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Caprice

Chapter IX


Standing on Lord Portgas' front porch, Dr. Trafalgar raised the wine glass in his hand to his lips. He tilted it just a fraction so a few drops of the liquid slid into his mouth, his mind a wreck of formulas and hypotheses.

He spat out the blood onto the dirt. In truth, it did not taste half-bad. Yet in his current state it was outright revolting.

He had his answer, though.

Spitting a few times to clean his mouth of the taste of copper and something else, some other demonic quality he could not pinpoint, the doctor dumped the remainder of the blood into the flowerbed near his feet. Then he set the glass down on its side near an anthill he found a few feet off from the doorway. It would be cleaned by an army soon enough.

"Bepo!" he called, and the heavy footfall of his steed reached his ears before long. Bepo galloped to his side, and Trafalgar noted the beast's muzzle. Brownish red. "You've been into something."

"Only a lamb from a farm over yonder," Bepo admitted, ironically looking quite sheepish. "Tried to swallow it in one shot but I…well, my mouth isn't big enough and it got a little messy. I'm sorry." His equine hooves were turned slightly inward, reminding Trafalgar of a scolded child or a dog with its tail between its legs.

"Never mind. We're going through the forest anyway. I wish to pay Lord Eustass a visit while it is still light out."

He swung up on Bepo's back, the warm fur feeling particularly good today, making him glad he'd forsaken Bepo's saddle. They lumbered along the edge of the Gol estate for a while, eventually disappearing into the surrounding forest, going southwest in order to take the shortest possible route. He only passed a few hamlets and did not see a soul save for a few farmers hard at work in their fields, attention on their soil and crops. Had they been doing anything else they probably would have noticed the mammoth snow white horse and its dark rider.

Upon arriving outside of the Eustass estate, Trafalgar dismounted and told Bepo to take a nap near the treeline not too far from his position. He didn't know how long he would be, and he could tell Bepo was craving shade under his thick fur coat even though it was shorter in this horsey form. It had gotten warm today, and if his awkward gait didn't give Bepo away as something other than a horse his bearish panting would.

He left Bepo stretched out under an elm, looking quite a bit like a mare giving birth, and strode over to the front door of the manor. Clasping the knocker, Trafalgar gave it three sharp cracks against the metal plating, leaving a dull ringing in his ears.

He was not made to wait long. A rather young, visibly frightened boy opened the heavy wooden door and stared at him. If anything, Trafalgar noticed he became more alarmed.

"May I come in? I wish to speak with Lord Eustass."

"T-the elder Lord Eustass has p-passed, sir," the boy stammered. "H-His grave is down by t-the…the pond."

The doctor raised his eyebrows. The lad was a complete nervous wreck, fidgeting and looking about as if wary of someone coming up behind him to beat him senseless. Likely he had every right to be nervous.

"I wish to give my sincerest condolences to the young master of this house, whom I have come to see. I wish to make sure he is alright."

"Oh, I don't t-think you should see him. I mean, you're not allowed t-to."

Trafalgar's blood was beginning to boil over in annoyance at the petulance of this mere child. "I'm a doctor."

"H-he explicitly ordered not t-to let you in, Dr. Tra…Trafalgar."

This greatly surprised him. That the boy had been warned of who he was by Lord Eustass, and instructed not to let him in, was certainly a hindrance to his plans for the evening. He had tricked a different boy once to gain access to the house. He recalled that one had dark hair, and this one was blond. Perhaps a replacement.

"He could die if you don't let me inside."

The boy's eyes widened, but his grip on the handle of the door remained steady. "M-Master warned t-that you'd t-try to sneak by."

"I am not sneaking. I am no sneaky fox, only a doctor. I am right here in front of you. I am not so scary, am I? Please, I have only the most benevolent inclinations for visiting your dear Master during a time of grieving. I wish to–"

"I-I'm s-sorry!" the boy cried suddenly, almost breaking down into sobs. He closed the door on Trafalgar, and he could hear a multitude of locks being put into place. Out of annoyance he nearly called out that locks weren't necessary to stop a vampire that was already denied access to a home by words and will alone.

He stood leaning against the hilt of his nodachi for some time, simply thinking of what he could possibly do now. Then it struck him. He straightened and removed the blade from its sheath, hefted it over the wood of the door, and began to carve. The sun set behind him, casting a long, eerie shadow across his work. When he finished carving the single word he deemed was appropriate, he moved away and let the waning sun hit the door directly and put shadows into the gouges he'd created.

