Here's another one of my attempts at writing immortal Marco. It's short but as always I hope you enjoy it, and please do leave a review at the end!
When he first met those half-lidded eyes and saw an old, old soul, he almost asked, how many captains have you lost?
How many crews have you mourned? How many friends have you seen leave for that faraway place, where no living man can reach?
But Edward voiced out none of those questions, though they warred in his mind.
Instead, he held out his hand.
I can't make a promise to live for eternity, nor can I promise to stay always by your side. I'll become yet another captain that you will lose to time's passing, another friend that you will mourn.
But I'll give you a family; a family that will outlive me, a family that will expand and grow, a family that will love you in my stead when I am gone.
A family that will protect you from being alone.
"Join my family and become a son of mine."
Decades later, standing upon a bloodied battlefield of enmity and regrets, he sought and found those half-lidded eyes for the final time. Those eyes were stricken, widened from their usual hooded state in pained denial. He wished he could have avoided the sorrow in those depths, but all mortal men must surely die one day and Edward Newgate had never been such a man to die peacefully in his sleep.
Forgive me for my selfishness, to choose a time and place to die. I'll leave our family in your hands now. (And you in theirs.)
And he saw the responding promise in those eyes, still far from acceptance and far from the end of grief, but he knew from then that his children would hold each other together through the hardships that would inevitably follow.
I'll take care of them, Edward.
Our family.