Title: Failed Initiation Chapter 5/6

Words: 3700

Notes: I just... yeah. See the end notes. XD

Failed Initiation 5/6

Ace calmed down fairly quickly and Marco let him pull away – not far, just enough to separate them and allow him a chance to regain his composure. He watched the teen scrub at his face with both hands, muttering something under his breath. "What?"

"Nothing," Ace said with a final rub of his forearm across his eyes and a loud sniff into the quiet of the night. "Just... everything."

Marco hummed, leaning forward and bracing his forearms across his knees. "You never finished telling me about Sabo," he prodded gently, when it looked like Ace was neither falling asleep nor about to talk.

Marco very much wanted to hear the story about the person who obviously meant so much to his youngest crew mate. Not only to comfort Ace, but also so that he would know, and could provide the relevant warnings in the future. He'd already noticed a few people on board, usually deep in their cups (because provoking a fire-starter on a wooden ship while sober was tantamount to suicide in his opinion), poke fun at Ace for the misspelling of his name. Ace had always shrugged it off with a small laugh, but if Marco knew the story, he could intervene in time. Let future, newer crew mates know it was off-limits. He had no intention of spilling Ace's secrets, but knowing the story would make it easier to traverse the psychologically unstable ground that was Ace's mind and give the needed warnings.

Ace sighed and snapped his fingers, sending a fresh roar of flames up on the dimming embers. Marco followed his lead by tossing another log in – this was no doubt going to be a long night.

Embers wafted off the dry wood that snapped and crackled under the heat. Marco listened to them calmly, waiting patiently. He had all the time in the world and rushing would do neither of them any good. His phoenix crooned inside him at the feel of the heated air, and he reflected that his brother's upset aside, there were far more unpleasant ways to spend the night.

Then Ace heaved a low sigh, and Marco's eyes slid to the side, watching him.

"Sabo was born a noble," Ace finally began, his voice a low rasp and practically vibrating with tension. "He hated it – hated the life he was forced to live, with people who back stabbed and sucked up to each other in the same breath, living with parents who saw him as a monetary value rather than their actual child. So when he was five, he ran away to Grey Terminal and just... never left."

It actually took a full minute for Ace's words to truly penetrate and sink in. The sheer guts and intelligence it must have taken, both for a young child to realize what the real problem was and to actually go and do something about it, was staggering. Marco shook his head, recalling his own childhood and wondering if he'd been so aware of himself and the world at the time. "That's beyond incredible," he said softly, meaning every word. There were actual adults, pirates even, who wouldn't have had the guts to do that at even thrice that age.

He was pleased to see Ace's smile return, albeit in a much smaller fashion. "Sabo was incredible," Ace agreed, lips curling briefly. "He practically forced me to become friends with him, after I did everything I could think of to drive him away. And when Luffy showed up..." Ace frowned, eyebrows furrowing in remembrance. "I wasn't a nice kid. I was fuckin' cruel, to be honest-" and the casual swear from the polite young man Marco had gotten to know told him exactly how true that must have been, "-and it was Sabo's intervention between us – well, that and Luffy's sheer stubbornness - that kept us on an even keel once we started hanging out together." His frown disappeared and the smile returned, not unlike watching the sun come out from behind a raincloud. "Sabo was the nice brother."

Marco chuckled at that candid admission. While Ace could be and was perfectly civil and polite when necessary, he still had one hell of a short fuse and even before this entire tattoo fiasco had happened, he had warned the other commanders to tell their men to lay off the kid after Ace had hospitalized several of them for teasing him. A serious powerhouse, Ace sometimes didn't seem to know how to regulate his strength against 'normal' pirates, and if he'd been like that as a kid... Marco shook his head.

Nice brother indeed.

"Anyway, long story short, one day the three of us were running through the city after another dine and dash and this old guy recognized Sabo. It was his dad." Ace's hands clenched into fists as he spoke. "He hired the city guards to find us in Grey Terminal and threatened to shoot me and Luffy if Sabo didn't go home with him. I told Sabo not to, but he..." Ace wiped his fist across his face. "He said he couldn't risk us being hurt. So he left."

Ace paused, staring at the fire like he was seeing his memories playing out in the flickering flames. It was a calm and quiet night, and Marco could hear the sounds of crickets coming from the grass beyond their campsite as he sat there, waiting patiently. In asking about Sabo, Marco knew he'd be getting a rather sad story, but one had to purge an infection before it could heal and if Ace was this worked up about it ten years later, that meant he'd allowed it to fester and that wasn't healthy.

