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hollowistheworld · 7 years

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Strings

When Ace’s red string had first become visible Dadan had caught him with her fabric scissors, trying to get it off his wrist. She’d made a few attempts to explain that the string wasn’t real, that nothing could cut it, that nothing and no one besides Ace and his soulmate could even touch it, before giving up and wresting the scissors away.

“Why would you want to cut it anyway?” she had asked once they’d both calmed down a little. “It’s to lead you to your soulmate, Ace. Who doesn’t want that?”

Ace had glowered at her, and she’d thrown her hands up and walked away to have a cigarette on the porch.

Ace’s parents had been soulmates, and now they were dead. If they hadn’t had that stupid red string tying them together they likely would never have met, Ace wouldn’t exist, and they’d both still be alive. A lot of people seemed to think the world would be better off that way - maybe not with Roger in it, but certainly without Ace - and Ace didn’t have a counterargument.

And he didn’t want to meet whoever was on the other end of the string and discover that they were of a mind with those cops, schoolmates, and criminals who thought Roger should have kept himself out of the gene pool and done everybody a favor.

He had, gradually, learned to stop seeing the string. It still looped around his left wrist and then trailed off somewhere out of sight, but he could ignore it most of the time. It had a horrid tendency to draw attention to itself on Ace’s bad days, reminding him that there was someone on the other end of it, probably excitedly waiting to meet him and almost certainly doomed to be bitterly disappointed.

Worst of all was the way no one else seemed to understand it. Dadan, Sabo, and Luffy all accepted that Ace hated the string around his wrist and didn’t want to talk about it, but they didn’t get it. Sabo was interested in his, though thankfully not obsessed. Luffy had to be regularly talked out of going hunting for his, following the thread for who knew how long with no concern for things like food and shelter or the fact that he was nine.

They grew up, they traded in their small town for a city and a shitty apartment. Sabo met Koala, completely by accident, not even realizing he could see her string - the other half of his - until he was halfway through buying a stack of textbooks from her. Luffy tracked his down to a hospital and a frazzled and young E.R. doctor who appeared so startled by the encounter that it seemed like he hadn’t even realized he had a soulmate.

And Ace continued to ignore his, hoping that his soulmate was doing the same.

“You just ignore it?” Thatch repeated, aghast.

Ace didn’t know what he’d been thinking, talking about this with Thatch, the Most Romantic Man in the World. “Yeah. I’d get rid of it if I could, but it’s been established that that isn’t really an option.”

Thatch shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I’ve seen you and your boyfriend. I’ll keep missing it.”

Thatch scowled at him and petulantly reached across the table to pull Ace’s coffee away from him. Ace made a noise of protest. “You are as bad as my brother.”

“Because I don’t want to meet my soulmate or because I think you and Izo need to chill?” He took his coffee back, grabbing it a little too quickly and making some of the drink splash out onto the table.

“Both. You and Marco would get along great; you’re both hard-headed cynics.”

“Well, I’m glad someone else is. I need another sane person.”

Thatch gave him a considering look. “I can introduce you if you want. He’s coming by today anyway; he left his watch at our dad’s place and he’ll apparently just die if he doesn’t get it back.”

“So he likes to be on time for work more than you do?”

“Are you kidding? He’s a grad student, I’m not sure if he even still believes in time. I think he just likes it for the aesthetic.”

Ace didn’t think Thatch had any right to be saying the word aesthetic in that tone; he was wearing an ascot and had his hair in a pompadour.

Thatch’s phone went off. “Ah, great timing. He’s out front. Do you want to meet your fellow stick in the mud or not?”

“Sure. We’ll team up to counteract your boundless optimism.” It wasn’t as though he had anything else to do, unless the alarm went off. Fire stations were far from the most exciting places in the world when there was no fire and hadn’t been for some time.

Thatch’s brother had a square face, blond hair in an undercut, and bags under his eyes, as any good graduate student should.

Thatch held up Marco’s watch but didn’t hand it over. “Marco, this is Ace. He’s a romance cynic too.”

“Everyone’s a cynic compared to you,” Marco pointed out, making a grab for his watch. Thatch was taller and held it out of reach with a grin.

