pairing: ace/sabo theme: missing (you)
things go missing when sabo needs them, and ace doesn't help him look. he sprawls nearby—headphones clamped over his ears, tracking eyes, socked feet jittering—while the cushions come up and the wardrobe's gutted. sabo's mornings are a flurry; new chalk outlines for his keys, reminders that lead nowhere, and the vague sense that he’s losing his mind.
it’s two weeks after moving together that sabo starts a ledger. he’s got a bad head, one too many hits loose, and memory shares an address with his absent items. wallet bedside drawer, he writes. gloves top shelf, and his lighter, prone to the most migration, living room ashtray. he’s running out of paper by month three, at the same speed he’s running out of patience.
then things appear where they shouldn't.
ace’s pockets, turned inside out, were full of harvested buttons sabo doesn’t recall losing. ace’s backpack stayed bloated, and the demi-saison jacket sabo'd been sweating without, swapped for a peacoat at too-hot-degrees, is stuffed inside.
so, you’re nipping my shit, sabo stares down at a fountain pen he’d bought on impulse, used only once and freshly pulled from ace’s weed pouch. sabo would let him have anything he asked for. why are you filching my shit?
ace isn't even using any of it.
the ledger answers before ace does.
seasonal raids, when sabo's work conjured plane tickets on the table where he couldn't misplace them, waiting on a passport. ace hates dragon with gravity, sabo's work too, which smuggled time away from them. they'd video call in starved minutes between sleep and responsibility, ace bitching in his hammer-swung voice, sabo laughing it quiet. his ledger's obsolete. he closes it in time for ace to step out of the shower.
“oi, 'bo—” drawled and lazy. “you seen my razors? m’ scuffed.”
looking up, sabo’s smile pinches, teasing. “no clue.”
ace’s eyes slide to him, fluent suspicion, heat-red. “that right?”
sabo hums. “cross my heart—or yours. one n’ the same.”
the towel's hooked on ace’s hips, where bone hinges and belted muscle cuts inward. it’s a hand towel, if anything, far smaller than his preferred pick. sabo has a good idea of why that is. he takes a final sip of orange juice, staring at the pulp wisps.
ace keeps glaring, and sabo can’t help the sliced, boyish grin he aims at him.
“you can use my electric?” sabo trills, and the deadpan makes him laugh. he splays his arms. “search me, baby. might find what you're missing."












