Ghost of the Past
Chapter 7: Sea
Despite the offer of that woman to use the room for the night, Marco only stayed in it for a little while longer before he got fully dressed and left. He did not want to waste any more time in this place, now that it was futile anyways. There were memories of her – of Charlotte – clogging up his mind, even though he tried to ignore them for as good as possible. But it was like an avalanche, once the memory had been unleashed there was no more stopping it. He did not even know how he had been able to suppress it for so long in the first place.
His head was a complete mess at the moment. Drinking too much, trying to get rid of his thoughts of Ace... sleeping with a random woman he had only talked to for a minute. Allowing his past to surge his mind like it had just done... really, what was he thinking? What was he doing? He had to get over this soon, fast. Or else people would surely start to notice that something was wrong and that would surely include his pops as well. But these were his problems alone now, he really did not want to bother anyone with them. Not anymore than he already had at least.
As he went downstairs he noticed that there were not very many people left in the room. And those that were still here seemed to be completely drunk. In some corner an old man seemed to be sleeping and snoring loudly.
Reluctantly he went over to the bartender and coughed slightly. "Uhm." He started, trying to get the man's attention, who promptly turned around and looked at him. "Yes?" His voice sounded tired and slightly annoyed. It was not like Marco was keen on having this conversation, but truthfully, he felt that he could not just leave like that. "That woman I went upstairs with, yoi." He said vaguely, suddenly realizing that he had completely forgotten her name, even though it was about the only thing she had told him about herself. "She had a room. Has it been paid for? If not, I would like to do that now, yoi." After all he was at least this much of a decent man.
The bartender snorted at this remark. "Well that's a first." He said, still amused. "Don't worry about that, she's a regular. I just hope you don't think there could be more concerning that woman, eh?" He smirked, giving Marco a challenging glance, the blond however only answered with a short "No, yoi." Before he slammed some money on the bar. "Then I'll just pay for my drinks. Keep the rest, yoi."
And while the bartender was still counting the money he had just received – realizing that his customer had paid at least twice as much as he needed – Marco had already left the building.
The only thing he really wanted now was to get back onto the Moby Dick and fall into his bed. He felt completely exhausted and maybe he would see everything completely differently after a good night's sleep.
...
A few hours earlier Thatch and Ace had set sail in their small ship. While Ace still had an uneasy feeling in his stomach, he had managed to stay quiet about it for now. But his wish to talk to Thatch about Marco grew from minute to minute.
And then, just after a short while, he sensed a chance to actually initiate a conversation about the topic. The wind seemed to turn against their favor so Thatch commented on how they would probably need longer than originally anticipated.
Ace looked up to the fourth division commander with an unsure look on his face as he tried to say as casually as somehow possible: "Is Marco often this weird?"
Thatch nearly dropped what he was holding upon hearing the question. He turned around to look at the younger man in confusion. "Excuse me?"
Ace cleared his throat in an attempt to not let his voice betray him. "Starting a fight with someone and then acting like nothing has happened?" He elaborated.
"Well..." Thatch seemed to think about it for a moment. "I've never seen him start a fight with someone unless they had done something wrong."
The remark made Ace pout and anger flare up inside him. "I didn't do anything!" He barked back at his friend. Why did Thatch always think that what had happened had been his fault? Marco clearly was not the saint he believed him to be. If only he would realize that.
Thatch smiled mildly and in an attempt to calm the younger one down said: "See, the problem is that I don't know what happened. I'm just saying that while I agree that Marco's been acting really out of himself lately that that's not his usual behavior." He sighed heavily. "If you told me what exactly happened, I might be able to help you more."
Ace seemed to consider it for a moment. Maybe telling Thatch really was not such a bad idea. He was sure that he could trust the brown haired man to keep it a secret, as well. But it was an embarrassing topic after all. And he felt doubt surge in his chest that Thatch would not believe him in the end.
So instead he avoided the request and asked something else instead. "Then, does Marco get drunk often?"
Thatch had made his own assumptions as this whole thing had started. That night a few days back when they were all together at the bar drinking he had seen Ace leave together with Marco. When afterwards Marco had started acting weird he had assumed that something must have happened during that night, but of course there was no prove for such an assumption. And what could it be that Marco... or Ace had done to cause such a tense air between the two? But now that Ace had asked this, he was once more sure that something must have happened between the two during that night. Probably caused by Marco getting drunk, although he usually did not drink too much. Thatch could remember one or two occasions at which he had seen the first division commander completely wasted, but that had been a long time ago and they never really spoke about it anymore either. In the past it had really seemed like Marco had some trouble. Thinks he wanted to forget. And Thatch never blamed him for that. But he knew that Marco had gotten over it, or at least that was what he had hoped.
"Well, very rarely." He replied truthfully. "Sometimes he even stays on the ship when we reach an island." He thought about it for a moment. "Well, he does join the parties on the ship. But he doesn't really get drunk. Marco's not the type for that I guess. Someone's gotta keep a cool head after all, y'know? To take care of the others." He said with a grin.
"Yeah, but on that last island we were Marco did get drunk." Ace murmured more to himself than saying it to Thatch, but the later heard it nonetheless.
