AN: a drabble from skies' storyline! A suuuuuper old drabble request from an ask on my blog. And I. Haven't posted anything for Literally Months pft. (which is actually kind of ridiculous considering the backlog of drabbles I have on my tumblr pft). But I'm working on it and I'm gonna post some new skies stuff this month!

anyway please enjoy luffy being a Dork and Marco being a Big Dumb Sad

The ocean was nothing like the Lake.

Oh, the undercurrent of magic was there, like a tangible thing that breathed as the waves hit the shore and receded, but where the lake was deceptively still, the ocean seemed to constantly move. Trees swayed in the slightest breezes, waves pushed and dragged the sand into different positions, the tide pulled things far out to sea-

It was nothing like the Lake, and yet all Marco could think of was home.

At least the people here were nothing like his family. As soon as he'd come into town they'd been trying to kick him out or trick him, and for that Marco was almost thankful. He could stand cruelty; he couldn't stand his family's soft, guilty gazes, trying to console him with barely hidden pity on their faces.

Like it hadn't been his fault to begin with. Like it hadn't been his fault that the peace and magic of the Lake had ended.

Sand flew up onto his hand as a young boy popped down to sit next to him, and Marco shied away, falling onto his elbow. "Excuse me?" he demanded, fingers lingering over his knife sheath, but the boy only grinned brightly at him, hands clasped around his ankles.

"I would say you're excused but I don't want you to go anywhere!"

Marco only frowned further, pulling himself up from the sand but refusing to take his hand from the knife sheath, unsure about this stranger's intentions. "Who are you?"

"I'm Luffy! I want to run a caravan and explore. Who're you? What are you doin' sittin' out here alone? Are you a sea fae? I've never met a sea fae before, do you get seasick-"

"No." Marco quickly snapped before 'Luffy' could continue his rant, and Luffy stopped to blink at him.

"No what? No, you don't get seasick?"

"No, I don't get seasick, but I'm not a sea fae. I'm just-"

broken. cursed. wrong. an idiot-

"Normal. Just a normal fae."

"Well that's boring," Luffy said, and Marco groaned, sitting up straight again but refusing to take his hand from his belt.

"You've utterly broken my heart," he drawled, eyes narrowed. "Boring? How ever shall I go on. Guess you'd better leave, if I'm so boring."

Luffy didn't seem to take the hint. He merely beamed wider, and Marco sighed. He turned his attention back to the ocean, shoulders hunched, and prayed Luffy got bored quickly. He seemed like the sort of person to follow after Marco if he got up and left, and Marco didn't want to have a doggedly stubborn fae on his heels. It had been hard enough dealing with Haruta, when Haruta had first popped out of the magic, and he wasn't about to deal with another annoying younger sibling.

Sibling, he thought, throat tight, and something vicious and angry swelled in his chest. As though you deserve a family anymore, anyway, considering what you did to Pops-

He shook his head, hands braced against his elbow, and barely stopped himself from snarling. "What do you want, faeling?"

"Friends!" chirpped Luffy, "I have my brothers, and they're great, but ugh, they are the worst, too, 'cause neither of them will travel with me. Sabo is such a stick in the mud, and Ace never goes outside. I don't know how he stands it, being in one place all the time is awful."

Marco hummed non-commitedly, and Luffy leaned forwards, into his line of sight, and asked, "What do you do, mister? Why're you just sitting here?"

"I- travel." Marco replied. "And I'm sitting here because I need to clear out a demon infestation, but I don't have a plan yet. Which, also, coincidentally, I need peace and quiet to work on?"

Utterly ignoring his pointed barb, Luffy sat up even straighter, rocking back and hitting his feet on the sand in excitement. "Oh, I could do that!"

"D- what? No, you can't!" Marco said, but Luffy had already jumped to his feet, and bounded over to the cave that Marco had been engaged in a staring contest with for the past few days.

"Be right back!" Luffy called cheerfully, and Marco was in the process of trying to stand and drag Luffy back before he realised that it wasn't his job anymore. He didn't need to take care of stupid young fae, especially when he'd only met them a few minutes ago. If Luffy wanted to go hop-skip-jump and fall straight into a demon's nest, he was more than welcome.

Marco was going to sit here and work on his diplomacy negotiations. And not follow.

And not-

He was on his feet and sprinting across the sand before he'd even finished attempting excuses, hand latching onto the edge of the cave mouth before he went barreling into it and heart pounding hard in his chest.

The air was cold; nothing at all like the warm breeze that blew across the beach front. He couldn't even see where Luffy had disappeared too, and even though he knew time and space worked differently in places like witches' covens and demon lairs, surely Luffy would've still been hanging around the cave mouth, he couldn't possibly have gone in-

The slap of flipflops against stone made Marco heave a sigh of relief, slumping against the wall, but the deformed shape that appeared from the darkness made him straighten again, hand curling into a fist. He wouldn't use his magic, but he could easily punch whatever was headed his way-

Luffy came into the sunlight, blinking faintly, but what captured Marco's attention first was the fact that he had a disgruntled demon in a fireman's carry on his shoulders.

