Sup!
I decided that I'll add a 'song of the chapter' basically because I want to. This chapter's song is The Whole World Is Watching by Within Temptation.
Beta'ed by aqua-empress, despite all odds. Giant thank you to you, dear ^_^
Disclaimer: not mine and won't ever be... Dang it, I don't even own the initial plot... :(
Wednesday morning didn't turn out the way Ace expected it to turn out. First and foremost, he underestimated his ability to sleep through anything. Second thing he underestimated was Luffy. Ace honestly didn't expect his brother to use him as a trampoline to wake him up. Third thing was also Luffy. The mysterious processes in his brother's head will forever be unexplored, because Ace couldn't fathom why the hell did Luffy bring sempai to Ace's room and allowed him to watch a show called 'Wake Ace Up In The Morning'.
When Ace finally managed to throw his brother off of the bed, it was already too late to do anything which could save his name. Or, rather, nothing he would ever do from now on will ever restore it. To say that noticing Marco-sempai by the door was embarrassing was to say nothing. Compared to this yesterday's fiasco at the pizzeria was small and insignificant.
"S-sempai…" Ace stammered, beet-red in the face.
"Morning," said Marco casually. "We don't have much time, so get dressed. I'll wait for you downstairs."
Wide awake for the first time in his life, Ace quickly got out of the bed and rushed around, putting his clothes on. Ace was lucky he prepared everything in the evening, so his bags were already packed and his uniform was ready to wear. All in all Ace managed get himself ready in about five minutes, which was a first for him, but considering the circumstances Ace really wished it wasn't.
He ran down the stairs, dumped his bags in front of the door, and went to the kitchen. True enough, there was Marco-sempai, sitting on a chair and eyeing the coffee Luffy made with interest. Luffy himself was nowhere to be seen, but, judging by the sounds upstairs, Ace could determine that he couldn't find his bag again.
"Did you eat breakfast, sempai?" Ace asked, opening the fridge.
"No," Marco replied simply, studying the fridge intently.
Ace took a step back and examined the fridge but he didn't see anything wrong with it, nor did he see anything dirty on it, so he just shrugged and went for the freezer. There he had pancakes he froze just for such an occasion, namely when he didn't have the time to make breakfast. Now all he had to do was to heat them up in a microwave and they were good to go. He just needed to check something.
"Do you eat pancakes, sempai? They are homemade, not from the shop, I just stored them for when I don't have the time to make breakfast," Ace explained, getting the container out of the freezer.
"Sure thing," Marco answered, still examining the fridge. "Say, why do you have a lock on your fridge?"
"That is to keep the food safe from Luffy," Ace answered getting the plates ready.
"Are you starving your brother?"
That brought a wave of uncontrollable laughter over Ace. Starve Luffy? Was that even possible?
"Ace! Where's my bag?" Luffy yelled from upstairs.
"Have you checked under the bed?" Ace yelled back, dividing pancakes between two plates.
"It's not there!" Luffy informed after a moment.
"Did you look in the living room?"
"Not yet!"
The whole house seemed to shake, as Luffy rolled down the stairs, sounding like a herd of elephants. Something crashed in the living room (Ace suspected that Luffy stumbled over something and fell) and then he yelled:
"It's not here either!"
"Sempai, can you please look under the table? Can you see a bag there?" Ace asked, putting the first portion of pancaked in the micro.
"Yeah, it's here," Marco said, after checking under the table.
"Luffy, it's here!"
"Haaaaai!"
While the first portion was heating up, Ace took out some jam and syrup to eat with pancakes, orange juice, milk and some meat to keep Luffy at bay. Container with meat got an odd look from sempai, but he said nothing, so Ace continued preparing breakfast. He poured a cup of coffee for himself and sempai, leaving place for milk, in case sempai didn't drink it black. Ace also took out sugar, because he would need it anyway, and three glasses for the orange juice. Luffy trotted into the kitchen at the same time as he put coffee in front of sempai, earning a happy 'thank you'.
"Ace, breakfast!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly.
Ace turned around and saw Luffy sit right by Marco's side. Fortunately, he knew exactly what that meant.
"Luffy, move away from sempai," Ace said strictly.