Cambion, the door read in a horrifically scratchy, though still delicate scripture.

He rode off on Bepo without looking back, not intending to return now that his analysis had been completed.

-oOo-

Marco sat on his bed, hands clasped in his lap to keep them from shaking. His mind was a cluttered mess of thoughts, chief among them his immediate dismissal from the Gol…no, the Portgas estate.

He figured it was a matter of time. Lord Portgas would surely reappear tomorrow morning and force him out.

Or perhaps not. That strange affection, whatever it had truly been born of, was clearly orchestrated by the lord, not him. So there was that to consider, which made it harder to sort his feelings out.

He bowed his head and prayed. Thought about his childhood. Of slaving on a plantation only to be sold to foreigners, then being saved by a man who fought against the slavers that had taken him from his plantation, and then… then the Moby Dick had began to sink too far off the coast to swim to shore.

But they had been saved. A grand ship o' the line had come to their aid, the ship of a pirate captain. He had let them aboard before they died of drowning…

He replayed that stormy day, remembering how the sails had been ripped from their ropes and the hull had lurched to one side before they truly began taking on water. He saw the terrified faces of those coming up from below the deck, and the face of the one who had led them, their father figure, standing lop-sided as the ship went down. He hadn't moved the whole time will the others tried to save themselves, to flee to the lifeboats that could never hold all of them. He remembered watching from afar the hulking figure of their father going down with his ship, unflinching in the face of death and never once falling over.

The Pirate King had saved most of them and secretly landed outside of the port of Mariejois. Yet the man known as Gol D. Roger did not expect for the whole lot of them to be re-captured by the Nobles that had originally commissioned the slaver ship to sail.

The real pirates by that time were long gone, disbanded, and the slaves remained in the town seeking work and begging. None knew where they had landed. Marco starkly remembered being arrested and chained to a bunch of former slave-pirates that he thought he'd never see again. But they were all rounded up, and set for the gallows for disobedience and fleeing. Marco was one of the youngest, and at the back of the line that was arranged by age and height. He saw all of those that swung by their necks, pissed their pants if they had any, and envisioned himself doing the same.

But Gol had stopped them from prodding him up the stairs to the executioner. He had appeared out of the crowd of spectators and flashed a paper that Marco did not understand at the time. He just remembered being hauled off and going in and out of a dark world, put on by his dehydration. Then waking up on the Gold estate to a kindly woman with strawberry blonde hair and freckles across her cheeks.

He remembered Rouge's kindness well. In fact, he could see Rouge's likeness in more than the freckles on Lord Portgas' face. So, he had hope yet.

-oOo-

Somehow, he had refrained from shooting it.

That Lord Eustass blamed on a lack of bullets, but really he was feeling a touch too inquisitive about the creature hiding under an elaborate bench to put a lead bullet into its body. Besides, the accursed doctor was on his mind, as he had been throughout the week, and now the lord was beginning to question anything that seemed out of place. Like this straw-coloured fuzzball.

"You a demon?" the lord asked gruffly, gun in one hand and rapier in the other. If bludgeoning it in the head with the blunt muzzle of the gun didn't work out, he could always pierce its heart.

The creature merely shifted, a ripple across its mass of fur. Eustass could not tell where its eyes were, or its mouth for that matter. It was ambiguous what sex it even was.

He carefully sat on the edge of a nearby armchair, his eyes never leaving the creature, curious to see what it would do. He was wary of letting it wander off lest it wreck havoc on his home. Yet he somehow felt that outright killing it wasn't in his best interest.

The lord tensed when the creature began to change position, gradually easing itself out from underneath the bench where it had been found hiding this morning after rummaging about in his kitchen. His stableboy had come across it in the pantry and shrieked loud enough to wake his other servants and himself.

His servants thought it was some sort of scruffy sheepdog, but Eustass knew better than to think it was a shaggy mutt that had gotten in through a back door. After his repeated encounters with a vampire he was rightfully wary of anything out of the ordinary. So he'd dismissed his servants to the bowels of the estate and taken the matter into his own hands.

The creature slipped from the underside of the bench to a nearby armchair in a flash, seating itself without ever showing a distinguishable limb.

Its speed was unnerving. Lord Eustass folded his arms across his chest and stared at the strange beast that was occupying his armchair, once again frozen in place. Now that it was out of hiding, he could see it was not so much a beast at all as a man with excessively long blond hair.

"Just what are you?"

"Whatever you want me to be."

