Wings spread wide, the flames had dissipated and faded away. You were massive. Larger than you even thought you could've been. Big enough to carry several people on your back. Ace was small on the ground, but not so small that you didn't know it was him.

His fire. His sun.

Your gaze shifts at the thought and you see the sun rising into the sky. Some part of your body twitches, as though at this size you could make the flight. You hear Ace yell your name, and feel his hands grab the soft feathers he could reach.

"Change back!" He's seems almost ready to climb you, if he has to, to be heard. "CHANGE BACK!"

You lean down and step back, gently bonking him with your cheek. Gentle as you are with the action he grunts, arms grabbing onto your face to keep himself upright.

"Don't fly away." The words are softer, but desperate. There's a fear in them, in his fingers, that you'd never felt before. You weren't sure if it was because you'd flown into his fire, or because he could sense your desire to fly into the very sun.

You're afraid to talk in this form, worried that a whisper would leave your mouth like some rumbling mountain. You're certain you're not quite that big, but everything is sharper, closer, farther away, muted, brighter. It's hard to know what part of it all that you're actually interacting with.

You remember Marco's words, and focus on the parts of yourself that you know well. Hands, fingers, the curve of your elbow into your forearm. All the small details that few others would know or pay attention to, and slowly you shrink, and shift.

Ace's arms around your face turn into arms around your body. He's not holding onto you tightly, but he makes no move to step back as you change, as though you would slip away into pieces of ash if he let go entirely.

"Sorry," you say quietly, and Ace's arms tighten around you.

"You're okay." He says softly, words disappearing into your hair. "It's okay." You can feel his heart thundering in his chest, his fingers trembling against you, and his warm breath sinking into your hair.

"I scared you."

"You terrified me." He corrects, his grip loosening a little as a nervous sound escapes him. "I thought I..." His body trembles, and you remember Sabo's words. About Ace having his own demons. Between his curse and his father, it wasn't hard to know what he was thinking.

Especially since you'd just got done literally flying into his flames.

"... You're not cursed to hurt everyone you love." You say quietly, arms returning the trembling embrace. "And you apparently can't hurt me at all."

You lean back a little to give him a smile, and he tries to return it.

"What happened?"

You open your mouth, close it, and then shake your head. "I don't know. It was like staring into the sun, and some part of me just took over."

"... Some part of you took over... and flew you into my fire?"

"Sun." You correct. "I... we?... Thought it was a sun." You look at your hands for a moment before you leaned into him, setting your head against his chest. "All I could think was that the sun was full of peace, and life, and safety. That I needed to be in it."

"... We?" He questions, stepping back and looking into your eyes.

You nod. "It's... it's not over-bearing, or it wasn't, but there's something else." Your brows furrow and your face scrunches up in thought. "Like an instinct. A driving force you have to be very conscious of to override. When people run upstairs in fear because up in a tree is safe, so up in a building is too, but if you stop and think about it, it's a bad idea for certain situations."

Ace grins. "Like being chased by a murderer."

You laugh. "Yeah! Not a situation where many people stop and think before panic-dashing upstairs."

"Or into a ball of fire."

You flinch a bit and lean into him again, giving him a hug. "I am really sorry-."

"It's alright." He interrupts, fingers in your hair and against the small of your back. "Now that we know we can be careful about it."

"Should probably tell Marco." You mutter, letting your cheek smush against him and enjoying the warmth.

"I can let him know Monday," Ace offers, hands moving against you soothingly. "Let's get the rest of the stuff in the truck and head back." He kisses the top of your head. "You can rest on the way back as long as you keep me company for naps when we get home."

"Rest? Why would I-?" Your sentence breaks as exhaustion buckles you. If not for Ace you would've just folded into the grass. "What?"

"Breakthroughs with curses are always exhausting." Ace says with a soft chuckle, lifting you up easily and getting you situated in the passenger seat of the truck. "You might have been energized by my fire, but you turned into a massive bird, palomita, and that takes a lot of energy."

He gives you a crooked, understanding smile as your eyes droop against your will. "We need to build up your stamina."

"Yeah... I..." You mutter, trying to voice your agreement, before everything goes dark and exhaustion pulls you into a deep sleep.

A deep enough sleep you don't wake as Ace gets the last few heavy items loaded into the truck, and you don't wake as his fingers slip through yours, but the warmth soothes your dreams.

Dreams of flying. White feather glimmering with rainbows at their edges from the sun that warmed you. A song that rang clear and multi-layered in the open air. A sound that banished... something. Something that befouled the edges of your dream, but the sound pushed it back.

No.

Pulled it in.

The taint was discomforting in its color, in its sensation. Thick and heavy in your lungs, full of needles and searing pain in your muscles. It soaked into you as the world became healthier.

Despite how it felt like sludge against your tongue, you weren't afraid of it. It was your nature to take in all the ichor and illness into yourself. You could survive it. You survived decades of it. This was nothing. This was temporary.

As so you flew up, and up, and ever upward in your dream until you and all the cruelties that were bound to your bones were consumed by the sun. Fire burned away everything that clung to you, but it was little more than soap and water against your skin, leaving you refreshed.

Refreshed enough you managed to open your eyes.

You were warm, and comfortable. Really warm. There was a steady rhythm that was already working with the warmth to lull you back to sleep, but you managed to open your eyes enough to take in your surroundings.

The blanket was pulled up to your shoulders, and you could see Sabo in a chair across from you. He was reading a book quietly, and looked up to see you looking at him. He put one gloved finger to his lips, smiling in a way that made you wonder why he looked so cat-like.

The soft sound of snoring caught your attention as you rose ever so slightly up and back down.

Realization sank in before you even looked to be sure, but you were curled up in Ace's lap while he was laid out on the recliner. His hands were very carefully placed so he could keep you comfortable without being untoward.

"He wouldn't go into your room or his," Sabo begins, voice barely above a whisper. "Didn't want to wake you or worry you, but wanted to nap with you." He closes his book and smiles brightly. "This was the compromise."

Your brother's explanation, and his very existence honestly, were just making you more and more embarrassed, but you were also entirely too comfortable to want to move. Instead you reached up and lifted Ace's hat, which was barely on his head as it was, and set it over your own face.

You could hear Sabo chuckle quietly as he got up. The soft click of shoes against the floor was the only indication he was drawing nearer. His voice was even softer than before, but you heard him loud and clear.

"There's a rule about hats, little sister." He says in a teasing tone before leaving the room entirely.

You pull the hat down a little harder, and can tell that Ace is awake.

"I can feel you smiling." You grumble in your current flustered state.

"Lots ta' smile about." He replies quietly, moving just enough to hug you close for a moment.

"... What's the hat rule?"

"Mm, who knows?" He muses, the delight apparent in his voice. "Wanna nap a little longer? It's barely evening."

"Is there... is there a time element to the hat rule?" You mutter and feel Ace trying desperately to suppress a laugh.

"There isn't, mi luz." He grins as you look up at him and kisses your forehead. "The rule's effect is instantaneous."

You relax, letting yourself get comfortable again before you say, very slowly, and as threateningly as you can. "So you do know what the hat rule is."

The nervous chuckle that escapes Ace feels like a tiny victory as the two of you doze back into another nap. It's not just his body heat that makes it easy to fall asleep around him, but it's also how comfortable he makes you feel.

After all, even you have heard of the hat rule.

A/N - about 5 more chapters to go (I just got done loosely outlining them. Thank you for enjoying this story so far =D )