Chapter Text
When morning came Sabo woke up in the cabin he was sharing with a few other revolutionaries. He had found out previously that the Whitebeards keep a few special cabins empty for guests or visiting subordinate captains.
It made this whole trip a lot easier. A few of the other guys in the room were all dead asleep, Sabo recognized most of them would be having killer hangovers this morning.
Sabo doesn’t ever remember having the luxury of sleeping in. The RA keeps a strict schedule to get everything done, and he’s not usually one for vacations.
Also, his stomach demands to be fed.
Sabo slides out the side of the hammock, trying to keep it from spinning around too much, and not make noise for the others. He pads his way over to where his stuff has been thrown on the floor and pulls out another pair of clothes.
Usually, he’s only got his one outfit JUST three different pairs of the exact same thing, he likes to think it’s his uniform. Or, he’s on an undercover mission and wears a costume. But he went and did a special shopping trip for the occasion and got a bright pink and teal floral shirt with khaki shorts.
It seemed appropriate for a vacation.
He changes in the middle of the room. Not caring if anyone sees him since, one; they’re all out of it, and two; they’re all way too comfortable around each other anyway.
When he’s ready he heads for the kitchen following the scent of breakfast, and the few wayward pirates he runs into.
When Sabo gets there, it’s a huge buffet with some of the most delicious smelling breakfast food he’s ever known in his life. He quickly grabs a plate and starts piling it on.
Sabo ends up with three plates in total, and when he looks back at the galley and scans the seats, his face lights up when he sees Ace sitting with the first and fifth division commanders. Sabo waltz on over.
“I hope this table isn’t reserved for commanders only?” He asks, leaning over slightly to give a grin at the pirates, but not enough to drop the plate that’s balancing on his head.
“No, you’re free to sit wherever you like- yoi” Marco states, gesturing to the empty seats next to them, and the many many others in the galley. Sabo sits next to Marco, at a diagonal to Ace and across Vista.
Ace already has his face stuffed, but he gives Sabo a warm chipmunk cheeked grin.
Vista has his head down on the table.
“Fair warning,” Vista lifts up a hand without lifting his head, “It’ll probably be breakfast all day till dinner time, Thatch says it’s the best hangover food and not everyone’s gonna be up before dinner anyway.”
“That’s what all of you get. I can’t believe you had a drinking contest with Pops behind my back-yoi” Marco glares at Vista, feeling his brother's eyes on him Vista rolls his wrist around. Ace looks over at Sabo.
“Wha’ you’ ‘uys pa’ns fo’ too da’?” Ace asks, he covers his mouth with his hand as he speaks, even though he’s still eating.
“What did you just say?” Vista actually looks up at Ace, his eyebrows scrunched up and mouth gapped open.
“I’m not really sure what our plans are?” Sabo states after swallowing a big bite. “Koala is most likely gonna spend the day with Jinbei, and after last night most of the others are probably getting over a massive hangover.”
“How did you even know what he just said?”
“So that means you’re free? No other reunion or RA obligations?” Ace asks, he twirls his fork into his food, which Marco squints at. Ace doesn’t usually play with his food, he’s too busy eating it most of the time.
“Yup! Unless Hack wants to hangout, but he’s probably also with Jinbei for a bit at least. He’ll enjoy the silence of not having to keep Koala and I company if he can have it.” Sabo responds.
“Great!” Ace says before shovelling the rest of his food into his mouth.
Sabo grins and starts to do the same.
They both finish at the same time, with a big slam of their final plates, then rush off into the kitchen to wash them.
Vista glances over at Marco, Marco eyes Vista.
“I didn’t know another Ace existed.” Vista says, then turns his face back into his arms. Marco takes a sip of his tea, and looks back at where they disappeared into the kitchen.
–○—○–
“So, what’s the plan?” Sabo asks, he walks side by side with Ace down the long hallways of the Moby Dick.
“You’ve pulled pranks before right?” Ace asks him, glancing over to gauge Sabo’s reaction. His face lights up with a beaming smile.
“Have I!” Sabo talks with his hands, wrists rotating and fingers flailing. “I used to be the terror of the RA as a kid, they couldn’t stop me from being a menace. Still am when I’ve got the time.”
“Well, now you have the time, and you're on the Moby Dick, not where-ever the RA base is.”
Sabo looks at Ace, dumbfounded for a second, before a grin slowly starts to grow. “Oh, Oh this is gonna be good. I’ve never thought of pranking a pirate crew, unless it was in a fight of course. But an Emperor crew at that, this one’s for the history books.”
