When Marco awakens the next time things are different. He's in a bed, in a bedroom, and he's pretty sure he's a man and not a bird. Everything seems surreal, dreamlike as if Marco's not really there or he's watching back through aged memories, but his heart feels strong as it beats in his chest.

This is not his ship. Why is Marco not on his ship?

"Mystery Bird?" The voice calling him is groggy and close, everything's heavy and Marco doesn't even startle at the new presence. He looks down from where he's sitting up in bed to stare at a man, messily sprawled next to him and eyeing him cautiously. "Marco?" That's his name. It agitates him a little to hear it, as if it's been awhile since he's heard it. Where is he? The room is airy and light, even though it has no windows, there's creamy wood on every surface and Marco knows this steady rocking means he's at sea.

"…" He looks down at the stranger sharing his bed. Or is it the other way around, Marco invading the man's space? He's young, he notes, looking fit and sharp in all the right ways. His posture holds hesitation, but the bow of his lips whisper of kindness. He sits up slowly, and the proximity makes Marco freeze. The man rubs at his eyes and when he's up, he turns around and smiles at him.

"You're awake," the man cheers. Marco is indeed awake, but he doesn't feel right. There's something off, something slow. Marco's missing something. Liquor has no prolonged effect on him, not without sea stone, a chill travels down his spine at the thought and something in him blazes and dies. Goosebumps rise along his arms. (That's new.) Marco looks at his trembling palms. He's not wearing sea stone, he's not. Marco glares at his fingers, there's something there, calling him.

"I am, yoi." He's puzzled by how raspy his throat feels, still fascinated with clenching and unclenching his hands -it feels like he's never seen them before all of a sudden.

"How are you feeling?' Marco finds the question odd. He notes that, despite the fact that they're in bed, both he and the younger man are fully cloth. Something in his chest tightens and Marco tries to breathe in more air, he feels a little choked right then for some reason. He twists his body to look at his companion better. Marco knows him, he's sure.

The wild black hair.

The half-moon scar.

The grin.

Yellow peeks over his shoulder.

A straw hat.

"Luffy," the name rises unbidden to his lips, like a memory Marco's forgotten. "Straw Hat Luffy."

"Yeah? You're okay, right?" The man presses, reacting to his name with familiarity. Marco knows him, Marco knows his name, Marco knows that straw hat. He saw it fall amongst corpses, he couldn't reach it. Marco hadn't had even the opportunity to try and recuperate it, just one more thing lost. His back suddenly aches, the pain hits him like a train, with no buildup. One moment he's fine and the next there's a hand grasping at his spine, it's awkward, but Marco cannot breathe. Broken glass echoes in his ears, a scream pierces the air and it makes Marco flinch.

Luffy, (Luffy?), grabs on to his hands and tries desperately to meet Marco's gaze.

"Marco, Marco, you're safe." He tells him, his voice is soft and strong and sympathetic and as the pain abates, Marco almost believes him. "You're in the Thousand Sunny, you've been here a couple of days now, but you were sleeping. It's over."

What's over?

…The war?

There was a war… right?

"Ace!' He jumps out of the bed, heading... somewhere? The door maybe? Ace was going to be executed, his heart is ramming itself into his ribcage and Marco can feel his adrenaline-filled pulse slamming into him like a jackhammer, what is Marco doing in bed with a man when there is… Luffy. Straw Hat Luffy. Marco stops his flurry of movement, where he's been teasing the clothes he's wearing, a blue kimono that's just a little too short on him. Marco's sure he's never seen it before.

Luffy is Ace's little brother, that's how Marco knows him. Luffy's still sitting on the bed, frowning and following Marco's journey through the room. It's not spacious, but it's warm. A bed, a night-stand, a desk and a closet. No more nor less than what'd you'd need at sea. It's got a night lamp next to the bed and the curtains are a deep, bright red -almost the same shade as Luffy's shirt.

Now that Marco sees him from another angle, he notices

"…Marco?"

"Where is Ace?" Marco's eyes fall on Luffy's scar, a deep groove shaped like an X as if something had been carved out of him. (Something was.) Marco had thought Akainu had killed them both. Luffy murmurs something to himself, it almost sounds like a mantra of tact, tact and delicacy. The mutterings don't seem aimed at Marco, but they've would've passed over him inertly, because that constricting feeling that had been expanding before is back with vengeance and it claims all of Marco's focus because he can see it.

Luffy shakes his head minutely in answer to the question when their eyes meet, almost reluctantly, and the world comes to a stop.

He can hear Luffy's screams as he bleeds and smolders and Ace dies.

Ace dies.

Marco remembers magma hot enough to brand and to burn everything and anything. A power of such inherent destruction that Admiral 'Mad Dog' Sakazuki is essentially destined to forever be at odds with a creature of song and healing like Marco 'The Phoenix'. There are too many things Marco's fire cannot restore though and there is no end to what Akainu has destroyed, no ameliorating what he has obliterated already.

There's something building inside Marco, some ghost he knows, something ugly and ominous. Marco feels its encroaching hold on him and it pulls him down, down, down, down he goes into perdition. His back aches, violent and merciless, and without warning, Marco's on the floor. He tries to hold onto himself, because he feels like he's splitting apart, diced up and classified piece by piece, bursting messily at the seams.

He has the vivid image of his organs slipping out of him. Marco will never forget the splashing sounds his entrails made as they sullied the clean, metal floors; they seemed to fall forever. (He'd known, detachedly, that intestines were meters and meters long; Marco hadn't been prepared to witness it firsthand.) He can almost feel how empty, gaping he'd felt. Marco goes green at the gills, nauseous in a way sickness will never make him.