Immediately a face came to Lord Eustass' mind upon hearing the beguiling, almost seductive voice of this creature. He was surprised it had spoken at all, and with such clarity. He thought long about those words, and at last said, "A killer."

"A killer?" the thing asked, sounding slightly surprised itself. "Not a housekeeper or guard?"

"You can be those secondarily," the lord said. He astonished himself with the ease with which he had accepted this strange creature. Of course, if it was the wrong move his rapier would correct the situation. "Now, show me your face, killer."

"I do not show my face," the thing replied, a ripple running through its blond hair. "I do not show my face unless that which you've spoken is to be my name."

"Killer? Sure. That is your name." A violent shudder wracked the body of the creature and it began to shift stiffly again. "Now tell me what kind of a demon you are, what form you take…because I believe that your kind exists."

Slowly, the being sat up rather than kept its hunched shape, and Lord Eustass could see it at least had the body of a man, though a dirty scrap of clothing tied around its waist obscured its sex. He could also see that the ears poking out of the thick curtain of blond hair were human, save for the pointedness of the helix.

"I am a housekeeping demon and I will live here with you, Master."

Lord Eustass' forehead wrinkled. He hadn't really thought of keeping the creature in the house with him. Rather he thought it could be stabled outside…or something of the sort. Collared and leashed. Yet now he was listening to a demon address him as 'Master,' something a servant would do, not an animal. He liked the power that came with that title.

"So you will obey me, then?" the lord asked next.

"So long as you don't offend me."

Lord Eustass pondered this. "How would I offend you?"

The creature made a sort of snorting sound. "By not being gracious. If I do my work well, show me something in return. A gift, perhaps."

"Alright," Lord Eustass said, not entirely sure what it was he was agreeing to. If he squinted, it almost sounded like a business contract. "One more thing I wish to see before I get you some clothes to wear…Killer, show me your face."

The creature raised two very human, thin yet well-defined arms out of the curtain of hair that encompassed its body. Its hands were almost elegant, finely veined, with pointed fingernails that were more the claws of a beast than anything else. Then it parted the curtain of blond, and Lord Eustass was witness to a thing of nightmares. The face of his Killer.

He grinned, earning him high favour with the demon that smiled toothily back.

-oOo-

Lord Portgas paced his bedchamber, thinking about Marco and what he'd done to him. The valet had brought it upon himself, touching the lord's skin and gracing him with his ever-endearing gaze…

No, Lord Portgas knew it was entirely his fault.

He had been the one to kiss Marco's forehead exactly one week ago. His gentlemanly servant had appeared to have written it off, going about all of his usual tasks. Of course, there was a distancing that had occurred between them, for Lord Portgas had not come out of his bedchamber for two days following the incident.

The first thing Marco had asked from him was about his dismissal.

Lord Portgas almost considered it a good idea, but the thought of having Marco leave the estate was hard for him to stomach. So he declined. Made him stay. After all, Marco had nowhere else to go.

Now Marco was standing behind him, waiting for him to finish penning the last of his letters to be taken and distributed around Sabaody. He had gotten a most peculiar letter from Dr. Trafalgar, telling him that he wished to see him some time in the next week or so. A tea party, or something, was to be held in the Boin forest.

The doctor had only said that it would be a rowdy affair should he choose to attend.

The lord sighed as he imagined how traumatized Marco would be if he were to accompany him to the event. For surely he would be traumatized, yes?

"My Lord, your tea…"

Lord Portgas stood, finished letters in hand, and spun on Marco hovering near him with a silver tray upon which a teapot steamed and a teacup and crème were delicately laid out.

A spoon resting on the edge of a plate holding the teacup rattled ever so slightly, the only sign of Marco's unease.

"Marco, please take it to the drawing room." Marco made for the smallest of bows, and the smallest was more than enough to break something volatile in the lord. "For the love of God, get yourself a cup and join me."

Marco's eyes widened and his cheeks became stained red. The tray in his hands rattled as his body trembled slightly. But he didn't fight, and soon they were both seated across from one another in armchairs, Marco making a point to look into his own cup of tea and not directly across from him.

"I apologize for my behaviour," the lord said when he was fed up with the silence. It was making him hot in the head, and when he got fired up it was hard to cool down again. The fire had been lit with the kiss, and kindled by the stretch of inactivity that he'd subjected himself to for the week following the spark. Now the fire in him was raging, making it impossible to filter out things in his mind that should not be said.

Marco looked up to meet his eyes when the lord said, "I cannot help myself. I really cannot. You are too tempting to ignore."

