This new story is once again a compilation of different shorter stories, but this time with a darker theme!

Main focus will be the Whitebeard Pirates' most handsome duo: Marco and Ace! (Not like these two aren't already the main focus in my other stories hahha)

There could be happy endings and that the general theme is still darker so it deserve to be in here. But be prepared for also no happy endings.
I will be sure to give major warnings in the begining, but do expect "angst" and "hurt" to be a general theme throughout this whole compilation thing.

Whatever you're about to read, this all started with the prompt "Fight" from week 4 of the February One Piece event oplovelikeyou is holding (you can find them on twitter), it is a lovely event for the Valentines-month, and while I started writing this for that... I can't submit this anymore... I took a wrong turn once I started Marco's scene...

WARNINGS
Major character death (while not specefically said that he's dead, it's kind of implied)
Blood and injury
Angst and tragedy

Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

Ace

He knew something was wrong with him, he had been passing it off as being tired, but he can't anymore. It's been over a month since he's moved in with Marco after years of dating, and he's still passing out.

Yes, I, Portgas D. Ace, since about 3,5 weeks ago, have been passing out at random times throughout the day. It started with me suddenly waking up on the coach or a chair, not knowing I had even fallen asleep. It then went on into suddenly feeling extremely lethargic and having to sit down before once again, a while later, waking up not knowing I had passed out.
I had told Marco about it, but just like me, he thought it was maybe the strain of moving so much furniture and stuff from their separate apartments to their new house, plus also sleeping in a new bed and unknown environment, it could all lead to more sleepless night and thus being more tired.

However, a month later and it is only getting worse. The fainting, and yes at some point I started not calling it 'falling asleep' anymore, started happening more and more. And it started happening while I was in the middle of tasks too, active tasks even. Last week I fell asleep while working and it was a close call, he still flinches when thinking back of it! He had been inspecting his teams work, more specifically the caulking around some windows at the outside of a building. Deeming it to be good he had made his way back to an open window entrance and was stepping back inside the building when he suddenly felt the pull of exhaustion.
He was sure he had gone deadly pale in an instant and looked like he had seen death, because before he could do something he was already falling. He was lucky he followed all safety regulations and was thus connected to a spring-loaded harness that pulled him towards the building, making him drop dead on the floor instead of down the open air. Oh and did he say where he was working exactly? Not a normal house no, nope, he was on the 12th floor of a skyscraper! If it had happened even a second earlier, he wouldn't have been pulled inside and would have been dangling about 30 meters above the ground outside the building! His only hope would have been that his harness would hold him up long enough for help to come. I should have gone to the doctors at this point, but I was still in denial and thinking the tiredness would go away with some more rest.

I didn't think it was possible, but the attacks got worse... it is my day off today and I was running on the treadmill after getting up and... I felt the usual tiredness washing over me, I wanted to get off the machine to sit down, but I couldn't. I couldn't! I was paralysed, I couldn't move myself, not my arms, not my legs, nothing! I was helpless in my whole body, in my own house, while the belt of the treadmill kept moving but I wasn't. Reaching the end, I witnessed myself falling off the machine, see the floor coming closer. My head smacked against it and it hurt, it hurt so bad, but I still couldn't move. I could feel liquid, probably blood, run out of my nose, BUT I STILL COULDN'T MOVE!
I laid there by myself, blood pooling and drenching half my face, unable to do anything. It was only a few minutes, but it felt like hours before I finally started getting some feelings in my limbs again and I was able to get up into a sitting position.
It was terrifying, I was shaking all over and my head hurt. It took me another few minutes to get my breathing and heartrate under control before I could take care of my nose, clean up, and take some painkillers. By some luck my nose wasn't broken but it would definitely bruise later on.

