Chapter Text
Another day, another wild party for the Whitebeard Pirates. As would be expected, there's loads of food and drink going around, and several people have pulled out instruments. Pretty much the norm for them honestly, pirates do love to party after all.
Ace has a nice singing voice, Marco thinks to himself, listening to the other man sing some shanty or another. He's still fairly on key, even though he's probably pretty tipsy right now, Marco assumes, with how his face is flushed red under those freckles as he keeps looking Marco's way.
It is a bit unusual though, Ace singing instead of stuffing his face with all the food he can get his hands on. Though come to think of it, he's been singing a lot more often lately, at parties and even randomly throughout the day. Maybe he's finally getting more comfortable here, now that he's been an official member for awhile, having Pops' mark and everything?
Marco can't help but stare at that mark for a bit, when Ace gets turned around by all the drunken dancing going on near him, though his voice still stays strong despite it. It looks good on him, their full jolly roger, taking up so much of that muscular back, showing his loyalty and commitment to the crew and the captain they call their father, so clearly for all to see.
He may have been stubbornly against joining the crew for a long while, so determined to kill Whitebeard he was, but once he decided to join them, he didn't go into it half-heartedly. There's no one here that would doubt him now.
Pops has even recently been considering asking him to fill their long vacant second division commander position. He's been doing great with that division, and he makes an excellent leader. There's something about him that just compels people to follow him, an innate quality so few have.
The singing finally dies off and Ace turns back around, jerking Marco out of his thoughts. He starts heading over Marco's way, a huge grin on his face.
"Hey Marco, what'd you think?" he asks, the red on face getting a bit darker. He's still pretty steady for how drunk he must be though.
"Think of what?" Marco isn't really sure what Ace is asking about. The party? The song he was singing?
"About, ya know," the freckled man falters a bit, "the singing. Did ya like it?"
Ace wants to know what Marco thought of his singing? Maybe he's insecure about it, Marco muses, and that's why he took so long to start doing it around the crew even though he obviously enjoys it so much? "You sounded great, Ace. Don't worry, everyone definitely loved it." He tries to smile as reassuringly as possible to make Ace feel better.
Ace gets even redder than Marco thought possible and turns away, mumbling something under his breath too quietly for him to hear. Then louder asks, "Did you maybe wanna sing something too?" before looking away again quickly, almost like he's deliberately avoiding eye contact.
"Me? Sing?" Marco isn't sure why Ace is asking. He sings occasionally for fun at parties like this, but he's not anything amazing. He certainly never usually has anyone requesting he sing, aside from that time so many years ago when Thatch wanted to know if the myth about phoenixes having the most beautiful singing in the world was true. If it is true, it clearly doesn't extend to phoenix zoans. Not that the truth stops Thatch from bringing it up all the time or telling new members about it.
"I mean, you don't have to or anything," Ace says, quickly. "I was just wondering if you wanted to, since I was just singing something, but if you don't that's ok! I'll just um, go now." He turns and hurriedly walks away before Marco can even say anything else.
He's not sure how long he stands there staring where Ace had just been, still lost in thought and wondering what that was all about, when Thatch approaches him. "Sooo, Marco, what was that just now with Ace? He sure left pretty fast," he says, way too casually considering how eager he looks for an answer.
Marco looks at him suspiciously and says, "Why? Do you know something?" He then has a sudden thought and groans, feeling annoyed. "You didn't tell him that dumb myth about phoenixes' singing did you? You have to stop telling new crew members that. They won't quit trying to get me to sing, and they'll only be disappointed when they actually hear me."
"He wanted you to sing?" Thatch sounds almost surprised? "Now that's interesting. Thanks, Marco!" Then he rushes off too, disappearing into the throng of drunken pirates.
Well now Marco's left feeling even more confused than before. Why did Thatch seem so surprised by him saying Ace wanted Marco to sing? Shouldn't he have expected it if he told Ace that silly story?
Also, it hadn't occurred to Marco before when he was thinking Ace might be drunk, but shouldn't his devil fruit keep him from getting drunk? Maybe he's wrong, but he could've sworn he remembered hearing something about Ace's fruit burning up the alcohol as he drinks it. Or maybe that's only when he actually activates the flames?
Because if he wasn't drunk, why was he so flushed? Whether he'd genuinely bought into the story from Thatch or was just going along with a prank, it's not like him to be so flustered.
No, Marco shakes his head, now is not the time to think about it. Whatever Thatch is up to, whether it includes Ace or not, he can worry about later. Right now there's a party going on, and he'd like to at least have some fun while they all have the chance, before some moron attacks them or something.
He goes to grab himself some booze before heading towards where some of the crew usually congregates to play cards. He hasn't cleaned anyone out playing poker recently, might be fun to see how much money he can get out of some of them while they're too drunk to remember the last time.