Chapter 59
Parasite

A dive in water, and particularly in seawater, always had a weird effect on devil fruit users.

Put aside the fact that it was completely incapacitating and possibly lethal, it was also, somehow, relaxing.

Along with strength and supernatural abilities, it drained the drowned's thoughts from his mind. The fears, the anxiousness, the will, the doubts... they were all diluted in the salty water and, floating in the midnight blue immensity, all that remained was a virgin soul awaiting to be born.

Her head broke through the surface of the water and Eli sharply drew in a large breath, filling her lungs with this new air as if it was the very first time.

It was painful.

Coming to life again was so very painful.

Sanji was as gentle as possible as he brought the girl back on the Merry but every movement forced upon her lifeless body felt like a brutal shake. Slowly, the young man installed her on the wooden deck and, as his hands finally left her body, Eli's mind slowly pacified.

Erratic and loud pants were making her chest heave as the girl was trying to catch her breath again. While she was absently gazing at the open sky, in the corner of her hazed eyes, Eli saw Ace being thrown roughly to her side. As the young man hit the deck with a loud thud, a spray of water dispersed on her; the salty droplets merging with the ones lazily trailing over her skin.

During their rescue, the lifeguards had separated the two pirates, and now, lying by his side, Eli's hand was weakly searching for Ace's again.

She was looking upward at the magnificence of the morning sky. Steel blue setting ablaze by streaks of fire, the brilliant colors reflected in her jade eyes while the girl's fingers crept shyly toward the flame user's hand. Her fingertips grazing the wood, Eli's arm limped slowly but surely in his direction. Salty water was dripping from her skin and her approach left dark lines and stains on the wooden floor.

Her movements were slow but sure for she had no doubts, and soon, the skin of her knuckle brushed against his.

Without exchanging a glance, Ace took Eli's hand in his and the two pirates found, once again, the embrace that they had lost.

It was such a simple thing.

Holding hands.

It was such a little thing; a loose and damp embrace. So how could such a little thing make a girl so thoroughly happy ?

Maybe because it wasn't just any hand. It was the hand of a dear comrade, the hand of an old friend... the hand of the man she loved.

"Ohhhh ! How cute !" Usopp had an unrivalled skill to make his voice exceptionally annoying sometimes. "They're holding hands !"

It shouldn't have been embarrassing but, because of this childish teasing, Eli found herself wanting to take back her so comfortably installed hand and slam it into the marksman's face. Ace, however, did not seem to share the girl's discomfort as he squeezed his large fingers a little tighter; the weak hold making the girl's doubts vanish in a instant.

"You said you won't let go," Ace said quietly.

It felt warm.

His hand, his voice; it felt so warm inside of her, and on her cheeks too. Yet, ignoring how warm and mush the words made her feel, along with the marksman's childish laughs, Eli kept unperturbedly staring upward to keep her mind focused; she had a battle to fight, against herself, and for him. A hope inside of her pushing her forward, the girl knew that she had already been enough of a coward and therefore she couldn't and absolutely wouldn't flee anymore.

There was a chance, a tiny chance that her wish she could achieve. It wasn't out of reach, it was within range and she could even touch it.

"I want to talk to you." Her fingers twitched a little in Ace's hand as she had let the earnest words coming out of her mouth. "Alone."

From the corner of her eye, Ace's body shifted slightly and Eli dared to roll her head in his direction and look at him. How stupid she was ! If his previous words had already set her cheeks ablaze, the sight of the wet flame user lying wearily next to her finished to give her a crimson tint, and now, the girl looked like she had engulfed Usopp's entire reserve of Tabasco.

The fabric of his shirt plastered on his heaving chest, its light color making the skin and muscles underneath clearly visible, beads of salty water trailing from his shaggy hair and over his freckled face; yup, he was definitely the sexiest man her green eyes had ever laid on.

That was why Eli was extremely grateful when Sanji planted his heel in Ace's forearm.

"Don't touch her shitty cowboy !" the cook said scornfully while Ace rubbed his arm, hatred burning in his eyes.