Giving Ace a moment to breathe, Marco stirred up the fire and then, both enthralled by the story and wanting to hear the rest, he nudged Ace's knee gently. "What happened next?"

Pressing back against Marco, just a little, Ace continued. "Next?" He snorted a wet-sounding laugh. "Bluejam showed up."

Ace had mentioned this pirate in passing a few times before, but had never really explained who or what this person was or did. Marco nodded. "I remember you saying something about a Bluejam when you helped bring Doma into the Whitebeards."

"I did?" Ace blinked. "Oh. Same kinda laugh, I guess. Anyway, Bluejam was the local pirate running things underground in Goa and he had me and Luffy help him scatter boxes all over the Terminal for some extra cash – we didn't know they were full of explosives and oils. The people of High Town were preparing for a visit from a Celestial Dragon - "Ace practically snarled out the name, "- by getting rid of everything they considered 'unsightly'. Which meant burning down Grey Terminal."

"Which still had people in it, I presume?"

"Yeah. A lot of people escaped but there were some... they were too old, or too weak. You could smell... it smelled horrible, and you could hear people screaming but there was nothing any of us could do. Bluejam had Lu and I tied up in his hideout and we had to wait for them to leave. We managed to escape, but Bluejam came back and almost killed Luffy."

Ace lowered his head and couldn't speak for a few moments – Marco didn't push him this time. He kept his arm pressed lightly against Ace's, a silent reminder that he was there for him, and left it at that. After a few minutes, Ace regained enough of his composure to continue. "The bandits showed up just in time. It took a few days for me to make it back to the hideout on the mountain with Dadan, the bandit leader. The other bandits had brought Luffy straight away – I'd stayed to fight Bluejam and Dadan stayed to help me." Ace shook his head. "I was so fucking stubborn. Dadan got hurt helping me. I had to carry her on my back to a hollow tree nearby to hide until the smoke from the fire cleared and the pirates left. Only left to get water or to find food."

Marco almost couldn't believe the story he was hearing. It sounded like the premise to an old-fashioned adventure novel, like the ones he'd read as a child. Fires and bandits and pirates, kidnappings and shootings, but at the heart of it all, instead of heavily muscled heroes and beautiful buxom maidens, it was three small children, the oldest of whom had barely reached the age of eleven for fucks sakes. "How long did it take you to get yourself and Dadan home?"

Ace sighed. "Almost four days. I got home in time to check on Luffy and change, and then Dogma, one of the bandits who took care of me when I was little, said he saw Sabo setting out to sea just as the Celestial Dragon was coming into port." Ace swallowed hard, glaring with pure hatred and misery at the fire crackling in front of them. "They didn't care that Sabo was just a kid, and that he wasn't even in the way of their ship. They just fired on Sabo's boat and blew it up." Ace took a deep breath. "They killed him because he wanted to get out of there so damn badly..."

Marco closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Beside him he could hear Ace's breath shake, feel the muscles in his arm pressed against Marco tremble. Blowing up a tiny ship for no reason, none whatsoever. Killing the tiny captain aboard for sport, like his little life didn't even matter, and Marco knew that to Celestial Dragons, it didn't matter. Marco had met some truly awful pirates in his day, but he'd never in his very very long life ever met anyone so cruel as those who called themselves Celestial Dragons. They were truly beyond humans only in that they had completely forfeited their humanity itself.

Ace folded his arms on his knees and traced the crossed out 'S' on his arm. "This was Sabo's jolly roger," he said quietly.

Ouch. Marco stifled a groan at the double insult – not only had they desecrated a personal tattoo, they'd erased (however temporary) his dead brother's pirate mark. No wonder Ace had been royally pissed off.

"That's not even the worst part," Ace said quietly.

Marco blinked twice – hard – and stared at his younger companion. "Do I even want to know what would be worse than all that?"

The fire-starter let out a hoarse chuckle – a sound Marco recognized. It was the sound of someone who had given up on themselves, who had done something horrible and they knew it. Something that hurt so deeply they could only laugh about it, otherwise they would spend the rest of their life crying instead. A sound that as a commander of one of the largest and most powerful forces on the sea, meant he had heard it coming from many subordinates and fellow commanders at one time or another.

It never boded well for anyone. He highly doubted he'd be surprised now.

