Jasmine - Ace gonne have a great time and will surely be happy! No more lonely days in the sea, just surviving! We shall all unite with out speechproblems XD
Oooh yass, definetly gotte take as on a island at some point, will be a bonus story, more info of this in the end-notes.
Meet Teach? Evil-pie-eating-person-that-should-be-cursed-for-eternity-Teach? I could make them meet, but my only idea's would be evil haha, Teach wanting to sell Ace or something. Is that in the genre you meant? Or you want them to be friends? (oooh and evil betrayal after hehe)
WinterRose61 - Go Rayleigh, I've always thought he seemed like a nice person. Ace finaly got a real home! Ah... for now I must say I am sorry to dissapoint, but I've not written more of Whitebeard's reaction. But i'll add it to the list I'm keeping of bonus chapters! More info of this in the end-notes.
"""""""Last""""""""" chapter. Hope those are enough quotation marks to make the message clear haha. More info in the end notes. To "end" this story, Ace just being Ace and helping out Marco.
It's only been about two weeks since Ace had joined their crew. Pops officially naming the mer a member of their crew after the impromptu party of the successful bubble had finished. This of course started up another party the exact same moment Pops welcomed him, even if the previous one had only barely finished and half the crew was still knocked out... If Marco had to guess, he thinks many didn't even realise they had been partying for two days straight and thought it was still the first party and it was just a very long day/night...
They still had some things to figure out, such as in what division will Ace be, will he get a tattoo,… but all of that would be taken care of with time. For now, it didn't really matter either, most of Ace's time went to his lessons, so there wasn't a lot of time left to do division work. Like right now, Ace was sitting next to him, working on some small assignments.
Even though Ace could barely read or write, he would always insist on helping Marco out with his paperwork. And no amount of trying to reason with him, or other commanders trying to make him do something else, would sway Ace away from Marco. No, Ace will 'Help Mahko', enabling him to keep watch and stay close to his favourite commander.
After a pile of paperwork was done, or if Marco was working too long for Ace's standards, Ace would go to Marco and push him to bed with a 'Mahko ressssst'. He had tried to fight it in the beginning, but the merman was very insistent, plus he would steal Marco's pens or make them float away in bubbles if he didn't sit down for at least 5 minutes once Ace deemed him to have worked enough.
Don't get Marco wrong, he loves that Ace wants to help him out and worries for him. And he knows that no matter what he gives as a task, Ace will try and do it with the utmost care and diligence. It's just that, at the moment, Marco only has a lot of reports or stock-counting's to check. And while they are all working on Ace his reading and writing, these papers are too difficult, and too important for Ace to handle.
Luckily, an answer to what Ace could do came in the form of the daily newspaper. One newspaper was always brought straight to Marco so he could skim trough it to see if anything important is mentioned about them and to add the wanted posters to their inventory.
Making up his mind Marco gave Ace the newspaper, some scissors, glue, and a scrapbook.
"Ace, I need you to read through this newspaper and see if there is anything important that we need to know and if they mention anything about us."
Ace accepted the items and studies the scissors for a while before looking back at Marco, tilting his head to the side, "Ace cut out?"
"Yes-yoi. And all articles that speak about us, you can paste them into the scrapbook. Can you do that for me?"
"Ace do that!"
"Thank you-yoi, you can sit next to me while you do it." Pointing to the little table at his side, not especially placed for Ace or anything...
It really was just a little table, there wasn't even a chair with it. Very conveniently, Ace didn't need a chair, he could easily move the bubble and make it into a floating cushion to sit on, it was really neat what you can do with those things. Maybe they could be used to get heavy stock into the ship too... something to think about for later. But even if that didn't work, Rayleigh really saved them and gave Ace a far better shot at a better quality of life out of the sea too.
"If there's something you don't understand, just ask me, okay?"
Marco just got a hum as a reply, Ace already concentrating on the newspaper, holding it way closer to his face then one normally would, but oh well, if he can read it that way. The mer is happy he can help, and as a bonus this could help Ace with his reading too. At the same time, Marco could also test if Ace can differentiate between important and not important info.
He was glad the newspaper had arrived, he wouldn't have known what else to make Ace do. This way Ace can help, and it isn't that bad if something goes wrong either? There were plenty more newspapers aboard the ship. With that said, Marco turned back to his own stack of work.
