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Chapter Text

 Marco hadn’t felt anything for more or less his first twenty years of life. More or less because estimating his age was a bit tricky – as an orphan, no one really knew how old he was and didn’t really keep track on his age. In the end, he could be three years younger or older and not be aware. His ageless face and knowledge too wide for his approximated age didn’t help.

 So yes, he hadn’t felt anything for about twenty years. It sometimes happened, he guessed. There were people who never felt anything because their soulmate was dead before they both could hit puberty and start to feel each other. There were people who started to feel being forty or sixty.

 It was maybe a year and a half after Gold Roger’s death when he started to feel someone else. It was not much – minor pains in his limbs, hunger, sleepiness, sadness and, sometimes, panic. It was clear, at least to Marco, what he felt belonged to a child, a baby born the day the feeling bond opened. Marco, after years of being completely alone in his mind, started to feel another person’s presence at the back of his head. He couldn’t explain it well but it was amazing. A bit weird but also comforting and lightening – not being alone ever again.

 His soulmate was born January 1^st and it hurt as fuck, that’s what Marco knew. He hadn’t felt pain in years.

 The emotions didn’t change that much the first couple of years. Baby giddiness, tiredness, grumpiness. Sometimes fear, deep and unjustified. It was the most wonderful experience he got, going through the changes of his soulmate, through the emotions and thoughts his soulmate was starting to have with months passing. How fast they were less and less incomprehensible and undecided. How more and more they were defined and clear-cut.

 Marco himself tried to be as calm as he could – it was like hitting puberty and leaving behind the rebel phase he never quite grow out of. He started to calm down more often, he didn’t get angry anymore, he stopped screaming altogether, having relaxed, I-couldn’t-care-less kind of demeanor all the time, answering with sarcasm and sass rather than with yells and protests. He started learning breathing techniques he used to call stupid. He started training his mind because it wasn’t good for the baby to feel all those things, especially since they were so scared most of the time. Marco hoped with his whole heart they weren’t abused or an orphan but their emotional distress only confirmed his suspicions.

 His siblings made fun of him all the time because of it. They said he was getting old (he was), becoming sentimental (maybe) and any moment he would be doing yoga (he wouldn’t). None of them had a soulmate with such a big age difference and none of them understood. Usually, if the age difference was this huge, the bond would appear around teenage years of the younger part. It obviously wasn’t the case with Marco and his soulmate.

 But it also made him prepared and said a lot about the person. He knew his soulmate’s age. He knew their birthday. He knew how their childhood went (not smoothly). He knew they were a good person – they never got angry or furious or raging, just sad. Always sad. That way he knew they had a bad coping mechanism.

 Marco knew there was something wrong on the other side of the connection as soon as his soulmate was around three years old. That’s what all the breathing exercises, anger control, and reading guidebooks on how to calm your soulmate through the bond were for.

 Marco told Thatch about all of it, once. He laughed it off, blaming it on Marco becoming mother-hen for his much younger soulmate. Yes, he partially became mother-hen – he had to admit he was constantly worried about them. He expected a bit more understanding from Thatch since his soulmate, from what Marco gathered, wasn’t happy-go-lucky either.

 They finally believed him when his soulmates had his sixth birthday. It was January 2^nd and everyone was still a bit hangover after the party they threw to celebrate New Year. They were sitting, eating breakfast like they normally would but this time Marco hadn’t said anything the whole morning – there was no scolding or scowling at them even. He sat in complete silence.

 The evening before, the waves of emotions started coming onto him. It was nothing like what he experienced before, not a feeling at the back of his mind, not one hidden by his thoughts and not a half-hearted one. The emotions were strong and pure, and so overwhelming.

 It was something he couldn’t really describe – his soulmate was so confused, conflicted within themselves. There was a mix of feelings hazing Marco’s mind, not allowing his brain to rest even for a moment. None of the emotions were positive, sucking the energy out of him like a vacuum. There was deep and wide hesitance, a layer of fear and something undecided so much, something dark, barely visible in the chaos of thoughts. It reminded him of the time as an orphan, of the time of the loneliness he could still recall with details, that were like phantom pain.

 In the morning, everyone could see his bloodshot eyes, dark shadows under them and the way he blinked from time to time to drive away dream haze.

 Thatch and Atmos were sitting in front of him, talking quietly. It was obvious Marco went through a sleepless night but no one said anything – it was obvious it wasn’t a hangover, Marco, even if he actually could get a hangover, stopped drinking as soon as he felt his soulmate’s emotions for the first time.

 They couldn’t do much, they supposed. If Marco didn’t want to tell them, he would sooner or later talk with Pops.

 And then, Marco started crying in the middle of eating toasts.

 At first, he just couldn’t get the haze out of his eyes, his chest clenching and his pulse speeding up, thundering in his ears. There was panic, his own mixed with his soulmate’s, that wandered down his throat, making his mouth tremble. He looked at the room, frantic and desperate, choking on a sob that wasn’t his and seeing blurred faces of his brothers.

 Then his palms got all sweaty and before he could say anything, a huge hole in his chest became present, making its way to his limbs and paralyzing them. It was as if someone cut out his lungs – the air was all around him but it didn’t have a place to go in his body.

 Fat tears streamed down his cheeks, blurring the sight of his brothers. Someone, in the silence of the mess hall, screamed for a nurse.

 A held back whine escaped his mouth, sound so profound, so disastrous he couldn’t imagine himself doing it on his own account – it all belonged to his soulmate.

 To a six-year-old.

  “I should have never been born,” echoed in Marco’s ears.

 That was the moment which made them all believed Marco’s soulmate needed all the help he could get.

 As soon as Marco realized those weren’t his emotions, he started calming himself down. He took deep breaths, one by one, trying to pull out of the panic and blinked so fast the tears left his eyes, giving him the clear view of the world around him

 Pops was standing above him, barely touching his back with the tips of his fingers and smoothing him with an easy, rhythmic motion. Thatch wasn’t all that far behind, sitting on his right all of sudden, leaning onto him.

 “I should have died,” echoed in his mind again and Marco forced himself to think about everything positive in his life.

 He thought about the day he met Pops, about the day they recruited Thatch, about the day Whitey Bay finally agreed to be Pops’s daughter. He thought about all of the casual things that annoyed him in his family, about all the fun and happiness he had with them. He thought about the day he felt his soulmate for the first time.

 It either worked or his soulmate calmed down on his own. Marco tried to have only warm thoughts and not to worry too much. He didn’t want to stress his soulmate more than they already were, add his own concerns on their shoulders.

 He wiped down his teary cheeks and tried to smile as brightly as he could. His soulmate’s heart fluttered but it stopped aching so much, at least partially. Marco was proud of himself for staying composed.

 It wasn't that Marco was aggressive, he just wasn’t shy either. His temper had no patience, he had no patience. He screamed, he puffed, he fumed  - he was strict and, in a way, too easily annoyed. Since his soulmate, his division, well, all of the divisions, were saying they were less afraid of him even if he was scarier, colder, more distanced.

 Pops walked him back to the infirmaries and nurse Suzu, the executive nurse on duty, ordered him to sit down. Marco had never been in the infirmaries as a patient before.

 Suzu checked his blood pressure and temperature and asked a bunch of unreasonable questions, giving him hot tea. His heartbeat was sped up a bit but it was nothing to worry due to the shock he had just got through.

 Pops was still hovering over him and Marco couldn’t say a word.

 The voice was still echoing in his mind but this time it was only its memory.

 “I shouldn’t have been born.”

 Marco’s eyes watered again but his mouth became dry. There was no way he could explain it to anyone, he didn’t really understand it completely himself – he had never felt something so strong, so real from his soulmate’s side. His soulmate was disturbingly too sad for a six-year-old, almost all the time, but it was somewhere at the back of his mind and his own subconscious was the main one present. He had never felt so affected.

 Suzu left to go for a nurse that specialized in the soulmate bonds, predicting she would be needed. Pops looked at him, holding back a cough.

 “You shouldn’t have left your whole medical equipment in the mess hall, Pops,” Marco said. It sounded as if his voice was somewhere beside him than coming from his throat. It was quite hoarse, too.

 “Son, don’t think you’ll distract me with this bullshit,” he answered even though he kind of felt worse without his morning meds. “Are you feeling alright?”

 Marco was still trembling and his eyes were stinging but he nodded, not wanting to open his mouth so soon.

 “What was that outburst about, then?” Pops asked again. Marco didn’t meet his gaze. “If something is going on, you can talk to me.”

 He knew that without telling him that. It was just hard to word.

 Marco didn’t look right sitting on the bed in the infirmaries as pale as death itself, uncertain. He trusted Pops with it but it was not easy to process.

 “It’s just- It wasn’t me, Pops. It wasn’t me that burst into tears.” Whitebeard raised an eyebrow at that. “It was my soulmate.”

 That made Pops hesitate. He opened his mouth but didn’t speak up for a stretching moment, furrowing his eyebrows, frowning.

 “Isn’t your soulmate about five years old right now? They shouldn’t be able to-“

 He cut himself short but Marco knew what he meant – he shouldn’t be able to make him feel such defined emotions at this age.

 “Six,” Marco corrected absently. “He had his birthday yesterday.”

 Pops hummed.

 “It’s- Well-“ Marco continued, tripping over his words. “I’ve never felt something so overpowering, so dreadful and sad. He-“

 “He?” Pops interrupted at one.

 “I heard a boy’s voice in my head, Pops,” he explained. “He was so miserable.”

 Whitebeard licked his lips, fidgeting. His frown deepened.

 “Son, Marco,” he began carefully. “You know hearing your soulmate’s voice shouldn’t be possible, right?”

 He knew. That’s why he was so scared, so worried despite all the exercises for calming down, despite counting from hundred to one, despite searching for things in the same color in the room, despite all of the happy memories that were flowing in his mind. He would have to find new anti-panic techniques.

 “I know,” he sputtered at last. “But, Pops, he said- he said he shouldn’t have been born. He said he should have died.”

 There was a long silence between them and Marco could only watch his father with uncertain eyes, an earn and honest expression on his features. Whitebeard put a hand around his shoulders in a reassuring gesture.

 “A six-year-old, huh?” he whispered.

 Both of their gazes wandered around the room, searching for something they weren’t able to find at that moment. There was, after all, a heavy bitterness in their mouths and an even heavier weight in their hearts.

 There was one thing Whitebeard didn’t tell Marco – he knew someone who could hear their soulmate’s voice. Exactly two people who were each other soulmates.

 Gol D. Roger and Portgas D. Rouge.

 In Marco’s ears, the boy’s childish voice was still ringing.

 “I should have never been born.”

 Marco couldn’t agree less.

  Ace didn’t know you were supposed to feel just yourself for some time. He was born feeling another mind at the back of his head, born with the presence of another person. He thought it was normal until he met Sabo.

 To be honest, Ace couldn’t imagine life only feeling his own emotions. Maybe because it would be a very sad life, maybe because he was used to something different.

  He was lucky like that, he supposed. He didn’t have a soulmate who was hurting all the time like Sabo’s and Luffy’s.

 Luffy started to feel his soulmate being around eight. His pain was mostly physical and even though he was used to pain in general, it hurt so much he would cry. Ace didn’t know that at first and called Luffy crybaby a lot. Luffy’s body felt all the pains of his soulmate and he would often touch some specific places on his back, legs or his neck and just scratch them. Mentally, Luffy’s soulmate was depressed, suicidal and there was something unnerving in them. Luffy didn’t mind, telling Ace all about how he would make them happy in the future.

 Sabo was more concerned, he supposed. His soulmate was hurting physically too but they were so scared most of the time, always making Sabo paranoid, struggling to let go and just have fun. They were holding back something, something Sabo himself couldn’t explain to Ace but it made Sabo’s muscle tense, self-aware. It was quite troubling but Sabo told him countless times he was alright with it and just hoped he could make them happy and completely free someday.

 Sabo’s soulmate started to feel less trapped when he was ten. There was still self-awareness and so much uncertainty in them but it was slowly fading out with time. Sabo said he would just have to ask them about it, about what was going on in their life.

 Then, they were twelve and Sabo wasn't going to ask anyone because he was dead.

 Ace had never had anyone like a parent, not in the traditional sense. There was no one that would care for him. Dadan mostly made sure he was alive, Garp was like an absent, strict grandfather, Makino was more of an older sister or even a cousin, not present on daily basis. There was one person that cared though, and for the first couple of years of his life, he wasn’t even aware they existed because no one told him about this whole soulmate business.

 Dadan said he was a quiet and peaceful baby. With years passing, Ace realized it was all thanks to his soulmate and their stupid calmness, reasonableness and the way he simply sent Ace positive waves of emotions all the time. Since his toddler days, it didn’t work as well but it still made him feel a bit better. His soulmate, as Ace deducted, had to be at least ten years older than him to manipulate theirs and Ace’s emotions so smoothly that they were able to calm down a newborn baby, only emitting emotions through the bond. Their vague aura inside Ace was nice.

 It stopped working when he turned six or so. Ace always felt loved by his soulmate, he couldn’t deny it. There was no one, not at that time, who showed him love, not in a healthy way. Dadan, he realized later, loved him even though she was complaining about him, even though she said a couple of things which hurt him – that he could go die in the jungle, that he was a problem to her, that he was useless, that she didn’t want him. She wasn’t a mum, rather a weird auntie who didn’t know how to treat kids.

 Gramps was absent and when he wasn’t, he was cold, talking about survival, training and ignoring Ace’s wishes, being brass and stone-hearted. He was important to Ace but at the same time, he wasn’t really all that much in Ace’s life. Here and there.

 He was, in overall, raised by himself.

 But his soulmate cared, supported him, always was there for him without knowing Ace. Unconditionally. Ace loved it when still small and naïve.

 Ace was six when he started to doubt. A week or so, Gramps came visiting him for his sixth birthday. That’s when he told him.

 The thing is, Ace understood his life wasn't normal. Most kids had a parent or two, nice house in town and school friends. Ace didn’t have parents but Gramps told him his parents entrusted him with Ace’s life. They were dead but Ace didn’t know who they were.

 He knew his mum died giving birth to him. It was weird but he had this vague memory, this feeling of a woman holding him and smiling and crying, with a mix of sadness and pure joy in her heart. Her eyes closed and never opened up. Ace compared it with being loved.

 On his sixth birthday, Gramps told him everything. He told him about his mum. He told him about his father. He told him about his true name. He told him in what it resulted, having Gol D. Ace for a name.

 Gramps left and Ace, in his six years old glory, went to a bar not so far away from the Gray Terminal. He asked, for the first time.

 “What would happen if Gold Roger had a kid?”

 Ace kind of knew the answers already, he may have been six but he already had the mentality of at least an eleven-years-old – he had to grow up fast, not caring about the way his body didn’t much his brain. He started to hate his father as soon as he heard who he was and how he left his mum alone. He knew the answers, he just didn’t want to believe in them. Hearing the words was painful.

 “They should be killed before they were born.”

 “Demon blood should be cleaned from this world.”

 “The kid should kill themselves from shame.”

 “Why would they live anyway? No one would want them.”

 Leaving the bar, walking slowly to the Gray Terminal in the dark of sunrise, Ace held back tears, tightening his fist so much there was blood. In the Gray Terminal, no one would look at him and he could burst into tears.

 There was a hole in his heart he wasn’t able to close and dread and distress spreading through his limbs, paralyzing him, rushing his heartbeat, stopping his brain.

 His breath caught up in his throat and the junkyard became one big blur in the shades of gray and brown. Ace’s hands wandered to his chest as if to grasp his lungs and his finger clenched on his T-shirt, staying so close to his heart, feeling the most prominent evidence he was alive.

 His soulmate lost their cool for the first time, panicking.

 He remembered his mum’s face, leaning above him, smiling through tears and calling him Ace. The memory was faded, foggy, Ace was so small he didn’t really know if it was an actual memory. He was a newborn in it, he could just make it up, imagine. But there was something in the way his mum’s voice was quiet, half-heard and in the way her eye color is blended with the background and Ace cannot see it clearly. That’s something that made him believe it was a misty memory.

 He always associated it with unconditional love. Now it just seemed wasted. Pointless.

 Ace was a demon child, he shouldn’t have been born. His blood was cursed. His mum gave her life for him for no reason – he took her life, that was the truth.

 He should have never been born.

 He should have died.

 The air in his lungs escaped, leaving him with rapid breathing and stinging eyes and uncontrollable sobs. Deep down he knew it, he was aware he was unwanted whoever’s son he was.

 The memory of his mum smiling at him became bitter. There was no such thing as unconditional love for a cursed child. He should have died. He should have died before he managed to kill his mum.

 There was warmth in his chest all of sudden. A deep breath moved its way into his lungs and, although his eyes were still stinging and tears coming, he could see more and more. Someone took half of the weight his shoulders were staining under.

 It reminded Ace of the peace after the storm, how air was so fresh you could touch it, breathing and how there was always sun shining.

 His pulse was still rushing and there was a gulp in his throat but it was getting better. It felt like care.

 I should have never been born, his brain whispered somewhere at the back of his mind.

  Just for a moment there, he heard a soft, affectionate voice in his mind, answering, I couldn’t agree less.

 Not much later, Sabo told him that everyone has a soulmate. Told him you feel your soulmate’s emotions and they feel yours. He told him soulmates could communicate with each other's emotions.

 Ace asked, “Can you talk with them in your thoughts, like, in the literal sense?”

 Sabo furrowed his eyebrows. “No, you can only feel them.”

 Ace knew he could more.

 There was no such accident for the next seven years or so. To be honest, Marco hadn’t felt so much sadness nowadays, not since his soulmate turned ten. His soulmate, whoever he was, was happier. There were still unmistakable waves of sorrow, pure depression, and self-hatred that not many adults would ever experience but it was noticeable mostly at night or late evening.

 It didn’t change that it was unnerving though. He got used to having relaxing evenings with coloring books, with light books with uncomplicated plot and with yoga. He didn’t know if it worked as well on his soulmate as it worked on him but he hoped.

 His soulmate was twelve years old when the second wave of something Marco had never felt, not even in his worst days as an orphan, came. This time, everyone knew it was Marco’s soulmate, not Marco himself.

 Since his soulmate was six years old, things changed. No one laughed at his breathing exercises, at his soulmate guidebooks or at him avoiding stressing situations. Thatch started making him specially balanced for his mental health diet. Izou (who joined after quite a messy first meeting with his idiot of a soulmate - Thatch) made him tons of coloring books, follow-the-lines or connect-the-dots books. Fossa made him a special bed, with a soft mattress that successfully fought with his insomnia. Vista made him all that laughable equipment for yoga Marco would never admit he had in his room.

 It happened at the end of breakfast again.

 Marco was just listening to Haruta and Thatch arguing at their table and it was quite peaceful. But in overall, he wasn’t all that surprised – his soulmate was feeling certain uneasiness the whole morning. It was something like intuition, sense of danger, Marco would call it. His soulmate had this worry, this sense of something being wrong at the back of his mind.

 Marco pushed back his plate when his pulse increased, racing out of nowhere and the panic was hazing his thinking more and more, his brothers and sisters fading into background noises.

  His table got quite as soon as Marco just stared in front of himself. No one really forgot what happened seven years before.

 It was stronger this time - Marco realized when pure pain pierced his heart, taking his breath away.

 “He’s dead,” was what he heard in his ears, in the familiar boyish voice. “Fuck, he’s dead.”

 It was, once again, another tragedy in his soulmate’s life. Someone, someone his soulmate knew, someone important to him, was dead.

 Marco felt the panic vanishing but his heartbeat was still speeding, the hole in his chest only getting bigger and bigger, as if someone was keeping on stabbing him in the heart. His mind became foggy, not holding up so many thoughts at once.

 “It should have been me,” echoed in Marco’s ears. “He shouldn’t have died. It should have been me.”

Tears prickled his eyes, his vision became blurry. His throat clenched when Marco held back his soulmate’s cry, not giving in to sob. He put a hand over his chest, trying to breathe, trying to think about every warm memory he had. The panic was dying out but its place was taken by sorrow and devastation, deep and unsettled, hovering over Marco’s tries.

 The tears never came, held back with the strength a twelve-year-old shouldn’t have. Because his soulmate was only twelve years old.

“It should have been me,” the boy’s voice sounded in his ears. “I want to die. I have to die.”

 Marco’s heart broke into two unfixable pieces.

 Single tear, small, almost unnoticeable, streamed down his cheek but Marco felt this weird mix of peace and bitterness – he could breathe a little easier, the air was lighter, but his chest was heavy with bitter-sweet memories that belonged to his soulmate.

  It wasn’t the end of hearing his voice.

 “I can’t die,” was practically spat out. He kept on blubbering. “Luffy. I can’t leave Luffy. I love Luffy.”

 Something fluttered inside Marco. It was a relief, partially. His soulmate was, after all, alive thanks to Luffy, whoever they were. There was no other way it could be and deep down his brain knew it – his soulmate hadn’t met him yet and there was no possibility to comfort him, to be his pillar of strength.

 He couldn’t and Marco was grateful that Luffy was there for his soulmate.

 (He wasn’t grateful when, even after another five years, he heard loud and clear, very soft and affectionate I love you, Luffy in the voice of an almost grown-up man.

 There was a difference between kids crushes and love of a boy who was becoming an adult.

 His soulmate was, after all, seventeen and still loved Luffy.

 “I will always love you, Luffy.”

 It made Maro sad and a bit scared – if his soulmate loved someone else, he couldn’t imagine.)

 Ace knew something was wrong. It was his intuition calling, he supposed. Sabo had never wanted to go back to his parents but Ace trusted him to make the right decision – Sabo was the smartest of them, he would know what to do. He apparently wouldn’t.

 Dogma came and said what Ace dreaded for the last couple of days.

 He screamed and yelled and whined and claimed to take revenge and just blew up in general but his mind was going off on its own, not being angry at all.

 At first, it was:  “He’s dead. He’s fucking dead.”

 And, as his eyes watered, he could think only this: “I’m the worthless one. It should have been me. He shouldn’t have died. It should have been me.”

 There was a distant and deaf, “No, no, no,” in his ears, said in stranger’s voice.

 Sabo was dead. Sabo, who was his first ray of sunshine, who was his first family.

 “I want to die. I have to die,” was what he couldn’t stop thinking.

 But there were Luffy’s sobs and cries coming through the house, like the crybaby he was. Ace wasn’t able not to smile fondly, even though his eyes were still wet and his mouth dry.

  Because Luffy was his second ray of sunshine, just as bright as the first one. He was the youngest brother, the one who was supposed to be loved and protected by his older brothers. There was no Sabo, so Ace had to take care of Luffy for the both of them.

 In the end, calming down and accepting Sabo was dead and he wasn’t, he thought: “I can’t die. Luffy. I can’t leave Luffy. I love Luffy.”

 “I’m here for you,” echoed in Ace’s ears but he ignored it, concentrating on Luffy’s cries. “I don’t want you to die. I need you to live.”

 There was warmth and firm support in his chest, hugging the bitterness Sabo’s death left with open arms. There was, also, a relief Ace wouldn’t admit he was grateful for.

 There was no way Marco could find him – the connection between them worked one way, like a dead call, he supposed. He had never heard reassuring words or anything from his soulmate, maybe because he had never had such strong non-positive feelings, maybe because they couldn’t hear him at all.

 There was only one time Marco needed reassurance and comfort. It was just after the death of the Second Division Commander. Delayla was a powerful but kind woman, one he considered a sister for a long time. She was also one of Pops’s first children and knew Marco since he was around eighteen himself. She was also the only female commander they had until Izou showed up. Not everyone agreed with that, women on the sea were seen as a bad luck, at least in the eyes of narrow-minded men.

 But she was a powerful haki user with close-combat fighting style and a hell of a navigator so she was the right person to become Second Division Commander. She was like an older sister to Marco and her death pained him deeply.

 She was killed on one of the missions Second Division was sent to – there was an archipelago of islands with fast, changeable weather. She was the right choice. A newbie from Second Division thought that his Commander was a weak woman and tried to protect her with his own body – she saved his life for the price of her own. They broke off the mission and brought her body back.

 Her face, usually darkish brow, was white as a sheet, with a smirk still on, so alive and so like her, eyes closed, with one eyebrow raised. She simply looked as if she had been frozen in the mid-move, her skin was cold, dead.

 When the Second Division brought her back, showing her unmoving body for the first time, he was sitting with Pops and just chatting. He stilled mid-word, practically feeling the silence on the Moby Dick and the warmth escaping his chest.

 Seeing her dead body was, at first, not possible. She can’t be dead, his mind supplied, she’s too strong, too powerful to get killed. His throat thickened, nauseas overcame him, not leaving for a stretched out moment.

 There was a weight in his chest, so similar to the way seawater made him lose control over his own body, made him sick.

 She can’t be dead, he told himself.

 He glanced at Pops and saw tears in his eyes. They didn’t say goodbye. They didn’t.

 He was in a strange bubble which muffled all the sounds around him. The only sound he could hear was her snarky laugh and the waves hitting boards of the ship. He choked on his own heart, not understanding how.

 She’s dead. She’s fucking dead. She’s dead.

 To Marco, it was a small end of the world.

 Everyone cried that day. They let go of her body into the sea, burning on a raft, sending her to sail for the last time. It was a proper burial for a pirate.

 It didn’t change that she was dead.

 Standing on the deck, looking at the dying flames with sunset dying out just like the flames on the sea and with a hole in his heart expanding, he felt the most alone in his life.

 “You’re not fucking alone,” screamed a voice in his mind.

 His soulmate was sixteen at the time and he was feeling Marco and talking to Marco. There was no calming, no reassuring or comforting words but he was there.

 “I feel everything, you fucking genius,” the boy sneered. “Be an adult and deal with your life. With your grief. I did with mine.”

 He sounded angry but Marco couldn’t feel anger at all. There was sympathy, support, worry and even a bit of pity but not anger.

 It was, as weird as it seemed, heartening. There was no other person who could understand better what Marco felt. Not only did his soulmate literally feel all that Marco felt but he lost someone very important to him too. His soulmate, aged twelve, went through the same. Marco, after that day seven years ago when he almost started crying at breakfast, hadn’t felt even a bit of pure grief. Sometimes regret but always mixed with hope and radiant warmth. Sadness, determination, hesitance but never grief that made your body freeze, your brain not think properly, your heart ache. Never.

 Marco couldn’t promise he would stop grieving as fast but he could try.

 His soulmate never talked to him after that. Not until they met in person.