With a flourish of his cuffs, Marco was on his feet, setting his teacup rattling upon the tray that sat idly on a table, a physical barrier that separated them. Lord Portgas followed suit, ridding himself of the tea while also placing his hand down on the tray, preventing Marco from removing it and, thus, removing himself.

"Stay."

Marco backed off from the tray, but did not sit down again, so the lord remained standing also.

"Say something, Marco," the lord said, close to pleading. "Silence kills me."

"I-I don't…I don't know what to say."

"Tell me what you think of me. I asked you before, and you said you didn't have an opinion formed yet because you hadn't known me long. Well, now you have had several weeks to ponder, and I would like to know what it is that goes through that brilliant mind."

"Brilliant?" Marco muttered, renewed colour in his cheeks.

"Aye, brilliant. I know you've read every book in that library upstairs. Don't deny it – my father was opposed to sitting for long periods of time and everyone has told me how my mother was too absorbed in her garden to do anything else. Yet those books have been carefully read, I can tell by their spines and pages."

"Over the past twenty years there were a number of tenants before you, including the latest fellow, as you well know, who may have–"

"I met him on his way out of town. Not the bookish type; that I could plainly gather. Besides, for the past twenty years this place has been rented out as a hunting lodge and nothing more. The bookish type does not rent this place. If they wish to go somewhere for books, they visit the great and vast Ohara Library to the west."

At last, Marco sighed and admitted, "I can read. Your mother taught me when I was young, very young. When she died…" He saw something flash in his lord's eyes and paused. Then continued: "I was casually told of your birth, and that you had been taken away from here. I knew not if you'd survived, and everyone insisted that you had not, so it didn't stick with me. The tenant your father got for the place before his own death was always away from the estate, so I continued my studies alone."

"You must have been alone an awful lot."

"Not all of the time. There were always other servants. Older than me. They took me to church and what have you. I taught some of them to read, at least the ones that were not too proud to learn from a boy."

"I see," Lord Portgas muttered. His thoughts were hung up on one thing. The church. To know that Marco was religious suddenly made him feel a thousand times worse about what he had done…and what he was about to do.

"I'm still waiting on your opinion of me."

Marco sighed and raised a hand to run through his blond locks. "I don't have much of an opinion yet. You are something of an enigma. I feel…very much drawn to you and I cannot understand why that would be, except that you resemble your father and mother and have both of their kindness combined in your blood. But it is something quite different, almost. It's very unreal…ethereal, may be the word."

A great stirring hit the lord's lower regions. Very subtly he let out a groan that he worked to conceal under a deep exhale. "Something different," he repeated, inching his way around the table while keeping Marco's eyes on his. "Ethereal. Otherworldly. Eerie. Do you believe in things like that? In creatures like that?"

"As in…demonic creatures? I don't like to think creatures like that exist," Marco said softly, his unease marked by his shifting eyes. "I have a feeling, though, that they do exist and hide in the shadows, waiting to strike unfortunate souls." The lord touched him lightly upon the arm, on his elbow.

Marco looked down at their connection, then up at the freckled cheeks that danced a jig as the lord spoke. "I believe in those things because I have no choice but to believe."

The air in the room was suddenly much warmer, as the lord could not help but to caress the fabric of Marco's overcoat that bunched under his fingertips. Marco, not noticing the shift, was quiet as he asked, "What do you mean?"

"You'll find demons are quite real, Marco, and they rarely hide in shadows."

In response, his valet crossed himself. Lord Portgas made no move to stop him, and didn't feel a thing as their physical connection was lost. "It does nothing," he said quietly. "For we still exist, no matter what the faith says and what any practitioner does."

"We?" whispered the man.

"We," returned the lord, no smile upon his face. "The demon races, of which I am a part."

Lord Portgas didn't know why he was telling Marco, only that it felt liberating to share his secret with someone other than Trafalgar and those he grew up around. He figured this was because he just couldn't stomach the awkward secret as big as the duchess' gut between them any longer. It was simply impossible to get closer to Marco without admitting his secret.

So he went for the truth while he still had an audience.

"Marco, I'm like you but at the same time I'm not like you. I enjoy all of the human things, like food and a good night's sleep when I can get it, but there are things that are very… unhuman about me."

Marco didn't dare to move; indeed he could not. His feet were numb and frozen to the floor, affixed there by an odd mix of awe and fear. So he had no choice but to listen to every one of the lord's words.

