Last time: Luffy loses against Kaidou, Law's interception of Marco's rescue attempt gets out of hand.
Marco watches Momonosuke run, innocent enough to believe Luffy would actually harm him.
With the departure of the children, a buffer for reality, Marco's fingertips dissolve into nothing, boneless and numb as Luffy collapses. Chopper throws a worried glance his way, but he's too busy preparing an antidote to pay Marco much mind, hurrying as he swears under his breath. It's like empty murmuring, faraway rushing water to Marco, who cannot stop looking at the Straw Hat's captain, still reeling from his idiotic display.
Grabbing on to Queen's plague might actually be the stupidest thing Luffy has ever done. (And that's saying something.)
Marco has muddled memories of the time Luffy found him in Punk Hazard. Mostly, he remembers watching him cry, and trying to pinpoint the familiar face - the first one he'd seen in ages. Marco cannot forget the sound of the screw twisting out of bone, thinking it was just the beginning of another wave of pain. He'd been so very afraid. (Marco had been ready to die.)
Now, it is Luffy's skin that burns and shrivels, wrinkled unnaturally as the infection wrecks havoc upon his system. His eyes are unfocused even as he attempts to meet Marco's gaze. Luffy knows, Marco has no doubt, he knows this is exactly what Marco was referring to. Marco should be angry, furious, and he is, but looking down on Luffy he's just not sure if he will live long enough for Marco to be angry at him.
He kneels down over him and lets blue fire cocoon them both. The entire movement tastes like defeat. Luffy sighs, curling up on Marco's chest. His eyes seem a little more awake before he buries his gaze under the crook of Marco's neck, his raspy breath warm against Marco's unmarred skin. Is this what Luffy felt like when he found Marco? Like the world stopped? Like he wanted to reach inside him and scoop out all the suffering and pain?
Luffy did this, but Marco still remembers his soft whimper from before: it hurts. Had he ever heard Luffy say that since they'd crossed paths once more? It took a lot, too much, for the pirate captain to admit to weakness. Now, he lies against Marco, helpless and bone-tired.
Marco's flames are not enough to cure him, but they should still slow the infection at least a little, ease some of the pain. Marco wants to scream, a wail builds somewhere beneath his sternum but he just can't get rid of it.
"I don't mean to worry you," the words are softly spoken, remnants of a dream. The phoenix tries to combat Luffy's self-inflicted contagious disease, runs blunt fingernails down his ruined back. Luffy says this, but his body speaks differently.
"I know." You just don't care.
"Sometimes... I just gotta do things, you know?" Like saving people's souls and uniting countries, indeed, Marco has noticed.
"I'm trying to figure out if that is something I can live with, Luffy."
"What do you mean?" Slowly and painfully, Luffy separates from Marco to look him in the eye. He's a mess, pale and gaunt, brow furrowed in confusion and pain. They've never talked about this (or them), not even in passing. He and Luffy had just fallen into this familiar rhythm after Punk Hazard and neither had really questioned it, but-
"I thought you died, thrice in as many days," Marco's voice is manic, too high and distraught to be his own. "I don't want to ever see people I love die in front of me again."
Marco had left the sea once, for a tiny village that he still hasn't mustered the courage to visit. There were a lot of good reasons for that.
"Neither do I." Luffy's voice, a little stronger than it was before, is genuine and solemn. It sets Marco off immediately, because how dare he.
"That includes you, Luffy," he grits out.
"I'll be-" he coughs, wheezing for air, wincing as his chest contracts at the motion "-careful!"
"Like you've been so far?" There's something insidious in Marco's tone, a feeling similar to what possessed him in Dressrosa and later on, in Whole Cake island. The cracks in his foundation that reach the core of Marco's survival instinct, empirical pessimism drifts up through them like ash smoke towards the surface, towards Luffy's sunlight. Hate and fear, this new thing implanted in Marco that he doesn't want and cannot control. It's not loud or rushing like the itch for battle, it's deadly quiet. "If I asked you to forget about Kaidou… would you?"
Luffy's expression, pained as it is, says it all. Marco nods stiffly, nothing but a confirmation of what he already knew.
"Thought so."
"Marco... I... Momo and these guys here, they..."
"I can't do this." It spouts out of him unintended, desperate to rid himself of the poison curling in his veins.
Luffy freezes in his arms, going still in ways Marco has rarely seen him. Marco's comment is almost off-handed, desperate, but it seems to weigh a ton, too real for their unstable conversation. It gets through to Luffy when nothing else does.
"Do what?" he queries carefully.
"I can't... I can't stay with you and then watch you die." It's not the first time Marco thinks it, not even the first time he says it, but it just might be the first time he truly admits it to himself.
"You can't ask people not to die, Marco, that doesn't work." The statement sounds hollow, perfunctory, and if Marco's remembering right, Ace once promised Luffy not to die. (Guess that didn't work out, something in him whispers.)