It was Thursday today, which meant laundry day, it was my turn this time and a load of wash was already in the dryer and the washing machine, already having put them in before he started his run so he could put in more once his jog was done.
By now the dryer was probably ready and I could start ironing. But I didn't dare too, I was still shaky and I was afraid I would get paralysed again and with an iron that gets so hot... I didn't want to imagine what would happen if it were to fall down on me if I went down again. The headache I still had also didn't reassure me either.
So instead of laundry, I sat on the couch with my laptop, making sure to keep the lights off since they made the headache worse, using the rest of the day to search online for whatever could be wrong with me, making a list of all symptoms that I've seen in myself over the last weeks, this wasn't just exhaustion anymore.

When evening came, I was still a bit shaken up, not only from the experience, but also from all the terrible, terrible results the internet searches had given me, many untreatable disease and conditions. I knew I shouldn't trust the internet on what I had, but...

Noticing the time, I knew it was almost time for Marco to come home and decided to end my search for now and get started on some dinner. I started closing all the internet tabs while thinking of what I should cook today. Not realising that I wouldn't even get a chance to start.

Marco

Work had sucked, this was the shitiest day ever! And yes, he will use this vulgar language because:
How difficult is it for people to just do their own job!? Why was he the one getting yelled at and barked at for not having checked a document when the person who needed to deliver it to him hadn't even delivered it?

Hell, he only realised 5 minutes into the yelling what his supervisor was yelling about because the very important document that he had apparently needed to check, which no one had informed him of, wasn't even a document from his department!
And when he finally got a word in between and tried to tell the man he didn't even know about the existence of this document, that no one had told him or brought him anything either. The man still blamed him because the other worker was 'one of his best' and wouldn't forget this so it was clearly Marco himself who had tried to get out of work, acting like he forgot.

IT WASN'T SOMETHING FROM HIS DEPARTMENT!

Even if he had gotten the document the most he would have been able to do was a spell-check, A SPELL-CHECK, something your own computer can do for you even in this day and age! They had even made him stay late to check it, but guess what? 2 hours after his shift had ended, and he was still waiting for said document, they called him and let them know that they had just sent it away as it was, they didn't have time for useless checks?!
He really wanted to quit this job, he knew he could go higher, do better, but they had just bought a house, he couldn't take the risk right now to have no pay for who knows how long.

This was the absolute worst day and he was so ready for it to be done and just be home and watch a movie while cuddling his adorable boyfriend. That freckled smile could make all of his trouble's melt away, he couldn't wait to be greeted by it when he got home, and since a month ago, it was really their own forever home.

While time had seemed to wind backwards instead of forward, he was finally arriving at their front door and let out a sigh of relieve. He was home now and could finally have some well-deserved rest.
He would greet his lovely boyfriend, who was probably working on dinner by now, then he would put away his stuff, quickly steam a suit for tomorrow's meeting before they could enjoy dinner together. Afterwards, to end the day, they could look through the movies they had bought together yesterday, see if anything catches their eye and just relish in each other's present on the coach.

"I'm home-yoi!" he called out after entering the house.
There was no reaction, which was weird, if Ace was home before him, he always came running when he entered to jump him and give him a kiss. He quietly took off his shoes and jacket, listening for any movement of his boyfriend coming, he had to be alert since the brunette would quit literally jump him so he had to be ready to catch him. But it never came.

"Ace?"

… There was still no reaction, and actually, there was no sound to be heard, at all. Opening the first door he entered the kitchen, looking around for a sign of live, but there wasn't even a sign of it having been used in the last hours. It was getting weirder, Ace always started cooking or prepared a sandwich or something if he worked this late, mostly it was because he would get hungry himself but as a nice boyfriend, he made sure to make enough to eat again with Marco too when he got home.

"Ace-yoi, are you home?"

For a moment he thought that maybe Ace was also working late for some reason, it didn't happen often but it wasn't unheard of, but then he remembered that his lover had the day off today. Marco knew that Ace had been fainting more and more and his work had noticed and thus granted him today and tomorrow off so he had extended weekend to rest up. They really needed to go to a doctor if Ace's condition didn't better after this. … But he could think of this later, first he had to find the cause of his rising concern.

Upon further inspection he saw that the whole house was dark, not a sign of life to be seen... -Maybe he had gone out? Gotten a call from some friends?- Checking his phone he saw there were no new messages telling him of such things. -Maybe he left a note?- With that thought he made his way to the living room.