“Glad you’re on board.” Ace chuckles. He turns suddenly, and nudges a door open with his foot. Walking in, Sabo can already tell it’s the map room.
It’s unsurprisingly extravagant. Two of the walls are covered in shelves that have scrolls upon endless scrolls of maps. Another wall is covered by a bare bones map of the new world, basic geography and locations. The last wall, opposite the door, has a desk, fit with drawers that have drafting utensils spilling out of them. Above the desk rests a glass cabinet filled with permanent logposes.
In the center of the room, is a map table. Clearly laid out to be surrounded by a navigation team.
Ace goes over to one of the walls with scrolls. He pulls one out without even looking at it.
“Second division is head of navigation. We’ve planned our course for your guys stay so no one should be in here.” Ace throws the map on the center table and spreads it out. “Aaaaand, they’re all probably hungover right now anyway.”
Sabo looks at the map, and the giddiness only grows within him. “Oh yes,” Sabo says, as he stares at the full map of the Moby Dick.
“First idea, one of my favorites and classics, after a big party, everyone gets woken up by pots and pans.” Ace says, then points over to the storage next to the kitchen. “There’s plenty of extra in here, and we won’t get caught by the fourth division as easily. Then we run down this hall-” Ace drags is finger across the map, “And the bunk rooms are right over here, once you follow this trail, we should turn here, and then there's a hatch upwards to the armory, which has a few different points to leave from, which one will depend on the circumstances at the time.”
Ace finishes, and looks up at Sabo, looking at the oh so familiar contemplating face. The one that would come up with their pick pocketing plans, the one that designed their treehouse, the one that came up with half the plans to kill Luffy when Ace first met him.
Sabo nods, “Sounds pretty good, but we should do something else before it. Everyone’s still asleep so it’s the perfect time to sneak around. There’s one prank I’ve always wanted to try, but it doesn’t really work on the rest of the Revs.” Sabo looks up to see Ace nod his head for him to continue. “Another classic, dye in shampoo.”
Ace looks a little bewildered, “How come that doesn’t work on the Revs?”.
“Most of them don’t care enough about hair color, or are so wildly individual that whatever color they get just seems like fun to them.” Sabo answers, Belo Betty’s hair wasn’t always purple after all. The one time he got Hack with it, the fishman wore it with pride till it faded.
“Well, that one always gets us, my hair’s black so it’s pretty hard to dye, but Thatch, Haruta, and Marco usually end up being spotless despite their light hair.”
“Is there a rule against pranking commanders?” Sabo asks.
“No, Haruta, Thatch, and I are just the prank masters on the Moby, usually when we do shampoo swaps we don’t do eachother’s. Marco’s devil fruit will just fix it for him, he’s a cheater like that.” Ace shrugs.
“So we can’t get Marco, but Thatch and Haruta are fair game.”
Ace smiles, “Oh, they’re more than fair game, they’re the number one target. Can’t dish out what you can’t take.”
“Most of the time for the Revs, we hate getting our clothes swapped rather than hair color changed.”
“Really?” Ace questions.
“Yeah, everyone’s got really unique and intricate outfits, it helps bring out everyone's individualism.” Sabo explains. He doesn’t like it when his clothes get switched either, though it makes for a funny day.
“On the Moby, half the time people just share clothes, doesn’t really matter who's whos as long as it fits. Except for Izou, he’s got a really specific style and doesn’t let anyone else touch it.”
They’re both hunched over the map. Sabo looks at Ace for a second. Ace looks at Sabo. Slowly, two matching cheshire grins grow.
“You get Haruta, I’ll get Thatch,”
“And we meet back up for Izou,”
“Then finish it all off with a chase,”
A plan is set in motion, although, not one that will make anyone happy but the two brothers.
–○—○–
Sabo had to pick the lock for Haruta’s room, good thing he’s an expert at it. Ace was able to just waltz right into Thatch’s private room. Once the shampoo was switched, the two met in front of Izou’s room.
With a pile of various crewmates' clothes, they slowly go through Izou’s wardrobe. Ace takes his time with each kimono and inspects some of the craftsmanship of a few of them.
“Do you have a knack for seam work?” Sabo asks in the quiet of the room. He folds a kimono and puts it on his pile, replacing it with a yellow scarf.
“Nah, but some of these are definitely really nice. Izou’s got good craft, I was just thinking of asking him to make me one.” Ace replied. He carefully folded a red and purple one, in a very different manner then Sabo did. Sabo takes a second to glance between their two piles, noticing the difference.
“I didn’t really take you for the kimono type.” Sabo then glances back at Ace, the Commander only wearing shorts plus a few accessories. Something tells Sabo that Ace never was one for restrictive clothing.
