Marco's flown them up to the top of one of Rusukaina's frozen peaks, the island is small, but it reaches for the skies with jagged determination. The blonde has bundled Luffy up like a potato, delighting himself in the other's genuine excitement. The breeze and the snow mean nothing to Marco; he scarcely notices the transition from the sweltering seashore to the biting cold of the mountain top. Luffy's a sucker for the snow, though, and well, Marco's a sucker for his smile.

The younger man has run himself ragged on this uncharacteristic off-day, Rayleigh taking a couple of days off for his wife's birthday. Marco tries to understand how she puts up with his whimsical absences but has enough life experience not to ask. Now, cozying up to Marco for warmth, Luffy's energy shifts from snow angels and snowball fights to talking, shooting off a mile a minute about anything and everything that colors his thoughts. Today's topic is his crew, and with how much the Straw Hat pirates come up, Marco's impressed that he still has things to share. The older pirate never talks about his own crew, and Luffy - ignorant or wise - never asks.

"...he's got so many cool scars too, but some he got 'cause Zoro can be sooo dumb. Like, he's got these ones on his legs, because he tried to cut himself out from some wax thing and..." Like this, Marco doesn't think about Pops or Ace, doesn't feel Thatch's absence. Here, Marco can heal from Namur's accusations and Izou's tears.

When he worries about Luffy and how he feels within his arms, the promise of heated distraction is never far as it buzzes under his skin. Marco can nod and hum and be filled with sunshine and joy. This Luffy is nothing like the Luffy found that first day, the wreckage of grief and desperate need. It's been so little time, but this thing they're doing and Rayleigh's training has breathed life into Luffy's lungs anyway. For some reason, the young pirate is adamant about sharing such precious resilience with Marco of all people. It's selfish of him to take so easily, but the realization only has him hug Luffy tighter. Marco thinks that without this, without this ease and heat, without this guilty obsession... he might've gone mad, crushed under responsibility, washed away in mourning.

"He was first, right? The swordsman, yoi." He feels Luffy's enthusiastic nod through the blanket before he hears his confirmation. It's a shame that they cannot hold skin to skin, but Marco's flames do not produce any warmth, and Luffy's rubber body is sensitive against the cold.

"Yes! He's the best!" Luffy burrows further into the blanket, cocooned in Marco's chest. He falls quiet for a moment and then adds in a fond whisper: "he's gonna be the strongest, you know?"

"So you've told me."

"Shishishishi!" Marco's chest rumbles with his own chuckle, wondering when he relearned to be happy for happiness' sake.

"The Pirate King and the World's Strongest Swordsman, yoi?" Marco says, amused by Luffy's ever-growing dreams.

"Yep!"

.

.

.

That is the innocuous memory that assaults Marco as the edge of a blade cleaves right through him, bisecting hip in two from hip bone to shoulder. For a singular moment, his arm flies off, torn from him with pinpoint accuracy. Where blood and guts should spray out, blue fires come to life, and once the flames die down, there is a bloodthirsty grin biting down upon a white sword to greet him. Roronoa Zoro has a long way to go before he can instill fear into Marco, but at that moment, emerging from the forest's shadows like a wild beast, scarred and broad and fierce in the way Luffy's prone to describe him, he comes close.

The swordsman straightens out momentarily, grinning at the older pirate—no regret in the face of his unrequited violence nor explanation for picking a fight. Marco's caught on that Zoro needs little reason to cross blades with someone, but the surprise attack does leave him on edge.

"That really is a useful ability," the swordsman says, single dark eye intently focused. "Luffy sure knows how to pick 'em." A ridiculous thought pops into Marco's brain, foolish enough to belong to a Straw Hat pirate. Before he can voice it, a bird leg comes up to clasp on Roronoa's attack by pure reflex. The amount of force behind the swing is astonishing, and Marco needs to focus to not buckle under the pressure. In one second, Roronoa has thrown himself at the blonde. The man is relatively fast and agile for his thick frame, worthy of noting, and faster than Marco would've credited him to be. As they struggle in their deadlock, Marco's blue eyes narrow onto him.