Chapter Text

 For about six days, Marco had been hurting. Well, not he but his soulmate. It wasn’t, thanks to all the gods, pain in the emotional sense – his soulmates had been hurting physically almost a week. It wasn’t as disturbing as it probably should, the kid was always hurting here or there – Marco assumed he was either clumsy or being abused. Of course, the first option was more appealing. Something in the way the emotional pain never came hand in hand with physical pain made Marco lean into the first option, too.

 Moby Dick was sailing as always for the last couple of days, not changing the course, answering the call from Fishman Island. There was some rookie challenging Whitebeard. Usually, it was no big deal but if it impacted their territory and people under their protection, they were obliged to see for themselves. Marco knew Jinbe was enough to defeat most of the rookies – the majority of them was stupidly naïve and over-confident.

 Ace was a surprise. A nice one.

 He actually won with Jinbe. He still didn’t stand a chance with Whitebeard but he tried anyway. Stubborn brat, that one.

He blacked out and Pops started laughing.

 “It’s your new brother, Portgas D. Ace,” he said and Marco felt a headache coming.

 His soulmate was hurting but it was faint. Marco couldn’t really do anything anyway. He could only hope it wasn’t too serious.

 When Ace woke up, it was dark. His body was aching all over and he was still sleepy even though he was pretty sure he had just slept more than twelve hours. He was also pretty sure it wasn’t the afterlife because he would (he hoped) meet Sabo and it wasn’t his ship because he didn’t have such a huge cabin there.

 The only thing he could do was think, “The fuck is going on?”

 His heartbeat sped up and although he was confused, he was not that moved. It was definitely his soulmate.

 “Yes, it was me,” Ace heard. It was his soulmate, a bit breathless but it was. “It’s me.”

 Ace stilled.

 “What.”

 “I’m as surprised as you are,” the guy, his soulmate, said. “I got the feeling you don’t really like talking with me. Or to me.”

 “I didn’t even know I could talk with you,” he snapped.

 “Come on,” his soulmate prodded. “We both know you’re not angry. You’re just confused, same as me. No need to take it out on me.”

  Ace sat down on the floor, just because he could, and sighed.

 “You know it’s not normal, right?” he sputtered. “We shouldn’t be able to talk in our thoughts.”

 “Telepathically,” his soulmate suggested. “Talk telepathically.”

 Ace furrowed his eyebrows.

 “I don’t care what we call it,” he spat out. “It’s not normal. We shouldn’t be able to do that.”

 “I know we shouldn’t. It was weird when we could hear each other thoughts while experiencing strong emotions but now it’s a bit crazy,” his soulmate said. “But is it bad though? No one has that kind of opportunity. We can tell ourselves each other’s names.”

 “I don’t want to tell you my name,” Ace said.

 His soulmate’s heart froze.

 “Why not? We’re soulmates,” he insisted. “This way we could meet faster.”

 “I don’t want you to chase me knowing only my name and I won’t be chasing you just because of some name,” he explained. “I want to, like normal people, meet, fall in love and then wonder whether it’s my soulmate. I don’t want to be with someone just because the universe tells me to. That’s not how love works, it doesn’t come out of nowhere.”

 There was a long silence and his heart fluttered, his face echoing a warm smile. He blushed.

 “It’s quite romantic,” his soulmate teased. “I didn’t know you’re like that."

 The blush deepened.

 “Yeah, that’s the point. You don’t know me and I don’t know you,” he insisted. “And, yes, I value you but that doesn’t have to mean anything.”

 “And what if we get to know each other? Through thoughts?” his soulmate asked. “Will you tell me your name then?”

 He hesitated before saying, “Maybe.”

 Figuring out how the bond worked now took them some time. They tried not to put their every thought into the bond connection and for the most part it was okay. Marco mostly heard cursing and names he wasn’t familiar with (like Dadan, Makino or Gramps) and ones he was familiar with (like Luffy). His soulmate probably heard a fair amount of cursing himself, since, as it turned out, Ace didn’t want to have brothers and still wanted to kill Pops. Marco was having a lot of his imagined headaches he couldn’t get because of his healing factor. Not that Ace was this annoying, it was kind of fun to watch him being thrown overboard.

 To be honest, Marco didn’t know what part of his thoughts his soulmate had heard. Marco, while hearing his soulmate, would tell him he was hearing him. His soulmate didn’t return the favor. He never really replied, especially when Marco was asking if he was alright while he was having one of his bad mood periods.

 Eventually, they did figure it out. Marco couldn’t really explain it but there was another part of mind space, like a second level of mind, that they shared. Thinking in the second level felt different than normal thinking and they, after getting used to, found it easy to stay in their own heads. It still sometimes got out but it was usually connected to strong emotions.

 Marco missed it though. Missed his soulmate voice.

 Maybe it was better. He had a new brother on board, one very stubborn and angry and insane and he should take care of him first. Ace was a piece of work.

 It was a someday in May, Ace was still trying to kill Pops even though Marco suspected he was slowly giving in. That day, Marco felt down. It was sadness, not his own, second-handed. Nothing too serious, too affecting either. Nothing his own.

 His soulmate was feeling down. It wouldn’t be so weird if not for that his soulmate had been actually quite happy for once. Marco didn’t know when it started – a month or maybe closer to two – but his soulmate wasn’t sad.

 It was a bit unnerving, so, sitting at breakfast, Marco stayed quiet. Ace was being unusually quiet too, not trying anything the last two days, but no one said anything. Maybe they didn’t notice. Finally, after breakfast, he excused himself and went back to his quarters, not paying attention to any of his responsibilities – it could wait, the world wasn’t gonna end if he was absent for an hour.

 In his room, it was empty and calm – he could stare into space and talk in his thoughts without limits, acting strange with no one to see it.

 “Hey,” he tried, very softly and with caution. “Do you hear me?”

 Marco, to be honest, was hesitant about the connection thing sometimes.

 His soulmate, though, had heard him clearly.

 “I do,” he answered shortly, his voice weak.

 There was a minute of pause and Marco licked his lips.

 “Is everything alright?” he began. It didn’t sound too meaningful so he added, “I feel- I mean I feel what you feel and it’s not pretty. Are you okay?”

 There was a silence, combined with a strange echo of numbness and resignation. The heartache, spreading like a crack of glass, wasn’t giving in.

 “I’m okay,” Marco heard, almost as if the boy was speaking right next to his ear. “They’re only memories. I sometimes keep forgetting that.”

 “Is it-“ Marco started gently. He didn’t want to touch a sensitive subject but it felt like he should. “Is it that person? The one that died six years ago?”

 It was just a thought but Marco remembered it happened vaguely around that time of the year. Usually, his soulmate was feeling even more down around that time too but Marco had never dared to talk to him about it – he didn’t know if he would hear him or if he even wanted to talk about it. The soulbond was still a mystery to him.

 “Yeah,” his soulmate answered slowly. “It’s about him.”

 Marco took a deep breath, a bit uneasy with the idea of breaking the line of his soulmate’s privacy.

 “Tell me about it?” he said, his voice, his thoughts, imitating whispers.

 There was a long silence and Marco began to think that maybe he crossed a line he shouldn’t have, feeling the warmth in his chest, moving in the rhythm of his heartbeat.

 “It was my brother,” his soulmate finally said. “They killed him. The Celestial Dragons.”

 Marco knew, even without the echoing clutching of his heart, it wasn’t the most comfortable topic. He just thought it was an accident or some disease that was the cause of his soulmate’s brother’s death.

 He didn’t ask why they killed him – he knew they didn’t need reasons. He didn’t say he’s sorry – his soulmate probably heard that enough times. He didn’t ask if he was okay – he knew you’re never completely okay with the death of loved ones.

 He did ask, “What’s his name?”

 His soulmate’s heart fluttered, bittersweet taste placing itself in Marco’s mouth.

 “Sabo,” he said. “His name was Sabo.”

 “What is he like?” he asked gently.

 A peaceful emptiness roamed through his ribcage and Marco was relieved the questions didn’t make him close off. It was the most intimate their talk had ever felt and he didn’t want to let go just now. Especially if he was actually helping.

 “He was the smart one, even though we were the same age,” his soulmate began, his voice distant and fond. “He was stubborn and always all about being independent. I guess we both were.”

 “You don’t strike me as the type,” Marco said easily. “Well, I’m sure you’re independent but I don’t know about stubborn.”

 His soulmate gave him a quiet, troubled chuckle. It was so natural.

 “He used to say I’m the most stubborn person he knew,” his soulmate supplied.

 “Must have been hard,” Marco blurted out. “Losing him so young.”

 His soulmate silenced but it wasn’t a painful silence. He wasn’t so sad or so self-reproaching as just a couple of minutes before. It was a feeling Marco associated with being content.

 “It was,” his soulmate admitted. “I miss every day. I know he would become someone great if only he was still alive.”

 “I’ll punch some Celestial Dragons for you next time I see any,” Marco added. “Won’t change too much but it may make you feel better.”

 His soulmate chuckled again. It wasn’t exactly carefree but it was freeing. He probably thought Marco was joking. He wasn’t.

 “Thanks,” he began, “but I’d prefer to punch them myself.”

  It was Marco’s time to laugh because his soulmate was barely an adult, what could he do? It must have been a joke.

 “As you wish,” he replied smoothly.

 None of them was joking. One of them knew that. The other didn’t.

 “Are you crying?” Marco asked suddenly, not voicing it out loud.

 There was distress in his mind, not belonging to him. There was this specific feeling in his chest, the one when you're choking on air, and he couldn’t say it was familiar – his soulmate, for the amount of sadness he had in himself, rarely cried. But Marco’s muscles got weak, trembling a bit and his eyes were prickling, stinging with tears that probably streamed down his soulmate’s cheeks.

 Marco’s hand absently wandered to his collarbone, keeping track on his heartbeat. It was racing. He put the pen down, moving the report for the next day.

 “No,” he heard in his mind. It definitely sounded as if his soulmate was crying.

 Something swelled in Marco at that.

 “Tell me about it?” he drawled, making his voice soft, resembling a whisper.

 There was the feeling that Marco always compared to two people pulling one rope in the opposite directions. Hesitance. There was the shame and even more sadness, clutching his chest in a tight grip, fisting its hand on him. There was, also, surprising warmth and relief, slowing his pulse, mixing with twitching double-mindedness.

 Marco’s throat tightened, mimicking his soulmate.

 “Hey, Soulmate Guy,” he said but it didn’t sound casual, just nervous. “What would you do if Gold Roger had a son?”

 Marco blinked, partially in surprise. Partially to drive away the tears that weren’t his.

 He tried to calm himself down, his eyes wandered around the room, looking at photos and papers and books.

 “I think I don’t understand the question or something,” he answered honestly, feeling his soulmate’s impatience. “If he had a son, then, well, it doesn’t really concern me.”

 “But,” his soulmate continued with a shaky voice that reminded Marco of being scared. “What would happen if you met him?”

 Marco ignored the feeling of something being wrong that whelmed up in his mind and looked at the hand that was resting on the countertop.

 “Nothing, I guess,” he answered, still confused. “If he was a cool guy, of course, if he was a bad guy, I’d kick his ass.”

 “Just like that?” his soulmate questioned. It was loud but not angry, rather frustrated and there was a hitch at the end of the sentence that showed how uncertain it was. “Cool guy, bad guy. Not a demon child?”

 Marco raised an eyebrow at that, wrinkling his nose.

 “Overlooking that Gold Roger wasn’t a demon, I knew him personally,” he blurted out. He regretted it as fast – his soulmate was after all still a kid, probably a normal one with normal life, opinionated about the pirates because of the society. And Marco just admitted not only that he was some big name pirate but also to being much older. “Children don’t choose their parents, well, I did choose mine, but I’ve been talking about biological ones.”

 Marco's vision became foggy, he could see only the shapes of the room, feeling tears in his eyes and small teardrops streaming down his cheeks. It mirrored what exactly his soulmate felt right now. There was no sorrow or self-hatred, only bittersweet emotion that made his mouth twist in a half-grimace.

“Where did the question come from?” Marco asked gently, practically whispering in his own mind.

 “I've just told someone important- someone who can be important to me in the future. I told him the truth,” he said. “I told him that I'm Gold Roger's son.”

 He blinked. Marco deep down suspected it, just after hearing the question for the first time. He tried to cover the shock with worry and fondness. He almost chuckled. Out of all the people in the world, his soulmate had to be the son of his crew's biggest rival.

 “He is the only person who accepted that outside of my family,” his soulmate added quietly.

 “Make it two, then,” he said instantly. “Your soulmate accepts it too.”

 The tears came again, welling in his eyes but there was warmth in his chest, the freedom he hardly ever felt from his soulmate.

 “There is no reason to cry, you know,” Marco whispered again. “People can be cruel but I'm not.”

 “I know,” he replied. “I knew as soon as I was six and you were the only thing holding me up.”

 There was silence, the connection going deaf again, probably so Marco couldn’t hear his sobs. It was not an awkward, thick silence but the one that showed itself when you embrace someone very important, like the silence after a kiss or the silence when you’re falling asleep.

 “My name is Marco, by the way,” he added. “Just wanted you to know.”

 His soulmate kept on crying and whining but his heart was sparking.

 The next day, Ace officially joined the crew. He was staying close to Pops but Marco could see the way he sometimes smiled at him, with happiness in the eyes and something that Marco could almost call shyness.

 He didn’t connect the dots.

 “You said Gold Roger is your father,” Marco spoke up one day.

 “Well, biologically speaking,” his soulmate answered at once.

 He usually did. Maybe because Marco always asked only in the evenings, maybe because he had a dividated attention and could concentrate on Marco’s words without spacing out. Marco himself couldn’t.

 “So, what about your mother?” Marco asked out of pure curiosity. “What’s she like? You know, a woman so special the Pirate King himself noticed her?”

 Haruta had just got out of his monthly call to his mother and it made Marco think.

 “What was she like, I’d ask,” his soulmate corrected. Marco froze. “She died giving birth to me. I didn’t really know her, I just know she loved me.”

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t-“

 “It’s okay,” his soulmate said. It wasn’t even a lie from what Marco could feel. “Gramps doesn’t like to talk about her and he’s the only one who knew her. She was a pirate of some kind and he hates pirates.”

 “Crap,” he blurted out. “Do you? Do you hate pirates? Because I’m kind of a one.”

 His soulmate chuckled, it was a sweet, sweet sound, so familiar but also so new.

 “Yeah, I figured that out,” his soulmate said. “In our family, you’re either affiliated to pirates or to marines. Gramps is a marine.”

 Marco licked his lips, he was smiling but there was a trace of a grimace in it.

 “Is it someone high up? Maybe I know him?”

 There was an echo of warmth on his cheeks and Marco heard a nervous giggle in his ears.

 “No, not at all. Definitely not someone you recognize,” his soulmate sputtered, his tone of voice funny.

 Marco grinned at that.

 “You’re lying, aren’t you? He is someone from the higher-ups.”

 If Marco made a mental map of famous marines that were over sixty, it was his choice. If Marco decided Garp the Fist wasn’t the one because he couldn’t kill his own grandson’s father, it was his choice.

 “I’m sorry about how I acted when she died,” Marco heard in his mind one day. “It was insensitive.”

 For a moment there, Marco didn’t know what he meant, it was so long ago. Then he realized.

 “It’s okay. I needed a little kick in the head anyway,” he said. “What made you apologize now? It happened a couple of years ago.”

 It was a normal day, an easy one. Marco was kind of tired the last few days and the day before everyone returned their mission reports, and income reports, and their list of requests. He had a ton of paperwork to check and it suited him for once – it was quiet in his room and no one bothered him.

 “It’s the anniversary of her death, isn’t it?” his soulmate replied, his voice was the softest Marco had heard it.

 It actually was, he realized. That’s why the Second Division was so pissed off at everything and that’s why everyone handed in all the paperwork – to distract him.

 “I forgot,” he admitted.

 “Yeah, I kinda felt that through the bond,” his soulmate answered. “It’s okay. Most of my family doesn’t remember Sabo’s death anniversaries too. Sorry for reminding you.”

 “I should have remembered,” he said weakly. “She was family. She was like an older sister.”

 “What was she like?” he whispered. “Your sister, what was she like?”

 Marco cleared his throat, a bitter taste in his mouth. There was warmth around his chest, one he would compare to an embrace.

 “She was too smart for her own good. Too caring and selfless too,” he said. “She saved mine and our father’s life when we met her. We’re all, my siblings and I, kind of adopted.”

 “I figured that part,” his soulmate chuckled. “What was her name?”

 “Delayla,” he replied. “I’ve known her for almost twenty years before she-“

 “Don’t go there,” his soulmate interrupted. “I asked what was she like and that’s not part of what was she like. Tell me something else. Something happy.”

 Marco smiled.

 Marco knew, as soon as he lied his eyes on Ace the first time he had tried to kill Pops, that Ace was going to become the Second Division Commander. There was no other way.

 Most of the older crew probably knew it too. He was too much like Delayla, too much like the last Second Division Commander. There was a hole left in their family after Delayla’s death, such a big one that there was no person who could cover it for the next two years – no one even considered proposing someone for the position of Second Divison Commander.

 But Ace was different. He was not only powerful but loyal and caring. He seemed as carefree as Delayla was, at the same time having the aura of responsibility and firmness not many adults had, having the aura of holding all of the burdens of the world on his shoulders.

 The first time he saw him, standing tall and prideful between Marco’s father and a wall entirely made of fire, he was mesmerized. He wasn’t surprised when Pops proposed Ace place in the crew.

 With time, with Ace showing more and more how capable he was, people started to whisper. Most of the Second Division was opposing, mostly still clearly living in the memory of their last Commander. Pops hadn’t proposed Ace the position yet but people already started to talk. Talk that he was too young, that he was inexperienced, that his place wasn’t in the division almost entirely made of navigators, he was an ex-captain and a fighter. Everyone agreed he could be a commander but not the commander of the navigators’ division.

 Marco knew better. Ace, for all he knew, started sailing alone. Which meant he had at least basics of navigation and meteorology. To be honest, Ace had something many of the other navigators didn’t have – instinct and sense. He didn’t learn from books, didn’t know half of the proper terms but he was able to recognize weather far better than others, with the time gap needed to change the course before the danger. Ace himself probably wouldn’t say he had a talent but he did. He was adaptable and wasn’t scared of things he didn’t know – be it another kind of clouds, eddies or tides that came out of nowhere.

 Ace didn’t really talk about any of this with the navigators since they screamed at him not to do their job for them. But he talked with Marco.

 The first time it had happened, Ace hadn’t even been in the crew yet. They were sailing relatively calmly, the wind was a bit stronger than they would like, nearing gale, but Moby Dick was a seaworthy ship which could take worse. The sky was almost clear which meant the front would change – the wind didn’t come out of nowhere. Ace walked up to him, faking nonchalance.

 “Alter the course,” he demanded.

 Marco wasn’t all that sure about that. “Why would we?”

 Ace snorted. “If you want to get dismasted, sure, don’t alter the course.”

 “I know the wind is strong but it’s not that strong,” Marco started.

  Ace sighed. “Do you see that cloud?” He pointed at dense cumulonimbus cloud with smaller shelf and roll clouds around it. It wasn’t too treating, there would be outflow but nothing serious. “The wind under it is much stronger, almost like in the thunderstorm. The masts will break, not to mention that the wind coming from that cloud is a headwind, the ship will lose speed and you will be drifted away.”

 The cloud didn’t look too dangerous but Marco made a mental note to check with the Second Division. He was kind of curious, though.

 “What do you suggest, then?” he asked.

 Ace fidgeted.

 “You are the most close-hauled you can get, so put up the helm,” Ace said. “You will luff up later, the wind will still be strong enough to do it dynamically.”

 Ace was, of course, right.

 There was always a bit of hesitance in Ace when he suggested something about the weather and navigation.

 It was rather a calm day. The sky was pretty blue with perfectly white, curly clouds. They were getting close to a couple of summer islands – a day of sailing maybe and they would be there to restock. Marco was just checking on the watch that was supposed to be changed after lunch. He barely came out of the forecastle when Ace approached him, fidgeting.

 Normally, Marco would like to sigh but the day was too much at peace – sailing was smooth, there were no arguments between crewmembers and his soulmate was, admittedly, not stoic calm but also not sad.

 “Uhm, Marco…” Ace began. “You do know about that huge wave that’s coming from behind the stern, right?”

 Marco did not know about the huge wave that was coming from behind the stern.

 His eyes widened and he licked his lips. Ace looked kind of nervous so Marco tried not to look too pissed off. He glanced at the stern and didn’t really see anything, except for the sun that was setting down on the water more and more with every minute.

  “Where exactly?” he asked. “I can’t see anything.”

 Ace looked to the side and Marco felt bad. He knew Ace was probably right – he trusted him not to lie about this kind of things.

 “I’m not angry at you,” he added quickly. “I just can’t see it. Come with me to the chart room.”

 Ace absently went after him. Marco checked the west and yes, there was a wave coming their way. It didn’t look too big but Marco wasn’t an expert on the matter.

 Ace waited at the back, trying to make himself invisible to the glare of other navigators present in the chart room. Marco asked Irashi, the boss of the current shift, what he thought about the tide.

 Irashi looked at it and almost dropped the spyglass. It was enough of an answer. Marco sent a reassuring smile to Ace and asked Irashi, again, what he thought.

 “We are around shallow waters and the wind is head to the wave so it’s probably a seismic one,” he said. “We can’t avoid it, Moby Dick has heavy displacement so no drowning ship but the wave may actually reach the second yard in height so the shipwrights should prepare for damaged starboard and masts.”

 Marco hummed and turned to Ace, “What would you do, Ace?”

 There was a moment of silence and he hesitated for a couple of seconds, glancing at Irashi.

 “I’d alter the course, put the helm up and gybe.” The navigators in the room snorted but Marco nodded to Ace to continue. “We can gather speed with the wind on the quarter and reef down before hitting the wave head-on. We wouldn’t lose maneuverability but the hit surface would be mostly bow since it’s a bit higher above the water line than the rest of the ship.”

 “And what about the bow, genius?” some guy in the background sneered. “It would take the whole impact. It would break.”

 Marco raised an eyebrow at Ace. He looked at the floor.

 “Well, the impact would be smaller than on starboard. A smaller part of the wave hitting bigger space. We can use fenders to secure the most sensitive parts. The foremast sails would be handed and the mainmast sails would be handed at the top and reefed down at the bottom but mizzenmast and jiggermast sails would stay subtly reefed. The gaff sail would help with steering, which would be needed for the smaller waves that would come after that one. We could slow down by running by the lee later.”

 The whole room went quiet, giving Ace the stinky eye, Irashi bit his lip and Marco had to smirk, very proud.

 “How long do we have?” he asked.

 “Fifteen minutes, maybe,” Irashi said, glancing at the window.

 “It’s closer to ten, actually,” Ace corrected.

 Ten minutes was enough in their crew. The navigators raised the alarm and Marco sent Ace for Namur’s and Blamenco’s divisions. They were already changing the course and reefing down but they needed the crew to stay on deck and handle the rest of the sails. Safety lines were on the deck in under five minutes.

 Ace was right. Again.

 Next, there was an incident with eddies and the incident with shoal and the incident with a sunken rock. There was also that thing that Ace’s powers naturally reacted to rain. Ace was always right.

 So, yes, Marco wasn’t surprised when Pops asked him to come to his room after dinner and said, “I’d like to make Ace a commander.”

 Marco smiled at that because, to be honest, it was a matter of time.

 “Then make him a commander, I guess.”

 “You’re in favor of it, I see. Despite what everyone’s been saying,” he concluded.

 “Pops,” he began gently, “there’s no person better to become the Second Divison Commander than Ace.”

 “What about the Second Divison’s opinion? About his lack of experience?” he questioned.

 Marco raised an eyebrow at that.

 “He’s a good navigator, a natural if you ask me. Yes, he lacks proper vocabulary and terms but it can be learned,” he said simply. “Which you know because you wouldn’t even consider him otherwise.”

 Pops smiled, not looking guilty at all.

 “Well,” he spoke up, his voice fond but absent. “Go tell him the good news, then. You seem to be his favorite.”

 What Marco hadn’t expected was Ace saying no.

 “Wait,” he said. “Why exactly no? How can you say no?”

 “I don’t want to be a commander,” he answered simply. “And anyway, I’m not fit to be a commander, Marco.”

 Marco made a face at that, folding his arms over his chest.

 “The Second Division hates me for one,” he supplied.

 “Let’s not go overboard, they just aren’t used to the idea of having a commander after what happened with the last one,” he answered, his throat dry at the thought.

 “I know that they still remember Delayla,” Ace started. “But I’m not gonna be her and I don’t want to replace her.”

 Marco stilled for a moment, forgetting how to breathe. He hadn’t heard that name for two years – the crew usually stayed shut around him, not even mentioning her. It was kind of obvious that Ace would hear about her, especially with the rumors of his promotion spreading.

 “You’re not replacing anyone. You are your own person,” Marco insisted. “Who is going to be the current Second Division Commander.”

 Ace sighed, closing his eyes and biting his lip.

 “I don’t know shit about navigation,” he claimed.

 “We both know it’s not true,” Marco asserted. “You just need to learn specialist terminology and a bit of physics. There’s a library full of books.”

 “Marco,” Ace said through his teeth. His face was red, his eyes glassy. “I can’t learn. I can’t fucking read or write. How exactly am I supposed to learn? How am I supposed to write that stupid reports of yours or logbook? Isn’t that what I have to do as a commander?”

 That’s also something Marco didn’t expect. Not much of a problem though.

 He promptly ignored many implications that were made with Ace not being able to read or write and said, “Then you will learn to write and read and then you will learn the rest. I will help.”

 Ace just looked at him dumbly. “Didn’t you hear what I’ve just said?”

 “No, I did not,” he answered simply. “The promotion party is tomorrow instead of lunch.”

 “Marco-“

 To be honest, it was easier than anything. Teaching Ace to read and write. He was a smart kid, just never really discovered, Marco suspected. He had already known basics of hiragana and katakana and most of the romaji, he was just confusing them. He couldn’t exactly write them, panicking about the way it should be written and it was easy to train. A week and Ace was able to write and read. The problems started with kanjis – Ace knew maybe twenty of them and none of them was specifically suited for navigation terminology. Even though Marco didn’t mind reports written in hiragana, the navigators, stubborn like they were, did.

 It was harder but not too hard.

 They had a habit. Every evening, they would sit in the library and learn kanji after kanji. It was surprising, in a way, seeing Ace so calm, so quiet, so focused and so silent. He was still vibrant and bright but so different. He got frustrated easily but never gave up.

