piratejournal | [voice]

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[voice]

[his voice is ragged and low, probably because he hasn't slept in three days.]

Everybody said last year this shit was over when the new month started. The sun came up and the ghosts went away.

It's a new month. There's still no sun.

Nothing is safe. We can't count on anything. People are dying and it's not doing any good to just sit here and endure it. Even my captain is compromised, I don't know what to do but I'm starting to think this is one of those times we need to band together. Before it's too late. It's pretty clear to me that just hoping it runs its course or happens exactly like last year isn't a solution.

If anybody's got any ideas, I wanna hear 'em.

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While I understand the sentiment... [Deeply.] Not everything can be fought directly.

I don't know what's bothering Ace either, but it means fighting other demons so he can take care of it, eh?

What would you do if his battle was only inside him? Pops didn't need me to fight most foes, but the things that destroyed him one way or another were all inside, and he actively tried to prevent me from seeing them. [And Marco did the same thing with his father too, but you know, fucked up domino system. He doesn't regret it.]

Observe, and adapt, eh? If it's being alone that's bothering him... [Alone... or snapped back to missing Ace, Marco thinks.] Don't let him go. You can't see what to fight, but you can't see what effect you're having on him either yet, eh?

I'm not going to. But there's a lot going on over here, I don't have enough hands to juggle it all. [darkly...] No one else is going to die.

[Quiet again.]

[They're so young in so many ways.]

[Back when dying was such a big fear, not an unavoidable fact of reality.]

[Protecting Ace wasn't their responsibility, it was Marco's.]

[But he'd failed, hadn't he?]

[He'd protected Luffy all but the time after he was in cuffs, and then Ace had to and that was how Ace died.]

[But perhaps it's presumptuous to assume it's about Ace.]

[Protecting all the crew is exactly what they were talking about, and "no one else" could be period.]

[The price of living forever though...]

Many a time I've envied Robin's devil fruit. To be everywhere at once, with a million eyes to keep on all the little idiots...

But of course, if I could do that I couldn't absorb their damage instead.

[But that's a distraction isn't it? He does this to Robin constantly. Because addressing the other part is too hard. He doesn't want to. He knows exactly that sentiment, and there's nothing that would have settled Marco's mind to put it at ease, all those years ago. So what could he tell his younger self? Or a younger Rayleigh? Any of them?]

But even a devil fruit that could stop time wouldn't be perfectly useful, eh?

[Fears... Marco's fear had always been losing his father, and then he did. Losing the others? And he did. Losing them all one by one, the islands, the crew, the world. Would he be the last one facing Blackbeard in an endless sea of black, forever battling and too stubborn to give up just because he never could, never would? Or would he outlast even that? What then...?]

[He just shakes his head.]

I'll tell you the same thing I told the rest of my crew. That's not a fear that will ever go away. And if it does, you're dead. So you'd best learn to get comfortable with it.

[He doesn't like having to be that harsh. Particularly on the young crew. The crew that was carrying Ace's will where he couldn't. The crew that protected, saved, loved, and adored Robin even more than Marco did.]

[But the world will be a hundred times harder.]

I'll owe you a barrel big enough to get even Pops drunk when it's all over, but for now, so long as you want to make sure the others don't fall, you don't get a break until they're out of it.

[The worst part of being them. Ikki got it, but Chandra and Jean hadn't. It wasn't part of being a phoenix, it was part of being the only one who could when others could not.]

Edited 2014-11-22 01:50 (UTC)

Don't mistake me, Marco. I'm not afraid of death. Even now.

I don't care if people come back from it, here. Mostly. It's a type of pain certain people don't need to be put through. Protecting the crew means protecting them against that shit every bit as much as real, actual death. I can't take their pain for them [this time...], but it isn't in me to just let them suffer on their own.

...I'll take that barrel, though, if the sun ever does rise again.

[Laughs bitterly.]

Swordsman, you wouldn't have made it to the New World if you were afraid of your own death.

And I'd be interested to meet someone who actually was that selfish. Just for the change of pace.

[A sigh.]

[And he whistles quietly to himself, choosing his words carefully.]

[It's not something he shares with anyone. He can't with Ace, it'd fuck Thatch up even worse, and with Ikki, it goes unspoken. And Robin... it wasn't her burden to share, he didn't want her to ever have to know it even existed.]

Take it from someone in a nearly endless night since three suns in a row went out swallowed by the same darkness, sunrise always returns, yoi. Even if you don't want it to.

.....

[a short sigh]

You do know I mean the actual sun, right?

Yes, Roronoa.

Would you like me to send Ace to you? He can light mini-suns in the meanwhile.

...nah. At a time like this, I expect he has enough to worry about with his own crew.

Thanks, though.

It's not so bad.

He's got me after all. [Kidding, because yeah if anything, Marco doesn't want to lose Ace for his OWN sake, but you know. Kid and jokes are Marco's shield even more than blue feathery phoenix down is his armor.]

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