"Alright, what in the land's name are you?" Marco asked, squinting suspiciously - and rather concernedly - at Luffy, who just hefted the fucking demon further on his shoulder like it was nothing.

Luffy blinked at him, cocking his head to the side, then glanced to the demon on his shoulder and replied, "Well that's Zoro. And he's a demon? 'Cause that was a demon cave! Zoro made them clear out for me."

Powerful demon, Marco amended his first thought to, feeling rather faint, and rubbed at his forehead. "I meant who are you. A luck deity? Half minor god? The personification of the untameable?"

Luffy began to laugh, almost dropping Zoro, and Marco found himself even more put off by the fact that Luffy thought his guesses hysterical. "Of course not!" Luffy finally managed to wheeze out, grinning brightly, "I'm just a fae!"

"Just a fae," Marco mumbled under his breath, "Just a fae my ass. What's your alignment then, lucky as fuck?"

'I know magic!" Luffy said, grinning brightly and Marco dropped both hands into his face, trying not to groan.

"All fae know magic. I meant what's your alignment. Air? Water? You must be something fluid if you can't stay still for long."

Luffy blinked at him, then shrugged, making Zoro grunt and grumpily fold a pair of his arms. "Uhhh…I dunno! Does it matter?"

"Yes it matters-!" Marco half-yelled, then stopped, swallowing hard and staring at his palms. His hands curled into fists, and he dropped them by his side with a sigh. "D'you just know magic, yoi?" he asked, and Luffy nodded eagerly.

"Yep!" he said, and shifted Zoro to free one of his hands, bright red and gold glitter popping from his palm. "See?"

Like gravity, Marco found himself drawn to it, reaching out cautiously and feeling his own magic swell in him like a storm. It almost came automatically, but then sharp prickling overtook him again and he stopped, fingers curling to dig into the newly healed scar on his palm and magic burning out like dying embers in his blood.

"Beautiful," he said softly, and Luffy grinned even wider, flicking his wrist and letting the sparks roll over his wrist, which immediately flopped down and stretched to Luffy's shins.

"Isn't it cool?" Luffy said, while Marco boggled and had to forcefully remind himself that Luffy hadn't in any way been hurt.

"That is cool," he complimented. "It's likely a form of physical manipulation magic. You must be pretty powerful, to be able to do it so easily. Who raised you?"

"Raised me?" said Luffy, tilting his head to the side, "I mean, sorta my gramps, but he wasn't around much. I guess my brothers!" Luffy tilted his head back in a laugh, as though his next thought was hysterical, and added, "I punched my brother through a wall when I first met him and then the other one fought both of us and it was like bam kapoow! and then we were friends!"

Marco couldn't say anything for a moment, too busy trying to figure out how on earth Luffy's story had jumped so quickly, and Zoro snorted, obviously amused by whatever emotion had shown up on Marco's face.

"D'd you wanna join us by the way?" Luffy asked, blinking at him when Marco couldn't compose an answer, "You could come meet them! And teach them stuff about magic, like what you just told me!"

"I-" Marco started, looking from Luffy's hopeful face and then to the magic that still flickered around Luffy's hand, and sighed heavily. "I think I'd better not, yoi." He said, carefully reaching out and ruffling Luffy's fluffy hair, making Luffy squawk at him indignantly, "But I'll teach you some spells, okay? You can show those off to your brothers."

Luffy gasped and nodded eagerly, rolling Zoro off his shoulders and into the sand, before bracing himself with his hands on his hips. "Hell yeah! Let's go!"

Marco almost laughed at Zoro's surprised expression, but managed to bite it back, turning his attention to Luffy and holding out his hand. With a deep breath, he called blue magic to his hand, brushing off the uncomfortable prickling that accompanied it by focusing on Luffy's small gasp of wonder.

"Now, these are just some basic magic detection spells, but they're pretty helpful…Try not to forget them, okay?"

Luffy nodded eagerly, reaching forwards to try and touch the swirls building in Marco's hand, and almost tripped over his still floppy wrist. Marco winced, and heard a stifled snort of laughter from Zoro.

This…

This was going to take longer than he'd first thought.

AN: Luffy and Marco's first meeting in Show me Skies on Fire! Zoro and the demon cave thing is a little fast (I think the conversion I decided on was one surface day = one underground week, but that was fuzzy bc they don't have the same 24hr cycle and it was To Much Math dear lord)

As always, I love hearing from you guys! Reviews are the Best.