deal with the King of Goa-!”
“Don’t care,” Gramps huffs, before his fist lashes out at the nearest pirate. Panic ensues; Sabo takes it as his cue to wriggle free and drop to the ground, stealing a fallen knife as he heads for his brothers, away from where Gramps gleefully starts tossing pirates around and calling them all kinds of insulting names.
“Sabo!” Luffy cheers, beaming. There’s fresh snot and tears on his face; someone made his little brother cry, and recently. “Sabo came back!”
“Of course I did,” he chokes out, plucking at the ropes to figure out how they’re tied. It would be convenient if he just needed to slice one big knot, but no such luck. Instead, Sabo starts to saw at the loops around Ace, figuring he’d rather get his best friend loose first, to watch his back when he switches to Luffy. Granted, that means blazing grey eyes are staring intently at him as he works, which doesn’t help matters. But he keeps his fingers steady, keeps them moving quickly, and after this is all over he’ll find a way to properly apologize for all the shit he’s put them through-
But.
Just as Sabo cuts through the last rope, Ace’s eyes flicker up, over his shoulder. They widen. And then Sabo is getting shoved to one side, hard, hard enough he loses his grip on the knife and feels his heart leap into throat. Which is the only, the one and only reason he doesn’t look up and immediately scream at the sight of Bluejam pinning Ace against his chest, pistol ready to fire.
Luffy cries out. Gramps knocks down another pirate and turns. Bluejam practically shrieks, “Hold it right there, or I blow this little shit’s brains out!”
There’s an awful moment where everything freezes, suspended in a brief eternity. Then Luffy shouts “NO!” and Ace snarls “Shut up, Lu, Gramps get them out-” and Garp the Fist, Hero of the Marines, rumbles like a volcano about to awaken: “Put. Him. Down.”
“Oh I can put him down,” Bluejam fucking grins, digging the barrel of his pistol against the side of Ace’s head. “Like a dog, if that’s what you want. Or, you can surrender, and maybe I’ll let him and the others walk out of here on their own.”
Ace snarls again, but doesn’t kick, doesn’t squirm, doesn’t even try to get out of this. A chill creeps up Sabo’s spine at the thought of why. “Gramps, forget it, I’m not worth- just get Luffy and Sabo out of here, before these guys set the Terminal on fire!”
Hell- that’s how the nobles of Goa are planning to deal with the trash, inanimate and living alike. Sabo sucks in a sharp breath at the confirmation, but Gramps doesn’t so much as twitch. His gaze locks onto Ace; not Bluejam, not the pistol, Ace. And he says: “You are all my boys. None of you are worth less than one another. And I will do whatever I have to, in order to keep you alive.”
Ace’s breath hitches.
“Touching,” Bluejam drawls, and if the situation were any less dire Sabo would kick him in the knee. “Now put your hands up.” Slowly, Gramps does it. He’s actually surrendering. Only two other members of the pirate crew are still conscious, and they’re clearly wary of getting close enough to try tying the old man up- if that would even work-
Too late, Sabo sees where this is really going.
Bluejam moves the pistol, pointing it straight at Gramps. That big a chest, there’s no way for him to miss- Luffy yells, Ace screams, Sabo scrambles to get his feet back under him and lunge with the stolen knife-
In the blink of an eye, Garp the Fist moves. His hand wraps around that pistol and crunches it, before Bluejam has a chance to fire, and then his other hand comes up and wrenches Ace out of the pirate’s grasp. Again, too fast to see, he throws a punch, and Bluejam is fucking g o n e, replaced by bare dirt and a big hole in the wall.
It’s dramatic.
It’s fantastic.
But it also, unfortunately, kind of wrecks the room’s structural stability.
The roof groans alarmingly, already damaged from the earlier hole, and now the walls begin to shudder, collapsing inward. Luffy yelps as some trash drops down, bouncing off his head- he’s still tied to the pole, Sabo needs to-
Sabo doesn’t get a chance to do anything, as Gramps plucks him off the ground, before grabbing and breaking the pole to slide Luffy up off the bottom piece, but that just makes the imminent collapse happen faster. “Keep your heads down!” The man laughs, bending his knees and then jumping straight upward, through the debris crashing down towards them. Sabo does as he’s told for once, head ducked and eyes squeezed shut, even as his hands reach and grab and cling to the boys on either side of him.
And then they’re out, back into the sunshine, Gramps still laughing and Luffy joining in. They land in a clearing not too far away, a handful of people scrambling away with startled shouts. They’re out, they’re okay, but Sabo can’t bring himself to let go.
Gramps kneels down, practically folding himself in half so all three of them can find their footing on the rough ground. “Bwahahaha, that was fun!”
“Yeah!” Luffy agrees, twisting to wrap his little stretchy arms around both Ace and Sabo, “You were just, BAM! And then he was gone, that was great!! Right Ace?”
Their oldest brother grunts, a positive sound. One of his hands is fiercely gripping Sabo’s coat; the other has yet to let go of their grandfather’s shirt. Something softens in the man’s expression, and he pats Ace’s head. “Hey, it’s okay now, brat. But you three need to head on home, alright? Stay out of sight while I deal with things.”
That, finally, is enough to make Sabo speak. “What things?”
“Ah, never you mind, boys, just boring grown-up stuff.” It’s a perfectly delivered line. Off the cuff, sounds sincere, an absolutely normal turn of phrase. But when Sabo glances up, there’s a Look in the old man’s eyes. “Go on now, I’ll be back for training by tomorrow!” Luffy promptly starts whining, and tugging at them. Ace lets out a shaky breath, releasing his grip, but giving Gramps a light punch as his version of a farewell. Of the three of them, Sabo is the only one to look back when they start moving, hurrying along the familiar trails through trash and garbage.
He's the only one to see that too-wide, too-sharp grin Gramps turns towards Goa.