"Zoro." Luffy's voice is always loud, vibrating with an amount of excitement that he owns. His tone clashes against the decimation of Onigashima, too soft-spoken to break the spell weaved in murder and revenge. "Marco's leaving." The older man hadn't said so in that many words, but Luffy's always been more about the feel of people. He catches Marco's guilt and his determination as soon as they cross their eyes before leaving for Onigashima. It's a little jarring that with Kaido down, this is the thought that keeps running through his head. Zoro, dirtied and blood stained, hums behind him.

"I know."

Luffy closes his eyes, a weight sitting heavy on his shoulders. So, Luffy's not the only one who's noticed.

"I don't want him to go," the younger pirate chokes out. Luffy won, he won, but this doesn't feel like winning. His entire body aches. He's been smacked around and clobbered, poisoned, and slashed at. He's taken his body to the limit and beyond, all his muscles feeling like goo that barely keeps him upright. Luffy's exhausted and ravenous. It's his breast bone, his stubbornly beating heart that hurts the most.

"I know," Zoro replies once more.

"He can't ask me not to get hurt!" He explodes, angry, and frustrated. Trying to rid himself of the image of Marco in the hallway. His mind had been hazy with want, always hungry for the things Marco does to him, the words whispered in his ear and the nimble hands taking him apart piece by piece. Then, Marco's anger had drenched him, slapped him out of it, and taken the planks of wood right out from under his feet. Luffy still doesn't understand, and he's angry. He's rarely been angry for not getting it before, but maybe if he did, Marco wouldn't have to go. "That's stupid! People get hurt all the time. We're pirates! We fight! There's no other way to..." become Pirate King. Like Luffy promised, like his Nakama encouraged, like Ace believed he would. His dream, his goal is so entrenched into everything Luffy has been and will be. Luffy already promised! "He can't ask me to...!" To give up.

It's unthinkable.

"Is he asking you to?" Zoro asks.

"...No."

Marco wouldn't.

Luffy knows he wants to. Marco wants Luffy to be safe, but Marco also knows. Luffy's going to be Pirate King, or he's going to die trying; there's no other way his story ends. Luffy's too exhausted to hold on to his anger, and it slips out of him, leaving him only with the rumbling of his heartbeat rushing his ears. "Marco's always leaving me behind."

Zoro's quiet for so long that Luffy turns around to meet his stare. The former bounty hunter is looking miffed, a little baffled, faintly amused. His mouth curls up in a rueful smile as he answers Luffy's prompting.

"I think he'd say the same about you."

Luffy doesn't know what Zoro means, and he doesn't really care at the moment. He slumps down to the floor, pains showing themselves as his body acknowledges that the battle is over. So far up into the stronghold, they have a couple of minutes to rest before checking on anyone else. Luffy's a little scared, there were many friends fighting today, and he hasn't forgotten the war. (It might've not been his friends, but they'd been Marco's, and he watched the man mourn each and every one of them.) Marco's imminent departure had been easier to avoid with everything going on, but the more the battle cools, the more it's all Luffy thinks about.

"Marco's leaving, Zoro. I won, and I'm okay, but he's leaving."

It's not his first bittersweet victory, but it's the hardest one yet. It makes him unhappy, this New World that he can never navigate correctly. In Whole Cake Island, it'd happened too. They had Sanji and the poneglyphs, but they still don't know what happened to his siblings or Jinbei's crew.

Nami said he'd have to learn to compromise, lead,and carry the weight of the lives that sail with him, but Luffy doesn't want to.

It's the first time he realizes there are downsides to being Pirate King. The thought is sour and traitorous in his brain, but it takes root, regardless of how much he tries to shake it off.

"I know," the swordsman repeats. He places one heavy, calloused hand on Luffy's shoulder. It's all it takes for Luffy to hide under his straw hat and cry.

Marco and Luffy survive Wano, barely, but they do. As the older pirate promised himself, he's there in the name of Oden, instead of Ace, and despite his relentless fear for Luffy. The young man also incarnates his promise, wrestling probability and history into whatever he wishes it to be. The cost of life is great, and Marco wonders if Luffy thinks it's worth it. He might crumble later, in the privacy of a room Marco is no longer going to share with him. The phoenix might never know.

Right now, he looks every inch the man Marco fell in love with, withered and wrapped in bandages, but unbroken, carrying the weight of his choices. Luffy told him about his promise to Ace in the name of Sabo, always striving for a life without regrets. It's the first time since Marco's sailing with him that he remains conscious after a notable battle, and Marco has to beat down the hope rising in his chest.

He keeps close Luffy's first loss against Kaido, remembers the smell of disease on his skin, the feelings of his branded back under his fingers. Marco wants an excuse to stay. He hurts so badly that it almost drives him crazy. He cannot believe that he's walking away; what does life look like without Luffy now?

It won't go back to what it was after Punk Hazard; nothing ever will.

The dawn after the battle comes slow.

There are pirates to tie up, samurai to heal, friends to bury. Marco feels grief's frozen fingers as they squeeze the air out of him, bruising his throat in an invisible grip. He closes his eyes to center himself. He needs to leave now, when he's sure, not giving Luffy time to be less tired and more willing to fight him on it.