Marco looked at Ace with an exasperated expression. “I’m sorry you have to put up with him on a daily basis.”

“Oh, he’s not that bad,” Ace said, smiling a little. That was very similar to what Sabo had said to Thatch the first time they met, and to what he had said to Koala. It was a necessary part of being a sibling. “I just made the mistake of letting him bring up his boyfriend.”

Marco groaned theatrically. “Just wait. He makes me be the test audience for his love poems.”

“Well, I can’t give Izo a poem with typos, can I?” Thatch, bored now that Marco wasn’t paying attention to him, pressed the watch into Marco’s hand. “I wouldn’t ask Ace though. He can’t spell worth a damn.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Ace said dryly.

“You have no idea,” Marco told him, fastening the watch over the thin red string around his left wrist. “I know more about Izo’s eyes than I could ever want to know about anyone’s.”

Ace blinked, his brain catching up to his eyes. He could see Marco’s string.

He looked down at his own wrist and, for the first time in years upon years, he let his eyes follow the string.

It stretched out between him and Marco, barely four feet long, nowhere near touching the ground, linking their hands together.

Ace stared. Marco didn’t appear to have noticed yet. If Ace bolted now, maybe he could get away without having to deal with this revelation. Or, Thatch had said that Marco was a cynic too. If he noticed, maybe he and Ace could just laugh it off and choose to do nothing about it, sparing Ace from having to see the look of disappointment or disgust he had been dreading most of his life. The fact that Ace would be a terrible soulmate would not be immediately apparent, so as long as he and Marco didn’t get to know each other too well it wouldn’t be a problem.

Hopefully.

Ace had stopped listening to Marco and Thatch’s conversation, but he noticed when Marco cut off abruptly. He was staring at Ace’s wrist, just as intensely as Ace had been staring at his.

Thatch stopped too, looking at his brother with confusion.

Marco shook his head, tearing his eyes away and putting on an expression that suggested he hadn’t seen anything at all. He didn’t look at Ace, and Ace followed his lead. If Marco wanted to pretend that he hadn��t seen anything, wanted this to be forgotten, Ace was all too happy to play along.

“Thanks for bringing my watch back,” he told Thatch. “I should get to school.”

“I thought you had the morning off?”

“I, uh, I’ve got a paper to finish. I’ll see you later.”

Thatch sighed. “Fine. See you later.” He walked away, glancing back at them once. Ace tried to tell himself to follow, but his feet didn’t seem inclined to move.

The moment Thatch was out of sight Marco spun to direct his full attention at Ace. “He cannot know about this.” He held up his wrist, displaying the string. “He’d never let it go, you know that, right?”

Ace nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“He’s already trying to set us up; this would only make it worse.”

“Oh, no, I definitely - Wait, what?”

Marco nodded. “I could have just gone by our dad’s to get my watch back. I have a key, and he lives closer to me than the station is. He’s been trying to have me meet you for months. He’s gotten it into his head that we’d be a perfect couple and the last thing we need is him thinking the universe agrees with him.”

Ace realized he was fiddling with the string and he forced himself to let go and let his hand fall by his side. “Good thing he didn’t notice then, huh? He… he said you don’t really believe in soulmates?”

Marco shrugged, but Ace didn’t miss the way he was watching Ace, gauging his reaction. “It’s not so much that I don’t believe - it’s hard to watch Thatch and Izo and think it’s entirely bullshit - but I think… it’s kind of overrated. Taken for granted, you know? Having a string tying our wrists together is no guarantee that you and I are going to run off and live happily ever after. My biological parents were soulmates. Didn’t end well for them.” He eyed Ace for a moment, then continued, “And you’re a skeptic too, aren’t you?”

Ace nodded. He didn’t elaborate. The complicated tangle of thoughts he had about soulmates seemed like pretty heavy conversation to have during a first meeting, in front of the fire station, and he doubted he could really put it all into words anyway.

“So, we’ll…” Marco trailed off. He was looking at the string that hung between them, trying to pretend that he wasn’t. “We’ll just…”

“Pretend this never happened?” Ace was already working on doing just that.