Luffy's at his side in a moment, his movements curtailed in caution and heartbreakingly gentle. Marco remembers a hand he didn't -couldn't see coming wiping away his tears. It only solidifies what his mind is unraveling. A picture of gory snapshots Marco doesn't want to believe he truly owns. He's looking at his palms, they are out of focus, but Marco can barely see through the tears (when did he start crying?). He counts his fingers regardless. There's ten. He counts again. There's ten. He counts again. There's ten. It doesn't prove anything, because Marco knows they'd grow back, they would, they had grown back over and over and over again and they had loved it. Loved how many times Marco could be disassembled and crippled, driven further beyond the inhumane limits of exhaustion and hunger and pain even in flames.

For a moment, flames are all he can see blue blue blue blue, electric blue and golden and flight. There's wind on his skin and there's power electrifying him, feeding him, Marco explodes and drags all enemies of Pops to their knees. He's not afraid to make them beg, because this is Marco's family, and Marco's not going to be alone again. He isn't.

There's something in the thought that cuts deep into him and Marco bites his lip, hard enough that it tingles in a way where Marco knows his Devil Fruit has become active. He can't stop though, his teeth sink viciously into the tender flesh and the blood is cold and wet where it drips down his chin. When Marco sees the drops fall in between him and Luffy, whose hold on Marco's hand tightens uncomfortably, it brings back the sounds of bleeding for days on end. His eye, Marco thinks fuzzily, his eye had dripped and dripped and dripped and left all his face cracked and peeling from the rust.

Marco feels dirty.

But he can't ask, Marco doesn't want to ask, he sinks into himself, trying to keep his misery inside, in whatever corner he's been hiding, because he knows that it's not Marineford that's over, just the lab, just the lab. Marineford was over a long time ago, Marco knows. He was there, Luffy was there, screaming because Ace, Marco's little brother, had burned, burned in all the wrong ways.

Marco's lips betray him, and he looks up from his palms to Luffy's grim face.

"…Pops?" He chokes out, desperate for a clear path to follow, for a home to return to.

Luffy's eyes, teary with sorrow and apologies and pain, are surely mirroring Marco's own. For a moment, there's only the sound of rushing blood on his ears, Marco's vision goes white. Then there's Luffy, mouthing words that Marco cannot hear through the utter destruction of reality as he'd known it.

The world breaks.

Marco explodes, his flames are everywhere, slithering along his skin, dancing around Luffy, climbing the ceiling and Marco stands and wobbles and slams into the dresser and he grabs on to the strands of hair and pulls and pulls because something has to give.

"Marco!" Luffy's hands are on his wrists, trying to keep Marco from tearing out tufts of blonde hair and the pain is not foreign, Marco who can take all injuries is well-used to pain. He's slammed against the dresser, it rattles threateningly as both of Marco's lungs lose air at once and he's left desperate and gasping. Marco's dying, he's sure he's dying and as he collapses in a meltdown of coughing and a need to breathe, things slow down again. Luffy's let go of him as soon as Marco collided against the wardrobe, and now he stands over him looking immeasurably guilty.

"Shit.]," Luffy mutters/ Marco recoils. The younger man flinches, but comes closer regardless, even when Marco's instincts have him cowering back against the furniture. Luffy lowers himself, and in soft, easy movement curls himself around Marco's legs. His head rests on Marco's knee and the rest of him is flushed against Marco's thigh, knees bent back and brushing the dresser behind Marco. He's almost unbearably hot. Marco finally manages to take air into his lungs and there's still salty wetness into his lungs. Luffy doesn't touch him beyond laying half on top of him and he doesn't say anything, he just rests his head on Marco's knee and stares. It's a little disconcerting. "Sometimes, I forget too," He whispers, "you're okay, Marco, you're safe here."

The world doesn't stop being tilted.

"I was… I was in a lab."

"You were in Punk Hazard." Marco remembers the cold, he remembers the unbearable heat in the cabin of the ship where he'd been captured and the way the freezing winds had cut his face when he'd arrived on the island.

"How long?"

"Half a year, but… but you were somewhere before, right?" The question is asked softly, hesitantly. Marco thinks it doesn't suit Luffy at all.

"I had been… I had been in Pop's homeland, taking care of the villagers." He tries not to think what might've happened to them. "Kaido came for me."

"Kaido?" Luffy repeats, and there's something skulking in his eyes that makes Marco a little wary.

"He wanted my Devil Fruit, he was going to burn the village to the ground." Marco looks up to the ceiling, but there's no hiding his tears. "I couldn't have protected them all."

"I'm sure you did." The conviction is so innocent it startles Marco. There's no way Luffy knows that, but Marco desperately hopes so. "How are you feeling?"

The question catches him off guard and the older pirate doesn't know what to say. In pain? Marco has no injuries. Grief? He's known Ace and Pops were dead since a long time ago, and that reality has come back to him now that the fog from before lifted. Shock? Probably, but Marco doesn't think he's out of that yet. The last time he was coherent was in the lab, though all the images blur together into one big knot of suffering and darkness. Suddenly, he's with Straw Hat Luffy in bed. There's a step there, Marco clearly missed something important.

"I'm not sure," he says. "Numb?"

"Okay." Luffy doesn't say anymore, if anything he seems to get more comfortable as if settling in to wait. His gaze is intense, and it doesn't leave Marco for a second. They stay like that for a long time.

I really like this chapter so I hope you do too :)