"It's okay, I don't mind," Marco said, waving his hand dismissingly.
"This is for your own good," Ace assured. "Luffy, move away and sit over there," he pointed to a chair as far away from sempai as possible.
"Eeeh? But he's okay with it!" Luffy whined.
"I don't think it's needed," Marco said at the same time.
"Luffy, sempai is not going to share his food with you, so move away and sit over there," Ace pointed to the far away chair again.
"You're not going to share with me?" Luffy looked at Marco as if he, at the very least, admitted of murdering his beloved grandma.
"No, he's not, so go sit over there. If I see you trying to steal sempai's food, you won't get any meat today."
"Not fair!" Luffy whined, but moved away to sit where Ace wanted him to sit.
The first portion of pancakes was ready, so Ace took it out and put in front of Marco, telling Luffy to get the cutlery. Ace turned away for a moment to put Luffy's portion in the microwave and when he turned around again, to keep an eye on Luffy, he barely made it.
"Luffy, meat!"
Luffy's head jerked up at the same time as his hand retreated from sempai's plate. Sempai was naïvely pouring some juice for them. Luffy eyed the container in Ace's hands with an attention of a german shepherd.
"Go sit over there, Luffy," Ace pointed where again, this time a bit of fried meat in his hand.
Luffy did what he was told to do obediently, eyes trained on the meat in Ace's hand. Ace suddenly felt very awkward – his friends knew Luffy well enough to know that this was needed, if there were guests, but they were also good at protecting their own food. Marco-sempai was a completely new person to their family dynamics and Ace didn't even want to imagine how all this looked to him.
Ace snapped back to reality and noticed that while he was spaced out he lost Luffy's attention, who was now soundlessly moving in Marco's direction.
"Luffy, catch!"
Both Luffy and Marco looked at him, surprised. Luffy jumped up and caught the meat with his mouth, as Marco stared at him – he didn't notice when the boy got so close to him.
Lucky for all three of them Luffy's pancakes were done in a second, so Ace put some meat from the container on them (Marco frowned at that) and put them where Luffy was supposed to sit. Then, moving as quickly, as he could, Ace prepared three sandwiches for himself. It took Luffy all of a thirty seconds to finish twenty pancakes and Ace was proud to have finished making his sandwiches by that time.
"Sempai, you should eat, because we have to go soon," Ace said, noticing that Marco was spacing out. "Luffy, meat!" he threw another piece of meat at Luffy, to keep him away from the easy target.
"Right," Marco said and focused on his own food.
In the end Ace had to sacrifice one and a half sandwich in order to let his sempai to eat in peace. When Luffy protested the fact that he didn't get a bento (Ace didn't have time to prepare them yesterday), Ace had to drag his brother out of the kitchen, telling him to get one at Nami's. They made an arrangement yesterday – since Ace didn't trust Luffy to lock the house, they had to go out at the same time. Thus Luffy was supposed to go to Nami and walk with her to school later.
When they finally got out of the house, Ace could finally exhale. Luffy wasn't a difficult person normally, but today, for whatever reason, he decided to argue and Ace was now sporting a headache. Explaining things to Luffy was one of his least favourite things to do. He loved his brother, he really did, but Ace wasn't blessed with the divine patience Sabo possessed.
"I am so sorry about all this," Ace said tiredly, when he and Marco were on the bus stop; Luffy didn't need to take the bus to get to Nami, so he separated from them right after they left the house.
"It's alright, I kind of forced myself on you two," sempai said with a small smile. "Do you live by yourselves?"
"Most of the time – yeah, gramps spends all the time at his marine base and only comes here on big holidays or when he gets a call from school. Because he's absent a lot, he arranged Makino to come a couple times a week to clean and do some chores," Ace replied, rubbing his temple – the headache was receding slowly with a lack of the stimulus, namely Luffy.
