Title: Lightless
Rating: T
Pairing: Luffy/Ace
Warnings: spoilers for ch574 + Sabo
Note: Belated bday ficc for Ace. 0101 Happy Birthday dear Ace!
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece

xxx

Lightless

"Is there anything you want for your birthday?" Luffy asks a month before Ace's birthday.

When Ace responds with a small smile and a "no, not really", Luffy asks again the next day, and the day after until Ace answered with something that Luffy could give him. The problem was, Ace kept giving him answers such as – "I'll be happy with just seeing you smile" or something like "if you really insist, maybe a slice of cake?" Luffy frowned. He wanted to give something special to his special someone, not something that would obviously already be a part of his brother's birthday.

On the day of Ace's birthday, Luffy wakes Ace up with a sweet kiss on the lips, resulting in Ace cruelly pinching Luffy's elastic cheeks. His own cheeks flaring red.

Luffy apologises with a saddened face as he rubs his cheeks, "I really thought hard about what to get you…but I couldn't think of anything worthy…"

Ace blinks albeit stupidly before he places a hand softly on top of Luffy's head. He rubs the other's hair, "didn't I tell you not to worry about it?"

Luffy musters up a smile before he holds his brother's hand tightly. They spend their whole day training before catching their dinner and roasting it over a fire.

The fire is put out by Luffy and he stands up abruptly, "well then, let's go visit Sabo now! I'm sure he's already waiting for cake."

"Cake?" Ace asks.

"I at least got you cake", Luffy frowned, well, it was really Dadan who got it…but well, he did remind her.

The two brothers make their way to Sabo with light footsteps. They sit before Sabo's grave and smile timidly at each other. The night is dark. Luffy lights up the single candle on Ace's cake and their surroundings are illuminated.

Luffy turns to take a look at Ace. He sees the other's gentle smile and he thinks he's in heaven.

But the light disappeared when Ace blew the candle out and Luffy shook himself out of his trance. He pulls out the packet of small sparkles he had 'found' recently, he lights them up and sticks on of them right in front of Sabo's headstone, he hands a couple to Ace and holds a couple in his own hands. The two brothers watch as the sparks fly, moving their arms around and painting the sky bright with their sparkles.

"They look like stars, so bright and full of life."

The night sky is littered with stars as Luffy sits in front of Ace's memorial – his gravestone. He's holding onto a barrel of beer, intending to finish it in the next couple of minutes or so.

"The stars don't shine in this world", Luffy mumbled as he gave them a glance.

He feels as though he's ventured into a lightless world where nothing was colour anymore, where nothing sparkled anymore. Luffy cringed at the memory of him watching his brother leave for a journey across the seas. He remembered watching his brother wave with a huge smile. And he remembers waving back with just as much enthusiasm.

However, somewhere along the way, he seemed to have warped his memories into him blinded with tears as he watched his brother's back walk further and further away from him, into a light so bright it turned lightless.

And Luffy does not smile as he gets up and instead of chugging down the rest of the beer, he empties it before the other's grave.

"It's lightless."