"I can't trust you to love me. Not fully."
(his knuckles are practically white, stark against his dark skin, and fear feels like it's radiating off him in waves. Marco's pretty sure that even if he didn't have Haki, even if he didn't know Ace better than he knew himself, he would've been able to see the strain and tension holding Ace's shoulders tight.)
"Why?" Marco asks, his fingertips gently grazing Ace's cheek, and Ace flinches away from him, the movement racing through his body. Marco stops, fingers curling into his palm. This isn't-
He doesn't want Ace to be so afraid of him. (Can't understand why Ace is afraid of him, can't understand what it is Ace has to fear when Marco would rather drown than see Ace hurt. It feels the same way, to see Ace hurt, anyway. Feels like water is pressing against the back of his throat, feels like he can't breathe, feels like he's drowning in the fact that he's made Ace afraid.)
"Because!" Ace bursts out, flickers of fire around his eyes. "Because, you know who I am! You know about-"
"This is about your dad?" Marco says, and he grits his teeth, frustrated beyond belief and wishing that Ace would understand him, that any one of the times he'd explained to Ace that he didn't care about his heritage would've sunken into Ace's mind. "Ace, I don't care who's blood is in your veins, or who helped bring you into this world. I'm just glad you're in this world, yoi."
"You shouldn't be," Ace mumbles mutinously, glaring to the side, and Marco sighs quietly, feeling his heart break and wishing Ace were easier to love. "I don't want you to be in love with me. I don't want to-," he stops, the tiniest shift running along his muscles, like he's said to much, and Marco feels his anger soften, lips quirking into the tiniest, slightly bitter smile.
"To bad," he says, and carefully reaches out to push Ace's hair out of his eyes. Sees the momentary flicker of silver and grey flash to him, the faintest tinge of red on Ace's cheeks before Ace brushes him off and stomps away, shoulders hunched defensively.
He wouldn't change Ace for the world. Wouldn't want him too. Probably wouldn't be so hopelessly head over heels if Ace was different.
And maybe one day he'd get Ace to see that.
Anonymous said: ""I can't trust you to love me. Not fully." I just want Ace! Please! Being upset about his parentage and scared because he doesn't think he deserves love. Whatever pairing you want just ACE"
A/N: Basically Keep You Like An Oath is getting bigger and hey I get enough m/a/s reqs to have my own drabble series so why not? Gonna be marco/ace, marco/sabo, and sabo/ace as well as m/a/s too, but the chapters'll all be tagged if you wanna jump around. vuv
Also I'm technically on hiatus atm, so this is just backlog of requests and things from tumblr. Please don't use this as a platform to ask me when my other stories are getting updated, because idk when I'll be getting back to them, or writing anything else. Thank you and I hope y'all are having an awesome holidays so far!
Anyway, hope y'all enjoy!