"What did he do that night?" The brown haired man finally asked carefully. Ace suddenly raised his head at the question, the look on his face was scared, like he regretted saying too much already.
"No-...nothing!" Ace replied too quickly, as he remembered exactly what really had happened. The sensation of Marco's skin on his... it made blood rush up to his cheeks. He turned around to the blackness of the sea that lay before them, careful to hide his blush as good as possible.
But he had grown too greedy now, he wanted to know more. Some information – any information that would help him understand why Marco had done what he did. So he continued his questioning. "Why does Marco never get himself a woman, like you and the others do?" The thought of Marco leaving a bar with some random woman he had just picked up made him jealous, even though he knew that it was nothing unusual.
"I don't know." Thatch replied with a sigh. "Not his kind of thing I guess." He made small pause and then added. "Maybe he needs a deeper bond with the person he has sex with?" He chuckled at that. Truthfully though, he had never seen Marco with someone. And the blond had never said anything about it either. When a woman tried to initiate talking to him, he would usually send her away. Not that he minded though. That just meant more of a selection for himself.
"S-...so." Ace started again, clearing his throat once more. There was one more question burning inside him that he truly wanted to be answered. "Has he ever had a girlfriend then?"
Thatch looked at the younger one, suddenly remembering something from a long time ago. One evening Marco had burst into his room, already completely drunk and before Thatch could say anything, Marco had taken a seat in his chair, putting various bottles of liquor on the table. 'Drink with me.' He had said and it must have been his tone of voice, but somehow Thatch had been unable to refuse the request. They had drunken through the whole night and Marco had told him about his past. And no matter how drunk he had gotten, he had talked about it so clearly, it had frightened Thatch a little. That, however, had marked the first and only time Marco had ever told him about his past. Somehow it even seemed like Marco himself had forgotten about it after that evening. Like all that had ever mattered was his life on the Moby Dick from then on, like there had never been anything before that in the first place. And Thatch had never dared to ask about it again, somehow knowing it was something that Marco had rather stay hidden.
He decided to not tell Ace. Instead he replied in a more evasive way. "Yeah, of course. Look at how old he is after all! Even someone like him must have had a girl sometime, right?" He reaped an offended look from Ace for that.
"Where is she then?" The younger one asked.
"Who knows? You should ask Marco himself about those things, you know?" Thatch said in an attempt to stop the conversation here. However, seeing where this conversation had lead them and observing Ace's reactions to what he had said he could not help himself but think that something was weird about the second division commander.
Could it be that Ace liked Marco? Something like that would definitely make all the pieces fit perfectly together. But that was something he could not ask the other one so easily.
...
Their conversation had subsided from that point on and about half an hour later they were finally able to make out their destined island before them. They were sailing to it from the correct angle at least. Thatch was glad.
A moment later he rummaged around the ship for a bit, before he finally found what he was looking for and threw something made out of black fabric over to Ace.
The younger one caught it without effort and lifted a questioning eyebrow at the other one. "What's that?"
"Wear that. It's black. It conceals you better at night. And I swear: I will kill you if you dare use your devil fruit powers. You know we already discussed this." He thought about it for a moment. "Pops would be very disappointed if you fuck this mission up after all." And just for the occasion Thatch was wearing black clothes himself.
Ace blushed at the remark. He did not plan on fucking this up after all. It was important to him to prove himself to Whitebeard as good as possible. And how hard could it really be to infiltrate a place like this? The base was small and there were not many lights burning. It seemed like it only had few inhabitants. All they had to do was get inside, find that office room, steal some plans and then leave again with no one noticing them.
He put on the black shirt without saying anything. If only he could stop thinking about Marco that would make everything so much easier. But somehow he was not able to. He tried to imagine what kind of woman his girlfriend must have been. A petite type, with long, flowing blonde hair and a cute face? Someone Marco had wanted to protect at all cost? Or maybe she had been a pirate herself, strong, fierce and fearless. Able to take care of herself. Maybe they had only met occasionally. Maybe she had died, or ended their relationship? Maybe Marco had left her at some island and one day they would visit that island and he would get to see her, too.
The thought made him furious. What if Marco still had a girl somewhere? And yet, he had still kissed him and told him that?
Being angry made it hard for him to completely suppress his devil fruit powers. After all, fire was wild and free and when he got enraged he found it hard to control the flames at times.
Thatch seemed to have noticed however, but completely misread the cause of Ace's uneasiness. "Calm down. This is easy, you can do it."
Ace gulped and tried to calm himself down as he was told. The rage subsided a little, but it was still there, dwelling right below the surface. "Yeah, sorry. Just got a little excited that's all." He said his lie with a grin.
There ship landed exactly where Thatch had calculated. As he made sure that it would stay there until they returned, Ace made an effort to look around and check if really no one had seen them.
When Thatch was done he waved Ace over to him. "Ready?" He asked, his voice lowered and quiet. The other one simply nodded. No, he thought to himself, he was not ready. He still had to get Marco out of his head. If he could not fully concentrate he would danger their mission after all. But he did not want to disappoint Thatch with some lame excuse like that, so instead he told himself that this was not a hard mission after all. Nothing would go wrong even if he was a little distracted, right?
