Sup! v(^-^)v
So this is one way the exams work on me - I write random stuff that is not too funny. Another way is killing zombies in android game called Dead Effect - I just keep imagining the levels are anatomy halls.
I remain forever grateful to lunarshores whose beta skills are unrivaled.
Song of the chapter: Gomennasai by t.A.T.u
Disclaimer: nothing is mine and most likely will never be so this disclaimer is valid for anything I will write in this story.
After installing the lock on the kitchen door and checking that it actually worked, Marco spent a couple of hours pretending to read in his bedroom in an armchair that had a direct view of the writing desk. Since being paranoid was in his job description, the armchair was actually fairly hidden from sight and the observation of the writing desk was done through a pair of strategically placed mirrors.
Marco expected that food and water would be of primary interest to his guest, but for as long as he sat in his armchair, the boy did not touch either provisions or clothes. He seemed to show some interest for the toy though – after multiple hesitant touches and pokes it was finally dragged under the curtain for farther inspection. Seeing this, Marco did his best to remember what was most important to him during his first days with Oyaji. What he came up with were Stefan and a writing desk that was currently in the office of Moby Dick bar.
After deciding to google writing desks and sense of security first thing in the morning, Marco called it a day and went to bed. His last thought before he fell asleep was to hope that there wouldn't be any corpses when he woke up.
...He couldn't see a thing: the darkness was overwhelming. He couldn't move either – his wrists and ankles were bound so tight it hurt each time he tried to shift. Even if he wasn't bound there wasn't much room for him to take a more comfortable position. He was lying there for what felt like hours, never changing his curled up pose and inhaling air that smelled like car fumes and his own unwashed body. He had no idea when was the last time he got to clean himself... or eat something. What he was sure of though was that he ate relatively recently compared to bathing. He knew he drank something yesterday... or was it day before yesterday? If so, then maybe that bread was last week?
While he idly tried to place his last bath in a timeline full of holes, his surroundings changed. He could hear faint voices growing louder. Finally the ones taking were extremely close – they were standing right outside wherever they were keeping him. With a bit of concentration, he could distinguish the words:
"Don't worry, he's in good shape. He won't run away, and he already has some experience."
"Is that so? Let me see him first."
"Zehahahaha! Of course."
Suddenly his eyes were assaulted by sudden light shining right into them and hurting him. Despite it he happily took a breath of fresh air, his eyes tightly shut.
"He won't do. Brat's too old."
"Zehahahaha, I'll take it into consideration next time."
The trunk slammed shut, making him jump a little. He could open his eyes again, and he had some fresh air so the only thing lacking was room to move. Then he heard the man say:
"If I can't sell you this week, you're going to sleep with the fishes, zehahahaha!"Marco smiled with relief. Finally it was going to come to an end – this was the fifth customer who'd refused to buy him. Soon he'd be free... "If you think you are going to get away easy, you are wrong. Before I dispose of you, we are going to have a lot of fun, zehahahaha!"
He knew exactly what that meant. How could he forget? The man used to have 'a bit of fun' with him but made sure to leave him functional enough for sale. Yet he knew what 'a lot of fun' meant – he and others were forced to watch when the man had 'a lot of fun' with those he was going to dispose of. He knew exactly what would happen to him if he wasn't sold soon. He curled as tight as he could in this tight place, realising that he'd rather be sold than to be forced to have 'a lot of fun'.
The laughter sounded again and he tried to curl tighter on himself, wishing he would be bought soon. Wishing for anything that would stop that laughter, that laughter that chilled him to the bone despite it being warm inside the trunk. He bit his hand just above the binds in hope that pain will prevent him from freaking out and using up all the new fresh air. He bit harder as that laughter drilled into his ears, imprinting on his brain...
"ZEHAHAHA!"
Marco's eyes flew open, his heart hammering in his chest. That laughter was still sounding in his ears, making his body shake violently. He clasped his hands together in attempt to stop his body from convulsing. A strangled noise escaped his mouth so he bit the same place – he needed to be quiet, needed to preserve the air... The darkness was closing in on him, suffocating him...
Marco span around and slammed his free hand on the bedside table, hitting the light switch. His left hand still painfully clenched between his teeth as his right frantically searched for the phone. After finding it he didn't bother to unlock it, pressing on ICE button and choosing Oyaji's number. Soon enough his father answered, his voice heavy from sleep:
"Marco? What's wrong? Do you know what time it is?"
It took Marco a minute to force himself to release his hand and choke out:
"He... he's dead, right?"
"What? Who? What happened?" Oyaji asked, sounding more awake now.
"He's dead, right? I killed him, right?" Marco asked, clenching the phone in a vice grip.