They mostly worked in silence, every now and then Ace would make a happy click before reaching for the scissors to start cutting away. He was very diligent and would spend a long-time cutting pieces out. Making sure that the cuts looked nice and straight. Often cutting away the thinnest of a paper strip, even after the piece was already out, just to make sure it looked nice.
Every time Marco heard it, he would carefully turn a bit so he could look at Ace, trying not to give away that he was watching. It was very cute to see and always brought a smile to his face to see Ace so happy. Working together with the mer really brightens his day and kind of makes him look forward to his endless paperwork. He never had anyone to sit with him and help him like this, his brothers did help him if he asked but they mostly worked in their room or complained every minute... Even after the small time Ace had been aboard, him sitting with him when working was somehow the norm, if the mer had needed to leave... The thought made him kind of sad.
But he was able to stay! And now he has a work buddy, a very diligent work buddy! Who, luckily, wasn't as serious as himself and made time move quicker.
He had had to hold his laugh the first time he saw Ace pasting a cut-out into the scrapbook.
He had stuck his tongue out, full on concentration on pasting it neatly into the book, once in the book, Ace decided that giving it an extra slam with his hand for a good measure to ensure it was really stuck.
Because of it though, Ace had gotten some glue on his fingers and now there were some scraps stuck to it. Seeing it the mer had tried to peel them off, only for the pieces to get stuck to his other hand. The next best thing to try in Ace's mind was apparently his mouth. With his teeth he took a paper-piece off of his fingers and... he thinks he ate it... he never spit it out..., he had looked happy to have succeeded though, only to start smacking his lips and make a disgusted face a second later. -I guess the glue wasn't tasty.-
Before Ace could glare the still stuck pieces to death, Marco had turned around, careful to hide his smile. "Give me your hands-yoi"
Reaching out, he started to remove the papers from Ace's fingers, throwing them in a little trashcan towards the side, taking some towel he had laying around afterwards to wipe off Ace's fingers off all the glue's residue. "There, they shouldn't be sticky anymore."
Ace smiled "Thank you, Mahko!" - "Glue evil!" the merman added with a pout.
Laughing Marco ruffled Ace his hair, "I guess it is, don't use too much of it. But nice job-yoi, the cut-out looks really good and you pasted it very neatly in the book."
Ace's smile increased ten-fold, he gave Marco an affirmative hum before going back to his very important work of glaring at the newspaper.
"Mahko"
"Hmm"
"Ressst"
Looking towards the porthole it seems the sun had set a lot more then Marco had thought. Huh, it seems they have been working for a while already. It may even be close to dinner time already.
"Ace, do you want to go bother Thatch in the kitchen?"
Looking excited, Ace started adjusting his bubble to go around his tail. Once ready he looked to the still sitting commander, cutely tilting his head to the side.
"Mahko too."
"Yes yes-yoi, I'm coming too."
Marco was barely out of his chair before Ace took his hand and started pulling him along "LET'GOOOOO!".
Laughing along and smiling at Ace his back, Marco thought back to the time Ace had just come aboard. It may not have been the best way to have met, but he was extremely happy it had happened, especially the fact that Ace had wanted to stay with them, with him. He could no longer imagine his life without the presence of said fiery merman.
That was it! I know this last chapter was short and the ending may have come really quick after Ace got accepted to stay onboard. But that's because I am not planning to 100% end it. I just needed this one to finish at some point as an origin story.
I'll be making another story in the future, something like 'Fiery Scales on the moby', which will be used to add extra stories of merman Ace his life in the crew now that he is welcome and staying onboard. I already have some small idea's myself that I think will be funny. You can find a small list of idea's down below. I have this in a series in AO3 and can add it in the description, i do not know how I am going to update this on here... maybe as chapters come and go? We'll see in the future haha. (I didn't write everything down, but the list at the end is the gist of stuff that will be extra stories)
If anyone has any ideas of their own for what could happen with a merman Ace on board, feel free to let me know and I can see if I can make something for it. I don't promise anything though, since I am new to writing it still takes me a while to figure stuff out, but I'll do my best and if inspiration hits with the idea maybe it can be created! If it gets made, I'll be sure to add this person, to credit the prompt!
Bonus idea's:
- Ace gets his back-tattoo and his first bounty
- Finding a division for Ace
- Namur's lifeguarding buddy
- 'Swimming' with Marco
- Ace wants a triton
- Ace's perfect hiding spot when mad at Marco (#TheSea)