You're strong, phoenix. Choose, and then stick to that choice.

Roronoa has no future as a motivational speaker, but his sparring had settled in Marco some courage. He'd needed to let go more than he thought, and the understanding of his body had been a blessing when it came down to facing off the Beast and Big Mom pirates. He'd had a score to settle with Perospero after all.

They won.

And the taste of lingering ash in his mouth confirms all of Marco's pondering fears. Whatever he wants out of his life after Punk Hazard, in love with Monkey D. Luffy or not... this, this victories in the name of ideals and dreams... this isn't what Marco wants out of life anymore. He thinks it's not what he's wanted in a long time.

Marco settled in Sphinx because his home was gone, and he'd had nowhere to turn to. Pops was gone, and his security and family, the person and place Marco had lived with for decades, had dissolved into nothing like sand between his fingers. Sphinx had been Pop's home once, and it'd made sense.

This time though, Marco needs to make something of his own. He cannot keep looking for stability and happiness in other people, that much he's come to understand. He needs to build something for himself, within him. A safety and support that cannot be robbed away, that will not crumble even if the world does.

He doesn't think he explains it as well as he feels it.

"I'll make it and come back." This is what Luffy responds to his monologue. His eyes never change. They wield the same shine that landed him on Marineford and carried him forward through those lonely years in Rusukaina. The black eyes that found Marco brutalized and on the edge of death. The ones who fell in love with his raw sanity and his everlasting fire. These are the eyes that have taken care of him, that have hurt him, the same one so focused on the future they scarcely catch sight of anything else. The same determined eyes that introduce Monkey D. Luffy as the future King of Pirates. The same eyes Marco has woken up to, over and over. When he didn't know them, when he didn't want them, when he didn't need them, and when he didn't love them, but especially when he did do all those things.

Marco wants to believe him.

Maybe Luffy will bring from Laugh Tale what Marco lost. Maybe it will take the accomplishing of a pipe dream, the success of an impossible journey for Marco to learn how to trust Luffy and all he stands for.

Marco has seen the same eyes before, and they've always left him behind.

Maybe this moment is different, but it all feels the same.

Marco really hopes Luffy proves him wrong.

(Though he doesn't think it'll matter then. Is it fair for him to take Luffy only after the danger? Only when it's safe? Twenty years ago, Marco would be right there with him sailing aboard, eager to make his way around the world. It'd been dreams of adventure and courage that took Marco to the sea in the first place, but that was from a long time ago.

Now, it is Luffy's turn.

But if Luffy comes back, and he still wants Marco, Marco will be there, a House on and of his own.)

"I hope so," he says sincerely and has the grace of not noticing the tears in Luffy's eyes if only so that he can curve his own. The two of them are so different. Always have been. Transversing different paths with different dreams surrounded by different people. At this moment, Marco can admit to himself that he's loved Luffy for a long time. He also knows that if he wants to keep that feeling, if he wants to keep Luffy the man he fell in love with, Luffy needs to let him go. The other man lowers his head, his signature straw hat shadows his face, but he nods furiously.

"I will."

And who knows, the world has proven Marco wrong plenty. Every time he thought there was nothing else for him to discover, no more of him to give, Luffy found him, saw him, and dredged up feeling in his heart. Life and Luffy share such a trait: always surprising you and carrying you forward.

He's been home to Marco's heart and pain, witness to the worst of him. Luffy took Marco on when he was the shaky fundament to a legendary crew, a husk running on autopilot too close to resenting everything and everyone who he held dear. Took him in again when the bloodthirst and need for revenge were greater than the promise of something more, more than Luffy, despite Marco burying his feelings in him for months, broken.

He's never meant to use Luffy, but he has, hasn't he?

The thought makes him pause. Is that really fair?

Luffy thrusts a small purple pouch onto his hand. His eyes are glassy with tears, but he still smiles at Marco like the sun. Inside the little bag, there are seeds. It only puzzles Marco for a moment.

"Tangerine seeds?" he chokes out.

"Nami's tangerine seeds, shishishi," Luffy's laughter is a little forced but no less brilliant because of it. He gives Marco a wry smile, looking older than Marco's ever seen him. In the shadow of his jaw, Marco catches a glimpse of the man he fights tirelessly to become. "For Nakama only," he adds, not letting the message be lost in subtext.

Marco's heart punches inside his chest.

Despite everything he did, Luffy still opened the doors of his heart, his body, and his home to Marco when the phoenix didn't even recognize himself (he still doesn't, but it feels like it's coming to him amidst hard conversations and sword fights and the roots of tangerine trees).

Maybe Luffy will one day tell Marco all about One Piece, and Marco will want to listen.

HOL is very different from what I envisioned. Longer, for sure. Sadder, as well. Surprising down to the last edit I made.

Thank you to everyone who followed, favorited, or review this piece, it really did have a life of its own for me and it's been jarring to see it come to and, regardless of how satisfied I am with it. Like with everything else I write, I will revisit it for the last sweep of editing in a couple of months, but this story is done. J&F becomes the sole MaLu fic to hold my attention.

I couldn't have done it without your invested feelings and support, sharing what I love with you is one of my greatest joys :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

See you in the next one!

Much love,

Dee