"Oh..." Whitebeard seemed to realise what was going on. "You have nothing to worry about, son. He is gone."
"Are you sure? There was no way he could escape, right?"
"Marco, calm down. You are safe. He is not going to hurt you ever again," Oyaji said calmingly. "You are safe."
Marco felt that the panic was retreating and his body slowly stopping to shake. His breathing was calming down too, as well as his heart.
"I was a little worried when you said that your meeting with this kid reminded you of our first meeting..." Oyaji said, concern evident in his voice.
"Shit... Ace..." Marco gasped, his body going cold. He flew out of his bed, tangling in the sheets and falling on the floor. He quickly untangled himself, almost falling flat on his face and breaking his nose in the process.
He scrambled to his feet and ran to his office. The lights were on, just as he left them. Marco made his way to the writing desk and ripped the makeshift curtain away. He and Ace stared at each other with the same panicked expression as the latter cowered as far as he could under the desk.
"S... sorry..." Marco stuttered. "A... are you al... alright?"
In response, after a moment, he got a slow and hesitant nod. Marco exhaled slowly with relief. His anxious mind finally got over his panicked state and noticed that Ace was still clutching the towel. The clothes that Marco left were untouched but the toy was nowhere to be seen. Food and water weren't moved either, making him frown.
"Please change into the clothes – a wet towel won't keep you warm," Marco breathed out, closing his eyes for a moment and letting his body relax. He then suddenly took the water bottle, opened it and drank from it. His new-found (or rather recalled) understanding of the situation helped him to see what was wrong. "The water is safe. I will go and make you a bowl of plain rice, and I want you to try to eat it."
Marco put the curtain back in place with another apology and went to his room, remembering that he still had Oyaji on the phone. As expected, his father waited for him on the line, already ready to leave in case Marco needed him to.
"Is everything alright?" Oyaji asked.
"Yeah... I think I just scared him..." Marco answered, walking to the kitchen.
"He will come around, and you will help him do that. I think that he will help you too," Whitebeard said thoughtfully. "What are you going to do now?"
"Make a bowl of rice," Marco answered with a smile as he unlocked the kitchen door.
"Gurarara! That's the oldest trick there is!" Oyaji laughed, and Marco chuckled as well.
"Let's hope it works," he said.
"Worked on you, why wouldn't it work on him?"
"That's what I thought."
"Then start with just plain rice, you can add salt or sugar later when he trusts you a bit more."
"I know," Marco almost stuck out his tongue in a childish gesture but caught himself last minute.
"What did I tell you about sticking out your tongue?" Oyaji said with a chuckle. "I'm going back to bed, and I hope you'll do the same after you feed the kid. Good night," he said and hung up, not letting Marco deny his childish side. The old man knew him all too well.
He started preparing the rice, almost fighting to not to put anything in to add more taste. From experience he knew that the only thing one could do with plain rice was to choke on it but it was also a safe food – any additions to rice were easy to taste. If Ace had ever tasted just plain rice, he'll most likely know that it was safe. In case he didn't, Marco would most likely have to taste everything in front of him, just like water.
Upon his return to the office with a bowl of rice, he was pleased to find the towel outside the curtain instead of clothes. The rice itself was in a small plastic food container that Marco failed to break with his hands. In order to break a copy of this container he had to stomp hard on it, and he was sure that Ace didn't have the power to do that.
"Try... try to eat a little bit, and I'd like you to take a nap. It's bad enough that one of us can't sleep because of monsters," the last part he muttered under his nose. Marco then put the rice beside the curtain and took the towel in order to hang it up to dry in the bathroom in a moment.
Of course no answer came. The curtain remained motionless, and he wanted to lift it again to check if Ace was alright despite seeing him no more than ten minutes ago. He didn't do it though – he'd scared the kid enough as it was. With that Marco returned to his bedroom, making a small detour to the bathroom.
He tried to follow Oyaji's advice and fall asleep again but somehow it felt like the room absorbed his nightmare. Every time he closed his eyes it felt like he was back in the trunk even if he kept the lights on. After half an hour of tossing, turning, opening the window and taking a sleeping pill before he went to bed, Marco found himself gathering his blanket and pillow in his arms and going back to the office.
There he settled into a corner between two bookshelves and closed his eyes again. The corner was away from both the desk and the door so that if Ace needed to go to the bathroom he had a clear path. Marco deliberately didn't take any weapons with him despite doing it every other time he had a nightmare before. He just refused to imagine what would happen if he had another nightmare, and Ace tried to wake him up. The blond didn't think it would happen since the kid was so afraid of him, but, as selfish as it was, he didn't want to deal with the consequences of that possible scenario.
v(^-^)v
It seemed that he actually drifted asleep sometime while thinking how much he didn't want to clean up the possible mess. First thing he did was look at the desk but the picture didn't change since he last saw it.