“The soulmate part, sure. If you want to. But do you…” Marco was looking at Ace now, and Ace wasn’t sure how to interpret his expression. “Well, Thatch would probably back off if we did try going out.”

Ace stared at him. “What?”

Marco was smiling, sheepishly, and he was turning red, running his fingers through his short hair. “I mean, one dinner wouldn’t be the end of the world, right?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in this thing.”

“Oh, this has nothing to do with this stupid string. You’re just… Well, Thatch knows me pretty well, and he thinks we’d be a good couple. I’d never admit it to him, but I trust his judgment. Enough to give it a shot, anyway. And you’re… Trust me, I’d be asking you out even without this string.”

Ace’s face was hot, and Marco looked amused enough to suggest that it had gone red to match.

“Here, I’ll give you my number,” Marco said. “You can just… send me a text, if you decide you want to.”

Ace allowed Marco to enter his number into Ace’s phone, feeling somewhat in shock. He had a tendency to reject invitations for legitimate dates as a knee-jerk reaction for much the same reason he had never wanted to meet his soulmate. But Marco had caught him sufficiently off guard to make him forget how to speak.

Marco got back in his car and drove away and Ace stumbled inside, staring at his phone.

He sat down at the table where he and Thatch had been drinking coffee earlier. Thatch was in the kitchen, out of sight but Ace could hear him humming to himself.

Ace stared at his phone.

If you liked, please consider buying me a coffee.

#portgas d. ace #marco the phoenix #MarcoAce #one piece #op fanfic #one piece fanfiction #my writing #ace will probably take him up on the date eventually but only after like four days of staring at his phone and thinking about it #thatch is going to lose his shit when he finds out

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forcedapotheosis-blog · 7 years

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Equilibrium (One Piece Oneshot)

I really don’t have a lot to say about this one, the idea hit me yesterday and here it is. It contains some spoilers if you haven’t read the few latest chapters, but should mostly be safe to read.

Disclaimer 1: OP and its characters don’t belong to me.

Disclaimer 2 (The arguably more important one): I don’t know if this is relevant, but I need to get it out of my system. The violence towards the end of this fiction is used solely for dramatic purposes. If you ever experience that kind of violence in your life, do not hesitate for even one second to talk to someone about it. You might feel as if you deserved it, but that is not true and will never be true. Nobody has the right to violate your bodily integrity in any way, shape or form.

That said, have fun.

Equilibrium

Time stood still.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was a little respite. Just a moment to catch his breath.

He let himself sink into one of the few chairs that weren’t broken during the final clash between the Straw Hats and the Big Mom pirates. He just had to do it. There were moments to count the cost and moments to take a deep breath. He suppressed the trembling of his hands and put a cigarette between his lips, overcoming the struggle of igniting it with sheer force of will.

It’s not over. But .. it is something.

A moment of clarity in the eye of the storm.

His final duel against Big Mom’s second son, the dreaded Charlotte Katakuri, had taken a heavy toll on his body and mind. No matter where he looked, he seemed to be covered in wounds. Many of them deep enough to incapacitate out a lesser man. Every inch of his body was shrieking out in pain, begging for it to stop. But it would stop, given enough time, as this was the nature of wounds to a still living, breathing body.

The smoke was finally hitting his lungs and he revelled in it. The nicotine made his mind slow down and numbed the pain, eased the nigh overwhelming stress step by step, little by little.

Can’t believe I’m still alive .. that all of us are still alive ..

He had every reason to be happy about that. His wedding had been crashed and for the future, he wouldn’t be forced to be a subordinate for Big Mum .. or just be dead. He got back at his father in the most ironic way imaginable, saving him and his siblings from the prospect of certain doom and finally, all of them together were actually able bring about the fall of a tyrant.

Even though his mind was slowing down by now, he contemplated the fact that it had changed during his fight with the Sweet Commander. He transcended the normal bounds of human perception and came to understand the world a little better. When his Kenbunshoku Haki awoke, the only thing he had to do, also the only thing he could do, was to look at his opponent. He understood him on a level that was so much deeper than what he had ever seen .. no, ever felt before. Every movement, every breath he took told him stories about what his foe was going to do in the nearest future. Not one single story, no precise information, but the possibilities of things to come. Watching Katakuri through the second sight of his Haki felt like dreaming of statistics.

