Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
Later that evening, they had talked about the first part of the Grand Line and whether they should head towards the mountain or cut through the Calm Belt since their ship had its own paddle system anyway. As much as they wanted to go through the mountain again for the thrill, they opted to take the faster route, which was the Calm Belt. So, once decided they had immediately changed course to go to the left side of the Calm Belt, left, because they were currently going on the newspapers for any sightings of Ace they could get and he was apparently sighted on islands all stationed on the left most part of the Grand Line. Though from what Marco assumed, he'd most definitely head deeper and not just stay on the outskirts. In any case, the man wasn't making it easy to find him, he'd be spotted on some new island every day or two.
It would be impossible to catch Ace if they blindly followed his Vivre Card. Meaning they needed to chase Blackbeard as well, but no matter how much they checked the newspapers or called up their mates, there were no sightings of Teach. Which meant once they got to the first half of the Grand Line, they'd have to ask around the old-fashioned way and try to beat Ace to whatever island the tub of lard was on, in hopes of running into the fire user. Because they'd get nowhere chasing around his Vivre Card like this. Sometimes, Marco wished it would say in exact numbers just how far the fire user was, no doubt if it had his distance on the Vivre Card, his life would be so much easier.
After they had finished planning out their next course of action, Aiko decided to go and take a shower, complaining about how sticky she felt. Marco, on the other hand, was in their shared room having a stare down with the large DenDen Mushi in front of him, it had the same moustache as his Pops had and even had the Whitebeard Jolly Roger, somewhere in the back of his mind he vaguely wondered how old this DenDen Mushi was, did DenDen Mushi live as long as humans? Was this thing older than him? It had wrinkles, so it looked pretty ancient. Looking at the other large DenDen Mushi next to it, he didn't know what was up, but it just looked, for lack of a better word: younger. It had Shanks' cape and scars and looked young compared to the elder next to it.
Why did they even have these two giant DenDen Mushi? When they had about ten other extra ones, small babies at that, which were convenient to carry. The one he always had on him, was even designed after Aiko, since they had decided to exchange. For some reason, she had called the baby DenDen Mushi designed after him extremely cute. How the hell was a snail cute?
Marco watched as his oversized DenDen Mushi wheezed.
It was ridiculous.
They had a fossil on their ship.
Rubbing the back of his head and ridding himself of the nonsensical thoughts that were completely unrelated to what he needed to do. He inwardly groaned, still staring at the fossil in front of him.
He knew that he was just trying to avoid dialing that number, even if he had something important to tell Pops, he really didn't feel like calling in. He just knew he'd be teased relentlessly by his boisterous mates. But, he couldn't avoid it forever.
'Might as well get this over with.'
Sighing and mentally preparing himself he dialed up the number he memorized so well.
Purupurupurupuru…
Purupurupurupuru…
Purupurupurupuru…
The DenDen Mushi in the middle of the deck was ringing, making the Commanders, the crew and even Whitebeard himself stop whatever it was they were doing and put their full attention on the DenDen Mushi still ringing.
Purupurupu—Kacha.
Vista answered and immediately adjusted it to speaker.
"It's me, yoi." Came Marco's voice from the other line.
Izou was the first to speak up. "It's about time you called in, Aiko-chan taking up too much of your time?" The DenDen Mushi captured Marco's bored expression perfectly, but everyone knew that he was a bit irritated.
"We saw the paper!" A random crew member yelled out.
"We didn't know the two of you knew each other from so long ago." Jill remarked, laughing.
"I don't think I've ever seen you so interested in something then the way you were in that picture." Vista remarked, curling his long moustache between two fingers.
"You should have said something, Marco!" Izou spoke once more. "Then we would've tried to see the Red-haired Pirates more often!"
Marco could hear the entire crew laughing at him from his end as he expertly kept his cool. If he lost it, they'd never forget let him forget it.
"GUHAHAHAHAHA." Whitebeard's laugh echoed as it always did, he took a large swig of sake before continuing, "How are you there, my son? Is my daughter-in-law well?"
The crew laughed again.
"Oi, oi." Marco muttered irately, obviously losing the battle for his composure. "Don't get carried away, it's not like that, yoi."