A verbal battle ensued until the flame user shot a fire bullet right into the blonde's swirly eyebrow. On the spot, Chopper started running all around, yelling that the young man needed a medical assistance, therefore, Nami made him notice that he was the doctor on board. Of course, Zoro had burst in laughter the very instant the swirly brow was set on fire, making Sanji turn his wrath against him...

To sum up it was a complete chaos.

A wonderful chaos.

A smile on her face, Eli stood up and went over to the railing to wring her soaked tank top. However, her smiling face quickly morphed into dread when she noticed how flimsy the piece of clothing had became.

Obviously, she would have to change.

The ashamed girl covered her perky breasts showing through the drenched fabric and began to walk over to the door of the storage room. Her stiff legs carrying her as quickly yet stealthily as possible, Eli was extremely glad that the little catfight got the attention of all the person present on the little ship.

"Eli, wait."

Maybe she was being too optimistic when she thought that everyone's attention was focused on the wrestle. Apparently, the chronicler's escape didn't go unnoticed for at least on of them. Obviously the very one she couldn't face at the moment.

The girl hugged her chest a little tighter.

"Hey..." An awkward expression on her face, Eli slowly turned around to look at Ace.

Of course he had to be still wet... Didn't he have some unnatural warming abilities to prevent that ? Soon noticing a thin fog of steam emanating from the young man, Eli mentally banged her head against the wall.

"You said you wanted to talk..." Ace cocked a brow when Eli seemed suddenly very interested by the sight of his boots. "Something's wrong ?"

"Sure, sure, I want to talk but we're soaking wet and all..." she trailed off, finding it surprisingly hard to give a tangible explanation to postpone their discussion. Not to mention that she wasn't really good with long running sentences lately.

Ace was now looking at his feet too, apparently trying to figure out what was absorbing the girl's attention. "It's not really important, is it ?"

Oh yes it was, and apparently, Ace had no idea how important it was for him to be as dry as possible, that steamy bastard...

Sex was easy, tortuously easy, and Eli resented Ace for making it so easy. She wanted him to love her. She knew it now and so the girl wanted to talk with the flame user without being distracted by his alluring features for they always titillated her lust of him. This lust so tightly intertwined with her love. Like a parasite, it polluted the integrity of her feelings; it distracted the girl from her real purpose, luring her with heated prospects at the cost of her keen affection.

A few seconds passed, a minute maybe. Zoro and Sanji's quarrel, the sound of the waves gently rocking the Merry, the cawing of the seagulls fishing in the quiet morning, and all the other sounds seemed to quieten as the thudding of blood in Eli's ears increased exponentially.

"We can change if you want-"

"That'd be great !" Eli said, overly relieved about this change of plan and, as Ace turned to leave, the girl found herself rather preoccupied by her personal hygiene.

"Although we should take a shower first." She blinked rapidly. "We, you and I." Her eyes widened. "But not together I mean..."

Oh please, please, make it stop...

"Separately of course..." she finished quietly.

As Eli squeezed her chest tightly, she felt that her heart was throbbing like pneumatic drill inside and so concluded wryly that she was still alive. Mortified, the girl would have wished she wasn't, though.

Ace did not say a thing. Her bangs shielding her eyes, Eli perceived the young man turning around in her direction and standing still beside her. Of course, she would never, ever, dare to look at him and figure out what expression he was wearing. However, she did imagine the possibilities; lewd, mocking, even surprised, none of them were bearable enough.

If she was called 'funny' before, now she should be crowned as Miss Ridicule; the girl who couldn't align four words without ending up making a complete fool of herself.

"You go first," Eli managed to say, stepping away from the doorway.

His feet took a step and stopped right in front of her. Eli stared at his heavy boots trying to make them move with the power of her mind and, at last, a boot lifted again.

"You're cute," Ace said, amusement in his voice.

And he was gone.

The Merry had started its course toward the millennium cumulonimbus, and the waves upon which the little ship was sailing had become increasingly rough. Nami was giving orders to steer in a constant trajectory while Luffy, Usopp and Chopper toyed with the chronicler's south bird. And all the while, Eli was absently looking at the scenery scrolling before her eyes, her nervousness slowly dissipating in the endless ocean.