"I'm not a monster. Really, I am not. I simply have other needs that seem very strange to some. See, I'm an incubus, a mess of emotions trapped in a distinctively humanesque body. I can become violent when provoked, or when people I love are threatened. I also enjoy sex." Finally, Marco flinched.

Lord Portgas returned his grip to the man's elbow tighter, not allowing him to make his escape. "I have loved a great many women, but none have captured me so completely as you have. I cannot fight this attraction and I've found that I don't even want to."

Once more, Marco was unable to find the will to move as the lord closed in. Directly in front of him now, Lord Portgas gripped Marco's other arm, close to his wrist, then leaned in and placed a hesitant kiss on the man's stubbled jaw.

At last, feeling soft but distinctly demanding lips gracing his skin, Marco found his words.

"T-this is sin, and you are a demon!"

"I am a demon, but this is not sin," Lord Portgas insisted. His temper was flaring up, which he found happened when people disagreed with him on a subject he was passionate about. And this, this was something he could spend nights pondering, and indeed he had spent nights on the subject.

"Sin is the murder of another man. Sin is not a love of beauty, of something beauteous, unless it borders on murderousobsession." He brought a hand to Marco's cheek, trailing those white, tapered fingers down his rough, sun-hardened skin. "Why is it that we flee from fulfilling these desires that manifest themselves in our bodies upon birth? One body seeking another – that is all it is, and I happen to find you, another gentleman, so utterly fascinating."

Marco shook himself free of his master's grip. This man spoke lecherous things, evoked dread in his conscience. Yet, yet he exercised a peculiar dash of excitement within Marco, and wonder. Those words were theories of a new era, a new teaching. They entranced him, downright ensnared him. Moved him.

"My Lord, please," Marco whispered as the young man pressed another kiss to his cheek, soft lips ghosting over his heated flesh.

Lord Portgas laughed lowly, a deep rumbling that swept teasingly across Marco's skin. "You must think I have no values at all. Less values than a pirate even. But I assure you that, for a born sinner, I rarely sin – it is just that you tempt me in ways I have never felt before, and I don't think I can go on ignoring you. It is too painful, and I am not accustomed to feeling such physical pain without injury."

Marco appeared ready to flee, his eyes swimming with fear more than awe now, and Lord Portgas scoured his mind for something that would make his valet understand him. "Is the truest love a sin?"

"No," Marco answered quietly.

Before Marco could move away, Lord Portgas wrapped his arms around his body, holding him tight. They were almost the same height, with Marco a few inches taller. The lord clenched his arms and brought him closer, breathing in his intoxicating scent as he mumbled, "Then this is not sin. It cannot be sin. I refuse to believe something so ludicrous."

Marco's body was tense, and Portgas' incubus desires ordered him to pounce and devour now, but he could not do that to Marco, who appeared a bulk of a man yet was really quite timid when it came to crossing onto a darker path. Instead, he focused his mind on something abstract to keep the demonic forces hidden under his mortal skin.

He could not keep his mind empty for long. It was impossible to ignore the one he had his heart set on. Again, he tried to speak to Marco. "What scares you more? The fact that I am a man, or the fact that I am a demon?"

"But you are not a man. You are a demon."

This brought a frustrated little laugh out of the lord. "Marco, why should it even matter what I am? Man, demon, or demonic man? I hate titles and labels of all kinds."

He felt Marco's body go slack against him. Was that…had that been a bemused snort he'd heard?

"If what you say is true…if that is true, then your mother and father…?"

"They weren't entirely human either. My father was what I am, and my mother a woman who could charm hearts and plants alike. Or so I have heard."

The lord's ears picked up laughter, very faint, coming from Marco's lips. "Yes, she certainly always knew what emotion a person was feeling, and her gardening skills seemed almost divine. For that reason she seemed magical to me." Then, silence. "But your father…apart from his abnormal strength and courage in the face of any adversary, he seemed a normal man who was fond of food, drink and good company."

"He was a bit of an enigma, perhaps more similar to me than I'd like to admit," the lord said, his jaw stiff. He couldn't help himself; he knew Marco was aware of his dislike for his father, so he went ahead with his thoughts. "The most abnormal thing about the both of them was their all-consuming love for one another. It killed my mother and I hate him for that."

Marco finally pulled away, his eyebrows matted together. "Your mother…your mother died in childbirth. I remember that she was pregnant a long time…too long."

"It's more complicated than that," the lord whispered. "I'll tell you, because I want you to know. This is something my grandfather, that crazy idiot, told me, but I know it is truth. My father was a pirate; I'm sure you know this already."