Sempai just hummed, showing that he understood. They waited for the bus in silence, Ace was busy marvelling about the fact that this was the first time in his life that he got up and wasn't sleepy at all. Although he suspected that the reason for that was Marco-sempai. Ace fought the urge to face-palm, or just curl under the bench and die from embarrassment. If he counted the things he did since Monday, it was a miracle that sempai didn't run away when he spotted him. Firstly, Ace run sempai over and didn't even apologise properly. Secondly, there was that thing at the dojo, when he completely lost control and attacked sempai. Thirdly, he run sempai over (AGAIN!) on Tuesday and he was lucky that he didn't carry a cup of coffee. Fourthly, there was his epic failure at the pizzeria – was it so difficult to keep his manners and eat like normal human being? No, it wasn't and Ace knew that he could do that on special occasions, but yesterday he didn't seem to think about such a minor thing. And, finally, this morning. Why he was so dead set on humiliating himself in front of sempai was something Ace could not fathom.
The bus pulled over and Ace surfaced from all his dark thoughts that threatened to drown him. His challenge of the day would be to not to humiliate himself even more than he already did. Although, somehow, he didn't believe that he would be able to do that – hell, he'll probably run into sempai after the first lesson on his way to cafeteria for coffee.
Ace walked into the bus, which was almost empty. 'Right, who'd actually go somewhere at 5:40…' Ace thought, taking a place by the window. Sempai took one behind him, because Ace was an idiot. He immediately wanted to bang his head against the seat in front of him – by force of habit he put his bags on the sit next to him and now it was already too late to take them away.
Suddenly Ace felt a familiar shiver and his last thought before he passed out was 'Out of all places it just had to be the bus…' When he came around, he wasn't on the bus anymore. He was sitting at the bus stop by the school. Right in front of him was Marco-sempai, who looked thoughtful, as he calculated something in his mind. Sempai's gaze wandered between Ace, his bags and Sempai's own bags, apparently trying to figure out how to transport everything to school without looking like a packing mule.
"Good, you're awake," sempai noted, smiling.
"I'm sorry," Ace muttered, rubbing his face. What the hell happened to 'don't humiliate yourself anymore'?
"You don't need to apologise, it's not like it was your fault," sempai said kindly.
Ace looked at him with suspicion. This was awfully kind, coming from Marco-sempai. Normally he was blunt and much less forgiving. Then Ace blinked and realised – they were supposed to be dating this week. It explained a lot – like, for example, why sempai was so nice and forgiving. When people dated, they often closed their eyes on whatever faults their partners were showing. Like, for example, falling asleep on the bus or running them over two days in a row.
.
(^_^)
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Marco woke up at what could only be called a 'butt-crack of dawn'. It was still dark outside and the clock showed 3:50 in the morning. What the fuck was wrong with his alarm? He turned on the lamp he had by his bed and noticed something written on his hand. After a closer look and some blinking, Marco could finally read 'wake Ace up 4:45'.
"Fuck damn it…" Marco groaned and sighed.
It took about twenty minutes to get to Ace's by foot – there were no buses at this time of the day. All the normal people were in their beds, sleeping soundly. Marco didn't even think about breakfast – there was no way he'd force something down his throat this early in the morning.
Yesterday, for some reason, he thought that picking Ace up would be a great idea. He seriously doubted that now. It was a terrible idea. Still, he had to do that, because the coach moved the practice and, as a captain, Marco had to be sure that no one was skipping training. Suddenly he had this idea about calling coach and telling him to pick Ace up instead of Marco. That way he'd be able to sleep another hour.
Marco sighed and dragged himself out of bed, brushing all ideas about how to stay in bed away. He got himself into this mess, he'd get out of it by himself, meaning that he'd go to the bathroom and brush his teeth and get dressed and go get Ace.
It didn't take long for Marco to get ready, he had everything prepared yesterday evening, right after he managed to convince his brothers to leave him alone. Sometimes Marco hated having a family full of nosy brothers, who just had to squeeze every drop of information out of him. This time Marco managed to get away with only telling that he had to pick his kouhai up for training. Thatch, being his nosy self, wanted more information, but Pops stepped in and told them to let Marco go to bed.
Moving silently down the stairs, Marco yawned endlessly. This was way, WAY, too early for him to be awake. He tried to make as little noise as possible, but on the second floor he stepped on something small and really painful. Had the inhabitants of the house been at least five years younger, Marco would have thought it was a piece of Lego. He kicked the thing away angrily (it hurt a lot to step on it) and continued down the stairs.