If Ace left around the time that Marco's work was done, his boyfriend wouldn't text him, afraid that he would be driving and 'What if you get spooked by the message and get distracted Marco! I don't want you to get into an accident!'. The memory brought a small smile to his face, he couldn't have found a better lover and he wanted to be able to change that into fiancé soon too, not that Ace knew of that yet.
Either way, if he left when his work was done, Ace would leave a message on the notepad they had hanging on the wall in the living room, the whole reason he was making his way over there.

He stepped into the living room and reached for the light-switch, only to be stopped by the sudden feeling of wetness on his foot, he automatically lifted his foot and even with only the dim lights from the streetlights shining through the window, could see that the underside of his sock was drenched in some kind of liquid.

"Did Ace spill water before he left or something-yoi?"

Shaking his head he put down his foot and turned on the light before making his way over to the notepad on the wall not far from him, he would clean the water in a second, they had tiled floor now so it wouldn't damage anything to leave it a minute longer.

"Huh?" there's no note written on the paper, no message or silly drawing telling him Ace went out. "Ace, where are you?"

Being out of ideas he grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and called his lover's number. While waiting for it to connect he turned around to go grab some tissues to clean up the spill, and get clean socks too, drenched socks feel so ikky.

"Wha-aaa?" He almost dropped his phone to the ground when he had looked towards his uncomfortable socks. His socks were not drenched by water, but by some ticker red liquid, it also pooling around his feet. Raising his eyes he could see how red footprints made their way over to where he was standing right now all the way from the living-room-door.

"What the hell is-"

~I have a pen! I have pineapple! HAH Pineapple-Pen!~

The sudden sound of Ace's obnoxious ringtone made him flinch. His boyfriend refuses to change it because it somehow makes Ace think of him and makes him laugh every time. But there was no sound of laugher to follow the stupid song this time.

The only thing that was coming from the area of the sound... was blood... blood flowing down their new floor tiles. A stream was visible from the living room door, where Marco had stepped in, all the way towards their seating area before it disappeared behind the couch.

~HAH Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen~

That stupid song was still blaring through the house, but Marco could barely hear it over it sound of ringing in his ears. "A-Ace-yoi? You there?"
He took slow and careful steps towards the noise, wishing his mind would stop playing all worst scenarios on repeat in his head. He would just walk past the couch and see his lovely boyfriend laying down in the couch, having falling asleep and having spilled a jug of some kind of juice. Yea, that's what he will see, nothing else, everything was fine.

But nothing was fine. The moment he could see behind the couch was the moment all breath left him.
Ace was facing the ceiling, laying down on the ground next to a shattered coffee table, surrounded by hundreds of glass particles. Each glass particle was reflecting light on Ace's body and the floor around him, he looked so peaceful, and it would have been an absolutely stunning sight, a sight Marco would have been able to look at for hours... if not for the blood pooling in between all the glass, making way for an eerie red hue. And there was so much, so much more blood than Marco even thought was held in one human body.

~CLICK~

He dropped his phone in the red stream beneath him and ran towards his freckled lover before falling down next to him, cradling his face in his hands, not caring about his cloth or anything getting stained red within seconds.

~Hello to whoever is calling me! I am unavailable right now, a big chance I am eating haha! Please leave a message once you hear a beep and I'll call ba- Aw damn I forgot to say my name, how do I start anew... never mind I'll just say it now... You're speaking to-~

"ACEEEEEEEEE!"

Is he dead, is he not dead, I don't know hahahahhah
I can't believe I may have killed Ace off myself...
No matter how you take it, I have marked it as 'Major Character Death' just to be safe and since I am not planning on expanding this specific story, we'll never know if he somehow lives mwhahahhahahah.

BUT! After talking with a dear friend, I am going to be making some kind of alternative version of this, and don't worry, Ace shall live in this one.

Song of Ace his phone: PPAP by PIKOTARO

Once again, if anyone has any Ideas for stories themselves, stuff they want to see, don't hesitate to tell me! I'll do my best to make something!