"Not from what we saw on the paper." Jozu spoke this time, everyone deciding to gang up on Marco who never seemed too interested in any woman in particular. Sure, he'd go out and be with a woman when he wanted, he was a man he had certain needs after all, but to actually see the renowned phoenix commander going out of his way to respond to a woman with words instead of actions, it was new.
And the banter and playful arguments between Marco and Aiko were too good to not tease him about.
"Hey, tell us what you guys did after that picture in the bar?!" Another random crew member yelled, Marco couldn't recognize him, he wasn't from his division.
"More than you've ever gone with a beautiful woman." Marco muttered back, not liking the idea of the entire crew out to get him.
The whole crew laughed so loudly, Marco's elder DenDen Mushi was beginning to breathe heavily. He hoped this thing didn't suddenly die on him. He wouldn't know how to explain that to Aiko.
"You should hurry, son." Whitebeard had that fatherly tone in his voice again. "You wouldn't want her to be swept off her feet right from under you."
Marco shrugged, not like they could see it.
"I'm fine with the way things are now, Pops." He said lowly, but he was sure everyone there could hear him loud and clear. "Anyway," His tone was all serious. "Big Mom's angry at us, she thought that we were plotting to go to war with her, she even had someone tail us when we left Harpy Island. The one that followed us told us that the Marines seem to be spreading rumors, they're trying to turn us against each other. Be careful, you don't know which DenDen Mushi's they've tapped."
The silence from the other end proved that everyone was listening intently to his words and that they were probably rolling over the situation in their minds, so he just continued without waiting for a response, "We've decided to go through the Calm Belt, seems Ace is in the first half of the Grand Line. We'll enter the Calm Belt sometime tomorrow afternoon." He had nothing left to say, except "I'll definitely get him back for you, Pops."
"Yea." Whitebeard acknowledged the words of his first division commander as the rest of the crew cheered a chorus of 'hell yea' and 'bring back Ace!'
"Marco." Whitebeard called his name, making everyone go silent, waiting for their Pops' to say what was on his mind. "I've got an order for you."
"Hmm…?" Marco asked curious as to what his Pops' wanted to say.
"When you come back with that woman, I expect to see a round belly."
He sighed exasperated as he heard the numerous wolf whistles through the DenDen Mushi that kept changing its expression to match whoever it was that was talking, if they kept this up this thing really would die.
"Roger." He confirmed loudly in his usual manner when Pops wanted him to do something, making the wolf whistles increase, but he ignored them. Even Pops wasn't on his side? This was a new low. Going so far as to mock order him to do something like that.
"All right then, yoi." That was enough teasing for one day. For a whole year, actually. "I'll call again."
"Yea." Whitebeard acknowledged.
"Hey!" Izou yelled, "Don't have too much fu-"
Kacha.
Marco hung up the phone, before they all collectively decided that it would be a good idea to tease him again.
He took at his DenDen Mushi, feeling slightly bad for its sorry looking state. How long had it been since this thing actually used its vocal chords? Where was this thing even hidden anyway? In some storage room full of unused aging DenDen Mushi? Is that where they went to die?
"Was that Whitebeard you were talking to?" Marco quickly turned, eyebrows attempting to shoot up to his hairline in a rare surprised manner, he hadn't even noticed her come in. Too preoccupied with the conversation -if you could call it that- which he just had with his crew and his current out of nowhere interest in DenDen Mushi. How long had she been standing there? He tried and successfully schooled his expression back into his usual blank stare. Did she hear what they had said? From what he could tell she probably didn't, but then again she could just be pretending she didn't.
"Yea. I was just informing Pops' on what we planned to do." He simply said eyeing her carefully and watching as she busily dried her hair to a manageable dampness. She was already in her sleeping attire which for tonight was a midnight blue nightgown. She really did have too many clothes.
"Ohh… I should probably call Captain too, huh?" She said it more to herself than to him.
"How long have you been there?" He decided to just ask directly.
"Just now." She looked at him strangely, usually he was so observant of everything around him. "Didn't you hear me turn off the shower?"
He shrugged, an unknown weight being lifted from his shoulders.
She lifted a questioning eyebrow at his strange behavior.