"The worst part was that I could have saved his life," Ace ground out. He rubbed a forearm harshly across his eyes, smearing wetness across his cheeks. "Luffy begged me to go save him, that we could go and get him back. I told Luffy-" he stopped, seeming to choke on his words. He swallowed once, twice, loudly. Marco saw his Adam's apple bob with the action. "I said Sabo was better off there." His hands suddenly reached up and latched onto his hair, gripping the dark strands forcefully. "He had parents, a huge mansion with his own, actual bed to sleep on instead of the floor, plenty of food he didn't have to go and hunt for himself and no bandits to fight off to ensure he got his share. Why the hell would he leave all that to come back to-" Ace broke off again, chest heaving as he tried to get himself back under control.

Marco reached out and gripped Ace's arm, attempting to give him an anchor in the sea of his whirling emotions. There wasn't much he could say to make any of this seem all right – none of it was okay by the standards of any rational, compassionate human being, but there was nothing he could do. This was all a nearly a decade in the past, and all he could do was help Ace work his way through it so he could face the future with no regrets.

He had his work cut out for him, that was for damn sure.

Ace took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself, and scrubbed his face again before giving Marco a weak smile. "Nearly eight whole years and it still hits me like it's that damn week all over again every time I think about it."

Marco nodded slowly. "Not surprising," he said calmly. He let Ace's arm go, seeing the teenager had his control back. "Something that traumatizing... it can leave a person hurting for a long time. It will always hurt, but it does dull over time." He shrugged. "Losing a brother... that's not something that will go away with any sort of swiftness."

"I don't really want it to," Ace murmured softly. "The day it stops hurting to think about him... I'm terrified that's when I'll realize I've started to forget him. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to remember what his face looked like." His smile grew, just a tiny bit, but Marco was heartened to see it. "Some things though, I'll never forget. Like that stupid napkin he wore around his neck."

"Napkin?"

"Fancy kinda tie for nobles."

Marco chuckled. "A cravat?"

Ace pointed his index finger at him. "That's it." He laughed. "Or the diamond-plated goggles on his top hat. Or my favorite – the gap in his mouth from where I knocked out his front tooth in one of our first sparring matches." Ace grinned openly this time. "He was so pissed off because he'd already lost his baby tooth there, which meant I knocked out his first adult tooth. He yelled at me for days about how he'd need to have a dentist replace it one day because I couldn't control my stupid strength."

Marco laughed out loud at that. "He sounded like he was a good kid."

Ace nodded, smile growing softer. "He was the best." Ace blinked. "Well, him and Luffy. They're both the best. But..." he shot Marco a tiny look that spoke of a different kind of guilt. "Is it bad that Luffy was... is my favorite?"

Marco laughed again, unable to stop himself. "That is a dangerous question ask me, Ace. I have over sixteen hundred brothers, some I know better than others, and you want to talk about favorites?"

Ace blinked – and then pushed at him with a tiny grin. "Okay, so who is it?"

Marco shook his head and ruffled Ace's hair. Okay, so he had a favorite. But it would never do to let him know. "You had more time with Luffy, it's not surprising that he would be your favorite."

But Ace shook his head. "That's not it. I hated Luffy at first, you know."

Marco did know. "Why?"

"He was so damn happy. I couldn't understand just why he was so happy to be dragged out to the middle of nowhere to live with bandits. And he kept following me – no matter what I did to him. I dropped trees on him, kicked him off bridges, dropped him into the ravine full of wolves – and all of this was before I knew he had a devil fruit." He shot Marco a guilty look. "Then I stole a bag of loot from the men of our local pirate group."

"Bluejam?" Marco guessed.

Ace nodded. "They captured Luffy to make him lead them to us, and I was convinced he'd blab it out. Luffy couldn't keep a secret to save his life – literally. Or so I thought." He took a deep breath – obviously this set of memories was no more pleasant than the last batch. "Sabo and I worked like crazy to move our loot to a new hideout but it still took us a couple of hours. By then we realized that no one had come looking for us. That for whatever reason, Luffy hadn't told the pirates where we were."

Marco felt his guts go cold from realization.

"We grabbed our pipes and ran to their hideout. We broke in to see Luffy – tiny, happy little Luffy – dangling almost unconscious from a rope, covered in bleeding wounds and silently sobbing. They'd been beating him with spiked gloves the whole time." Ace took a deep breath. "We took out Porchemy and got him out of there and the first thing I did was yell at him for being so stupid. I couldn't understand why the hell he just hadn't told Porchemy the info he wanted."