Marco nodded, and the lord felt his head turn in towards his own. Despite an urge coming over him, he forced himself to continue. "He was a legend. The King of the Pirates, renowned for his voyages to and through the New World. But he fell in love with a woman when he docked his ship in Sabaody's port. What he didn't realize was the depth of her love for him. The king found out and used it against him. So in return for this estate and her safety, he declared an unknown sickness and went to the king, where he died by the blade with only nobles and the navy present. They labelled him as a privateer to sully his name.

"He killed my mother in two ways. Incubus children kill their carriers, so I share the murder and the guilt that comes with it. But I'm convinced my father knew my birth would kill her, for how could he not know? Yet, she couldn't live without him, and so she would have died regardless of a love sickness, so my birth is irrelevant. That is the nature of incubi and their chosen mates. When one dies, the other follows. Tragic, isn't it?"

Marco was silent for a long time, and after a minute of standing, weak in the knees, he requested quietly to sit. They sat on a long chaise, for the lord steered him away from the solitary confinement of the small armchair. He arranged his arm gently around Marco's shoulders while the man mulled over the day's revelations many times in his mind…and how they fit into his perception of his past.

After a while, Marco heaved a great sigh. "Master Gol's disappearance makes utmost sense now. Yet we had thought he was genuinely ill at the time. Yet your mother must have known…indeed, now that I think of her face, her heartbreak and sorrow was greater than I could have ever known."

"Perhaps he was ill. Actually, he probably was and Garp just didn't want to admit that much. It was a momentous victory for his faction, to 'kill' the Pirate King, so there's a chance he omitted certain details."

"…Garp, the famous vice-admiral of the navy, raised you?"

Lord Portgas snorted at the farce the name carried with it. "Garp couldn't even take care of the rats on his damn ship, The Saint Bernard. No, he left me with…others of my sort. I won't tell you the details, but they were a rowdy bunch of characters with good hearts."

They settled into a silence in which Marco stared at his master, his eyes running up and down his face. After a while, the lord had to look away and ask, "Well?"

"You don't look like I imagined a demon would. I have a hard time believing any of this."

The lord laughed as an absurd thought passed through his mind, just begging to be said. So he let it out. "Well then, I shall have to get you to accompany me to tea and supper with an old friend. Then you should have an enhanced view of the world. Only if you agree, of course."

Marco was presented with this dilemma, and much as he still felt the definite need to support his master, there was also a sticky and foul fear scratching away at his gut. Looking at the lord, who appeared so kind and open, with no hint of anger to be seen in any line on his face, his conscience insisted that he continue to do his duties to the best of his ability.

Then there were the conflicting emotions that the kiss had brought on, but Marco felt his wits would burn out if he contemplated that alongside everything else. It was a problem for another evening.

"I will go with you," he said. "Now…I should prepare supper while there is still natural light to do it."

He had never seen the lord beam so radiantly, and at him of all people. He thought the lord would either squeeze his shoulder with mild male affection or thank him profusely like the humblest of lords ought, and certainly did not expect that the other problem he had put on the side would resurface so soon.

Once again the lord held his cheek still and kissed him, closer than ever to reaching his lips. A blush coloured his cheeks as the freckled face withdrew and the lord eased himself away, making it clear that he wouldn't force more.

Before Marco could stutter and make a fool of himself, Lord Portgas said, "Marco, could you…call me Ace from now on? Formal titles are wearisome and serve to make a person feel old and more important than they really are."

Marco could easily recall the lord's distain for titles. He was untrusting of his voice to remain steady, so he nodded his understanding. Then he scurried away to the kitchen where he keeled over a counter with a palm flush against his lips to muffle any sounds, wondering what he had allowed himself to get into.


A.N.: Chapter summary: Ace's blood is bland in comparison with Lord Eustass'; Trafalgar vandalizes said lord's door with a sharp and pointy object; Marco does some remembering of Whitebeard's badassery; the scruffy sheepdog-thing arrives on Lord Eustass' estate and is given a name; Marco is shocked repeatedly and nearly hugged to death by his cheeky and horny master, who coincidentally thinks it's a good idea to invite Marco to a tea party…as if he hasn't already suffered a heart attack.

Also, guys, fair warning: I have exams coming up next month and I'm already quite behind with my university work, so updates may become sporadic soon!

Up next: A dead body or two, the return of Eustass' defaced door, and a tea party. Stay tuned!