Sabo could say with complete honesty that he'd hated the place that was supposedly his 'home'. He'd hated the people he'd been forced to call parents. He'd hated the way they pushed and prodded him, the way that he'd never been allowed to do anything he wanted to do or be anyone that he wanted to be. He'd hated that his life had already been planned for him and he was expected to fall into line and marry the princess that would further the status of his so-called family. But most of all, he'd hated how overwhelming fake everything was. Fake smiles, fake laughs, fake family, fake, fake, fake.

Fleeing to the Grey Terminal had been the best decision Sabo had ever made. It was cold and dirty and smelt something awful, but the people there mostly ignored him and he ignored them, and best of all there were no rules, no responsibilities, and Sabo could be whoever he wanted to be. The first few weeks were tough, Sabo had to learn to scavenge food on his own – though on good days he found whole piles of food that was merely bruised, misshaped, or slightly bruised. Wasted food that the people of Goa thought nothing of.

But the Terminal was lonely.

The day Sabo met Ace was one of the worst and best days of his life. Worst, because he was tired, having been kept up through the night by the dog-sized rats that plagued the terminal, and hungry, having been chased away from a find by a group of bigger and older men that he'd had no chance of fending off. Worst, because he took out his aggression, his fear, and his desperation on two boys that gave back as good as they got. Best, because those boys became his best friends, his brothers.

Time, which had lost all meaning in the terminal beyond night and day, was quickly rewritten as 'weekends', or the best days, where Sabo found himself running through the terminal, through the forest, alongside his brothers, alive and free, and weekdays, where time dragged and the isolation of the terminal sucked at his soul. A cycle that started as two and five until his brothers managed to stretch it to three and four, but never more.

Which was why Sabo was shocked when Ace and Luffy came tearing towards him on day three of his alone cycle, eyes alight, and voices tumbling over the top of one another in a rush of words that cascaded together until all clarity was lost. When Ace and Luffy had both stopped simultaneously, out of breath but expectant, Sabo had managed only a single word.

"What?"

Luffy had wilted under Sabo's blank expression, but Ace merely lifted his hands off his knees to grasp Sabo's shoulders, shaking him back and forth with every word he managed to huff out.

"Mum. Said. Bring. Home."

Swaying back and forth at Ace's instant shaking, Sabo could only blink at his sworn brother, not really understanding what was going on. Ace and Luffy's mum wanted them to bring what home? Or they were bringing their home up to the mountain? But that didn't sound right. Ace and Luffy had been adamant that their mother strongly disliked (Ace) and made funny faces (Luffy), whenever the mountain bandits were ever mentioned to her.

Sabo's silence had apparently stretched for too long for either of his brothers, as he'd soon found himself being tugged into a run, a hand wrapped around each of his wrists. Sabo had no choice but to follow as they ran through the terminal, past the bandits' hide out, and down a mountain path that he'd watched his brothers disappear down but had never been himself.

Sabo trusted his brothers. He did. But their bright grins did nothing to ease the angry swarm of forest moths that had invaded his stomach as the trees began to thin. The swarm that doubled to an army when at the bottom of the path he caught sight of a pretty lady with long blonde hair and a flowing dress.

She was staring at him.

Sabo wanted to go back to the forest.

What were his brothers thinking bringing him down here?

Ace and Luffy seemed to have caught their breath on the downhill run, but despite seeing their mouths moving Sabo couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. There was no way this was anyone but Ace and Luffy's mum. She was just as pretty as Luffy always exclaimed she was. Lost in what to do, Sabo fell back into the rigid structure that had been beaten into him, but the words stumbled out in a clumsy jumble that he barely managed to round off with his name.

He would have been locked in his room without dinner for such a poor showing back in Goa. Blows not fit for others to see but would have certainly have come behind closed curtains for failing to uphold his station. The outstretched arms had him flinching in fear, his body stiff, even as he was pulled into what he knew was a hug but couldn't ever remember experiencing before. As Ace and Luffy's mum pulled away he couldn't help wishing it could have last forever.

His brothers bounced and weaved between him and their mother as they started walking further away from the forest and into a village. Ace and Luffy shot forward towards a house, back to talking a mile a minute. Sabo paused at the gate as he took in the house that they were ushering him towards. A small, two story house, nothing like the towering terraces of Goa. The garden was bursting with wildflowers; a cacophony of colour that would never have met the exacting standards of Goa gardens, with their manicured lawns and intricately trimmed hedges.

The inside of the house was just as different to anything Sabo had ever seen. Warm and bright, the sun streamed in from all angles and no one seemed to mind the slight chips and cracks in the baby blue paint on the walls. It was nothing like the cavernous and cold corridors of boring beige that he'd grown up in.

Before he knew it, Sabo found himself full from a dinner that he hadn't had to fight for, hadn't had to scavenge for, hadn't had to know which of fourteen forks to use before he could even take a bite, made to clean his teeth with a toothbrush that had been thrust into his hand by Ace, and then dragged by an ever energetic Luffy into a bedroom that Sabo was sure hadn't previously occupied three beds.

Sabo's eyes were just beginning to fall as he vacantly watched Ace and Luffy's mum brush Luffy's hair back and press a kiss to his forehead. His eyes lazily tracked her movements as she did the same to Ace. His eyes widened when her warm hand brushed through his hair and a kiss was dropped on top of his own forehead. A soft hum reached his ears as Ace and Luffy's mum brushed her hand through his hair again.

"It was about time that I had a blond-haired son."

A second kiss was pressed to his head as a 'goodnight' was whispered around the room.

Son.

She called him her son.

Son.

Sabo had thought he'd never want to hear a person refer to him as their son ever again… certainly not by those back in Goa… but here, tucked under a warm cacoon of blankets, the snores of his brothers drifting across the room, Sabo thought maybe, just maybe, he could get used to being someone's son again.

Son.

The single word echoed around his head as his eyes fell shut, the pull of sleep finally too strong to resist.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of Sabo's pov! Thank you so much for all of your support!