"Elisabeth~"

Turning her head to the side, Eli couldn't help her eyes from widening at the amazing sight of Sanji gamboling quite gracefully, in slow motion, in her direction. What was that about ? Looking down at her chest, Eli confirmed that her breasts were hidden and, taking a look over her shoulder, she saw no trace of Nami or Robin behind her.

Sanji finally touched the ground in front of the perplex girl. He bowed, a charming smile of his face, and looked deeply through her eyes.

"Why don't you join me for breakfast ?" he offered, his voice extremely suave as he spoke.

"I'd love to !" Eli said cheerfully, before shaking her head rapidly. "Err... I can't. I have to talk to Ace first."

The blonde's charming expression stiffened at the words, causing his nice smile to widen quite frighteningly. Eli tilted her head to the side as she observed the cook's awkward behavior.

"I made you the chocolate cake you love so much," he said through his teeth. "with a lot of creamy layers."

"Really?" Eli's mind filled with chocolate and creamy fantasies, her mouth slightly drooling as she did. Ace loved chocolate too... Ace ! A quick mental slap and the girl came back to her senses. "Nonono... Later okay ?"

A squeal escaped the girl's lips as Sanji briskly grabbed her shoulders. "I'll make you some spiced tea too !" he snarled while something akin to rage was burning in his unique blue orb.

Eli froze in his tight hold, her friend seemed so dangerously eager to feed her and she had no idea why. She saw an oar raising high up above his head and, before she could warn him, a loud thud resonated through the air.

Sanji collapsed on the floor and Eli stared at his lifeless body bewilderingly before shifting her gaze to the assailant. "Wh- What the hell ?" she breathed.

"Don't worry," Nami said, a mischievous smile on her face. The red-head threw the oar away, grabbed Eli's shoulders, turned her around, and pushed the puzzled girl toward the door of the storage room. "Go change now."

Looking over her shoulder, Eli gave her dry and salty hair a scratch and sighed in submission. "... Okay."

Her clothing had dried a little, making her breasts now as unnoticeable as ever, yet the wet fabric was very cold and so the chronicler obediently complied since a change of clothes would probably help her getting more comfortable. Eli obviously needed to be freed from any kind of stress if she wanted to face and actually talk to Ace.

As she entered the storage room and walked over to the bedroom's door, her walk came into a stop when the bathroom opened. A thick fog of steam engulfing into the room, Eli's withered hair and skin softened as the vapor enveloped her body.

Ace had apparently finished his shower and, as the fog slowly dissipated, Eli saw the young man walking out of the bathroom, her eyes opening widely, along with her mouth, seeing that not only he was still very wet and steamy but on top of that a nice smell of soap emanated from his glistening and now shirtless body. Where the hell was his shirt ?

"What the hell !" she found herself yelling angrily while quickly clutching her chest again in a protective manner.

"Huh..." The young man looked around questioningly, searching for the source of the girl's sudden wrath. "What ?"

"You, you..." Eli stammered while pointing an accusative finger at the lecherous young man before jerking her arm back over the breasts. "You do it on purpose, don't you ?"

Ace folded his arms over his temptingly naked chest and leaned against the door's frame. "What's wrong with you ?"

With me ? He's asking what's wrong with ME ? Eli couldn't believe her ears; he had to know, he surely knew, it was impossible for him not to know how attractive he was. Yet, she did not utter a word and the grumbles escaping from behind her clenched jaw as she turned to leave were only making Ace more curious about her behavior.

"Hey Eli-" he called and, as the girl kept marching angrily, Ace started to walk behind her. "Tell me !"

She should have left.

Eli took a deep, sharp breath, swirled around and blasted him with a furious glare. "Would you like it if I was naked and wet all the time ?"

Oh yes, she really should have.

Eli died then.

Purely and simply, she died. She stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating, which caused the blood to stop flowing in her veins. Her face turned white and her skin cold. She was deaf to any sound and her glazed eyes were completely blind.

Cold and soundless darkness were her new surroundings, not that she minded.

"Well... maybe not all the time..." Ace said.

Her lifeless body started a stride in the direction of the stairs. It performed a stiff curve, opened the bedroom's door and climbed down the staircases. Rigid, her every step had the regularity of a metronome. Her body walked straight forward until her forehead hit the wall of her bedroom with a thud, pain spreading through her skull.

