Ace/Marco (4)

(Overloaded)

—xXx—

Ace was scowling.

Now this wouldn't have been too weird on someone, if it was someone other than Ace.

Yea Ace hadn't smiled constantly before becoming a Whitebeard, but after he accepted Pops mark, you almost never saw him without a shiteating grin on his face.

So to see the deep dark glare Ace directed at everyone and everything was startling... and made more than one crew member try to avoid him in a feeble attempt to escape his wrath.

The reason, no one could weasel out of him.

Ace would stalk the deck or other parts of the ship, the constant glare on his face as he was unusually adept and quick about doing the chores he had so hated before. Even going so far as to do some other chores not assigned to him when he was done with his own.

It was... strange.

No one could get an answer as to why he was acting this way though. Anytime someone approached to ask, Ace would glare in their general direction, and ignore them, muttering unintelligibly under his breath.

It didn't take long for rumors to spring up. But none of them held any credit to them. They were honestly a little outlandish. They covered everything from an upcoming rut, a fight with another crewmate, a secret lover, or even that Ace had gone back to hating the other Whitebeards.

The wiser of the crew and the ones who knew Ace more personally than others knew that last one held no truth at all. Ace was their brother, had accepted his place in the family a long time ago, and had never regretted it since.

Either way Ace was angry.. and no one knew why.

They could feel the incoming storm and Ace was in it's eye.

Something would need to be done. Soon.

——(xXx)——

He knew he was acting a little unfairly to the other, but he did nothing to quell his anger.

After that night that he vowed to "stick close to" Marco, he noticed a few things.

He'd go to Marco, try to convince the blonde to come with him to go do something, anything for the blonde to take a break.. and he was refused. Rejected.

Marco's answer was always he had to do something and then he could. But then after that something was finished Marco would have something else pop up that he had to do.

It went on for another week before Ace decided to find out why Marco had a never ending list of tasks needing to be done.

So he waited till after lunch, Marco's scheduled daily meeting with Oyaji, and snuck into the blonde's office/bedroom.

Oddly the first he noticed was that Marco's bed looked very neat.. almost.. too neat. He brushed that off and proceeded to the desk across from the bed. The sound of rustling papers filled the room as he glanced at each stray piece on the desk before setting it aside and picking up the next.

Each paper he picked up made him more and more ticked. There were lists upon lists stacking on top of one another. Chores that needed to be completed daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly and an even bigger list right under that of everyone's names and each task assigned to them. Schedules for duty rotations, sleeping arrangements, and even assigned positions such as the cooks and navigators and their tasks and schedules.

There was even more papers of requested supplies, repairs needed for the ship, and supply lists of what they had in stock. There were also reports from each division dated from each week, he even found several of his own in the pile, detailing anything of importance that had happened within their division or detailed accounts of any fights that took place; on ship, off it, or with enemies.

As the bottom, sticking out at the edge, was a checklist, it had that day's date in the corner and several tasks written down. Their was only two scratched out out of the 50 or so he could see listed.

•Check on Ace

•Go To Pops

•Ask the shipwrights exactly how much material will be needed for this month's repairs

•Get list from Thatch of food's needed on the next island to sign off on it

•Request the list of supplies needed, from nurses

•Read and sign off the Commander's reports for the past three weeks

•Approve or Disapprove lists of requested items from each division

•Make rounds on deck to make sure chores are being done

•Coordinate next week's schedules

And so many more. Those nine tasks were only the tip of the ice burg.

He knew the first mate had a lot more responsibilities than the other commanders but Marco's list.. it seemed endless..

It made him angry for some reason. All of this.. when did Marco rest? Did he ever take a break? Why was his so much?

He paused at that staring at the page in his hand. This tasks. Marco didn't have to be the one to complete all of these, some of them could easily be done by someone else. So why did Marco do them all himself in the first place?

He almost scoffed at himself, he knew why. Because Marco always put the others before himself, it was admirable to a point, but not when he was practically loading himself with endless work.

Ace grumbled to himself at the thought of how exhausted Marco must make himself every day and placed the list to the side as he reorganized the papers to how they were before he started looking at them. He paused as he went to pick up the last page and a thought occurred to him.

If only he could lighten Marco's load somehow. The solution to it was so simple Ace wanted to slap himself.

He quickly grabbed a blank piece and a pencil Marco had laying around and scrawled down several of the tasks that could be done without Marco's presence. His task completed, and everything placed exactly as it had been, he left the first commander's room while stuffing his own list into his pants' pocket.