I wrote this for Day 3 of the MarcoAce Week. Unsurprisingly, I'm posting late, and I don't even have an excuse.
Oh, well. You can take this story as both gen or romantic, though I thought it as the second. It just turned out annoyingly vague once I wrote it down.
On Deaf Ears
"I'm sorry, Ace."
Marco is sitting before Ace's grave, legs drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped tightly around them. His head isn't bent over his knees, but if this follows the same path as previous visits, it won't be long before it is. There is an empty bottle of sake by his side; Marco has poured it over Pops' tombstone as is his weekly custom, and it's only after he's done talking about his week to the both of them that he sits here and addresses only Ace.
"I should've been better," Marco continues. So far his voice is steady. "I should've focused more on my healing powers, not focus only on illnesses. I should've worked more on treating injuries. I should've..." Marco falters. He presses his lips together, shakes his head, and focuses on the words inscribed on Ace's tombstone. "I should've been good enough to at least have a chance."
Ace wants to punch him. Just like last week, and every week before that one ever since the damned Payback War. As he's wanted every time Marco came here even before that. Ace wants to punch Marco, shake him, and yell at him until the idiot understands that he doesn't have to beat himself over Ace's death. It wasn't his fault; it was no one's fault save Akainu's and Ace's own. It most certainly wasn't Marco's fault.
Marco, who has now averted his gaze from the headstone and is clenching his fists with so much force that there are tiny blue flames flashing on his palms.
Unfortunately, Ace can't reach Marco. He's tried. He's tried oh-so-many times, but his hands always pass through Marco as though they're made of smoke. A smoke Marco doesn't seem to feel at all.
"I'm sorry…" Marco says again, this time in a small voice that is nothing like him. He lowers his head, and he may not be crying, but Ace knows that is only because this one-sided interaction has become so much a part of Marco's life that he rarely cries during in anymore. Not in the day, at least.
No, now Marco just sits there, curled up into himself and lost in the dark recesses of his mind.
And Ace sits there, too, watching him and stopping himself from reaching out to Marco one more time, aware that if he sees his hand pass through Marco's body he'll likely start crying. He can do nothing but sit, watch, and home some unconscious part of Marco knows he's there.
There's nothing more a dead man can do.