"And to think today began with such promise. My guards told me I'd finally have some company in this forsaken pit, and it turns out to be you of all people" Ace complains, tugging half heartedly on the sea stone cuffs around his wrists, chaining his arms up to the wall above him. Smoker doesn't say a thing; he doesn't even move. The grey haired former marine stares straight ahead into the space before him, determinedly ignoring Aces prodding comments.
"How long has I been since we've last seen each other, Smokie? Eight years, wasn't it?" again, he is ignored. His face scrunches up into an angry snarl. "You stopped smoking and everything."
Finally he is rewarded with a reaction. Smoker's eye twitches and Ace feels a sick twist of satisfaction rise up in his chest, along with a tightness he refuses to acknowledge as longing and guilt.
"Why are you in here anyway Smokie? The government finally catch up with you? Realize your justice won't be feeding their wallets? I told you from the beginning, all the higher ups are corrupt, fat bastards. You shouldn't have bothered with those pigs." He sits back triumphantly, oozing smugness when Smoker seems further disturbed.
Smoker shifts in his shackles, sending clanks and scrapes through their dark, empty cell. The noises reverberate off the concrete walls and floor, echoing several times before finally dying out.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Ace continues. "They built a whole 'nother level for me here at Impel Down, at your insistence I was a dangerous criminal, the likes of which dwarfed my brother and the Yonko's. I think you just wanted me for far out of sight you wouldn't have to think about me ever again." Ace hisses the last sentence with venom born of eleven years worth of resentment for the man chained in front of him.
"How does it feel to be thrown in here with me?" Ace taunts, and smoker finally snaps.
"Enough! Hold your tongue, Portgas, before you lose it." His face is red with anger, and Ace grins at the sight.
"And how do you propose you go about cutting out my tongue? You're chained in sea stone, have no weapons and we're both guarded so heavily we can't' so much as breathe without the warden knowing about it." Ace laughs hollowly, a look of grim acceptance on his face.
"And the sea stone, I've tried to break out of it. Don't even bother; no smoke, no fire, no strength."
Smoker shifts again, his wrists already chaffing from the uncomfortable stone cuffs. He looks, and sees that Aces wrists have long chaffed, bled, and scarred over. His skin there is so worn and calloused, that if he ever broke free there would be permanent damage. It's quiet for a moment while Smoker digests this.
Ace takes the opportunity to study Smokers face. He himself had grown thin and worn, ribs showing visibly under his tattered prison clothes. He'd lost muscle and fat, and rarely had enough strength to do more than annoy the guards or rattle his chains around a bit. So many of his bones had been broken over the course of his stay at Impel Down that it was easier to count the ones that hadn't been broken, rather than the other way around. His eyes had sunken and his cheeks had hollowed. He was paler and weaker all around. He looked older, more mature. Smoker, on the other hand, seemed to be stuck in a stasis. Whereas Ace looked much different, Smoker looked exactly the same. His hair, his eyes, his skin, all exactly the same.
Ace jerks himself out of his contemplation when he meets Smoker's eyes and feels a shock of familiar, now despised, electricity run through him.
"Who got you, anyway? It'd have to be someone really strong, considering you were the one who put me away." He breaks the silence, half jokingly, half seriously.
"A new Shichibukai," smoker grunts. "Don't know her name."
"Ah, that would be Katie Saffron, captain of the Saffron Pirates."
"How-"
"The guards talk, Smokie. You'd be surprised what you'd learn of you listen." Smoker nods and they lapse back into silence.
Ace's anger seems to have mostly burned off by now, and now that he's not firing verbal jabs at him every other minute, Smoker has time to realize that it's incredibly cold down in their cell. They are in the bottom of impel down, thousands of feet below sea level, in a concrete box buried into the ocean floor, after all. He supposes it would be pretty damn frigid in there, but this is just ridiculous. It feels like its ten degrees in there.
"How did you put up with this for eight years?" Smoker asks incredulously, shivering. "It's almost as cold as the freezing hell down here. You hate the cold."
"That's an easy question to answer; I've been without my fire for eight years, Smokie." Ace grinned dementedly, and Smoker felt a tug of nostalgia at that face. Ace usually wore it whenever he was about to make trouble, but somehow now it seemed warped, a harbinger of something devastating.
"I don't even remember what warmth feels like."