 Then they started to have their study sessions every second day. Marco usually found Ace in the library on the days they weren’t learning anyway. He bought him about twenty different dictionaries and books about the weather for kids. They had been writing the reports together, then Ace started to write them on his own first for Marco to check.

 It wasn’t perfect and Marco was still a bit weirded out about how exactly it came to be that Ace couldn’t read and write but it was getting better.

 “Have you ever been ashamed of things you have no power over?” his soulmate asked. He rarely spoke up first.

 “Of course,” Marco answered immediately. “The first time, I was four and the ladies in the orphanage asked for my last name and I couldn’t remember because my mother called me Marco. The most recent time, I fell asleep at the table and my little brother found me having a nightmare.”

 His soulmate stayed silent.

 “It sometimes happens,” he added. “What is it? The thing you’re ashamed of?”

 His soulmate hesitated.

 “I was- I was raised by mountain bandits.” Marco furrowed his eyebrows. “In a forest, far away from civilization. I don’t know when to say thanks or I’m sorry or how to call people, I don’t know all that famous people and I don’t understand half of the jokes everyone has been telling me.”

 Marco didn’t reply to that, feeling it wasn’t the end.

 “Every day, I have to pretend I know what I’m doing but I don’t.”

 “It’s okay,” Marco said. “It was never your fault and it’s not something you can’t overcome. You just have to learn step by step.”

 “Do you want a big family?” he asked one day, again. Pops had his seventieth birthday that day.

 Marco didn’t have anything better to do than watch over his drunk brothers and sigh from time to time. They were at open sea and it wasn’t the safest option to throw a party. At least everyone was having fun.

 Marco frowned when Ace froze dangerously close to the railing.

 There was a bit of dizziness and a cloud of confusion hovered over his mind. It wasn’t his.

 “You know I’m a man, right? Our voices sound a bit weird, foggier in our minds, I suppose. But I’m a man,” his soulmate sputtered. “We can’t exactly have a family.”

 Marco’s face colored and he bit his lip.

 “It’s not what I’m talking about,” he explained. “I just- I have a lot of sisters and brothers and I know it can be overwhelming for some people.”

 “Oh,” his soulmate deadpanned. “Well, my family was kinda small but it doesn’t mean I’m opposed to a big one.”

 “You sure?” he questioned. “As my soulmate, they will just automatically welcome you into the family.”

 “I don’t mind.”

 “But there’s a lot of them,” he insisted. “Like, more than a thousand. And most of them are weirdos or assholes or both.”

 “Marco,” his soulmate said. Marco’s heart stopped beating for a moment. “I don’t mind.”

 It may have taken his breath away.

 “Good.”

 “Yeah, good,” his soulmate repeated.

 Marco grinned, not in the mood to sigh anymore.

 “And about the other kind of family,” he said all of sudden. “We can still adopt.”

 His soulmate groaned.

 He didn’t know whose face was warmer – his own or his soulmate’s. But he was still grinning.

 “I think I’m not the right person to ask that, Ace,” was what he heard after an awkward silence and fidgeting.

 Ace had just asked, as confident as he could be, if Marco was his soulmate by any chance.

 Ace, despite what Marco said, asked the right person. He knew Marco was his soulmate, it was purely a formality, there was no denying it. His soulmate’s name was Marco, he was a pirate, he had some kind of big foster family and foster father and he was calm and caring. Ace was pretty sure.

 He backed down the feeling of sadness, suddenly having a dry mouth. He twitched but covered it easily, furrowing his eyebrows and giving Marco a small smile. His heart fluttered.

 “Are you sure?” he insisted, giving Marco the chance to realize what he meant.

 Marco licked his lips, smiling nervously.

 “I don’t know how your soulmate feels,” he began. Ace knew, there was, on the back of his head, second-hand embarrassment, bitter-sweet pity and a lot of paralyzing awkwardness. “But you’re nothing like mine. There’s no way we’re each other’s soulmates.”

 He wanted to close his eyes and blink away the tears but he couldn’t do that so he just stared, letting them dry on its own.

 His mind hazed with the general feeling of darkness around him, the feeling that reminded him of the cold night spent alone in the jungle, with warm fire at his feet and freezing wind blowing in his face, unnamed sounds in his ears, of the drunken laughs in the bars he visited, odor of beer and cheap vodka, and of the numbness that paralyzed him the day Sabo died.

 Marco had to feel it because he frowned, barely opening his mouth and Ace heard in his mind, “Are you alright?” There had to be a moment, very small and short, because Marco asked, whispering, “Is that you?”

 He wasn’t alright but he chuckled abruptly, much more uneasy than before asking anything. He covered it with a sheepish grin, remembering the moments, the way his face moved when Makino scolded him, making his muscles work again, scratching his neck and shrugging.

 “Well, I’ll just keep searching then,” he said, forcing his voice to sound loud and cheerful. “No big deal.”

 Marco didn’t question him again, didn’t hesitate.

 It was better this way. Ace wouldn’t disappoint him this way, not being who Marco thought he was. Not being enough, not being what expected of him. Not being enough for him. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be, the whole soulmate thing didn’t always work out. They probably weren’t that great for each other, Ace wasn't that great for Marco. He could work with that. He was used to being a disappointment anyway.

 “No big deal,” he repeated and left.

 There was still a voice in his mind asking if he was alright and what was happening and how he could help but Ace ignored it, maneuvering through blurry corridors, feeling as if he was wandering in the thick mist, finding the doors to his cabin and trying to sleep off the biggest rejection he had ever had.

 “It’s okay,” he told himself, whispering into his pillow. ”It’s just love. It will go away with time.”

 Marco wasn’t sure about the whole thing that happened with Ace. Just for a moment there, feeling his soulmate, so unloved, so empty, seeing Ace’s glassy eyes, he thought he made a mistake, he assumed wrong. And then Ace grinned, a bit awkwardly but happy nonetheless and there was no mistake – his soulmate was on the verge of tears by that point, his heart echoing, something dark overcoming his mind. There was no way it was Ace, not with his happy face and carefree attitude, just like he thought.

 There were too many differences between them. Yes, none of them was calm and collected but they were complete opposites – his soulmate cried, brooded, whined and there was the lack of confidence and deep self-hatred. Ace was on the ship for less than a year but it was enough time to get to know his personality and main traits. Ace was determined, carefree, easily angered, cocky and overconfident. He screamed, he yelled and laughed, and he fought and argued.

 Marco’s soulmate had never been angry, never, and he was so self-conscious and so plain sad and thought of himself worthless too many times to count. Marco doubted he would ever be able to become such a brave and crazy pirate as Ace. It made life a bit harder – he didn’t expect his soulmate to become the strongest pirate ever but he didn’t want him to stay on some island and wait for Marco’s every visit – he wanted him to sail with him and be a part of the family with him. He loved him anyway but it worried him sometimes.

 Which may have been a mistake. He didn’t know his soulmate, not too well, hadn’t met him. He sometimes wondered if it was pity instead of love. It shouldn’t be a pity. He knew parts of him, he supposed – he knew his soulmate was sensitive and had this caring side of him, that he was deeply connected with the concept of a family, that he was hurt many times in the past but he was still going, that he had a stubborn, strong  part he rarely showed.

 Marco was sure it wasn’t Ace. He just wasn’t sure how to act around Ace, that was it. Asking someone if they were your soulmate was basically a love confession.

 Ace wasn’t too keen on facing Marco too, he probably felt awkward and avoided him the whole day. He didn’t talk to him and, in the galley, he chose the table far away from Marco and his usual sit, mostly near Pops, and didn’t come to Marco at all that day – Marco noticed him in the library before lunch but he didn’t acknowledge him. He was, in a way, grateful.

 Marco’s soulmate was in distress the whole day, being on the edge of crying and despising himself with heated words in his mind. He didn’t answer him when Marco called him in his head. Needless to say, he was more distracted with his soulmate silencing him than with Ace.

 The most disturbing thing was, Marco’s soulmate was relatively happy for the last couple of months. There was this bubbling noise that felt like giggling in Marco’s ears all the time, the warmth and the feeling of being at ease. Of being accepted. And suddenly they were back to the square one.

 “Did you and Ace have a fight or something?” Thatch interrupted his thoughts.

 They were having lunch the day after Ace had asked.  His soulmate wasn’t getting better. When Marco didn’t answer, Izou continued instead of Thatch.

 “It’s weird not to see him next to you,” he spoke up. “The kid has a huge crush on you.”

 Marco grimaced at that.

 “Listen to my girlfriend, brother,” Thatch added. “You’d better not break his heart.”

 Marco blinked, trying to ignore the prickling guilt. He knew there was no other option but he still felt a bit bad for ruining Ace’s hope.

 He tried to distract them from the topic. “It’s girlfriend now? I thought it was boyfriend today,” he said. “You’re not wearing the hairclip with a flower today.”

 Izou fidgeted but Thatch answered instead of her, “It changed about an hour ago, she forget to go to our room before lunch.”

 Marco was aware of all that. It sometimes happened – Izou usually stayed one gender for the whole day or a couple of them but sometimes it changed abruptly in the middle of the day. Izou would change hairclip then – the one with the flower was for female pronouns. Somehow, Thatch always felt when it happened – they weren’t soulmates for nothing. So, yes, Marco knew all that, he just wanted to distract them. It didn’t work.

 “I’m serious though,” Thatch said. “Don’t break the kid’s heart.”

 Marco sighed, glancing at Ace who was sitting with Pops. Their eyes met but Ace simply turned his gaze away.

 In Marco’s chest, there was this weird ache that made him lose the air in his lungs for a moment. It wasn’t his.

 But it wasn’t Ace’s too. He was smiling brightly, trying to steal Pops’s ochoko.

 “It’s too late for that, I think,” he admitted. “I kind of turned him down.”

 Izou blinked, opening her mouth.

 Marco licked his lips, sighing and still turning his eyes toward Ace. The feeling in his lungs wasn’t giving in.

 “He asked me if I could be his soulmate,” he explained. “It’s like a love confession, isn’t it?”

 Izou looked at him, her gaze steady and her posture stiff. Thatch looked at her sharply with wide eyes, probably feeling something she wasn’t showing openly.

 “Could you?” she asked.

 Marco chuckled nervously, staring at her as if Izou was mad.

 “Did you forgot the part where my soulmate is self-conscious, with a disturbing lack of self-worth and confidence and just depressed?” Marco spat out. He wasn’t angry, not really. Only a bit helpless. “Ace’s nothing like that.”

 It would be easier if Ace was his soulmate. Or if his soulmate was more like Ace. Marco had never gotten anything easy in his life and he wasn’t getting it now.

 Thatch looked to the side, one hand rubbing his nose, the other around his girlfriend’s waist.

 “You know there’s this thing called acting, right?” Izou continued. “Not everyone has their heart on their sleeve.”

 Marco clenched his jaw.

 “What I feel now,” he snapped, “is pure agony, depression, resignation and self-hatred I would never be able to feel on my own behalf. Does Ace seem an even slight bit miserable to you?”

 Thatch and Izou’s eyes wandered the mess hall. Marco made himself still, trying not to peek at him and Pops, stating a point. The bitterness wasn’t leaving his mouth.

 “Acting,” Izou repeated.

 Marco closed his eyes, taking a deep breath despite the tightness in his chest.

 “He doesn’t even match the age,” he replied slowly.

 Thatch raised an eyebrow.

 “Ace’s eighteen. Isn’t your soulmate eighteen?” he questioned.

 “I thought my soulmate is eighteen – I thought that our soulbond opened when he was born,” Marco answered, shuffling, tired of this conversation. “But it’s not possible.”

 “And why not exactly?” Thatch insisted.

 Izou’s stare was making Marco even more uncomfortable.

 “He’s Gold Roger’s kid,” he practically whispered. It felt like screaming in a quiet room instead. “He has to be at least twenty. It’s been more than twenty years since Roger’s death.”

 There was a dead silence at their table for a moment.

 “He’s- What?” Thatch exclaimed.

 A few people glanced at them but no one said anything, returning to their own conversations. Maybe it was the face Marco was doing that made them back off.

 “Yes, he is,” Marco added.

 Thatch frowned but turned his gaze to Izou who was stuck in shock, staring in space with thoughts clearly traveling her mind.

 “What is it?” Thatch asked softly. “Izou?”

 It was like breaking a spell. Izou blinked at her soulmate, smiling unsurely but warmly.

 “I’ll tell you later, hon,” she spoke up quietly. “I’ll tell you later.”

 There was another minute or two and no one talked. Thatch fidgeted, glancing between his girlfriend and Marco.

 “I still think you should at least try being with him, ” Thatch said, weirdly serious. “The kid is like a love-sick puppy with you. And if you tell me you don’t like him, I’ll call you a liar. The soulmate thing doesn’t always work out.”

 Izou looked at Ace, meeting his eyes. The teen got up from the table, smiling brightly and Marco felt pain tightening on the back of his head.

 “Sometimes it does,” Izou whispered.

 Next thing he knew, Ace was at their table, asking Marco if they were still up for writing practice this evening. Marco, very conveniently, said he had a lot of paperwork and Izou would gladly take over. Then he got up and left.

 The happy expression stayed on Ace’s face a few seconds too long but then he grinned a bit sheepishly at Izou.

 “Is there something wrong?” Marco asked in his head again. When there was no answer, he tried somewhat differently. “Have I done something? Said something?”

 There was a dead silence. Marco was getting more and more worried, especially since his soulmate’s mood wasn’t an ounce better. Marco hadn’t felt so much sorrow through the bond in a long time. Well, relatively long time because there weren’t many times his soulmate stayed purely happy. Also, it felt much stronger than it felt a year or two. Maybe because his soulmate was so at ease the last couple of months now it seemed so strong.

 There was a meaningful ache in his lungs, the one that made it hard to breathe and even harder to talk and think, reminding about itself with every move. Marco’s throat was closing on itself, dry and bitter at the same time as if he was eating glass shards, and he experienced something like a stabbing in his chest, itchy, trembling and steady. There was this weird feeling that always manifested similarly to the heat after being slapped on the cheek – the self-hatred and self-destructive thoughts his soulmate was going through.

 His soulmate, who stopped answering to Marco’s anything two days ago.

 “What’s going on?” Marco tried again. “Don’t close on me, please.”

 He leaned back in his chair, touching the desk with his hands and wrinkling some paper while fidgeting. His eyes wandered to the ceiling, not fully concentrated on anything else but his and his soulmate’s emotions.

 His soulmate didn’t say a word but Marco practically felt his hands pushing away Marco's mind and thoughts as if fighting them off.

 “You know I’m always there for you, right?” he spoke up again. “No matter what, I care about you.”

 Suddenly, for the lack of better words, Marco’s lungs were on fire, sparking, aching, and his vision blurred with tears welling in his eyes. His muscles tensed, partially mimicking his soulmate but mostly giving into shock. His soulmate was, the first time in his life, angry. The tears weren’t sad ones but salty, frustrated ones that burned on his cheeks and his fist were closing without Marco’s knowledge.

 “Unconditional love my ass,” his soulmate spat out, almost hissing at him. “It’s one big bullshit.”

 Before Marco could say anything, the connection weakened. And then, for maybe two minutes, he felt nothing. Nothing. It was like everything froze, remaining in between time and he forgot to breathe for a minute there. Blankness, pure emptiness was in his head. It was something he had forgotten for almost twenty years. The lack of presence of another person.

 He started panicking, his pulse speeding up and ringing in his ears but a moment later and his soulmate’s presence was back.

 Marco’s hands couldn’t stop shaking for the next two hours.

 “Ace,” he heard. “Come inside. The nurses are fretting you will get a cold. We’re nearing the winter island.”

 Ace smiled softly at that, just to himself.

 “I can’t get a cold, Pops,” he answered quietly. “I’m literally made of fire.”

 Ace had his back to Whitebeard, his tattoo clear and contrasting with the skin of his back, but he practically saw how Whitebeard’s eyebrow raised.

 “Doesn’t mean they won’t fret.”

 He hugged himself with his arms, still not moving to face Pops. He sighed, almost feeling the headache he could get because, once again, he was made of fire. It was just a phantom pain, he supposed. It’s always just a phantom pain.

 He licked his lips, forcing his voice to be stable, “I’ll go to my room in a moment. Don’t worry too much, Pops.”

 He couldn’t watch the stars on the sky forever anyway. And, well, he could try not to feel anything a room away from his soulmate. There was not much of a difference and, Ace supposed, he should start getting used to it. Marco was great, he would be great no matter what but Ace needed some distance between them, even just to move on and forget how hope felt like.

 “Is something bothering you?” Whitebeard asked, not moving to go back to his cabin for the night.

 He hid his face in his knees for a moment, not knowing how to answer. He didn’t like blatant lies, not to the family, not when it wasn’t necessary, not without a reason. But there was so much Pops just wasn’t aware of, so much that Ace had been covering from other people’s eyes and resisting. Showing emotions, especially the ones that made him feel weak, insecure – it was a foreign concept for him.

 “It’s just- There’s- I-“ he started, giving up before explaining anything. He sighed to himself.

 “I’m still listening, Ace,” Whitebeard encouraged softly.

 Ace closed his eyes, praying to stay calm.

 “Is there something wrong with me?” he blurted out.

 Whitebeard didn’t say anything for a moment. Ace dreaded the silence.

 “Where did that come from?” he asked in the end, his tone of voice not telling anything.

 Ace looked at the sky again.

 “It’s just- I guess-“ he tripped over his words. “I was always a disappointment. No matter how much- How much I try- I just- I’m never enough. Is there something wrong with me?”

 Ace didn’t take the chance to turn around but he could feel Pops’s gaze on his back, so intense and fierce.

 “You are never a disappointment to us, Ace,” he said, loud and clear. “I don’t know who told you that but you are never a disappointment to us.”

 He snorted, clenching his jaw. There was silence.

 “I’ll give you a few minutes to yourself,” Whitebeard said. “Come to my room after that, won’t you?”

 Ace smiled.

 “Sure.”

 It was all an accident.

 Marco wasn’t planning on coming to Thatch for at least a couple of hours – but there was a mistake in the report and he still needed the list of supplies they needed to stock on for the kitchen on the next island. He went to the kitchens with the reports from last week in hand.

 Thatch, as the head chef, had the luxury of having his own sort of a kitchen – a small attached room that was a spices store room and cooks’ library but there was enough space to have a stove and a countertop.

 Thatch spent most of his time there with Izou, perfecting recipes and creating new ones. The door was always open, there were no portholes inside since it was partially under the line of water and the cooking made the air steamy. No one really minded even though Thatch and Izou tended to get intense when alone.

 Marco wasn’t surprised hearing voices through the half-open door. He was surprised by Ace’s voice, though.

 “I thought you just didn’t have the mark tattooed,” Marco heard.

 He shouldn’t be surprised, really. Usually Ace stayed close to him following through the day, only wandering off to perform his duties as the Second Division Commander but the last two days he talked with Marco maybe twice. That whole time had to go somewhere.

 For some reason, he froze behind the door, not really knowing what to do. He avoided Ace because he didn’t know how to act around him and still didn’t know that.

 “I have a one on my thigh too,” Izou said. “Every commander has one, I guess.”

 “To be honest,” Marco practically heard the smirk in Thatch’s voice, ”if I were you, I wouldn't get such a big tattoo after the mess that is on your arm.”

 Thatch laughed and Ace laughed with him. It seemed a bit strained and just plain fake. Ace had never felt fake, the kid must have been one of these overhonest people who couldn’t lie to save his life.

 “It’s actually a funny story,” Ace quipped.

 “Is it?” Thatch retorted playfully.

 There was a long silence. Marco heard Izou shifting, her geta cracking on the wooden floor.

 “Not really,” Ace admitted, his voice sounding cold. “It’s my dead brother’s Jolly Roger. It wasn’t a mistake.”

 Marco stilled, his breath held up in his throat. Yes, everyone knew Ace had the tattoo with crossed S on his arm but everyone assumed, just like Thatch, it was tattoo artist’s mistake. And to be frank, there was something unnerving in the whole situation. Ace had had a brother none of them knew about – Ace seemed like an open book most of the time, with his cheerful attitude and carefreeness there was not much to hide, would seem. Somehow, Marco realized, they didn’t really know that much about him but he knew a lot about them. It was, as he said, unnerving.

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to-“ Thatch started.

 Ace chuckled a bit forcefully.

 “It’s okay,” his voice trembled but it didn’t sound like a lie. “What’s the point of having this tribute tattoo if no one knows, right?”

 Izou, very calmy and with soft voice Marco rarely heard from her, asked, “A tribute, huh?”

 There was shuffling and Marco knew Ace fidgeted, he tended to do that a lot.

 His soulmates heart pounded rapidly, making Marco a tad bit confused. His throat wasn’t clenching, mimicking sadness, but had this weird emptiness that screamed lose.

 Marco’s breath hitched.

 Ace cleared his throat. Marco imagined him shrugging, still seeing only the light coming through the door to Thatch’s kitchen.

 “We were supposed to set sail, not together but at the same time. It was his Jolly Roger,” he explained slowly, choosing his words carefully. “But Sabo was killed by Celestial Dragons before it happened. We were twelve.”

 Marco’s heart stopped.

 He blinked, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He leaned against on his hand, thinking fast-forward.

 There was no way Ace knew about that small little detail. Yes, Marco’s soulmate had a brother who was killed as an innocent kid. Yes, his soulmate’s brother’s name was Sabo. But Marco had never told anyone about that – not Thatch, not Pops. Ace couldn’t know about it.

 Did it mean what he thought it did? Was Ace his soulmate? That wasn’t an option, right? There was no resemblance between Ace and his soulmate, was there? It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t.

 But couldn’t it really? There were so many things they didn’t know about Ace, maybe they didn’t know him so well, maybe it all was just acting, as Izou said. He did ask Marco for a reason, maybe they were soulmates after all. Maybe Marco was so sure it wasn’t him that it blinded him, maybe he stopped thinking logically. Come to think of it, the bond opened when Ace showed up. Maybe it was the first sign.

 There was also a possibility Ace had two brothers, right? One named Sabo, and the other who was Marco’s soulmate. It just didn’t sound right.

 One way to find out, he supposed.

 He grabbed the doorknob, feeling a little breathless.

 The first thing he saw was Izou’s mouth opened as if she wanted to say something and Thatch leaning on his hands against the countertop. Both stilled at his presence.

 Marco glanced at Ace and their gazes met, just for a couple of seconds. Ace looked away awkwardly, seemingly more interested in the floor. He was rubbing a place on his chest, just under the sternum, where Marco felt the tightening.

 Marco’s breath didn’t return, not yet. There was one way to check. Only one.

 “Ace, did you give me your report for last week?” he asked in his mind, trying to sound steady.

 He didn’t even peek at him before answering out loud, “I left it on your desk this morning.”

 Thatch and Izou looked at each other.

 Marco’s breath was stuck in his lungs. There was no mistake. No mistake. He covered his mouth with his palm, frozen on the spot and furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

 “Did you have any problems with the kanjis?” he continued, still through the bond.

 Ace smiled and Marco’s heart skipped a beat.

 “No, Izou helped me with the worst yesterday,” he said.

 There was a deep, uncomfortable silence wandering around the room just after he spoke up. No one said anything, lingering in the awkwardness. Marco had the urge to sit down and hide his face in his hands, to contemplate how it come to be this. How he didn’t realize.

 Ace turned back to them with earn eyes and ghost of a gentle smile on his lips. He looked between them, confused and unsettled by the weird behavior. He still didn’t meet Marco’s eyes but he was glancing in his vague direction. Marco couldn’t stop staring.

 Izou absently took Thatch by the arm, not moving her eyes away from them.

 “I think we should leave them alone,” she whispered.

 Thatch made a face.

 “That’s my kitchen, why should I-“

 They left the room, Izou dragging Thatch behind herself.

 “What’s going on?” Ace asked, his voice quiet and hesitant.

 Marco wanted to step up to him but his body couldn’t move. He blinked a few times, trying to find words in his mouth, never reaching them.

 “I know it’s you, Ace,” he thought very clearly.

 Ace's eyes widened and Marco’s heartbeat sped up – he wasn’t able to recognize whose reaction that was, his own or his soulmate’s. Ace’s.

 “I know,” he sputtered aloud.

 Ace’s muscles tensed as if he was preparing for something. Marco wasn’t quite sure for what. His eyes, in the color of warm chocolate, were big but his face stayed unreadable, rest of the smile gone. Marco could feel his throat closing on itself, his palms getting sweaty all of sudden. It was mimicking Ace’s reaction.

 There was an undeniable pain in Marco’s heart.

 “Why didn’t you tell me?”

 Ace lifted his chin up, daring Marco with his gaze, staring him in the eyes, stone-cold.

 “Why should I?”

 Marco’s breath hitched in his throat and he wasn’t sure whose was the fast beating pulse.

 “Why should you?” he repeated blindly after him, practically whispering. “Maybe because the universe has chosen us to be perfect for each other.”

 Ace averted his gaze and Marco’s heart broke a little.

 “We both know the universe isn’t always right,” he supplied stubbornly. “Do you really want risk everything just to try something you won’t like in the end? I’ve never had a complete family, Marco. I don’t want to lose it just because.”

 Marco took a step but Ace moved away from him when he tried to grab his arm.

 “You won’t lose anything,” he insisted. “It’s not a risk if you know it will work out. We’ve been already working out.”

 “We haven’t been. There is a difference with us in person and with us in our minds,” Ace replied smoothly.

 “Ace,” he said calmly. “I can literally feel you lying.”

 He looked Marco straight in the eyes, and the rapid heartbeat stilled.

 “I’m not lying,” he spoke up, his voice steady and emotionless. “We’re too different to ever work out. We’re just not suited for each other.”

 Marco licked his lips, feeling more hopeless than he had for the last eighteen years.

 “You don’t believe that,” he tried again.

 Ace took a step to the side but Marco didn’t move.

 “Actually, I do.”

 He moved to the doors and before anything, he was gone.

 “Ace-“ was stuck in Marco’s throat.

 There was coldness in his chest but a fire in his heart. His muscles tensed and there was a moment when he couldn’t move or breathe.

 He stared at the left space, with Ace’s name on his lips and feeling useless.

 Marco didn’t know what to do.

 Ace ignored him, avoiding him and pretending nothing happened. Marco really didn’t know what to do. Of course, he tried to talk with Ace – he came to him on his own a few times but Ace had Observation Haki and managed to leave before they actually met. He still had to give his reports and inform Marco about the weather but every time he did it, they were in public or Ace brushed him off, invoking his duties, turning the conversation on Marco like a pro. Ace, he had to admit, was able to manipulate people and their speech when he wanted. It may have come even easier to him with Marco involved, with their soulbond and all. It reminded him that he didn’t know Ace that much in the end.