On the first stair, he stepped on several of those things. Marco carefully set his other foot down, testing his hypothesis. There was a lot of those small things. Just to be sure, he bent down and picked one of them. Yup, living in a house full of nosy brothers willing to prank him, was challenging. Especially when it was four in the morning and pitch black on the stairs.
Sighing and moving slowly, Marco walked down the stairs. Every single stair was covered with a lot of Lego-pieces and Marco rolled his eyes, happy that he won't be there at quarter to six, when Pops would go to the kitchen to start the coffee. To say that Pops won't be happy was to say nothing. Marco was sure that whoever thought about pranking him will get what he deserved.
It was chilly outside, but that was to be expected. He stopped for a second, remembering the way he looked up yesterday, turned in the needed direction and started walking. Marco shivered and picked up his pace in hope that he'd warm up in a couple of minutes.
All in all, Marco knew the way, he's been in that neighbourhood before, he just didn't know that Ace lived there. Ace's house was in the nicer part of the East Blue district called Foosha Village. Houses there cost a lot compared to the rest of the district, so only those who were well off lived there. Still, even Foosha Village seemed cheap compared to Sabaody. There the prices were sky-high and only few people could afford to live there. The much-discussed Mariejois High was located there. Sabaody was borderline gated community, just minus the walls. The guards were there and quite a lot of them, if you believed the papers.
Thankfully, there weren't any guards around Foosha Village, because if there were – Marco would have never gotten on the territory. Nobody would have believed that Marco was supposed to wake somebody up at this Godforsaken hour. It took him some time to find the right house since there were houses two and four and then the street ended. On the other side of the street were all the right numbers, but on the even side of the street were only numbers two and four. That was the problem, considering that he had to find the house with a number eight on it.
After five minutes of circling around, Marco decided to try to call Ace. He had to dial Ace two times, because nobody answered on the first one.
"'llo?" slurred somebody, who certainly wasn't Ace.
"Um…" Marco was lost for a moment and looked at the display, in case he called the wrong number, but Ace's name lit up on the screen. "I am supposed to pick Ace up, but I can't find the house…"
Nobody answered, but Marco heard a bang, as if somebody fell out of the bed. He heard footsteps and then he had to move the phone away from his ear, because it sounded like an earthquake. After that there were some more footsteps and a door opening. Marco waited, looking around curiously – he wanted to know what he missed. He certainly didn't expect somebody to show up from behind the bushes in the end of the road. Neither did he expect that someone to wear nothing but a pair of sleeping shorts. Literally. Not even shoes. And he certainly didn't expect that someone to come up to him and drag him in the direction of bushes without saying a word.
That someone was Ace's brother undoubtedly – Marco recognised him from both 'The Most Wanted List' and the Criminal pictures. The boy yawned non-stop as he dragged Marco to the small path hidden behind the bushes. That path led them to another street where were houses with even numbers, including the much needed number eight. Speaking of which, the door to the house was wide open, inviting all and anyone inside.
Marco allowed Ace's brother to drag him into the house, stopping for a moment by the door and allowing Marco to close the door, take off his shoes and leave his bags. Then he was dragged up the stairs, past the room with an open door (Marco saw an unmade bed and guessed it was brother's room) and into a room beside that one.
There, on a king-size bed, sprawled across it on his stomach, was Ace. Sleeping soundly. It kind of baffled Marco, since that earthquake should have woken the dead. What happened next didn't fit into Marco's understanding of the world. Personally, if somebody did that to him, he would have been dead within a couple of seconds. Ace's brother left Marco by the door, climbed up on the bed and started jumping on it, chanting 'Wake up!' Marco's eyebrow twitched, as he tried to refrain from catching the boy and throwing him out of the room. This was downright inhumane way to wake somebody up.
"Luffy, get the fuck off!" Ace finally growled and pushed his brother off of the bed. The boy laughed loudly and left the room, leaving them alone in the room. Marco honestly tried not to stare at half-naked Ace who sat on the bed, his lower half covered by blanket. "S-sempai…" Ace stammered, finally noticing Marco by the door.
"Morning," said Marco, trying to sound casual. He had to get out of this room, because the id (1) told him to forget the training and join Ace on that undoubtedly comfortable bed. "We don't have much time, so get dressed. I'll wait for you downstairs," he managed to say and decided to leave the room, before it was too late.