Ace shrugs. “I’ve been to Wano, and have quite a few friends there. I guess, it would just be nice to have something to represent them.” Ace hesitates a little, not sure how to express what he’s trying to say. Something in Sabo’s heart warms, he takes another look at Ace and wonders if any of the accessories he has are meant for someone else.
“Wait- you’ve been to Wano? That’s Kaido’s territory isn’t it?” Sabo realizes what Ace just said. A little flabbergasted.
“Yeah, it was before I joined Pop’s crew.” Shrugging Ace turns back to the kimonos.
Sabo watches him closely as he starts folding again.
He starts copying the way Ace does it.
“Alright, we can move these over to my room because Izou would actually kill me if I let anyone else even attempt to stretch these out.” Ace states, picking up his stack and holding the door to the room open with his foot as he waits for Sabo.
The two store the kimono’s in Ace’s closet, having to throw some stuff around the room for them to all fit.
“Okay, final step?” Sabo asks, tilting his head. Ace grins at him and then runs out the room down the hall. Sabo quickly follows.
Cliiiiiiii
Boooooooonnnnnn
Chaaaaaa
Klaaaaaa
Tiiiiiiiinnnnnggg
The two brothers run through the halls of the Moby, making about as much noise as possible, with pots, lids, and ladles.
“ACE!!!!”
“Portgas I’m gonna murder you.”
“Get out of here!”
Bannnnng
Crashhhhh
“Hahahaha!”
Ace and Sabo’s maniacal laughs join in to the cacophony as well as the swinging of doors and the yells of disgruntled pirates.
There’s at least 20 Whitebeards chasing them. Ace turns around and throws his cooking utensils at the nearest one. Sabo follows doing the same, slowing down the mob only by seconds.
Sabo then grabs the handle to the trap door, pulling it open. Ace launches himself through with his fire. Sabo uses the handle to swing upwards through the hole.
The armory is spacious, and just like Ace said there’s about six different doorways. Two of which are already covered by angry pirates. Having predicted Ace’s course of action, but not predicted the double trouble it seems.
The two boys glance into each other's eyes. Then bolt through opposite doors, splitting the crowd in two.
–○—○–
After running for an hour or so. Sabo runs into what must be the Whitebeards archive room. There seems to be hundreds of books, a few file cabinets, and plenty of reading nooks. Sabo grazes his fingers over some of the book covers. He recognizes a few, different stories from all over the blues. Most of them are fiction books, more for leisure reading than information gathering.
Way different from the Revolutionary Army’s library.
Sabo’s finger automatically stops at a book. He pulls it out and skims the summary. It’s an old fairytale from the East Blue.
A click is heard, and Sabo whips around, tensing, ready to fight or run.
“Oh, hey,” Ace says, his hand still on the doorknob. Sabo lets out a breath, then gives an easy smile.
“Glad to see you got away, haven’t seen you in awhile.” The two hardly crossed paths along their chase. Once or twice maybe, but didn’t stay together long, only trying to confuse and split the mob more.
“Yeah, Moby’s massive, hard to run into people when you’re going through all the smaller hallways.” Ace shrugs, then walks further in, closing the door softly behind him. “What have you got there?”
“A fairytale from the East.” Sabo states, he falls backward onto a cushion in a nook in the bookshelves. Ace lights an extra lantern, and grabs a blanket from an ottoman that Sabo didn’t even know opened.
“Which one?”
“A Living Thing,” Sabo shows the cover to Ace.
“Oh…” Ace hesitates, he turns away and fiddles with the lantern a second.
“What?”
“That’s- it’s just- well it’s a good one, that’s all,”
“Your reaction begs to differ,” Sabo deadpans, lowering the book to just below his nose looking up at Ace over it.
“It is!” Ace exclaims, a little offended, but he looks away again. This time he distracts himself with the blanket, and says under his breath, “Just, someone I knew a long time ago loved it.”
Sabo lowers the book, Ace has turned somber. Something in Sabo’s heart aches. It’s clear to see that Ace has a big heart, one that has more compassion for a single person than some people have in their entire life.
“You said you had some friends in Wano.” Sabo puts the book aside. “Can you tell me about them, I’ve never been to Wano but I’d like to.”
Ace glances over, he searches Sabo for- something? But whatever it is he can’t find it. He smiles though, and tosses the blanket over Sabo’s head and then plops down in the seat next to him.
“As long as you promise to read me that book afterwards.”
“Deal,”
Sabo’s terrible at sleeping around people he doesn’t know. Always one eye open, always aware. He falls dead asleep in the library, sitting up, book in hand, next to Ace.