 “I don’t know what to do!” he blurted out, entering Thatch’s private kitchen.

 Izou jumped away from Thatch. There was a simple black hair clip holding his hair. The arm of his kimono slipped from his shoulder, uncovering the pale skin.

 Thatch sighed.

 “Hello to you too, Marco. I’m good, thanks. How are you today?” he mocked.

 “I’m horrible!” he yelled, moving in a circle in the small space of the room.

 Izou massaged Thatch’s shoulder to calm him down. He was still frowning.

 “I’m supposed to ask what it is, aren’t I?” Thatch snorted.

 “You’re his best friend, hon,” Izou noticed. “It’s kind of your job.”

 He sighed again when Izou stopped making patterns with his thumb on his arm, moving to find his sketchbook which lied forgotten somewhere in the room.

 Marco was still going round in circles, making a path of anger around the kitchen. It looked ridiculous.

 “What is it, best friend of mine?”

 Marco wasn’t laughing or even smiling.

 “Ace is my soulmate,” he hissed.

 Thatch cut him short, saying, “Well, we established it two days ago when we left you two in here to do unspeakable things I don’t want to think about.”

 Marco made a face, glaring at him.

 “Ace is my soulmate,” he repeated stubbornly, “and he doesn’t want to even try being together.”

 They both looked at him abruptly. Izou sat down on one of the chairs near the countertop, sketchbook left on his lap.

 “He said we won’t work out. He said-“ Marco glanced at the floor, remembering the words clearly and loudly. “He said we’re too different.”

 “Bullshit,” Thatch replied easily. “Yeah, you’re not the same but you complement each other.”

 “That’s what I told him,” Marco continued. “He’s not listening to anything I say and when he does, he simply turns the questions on me.”

 “Can’t you corner him up and just get on with it? It’s Ace we’re talking about,” the cook suggested.

 “First of all, Marco is trying to be gentle. You could learn from him.” Thatch made a face. “Second of all, yes, it’s Ace we’re talking about. Didn’t you notice he does and shows only what is in his comfort zone?”

 They both looked at Izou as if he grew a second head.

 “What?” he exclaimed. “He’s always been closed off. He’s been getting better recently but still.”

 Marco’s head felt dizzy all of sudden. If Ace had been getting better, why did he stop? Why did he reject them before they could become them? Even though he knew Ace’s emotions, he was confused about him more and more. Was Ace really this good at forging happiness? Was he really this sad, this resigned the whole time? Was he really only acting? Why had he been acting, then?

 “To answer your question, I think you should concentrate on the reason why he thinks what he thinks,” Izou added.

 Marco glanced at Thatch but he just shrugged. Izou furrowed his eyebrows at him.

 “What’s Ace feeling right now?”

 “I don’t really know. It’s been vague at best the last couple of days,” Marco answered, shifting. His gaze saddened. “I don’t know how he does that but he’s kind of blocking out most of his emotions.”

 Thatch gave him a nervous glance, not liking the sound of it.

 “Try to describe it anyway,” Izou insisted.

 Marco looked to the side with hazy eyes as if not seeing anything he was glancing at.

 “It’s nothing positive,” he started slowly. “There’s stinging- stinging in my chest. In his chest. And his eyes are dry, and he’s got a headache – or something like a headache, he never gets them, can’t get them.”

 There was a moment of silence.

 “I think he is in distress.”

 “Loathing,” Izou corrected, folding his arms. “He’s always been self-conscious, sad and lacking self-worth, right?”

 Marco bit his lip but he could only nod.

 “Think, Marco,” Izou’s voice cut across the room, filling the space too loudly. “Ace, who considers himself worthless, gathered the courage to make the first step and asked you if you are his soulmate. You told him you’re not.”

 “I told him he’s nothing like my soulmate,” he sputtered, breathless.

 “How do you think he took it?”

 Izou’s face was blank and calm but Marco’s heart was pounding in his ears. He felt ashamed – he was always talking about making his soulmate feel better about himself and there he was, the main reason Ace backed into himself. He was so insensitive to him.

 No one said anything. Thatch fidgeted.

 “To be honest, Marco,” Izou spoke up again, “if he doesn’t understand how you feel about him literally knowing what you feel, I can’t find a way you would be able to make him understand.”

 Marco clenched his jaw.

  “I will, somehow,” promised.

 Izou smiled, picking up his sketchbook.

 “Not that I’m angry or anything, Ace, but why are you hiding behind me exactly?”

 Ace looked up at Pops who was calmly drinking his forbidden sake and just observing the sunset which could be clearly seen from the quarterdeck. They docked a day before at small summer island that welcomed them quite blatantly, throwing a party for them. Most of the crew was still out somewhere or drunk in their cabins. It was rather a normal day until Ace ran up to him and sat behind his giant chair. After maybe fifteen minutes Whitebeard was simply too curious about what was going on.

 “Have you talked with Marco in the last two days maybe?” he replied with a question.

 He was looking kind of nervous but probably most hiding people looked nervous. Ace was usually more carefree, to be honest, but the kid was so insecure he had every right to be openly nervous from time to time.

 “No,” Pops answered. “Well, yes, but about nothing out of ordinary. Marco, for a pirate, is quite boring at times, isn’t he?”

 Ace tried to bit down the smile and tried to hide it behind his hand. Whitebeard chuckled.

 “What is it about Marco then?” he prodded.

 Ace licked his lips, absently hugging himself with one arm.

 “He kind of found out something about me,” he mumbled. “He’s acting weird now.”

 Whitebeard hummed at that, taking a sip of sake. Ace sat there, not knowing if there was a way not to continue.

 “Did he find out you’re soulmates?”

 Ace looked up at him, blinking. Whitebeard chuckled again.

 “How do you-Are the rumors spreading so fast?” he blurted out.

 “Oh, come on. I knew as soon as, twelve years ago,  he had a panic attack because he could hear his soulmate’s thoughts,” he said. “I’ve met only one couple who could hear each other’s minds.”

 Ace stared at him blankly.

 “Your parents.”

 Ace glanced away, clenching his jaw. They both knew he hated the topic of his parents but Whitebeard never respected it, claiming it to be bullshit and nonsense.

 “Yeah,” Ace snorted. “Another great feature I got from that asshole.”

 “I know you aren’t the biggest fan of your father but your parents were soulmates,” he replied. “If you talk about your father, you talk about your mother too. It applies to every topic.”

 Ace’s eyes wandered to the side, avoiding any contact.

 “I love my mom,” he said. “I really do.”

 “They were connected with each other in more ways than one, Ace,” he spoke up softly. “That’s what it means to be soulmates.”

  Ace bit his lip.

 “Now, tell me what that soulmate of yours has done,” he added.

  Ace let out a long breath, sounding tired and resigned all of sudden. He made a face sending Whitebeard a pleading glare.

 “As I said, he’s acting weird,” he went on. “He bought me flowers.”

  Whitebeard started laughing, probably waking up half of the drunks on the Moby Dick with the sound. Ace grimaced, waiting.

 “And what did you do?” Pops asked, still grinning teasingly.

 “I lit the flowers on fire.”

 Whitebeard started laughing like a maniac again.

 “I didn’t mean to!” Ace protested. “We were in the harbor and some guy called us fags and I got angry and fired up just like that and the flowers caught fire and just-“

 Whitebeard wasn’t stopping laughing. Ace kicked him but it was half-hearted at best.

 “Pops.”

 “Okay, okay,” he chirped. “Why exactly did he buy you flowers anyway? You don’t seem like the type-“

 “Because I’m not,” he cut him short. “He’s, as he said, making up. Convincing me to give us a try.”

 Whitebeard frowned at that.

 “Convincing?” he questioned. “I thought you had already been a couple for the last two months. What with all that dates you had in the library?”

 “He was teaching me, Pops,” Ace spat out.

 “Whatever you kids call it these days,” Whitebeard snorted, smirking.

 Ace made a face.

 “Anyway,” he backtracked, staring at the wooden floor. “We are not and we won’t be.”

 Whitebeard’s face became serious, his eyebrows furrowed.

 “I know you’re both adults despite what everyone, myself included, says,” he began slowly, “but maybe this time you should keep in mind his feelings a bit more.”

 “I’m doing that right now,” Ace answered, completely sure of himself. His voice was empty. “I’m thinking how he’ll feel. In the future.”

 “You can’t hide from him forever,” Whitebeard quipped.

 Ace looked him in the eyes, his body staying still and his breath stuck in his lungs.

 “I can’t,” he agreed. “But right now, I’m. So please, distract me for the time being.”

 There was a long moment of silence.

 “Did you know your mother was a pirate too?” he said finally. Ace smiled gently, silently thanking Pops for understanding. “She was a captain of an all-female crew. No one ever suspected though, she looked too pure and innocent to be a wanted criminal, nonetheless a captain. She was-“

 Ace spent the rest of the evening listening to the stories about his mom.

 It was dark when he moved back to his room. To be honest, Ace was sleepy as hell but it may have been just echo of Marco who was taking care of everyone today – drunk pirates staying in town or wandering to the forest were usually the reasons they had had to leave an island before log pose settled. Marco was awake since yesterday morning and Ace knew he was probably still somewhere, keeping an eye on the crew.

 Most of the time, Ace would be helping him but nowadays everything about the two of them was different.

 As soon as Ace neared his room, doors to Marco’s own opened. Ace hated that they had quarters opposite each other only because of their divisions’ numbers.

 “Ace,” he began, noticing him.

 He looked as tired as Ace felt (and maybe felt), with shadows under his eyes, ruffled hair and paled skin. Ace saw him like that a lot – it was usually close to him falling asleep. To be honest, Ace was used to it – Marco tended to feel drained every time they docked and Ace felt it every time too, not really showing it on himself though. He was used to exhaustion in general, remembering long nights in the forest on Down Island and the days when, still sailing alone, he was bound by the lull on the sea. His or not, it felt the same.

 “Can we not do it now?” Ace begged. “I’m tired. Or you’re tired. Or we’re both tired, doesn’t really matter.”

 He moved to the doorknob.

 “Wait,” Marco blurted out. “I just wanted to say sorry for what happened in the harbor. I should have known better- old sailors and those stupid legends about the men at sea and-“

 Ace closed his eyes, leaning on the doorframe. He didn’t even know why he hadn’t ignored him and gone straight to his room. Maybe it was this peace, this kindness Marco was emitting – it always lulled Ace into staying.

 “What’s your point?” he asked, not looking at Marco. It sounded sharp.

 “I- Uhm- Well,” Marco stuttered. It was kind of cute but Ace made himself not think about it. “Just- Wait a moment.”

 There was a brief period of time, not long but long enough that Ace wondered if he could simply go and hide in his cabin before Marco came back from his room.

 Ace froze.

 Marco was holding a bouquet of a dozen red hibiscuses and smiling softly at him, his cheeks in the shade of pink that matched the flowers.

 “Izou said they are your favorites."

 Ace took a deep breath, light-headed, before answering, “My mom used to love them.”

 “They suit you,” Marco added, handing the bouquet to him.

 Ace took them absently, his gaze not leaving the flaming red petals. He was stiff and a bit overwhelmed, images flowing through his head and his heart speeding, his lungs hollow, blood thumping in his ears. The feeling was vaguely associated with nights spent in the bars asking questions or with his every birthday since he turned six.

 Marco scrutinized him, his eyebrows subtlely furrowed in worry.

 Ace didn’t know why his body reacted like that, why he reacted like that. Maybe it was because he spent the whole evening listening to those great stories about his mom from Pops. Maybe because he was on an emotional rollercoaster the last couple of days. Maybe because the memories of his mom were fresh again, still as painful and as beautiful as years ago. Maybe because he remembered again these two or so pictures of his mom Gramps showed him.  Maybe because he remembered that unclear memory of the day he was born, of her soft smile and her tears.

 Maybe that was why the only thing he could think of was that, in the memory from eighteen years ago, his mom had one of this bright red hibiscus flowers tucked behind her ears, smiling down at him, holding him and dying. It was one of the most blatant details he could clearly recall – red petals of hibiscus in her blond locks.

 Maybe that’s why he started crying hopelessly, tears coming out of nowhere and so fast he didn’t even notice. The sob stuck in his throat.

 “Ace?” Marco asked gently. “Ace, what’s going on? I’m so sorry-“

 He continued on and the sobs left Ace’s mouth as soon as his chest heated, circling around his heart, enveloping his body like a warm summer wind – just an echo. If anything, it was making his cries worse.

 Marco stepped closer and Ace couldn’t even move out of his way. His hand hovered over Ace’s shoulders, hesitating.

 “Ace, can I hug?” he asked softly, not taking his eyes off Ace’s face. When he didn’t say anything, frozen, Marco added, “I’m hugging you now, okay?”

 Next thing Ace knew, there were arms around him and for a second he hesitated what to do – but it was only a second. That didn’t have to mean anything.

 Then, Marco was overstepping him, walking him to his room, taking the red hibiscuses from his hand and sitting him down on his bed.

 The red hibiscuses, vivid and bright, the ones his mom’s smile was so connected to, the ones from Ace’s most precious memory, were lying on the night table.

 It probably had been too much for him for one day. Holding back had always been Ace’s strong feature. Especially holding back emotions, even for years.

 He cried half of the night, still safely enveloped in Marco’s arms. There were quiet, tender whispers in his mind. It’s okay. I got you. It’s okay. I’m here.

 Waking up for Ace wasn’t a problem, He was used to sleeping in weird places and getting up at the dawn.

 His bed was surprisingly hot this time and his eyes were hurting, most likely bloodshot and dry, and he still felt tired but a bit more at peace. There was warmth all over his body, his hands lukewarm, his muscles relaxed, and his cheek probably colored. He opened his eyes.

 There was Marco’s smiling face on the pillow next to him. Ace blinked.

 A bouquet of hibiscus flowers was in a vase on his night table, right next to his cowboy hat. He was still wearing the shorts from yesterday but his knife holder was nowhere in sight as was his belt.

 Marco was there, inches away, with ruffled hair and kind eyes and that fond smile, just being his perfect self. He wasn’t wearing the sash or his belt, or his shirt.

 His shoulders were a work of art.

 “Why, thank you, Ace. Glad you like my shoulders,” Marco teased, his voice kind. “Are you feeling better?” he asked, raising his hand and tucking a strand of hair behind Ace’s ear.

 It was like a wake-up call. Ace sat up, making a bigger distance between them. His glanced at the vase with hibiscuses, but still keeping an eye on Marco.

 “I’m pretty sure it was a rhetorical question,” he answered coldly.

 Marco leaned up on his elbow, frowning.

 “Ace?”

 He moved out of the bed, snatching his belt from the floor and his hat from the night table. It was clumsy and rapid but he managed. Marco sat up, a confused look on his face.

 “You know that doesn’t mean anything,” Ace said. “We’re still only- We’re still- We are not that.”

 Marco clenched his jaw.

 “Not what?” he spat out. “Soulmates? A couple? Two people loving each other?”

 There was a meaningful silence when they stared at each other. Ace ruffled his hair with his hand, frustrated sound leaving his mouth.

 “What do you expect from me, then?” he replied.

 “The thing is, Ace,” Marco answered, “I don’t expect from you anything. Except maybe cooperating because we have to talk.”

 Ace didn’t say anything, clenching his jaw. His muscles were tense and Marco clearly felt his fight or flight response to the threat. Usually Ace decided on the fight option but this time Marco wasn’t so sure he would.

 Finally, Ace sat down on the bed, as far away from him as he could. He put his hat on the side, not showing anything on his face.

 “So talk,” he said.

 Marco hesitated. He wanted to close the space between them and just hold Ace, touch him, put a hand on his knee, hug him, make him feel safe. Maybe a week or two it would have worked but now Ace was too guarded, too reluctant to let them be.

 Marco took a deep breath, deciding.

 “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he began a bit breathless, “but maybe we should try being just friends first.”

 Ace’s face stayed composed but certain hollowness gathered in his lungs and his body paralyzed for a moment. Marco wanted to grab his hand and calm him down it’d have made everything worse.

 Then, the tension left Ace’s body accompanied by a long sigh. He was actually relieved and Marco didn’t know how he felt about it.

 “That could work,” Ace said, his voice still cautious and a bit surprised.

 Marco fidgeted, leaning closer to Ace.

 “But I have one condition,” he added.

 Ace raised an eyebrow, biting his lip.

 “Which is?”

 “You won’t hold back your emotions,” Marco explained. “And I mean not blocking them from me and answering me honestly when I ask what’s going on.”

 Ace looked at him, his eyes wandering over his body. The feeling of two people pulling on a rope in different directions was present once again, in both of their chests.

 “It’s a fair deal, isn’t it?” Marco said, trying to sound soft.

 Their gazes met.

 “Okay,” Ace agreed.

 Marco smiled at that.

 It was a really short relief because Ace got up the same second, putting on his belt and moving to the door, his hat hanging around his neck.

 “Really?” Marco spat out. “I just said we have to talk and less than five minutes and you’re already running away?”

 Ace turned around, grinning. It was so bright Marco couldn’t breathe.

 “It’s around ten. I was supposed to go and check with Sammy this morning,” he said, amused. “On the route off the island, there is a cliff and cliff equals sunken rocks. Water around here is shallow so- You know, doing my job.”

 Marco kinda blushed.

 Ace smirked playfully, looking so much like him and so different at the same time. There was that fresh spark in his eyes, one Marco learned to love.

 “We’ll talk later,” he said, almost like a whisper.

“So flowers didn’t work,” Marco deadpanned.

 Izou blinked and Thatch, sitting next to them, snorted.

 “You slept with him and you say flowers didn’t work? What were you expecting, a wedding band?” Thatch teased.

 Marco glared at him.

 “We both know it was not that kind of sleeping,” he supplied.

 “You should try the food next,” Izou remarked. “Take him to some restaurant, or rather a buffet or to the market stalls.”

 Marco looked to the side, at the entrance to the mess hall, noticing Ace coming in with Sammy, with whom he was supposed to talk this morning. He didn’t show up at breakfast so they probably came later and mooched food for themselves – Ace hadn’t been going hungry, of that Marco was sure.

 Ace noticed him staring and waved at him, sending him a shy smile. He and Sammy made their way to the lunch queue. Marco couldn’t take his eyes off that smile.

 “I kinda think you should have started the seducing with food. It’s Ace,” Thatch joked.

  Marco furrowed his eyebrows but didn’t glance away from Ace’s happy face.

 “There will be no seducing. We’ve decided to stay just friends for now,” he said absently.

 Izou snorted, raising their eyebrow and biting their lip.

 “The way you’re staring at his ass definitely says just friends,” they noticed.

 Marco looked away from Ace, glaring at them. His face was a bit red though because he kind of was staring.

 “I wasn’t-“ he began. Deciding not to incriminate himself further, he changed the topic, “He looks happier, doesn’t he?”

 Izou smiled, leaning on their elbows. “He does,” they admitted.

 Ace didn’t come to their table. He stayed with Sammy, discussing something lively and eating the amount of food that could satisfy six other people. When he finished, Sammy got up and left. Ace moved to their table, a casual expression on his face – it was totally fake, Marco heard his speeding pulse in his ears and there was a phantom feeling of clammy hands.

 Marco was pretty sure he had a lovestruck expression himself, especially seeing the way Thatch and Izou snickered.

 “Marco,” Ace said, his voice soft, awkward, and shy, far more suiting him than the cold tone he had been using just a day ago but also so different from the Ace he had seen two weeks ago.

 His own name still sounded fantastic on his mouth.

 “Ace,” he replied, breathless and even more awkward.

 Izou practically cooed in the background while Thatch rolled his eyes.

 “I just-“ Ace began. It was amazing because he was finally looking him in the eyes. “About the route off- We need to find a different path, we’re going with Sammy to do the recon of the other side of the island and search for some maps in town, I’ll leave you a report later.”

 Marco smiled at that, admittedly very lovestruck.

 “Actually,” he began, deciding you only live once, “it can wait. I wanted to go to town with you, scout the island like we usually do. We can search for maps if you want, go to the marketplace, eat something there.”

 Ace hugged himself with his arm, looking very cute, and smiled unsurely. Marco practically melted.

 “Okay,” he said slowly. “I just have to talk with my division and, well, I’ll see you around?”

 “Yeah,” Marco spoke up softly. “See you around.”

 Ace smiled at him again, leaving, and Marco sighed quite happy.

 As soon as Ace was out the door, Izou grinned.

 “Who’s got a date?” they asked, a sly grin overcoming their face.

 Thatch looked at them, a mirroring smile on his face.

 “Marco’s got a date!” he cheered.

 They burst into a fit of giggles and Marco groaned.

 It wasn't a date.

Chapter Text

 It was a date.

 Marco had to admit it, it was a date in every sense but Ace's.

 Ace didn't even have the chance to look for him after checking in with his division - Marco found him first.

 Marco's division was composed mostly of nurses and fighters whose main job was protecting nurses and navigators during an attack or exploring new islands. Nurses, and women in general, Marco suspected, were reasonable and sensible, and the rest of his division was simply too afraid not to listen to him. His word was the law in their eyes so when he told them he's going to town and ordered them a bunch of tasks to do, no one protested.

 With Ace, it was rather difficult. Even though he had never complained, Marco knew he was still being disrespected by some of his subordinates - a lot of older guys didn't want to listen to someone so young and some of them still missed their last commander. In the Second Division, there were two groups - one that warmed up to Ace instantly and one that was still cold toward him.

 That's why, when Marco reached the chart room, Ace was still bent over a freshly drawn map, adding details, surrounded by people. Sammy was there too, along with the friendlier guys from the Second Division. Irashi and some of the older guys were standing on the side, looking deeply unimpressed by Ace's actions.

 "Ace," he spoke up, catching the attention of the whole room. Ace glanced up at him, still holding the pen. "We're supposed to go."

 Ace smiled sheepishly.

 "I'll find you in a minute," he replied. "I have to draw the map of the last island we've been to."

 Marco folded his arms over his chest. His body was feeling quite nice, filled with the glow of Ace's emotions and concern but a couple of his muscles were mimicking the strain in Ace's shoulders.

 "Shouldn't it be done already?" Marco questioned.

 Ace bit his lip. Irashi and another guy from the senior crew, Aralin, smirked.

 "Who forgot to draw it?" he prodded.

 "No one forgot," Sammy spoke up before Ace could even open his mouth. "Ace-san drew it the day we anchored at the last island but Aralin spilled ink at it today."

 Marco's gaze wandered to the floor. Sure enough, there was inked paper in the trash can.

 "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked directly meeting his gaze. "How long has this been going on?"

 Ace avoided his eyes. A hollow feeling echoed in Marco's chest, a distinct shame he sometimes sensed from Ace.

 "Then Aralin is going to redraw it," Marco decided.

 "What?" someone in the background said.

 "It's the Commander's duty to make sure all the maps and papers are in order," Irashi noticed.

 "Marco," Ace spoke up, his hand rubbing the spot on his collarbone, the inflamed one Marco always associated with his own irritation. "I'll do it. I want to do it. I'll find you in half an hour."

 Marco gave him a look.

 "You can't be serious," he told him.

 Ace furrowed his eyebrows, shrugging.

 "I don't want him to draw that map," Ace answered him through their bond. "The last time he had drawn the maps he got the shoreline wrong and the tips of all technical pens were blunted. Not to mention how much paper and ink he used and the way his scaling is simply awful and-"

 "Ace," he cut in. "Okay, you'll do it."

 Ace gave him a bright smile and pleasing heat made its way into his lungs, mimicking Ace's affection.

 "But everyone gets out."

 "Someone has to stay on the watch," Irashi tried. "We can't just all neglect our duties."

 "Then keep watch in any other of the crow's nest, there's plenty of them," he spat out. His patience was running thin.

 There was a minute of silence and Irashi clenched his jaw but nodded and left. The rest fled the room after him. Marco hated it - just because someone was in the crew longer or had more experience didn't mean they were better.

 Sammy patted Ace's shoulder with a sheepish expression, leaving as the last one. He was relatively young, a couple of years older than Ace - if not for the lack of fighting skills, Marco would have seen him as the new Commander.

 As soon as the chart room emptied, Ace gave him a meaningful look.

 "I didn't need help," he announced.

 Marco nearly sighed.

 "Really?" he questioned. "You're gonna argue after what I've just seen? How long has this been going on, Ace?"

 "That wasn't anything serious," Ace said. Marco felt anger swelling in his chest, hot, burning and so familiar. "I told you they don't like me. I got used to petty accidents like this one."

 "You shouldn't be used to it," Marco asserted.

 Ace's face stayed passive but Marco's own heart sped up, echoing Ace's. His, their, lips were dry instantly and just because all of that, Marco took a deep breath, letting go of the tightness in his body. He stepped up to Ace's side and Ace was suddenly very interested in the parchment laid out on the drawing board.

 The pencil sketch of the last island was nearly ready but it had to be inked out and left to dry.

 "Ace," he began again, his voice faint and his forehead wrinkled. "That's pretty much bullying and mob mentality combined. They are your subordinates, they are supposed to listen to you. If they don't, they may as well swap divisions."

 "That's not necessary," he answered at once. "Aralin may be shitty at drawing maps but he's got a great sense for the weather. It's similar with all of them."

 Marco looked at him. He didn't need to do that to know Ace's shoulders were stiff and his muscles tensed, flexing. There was bitterness in his mouth - Marco sighed.

 "If they don't change by next month, I will be making changes myself."

 Ace rolled his eyes, turning back to the drawing board. He took out a few technical pens and filled them with ink. His movements were graceful, rather trained, skilled ones that Marco had never seen before, not being made by Ace. It was strange and so normal at the same time - Ace had drawn a countless amount of maps before and Marco saw most of them on the weekly meetings they held with all the divisions which had a direct part in maintaining the ship. Ace doodled a lot too- when they had their kanji lessons in the library, his paper was always cramped with sketches of different things. He had just never seen the process.

 At the top of every pen was a small plastic transparent ball with an even smaller metal ball inside.

 "Why the pens have those little balls at the top?" he asked Ace out of nowhere.

 Ace jumped, his hand straying to his heart. Marco almost chuckled - he could feel how startled he was. 

 "I forgot you are still here," Ace stated.

 "I'm literally five feet away," Marco noticed, an amused smile making its way on his face.

 "Yeah, but it always feels like you're five feet away," Ace answered.