"We have to do something about this mouth of yours," Ace said with amusement.

Eli clenched her fists and raised them, along with her desperate face, toward the ceiling, while her mouth agape screamed soundlessly at the multiple meanings of the words.

"Hey," he said tenderly and Eli could perfectly picture the soft smile on his face.

She felt Ace's hand settling on her small shoulder, warmth gradually spreading from where his palm was.

"I'm dirty," she muttered, sixty percent sure she wasn't talking about her hygiene. "Don't touch me..."

"No you're not," Ace said softly and Eli was ninety percent sure he was.

His fingers squeezed her articulation making Eli quietly whine in agony. She felt dirty, and weak, and dirty again. The girl knew that Ace was far from being a saint himself, but he surely wasn't as a perverted as she was at that moment.

Ever since her brutal epiphany, it seemed that the girl couldn't restraint her mind from wandering in the lustful part of her imagination. Whenever she was with Ace, every word, every movement caused sensual images to flicker through her mind and, as the young man was gently holding her shoulder, Eli kept thinking about how thrilled she would feel if he held her just a tiny bit tighter, pushed his bare chest against her back, whispered taunting things in her ear, kissed her neck hungrily...

Eli squeezed her eyes shut and rolled her forehead from a side to another on the wall, the wood warming up under her heated skin.

No matter how pure her purpose was it always ended up soiled as some part of her mind splashed filthy desires over its integrity. She wanted to be pure though; she wanted to be true, she even wanted to be innocent. A small blond girl with big blue eyes who would Ace tell truthfully that she loved him. He would believe her and even love her.

But Eli wasn't innocent, nor small, and telling her feelings so wholeheartedly wasn't something she could do.

Love called for love, and sadly, lust called for lust.

"I didn't mean to do all those things," she finally said in a surprisingly calm manner. "I didn't know what I did and I ruined everything..."

Eli knew she was being vague, but that was how her mind was; hazy and confused, her thoughts kept jostling in her head, one replaced by an other in a tumultuous whirlwind.

"I hope I never hurt you because..." Eli took a breath to prevent emotion slowly swelling inside of her from overwhelming her entirely. "Because I never meant to."

Ace's hold disappeared from her shoulder. "Hurt...?" He cleared his throat. "When...?" His voice was unnaturally quiet. "No, you didn't hurt me, Eli."

Was he nervous all of a sudden ?

Turning around, she peered at his face and the young man wasn't quite looking at her. Eli felt that he was hiding the truth and this suspicion made her frown.

"You can tell me I-"

"That's not what you wanted to talk about," Grasping his mane, the young man gave his head a scratch before turning his gaze into her eyes. "was it ?"

"No- But I... I..." Eli found herself at a loss for words. She was asking him to be honest when she wasn't particularly truthful either. Her head drooped and her throat tightened within the grasp of her guilt.

A dark mist covered her gradually, all of her hopes and strength dispersed and Eli started to feel it again, her fear. It crept through the thick fog; she could feel its moves all around her. Looming shadows of fear encaging her, the girl was losing herself. What did she want to say ? What was her purpose ?

The hope of a new beginning. Start again, fresh and pure.

"I just.. I just..." Her insides quivered and whined as her dread swelled up from her stomach, it soon touched her heart making its frantic race more and more painful. "I just want to go back..."

A new beginning to try again. To give him love and get his. Erase the lust and wash her soul anew.

"No."

A fresh stab horror in her anxiety. That's how Ace's refusal felt. He was being cold again, cold and harsh, and Eli was bleeding from the inside, her fears ferociously ripping her frail hopes to shreds.

"I don't want to be your friend," he said, making Eli squeeze herself shut as if to ignore the excruciating words. "I want more, Eli... I want to be so much more."

... What ?

to be continued

What ? What the hell ? What the fuck ? More what ? More more ? Aahhhhh !

XD

I just LOVE this chapter.
The first part with the hands... so sweet ('This Is Your Song' by Ronan Keating).
And then Eli, haha... Oh and Sanji !

Well my opinion isn't really important. Give me yours ;D

An other topic now.
I'd like to start a new sidefic and I would need your suggestions (maybe opinions too ?).
Go to my blog (link on my profile) to have all the details.

See you soon~