He went downstairs and went to the kitchen he saw on his way in. There he found Luffy, still in his pyjama shorts, preparing coffee.
"Do you always wake your brother up like that?" Marco just had to ask. Plus he needed to get his mind away from the scenarios his imagination started to create.
"Yup," the boy answered happily, starting the coffee-maker and trotting out of the kitchen.
Marco followed him with his eyes, feeling bad for poor Ace. Maybe he should have woken Ace up himself… 'No, bad idea,' Marco decided, realising that if he got on that bed, there was very slim chance of him actually leaving it. To distract himself, Marco looked around the kitchen.
The kitchen was approximately the same size as the kitchen in Whitebeard's house, not too big and not too small. Right in the middle of it was a 'working area', but judging by chairs around it, it was used as a table. Table by the window was used as dumping ground for newspapers. The cupboards were dark green colour, contrasting nicely against walls painted warm yellow, kind of like butter.
Marco took one of the chairs by the working area, hoping to force himself on some coffee, at the very least. He heard somebody run down the stairs, which actually sounded like somebody ran down the stairs and not like an earthquake. In a moment Ace walked into the kitchen hurriedly and went directly for the fridge. Marco, who didn't pay the fridge any mind before, stared at the fridge with wide eyes. Was that a lock on the fridge?
"Did you eat breakfast, sempai?" Ace asked, opening the fridge.
"No," Marco replied, completely baffled. There was a lock on the fridge! Not something simple, it was an electronic lock, which needed both password and a key. It had to be custom-made, for sure.
Noticing Marco's staring, Ace took a step back and looked at the fridge in confusion. Apparently, he didn't find anything weird, so he just shrugged and went on with whatever he was doing. Marco kept staring at the lock, trying to add two and two. There was a lock on the fridge!
"Do you eat pancakes, sempai? They are homemade, not from the shop, I just stored them for when I don't have the time to make breakfast," Ace asked, while Marco tried to make sense of the lock.
"Sure thing," he said and just had to ask. "Say, why do you have a lock on your fridge?"
"That is to keep the food safe from Luffy," Ace answered as if it was the most common thing to do – to have a lock on the fridge to not to let your younger brother get some food.
"Are you starving your brother?"
Marco could not have foreseen that kind of reaction. Was his question that funny or did he not know the named brother well enough? After some consideration Marco decided that he didn't know them enough. Meanwhile, brothers had a loud conversation about a lost bag. The way Ace sounded, he could guess that they had this conversation every single morning.
"Did you look in the living room?" Ace asked; Marco looked at the two plates with pancakes with worry – somebody wasn't going to get any. Maybe Ace did starve his brother… Or maybe it was Marco who wasn't going to get any.
"Not yet!" came a reply and Marco tensed because the earthquake started again. Or, rather, Ace's brother stomped down the stairs, sounding like a mammoth. After that came a loud crash from what seemed to be a living room and another yell:
"It's not here either!"
"Sempai, can you please look under the table? Can you see a bag there?" Ace asked and Marco turned around to look.
"Yeah, it's here," he confirmed, when he noted a bag right under the dumping ground for newspapers. While he checked, the first part of pancakes went into the microwave. Marco began to worry – somebody, most likely him, wasn't getting breakfast.
"Luffy, it's here!" Ace yelled, startling Marco.
"Haaaaai!"
While Marco was thinking, Ace took out some more stuff from the fridge. Stuff included a container labelled 'MEAT'. Did he plan to feed Marco that? Or what was meat even for? Wasn't this a breakfast? Shaking his head and deciding to let it turn out the way it was going to turn out, Marco almost missed the moment Ace placed a cup full of coffee in front of him.
"Thank you," he said genuinely, he needed some coffee badly. Marco helped himself to some sugar and considered adding milk, but forgot about it the moment Ace's brother sat down next to him. Right next to him. If he sat any closer, he would have sat in Marco's lap. One thing Marco didn't like was other people invading his personal space. He liked his bubble and Ace's brother was invading it at the moment. Marco wanted to say something, but decided against it – this wasn't his house and if Ace's brother wanted to sit next to him, he should just let the boy invade his bubble.