"Are you here to give me a shovel talk, yoi?"

After what happened at the prison, no way the Straw Hats haven't realized that Marco and Luffy are on rocky terrain.

"What?" Zoro huffs out, not missing a beat. His words come out vaguely distorted due to the sword in his mouth, but he is clearly experienced in speaking around it. "Say that if you break his heart, I'll kick your ass? My captain can do that himself." He rolls out of the way, unbalancing Marco, who needs to jump back from another opportunistic swing.

He's not sure how or why he falls into the rhythm, but Marco's claws against Roronoa's blades ring true over and over again in the bamboo forest of Wano. (How did Roronoa even found him?!)

He slips through his guard more than once, solid knuckle and elbows finding thick rippling muscle with a thud. Despite the strength of the blows, Roronoa barely grunts, slicing at Marco's hipbone. Contrary to the previous set of cuts, this one bleeds, coated in haki as it comes. Bright red drips down between fire feathers. Marco lounges, twisting in between Roronoa's blades to catch him by the throat. The ground cracks as the younger pirate is pushed against it. Reflexively, he coughs, all of the air in his lungs brutally expelled at once.

"Then what is it, yoi?" Marco grounds out. Roronoa takes desperate, gulping breaths, eyes lit up in challenge. He's... enjoying himself. (Marco wants to sigh.) The swordman's not done, but Marco makes sure bird feet press tightly, sinking him into the dirt, shining with the promise of how much deeper they can slice him open. Unlike the phoenix, Roronoa's own blood won't dissolve into healing fire painlessly. (Marco cannot really injure him; they're too close to serious combat for that. He's just... on edge.) There is no dissatisfaction in his position as he examines Marco's panting visage threatening him from above him. Marco is done. (He's... feeling better, actually, but that doesn't mean he wants to continue. He's never enjoyed violence for violence's sake.)

"Choose..." the swordsman says, twisting himself in a way that makes clear he's hardly winded, "and then stick to that choice."

"Excuse me?" The ultimatum catches Marco off-guard only for a second, but it's all Roronoa needs to twist himself out of Marco's grasp, though his kimono does suffer for it. Marco settles back to defend because he'd pinned Roronoa down in a show of desperate thinking; the swordsman is nowhere near done.

No assault comes.

Zoro eyes him up and down, and Marco doubts that he finds what he came looking for, but it's enough. He grins, nods once (to what, Marco has no idea) and offers:

"You're strong, phoenix. Choose," Roronoa's eyes extort promises from the world, "and then, stick to that choice. "

It shouldn't make him smile.

Marco sees himself so much in Luffy's first mate. In the reckless actions and endless determination, in the urge to vie for his captain's wellbeing above everything and everyone else, no matter what. Marco wonders if Zoro's failed Luffy yet, at least once, and how he coped with that loss. He wonders if he's realized his dreams mean nothing without someone to light up the way for them. Marco wonders if he's learned to hide his own insecurity or doubt. A first mate cannot be capricious nor eccentric like the captain -especially not with men like Whitebeard and Luffy. They need to be steady and unshakeable, the concrete, fierce foundation of the abstract made flesh. The jar capable of holding the hurricane within it. He's breathless in his curiosity and terrified of his answers as well. So Marco doesn't say anything as Zoro walks back from whence he came.

"Zoro makes it sound easy, doesn't he?" Usopp makes his voice soft, hoping it could ride along with the salty breeze dancing through the bamboo. He startles Marco anyway. "Sorry," he says sincerely, only mildly sheepish, "I overheard."

Marco's unharmed from his clash with Zoro, barely even winded, but he looks exhausted as dull blue eyes connect with dark brown.

"How did any of you find me, yoi?"

"Eh, Zoro probably got lost and found you on accident..." Usopp theorizes, no way Zoro got here if that's what he meant to do. "I followed the bloodthirst and giant sword swings." He gives Marco a wry smile. "I-I didn't mean to pry, honest! But I didn't understand why you were fighting, and then I got worried and then, well, the Great Captain Usopp is just looking out for you! Yes, it's okay, no need to thank me! Though..."