 He realized Ace meant their bond. He got a fuzzy, warm wave of feelings in his chest. Ace had never mentioned it before - logically, Marco knew he had to feel Marco's emotions too but he avoided this topic so much it always appeared as if he was the only one of them who got to feel twice as much.

 Ace glanced up at him, probably feeling it too. He rolled his eyes.

 "They are for keeping the right angle."

 "Huh?"

 "The balls. They are for keeping right angle," Ace explained. "Technical pens, most of them anyway, have to be held at the right angle to the drawing board for drawing steady, long lines. Some of the guys had problems with keeping the angle and I ordered them to glue it to every pen. When the metal ball is in the center, the angle is right." 

 "Clever," Marco remarked, a bit awed by Ace.

 Ace gave him a small smile.

 "Actually, I was wondering," Marco began. "You couldn't read or write up until recently but you can use scale and can draw in technical style. How did it exactly come to it? Who in your family thought that oh, reading isn't useful but technical drawing, that's the thing?"

 Ace fidgeted, not looking at him.

 "Sabo wanted to build a tree house. We usually slept next to the bonfire or in makeshift tents," he answered. "He was always super organized so he wanted to plan it, he was the smart one after alll."

 Marco leaned on the edge of the drawing board, half-sitting. He crossed his arm over his chest as if to warm up the chilly spot under his sternum, hollow feeling of Ace's memories.

 "How old were you?"

 Ace glanced at him, catching his gaze. He looked so shy - strands of his hair in his eyes and delicate blush on his cheeks. It made him look younger.

 "Ten. We stole Dadan's, our care taker's money and went to town to buy things for technical drawings," Ace said, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. "There was a nice older lady, she taught me everything she knew about technical drawings. It was quite easy, she told me I had a talent."

 "I think it runs in your family," Marco noticed. "Your mom was one of the best navigators I have met, was natural at it."

 Ace grinned at that but the smile was strained, cracking in the mid-move.

 Marco took one of the chairs and sat with Ace, watching him work for the next half an hour. The map was perfect.

 They did finally go to town - much later than Marco planned, it was getting quite close to dinner to be honest, not long before the sunset.

 The first thing Ace wanted to do was, unsurprisingly, eating food. It was endearing.

 He ate a lot, so much that people stared at them.

 The next stop was a chart shop and tourist point. The chart shop wasn't big, not as big as the one on Sabaody or in Alabasta, or Wano but it was big enough for such a small island. The shop owner was a laid back man in his fifties who was a classic example of an expert in the topic but one without talent. Marco was pretty useless there, being mostly a sponsor, to be honest. He stopped paying attention to their conversation as soon as Ace used words like alidade and bathymetry. He observed Ace instead, his flushed cheeks and the enthusiastic spark in his eyes. It was pleasant enough and Ace was relaxed so he wouldn't complain.

 The owner gave them sketches of the island but told them to ask at the harbor about the shore, harbourmaster had a shack nearby and he would know the depth of the water.

 In the end, they went to the market. Despite being late, it was still packed with people. Upon the arrival of their crew, numerous stalls stayed on display even in the evening, probably expecting profit. There were a few people from the ship but most of them were still at dinner in the mess hall.

 It was much later when they wandered around the stalls and Ace stopped at one with leather crafts that Marco realized it was like an actual date. He was trying to keep up with Ace's pace, following his steps, when the lady from whom he bought flowers the day before called him out from her stall.

 She smiled at him and he glanced away, searching for Ace. Ace turned back to him, meeting his gaze and giving him a wave of a hand. He looked energetic, sparking, so vivid and his skin seemed to glow in the light of dying sunset and Marco had trouble with turning his gaze away.

 The lady chuckled.

 "The flowers were for him?" she asked. When he licked his lips instead of answering, she continued, "He's a cute one. Hibiscus flowers suit him."

 Before Marco could say anything, she pushed one of the hibiscuses into his hand. It had a short stem and vibrant red petals.

 Ace glanced at the flower in his hand but didn't say anything. His face was blank but his chest tightened and an echo of hollowness overcome Marco's lungs. It wasn't a negative reaction, not like the one that morning but it held a certain amount of nostalgia.

 He didn't know why he tucked Ace's hair behind his ear and then tucked the flower behind his ear too. It was natural and before he realized what he was doing, it had been done.

 Ace peeked up at him but still didn't speak up. He lifted his hand, his palm hovering near the flower as if he wanted to take it out - he didn't do that in the end, brushing a few of black locks with his fingertips. He sent Marco a tiny smile, one with a face so flushed his freckles blended in with the pink color of his skin.

 Marco had the urge to take his hand and squeeze and then not let go but he resisted. He didn't want to press, not after what happened in the morning.

 Ace was here, with him, looking as beautiful and as sunny as ever and he was at peace, and Marco didn't care for much more.

 The next morning, when Marco came to Ace's room so they could eat breakfast together, all the flowers were on Ace's nightstand. The bouquet was standing in a vase and the single flower Ace had had tucked behind his ear was in a small jar filled with water.

 Marco couldn't stop smiling. Maybe it was all gonna be okay.

 It wasn't gonna be okay.

 About a week later, Ace had another breakdown. Marco didn't know what caused it because usually there was something that did cause it - a trigger. He wasn't feeling too well the last couple of hours but Marco was so used to it and Ace had been telling him it was okay and he was in the town anyway, they couldn't exactly meet.

 He was in the middle of talking with Fossa's division when he felt it. It wasn't crying per se, not with the way Ace rarely cried. But his chest was in pain, resembling a black hole in the place of his heart and his lungs clutched, seeking air, and his muscles tensed, his shoulders tight. His throat closed on itself and his eyes watered, glossy. None of this was Marco's. 

 He closed his mouth in the middle of a sentence and looked around, knowing well enough that Ace was nowhere in sight.

 "Marco?"

 "Do you know where Ace is right now?" he blurted out.

 Most of the guys looked at him weirdly.

 "He got back from the town some time ago. I think he's in his room now or in the chart room..."

 Marco didn't listen to anything else. He turned on his heel, stumbling on several people on the way. Everyone's gaze stalked him and some of the crew moved after him.

 As soon as he was under Ace's door, he started rapidly knocking.

 A wave of something that took his breath and made his sight fuzzy hit his chest.

 "Ace," he tried. "Are you okay? Can I come in?"

 Before Marco knocked again, there was the sound of the footsteps on the other side. Ace opened the door, not minding the presence of the small crowd that gathered around.

 He didn't look much out of ordinary, to be honest. His eyes were glossy and his skin was a shade lighter but it wasn't a major difference. If not for the feeling of self-hatred and resignation that Marco was so familiar with, he would never say Ace was down.

 Ace looked up at him, a subtle smile on his face. Marco hated that smile.

 "I'm fine, Marco," he told him.

 Marco's shoulders fell but he didn't know if it was mimicking Ace or if it was his own reaction. His hands moved instinctively, hovering over Ace.

 "I'm gonna hug you know," he announced to Ace.

 Ace looked up at him, his smile falling. Marco wrapped his arms around him and Ace hid his face under his chin. He side-step them to the inside of the room, kicking the doors shut.

 Ace didn't burst into tears, not like that time with hibiscuses. He sobbed in Marco's chest but it was so soft and quiet he barely heard it. It'd been about twenty minutes before Ace calmed down, the overwhelming feeling leaving Marco's body and being replaced with numbness.

 Ace didn't say anything about it.

 He said a small, "Thank you," and left the room, Marco in tow.

 The next day started nicely for Ace. As nice as it could.

 He woke up, looking at the dying flowers on his night table. For anyone else, it would be a sad view but for Ace, it was only a bit bittersweet. The last night, he spent with Pops, listening to the story of how his mom tricked Roger and stole half his treasures when she was beginning her pirate career. It soothed him to sleep. The sun was shining and they were still docked.

 The first thing he did, despite what everyone believed wasn't going to eat breakfast. Usually, he would go up the crow's nest and check on the watch that was in the chart room. He used to go to Marco's room first, saying good morning and asking him if he wanted Ace to bring him breakfast to his room. He didn't do that anymore. 

 He knew that day was going to be even more shitty than the day before when he entered chart room and every pair of eyes turned to him.

 He wanted to sigh and close his eyes and go back to bed. He knew he couldn't do that - the seniors from the Second Division would eat him alive if he did that. He opted to smile and pretend he didn't notice the tension in the room or the accusing gazes or even the feeling of Marco's heartbeat, still steady and sleepy and so calm Ace was jealous. He loved his division but he also hated them a little.

 "Hey, has anyone made a draft of the map of the island yet?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

 The silence was awkward at best and attacking at worst.

 If they wanted to point a figurative finger at him, he would at least want to know why. So he spoke up, addressing the whole room, "What did I do again?"

 He tried not to be tired but he was. He wanted to do something right for once in his life. Meet someone's expectations for once.

 "Tell me," Irashi began.  Every time he heard his voice, Ace would get a headache if he could. He wasn't even supposed to be here - his watch was tonight. "How long were you gonna keep it a secret that you slept your way into a promotion?"

 Yeah, a headache. Every fucking time.

 "I think I'm missing something because I don't understand what you are saying," Ace quipped. "Usually your insults at least make sense."

 "You're Marco's soulmate," Irashi announced. It sounded more like an accusation. The cat was out of the bag.

 Ace waited for some elaboration but it never came. 

 "Commander Marco," he corrected, breaking the silence. "Show some respect. He may be younger than you but he's still your superior. As am I."

 "If you wanted to sleep your way to the position of a commander, you should have chosen any other division but ours."

 Someone coughed in the background but Ace could only feel how ridiculous that statement was. Even if he wanted to sleep his way anywhere, it wasn't really possible with Marco, since, well, the closest to sleeping together they came was lying in the same bed after Ace's breakdown. There was also that thing with Marco not loving him.

 He didn't know what he wanted to do more - laugh, snort, sigh or maybe cry at the irony.

 The saddest thing about it was, maybe Ace could be at fault there. Because he did fall in love with Marco and as Izou told him countless times - he was making goo-goo eyes at him. But Marco didn't deserve it, not with the way he opposed the idea of Ace as his soulmate from the start.

 "I'm used to your stupid insults toward me but implying Marco, the biggest stickler on this ship, would engage in nepotism is just idiocy," Ace remarked. His mouth was dry and maybe his eyes were glassy but the only thing he could feel was that annoying, bittersweet hole over his heart. "I think your imagination got a bit carried away."

 Maybe it worked a bit because the silent room went into commotion. Maybe the truth was enough to actually make reason with most of them.

 "To be honest, I'm fed up with your behavior. You won't be on duty th next two weeks," Ace decided. Maybe it was the right time to do it. "You're going to help with cleaning duty of every division this week. As a lesson."

 "You can't make me," Irashi spat out.

 "As your superior, yes, I can," he assured him. "And if you have your doubts about this, we can always discuss it with both mine and your superiors, Pops and Commander Marco. I'm sure they will be more understanding than me when they hear about this conversation."

 Irashi paled so much that Ace finally could smile.

 The irony though. The irony still hurt.

 Marco had a rough night but the sleep was good. After the whole breakdown, Ace vanished somewhere and left all the chaos behind. Marco couldn't fall asleep not knowing Ace could sleep so he waited. He went to bed at around three o'clock. But he woke up rested and although Ace wasn't the brightest, he felt better than yesterday. Marco smiled at him when he entered the mess hall.

 "Everyone knows," Ace told him when Marco sat down in front of him.

 Marco did realize it as soon as he entered the mess hall and everyone stared at him. It was strangely quiet too.

 "Is it something bad?" Marco questioned.

 Ace bit his lip and glanced down at the table. It was quite normal for him, when he held too much eye contact he tended to do that. It just didn't seem right though, not now.

 "Ace," he prodded gently through the bond. "What is it?"

 "Irashi told me I should have slept my way to another division," he confessed.

 Marco stood up, the plate making a loud sound with his movement.

 "I'm going to make him eat his own words," Marco spat out.

 Ace gave him a little smile even though his eyes didn't have any sparks to them.

 "Don't bother," he told him. "I assigned him to help with cleaning duties of every division for the next two weeks."

 "Good."

 "Pops, I need a piece of advice."

 Pops didn't look as surprised as he probably should be. Marco rarely asked for advice and when he did, he never quite worded it like that. It was personal.

 Pops didn't say anything but nodded for Marco to continue.

 "I kind of found out something about Ace-" 

 Pops rolled his eyes at that. His children were all too dramatic. 

 "You mean you found out that Ace is your soulmate," he interrupted. 

 Marco raised an eyebrow at that, opening his mouth and closing them a couple of times. He gathered his thoughts but held back his tongue, answering with a short, "Yes."

 "I suppose you didn't come here asking me how to repair this whole soulmate mess because there's no answer for that," Pops continued. Marco licked his lips, glancing down at the floor. "What's it then?"

 "Do you remember how, about twelve years ago, I burst into tears-"

 "During breakfast, yes, I remember."

 "Ace still has these- these episodes," Marco explained. "He just hides them well. I talk with him and help him through them as much as I can but-"

 Marco didn't really know how to word it. It was a delicate topic but it was a necessary thing to address. He just wasn't convinced he was making the right choice. Maybe Ace had never decided on it because it wasn't something he felt comfortable with. He may have seemed open but the truth hit Marco like a cold shower every day - Ace was closed off and didn't trust easily. Even when it came to their crew.

 "I think it's not enough," he stated. "Ace- I think he has depression or something similar." 

 "You want him to talk to Mikoto," Pops guessed.

 "I know she talks mostly with people with PTSD or phobias but it may help him," Marco explained. "I may feel what he feels but it doesn't always mean I understand why he feels what he feels. I just don't know what I could tell him that would make him feel better."

 Pops shifted, making his chair creak. It was such a shrieking sound in the silence, even with the soft whispers of waves outside.

 "Love is not some magical cure for mental illness, son. Ace won't get better just because he's in a good environment now," Pops told him, the lack of usual lightheartedness vivid in his gaze. "You can try to persuade him into sessions with Mikoto but I don't think he'd agree. Ace, even surrounded by people who love him, is very lonely."

 Marco knew that better than anyone. He felt lonely all the time too. Or rather he felt the echo of loneliness all the time.

 "Mikoto's office? What are we doing here?"

 Marco couldn't find a good excuse so he just didn't say anything.

 He asked Ace to come with him somewhere and Ace, like the loyal person he was, hadn't even asked him where exactly before following. Maybe he trusted Marco this much. Maybe he just didn't care.

 "You told me he wanted help," Mikoto accused Marco, putting hands on her hips and glaring at him.

 Ace took a step back and Marco reached for his elbow before he could escape. His skin was almost as hot as the throbbing pain in Marco's lungs - or the reflection of it.

 "I think you need it, Ace," he explained. "You need professional help from a psychologist. Your breakdowns are getting better but they-"

 "I'm not crazy," Ace protested.

 Mikoto's whole body lost its anger, deflating.

 "Of course you aren't, Ace," she told him. "Having problems of the mental nature doesn't mean you're crazy. It just means you went through a lot, experiencing life on very different levels."

 "I don't need help," he insisted.

 "We both know it's not true," Marco objected. "Not counting the breakdowns, I don't think pretending, acting or faking emotions is healthy."

 "With all due respect, Ace, I've known Marco for fourteen years and just observing your soulbond was enough for me to see you're hurting," Mikoto stated. Her voice was way more neutral and it didn't agitate Ace as much as Marco's did. He could feel him giving in. "We'll only talk. If you don't feel comfortable with some things you can say pass and we'll leave the topic behind."

 Marco looked him in the eyes, his gaze pleading.

 "Please," he begged through the bond. "You know I mean only well for you."

 "Actually, I don't know that," he replied, his glare fierce.

 Marco ignored how his heart shattered a little and begged again, "Please."

 Ace took a deep breath, closing his eyes. His lungs, their lungs, were clenching and for a moment there, Marco thought he was going to have another anxiety attack.

 "Okay."

 Marco smiled - his smile was small but the softest one he could muster. Ace didn't smile back, not even when Marco caressed his shoulder, his thumb circling on the hot skin.

 "I'll leave you two alone," Marco told them, nodding to Mikoto.

 "Actually," Mikoto spoke up before he even reached the doorknob. "I'd like you to have sessions together. In no way do I find your obsession with soulmates healthy and although your concerns about Ace could be a family thing, I doubt it is."

 Ace gave him a look, his eyes wide and sparking, eyebrows raised meaningfully. He was practically smirking.

 "Told you people don't fall in love because they're meant to be soulmates," Ace pointed out.

 Marco folded his arms.

 "I don't have an obsession."

 Ace shrugged.

 "Denial isn't just some mythical river in Alabasta."

 His face was still angry, with furrowed eyebrows and clenched jaw. He wasn't angry though. Marco had felt his anger exactly once.

 "I'll stay," he agreed. "For Ace."

 Ace rolled his eyes but took a sit, brushing Marco's hand off his arm. His expression didn't change, every time he glanced at Marco, he looked angry. He never was. There was a painful hollowness in his chest even though his lungs squeezed themselves, not taking in the right amount of air. All Ace felt was panic, pain, resignation, and sadness. Marco told about it Mikoto.

 She didn't concentrate on the pretending part or on the negative emotions part like Marco thought she would.

 "You don't feel anger?" she questioned.

 Ace shrugged.

 "Didn't people around you express anger when you were young?"

 Ace closed his eyes for a moment that seemed too long to be a normal reaction. Marco's mind heard it all - screams of a woman, cruel and shrieking, sounds of broken bottles and glasses, sounds of lost fights, animalistic growls. It was a thought mirroring memories, so bland Ace couldn't stop them.

 "Everyone was angry," Ace told her, looking her in the eyes. "Almost everyone."

 Marco didn't know. Admittedly, he didn't know much about Ace's childhood except for that it wasn't the nicest. He knew some names, like his care taker's - Dadan - or his brother's - Sabo - or even the two names that always held certain softness in Ace's thoughts - Luffy and Makino - but it was all. Most of the memories Ace shared with him were bittersweet.

 Mikoto didn't speak up for a moment, expecting more. Ace didn't continue.

 "There are two main ways to express anger. One, which is healthier for the person but toxic for their community, is expressing anger freely - through outbursts, screams, sometimes physically," Mikoto explained, addressing mostly Ace. "The second way is holding it back until it accumulates and explodes. It's frustrated anger that affects the mental state of the person."

 "I don't feel anger because it's pointless," Ace told her. "Why be angry about something you can't change?"

 "And what if you can?" Mikoto questioned.

 Their gazes met and Marco had a feeling they were having an entirely different conversation.

 "Then change it. Simple."

 Ace didn't speak to him after the forced therapy with Mikoto. Well, at least not how he used to do. There was always some tenseness to him and Marco hated it. Maybe it was what he deserved after breaking Ace's trust like that - he didn't regret it though, not if it could help Ace.

 Marco was glad when they docked at the next island. Or rather, he was glad they had problems with docking because it meant Ace had to talk with him.

 They spent about two hours discussing possible options. The island was quite big and inhabited all around the shores, leaving a circled forest far away from their reach. Somehow, there was only one harbor, on the south, and a small one at that. Ace wasn't convinced it could hold up a ship as big as Moby Dick and proposed only one way of docking there - dropping the anchors near the jetty so they could use a ladder and walk down the port. They could also dock far away from the island, not risking any damages but it would equal with the usage of tenders to get to the shore. Or they could take the risk and try to anchor at one of the unharbored shores. Ace suspected there was either not enough water or a high difference of depths depending on flood or ebb steam so they rejected even the thought. They still didn't know how long the log pose would take to settle - the recon crew forgot to ask.

 After two hours of discussions, the two of them alone in the chart room, they decided on dropping the anchor near the jetty. Ace prepared for docking.

 It was pretty late evening when they were settled in. Most of their brothers and sisters decided to stay on the ship, eating dinner. Ace stayed in the chart room, calculating if the anchors would hold up against the tide. When Marco asked if he wanted to visit the town with him, he ignored him.

 So Marco did the only thing he could think of - he went to the flower shop. The lady there was actually closing but seeing Marco's miserable face, she let him in. He probably looked pathetic.

 There were way too many flowers and Marco knew only that Ace hated roses and though dahlias smelled weird. There were hibiscuses but no red ones. In the end, Marco decided on orange hibiscuses with yellow petal tips that were shaded in a manner that reminded Marco od Ace's fire. The flower lady put a couple of white carnations in the bouquet and tied a bow around it. Marco asked her for one loose hibiscus flower, with the shorter stem so he could tuck it behind Ace's ear like the last time.

 On the way back to the ship, he ran into Curiel. Curiel glanced once at the flowers and smirked knowingly.

 "You fucked up again?" he asked, his tone teasing.

 Marco would clench his fist but he didn't want to ruin the bouquet.

 "I don't fuck up as you called it."

 "Oh, sorry. You just make some bad decisions that anger our resident firecracker."

 He was sure that by tomorrow's morning everyone would have heard about it. Ace will be blushing the whole day again.

 "Good luck," Curiel told him, lacking the teasing tone.

 Marco would need luck. He still didn't know what he was doing.

 Ace wasn't angry at him. It wasn't anger but some strange and really disturbing emptiness he felt around Marco. Like he was preparing for the impact, for the worst, numbing himself.

 Ace wasn't in his room so Marco went to the chart room. Dozens of people had seen him with the flowers but he tried not to pay attention to it - everyone had already known he and Ace were soulmates.

 When he entered the chart room, all the eyes turned to him. An awkward silence filled the room. Ace was standing at one of the desks, log book opened in front of him, a bottle of ink on his right. He probably recognized Marco with his haki but he didn't turn around.

 Everyone stared at the flowers in Marco's hand, frozen.

 Sammy, standing the closest to Ace, spoke up.

 "Ace-san," he said, tapping Ace on the arm. "We'll go and eat dinner now."

 Ace didn't say anything for a moment and then he sighed, turning back to face Marco. Everyone took it as a cue to leave.

 Ace glanced at the bouquet. He didn't frown but Marco felt how his clouded for a couple of seconds, not understanding.

 He folded his arms across his chest but his shoulders weren't tense.

 "You can't buy me flowers every time I'm mad at you," he told him.

 Marco gave him a sheepish smile, fonder than anything.

 "You're not really mad at me," Marco noticed. "You're- Well, you're mad at- mad at yourself?"

 It was a strange feeling, Marco couldn't give it a name but it certainly wasn't directed at him. It wasn't positive either.

 Ace leaned on the edge of the desk on his arms, just looking at Marco for a moment.

 Marco's chest warmed up, a nice wave of heat overcoming his body and coloring his cheeks - he wasn't sure if it was his own reaction or Ace's but it made him relax.

 "Thank you," Ace told him through the bond. Maybe he was thanking him for flowers. Maybe for something else.

 Marco handed him the flowers and Ace took them in both his hands, the tips of their fingers sparked when they touched.

 Marco reached for one of the hibiscuses, the one that wasn't tied into the bouquet. Ace gazed up at him with curious eyes and a soft smile on his lips. His freckles blended in with the blush on his cheeks. When Marco brushed a strand of hair, tucking black curls behind Ace's ear, he could see that the tips of his ear were red too. The orange and yellow hibiscuses suited Ace almost too well, complimenting his sun-kissed skin.

 Ace turned his gaze away from Marco's eyes. One of their hearts was thumping in their ears.

 "Come eat dinner with me," Marco offered. "You'll finish whatever you were doing tomorrow."

 "Everyone will stare."

 He didn't say but Marco knew he meant the flowers and the crowd that was probably waiting for them on the way from the crow's nest.

 "Then let them stare," he replied, his voice quiet. Unconsciously, his hand wandered to Ace's cheek, brushing his hair. Ace gave him a side glance. "We can't really change that, can we?"

 They left the chart room and crow's nest. Like Marco predicted, a small crowd gathered on the upper deck, observing them.

 When Ace hesitated, Marco put his hand on the small of his back, his thumb caressing the skin there.

 They went to the mess hall, forgetting to leave the bouquet in Ace's room. It laid on the table between the two of them.

 No one bothered them. Not with the way Marco glared at everyone who came within twenty feet.

 Pops was smirking the whole time.

 Marco, somehow, didn't feel embarrassment at all.

 "How did it come to this situation anyway?" Pops asked him out of nowhere.

 "What situation? The fight in the Second Division?"

 They were discussing just that a moment ago. Sammy had a black eye after he insulted one of the older guys from the division. If Ace didn't interfere, there would be more than a black eye. He was currently sitting in the infirmaries, checking if he didn't have any other injuries. Sammy had hemophilia and even small wounds would require taking meds.

 "No, the one with Ace," Pops elaborated. "Until Ace told me about a month ago, I was sure you were already dating."

 Marco stopped going through the papers and licked his lips, looking up at Pops. He didn't expect that.

 "You talked with him?" he questioned, his voice stuck in his throat.

 Pops quirked an eyebrow.

 "Shouldn't have I?"

 "Well, I thought he had wanted to keep it secret. Us being soulmates," he explained. "I didn't know he confided in anyone."

 Marco glanced at the countless reports, lists, requests and other paperwork. He didn't know, he actually didn't know so much about Ace. He did know Ace had a good relationship with Pops pretty much since Ace stopped making the attempts at Pops's life but he didn't even imagine Ace would talk with Pops about one of his most shameful secrets - because Ace was ashamed of their bond, didn't want it.

 "He didn't tell me you're soulmates. I had already known," Pops admitted. "When you told me, all those years ago, that you can hear his thoughts I suspected. But when he told me about his parents, I was sure he's your soulmate."

 Pops was that one person Ace told about his biological father before joining their crew, Marco realized.

 "I was sure you'd figure it out on your own pretty fast with the whole telepathic bond," Pops added. "That's mostly why I thought you were already dating."

 "He didn't want to tell me his name," Marco explained. Pops raised an eyebrow at that. "Said he wants to fall in love with a person, not with some empty image of the idea of soulmates."

 Pops frowned.

 "I take it you didn't figure it out."

 "I think Ace did. I told him my name and a lot of personal information," Marco admitted. "He even asked me if I was his soulmate."

 "That's when the situation started," Pops guessed. "You don't love him. Not that way."

 Marco's head snapped. His eyes widened, staring at Pops's stern look. Marco's muscles tensed and something in him blew up.

 "I do," Marco denied after the shock. Pops furrowed his eyebrows, prodding. "It's Ace who doesn't..."

 "Marco, son," Pops said gently. "I know most of my children are emotionally stunted but even logically it doesn't make sense."

 "What?"