"He was protecting you," Marco said quietly, and it wasn't a guess. His instincts were confirmed when Ace nodded.

"He thought if he told, then I'd never be his friend." Ace tossed another log on the fire, sending a wave of sparks dancing into the air again. "Even Sabo hadn't gone that far to be my friend. He didn't have to. He just grew on me over time in the beginning. But Luffy... he was determined to be my friend from the start and nothing I did scared him away." He smiled and then gave Marco a shy look. "I didn't know it at the time... but I loved him for that." He shrugged his shoulders. "I just had a really shitty way of showing it." He snuck a look at Marco. "You think Sabo... you think he knew? That I... you know..."

"Loved him too? No doubt about it. You and your brothers... that's a damn special relationship you have there," Marco told him, gently but firmly. "The bonds you have with them... those are the kind that never fade. Not even with death."

"I know." Ace sighed and glanced at his arm, rubbing the crossed out 'S'. "When I thought it was gone, even for just a minute..."

"I understand, Ace," Marco interrupted him. "More then ever, I understand. And again, I'm sorry. It never should have happened."

"But it did." Ace's face suddenly turned blank as he gazed at the fire. "What am I supposed to do about that?"

Marco shrugged. "Be as angry as you need to be," he said. "Though without death threats. Please. Having just had this particular conversation with you, you know what it feels like to have someone threaten your brothers, even if they've been an idiot."

Ace smiled briefly but it left just as fast as it arrived. "I guess."

There was quiet for a while, Marco letting himself digest the incredible stories he'd been told by his youngest brother, and Ace, letting his emotions settle from the roller coaster they'd been on since they'd left the Moby. That Ace was asking about what he was supposed to do next was a good thing in Marco's opinion. Ace's anger had finally been burned out, and now he could work on helping the kid forgive Thatch. He had no doubt Ace would in time, but there was nothing in the books that said he couldn't help speed the process along.

Older brother's privilege and all that.

"It's almost dawn," Marco remarked casually, seeing the horizon starting to lighten.

"Not my first all-nighter," Ace replied. Then - "I don't want to be angry."

Marco shot him a quick look. "You don't?" While this was hopeful to hear, it was also confusing.

Ace sighed, scooching back onto the rock, bringing his legs up and folding his arms onto his knees. "All this talking reminded me about how it felt to be angry at my brothers... no matter how stupid they were, I still forgave them in the end. But this is different. My brothers made me mad from being stupid, or over-protective or stuff like that. They never... it never felt like betrayal before." His eyes darted to Marco's as if he were afraid of what he was saying, before zipping back to the fire pit.

Marco nodded slowly, understanding where Ace was coming from. "I do get that, Ace," he said calmly. "What Thatch did was stupid, immature and emotionally painful – and that was before we had any clue about the significance of your tattoo." He sighed. "Messing with someone's tattoo is bad enough, but to add in narcotics and food tampering... there is a lot of wrong here Ace, and it's not yours."

"...Thank you."

"Hmmm?" Marco glanced at the kid again. "For what?"

"For not automatically assuming I was at fault for losing my temper and leaving the way I did. For understanding that I take my meds seriously, and that a chef, even a commanding chef, has no right to mess with that." Ace licked his lips, showing his nervousness. "Thank you for that."

Marco sighed and reached out to ruffle Ace's hair roughly, ignoring the squawk that came from the brat as he did so. "Anytime kid."

o0o

Thatch watched nervously as familiar blue and yellow flames soared high in the air, arcing their wy towards the Moby. Beneath them, he could make out the bright yellow of Ace's Striker, a rooster tail of steam and water being propelled behind it. They were almost there, and Thatch took a deep breath.

He was ready to do whatever it took to make it up to his youngest brother.

O0o

to be continued

o0o

Yeah, yeah, I know, I said 5. Apparently I have a lisp when I type and should have put six. *nodsnods*

I figured I should post this part and give you something to chew on now rather than wait forever for the completed part. You're welcome.

Also, I hope you like it. I worked on this part over weekends for the last several months and rewrote entire chunks of it like 3 times, trying to make it realistic and angsty yet have some smiles and hope in there too. I hope I pulled it off, but you know, only you can tell me if I did it right. *nudges you to the review box*