"Ussop..." Marco calls his name but seems at a loss as to what to say. He frowns, puzzling out his intentions and maybe assuming Usopp is also here in Luffy's honor. It's just as well that he says nothing; Usopp has enough to speak for the both of them. He takes a deep breath, trying to shake off his nerves.

"I wanted to talk to you," the younger man declares, fists tightening in determination where they hang limply at his sides. At his rudeness, Usopp's quick to add an embarrassed "if that's okay." Marco doesn't stop him, not that he looks eager or anything, and the sniper runs with it. "I know it's none of my business, but I think Zoro empathizes with Luffy too much, and I guess I agree more with you than him, haha."

Marco's frown deepens. Displeased? Uncomfortable?

"I don't need to commiserate," he comments blandly, staring off through the forest. Around them, bamboo shoots cover the landscape, and light filters through softened, glowing golden as late afternoon creeps by.

"...Right, I just..." Usopp scrambles for a way to give sound to the feeling permeating the air lately, things Usopp barely understands but admires anyway. "Marco... Luffy loves you."

"He loves everybody," the other replies quickly. Usop pushes on undeterred, even when he feels the faint trembling of his legs. He's nervous, very much so, but he's also determined to do right by Luffy.

"Not like he loves you. "

The words ring through in the shadowed clearing.

"...That's why I can't stay, yoi."

Dread curls under Usopp's tongue. Marco's gaze is familiar and foreign, belonging to the bird rescued from Punk Hazard. Not the man who gardens with Usopp and dares defy Nami and kisses Luffy goodbye like his captain is somehow fragile and precious.

"Oh, you don't... love him back?" It sounds impossible, even as the sniper says it.

Silence greets him. Usopp's heart beats under his sternum, hard enough to bruise the bone meant to contain it. Oh, Luffy...

"I'm afraid that if Luffy dies... it's going to kill me." The older pirate's voice is a little hoarse, ad even as he speaks, he doesn't meet his eyes.

"But do you..."

"Things with Luffy have always been so... simple, easy. Too easy." A laugh bursts out of Marco, bitter and rueful. " Nothing good should've come from meeting each other. The circumstances were terrible, yoi. I was... grieving and overworked, trying to salvage Pop's family while falling apart." One hand comes up as if to gesture to Usopp, but it only hovers in the air a few moments before falling back down to hide in Marco's pockets. "Luffy was devastated, estranged from his crew, and willing to sacrifice a lot to become strong." Usopp's heart aches, thinking back to reading the news and accidentally digging out the guilt of not being there when Luffy needed him most. "We couldn't have been in more different places in life if we tried, other than the sorrow we carried from the War of the Best. And yet," he looks at Usopp, at his wide eyes and hesitant stance. The sniper wants to run, but his feet are stuck to the patch of forest he stands on. Marco doesn't stop himself, and a part of Usopp imagines that it's because he can't. "When we met, the world seemed to click in place."

Usopp has very minimal experience but is that not love?

"What happened? Luffy said... Luffy said you left?" He voices it like a question, but curiosity colors his voice.

"...When the commanders voted to face Blackbeard, I urged them to avoid the confrontation. I didn't want to leave, and I knew facing off the emerging Emperor... there was a big chance I wouldn't come back." There's surprise in the voice as Marco turns around, only giving Usopp a view of his back, tall and threatening as it is. "I thought, with how attached Luffy and I were, how dependent on our strength we'd allowed ourselves to become, how unfair it all was on my part... that leaving was for the best." Usopp feels like Marco might still believe that. "I've sailed and learned and made countless mistakes. Luffy isn't the first person I've shared a bed with nor the first person that I've loved. I've chased and grabbed on to so many dreams, and I've let go of plenty of them too. I've lived, Ussop." And that's what it all comes down to, isn't it? "And it's been a good life, but I'm tired. I don't want a grand adventure, or to take down Emperors or to find Laugh Tale. I just want to settle down. Let life pass me by a little and stop jumping onto every single problem that arises around me. There's so much for you guys to see, to feel... and I... can't do that right now."

"Luffy doesn't care about any of that! Marco, you're... you're Nakama."

