I am so excited everyone keeps finding Ace cute! YASS ACEEYY, BE THE CUTEST MERMAN!
WinterRose61 - Thatch has atleast forgiven him and Ace has (reluctantly) stopped eating his hair XD
Leilasecrets - Np! I'm pretty sure Thatch makes his hair look like the best quality piece of bread there is on purpose, he just doesn't want to acknowledge it. XD
Witch68 - Thank you, so happy to hear that! Thank you for the suggestion! I've never specefied it anywhere, (as you know haha), but he has met the man. Once this story is done, I want to add a small bit of their time togheter as a bonus One-shot. But for now, you can imagine Whitebeard telling stories about his pirate-years to a very excited merman while he is recovering.
Doing a bit of a bigger time skip – Ace almost fully recovered and is keeping up with his lessons.
During lunch Ace had fallen asleep while waiting for the others to finish their food, he was a very fast eater. While looking at Ace's resting form Marco smiled softly. The merman's tail seemed to become brighter and brighter by the day. Just like everyone else, he was very happy that the merman's wounds would fully recover and that there wouldn't be any lasting issues.
While already a lot better and him following Marco around like a puppy, -or well, making people carry him and make them follow Marco until he took over-, he was still recovering and so needed to rest a lot. But Marco didn't mind, it was pretty cute, the merman always made some kind of soft snoring sound while asleep. Even though already being on board for a while, he was still not fully used to purely breathing air constantly, and when Ace slept, his gills would open up slightly, causing the rumbling sound to somehow be created.
But ... apparently... getting better also meant finding out that Ace has control over water. Which is pretty cool, don't get him wrong. Marco only wished they could have found out in a different way.
Flashback
"Pops-yoi. Care to tell me why you had sake in your sleeping quarters?"
"I do not know what you are talking about."
"Really?"
"Really-son, I wouldn't lie to you."
"So. You mean to tell me, that a sake bottle just spontaneously appeared in your pillow case-yoi? And that you had no idea it was there?"
"... Yes, that's correct."
Gaining the upteempth tick mark of the day, "Pops, yo-"
"POPS!"
Letting out blessed sigh, Whitebeard turned towards his other son.
"Haruta? What's wrong?"
Out of breath from running, Haruta answered between pants, "Foodvalten* …. Brownbeard pirates ... Threatening villagers … Request help".
"What do they want, and do we have info on these pirates? How many are there? How strong are they?" Whitebeard asked in a very serious tone.
Leaning against Pop's chair, Haruta finally started to catch his breath. "Haaah, they wish to fight you. ….. The captain has a bounty of 80,060,000 Beli. …. No known devil fruits in the crew."
Nodding to the explanation Whitebeard turned towards his first son. "Marco, I don't like to send you out alone, but we can't leave them in danger. Please check up on the island and take care of them. Make sure they know you can't get away with threatening those under our protection."
"Of course, pops. Foodvalten you said right-yoi? I should be able to get there within a day."
"Thank you, son. Haruta, inform them that Marco will arrive in approximately one day and let navigation know to change our course. And Marco, you take care and be careful. Be sure to call in once it's taken care of."
"Ay!"
Haruta ran back inside while Marco shuffled a sleeping Ace closer to Whitebeard's chair, so he would be able to lean against it and wouldn't fall over from Marco moving. Somewhere in his conversation with Pops, Thatch had kindly dropped the half-asleep merman off at his feet, making Ace lean against him for support.
Blearily Ace looked up at Marco, eyes still full of sleep, "Mahko?".
"Don't worry-yoi, just sleep. I'll be back in a bit." After ruffling the boy's hair, he took a step back and transformed into his hybrid form, already flying to Pop's eye height. This way he could already take off, but was still able to say goodbye to Pops and the others on deck.
However, before he could say something, Ace suddenly shot up "Aaah Mahko hu(r)t! Noooo!".
For a moment Marco and pops looked confused at each other.
"Ace-boy, why do you th-"
"Ace help Makho!" The merman yelled with dedication while starting to make some strange hand gestures. Before anyone even knew what was going on, a huge shadow started to appear over the front of the ship. Slowly the crew looked up, right above their ship, floating above Pop's chair, was an enormous bubble of water.
"A-Ace-yoi, I am fine, I am not hu-"
"ACE SAVE MAHKO!"
"Aw sh-" SPLASH
Flashback End
That horrifying event scaring Marco's dignity could have been avoided had they known that Ace was scared of fire, having been burned by a lingering campfire on a beach. His curiosity had taken the better of him and the merman had tried touching it, and so hurting himself in the process. But who could blame him, it looks very pretty and fire is not really something often found in the sea. As a consequence, Ace now associated fire with pain, and so seeing Marco suddenly being engulfed in flames wasn't a pretty picture.