 "You've just told me Ace didn't want to tell you his name through the bond because he wanted to fall in love first," Pops continued, his voice sounding as if he was talking to a toddler, not his first mate. "And you've just told me he asked you if you were his soulmate. After getting to know you."

 "Ace knew he is in love with me before asking," Marco realized out loud. Pops snorted at that. "Shit, I think I fucked up really this time."

 "So what caused the situation?" Pops questioned, getting ready for a couple of long hours filled with pieces of relationship advice.

 It hit Marco almost all the time. Ace was in love with him.

 It hit him when Acr told him good morning in the mess hall, it hit him when Ace brought him coffee to his room, it hit him when Ace stopper for a long small talk while bringing Marco a report.

 And most of all, it hit him every time Ace looked at him with that soft smile on his face and every time they ran into each other, there was an echo of bittersweet feeling in Ace's mouth, so normal, so casual Marco would never pay attention to it if he wasn't paying special attention to it.

 It hit him at dinner. Ace was sitting at another table, sandwiched between Sammy and Deuce. He stopped mid-word when he noticed Marco's gaze and smiled at him. It was soft, with quirked lips, raised eyebrows, with a faint blush on his cheeks and with the warmth of a fire in his eyes. His shoulders narrowed, hunching, and it looked as if he was shying away from Marco's gaze.

 "Has Ace always looked at me like that?" he asked out loud, interrupting Izou and Vista's conversation.

 Izou gave him a pointed look.

 "Why no one told me about it?"

 "We did," Izou noticed. "Again and again. You just didn't want to listen."

Chapter Text

 The first time Ace had asked him to sleep together wasn’t nice. Not in the slightest.

 Marco noticed his breakdowns happened at random but most of them happened when they were docking at big islands. He didn’t know why, Ace always claimed he loved big islands, something to do with how small his own was and how many things could be found on them.

 Marco liked to use a scale from one to five to describe the intensity of Ace’s breakdowns. Ones, twos, and sometimes threes were spent behind closed doors or with Ace pretending everything was alright. They usually didn’t last long and as far as he could see - well, feel - they lasted a day and went away after a good night of sleep or some sweet goodnight stories from Pops. Marco liked to stay closer to Ace, just because he could, but that was it.

 Fours and fives were different. They began as twos or threes and then escalated. Ace had never allowed Marco to stay with him when they happened.

 They weren’t as frequent - ones, twos, and threes happened pretty much on a daily basis. They had much more force tough and Marco hated them even more. Ace would usually tell him he needed some time to himself, staying in his room, empty corner of the library, or in the chart room. The only upside to this was he was much more snappish and didn’t have the patience to deal with the bullshit a part of his division gave him.

 The last two days Marco spent worrying. It wasn’t as much as worrying but more of a frantic fretting. The first evening when Ace stayed in the chart room instead of getting back to his cabin, Marco made his way to the chart room about five times, each time turning back halfway. It happened every time – when his throat mirrored Ace’s nausea, his heart skipped a beat or two, his hands started trembling, or when his lungs were collapsing. It hurt even more when Marco, time and again, realized it was just a reflection, a couple of times fainter than the real feeling.

 He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t concentrate.

 Which was ridiculous. Ace, who was actually feeling all this, functioned just fine. He didn’t sleep as much but he still ate, still turned in his reports, still draw maps, still wrote in the logbook, still talked with everyone, still joked, still smiled. He was a contained mess and Marco didn’t how he could do that.

 The second night, Marco didn’t sleep even though he knew Ace was trashing in his bed a corridor away. Maybe just in case. Maybe because he felt hopeless.

 After sitting around and fidgeting, eyes red and glassy, Marco decide it was enough. He had been kept on his toes for so long that he just needed to do something.

 He got up and left his room, standing in the corridor for a moment, trying to calm himself down. He wanted to scream and kick the door to Ace’s room down. 

 But he didn’t want to wake up anyone. Ace wouldn’t want that either.

 “Ace,” he spoke up through the bond. “ I’m going to walk into your room, okay? I just want to make sure you’re alright .”

 They both knew he wasn’t alright but Marco was sure he understood what he meant.

 Ace didn’t answer him and certainly didn’t open the door. Tears welled in Marco’s eyes, his hands shaking as he searched for the doorknob, the view blurry. His breath became rapid, stuck somewhere between his throat and lungs and he had to concentrate on making sure he was still standing.

 Ace was sitting on his bed, loose sweatpants on his crossed legs, hair falling into his eyes, and fresh tears dripping from his chin. He had always been a messy crier but it continued to surprise him every time. He looked even worse than it felt.

 He sat down next to him, as close as he could without hugging him, their thighs touching. Ace didn’t look him in the eyes, holding back sobs and trying to breathe at the same time. Marco felt his lungs as if they were on fire and his eyes, although not blurry anymore, were stinging, red, and unfocused. His shoulders were tense but his body lost its all energy, becoming numb. 

 Ace started to laugh and it sounded so hysterical. His gaze stayed on his palms, moving anxiously and still shaking. Marco wanted to hold those hands, just for a moment until they stopped trembling.

 “This is so funny,” Ace sputtered out, his voice cracking. He sniffled and Marco held back from doing the same. “You’re feeling more hopeless than I do.”

 Marco leaned into him, just a bit, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

 “Sorry,” he said softly.

 Ace snorted, shaking his head. Marco reached out, brushing his hair behind his ear, his chest clutching at the sight. Ace glanced up at him, his eyes hazy and shiny. The tears stopped but he was still choking on air, not being able to catch his breath, hyperventilating. It was a weird feeling, like choking on the rope you were hanged with.

 “You were supposed to leave me alone,” Ace told him, his voice quiet.

 Marco tried to smile but it probably came out strained.

 “I was,” he agreed. “But I didn’t.”

 Maybe he should have done it days before. Maybe he shouldn’t leave Ace alone at any time.

 He moved his arm behind Ace’s back, close enough that the inside of his elbow brushed Ace’s spine. Ace looked away, avoiding Marco’s gaze. His lips pursed, his eyes closed and his jaw tightened. His legs fidgeted closer to his chest and one of his hands caressed that one place under his sternum Marco knew was burning. His mind was hazy.

 Ace took a deep breath, not opening his eyes.

 “Will you stay?”

 Marco gave him a small smile that was more heartbroken than anything.

 “Of course.”

 He did stay. It was a bit awkward and Ace didn’t look at him, his back to Marco’s face. He did tense when Marco put an arm around him but he also did fall asleep. He wasn’t there when Marco woke up.

 He never hesitated to come to Ace again. He came to him after a bad day, before and after breakdowns, after nightmares, during sleepless nights. Maybe he started to come to him without reasons too.

 The first time Ace had asked him to sleep together was also the last time he had to ask.

 On the next island, Marco bought him a single marigold, almost as bright orange as Ace’s cowboy hat, with soft petals and a short stem.

 Ace gave him a report about the shore and Marco brushed his hair behind his ear mid-word. Ace silenced, his eyes wide, and focused on Marco’s hand.

 He tucked the flower behind Ace’s ear and Ace started to talk again.

 He wore it until dinner.

 Ace used to bring him coffee every morning. He stopped.

 And he started doing it again.

 It was one of the nicest things someone could do in the morning for Marco. Marco himself hated mornings, despised them even. He didn’t need as much sleep as others, all thanks to his healing factor, but he got quite lazy in the mornings.

 Ace used to be the first person he saw after waking up. Before he asked Marco if he was his soulmate, that is. He was so stupid to not realize it wasn’t normal for someone to know the exact moment he woke up, even with observation haki Ace wouldn’t be able to do that. It just didn’t make sense and Marco never noticed.

 So, yes, Ace used to bring him coffee. Almost every morning, barely seconds after Marco got up from the bed and put on a fresh shirt, as regular as clockwork, Ace knocked on his doors. Marco would usually sit at his desk, sorting out things he had to read and sign.

 Ace always got up early. From what Marco knew, he had managed to visit chart room and sometimes Thatch or Haruta before coming to Marco’s cabin. Maybe it got something to do with his childhood. Maybe Ace was an early bird.

 Ace used to bring him coffee. He would knock on his door and Marco would know who it was almost instantly. He would come in, a bright smile on his face, his cheeks a nice shade of pink. He would say good morning in a sing-song voice and lay the coffee on Marco’s desk. Then he would lean on the edge of the desk, very careful about the paperwork there, and chat with Marco for a couple of minutes.

 “Do you want me to bring you breakfast?” he would ask, every single time.

 Sometimes Marco would ask him to do just that. Sometimes he went to breakfast with Ace. Sometimes he stayed in his room, watching Ace leave.

 Izou would probably say only someone madly in love would get up at six-thirty just to bring someone coffee.

 It stopped.

 But it started again.

 The first time it had happened, Marco was taken aback. It was already a couple of months since Ace did that. Still, he woke up one morning, his eyes hazy with sleep, and sat down at his desk. There was a mug of coffee on the countertop, black with a sip of milk, no sugar, just as he liked it.

 He looked at the mug for a couple of minutes as if he didn’t recognize what it was exactly. Well, for a moment there, he didn’t.

 It happened again and again for the next two weeks. Ace pretended he didn’t know why Marco gave him all those fond smiles at breakfast. The tips of his ears were pink and Marco suspected he knew perfectly well why.

 The first time he had actually seen Ace bring him coffee was after one of the nights he slept with him.

 Marco had to admit – he was always a bit excited when he woke up in Ace’s room. Ace had already gone somewhere but the bed was still warm and there was always a blanket around Marco. Every time he looked around the room, sleepy and disorientated, seeing Ace’s neat desk, his drawing equipment and sorted parchments, sometimes seeing flowers on the night table, seeing Ace’s clothes on the chair and just noticing it was very much Ace’s private space – it made his chest curl into a ball of warmth.

 Ace was gone when he had woken up but before he managed to even rub the sleep out of his eyes and untie his legs from the blanket, he came back, a mug of coffee in hand. He didn’t look surprised to see Marco awake but he did look a bit awkward, his shoulder tense and hunched. 

 He left the mug on his night table and Marco turned on his side, leaning on his elbow on the pillow and reached for it.

 He took a sip, his gaze not leaving Ace’s face.

 Ace tried not to look at him but his eyes wandered to him on its own. Marco felt how his cheeks colored, his mouth dried and how his heart’s rhythm was way too fast to be normal. The thumping in Marco’s ears was mirroring Ace’s short breath and there was something that made his lungs clutch, waiting.

 Marco realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt and was as disheveled as he could be, with messy hair and unbuttoned pants, and the blanket tied around his hips.

 He perched up, pulling his muscles tight and sticking out his chest, making his shoulders just a tad bit wider. The blanket slid off his chest. Ace licked his lips, shifting, and stared at the right side of the bed.

 Marco smiled – he wanted it to be as seductive as it could be but it probably came out soft and fond.

 “Do you want me to bring you breakfast?” Ace blurted out.

 “Only if you eat with me.”

 Marco had the urge to hit his face as soon as the words left his mouth. Breakfast in bed sounded very platonic, indeed.

 “It’s gonna be messy,” Ace noticed. “You know how I eat.”

 Marco leaned in closer.

 “It’s your bed,” he pointed out. “I won’t have to worry about crumbs.”

 Which was ridiculous - Marco spent in that bed at least four nights every week, it was pretty much his bed as well.

 If Ace’s cheeks were so red his freckles blended in when he was sitting down next to Marco with two plates, no one had to know. If Marco sneaked bites of his cheese omelet on Ace’s plate, no one had to know. If Marco leaned a couple of inches too close to Ace and Ace leaned back in, no one had to know.

 Ace still brought him coffee every morning.

 “I don’t like it when he pretends,” he confessed, “especially when he feels completely different.”

 Mikoto looked him in the eyes. Her face was sad but also so resigned and Marco wondered how many cases like Ace were there in their crew.

 “I don’t think you know how it works,” she told him. “Mental health problems indicate some abnormality but it’s not some simple disproportional feeling of sadness or anxiety or worthlessness or any other kind of emotion. It’s feeling everything .”

 “Everything?”

 “This may sound weird but humans aren’t programmed to feel one emotion at a time,” she explained, a soft smile on her face. “He may experience sadness but that doesn’t mean his happiness is fake. Could you tell me he pretends to be happy to have a family?” Marco didn’t move, not saying anything. “Sadness is just stronger. And Ace doesn’t want to be sad or feel worthless so he pretends those emotions don’t exist.”

 To be honest, Marco couldn’t imagine that. Logically, he knew their soulbond was like a transmitter in a lot of ways, enchanting emotions depending on how strong they originally were. Hell, he was sure Ace didn’t feel everything he did, it just wouldn’t be possible - even excluding sight, there were still four senses. It was the first thing everyone talked to kids about soulmates - you feel only what your soulmate’s brain is concentrated on because, intentionally, it’s the emotion your soulmate is experiencing.

 “With Ace, the concern is his high-functioning depression which came from years of issues he couldn’t work off because made himself strong for the sake of others,” Mikoto continued, softness in her eyes a weak sight. “The smiling depression’s main symptom is faking it, meaning you act the role of the self that people around you expect. With high-functioning depression, you feel like a healthy person to some extent and have prolonged periods of bad days. It’s an exhausting feeling of everything at once.”

 “Everything ?” Marco repeated.

 “Every emotion exists somewhere,” Mikoto told him. “The only thing he lies about is being fine.”

 Ace was allergic to chrysanths, Marco found out.

 He bought him one in the morning after they arrived at a new island and gave it to Ace after breakfast, brushing his hair, his fingertips lingering on Ace’s cheek.

 Ace looked almost sad when Marco had to take it from behind his ear after he sneezed for the fourth time during lunch.

 A new feeling was Ace having nightmares. Not a completely unknown one though, he used to have nightmares all the time, probably straight after Sabo’s death. They came back a couple of months ago but their frequency kind of skyrocketed when Marco started to sleep in the same bed. Marco sometimes wondered to what extent Ace could hold back his emotions, if the nightmares were there far longer than he suspected.

 That night Ace woke up, panting and shaking.

 When Marco woke up, even with the haze of sleep still present in his mind, he could feel the paralyzing panic that accompanied nightmares. The speeding heartbeat, the confusion, the static noise of the darkness hitting Ace’s ears. He had experienced it himself lots of times.

 Ace was trying to catch his breath and slow down his heart, his knees close to his chest, still tied up by the bedsheets. Marco sat up but didn’t touch him, not wanting to startle him. His arm hovered over Ace’s waist, emitting warmth and presence.

 Ace leaned back, his head hitting the headboard and his shoulder blades pushing into Marco’s arm. Marco moved just a bit closer, his hips as close as they could be without touching Ace’s skin.

 “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, his voice low, quiet, and soft in the darkness.

 Ace took a deep breath, not saying anything. Marco took it as a no.

 It was dark but Marco could notice that his eyes were still squeezed shut. He brushed a sweaty strand of hair from his forehead.

 Ace moved, adjusting, and pushed Marco’s arm from around his waist, fingers scratching his skin.

 “You should go back to sleep,” he told him. “It may take a while before I fall asleep again.”

 Marco clenched his jaw, deciding.

 “Ace,” he began. “I’m going to do something new but if you’re uncomfortable, you can always tell me off.”

 He leaned in, closer, moving on his elbows. He laid one of his arms under Ace’s shoulder, his other arm put around Ace’s body. He shifted them both, his palm guiding Ace’s head onto his shoulder.

 Ace’s hair prickled his nose.

 “Is this okay?”

 Ace just gripped the sheets around Marco’s chest in response, curling up.

 He didn’t know which one of them was so warm but maybe, just maybe, this and Marco’s a bit too fast heartbeat was enough to calm Ace down.

 When Marco woke up in the morning, Ace was still asleep. It had never happened before, he had always been the one awake first. From what Marco could see through the porthole, the sun was way too high for their usual hours of waking up. They probably missed breakfast. 

 He shifted, moving up against the headboard and guiding Ace’s head from his shoulder to his chest. He didn’t wake up on his own and Marco had no intention of doing that to him. He had been barely sleeping the last couple of days, he deserved a lazy day. The ship wasn’t going to sink if they slept in for once. Ace rarely felt as peaceful as he was now. His heartbeat was a soft sound in Marco’s ears, his breath slow, his body this calm warmth. One day wasn’t much.

 Marco leaned on the headboard, feeling himself nodding off too. His neck was going to be stiff in an hour or two but he didn’t care. He nuzzled into Ace’s hair, shutting his eyes and feeling how the pace of his own heart evened with Ace’s.

 He woke up about two hours, hearing someone enter the room.

 “Hey, Ace, have you seen Marco? He hasn’t shown up for-“

 Thatch came in without knocking, speaking up as soon as he reached the doorframe. He trailed off seeing them.

 Marco, half-awake, shushed him. “Be quiet. He had a rough night.”

 Thatch blinked, frozen in the middle of the floor, looking at them as if one of them grew a second head. Ace fidgeted, burying his face in Marco’s collarbone, and Marco caressed his hair in a lazy movement of hand. He was still warm like a fireplace and dead asleep.

 “You’re sleeping together,” Thatch noticed.

 Marco blinked the sleep off his eyes and raised an eyebrow.

 “Why were you looking for me?”

Thatch licked his lips, still staring at them.

 “Curiel and Pops are waiting for you, it’s past ten,” he said, his voice weird and quiet.

 “Could you tell them I will find them in an hour?” Marco asked. “And tell the Second Division that their commander is busy right now?”

 “Busy,” Thatch blurted out. “He’s busy .”

 “Rough night,” Marco repeated. He knew Thatch was going to tease him about it but he didn’t care all that much. Marco himself teased him even more when he was getting together with Izou. “And could you bring me the paperwork? There’s a pile on the left on my desk.”

 Thatch didn’t question it, still a little thrown off by the whole situation. He brought Marco his files and Marco pretended he wasn’t in the room and started reading things he should have read two hours ago, Ace’s head still nuzzled into his chest.

 Thatch left, shaking his head at them and mouthing to himself busy again and again. Marco read pages after pages for the next hour or so, up until Ace woke up, still groggy, rubbing his sleepy eyes with the insides of his palms. He stayed nestled for a few were calm minutes, his mind foggy and his chest light-hearted.

 Later, the same day, Marco rolled his eyes at Thatch’s giggles and told him, “You really should learn to knock.”

 Thatch just laughed at him. “Nah,” he said. “It’s not like I could walk on anything.”

 “And how exactly would you know that?” Marco asked, frowning.

 Thatch gave him a look, one that was saying that Marco was stupid and one that was a bit hurt.

 “You know, contrary to what you think, Ace actually does talk with the rest of his family,” he noticed. “It’s not only you or Mikoto he talks with.”

Marco averted his gaze, clenching his jaw. He did know that, it just didn’t feel like enough help either.

 Thatch sent him a funny look, warm sparks back in his eyes.

 “For the record, from what Izou tells me, Ace wouldn’t mind the other kind of sleeping.”

 Marco glared at him. Thatch chuckled, shaking his head at him.

 “Hey,” Marco started again. “Do you do that often? Go to Ace when you can’t find me?”

 He shrugged. “He always knows where you are.”

“I don’t have an obsession,” Marco insisted.

 It was the fourth or fifth time Marco told it Mikoto. She still didn’t look impressed but at least stopped smirking after the second time. Even though Marco felt exactly how much it amused Ace.

Maybe he was in denial. Maybe he wasn’t. Mikoto gave him a brief look and glanced at Ace.

 “Let’s say you two have just met. No weird soulbond, no getting to know each other,” Mikoto said. “Would you still think about your soulmate as the ultimate one true love?”

 Marco wanted to tell her he didn’t think about it as one true love, it sounded way too cliché, like coming out of some romance novel or some silly guide to being soulmates. He couldn’t tell her that.

 “This is pointless,” he protested instead. “I’m not in this situation. We had a weird soulbond, we’ve talked with each other in our  minds, I can’t answer this question.”

 “Had you ever been in love?” Mikoto asked out of nowhere.

 Ace fidgeted on the chair next to him and when Marco glanced at him, he avoided his gaze. His, their, throat clenched and Marco was vaguely aware of throbbing pain over his sternum and nausea in his mouth.

 “Once or twice. It was never serious enough to last,” Marco admitted.

 His first love was a girl from school. They were in the same classes and she lived in the house near the orphanage. She had freckles on her nose and short red hair – that’s all he remembered about her now, along with a blurry feeling of puppy love. It was more than twenty years ago and he didn’t even remember her name anymore.

 There were crushes and attraction but never anything significant. He remembered being twenty-something and sailing with this one guy who left them as soon as they reached Sabaody. Marco couldn’t remember his face but he remembered Delayla teasing him about having a crush.

 It happened before the bond opened.

 “Had you, Ace? Had you ever been in love before?” Mikoto questioned.

 Marco’s gaze turned to Ace instantly. He didn’t know which one of them froze, muscles flexing and breath hitching.

 Ace didn’t show anything on his face but there was a tickling fire under his ribcage and he didn’t say a word for a long moment despite opening his mouth.

 “I had a crush, once, I think?” Ace replied, licking his lips. 

 “Crush?” Mikoto prodded.

 “First love, I guess,” Ace explained. “I was thirteen. It was Sabo.”

 Both Mikoto’s and Marco’s eyebrows raised comically high on their foreheads.

 “Sabo? Your brother, Sabo?” Mikoto asked. When Ace nodded, not looking her in the eyes, she continued, “Ace, having a crush on your brother isn’t exactly-“

 Ace chuckled. It was a sharp sound, like a knife.

 “He wasn’t my brother. I mean, he was but he also wasn’t,” he explained. “Biologically speaking, he wasn’t. He ran away from home when he was about eight, we've been brothers since then.”

 Marco hadn’t heard that story. To be honest, Marco hadn’t heard so many stories about Ace – they had the rest of their lives to learn everything about each other. He assumed Sabo was the older brother, born before Ace and before Roger died.

 “Look,” Ace tried. “My name and love don’t go well with each other but the only thing I have ever been sure is that I loved Sabo. I just don’t know in what way.”

 Mikoto frowned, noticing something Marco didn’t.

 “And now? Are you in love with someone?”

 He froze, experiencing piercing pain spreading over his ribcage, his throat closed on itself. He turned his eyes to Ace but he was staring into space.

 “Pass,” Ace finally said. 

 "Have you seen Ace?" Marco asked, approaching their table. He didn't even properly reach them before asking.

 Thatch gave him a weird look.

 "Can't you just ask him? You know, through the bond."

 Everyone looked at Marco as if he was an idiot. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't.

 The thing is, Marco supposed, he could call out to him through the bond. It just didn't seem right though - Ace didn't like the bond, not the part through which they could hear each other’s thoughts. He had never clearly stated it but it seemed unnatural and invasive to him, he practically never used it if Marco wasn't in his range of sight. Marco was always more awed by it than scared but if Ace wasn't comfortable then that was it - he wasn't going to use it if it wasn't necessary.

 "Have you seen him or not?" he asked again, ignoring the judging looks.

 Izou, like the one who usually didn't question people, answered him, "He went to town half an hour ago. Said something about a birthday present for Luffy."

 Marco clenched his jaw, jutting his chin. In all the haze of their relationship, he almost forgot about him.  Luffy , whoever he was, was lucky.

 “You do know Luffy is my brother, right?”

 Marco did not, in fact, know Luffy was Ace’s brother. He also may have been moping since he heard at breakfast that Ace left to search for a birthday present for Luffy.

 This, Marco thought, was one of the most blatant misunderstandings they had experienced. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t know Ace had two brothers - maybe they should really start using their words.

 Marco honestly thought for, like, two years, Luffy was some kind of competition. And he was Ace’s brother.

 Ace just stared at him dumbly as if he heard his every thought. Maybe he has heard.

 “I haven’t, ” was the reply.

 “I don’t know why I’m asking this, of course you know,” Ace spilled out, berating himself. He went out into a full-blown rambling, “You just had that weird burning feeling and I asked Izou if you seemed different at breakfast and he said something to ask you about Luffy and I didn’t quite understand but Izou doesn’t say anything without a reason so-“

 Marco chuckled, more at his own stupidity than at Ace’s cute habit of mumbling to himself when nervous.

 All the nights he spent worrying when Ace had just had his seventeenth birthday and everything Marco heard from him was how much he loved and missed Luffy - they all seemed like an absurd. He spent the whole day having a petty jealousy tantrum over  Ace’s brother . It was normal, he justified, to feel insecure when your soulmate pretends there is nothing between the two of you and says  I love you  only to that one person you don’t know. Logically, Marco knew Ace had been in love with him for a long time and was in denial about it, but sometimes he wondered if he didn’t make up Ace’s feelings or confused them with his own. If Ace was in love with someone else, with Luffy for example.

 It was irrational, and stupid, and childish, and many, many things Marco wouldn’t describe himself with.

 Marco didn’t want to explain it to Ace and embarrass himself anymore so he asked, “Luffy is your brother?”

 Ace took a deep breath and his expression changed completely, a heavy weight leaving his heart in such a subtle way. He nodded and Marco patted the space on his desk Ace would usually sit on. He didn’t need to be told twice and sat down, his feet touching Marco’s knees.

 “He’s fifteen,” Ace told him, a bright smile on his face. “My baby brother... His sixteen birthday is in more than half a year but the mail takes long from the New World to the East Blue so I just thought... ”

 Marco just raised an eyebrow at that.

 “He’s younger?” he questioned. “But your parents-“

 “It’s a long story,” Ace replied him, his eyes hazy with memories and his chest so pleasantly warm Marco had to smile. “We’re not blood-related. The three of us were sworn brothers.”

 Luffy, Marco learned, is pure-hearted sunshine Ace adored with his whole heart. He is also the one topic Ace could talk about for hours.

 Shanks was a surprise. Not his visit though, his visits are never a surprise.

 His crew is loud, Shanks himself is loud and obnoxious and Marco feels three times older whenever he shows up. Fortunately, visits in person weren’t frequent, happening every four to six months, sometimes more if their courses were aligning. Pops talked with him through transponder snail at least once every other week, Marco didn’t know what for.

 There was also that thing with Shanks basically being Pops’s biggest rival and although their crew had a similar relationship with Roger, Marco was a tad bit suspicious. Enemies weren’t friends when there were no benefits to it.

 Ace wasn’t there for Shanks’s last visit. He was just beginning as the Second Division Commander and was sent on a supply run when they docked at an uninhabited island waiting for Red Force. 

 This time, Marco almost got a heart attack when Shanks boarded Moby Dick and the first thing he did was yell, “My favorite firecracker!” and hug Ace.

 A heart attack. On the spot.

