"Mister Marco, I'm going to have to ask you to step back from there." Marco's so deep in thought the voice seems foreign, dream-like. It fails to startle him if only because Marco remains a lifetime away. His body stands at the mercy of the early morning, caressed by the serene of the night and enveloped in a sea of stars. The moment has a peace to it that Marco's forgotten existed, where he feels like there's enough space, but he's protected anyway. The sea will catch him, and the stars will watch him and the sea won't leave him alone. (He doesn't call it safety because he's not sure anything can be safe anymore.)

"I wasn't going to jump," he says it without moving a muscle, and he also says it too fast. Despite his penchant for comedic shenanigans, Brook isn't an idiot, and he clearly knows what Marco's up to. He wasn't going to jump, not tonight at least. But Psychiatry dictates that people contemplate suicide between 3 months to a year before attempting it. Without mentioning that there's always the possibility Marco just slips and falls and sinks into the oblivion of the deep blue sea.

It's appealing, but it's also not as appealing as it used to be.

(Marco prayed for death more than once, every morning, every afternoon, making up the religious fervor he's lacked his entire life.)

Luffy's kiss is seared in his mind.

"I'm still going to need you to step back." His voice is tight, but it softens a little when he continues. "That's the captain's special seat, sitting -or standing as the case might be- is forbidden." His voice is softer as he adds: "Unwritten ship rule."

Marco doesn't move. He's thinking of Dressrosa and Doflamingo and Trafalgar Law's convoluted plan. Marco has a feeling, from having sailed with Ace, that that plan is going to go up in smoke. They've been sailing for almost two weeks, mostly making sure they have truly lost their tail. (Marco thinks they're purposely giving him time to adjust before docking somewhere, but he hasn't said a word, mostly because he really does need the time.)

"Mister Marco?" The voice is closer now, crawling from Marco's back, and it sounds like an angry ghost. He turns around methodically, with stiff limbs, meeting Brook's empty sockets. They had caused quite a stir in him the first time he'd seen them because had he looked anything like that? But, in the end, after seeing the skeleton day after day, it'd just… lost its edge. Now Marco only feels the healthy amount of trepidation an average person feels when stared down by an undead body. "Would you care to accompany me for some tea?" It's a very subtle invitation to keep an eye on him, but Marco, slowly coming back to regain the feeling of his limbs after an out of body experience, only nods.

"I wasn't going to jump," he states again, wondering if either of them believes that.

"I never said you were," the musician deflects, and then "death isn't going to grant you what you want."

"..." Marco rather thinks there's no way the skeleton knows what Marco wants, and he hates himself a little when next to the familiar images of Pops and Thatch and Ace and the Moby… Luffy's sunny smile sneaks in.

"A presumptuous claim, I'm aware, but bear with this old man for a moment." Despite his bony appendages and his size, Brook works seamlessly in the kitchen as he and Marco take a seat, when did they get there? "I saw my crew get slaughtered."

"That's one way to begin a conversation, a bunch of mine are dead too," Marco regrets the words as soon as they're out of his mouth, turning tragedy into a punchline, but he's feeling defensive. He wasn't going to jump, he wasn't. (And if he was, it's certainly not Brook's or anyone else's business.) The swordsman hums lightly, putting a steaming cup of tea in Marco's reach.

He sits down across from him, oddly graceful for his long, thin limbs as he settles his cane to rest against the mint-colored table dresser. He gives Marco a look, a why do you want to be difficult? There's only one man who Marco has ever tolerated that look from, and he's long dead. It only makes him angrier.

"I wished for death once too," the musician confides, "I wished for death a long time because of what happened that day."

At Marco's silence, Brook assumes he'll be heard.

"I missed them. I had tried to protect them down to my last breath. I had lost people before, and I will lose people again. Their images were branded with God-given accuracy in my mind as I died. Not even death, darkness, or loneliness, not even a new life has ever taken those feelings away from me. And that guilt of surviving," Marco's heart stutters and betrays him when his breath hitches, "has never made it harder to sink into a crew again or to love my Nakama with the same fiercely protective feeling that has failed me before."

"I… don't follow" Marco's palms are warm as they wrap around the teacup, and he forcibly relaxes his grip lest he breaks it.

"The end is only a new beginning, and the things that we carry with us, Mister Marco, are not attached to us. Rather, we are attached to them. Were you to leave this world carrying your burdens with you, they shall stay with you, as well." The sound of Brook's teacup finding its saucer seems to reverberate right into Marco's brain, leaving his ears ringing, and Marco very consciously starts to measure his breathing.

"I do apologize for my abruptness." By the way Brook's head is angled, Marco can tell the other is aiming to meet his gaze, perhaps to convey sincerity, I have… a personal dislike for people throwing away their lives, and a more significant concern for people who hurt my Captain. I trust that you shall ask for help long before either of those things become part of you."

Marco, distantly, wonders where all his anger went.

"It is hard, though," he replies, a non sequitur that still fits in flawlessly in such an abstract discussion. He's not quite sure, but Brook seems to be advising him, scolding him and threatening him all at the same time. "Loving after losing, it is hard."

"Not when it comes to the Captain," Brook says, and there is deep-rooted amusement in his tone. "One could say we become more selective after losing. It's about finding people worth suffering for. I was a spirit for a long time, so long in fact that by the time I found my body, it was only bones. Skull joke." The recurrent pun is but a whisper, but it does not lack in mirth. "I wandered around for decades. Eventually, my shadow got stolen, and I really did become resigned that I had come back from the dead to haunt nothingness and to carry my burdens alone. Weighted down in unkept promise. And then, the Captain showed up one day and asked me to join his crew. You would think I'd jump at the offer of living the darkness of the Florian Triangle behind."

"You did, though," Marco motions vaguely around, Brook's here, after all. The skeleton seems to smile.

"My first reaction was to say no." As he pauses to sip at his cup, Marco realizes he has yet to take a single gulp out of his. The tea isn't quite lukewarm, but he's going to have to drink it fast if he wants to avoid it going cold. "I'd been alone and hopeless for so long, anything else seemed too out there, much too frail to be true. Humans are, above all, Mister Marco, creatures of habit. Even pain, suffering, and sadness can become our default state. We may hate how we live, but we also hate the idea of something new."

"You were scared." A feeling Marco definitely understands, Brook nods.

Why not? I want it.

"It may be too much to ask, I cannot pretend to know what you've been through, but if I were allowed to offer some advice, it would be that the Captain's, Luffy's new… it's humbling, and in a crew filled with very selective people, he's definitely proven himself worth it over and over again."

Marco thinks of Luffy pressed down on him.

Marco thinks of Luffy's hungry kiss.

(Marco thinks of when he held Luffy in Rusukaina and thought he was breakable.)

"I know."