"Ace, breakfast!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly.
"Luffy, move away from sempai," Ace said strictly the second he saw his brother close to him.
"It's okay, I don't mind," Marco went against every cell in his body in order to say that.
"This is for your own good. Luffy, move away and sit over there," Ace pointed to a chair as far away from Marco as possible. Now Marco felt slightly offended and decided to keep the boy close to him, despite the uncomfortable feeling.
"Eeeh? But he's okay with it!" Luffy whined.
"I don't think it's needed," he said in spite of himself.
"Luffy, sempai is not going to share his food with you, so move away and sit over there," Ace pointed to the far away chair again. Marco blinked – now he was sure that someone wasn't going to get food, probably Ace's brother. This was way too confusing for him.
"You're not going to share with me?" the boy stared at Marco, looking shocked and hurt. Something was off here. He just had to figure out what.
"No, he's not, so go sit over there. If I see you trying to steal sempai's food, you won't get any meat today," Ace said with strict voice.
"Not fair!" Luffy whined, but moved and Marco instantly felt relieved. There were only a handful of people who could invade his personal bubble without him being hyper-aware of them.
The first portion of pancakes was done, so Marco felt both relieved and confused, when it ended up in front of him. Realising that he should probably help out, Marco stood up and started pouring juice in three glasses. At the same time Ace put in the second portion and commanded his brother to get the cutlery. Marco almost spilled the juice, when he heard Ace suddenly exclaim:
"Luffy, meat!"
Marco turned to look at the boy only to find him right over his plate. Marco blinked – he had no idea when Luffy got there and why he didn't hear anything.
"Go sit over there, Luffy," Ace pointed where again, this time a bit of fried meat in his hand.
Marco eyed the meat suspiciously. If it wasn't weird before, it certainly was now. Remembering how it ended when he jumped to conclusions, Marco decided to keep his face straight and look normally, until he had more information at hand.
Luffy went back to sitting far away from Marco and Marco continued pouring juice. He was lucky he already sat on his chair and didn't hold anything that could be spilled, because he was completely caught off guard when Ace exclaimed again:
"Luffy, catch!"
Marco looked at Ace in surprise and then at Luffy, who jumped up and caught a bit of meat with his mouth. Marco just stared at the boy, Ace's words about him being a ninja came to mind directly – normally he could feel when people came close to him, even if they tried to sneak up on him. The boy was scary – Marco didn't feel a thing, nothing at all. If this was a combat situation, he would not have noticed the boy until it was too late.
The microwave dinged again and Marco didn't know where to look – on Luffy, who inhaled the pancakes, or Ace, who was moving around with astounding speed. He was a bit surprised (again) by the meat on pancakes, but he was even more surprised when those pancakes went to Luffy – he eliminated the version of Ace not getting any pancakes by default, because he thought he knew his kouhai well enough when it came to food. Apparently, he didn't, because not only did he not get any pancakes, he barely got any breakfast at all. One and a half sandwiches weren't enough to survive the training on and Marco felt a bit guilty about his own content stomach. He also understood now, why Ace laughed when he asked if Ace starved brother. By the looks of if, Ace would have been the one starved if they didn't have the lock on the fridge.
After the breakfast Marco got some more information to work with - he witnessed an argument between brothers. If it was one of his own brothers who started this kind of argument, he would have kicked the shit out of them after a minute. Unlike Marco, Ace was a saint – he did his best to explain everything thoroughly to Luffy, who turned out to be unbelievably dense. After two minutes Marco changed his mind – he would not have kicked the shit out of the person who argued with him like that. He would have simply called for an ambulance and submitted himself to the psych ward. When Ace actually got through to Luffy, Marco nodded to himself – yup, Ace was definitely a saint.
(1) the id - reference to Freud's structural model of the psyche. It consists of id, ego and super-ego. Think about cartoons, when a devil and an angel popps up on a character's shoulder. Id is that devil, ego is the character and super-ego is the angel.
Yeah... Personally, I felt that the ending was hasty and slurred, but beta said it was fine (probably because she's too nice). Anyways, you don't need to tell me about it, because I already know that.
Thanks a lot for reviews, favourites and follows. *bows*
Hope to see you soon,
Rhe.