 Ace let go of Shanks, having reciprocated the embrace as if knowing an Emperor was a normal thing.

 Caressing the mirror spot on his chest Marco himself felt clutching, Ace asked, “Are you alright?”

 Marco, on instinct that was only awake with Shanks present, grabbed his hand, drawing Ace a couple of steps closer. Ace frowned at him, pouty lips and tiny blush on his cheeks.

 Shanks looked between the two of them, his eyes narrowing. He opened his mouth a couple of times but nothing came out. Finally, he pointed a finger at their still entwined hands.

 Ace, as if on command, relaxed his palm, wanting to escape Marco’s grip. Marco just squeezed his hand, not letting him go.

 “Well, I take it you didn’t kill Whitebeard after all,” Shanks blurted out.

 Ace hid his face in his palm and Marco could feel the echo of warmth on his own face.

 “What,” Marco blurted out.

 “When I met Ace on the Grand Line, he proclaimed to me that he is going to kill the strongest man in the world,” Shanks explained, a cheeky grin on his face. “I’m pretty sure there were no first mates involved in that declaration.”

 “You met on the Grand Line?”

 Shanks just shrugged. “The firecracker is almost as big a nutjob as his little brother.”

 “Wait,” Marco told him. “You know Luffy ?”

 Ace glanced up at Marco, a soft smile on his face. “He saved Luffy’s life. The arm...”

 Shanks grimaced at the memory, shifting his cloak so his loose shirt sleeve wasn’t visible.

 “I thought you lost it in a fight with Kaido,” Marco said, remembering the rumors and Shanks confirming them.

 Ace giggled. “It was a Sea King.”

 Marco snorted at that, holding back a burst of full-blown laughter.

 Shanks just made a face at that. “It was ten years ago, I was young and stupid.”

 “Not much changed then, except you’re not young anymore,” Marco pointed out.

 Ace chuckled, burying his face behind Marco’s shoulder.

 “Nevermind that,” Shanks sighed. “I have some news from Makino, I was sure you’d like to hear it.”

 Ace just smiled at him sheepishly, taking a step back in Shanks’s direction. Marco didn’t let go of his hand, still a bit reluctant.

 “I’ll be okay,” Ace told him.

 He let go.

 “Have I just seen that right?”

 Shanks was, as always, not very subtle. He reminded Ace of Luffy in many ways but Ace sometimes wished he didn’t. In this particular moment, for example.

 Ace trusted Shanks enough to know that there will be no news about Whitebeard’s two strongest commanders being soulmates in the newspapers. Didn’t mean he liked.

 “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 The blatant handholding and the general attitude they had around each other were rather obvious signs that something was going on but Ace pretended the scene minutes ago hadn’t happened. Shanks just raised an eyebrow at that.

 “Come on, brothers don’t hold hands,” he pointed out.

 Ace didn’t understand why everyone was so taken in with their soulbond. Everyone always acted so excitedly as if being soulmates was rare.

 “Maybe we do,” Ace grumbled.

 “He’s always been protective of the family but this was extreme,” Shanks continued, completely ignoring him. “Honestly, it’s a surprise. I thought he was big on the soulmate thing.”

 Ace didn’t say anything, giving him a blank stare. He didn’t know if he felt so agitated because it wasn’t the most pleasant conversation - he didn’t know what their relationship was so explaining it made him uncomfortable - or because, although Marco was out of their sight, Ace practically felt him walking in circles, anxious.

 Shanks narrowed his eyes, frowning.

 “Oh,” he realized. “You’re the soulmate. Fuck, you’re the soulmate. Congratulations, kid.”

 Yeah, congratulations. It sounded bitter to him,

 Ace gave him a tiny smile, fidgeting. Shanks’s frown deepened but he didn’t comment, not moving for a prolonged moment.

 “You won’t believe me when I tell you what I talked with Makino about-“

 Ace snorted, relaxing.

 Later, when Shanks and Pops talked privately about some things only the two of them could hear (Marco suspected they were just drinking, to be honest), and the party was thriving, Shanks walked up to him, stopping at the railing with an open bottle of sake. Ace and a couple of navigators went to check the water levels at the uninhabited shore they anchored at - they didn’t want to get stuck on the shoal. Marco was observing the blinking lights of the Striker from the upper castle, just in case.

 Shanks was silent for a long time.

 “When he told me he would kill your old man, I really thought he was going to do it,” he spoke up. Marco knew perfectly well who he was talking about. He kept his expression neutral. “There was just something in his gaze- It was like seeing Roger all those years ago, telling me he is going to win this fight.”

 Marco didn’t answer to that. He knew Pops better than anyone and knew that Ace hadn’t been able to win with him. Not as an eighteen-year-old kid who barely used haki and had a devil fruit for little over a year. Marco wasn’t sure how their fight would have ended if Ace was a few years older and more experienced. The truth was, Ace’s powers were expanding with every day. Marco had seen Ace push over the limit he considered his best when he joined them at least four times during casual sparings. He beat a Vice Admiral when he was seventeen - when Marco was seventeen he was able to fight four civilians at once if he tried really hard. Ace, Marco knew, had he not joined their crew, would probably become a Fifth Emperor within five years. If he wanted to, of course.

 “The whole announcement about the new Second Division Commander took me by surprise, I thought for sure he was going to kill Whitebeard,” Shanks repeated. “I guess the whole soulmate thing changed something.”

 Marco didn’t question how he knew about their bond - even if their previous conversation wasn’t enough of an indication, he was sure his gossiping brothers and sisters made use of their big mouths when Shanks asked.

 “Not really,” Marco said honestly. “If he had known we were soulmates when he decided to join us, he probably wouldn't have actually joined us.”

 “Trouble in paradise?” he teased, cocking an eyebrow.

 Marco just gave him a look.

 “The kid is smitten with you,” Shanks told him. “And you’re smitten with him. I really don’t see a problem here.”

 “It’s not always that simple.”

 Because it wasn’t. Marco could go to hell with it and insist on a relationship most soulmate couples have. He could corner Ace and he would have probably agreed, just for Marco’s sake. It wouldn’t be true consent though, since Ace was uncomfortable with the idea of a relationship. Marco just had to wait out the period of denial. They had all the time in the world.

 “I guess I was lucky I didn’t have that kind of problem,” Shanks remarked, biting his lip. “The soulmate shit was rather straightforward for me.”

 “You found your soulmate when he shot you and felt it,” Marco reminded him.

 “Well, Benny always had a temper.”

 Shanks took a long gulp of sake. The fire on the water faded away when Ace and the navigators went ashore, leaving just the blinking balls of fire from the torches.

 “Don’t tell him that but I’m quite fond of him. He is pretty much a mirror image of his mom,” Shanks admitted.

 Shanks could occasionally be incredibly smart, Marco knew. Recognizing the surname was one thing, recognizing it was Rouge’s was another thing.

 “When we met and he introduced himself, I could spot the resemblance in seconds. I was a bit surprised though, Rouge-san just seemed so in love with Roger, I’d have never thought she could be with someone else, have a kid even.”

 However, most of the time, Shanks was incredibly dumb.

 Marco shrugged. It was not his secret to tell.

 Shanks hadn’t stopped smirking since Ace fell asleep with his head on Marco’s shoulder. Marco didn’t mind.

 The next island was an uninhabited one. It was a summer island.

 He hadn’t picked flowers since he was a teen and there was a meadow at the back of the street the orphanage was on. But he did it again that day.

 Poppies were way smaller than any of the flowers Marco had given Ace.

 They still suited Ace even as well as the hibiscuses did. Red petals made his skin warmer.

 Ace loved them almost as much as the hibiscuses. The one behind his ear had been falling off almost every minute but he was adjusting it every minute too.

 Their first kiss had been an accident.

 Well, not accident -accident but it wasn’t exactly planned. Marco doesn’t regret it. Never will.

 It was lunch. The night before they had arrived at a new island, an autumn one this time. Marco, just like he always did when they docked on a new island, bought Ace this single flower with a short stem. This time, it was an overgrown white margarita that made Ace’s freckles darker and his eyes brighter. Marco bought it after breakfast and Ace had been wearing it since. Ace brought him two reports and a list of supplies and they went to lunch together.

 When they entered the mess hall, it got quiet for a couple of minutes. Gossip and whispers returned when they took their seats at the back of the room, as far away as they could. Normally, someone would sit with them – Izou and Thatch, sometimes Vista and Curiel, sometimes Ace’s former crew.

 They were talking to each other softly, Marco mentioning places they could visit later and Ace asking about the town. Marco finished eating first. He always did, having only one or two plates while Ace had at least three of them. He returned the plates to the kitchen and wandered back to their table, just in time to see Ace cleaning off the last plate.

 It was nice, domesticate even. Ace’s heart was calm, beating a steady rhythm, his cheeks warm and Marco took it as a small win – he rarely was relaxed to this extent. His shoulders weren’t tense and he had that gentle smile on his face, eyes sparkling with energy.

 “Should I find you in half an hour?” Ace asked when Marco didn’t say anything, just standing next to the bench and staring at him.

 Marco blinked, shaking off the amazement.

 “Yeah, I still have to talk to Nancy,” he replied. “See you in half an hour?”

 Ace glanced up at him from his seat. His eyes were so big and so are and just so peaceful.

 “See you,” Ace told him. Even his voice seemed soft.

 Marco leaned down and kissed him.

 He wanted to say he didn’t know why he did it but the truth was, he knew just fine – he had wanted to do that for so long and it was just so natural he had to hold back every time he was leaving the room or simply moving a couple of feet away.

 Ace froze, his mouth open and his eyes wide. The whole mess hall went quiet – Marco wasn’t surprised, not with the way he was getting at least two pieces of relationship advice a day. Everyone was a bit obsessed with their whole soulmates situation.

 “What the fuck, Marco,” Ace’s thoughts panicked on their own.

 It wasn’t even much of a kiss. A peck, more on the corner of Ace’s lips than on the mouth. It was, though, much more than Ace bargained for.

 “I’m sorry,” Marco blurted out. “I didn’t want to do that. I mean, I wanted to but not without your permission.”

 Ace closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and Marco could feel how hazy with thoughts his mind got, how the air got stuck in his lungs and how his eyes stung.

 When he opened his eyes, there were wet, shiny and so wide. He smiled up at Marco and it was so painful Marco had no idea what to do with it.

 “You can do that, you know,” he croaked.

 Marco couldn’t stop his hand from brushing Ace’s hair.

 “I can?” he sputtered.

 “You can,” Ace repeated. His voice sounded as if he was forcing out the words.

 “Ace, look at me,” he said gently, nudging his chin with his thumb. When he did glance up, big, dark eyes wandering over Marco’s face, Marco put a hand on his shoulder, close enough to caress his collarbone. “Can I, for real?”

 Ace looked at him, just looked, his heartbeat so fast in Marco’s ears and his muscles so tense Marco could feel his veins, and his lungs couldn’t catch enough air. It was painful. Confusing. Hesitant.

 “Yes, you can.”

 It felt like a lie. Like crossing boundaries. Maybe Ace wasn’t sure. Maybe it was something he wanted to try. Maybe it was something he was willing to do for Marco. He didn’t want to use it against him.

 “Okay,” he said slowly, squeezing his arm. “Okay.”

 Ace blinked a couple of times, licking his lips. Marco didn’t want to kiss him just like that, in front of all those people so he shifted him a little closer, moving his arm so Ace’s face was shielded from the view.

 That awful feeling wasn’t going away.

 “Screw the half an hour,” he decided. “Come with me to Nancy. She won’t mind, she loves you.”

Ace lifted his arm, his fingers brushing over Marco’s side. He nodded.

 The walk to the infirmaries was awkward. Marco put his hand on the small of Ace’s back, trying to accomplish some reassurance. Ace wasn’t tense anymore but he wasn’t exactly at ease. Preparing for the impact. Waiting.

 The walk to town was awkward too. They didn’t say a word to each other – usually, they chatted up about random topics and Marco missed it the whole fifteen-minute walk. He did hold Ace’s hand the whole way there but it wasn’t exactly something much out of ordinary.

 Ace relaxed, all bright smiles and dazzling eyes, as soon as they entered the art shop and Marco offered to pay for his new set of brush pens. Watching Ace in art shops was always like watching a kid during a birthday party.

 He did tense when Marco, like the complete sap he was, stared at him, seeing him rambling about something but never actually listening. It was a short moment as if he had just now noticed Marco looked at him the exact same way Ace looked at him when he thought no one was watching.

 Some tension built up in Marco’s chest but Ace continued on with his rambling. He said something and silenced, waiting for Marco’s response.

 Marco, who had no clue about even a word he had just spoken, answered, “Yes, sure.”

 Ace furrowed his eyebrows but his expression was more amused than anything.

 “I’ve just said I may as well buy the whole shop,” he pointed out. “I’m sure even you can’t afford it.”

 Marco licked his lips. He wasn’t embarrassed, honestly, there were lots of people who could get distracted by Ace’s smile. As if feeling the warmth in Marco’s chest, Ace caressed the space over his sternum, his thumb making circles around the spot Marco associated with love and fondness.

 “Well, I definitely don’t spend as much money as you,” he told him. “You never know, maybe I want to buy you a whole shop of art supplies. Anything you want, to be real.”

 Ace bit his lips and Marco felt his cheeks warming up and saw the rosy pink that Ace’s freckles faded into. Ace averted his gaze, big eyes looking everywhere and nowhere. He brushed a strand of hair behind his ear, his nervous habit, and Marco could see the tips of his ear getting the same shade of pink.

 It was endearing and so strange. Ace, loud and obnoxious, bubbly, lively, vivid like a spark, joking barely a second ago, could look like that, be like that. That red face, hunched shoulders, and pouty lips couldn’t be described as anything other than shy. Maybe, just maybe, Mikoto was right. Maybe people were way too complicated to be just one person. Maybe everyone was made of a bunch of different personalities glued together so they would fit into some kind of image. Maybe Ace really did feel every emotion at the same time.

 Maybe it’s not about denial like Marco thought. Maybe Ace’s lack of self-worth won’t disappear as soon as he admits to it. Maybe, just maybe, it’s about making positive emotions stronger than the bad ones.

 Marco's lips trembled when he palmed Ace’s chin. He leaned in, feeling a bit guilty about catching Ace by surprise. He kissed him.

 He kissed him gently, carefully, closing his eyes, concentrating on the feeling. It would never be as gentle as Marco wanted it to be, not when his mind was filled with such contrasting emotions. Ace knotted his fists in his shirt but didn’t pull. He just clung to him as Marco’s arms circled him.

 It felt like a warm fire, like tea in the morning, like the sun on the high seas. It felt like being stabbed in the chest by someone you trusted. You loved.

 When he let go, Ace opened his eyes and they were so shiny, so glassy. He was smiling.

 “You know you can let me know if you get uncomfortable, right?”

 “I do.”

 Marco hated that smile.

 “When do you think he will be alright? When will Ace’s mind be okay?”

 Mikoto gave him a sad look.

 “It’s never going to be alright,” she replied. “Not completely.”

 It felt like a death sentence.

 “Human psychology doesn’t work like that, Marco. Your mind never fully lets go. It may sound depressing but a lot of people live like that still managing to be happy,” she continued. “There’s a reason I want you to talk about your obsession with soulmates.”

 “I don’t-“

 “-have an obsession, yes, you’ve told me. But don’t you really?” Mikoto cut in. “You know why Ace doesn’t believe in soulmates?”

 “He said it’s unlogical, to love someone you don’t even know.”

 “Ace’s childhood was in no way healthy, as we both know. His grandfather was absent and abusive. His caretaker didn’t take care of him. I don’t know exactly what happened with his parents but I’m sure it wasn’t great either. He’s never had an adult who would care, support him or give him unconditional love,” she said, every word making Marco’s heart heavier, “So, to simplify, he gave up unconditional love, because, in his mind, he doesn’t deserve it. And soulmates are nothing but unconditional love.”

 Marco didn’t reply to that. He knew that but he also really didn’t. Ace was a sweet bundle of joy and cheerfulness for him, that was the way he knew him, remembered him as. Maybe his feelings were never as joyful as his face but Marco always interpreted it as a sign he wasn’t giving up on finding happiness. Maybe it was a sign of resignation all along.

 “You, on the other hand, you crave the idea of unconditional love,” Mikoto spoke up, her gaze hazy. “I don’t want to be a psychoanalyzing bitch, as Haruta calls me, but we both know it has its roots in your childhood. Because your mother left you on the doorsteps of the orphanage and never came back. Because you wanted family and love more than anything else. Because you waited twenty years for the soulbond to open and you almost lost hope. Then, the hope came back, an obsession in tow.”

 Maybe he had an obsession. Maybe he didn’t. Did it really matter if his feeling were real with or without it?

 “Contrary to popular belief, not all obsessions are unhealthy,” Mikoto assured. “Love is safer with some kind of moderation but, to be honest, many people would say it’s not truly love then.”

 “Ace can have all the moderation for the two of us,” he noticed.

 Mikoto chuckled.

 “Oh, no, he’s just as obsessed, not with his soulmate though,” she spoke softly, “but with you, Marco.”

 He had to smile.

 “Ace is never going to be fully okay, people rarely are,” Mikoto told him. “There are going to be days when he will be completely okay and then he will look at you and think he doesn’t love me. You never know when your mind decides you don’t deserve things, there is no logic to it.”

 “That was really your first kiss?” Thatch spilled out, raising an eyebrow at Marco, his expression staying somewhere between amused and non-believing.

 It was dinner the same day and Ace was stressing somewhere, probably in one of the chart rooms, avoiding Marco and all the people. There wasn’t much to do but wait for the night and the moment they would be going to sleep. He sat down with Thatch, Izou, and Haruta, taking the place Vista left behind after finishing eating. The gossip started before he sat down.

 “I mean, not my first, but first with Ace,” Marco explained. “We aren’t exactly in a hurry.”

 “Thatch didn’t mean anything bad by it,” Izou reassured. “We are just surprised, that’s all.” 

 People always said Izou was the biggest gossip on the ship but personally, Marco thought it was her soulmate. Or Haruta. But it was kind of Haruta’s job to know all the gossip so, yes, Thatch.

 “I mean, Ace isn’t asexual or something,” Thatch prodded. Marco loved that if not for Izou, Thatch wouldn’t even know the meaning of asexual. “I’m pretty sure he has a thing for wide shoulders.”

 He did. And Marco liked to use it against him.

 “Oh, he does,” Izou agreed. “Remember that guy in the bar? The one that totally flirted with Ace but Ace was too busy ogling his shoulders to-“

 Were there really so many guys Izou had to specify?

 “I don’t want to hear it,” Marco interrupted her.

 “And no offense, brother, but you used to sleep around,” Haruta added in, breaking into the argument. “Not so much after the whole soulbond thing but before, I’d rather cut off my legs than say you’re the romantic type.”

 “I’m not romantic anything,” he protested. 

 The three of them gave him one and the same unimpressed look.

 “You buy him flowers on every island,” Thatch pointed out. “Hell, you sometimes go around meadows and pick flowers like a little kid, just for him.”

 “Not to mention you spoil him,” Izou said. “I’ve seen his drawing equipment, it’s way out of his division’s budget. And the amount of food you buy him on all those islands is just outrageous.”

 “You coddle him all the time. I’ve seen nurses, well, grown-up manly men too, awing at the whole small touches thing,” Haruta teased. “You brush his hair when you think he’s acting cute, nudge his hands when he’s nervous, put your palm on the small of his back when he feels awkward and you just lean in. And I didn’t notice it because I’m a spy - you’re way too obvious.”

 He didn’t want to sound bitter but Ace didn’t find it obvious apparently.

 “I don’t-“ he tried to protest but, to be honest, who was he kidding, he did spoil Ace. “Do you think it’s unprofessional?”

 “His division certainly does,” Haruta replied, his face suddenly in a grimace. “You know how most of them are, the older the bones, the more old-fashioned the views.”

 Marco clenched his jaw.

 “I wouldn’t take it personally,” Thatch offered, giving him a pitying look. “Izou’s division still says I take too much space whenever I come to the sewing room.”

 His soulmate chuckled at that and Marco gave him a tiny smile. Thatch and Izou didn’t have the nicest beginning either but they made it.

 When Marco entered Ace’s room, hair still wet from the shower, sleeping pants on, he noticed instantly that Ace wasn’t there. Marco sat on the bed, waited twenty minutes, and resigned.

 Maybe this whole kissing thing wasn’t such a great idea. He retreated to his own room, wanting to at least grab a book and wait for Ace. He may show up later, expecting Marco to be asleep or just thinking he was left alone.

 Ace was sitting at his desk, segregating piles of paperwork into even piles.

 “Ace?”

 Ace startled, his shoulder tensing as soon as he turned around to look at Marco.

 “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like me touching your desk,” he spoke up. “There was just such a mess I couldn’t look at it. I can mess it back up if you want.”

 Marco just stared.

 “Why aren’t you in your room?”

 Ace fidgeted, his hands fisting the material of his sweatpants.

 “I just thought it may be better here since the bed is bigger. You are always curling up because your legs are too long so I thought-“ he cut off, looking at Marco more and more nervous. He got up abruptly, moving to the door. “Never mind, it was a stupid idea. I’m sorry I invaded your space, I’m going now- I-”

 Marco grabbed him by the arms before he could sidestep him and leave. Ace’s shoulders were tense but he let Marco pull him a bit closer.

 “No, stop,” Marco said, getting his mind out of the gutter. “It’s a great idea, really, stop. I was just surprised.”

 He really was. It had always been Marco coming to Ace, not the other way around. Marco had assumed it was because Ace didn’t feel comfortable enough to leave his safe space - his room - or that he didn’t want to initiate anything out of fear of rejection. If he came to Marco despite that- well, maybe the whole kissing thing was a great idea.

 “Sorry.”

 Marco smiled at him, squeezing his shoulders and moving his palms to his jaw. Ace averted his gaze.

 “Don’t apologize, you did nothing wrong.”

 “Sorry,” Ace replied. He gave him a look. “That slipped on its own.”

 He glanced up at Marco, again with his pouty lips and soft blush on his face. His eyes were big and honest, and his freckles made him look a bit more careless. For Marco, it was one of the prettiest sights, a pure one, promising one.

 Ace blinked a couple of times, looking up at him through his eyelashes and Marco’s hands moved on its own, his thumb caressing the corner of Ace’s lips. He closed his eyes, responding to the touch and it was enough for Marco.

 He leaned down and kissed him.

 It wasn’t like the one they had in the art shop. Ace let go and Marco could feel it with every inch of his body. There was some bitterness to it but it was so faint in comparison to the hot fire that purred through their bodies or to the silence in their minds.

 Marco’s hands moved to his hips and his fingers dug into his scalding skin. One of his palms grazed the tattoo on his back, the texture there different. He kissed Ace’s jaw, soft but messy moves, heated ones. Ace made a sound and it sounded sweet in Marco’s ears.

 Ace’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he lost his balance, slipping out of Marco’s hands.

 He realized what they were doing only when he saw him, half-lying on his bed, red and breathless, with messy hair.

 Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to lean back, Marco blurted out, “I need a shower.”

 Ace, whose breath was equally elevated, blinked.

 “You’ve just had one,” he noticed.

 And maybe, just maybe, Marco panicked a bit because his voice was nothing but a squeak when he said, “I know.”

 He didn’t think it was possible but Ace’s cheeks along with the tips of his ears got a shade darker.

 When he got back, hoping Ace had fallen asleep waiting for him, Ace was nowhere in sight.

 “What are you doing, Ace?”

 Pops was, as always, straight to the point. He didn’t even greet him when he entered his room and didn’t question Ace about wandering around the ship at one am. Maybe he was used to it. Maybe he just had different priorities.

 Of course, Ace was equally stubborn, not acknowledging a thing. “Talking to you.”

 Pops though, Pops knew what he had asked about and knew Ace knew too. And he wasn’t asking about why Ace wasn’t sleeping, why he was in Pops’s room. He was asking about the whole thing that happened at breakfast and about Ace's insistence on not being together with his soulmate. They both knew it perfectly well so even when Ace was being stubborn, Pops wasn’t taking that bullshit.

 “What are you doing?”

 Ace averted his gaze, biting his lower lip. It was a lost battle, like every single one with Pops.

 “He wouldn’t have let it go,” he said in the end. His voice was barely audible and cracked. “He wouldn’t have let it go so I gave him what he wanted. I just need to wait it out. A couple of weeks, maybe months.”

 Pops’s face didn’t show anything but his eyes could tell a story.

 “I don’t know about what I should be more concerned about. About that you think Marco will get bored of you,” he spoke up, “or about that you’re basically willing to go through mental torture to make him happy.”

 Ace folded his arms across his chest but it wasn’t an angry gesture, it looked as if he was hugging himself. His arms hid that one spot behind themselves, the one at which most of Marco’s strong emotions manifested, the one over the sternum. 

 “Can we pretend the outside world doesn’t exist and I came here for another story about my mom?”

 “You know, Marco can tell you these stories too.”

 Ace looked Pops in the eyes.

 “But I’m not talking to Marco right now,” he pointed out. “And anyway, he’s biased, he’s always trying to make Roger into a saint in those stories.”

 “Oh, Roger definitely wasn’t a saint,” Pops agreed.

 “I know that, you know that,” Ace said. “Marco is just biased.”

 “Well, maybe if half of your self-esteem issues didn’t come from you being raised to believe he was a monster,” Pops began. “Maybe then, he wouldn’t gloss over Roger.”

 Ace made a face, narrowing his eyes and wrinkling his nose.

 “If I wanted psychoanalysis, I’d have gone to Mikoto,” he noticed.

 Pops chuckled at that. The tension in the room disappeared. “I’d make a good psychologist, wouldn’t I?”

 “I think the word you’re looking for is psychopath, Pops.”

 “Yes, that too.”

 Ace was in Pops’s room. Dead asleep, curled up in a ball on one of the visitor’s chairs near Pops’s bed and tucked into one of Pops’s huge blankets.

 “I’ve been searching for him all over the Moby Dick.”

 “He’s just fallen asleep.”

 Marco walked to the chair on the other side of the bed, lifting it up, and moving back to Ace’s side.

 “What are you doing?” Pops questioned.

 “What does it look like?” Marco answered, a bit irritated. “I don’t want to wake him up but I don’t want him to wake up alone either.”

 Pops raised an eyebrow at that. “Have I become invisible recently?”

 Marco sighed. “You know what I mean, Pops.”

 He adjusted the blanket so he would be able to sit as close to Ace as he could under it. They hit the lights and Marco fidgeted around, trying to fit in the small space. Ace’s soft snores helped him imagine it was one of their beds and everything was normal.