That's why I'm leaving, is what Marco means to say, but it feels too certain, too final and Marco doesn't have that kind of conviction.
"I need to go," he says instead.
"Aha!" Chopper exclaims, his timing is terribly beautiful too as Marco takes a step back from Luffy. The pirate captain struggles to his feet and everything in Marco screams to put him back to bed. His flames don't disappear as much as they bend, preparing Marco for flight.
"You're being really stupid right now." The comment makes him flinch back, momentarily shocked at the insensitive accusation. Marco reminds himself that 'stupid' is basically one of the few adjectives Luffy knows and he's probably not trying to invalidate all of Marco's feelings. (It pisses him off anyway.)
"You can't just say that and think that my feelings are going to go away, Luffy. You finding them stupid doesn't make them any less real."
"And what do you think leaving to be alone is then?" Luffy's entire form trembles, but Marco doesn't know if it's the illness or the anger. "Smart?! No! It's lonely. And being alone is worse than being hurt," his voice isn't loud, but it definitely has the intention to be, especially compared to how it seems to fade as he continues, "it's worse than death."
Makes sense, since some days, Marco wants to die.
"I can't handle it if something were to happen to you," Marco reasons, aware that his words land on deaf ears. "That's all you do, throw yourself headfirst into the most dangerous thing within a hundred mile radius. It's not an irrational fear when you're in the cusp of death every other time I've seen you." Luffy hasn't called him irrational, but Marco feels like that anyway.
"That's not true!"
"Luffy you do nothing but challenge people who want to squish you like a bug and who eat rookies like you for breakfast, lunch and dinner."
"That's what it takes to be Pirate King!"
Distantly, Marco's aware of Chopper's awkward frame lingering a few steps besides them. In his hoof he carries a syringe. The cure for whatever ails Luffy is done then. It barely registers for Marco, lost in the rushing of his ears and the fright squeezing his heart.
"What good will that be if you're dead?!"
"I'm willing to die for my dream."
"But I don't want you to!"
They huff and pant, staring each other down even as Luffy sways. Marco reaches a hand to steady him, but freezes half way at the look of Luffy's face. His black eyes are narrowed and he no longer looks hesitant nor scared. He looks angry, the kind of livid that comes from being hurt. Marco did that.
"Marco, after the war, in Rusukaina," Marco knows it's coming, he walked right into this, "I asked you to stay." It's not an accusation, it's a fact, and it shreds at whatever little self-control Marco was holding on to. "And you didn't." Luffy looks away for a second, but Marco catches the ugly twist to his face anyway, he can't do anything about the tears smearing down Luffy's cheeks. They sizzle on Luffy's burning skin. "I didn't like it, but I let you go anyway because that was important to you."
"It's not the same," Marco denies quickly.
"How?!" Luffy demands, voice finally loud enough to be a yell.
It's a question Marco has no answer for and in two beats of blue-fire wings he's gone. It's not the first time he runs away from a conversation and it's also not the first time he runs away from Luffy. The captain calls after him but Marco doesn't stop.
Later, Luffy no longer feels like death warmed over, physically at least. He tries to keep the worry to himself, he doesn't like giving his crew a hard time, but he can't keep the words trapped inside him. Marco's parting, the rushing of blue fire and wings until there'd been no sight of him in the horizon is making his stomach hurt. (Luffy's learned to not confuse the feeling with hunger, even though he is also starving.)
"I don't understand, Chopper," he whispers tiredly, eyes drooping already from such a long couple of days. "Why is Marco angry?" He swallows, his throat still parched and the skin of it sensitive from the previous fever. "What does it mean something he can live with? Is he getting sad again?" Luffy did think about it, that there is a chance Marco's anger has nothing to do with him. (He thinks it does though.) Chopper, picking up his medical equipment with steady hoofs, falters in his answer before resuming his task with slower moves.
"It probably means he's questioning your long-term commitment, though the only way to be sure is to ask him." It takes Luffy a minute to transmit long-term commitment to something tangible in his life. When he does, he shoots up from the bed, ignoring the way his muscles shriek in protest. Wild eyes search his nakama's own guilty gaze and Luffy knows his assumption cannot be far off.
"He's leaving…?"
GUYSSSS, ALL OF HOL IS OFFICIALLY WRITTEN what is life !
I kind of wrote the last three chapters backwards? it was weird, but this one here was the only one missing and i am sooooo excited!
Things are coming to a head as Marco and Luffy struggle to integrate their relationship and their dreams. Tough, adult shit that.
What are your thoughts so far? What do you think's going to happen?
take care and thank you for sticking by me all these months, we're practically on the finish line and should have chapter 22 on tuesday and chapter 23 no later than next weekend. I'm literally spacing them out just because lol, other than the final edit, this story is done done done!
love,
dee