Work Text:
Would you still love me if you knew I had forgotten you?
You, with the dreams as wide as the sea and freer than anything I’d seen before
Pure in a way that the air of high town could ever hope to be
You did it, I’ve learned.
You accomplished those impossible things that we would stay up late at night to talk about.
Our futures, ours and no one else’s..
And you got so big!
You were so bright and so bold that even when I didn’t know our past - when I couldn’t remember who you were to me - I still knew your name.
You made sure of that
I’m so proud of you
I wish we could’ve celebrated together
We were only 5 when we met, can you believe that?
Five years old….
How could we have been holding onto so much anger when we were that young?
It’s not a rare phenomenon, sadly. I’ve seen it in all kinds of people around the world, but it still enrages me to see it.
It shouldn’t have to be that way.
I want it to change. I am going to change it.
And right there’s another way that you snuck back into my life; the freedom
When we were kids I was so lost. I felt pinned down and caged, alone, afraid. Helpless. Doomed by the world around me and its ideas of what it “should” be.
But you changed that.
You were the first person ever to change that.
You made me feel like my actions mattered, that taking my life into my own hands might actually be possible.
..I don’t think I ever thanked you.
I don’t think you would’ve accepted my thanks.
At least, you certainly wouldn’t have back then.
But I wish I could tell you anyway because you truly made me into who I am now
What I’ve been striving to do all of these years is to give others what you to gave me.
I want to be the type of person that you were for me; to give people hope that they could make their lives into something better - something that they’d dared to want despite everything.
Even when I forgot about you, I never stopped trying to recreate that feeling.
You were always with me in that regard.
And I’ve seen that tattoo, I know I was with you, too.
But still, I mourn that we lived our lives so separately.
I have learned so much about the person you became, but I never got to meet that person.
You never got to meet me, either.
“What if’s” don’t help, and - although it may sound cruel given the circumstances- I wouldn’t trade the life I have for anything.
I’m happy, and I’ve lived more freely than I ever could’ve back in Goa, even if I'd had the two of you.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what would be different if I’d gotten to see you again.
Would you be mad at me?
The “you” I knew probably would’ve been.
But I’ve grown so much since then, I feel like a different person.
I’m sure you felt the same. I mean, you look happier than I ever saw you.
Just who did you become in my absence?
What would that person say if he saw me now?
Could you forgive me for leaving you alone the way that I did?
Could you forgive me for forgetting you?
You are my brother, my first best friend
I know that now.
And we swore it would always be that way.
No matter where we were or how much time passed, we would always come back to each other
If we couldn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because we would always know that the other was out there, writing their own story.
But I didn’t know
Neither did the two of you
For the longest time we had no idea that the other existed.
I never got to come back to you. And unlike you I couldn’t even hold on to an outdated memory. And now, you’ll never come back to me. What does that make us?
I don’t want us to change, but haven’t we?
Did the world take away our brotherhood long before taking your life?
What would you even say to me?
I don’t know.
I never will, and that hurts more than anything.
People who knew you can tell me what they think you’d do. We can guess all we want but the fact is that I don’t really know you anymore.
Not like I used to, at least.
But I do know one thing;
Deny it all you want, but you are - and always have been - a huge softy for a stupid kid in a straw hat.
I know it, because I’m the same, haha!
And I think that connects us enough.
We’re both still his brothers.
That, at least, is something I’m sure you’d agree with.
And..I think that means we’re still each other’s brothers as well
So if I could tell you one thing right now, it wouldn’t be anything beyond this:
Thank you.
Thank you for living your life the way you did.
Thank you for letting yourself be loved.
Thank you for fulfilling my request and keeping our kid brother safe.
Thank you for showing me freedom.
Thank you for being my brother.
Wherever you are now, just know that I’ve got him
He won’t be alone
And your name will never be forgotten
Please rest easy, I promise I’ll pick up where you left off
I love you
-Sabo