 “This brat...” Pops trailed off, his voice reasoning in the darkness. “Don’t fuck this up, Marco.”

 “I won’t. ”

 “Losing someone’s trust? That’s easy and fast,” he said. “Gaining it back though, that takes forever. The literal kind of forever.”

 “I know.”

 “If I hear him asking why he’s not enough one more time, I may break someone’s neck.”

 “I know, Pops.”

 When Marco woke up, with a stiff neck and numb limps, there was a mug of coffee and warm cookies on the chair next to him. He couldn’t hold back the fond smile.

 “Don’t gloat over it,” Pops spoke up. He moved up his arms, showing a steaming mug of his own. “You ain’t a special snowflake, I got one too.”

 Marco chuckled.

 Ace didn’t like peonies. Marco found it the hard way.

 It was not the allergy or a bad smell, although Marco himself didn’t enjoy the sweet smell. Ace, of course, didn’t say anything, thanking him as always and wearing the flower for the rest of the day.

 It was actually pointed out by Haruta later.

 “He doesn’t like roses, right? Peonies may smell completely different but they are still boring and common, especially the kind you choose, it looks very similar to roses.”

 Marco never bought Ace peonies again.

“I’m not sending Ace alone anywhere,” he said firmly.

 Vista and Pops glanced at each other meaningfully. They both knew he was being irrational but he didn’t care.

 “Ace is your second in command, you did support his promotion to the Second Division Commander,” Vista reminded him, being reasonable as always. “Since you can’t go, he is the next logical option.”

 “I didn’t know he was my soulmate back then,” Marco spat out.

 “Should I go to Ace and tell him you don’t want him to be a commander?” Vista said. He may have had a point – Marco knew Ace was a commander for a reason, it just scared him. “I’m sure it will go well.”

 Pops licked his lips, giving him a fond look.

 “He’s not going alone anywhere, and definitely not on a supply run on some hostile island,” Marco insisted. “He’s too young, too inexperienced.”

 “Son, he’s been a pirate since his seventeenth birthday, he was a captain, I think he can command fifty people,” Pops said calmly. He had this amused spark in his eyes, the one that showed up whenever one of his children was being stupid. “I know this situation looks way too similar to Delayla’s-“

 “He won’t be another Delayla, Pops,” he told him. “I won’t let him. He’s not going alone. I’ll go instead of him or with him.”

 He was staring at Marco with sympathy in the eyes and maybe with a bit of regret - Delayla’s death was one of the crew’s biggest regrets. He still didn’t agree with Marco though, and believed in Ace’s skills enough – every mission was a risk, Marco knew that, Ace was just this one person he didn’t want to allow to participate in the risk, at least for now.

 “We both know you can’t, we wouldn’t have this discussion if you could, the infirmaries are too hectic right now,” Vista said, folding his arms over his chest and shifting. “We need food, meds, some tools. Ace is perfect for the job, he is a navigator, doesn’t stand out as much as any of the other commanders that are available and he has enough fighting skills to protect the others in case something happens.”

 And Marco knew it all. He knew they needed supplies – especially after the last attack, skipping about three islands, and the outbreak of that terrible flu. He knew there had to be navigators in the mission crew – there was an archipelago and they always were tricky. He knew Ace, as weird it didn’t sound, was ordinary enough and charming enough to not get noticed. And he could fight, yes, but it didn’t mean Marco was on board with the whole idea.

 To be honest, it all looked as simple as the mission Delayla was sent on and there was this damned archipelago. It just made him squirm every time he thought about it.

 “We can always have the commanders’ votes decide,” Pops said. “We both know what would be the outcome.”

 Marco clenched his jaw, not answering that.

 “Look, I’m sure if anything happens, Ace will tell you through that bond of yours,” Vista reasoned. “We’ll be on standby, you’ll be able to fly straight to him if anything.”

 “Fetch him,” Pops told him. “We don’t have much time.”

 And just because he was angry at both of them, he crossed his arms over his chest, sitting down at the table, and thought.

 “Pops wants to see you in his room,” he spoke up through the bond. “It’s urgent.”

 “I will be there in a minute,”  Ace answered in the instance. “Did you finally decide about the docking?”

 “We did.”

 “Why does it feel like you’re not happy with the decision?”

 “Because I’m not.”

 Ace entered the room without knocking, like he always did. Pops and Vista sent him a bit weirded-out look. The crew still didn’t get used to their bond in the same way they didn’t get used to them kissing – there were still outbreaks of cheers whenever they kissed in public.

 As soon as Ace sent him a shy smile, being as tense as Marco, probably actually mimicking  Marco, he got up, not wanting to be there for the briefing. He squeezed Ace’s hand on the way out and he sent him a worried look in return.

 Marco got back to the infirmaries, avoiding Nancy’s amused gaze and the hazy thoughts in Ace’s mind. Exactly five minutes later, calmness overwhelmed Marco, his shoulders falling and it was so strange to have  Ace  calming him down and not the other way.

 “You know Pops is right. You don’t have to panic,”  Ace told him. “There’s no reason to panic.”

 He didn’t answer that.

 “Do you want me to come to you before leaving?”

 Tightness swelled up in Marco’s chest.

 “I do.”

 Ace did come to him, fifteen minutes later, wearing a shirt and ditching his orange hat. He was all shy smiles, bright eyes, and a relaxed posture and Marco wanted to scream. Marco pretended he was still measuring the number of painkillers he had to give to that idiot from the Seventh Division who broke his leg in three places. Ace looked at him with a fond smile, wide eyes tracing Marco's moves.

 When Marco didn’t say a word, Ace spoke up, “My division is under Sammy’s and Angie’s watch right now, I’m taking men from Fossa’s, Haruta’s, and Blamenco’s divisions and three of my own. Moby is anchored but only at the bow in case we have to leave quickly, Namur and Aralin are watching over it. I’m taking the Striker and two ships, it should take us about four hours – forty-five minutes to get through the archipelago to the main island and two hours to get the supplies.”

 Marco looked up at him, their gazes meeting. He ground his teeth.

 “I know you’re angry,” Ace said. “But I also know you’re not angry with me.”

 “Of course I’m not angry with you,” he agreed. “I just don’t like you going anywhere alone.”

 "I'm not going to be alone," Ace noticed. "If not the fifty guys that are going with me, then Deuce. He had done a pretty good job in keeping me alive for the last two years."

 Marco stood up, moving around the desk. He sent Ace a glare.

 “Don’t even joke about that,” he spat out.

 Marco bit his lip, giving in and taking Ace’s hands into his own. Ace’s arms were limp but his thumbs caressed Marco’s palms in such a soft manner that Marco could almost ignore the phantom feeling of bittersweetness in his mouth or the steady but rushing heartbeat.

 “Remember when I was promoted and you told me I’m not Delayla?” Ace asked. “If you don’t believe me, at least believe your own words.”

 Marco let go of his hands, his palms cupping Ace’s cheeks instead, tilting his head so he would look at him. His thumb hovered over the corner of Ace's lips and Ace reached, his fingers fisting the material of Marco's shirt. His hands weren’t shaking.

 “Just be careful, please,” he told him.

 Ace closed his eyes, nodding. “I’ll be.”

 Marco leaned down and kissed him.

 Ace’s cheeks were warm in his palms, his heartbeat steady in his ears. The tips of Marco’s fingers were touching the curls of his hair and Marco found himself tucking some of them behind his ear. There were soft, little jabs and Ace was tugging on his lower lip. It was tender and unwinding, just what Marco needed to stop the panic for a couple of seconds.

 “Marco,” Nancy’s voice broke the moment. “Patients. Painkillers. Broken leg. Pain.”

 Ace chuckled but it was a weak sound. The perfection ended and instead of the feeling of coziness, hollowness filled his lungs. Marco had the urge to cry but it wasn't his. It was bittersweet, like each time they kissed.

 Ace opened his eyes and even though his eyes were quite shiny, he grinned at him. Marco let go of his face, caressing the freckles on his cheeks for the last time. Ace relaxed the grip on his shirt, putting his hand over Marco’s elbow. 

 “I’ll better be going then.”

 Ace gave him a small peck on the chin before leaving the infirmaries.

 Marco blushed when Nancy sent him an amused glance.

 “What?” he asked, a bit rudely, his cheeks red.

 “Painkillers. Pain,” she reminded him.

 Ace got back about six hours later with a seastone bullet graze. Marco was walking up to the entrance of the infirmaries every five minutes after the fourth hour. Seeing blood and a hole in Ace’s shirt, Marco’s heart froze.

 He hadn’t felt anything.

 “I’m fine,” Ace spoke up, noticing his worried face. Deuce was next to him, along with Irashi and someone from Haruta’s division. “Really, I’m fine.”

 “You’re my personal heart attack, that’s what you are.”

 Seconds later they were inside the infirmaries, in Marco’s office, Ace showing him the wound. It was a flesh one but it didn’t make Marco calmer.

 “How did it happen?” he asked, even though he wanted to ask completely different questions. They still had company.

 “They had seastone bullets, just a couple of them from what my haki told me,” Deuce explained, grimacing. “There was a small marine base and-“

 “It was my fault,” Irashi interrupted him. “If I had listened to Ace, we would have gotten out faster and they wouldn’t have caught up to us...”

 Marco’s gaze turned to him, glaring.

 “I’ll take full responsibility,” he added. “Take whatever punishment I’ll receive.”

 “Swapping divisions,” Marco decided at once. “I have had enough, this isn’t a laughing matter, this is blatant insubordination-”

 “No,” Ace said, cutting out the rambling. Marco took a calming breath, getting a hold of his nerves. “I’m his superior and there will be no swapping divisions.”

 “But-“

 “No,” Ace repeated. “My division, my decision.”

 Marco clenched his jaw but let go of the topic.

 “Now,” Ace spoke up. “It would be nice if someone took care of that wound.”

 It worked like a bucket of cold water on Marco. He had been standing over him and fretting over him but he hadn’t been doing anything to actually help Ace. He side-stepped the desk and reached to a cabinet with medkits to treat the gaze.

 “Not you, Marco,” Ace told him. “You’re biased. Whichever of the nurses is available.”

 “You’ve been shot, I think I can take care of you for-“

 “One of the nurses,” Ace repeated, his eyes stern.

 The room was quiet when Marco walked out to ask Nancy to treat Ace’s wound.

 Later, the same evening when he was lying in the same bed with Ace, his arms curled around Ace’s nodding form, careful of the bandages on his side, he asked, “Why didn’t I feel you were shot?”

 When Ace didn’t answer, averting his gaze, he prodded, “I turned it off. The bond. I turned it off.”

 “I don’t like it,” he whispered, being sure Ace was going to hear it anyway with how close they were. “What if-“

 “I didn’t want to worry you,” Ace interrupted. “I knew I was going to get shot so I turned it off.”

 Marco lifted his head from the pillow.

 “You knew ?”

 “There were about six of the others behind me, the plan was to melt the bullet when it was close enough,” he explained. “I realized it was a seastone one when it was too late. So I turned it off.”

 “You could have died and I wouldn’t know.”

 “But I didn’t.”

 “You could have. ”

 Ace didn’t say anything to that, instead guiding one of Marco’s hands over the bandages, just under his ribs. The rough material of the dressing was prickling Marco’s fingertips. The blue flames burst out of his palm on their own, flickering.

 Ace met his gaze.

 “I don’t usually do that,” Marco told him. “People don’t like it, healing is too invasive.”

 Ace gave him a soft smile, his eyes never turning away from him. “It feels nice. Cold.”

 He chuckled. “I literally know, Ace. I feel that too.”

 Ace rested his forehead on his chest, closing his eyes again.

 “You can leave there it until I fall asleep.”

 Anemone flowers looked like overgrown poppies but Ace absolutely loved them. He loved the one Marco bought him so much that Marco went to town the next day for a whole bouquet of them.

 To be honest, Marco had never been too interested in flowers and didn’t know much about names and kinds but he was getting a grip on that. He would do anything to see Ace’s face brighten up.

 “What.”

 The thing is, since that one mission when he was almost shot, weird things kept on happening. People kept asking him about things and every single one of them was somehow connected to Marco.

 “Could you ask him to change my shift? I really wanted to go to that marketplace,” Kelly, who was actually part of the Fifth or Sixth Division repeated.

 Ace heard her the first time but it still sounded surreal.

 This kept on happening. People asking him to ask Marco about something. Like, what was that? It had been the fourth request like that this week.

 “Can’t you ask him yourself?” he said, hoping at least this time answer would be different.

 Kelly looked at him, expression of a lost puppy on her face.

 “Okay, I will ask.”

 But when it was Thatch that asked him, Ace had enough.

 “Seriously, what is wrong with everyone?” he spat out. “Can’t you ask him yourself?”

 Thatch opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. His eyebrows furrowed.

 “Ace,” he said, practically hissing, “you have no idea how big of a power you have.”

 Ace had to blink.

 “Power?” he blurted out. “What does any of my powers have to do with it?”

 Thatch put his hands on his shoulders, squeezing and looking him straight in the eyes like the dramatic fool he was.

 “Ace,” he said. “Your biggest power is that you have power over Marco.”

 For a moment there, Ace thought he had heard wrong. “What.”

 “No one says no to Marco,” Thatch continued. “Expect for you. And Pops, but Pops does what he wants. Honestly, he just can’t refuse you anything, it’s like a dream come true.”

 Ace didn’t think of it as a dream. It was more like a nightmare you hadn’t realized was a nightmare until it was too late.

 The thing is, Ace waited. He waited, waited, and waited. He waited and a week passed, then two, three, a month, and another month.

 He was still waiting. Waiting for the disaster.

 The more their crew thought they were starting to look like a couple, the more Ace hesitated. Whenever someone noticed how much Marco seemed in love, Ace let himself be hopeful. For about three seconds, that is. Then the reality hit him harder than anything. Every kiss was a gift before the punishment, Ace knew how life worked.

 He didn’t believe it. He won’t believe it.

 Sessions with Mikoto usually looked the same. Usually.

 There was always a fair share of awkwardness whenever one of them talked, there was the bittersweetness, there was Mikoto’s no bullshit policy. Depending on how closed-off Ace felt on how well their relationship had been going the last couple of years, the distance between their chairs changed. Sometimes Marco would be able to put an arm around Ace’s shoulders, slightly behind his backrest, sometimes their feet would be touching, sometimes Marco could grab his hand when he was talking about something hard.

 It wasn’t one these times - Ace was practically two feet away from him, arms hugging himself, still closed-off after his last breakdown.

 The first thing Marco had told Mikoto when she asked what they want to discuss was, “He doesn’t want to talk to me about his problems even when I’m obviously their source.”

 This, of course, made Ace fake-angry. His shoulders straightened up, his arms folded over his chest, his eyes narrowed. Of course, Marco knew it had no reflection in his feelings. How hard he hadn’t concentrate on Ace’s emotions, the only ones he could find were anxiousness, mild irritation, and frustration, presenting themselves in knots in his muscles and hazy mind.

 “You know how Thatch and Izou are? How Izou comes to Thatch to make him go on a break and how Thatch gives her a kiss on the cheek every time they are in the same room? How they talk to each other about everything?” Ace spat out. Marco nodded. “We’re not like that.”

 Marco sighed, feeling his own irritation flare up, making his heart into a source of fire.

 “Of course we aren’t,” he scoffed. “You don’t like public displays of affection so we’re not going to kiss and our breaks are messed up because we don’t have fixed schedules.”

 Ace gave him a meaningful look. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

 “Hey, pott, I’m kettle,” Marco retorted, rolling his eyes. “I do remember you telling me you’re alright while crying. More than once.”

 “Well, maybe I don’t want you to see me like this and pity me,” Ace sneered, baring his teeth. “Because apparently, it’s the only thing you can do.”

 “I don’t pity you,” he said, crossing his arms and turning sideways on the chair so he could properly face him. “Why would I do that in the first place-“

 Ace quirked an eyebrow at that, a tight-lipped smile on his face. “Do you want alphabetical order or should I use chronological one?”

 “I’ll give you one more, the person who pities you the most,” Marco continued, his mouth dry, “is you.”

 Ace dug his fingernails into his palms, scowling. “Well, maybe I have a good reason!”

 As soon as Ace closed his mouth, clenching his jaw with breathless anger, Marco felt nothing. No tense muscles, no tongue biting, no throbbing veins, no hard jaw, no light-headedness, no fire in his chest. It was cold and numbing.

 “Turn it back on,” he demanded. Ace snorted at him. “Turn it back on, it’s not funny.”

 “Maybe I should leave it like that,” he said sharply, his lips twisted in a cruel smile. “Maybe you would stop fucking worrying about me and start living your own life.”

 “There is no my own life, we share the same life- “

 Ace interrupted him, “What exactly are you trying to obtain from this conversation? There’s no point.”

 “I’m trying to obtain your admittance that you’re not alright,” Marco blurted out, his breath heavy. “That you’re struggling. Because you are. ”

 Suddenly, something changed in Ace. Something just broke and Marco couldn’t explain it - not with the way his body was overflowing with raw energy and couldn’t even twitch at the same time. It paralyzed Marco on so many levels.

 “You want to know what I’m struggling with?”

 Ace rose from his seat, stomping loudly, his shoulders straightening up and his chin high. He waved a finger at Marco, his face flushed in frustration.

 “I let you kiss me, hold my hand, sleep with me, hug me- I spent all my time with you,” he ranted on. “And it fucking hurt, that's what I’m struggling  with.”

 Marco stood up from his chair too and the two feet between them that seemed vast a minute ago shrank. They were standing chest to chest, Marco’s face hovering over Ace’s.

 “Why the hell would you let me do that if you didn’t want me to ?” Marco retorted. “I told you from the beginning, I don’t expect anything from you!”

 “Because I fucking love you! ” Ace snapped. 

 It was like a bucket of cold water hitting his face, his breath stuck in his lungs. Sobering.

 Ace didn’t notice, continuing on screaming out his heart, “No expectations my ass, you still expect me to adjust. I love you and I thought- I thought maybe I can wait this out but I can’t, I just can’t wait for the day when you decide I’m disappointing and want to get back to before. I can’t pretend I don’t care about kisses, about hugs, about intimacy-”

 Ace closed his mouth before he could say too much. He hid his face in his palm, taking a deep breath. He shut his eyes, hunching as if he was waiting for the blow. He had been waiting this whole time.

 “Why am I so stupid, of course, you don’t understand it,” he mumbled.

 Along with the tension leaving Marco’s body, his heart shattered a little. His expression softened and his mind went back on track. His gaze may have been glassy but he couldn’t say whose feelings were the cause of it.

 “No- No, Ace, I-“ he trailed off, searching for the right words. In the end, he decided the honest ones would be the best choice. “I love you, I really do.”

 Ace didn’t look at him, still rubbing his forehead.

 “But you don’t believe me,” Marco continued. “And I thought maybe I can just wait it out too, it’s just- you don’t want to believe me.”

 “Even if it’s true-“ Ace hesitated. “For how long?”

 There was no hesitation from Marco.

 “Forever and ever.”

 Ace’s hand fell along his side when he glanced up at him, his expression one of a resigned man.

 “This is the obsession speaking,” he remarked in a quiet voice.

 “It really isn’t, I-“

 “Don’t have an obsession, yes, I know,” Ace laughed, a broken watery sound.

 This was the moment when he finally admitted it, “No, I do have an obsession. It just doesn’t change anything, I still love you.”

 “This is all about some created image of me you have in your head.”

 “I know I messed up, I know I went wrong about it at the beginning,” Marco consoled. His body deflated in resignation - he couldn’t tell who was the resigned one. “I fell in love with my soulmate who never got angry, who was soft, very special, stubborn and determined, and who was fighting throughout his whole life.”

 Ace closed his eyes, his mouth trembling. His fist clenched and Marco wanted to grab them into his own hands and caress them.

 “I thought he was a depressed boy who went through too much and deserved all the care in the world,” Marco continued. “And he was. But he was also incredibly smart, powerful and just so cheerful, so bright he was blinding, and maybe sometimes shy and modest in the most unexpected ways. I may have found out about that side of his too late because he already made himself believe I didn’t love it.”

 Ace still didn’t look at him but he moved a tiny step in Marco’s direction almost on its own. There was a tense silence in the room, interrupted only by their soft breaths. Marco could feel Ace’s breath on his neck and jaw, warm puffs, almost unnoticeable.

 When Mikoto moved and her chair creaked, both of them startled. They had been arguing the whole time, completely forgetting she was in the room.

 When she spoke up, Marco was sure he could hear his own heart thumping in his ears.

 “Ace, have you ever been in love? ” she asked quietly.

 Marco stared at him, vaguely remembering the first time they had talked about falling in love. Ace ended that conversation with a strong pass.

 Ace didn’t turn his gaze away. “Once,” he replied sternly. There was no hesitation.

 “How did it end?” she prodded.

 Ace shut his eyes for a second, exhaling. He gave Marco a small smile, a genuine one this time. He glanced up at him through his lashes and whispered, “It hasn’t.”

 Next thing he knew, he was cradling Ace into his arms, Ace hugging him as if his life depended on it. Mikoto was giggling in the background, his palms were in Ace’s fluffy hair, and they were both chuckling. For once, there was no bittersweetness, no emptiness, no disappointment, and no anxiety.

 Only calmness.

 “To be honest, I thought he would say pass again,” Mikoto told Marco later, much later.

 Things were not ideal. They didn’t leave in a perfect world and psychological issues didn’t disappear overnight.

 There was a change though. For the most part, Marco started to think Ace began to realize he actually deserved unconditional love, or any kind of love for the matter. There was just something in the way his glances were never as stolen as they were before, in the way his eyes allowed themselves to linger, in the way he didn’t avert his gaze when Marco noticed him watching and only blushed. It felt like flirting and Marco had never been so excited.

 Bittersweetness was there most of the time. It was faint and indistinct, like an afterthought, but it was there. It was still progress.

 He snatched Ace’s hand in the mess hall and there it was, for a second. Ace’s breath stuck in his throat and then, he gripped back.

 They were sitting in a bar and Marco did that cliche thing with yawning and putting his arm over Ace’s shoulders. Ace gave him a taken-aback look but relaxed, leaning into him, giving him amused smile. Marco was sure that Curiel, who was talking with them, won’t stop reminding him about it for the next ten years.

 There was this one time when they were checking on their territory. Pops was talking with the mayor and the mayor’s kids gathered around him and Ace asking questions and awing at their devil fruit powers. The youngest boy asked if Whitebeards really were brothers. Ace froze, blinking, and Marco smirked. “That’s my boyfriend,” sounded way too natural. “And a soulmate,” was more hesitant. Ace’s face turned red but he smiled.

 Bittersweetness was there but it was a third or fourth layer of emotions. The warm affection, the burning hope, and the freeing peace - that came first, hitting stronger.

 There was that one day, the first one Ace had gone through without bittersweetness, the first one Marco realized Ace actually believed in his feeling. It started with Marco waking up feeling blazing fingertips on his face, in his hair.

 Ace’s hands were around his head, his arm over Marco’s shoulder and it was nothing else but an embrace. His forehead lay just under Ace’s collarbone, practically touching Ace’s chest. When he opened his eyes, he saw a galaxy of freckles on tanned skin and delicate thumbs on his cheek.

 It looked desperate and for a moment, Marco expected to feel that bottomless hole in his chest or struggle to take a breath when his lungs refused to let the air loose. There was no such thing - there was only a soft sound of Ace’s breath, like a warm whisper, and the peace of the sun that shined through the porthole in his room, straight on them.

 He leaned back and glanced up and Ace’s eyes were completely open - not shiny, not wet, but with a timid spark in them. He looked at Marco with fondness. With love.

 “Hey,” Marco whispered, his voice hoarse.

 Ace didn’t stop smiling but his hand stopped caressing his cheek.

 “Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he said and although it felt like a lie - he could feel when Marco was waking up - it also felt like tenderness.

 He blinked and Marco didn’t say anything, just stared. Ace averted his gaze but it was not a nervous gesture, it was filled with shyness. It was, Marco reasoned, perfectly normal to feel shy when you’re half-naked in bed with your soulmate who absolutely adores you. It was not only perfectly normal, but it was also perfect in a way Marco had never expected.

 “I should get us some breakfast,” Ace finally said.

 He moved up on his elbow, leaning on the headboard and Marco realized he’d had his arm loosely thrown over his waist. Ace took him by the wrist and guided it back to the comforter. Sitting up, he brushed his hair with his fingers and closed his eyes. Marco hoped he was enjoying the feeling just as much.

 He moved, untying his legs from the blanket, and Marco, still sleepy, instinctively reached for him, placing his arm over Ace’s hips and drew him closer. The empty space had instantly become freezing cold and it felt wrong on so many levels.

 Ace stiffened, his hand hovering over Marco’s elbow.

 “Just five more minutes,” Marco explained, sounding, admittedly, like a child. “You’re really warm, like a space heater.”

 Ace ran his hand through his hair, a fond smile present on his face. He did lie down again and that was the important thing. 

 He was still a little more up on the pillow, his feet brushing Marco’s calves. He put his arm back around Marco’s shoulders, leaning in. Marco didn’t hesitate - he nuzzled into his neck, transferring some of his weight onto Ace’s chest, hoping it would prevent him from moving away.

 Ace didn’t sound sleepy while saying, “Just five minutes,” but he sounded blissful.

 Marco gave him a couple of lazy kisses on the neck and shifted closer. Ace giggled, cradling Marco’s head, his fingers softly brushing through Marco’s hair.

 No bittersweetness in sight

 It was New Year and Ace’s birthday when Marco remembered Mikoto’s words.

 He gave Ace a bouquet, the biggest the florist could make, of sunflowers. Sunflowers always made Ace look younger, like a carefree child even. It was so big Ace had to hold it with two hands.

 And Marco gave him a kiss on his forehead and the brightest, the softest smile he had ever given anyone.

 Ace looked up at him, big, wet eyes and barely-there grimace, his chest on fire. It wasn’t coddling warmth, it was burning hot, trying to burn a hole in the place of his heart, stinging.

 “Ace is never going to be fully okay,” Mikoto had told him. “There are going to be days when he will be completely okay and then he will look at you and think he doesn’t love me. You never know when your mind decides you don’t deserve things, there is no logic to it. ”

 Years later, Marco still thinks hibiscuses suit Ace best. There is just something in it, seeing Ace smile with a red flower in his hair, brushing a strand behind his ear, his cheeks flushing a soft pink color.

 It’s the prettiest sight.