Which he just returned with his usual blank stare.
"I hope you plan to get more than three measly hours of sleep tonight, phoenix." She hung her towel on the back of a chair, before lying down on the bottom half of their shared bunk. The bed still smelled of him, sandalwood, citrus, ocean and something else she couldn't describe that was just him. "You'll be in charge of fighting off the Sea Kings we come across in the Calm Belt tomorrow."
'Whose fault is it that I can't sleep?' He thought.
"And why me?" He lifted a skeptical eyebrow at her.
"Why not you?" She shot back, burying her face in the pillow.
Lifting an eyebrow at her reasoning, he decided against talking back and instead grabbing a book -which the Red-haired pirates supplied when they had given them the ship- from one of the shelves. His eyes quickly reading the title as he moved to sit next to her laying form, the thought that they really needed to invest in some chairs registering somewhere in the back of his mind.
As he sat down and carefully flipped open the cover, Aiko took a small peek at the blonde phoenix commander. He seemed to be interested in whatever it was he was doing, seeing as how his eyes were eating up the words on the pages like they were gospel. It was silent between them, though not the awkward kind, the only sound that could be heard were the natural sounds of the ship accompanied by the soft lull of the rocking waves creating a comfortable ambiance. It was a good feeling, to be able to enjoy the sweet nothing that was silence with another person, no need for hard to interpret words. She briefly wondered just when exactly they had gotten so close as to be able to have moments like these. The thought of her and Marco when they were young and reckless invading her mind.
Back then, they were both old enough to know better, but young enough to do it anyway.
If only it could still be that way.
Grinning to herself, she shrugged that particular thought away, burying it in the recesses of her mind where it belonged and just enjoying the moment without the problems that overthinking was known to create. So what if they got a little close? In the end, they were only together until they dragged that Second Division Commander back to the Moby Dick in the New World, they could afford to waste time with their harmless games of fun.
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time, after all.
She felt a hand rest on the curve of her back, making her attention come back to the phoenix commander she had inadvertently been staring at. Thankfully, he didn't say anything about it and instead talked business.
"Pops' will most likely try to clear up any misunderstandings between Big Mom, at least we're about to leave the New World already," Marco never thought he'd ever be able to say 'leaving the New World' in a positive way. "Those weaklings out in 'Paradise' won't be much of a match, yoi."
"Don't get too cocky, phoenix." She muttered, resting her head down on the pillow, but with her face still directed towards him. "That was us at one point."
He shrugged, letting his hand run up and down along the curve of her back. He could feel her muscles relaxing under his fingertips.
"Though, I wonder why you never seemed to learn how to dress properly." She said with a grin, sitting up and pointing at his undone purple jacket, showing off his tattooed chest. "Want me to help?"
"I'd much rather you helped me take it off, yoi." He gave her a friendly smile. Too friendly.
"It's so much sexier with it on though." She gave him a cheeky grin in return. "Can we keep it?" She made grabbing motions with her hands, as if she were grabbing onto the lapels of his jacket. "Then I can pull you," His eyes found and stared at her full lips as she muttered the last part, "down on me."
She could see his lethargic eyes spring to life with fire for a split second, before being carefully hidden away again behind that indifferent mask.
"Bring it on, yoi." She swore his voice had gone three tones deeper.
What were they doing? Just how many times did they mentally berate themselves about not doing this? It wasn't a good idea then and it sure as hell wasn't now. But, those thoughts, as they stared at each other seemed so far away and honestly, right now, they could stay forgotten.
She gave him a smirk full of challenge.
And he sure as hell was going to rise up to it.
But before he could move, the sound of the old, fossil DenDen Mushi rang once again.
Purupurupurupuru…
The sound brought them back.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, -coupled with the question as to why Pops' was calling, did he have something else for him to do?- Marco wished that the fossil transponder snail had died, because right now with that impossibly perfect timing, it seemed as though some pissed off gods out there didn't want this to happen. How could something that felt this right be so forbidden? It just wasn't fair.
Aiko gave Marco's listless expression a tired smile.
Both of them silently agreeing with their eyes that this never happened.
A/N: Heeey, welp... I don't really have all that much to say, except Please Review~!