Ace had feared immensely for Marco's wellbeing and thus the heroic action of Ace 'saving' Marco ensued. It had taken a long time to calm the crying merman down, everyone ensuring Ace that Marco was not hurt, and by Thatch's words was 'A special kind of pigeon'.
Even if it had somehow worked, Thatch had quickly learned that if he valued his own life, making any drowned pigeon jokes were out of order. The rest of the crew was also wise enough to not mention 'the event' either.
"What are you thinking about Marco, you look like you've seen a ghost." Someone at the table asked him.
"It would have been better if it was a ghost-yoi." he answered while shaking his head, trying to forget the memory.
"What?"
With a wave of his hand Marco dismissed the question. In his so fun remanences of the past, he had unconsciously already finished his food, convenient. Picking up his tray he spoke to the table, "Alright-yoi. I am going to make my rounds." Slightly motioning with his chin towards Ace, he added "Can anyone maybe ….?"
Receiving a careful thumbs-up from Thatch, Marco mouthed a 'thank you' before saying goodbye and making his way out of the mess hall.
The merman immediately reached out, "Ma-?"
"Ace! You wanne have some fun together?"
"But-"
"Don't worry about the birdy, he's going to do very boring stuff. We can do some fun stuff until he's done alright?"
With some hesitation the mer nodded to Thatch's idea.
As promised, once lunch was over, Thatch took Ace in his arms and walked outside. For now just wandering the deck and enjoying the nice breeze. Looking towards the ocean he mentions how Ace is almost fully healed and that he can soon return back home.
Instead of a happy reaction like he expected, Ace started freaking out and squirming in his grasp.
"NO! NO GO!"
"Ace calm down! You don't have to leave right now!"
Not even a minute after the ruckus had started, did Marco show up on deck looking to be worried.
"What's going on-yoi?"
Ace's head snaps towards Marco and he starts squirming and struggling in earnest, resulting in Thatch dropping Ace onto the deck, not able to hold onto him.
Not even seeming to be faced by it, Ace instantly starts pulling himself towards Marco, tail sliding over the hard deck. Getting tears in his eyes, he yells out "MAHKO! MAHKO!"
The called commander immediately runs up to Ace and picks him up.
"Ace-yoi, what's wrong?"
Ace grabs a hold of him and squeezes him tightly, putting his head in the crook of Marco's neck.
Crying he sobs out "No go, Mahko, Ace no go!"
Not immediately knowing what's going on, Marco gently pats Ace on the back. "Why would you need to go Ace? You don't need to leave?"
Ace just continues crying, chanting "no go, no go" in his arms.
"Thatch, what happened-yoi?"
"I just mentioned how he could go back to the ocean now that he is almost healed up. I didn't mean to make him upset, I thought he would be happy."
"... Ace-yoi. You don't need to leave yet, you're not fully healed. And I am sure Pops won't mind you staying onboard after your recovery either." Marco didn't know why Ace wouldn't want to go back to the Ocean, his actual home, but he wouldn't question that right now as it seemed to be the cause of his distress.
He barely finished his sentence before Ace was turning around in his grasp to look towards Pops.
"POP, POP, POP! Ace no go! Ace sss-sss-staaayy Mahko!" he yells while hugging Marco even closer. His eyes are filled with tears, but there is also determination in them. Showing that he won't take no for an answer.
Getting up from his chair Whitebeard started walking towards the duo. He was looking at the two very seriously before he started speaking, slow, but clear, to be sure Ace understood everything.
"Ace-boy, the ocean is your home. The water is your terrain. Above the water, on the ship, on the islands, you won't be able to move around freely. You will always be confined to the availability of others. And it is impossible for Marco to always stay by your side and carry you everywhere."
More and more tears were spilling from Ace his eyes the more Whitebeard spoke. He turned around and hugged Marco tightly, he didn't want to leave, he loved it here. In the Ocean he was all alone, here he had so many friends, and everyone was so nice to him! He had thought Pops would let him stay, but... it seems that thought had been wrong.
Crewmembers gathered around them on the deck were looking on slightly speechless at the scene.
-Was Whitebeard really not going to let Ace stay on the boat? Everyone had expected Pops to laugh and immediately tell Ace to become his son, like he had done for so many of them. It would indeed be difficult for Ace to get around, but was that really a reason to not let him stay, was there nothing they could do to fix it?-
"I'm sorry Ace."
CLIFFHANGER – Pops not going to accept Ace to stay onboard? Poor Acey, never has it easy.
*Foodvalten: If anyone recognized the name, it's an island in the New World under Whitebeard's protection. After the tragic events of Marineford, the island was briefly in the hands of the Brownbeard pirates, before Basil Hawkins beat them up. The Brownbeard pirates is also that group of pirates you see in Punk Hazard with their legs switched out with animal parts.
(Side note, For reals crews are not original with their names! Everyone naming their crew after the color of their beard, or even naming it '...beard' when you have no beard –Looking at you guys Whitebeards-)