"I can't go back to what I was before, and the more I come to terms with that... the harder living aboard the Sunny becomes."

Usopp hadn't exactly planned out this conversation, but this wasn't what he was expecting.

"Look, it might be so inappropriate coming from me, but... don't you think you're going to regret it? Taking th-the coward's way out?"

Marco thinks about the Moby Dick, about Sphinx, the Thousand Sunny.

He thinks about Pops and Luffy.

Grand signatures of their eras, men of family and Nakama, of revolution.

And Marco, always rising from the ashes of dead dreams to illuminate another one.

When does he become a symbol of his own?

"I am being brave," and he knows it's true as he says it. "Braver than I've ever been, probably."

The Straw Hats act pleased to see him when Marco comes back to camp. Not all of them had been at the prison, but they're avid gossips if Marco's ever met any.

Guilt stirs in his gut, but he knows what he will do. He eyes Kin'emon looking up at his arrival. He and his old friend really need to talk, but Marco has been reminded today how deep the bond of Nakama runs. Marco cannot go into battle thinking about Luffy (he won't make it through), but he owes Oden this much, at least. They look up at him as he joins them, Luffy nowhere to be found. He can be asleep or training or eating, who knows, but Marco thinks the significance of the moment might be lost on him anyway.

"I'll see Wano through," if they pick up on the finality of the statement, no one comments on it. He catches Zoro's eyes. The first mate's intense stare sizes him up; there's an ugly bruise on his chin where Marco headbutted him in the morning. Whatever he catches in Marco's eyes seems to satiate him, as he nods his head once and goes back to rest against a nearby tree.

"It's scary, isn't it?" It's Sanji who voices the thought, setting a somewhat melancholic mood. Instinctively, everyone present seems to understand what he means.

"Terrifying," Nami agrees. She brings up the sunblock tube, showing it to Marco from behind Nico Robin, who is getting the usual treatment. He's resigned enough to not argue and crosses the fire to sit by her side. Even now, years later, the flickering flames always bring back memories of Ace.

"To be faced with such conviction is... staggering," Nico Robin mumbles, inching a little closer to the fire. Her toes wiggle dangerously close to it.

"Luffy's always had this weird thing of believing in you so much it actually makes you feel small," Usopp continues. He gives Marco a small glance through the fire's rising sparks, but he doesn't meet his eyes.

"Undeserving, bro, you feel undeserving."

"Like," Chopper mutters, "what did I ever do to earn this?"

"Why do you care that much?" Marco voices, giving words to what he holds on to the most. He told Usopp he's shared his bed and heart before, but he has also never found someone quite like Luffy.

"Why me?" Jinbei reflects. The phoenix wonders if he ever got an answer to his question and if he's made peace with following Luffy now. Marco really hopes he has.

"We cannot hesitate, not after this," Zoro tells them in the darkening sky. His shadow is long and twisted from where he's barely illuminated by the firelight. "It's the last leg of the journey, and we'll see it through till the end."

Luffy is home, foundation, and direction, Marco thinks, overlooking the crew of misfits willing to make Luffy's endless ramblings a part of history.

He has an odd feeling, an amalgamation of recollections, of late-night conversations; the solidarity found in the surrounding crewmates, all equally ensnared by the impossibilities spoken by the young man who Marco thinks he might be in love with.

How could he not be? He wonders.

Cracking his chest wide-open and taking in all those who need it, Luffy's like a pathway to dreams, the house of the lost.

(Marco's ready to be found, though.)

Just one more to go!

ADDITIONAL NOTE, IMPORTANT: my computer is damaged, I will not be getting access to it after new year's and I was only able to post this bc my friend lent me their laptop. My entire update schedule is out of whack and behind. I am not being able to do any significant writing at this time, but I am as commited as always to finishing all my works, so if you've noticed that nothing else has updated for a couple of weeks now, this is why. I never expected the repair shop to keep it for so long.

Feel free to follow me on twitter to keep up with all my writing updates, I answer any questions or comments, give chapter snippets, update schedules, and just enjoy to generally hang out and meet people :)