With a soft grunt he got up, stretching his limbs. Stiffly he walked towards the desk to check if Ace ate anything. As it turned out he hadn't, and Marco frowned at that but said nothing. He took the bowl with him figuring that he should just eat that rice for breakfast. After leaving the rice on the kitchen, which was carelessly unlocked during the night, the blond went with his morning routine just like usual.
He walked around the apartment with a toothbrush in his mouth and phone in his hands, opening all the windows and checking for messages. Marco was happy to hear some brief shuffling under the desk, so he said good morning to Ace and informed him that he'll start making breakfast soon.
Oddly enough there weren't many messages on his phone. Normally he'd see up to twenty messages from his division but today there was only one message from Oyaji, saying that Marco's officially on sick leave/babysitting duty. After some hard thinking, he texted his father back asking if that sick leave extended on the paperwork. Five minutes later someone ringed on his door, and the blond saw one of his deputies smiling guiltily with a big stack of papers. Well, that answered that question.
With his mood thoroughly beaten down by the never-ending paperwork (they were criminals, for crying out loud! Why on earth would they need so many stupid reports?! The only thing they needed to keep track of was who owed them money!), Marco grumpily cooked breakfast – another bowl of rice for Ace and yesterday's rice fried with eggs for him. Stacking the food (plus a cup of coffee for him) on a tray, he went to his office in order to try to be friends with Ace and eat breakfast together.
"So I thought we could have breakfast together," Marco said awkwardly to the curtain as he put the tray on the floor. "I could tell you a bit about myself, if you'd like, or you could tell me something about yourself. Like, for example, what's your favourite food? Or what food you don't like because if you'd try to tell me that you like plain rice I wouldn't believe any of it. So, in your own interests you should tell me what you like to eat because until I know what you like, you'll keep getting that rice."
Marco started eating his own breakfast as he waited for any response.
"Are you even alive?" He waited for any kind of sign for a long moment as he quietly chewed on his breakfast. "I'm not going to make you eat, you know... Don't I know how it felt when they forced the food down your throat when you refused to eat... And when they force you to swallow that shit don't I know how you hope and you pray that you choke on it and die because that is your most painless option..." Marco looked down at the bent fork in his hand sighed. "If you don't feel like eating – you don't have to. I'll just make sure you have some food around when you do."
With the corner of his eye he saw the curtain move a little bit – just enough for Ace to take a peek at him. The blond chuckled bitterly as he leaned back on the wall and looked at the kid out of the corner of his eye.
"You don't have to think so loudly," he said. "There are three things you want to know: if you are dreaming and if not then what's the price and how long will this last until I've had enough of being nice to you? Am I close?" A thud came from underneath the desk – the kind that one heard when one accidentally hit their head on a kitchen shelf. Judging by the slight waving of the curtain Ace was close to it but when Marco asked his question he backed up, miscalculated the distance and hit some bony part of him against the desk. Remembering how Ace looked it could have been any part of his body – the kid was all skin and bones.
"Let me answer those for you – this is not a dream, there is no price, and I have no interest in you in the way you're thinking about. My interest in you would be..." Marco thought about it for a moment – the answer wasn't easy to phrase. How could one put all those conflicting emotions and thoughts in one sentence without leaving anything out? Soon enough he found his answer:
"Pride, I think. If Oyaji..." The blond choked on the word and it took him some time to force it out. "If he dies, I will most likely take charge of the family. I want to know if I can continue his legacy... Though I'd be lying if I said that that was what I was thinking of when I bought you."
Sudden realisation made Marco frown. It was right there, right in front of him. He just needed to hear it to fully understand it. Slowly, he said:
"When I bought you, I didn't see you... The person... the person I saw in that trunk wasn't you. It was me. I bought myself yesterday." Marco took a calming sigh and stared at the ceiling, feeling oddly emotional. "I bought myself yesterday," he whispered to himself.
Marco wasn't used to feeling so much. Working for what could only be described by an outsider as a crime syndicate (anything else was impossible in this city) left no room for feelings. Whatever feelings he still had were reserved for his closest family – his father and people that now were the commanders of other fourteen divisions of Whitebeard Family. Though Oyaji said that anyone bearing his mark was his child, the only people Marco considered his siblings were the commanders.
He gathered his unfinished breakfast on the tray, got up and went back to the kitchen. He needed to calm down and then start on the paperwork. For the first time in his life, Marco was happy for having a never-ending pile of documents to fill out, sign, and comment on.
Hope you liked it because I had some issues with it before sending it to lunarshores :)
Thanks for all the reviews, favs and follows!
Hope to see you soon,
~Rhe.