That was the reason on why he had to take chances. And since there had been no other option, he took them head on. It was not so much a clash of titans but a battle of wits, very close to a game of chess. One that was impossible to win with his wits alone. That was when taking chances became the most important part of this fight. Him willing to take these risks was what lead to victory. A pyrrhic one, but a victory nonetheless.

He had been wounded before and taking his opponent’s attacks head on could have very well killed him, but going through wit it anyway had been made much easier by the fact that there just was no third option to take.

One overly obvious move to lure Katakuri into an attack that nearly killed him was all it took to get the single opening he needed to go all-out. A single attack, filled with tranquil fury was what it took to get the better of him. By now he knew that he never felt wrath before, up until this moment. Pure, barely controlled ire was racing through his body and mind when he finally set fire to the shackles of his soul.

And finally, he had been able to make the shadows afraid, reborn, purified with righteous wrath.

Kind of a shame that fighting that guy isn’t the biggest obstacle to stand in my way. Vinsmoke luck, always rotten.

He couldn’t have been more right with that. The surrounding circumstances put that particular obstacle in the background, but it was still there, waiting for the right time to crush him. And after all the fights, the tears, after being on the verge of breaking again and again, it slid from the shadows, sneaking in for a coup de grâce.

Well, it’s not like I didn’t know that it was coming. In fact, everything from the moment I broke away from my nakama had been building up to this. I was living on borrowed time.. hahaha.

He didn’t really laugh, for one it didn’t go well with smoking and his body was too bruised to make it feel any good or relieving.

His ‘greatest obstacle’ was still out of breath, sitting on the ground with her perfect Clima-tact lying next to her. Sanji vividly remembered how she had used it to knock Pudding out cold when she tried to shoot him in the back. Again.

I guess you just don’t get inbetween a Goddess and her prey., he thought and couldn’t surpress a smile. The Goddess had protected him from harm just to be able to purge him herself. Irony really did write the best stories.

Now, after all this time, either spent apart or next to each other, each of them carefully avoiding to meet the other’s gaze, their eyes finally met again.

So it begins .. no, this might be how it ends., he thought with a heavy heart, closing his eyes for just a second. It was enough to summon the wraiths that were nourished by his guilt. Two shadowy figures that he could only see in the corner of his eye. One had taken the form of his captain, bruised, bloody and beaten within an inch of his life. But .. there was a genuine smile on his face. His signature smile. Sanji could feel the hand of this great man patting his back. Even hear his voice.

“I can’t forgive you, Sanji. Because there is nothing to forgive.”

But it meant nothing, as the second wraith slowly approached. He could only make out the colour of her hair. Fiery red, seemingly moving around even if there was not a breeze to touch it. But it was her eyes that scared him the most. They rightfully accused him, saw right through him. Even through all the physical pain he felt, this one stood out. It had been a simple slap, like the ones she had given him in the past, but oh-so different this time. She had not hurt his body, but her hit resonnated with his soul.

He opened his eyes again, feeling unable to face his wraiths. Nami finally rose up and, even through the sheer exhaustion of battle, she was the living proof that silk hid steel. Her every step resounded heavily within these silent halls .. and the halls of his heart. When she reached him, there was a long silence of exchanging glances and he cursed the fact that Katakuri didn’t kill him when he had the chance to.

“I’m waiting.”, she began, her voice so cold and emotionally barren that he feared that nothing would ever be as it was again.

“Nami-san, I ..”, but she stopped him in his tracks with just a glance. The Goddess didn’t want to hear his excuses.

“I .. I cannot undo what I have done .. please, Nami-san ..”, again, she didn’t want to hear his excuses and his pleads. Sanji wished for her to be irate again, wrathful, just showing emotions. But seeing her so calm and collected made him fear for the worst.

“ .. I nearly killed Luffy. I insulted his dreams. I lied to all of you, since the beginning of our journey. I lied to you because I didn’t think that it would ever be important for anyone again .. I didn’t expect my prediction to be so terribly wrong.”, somehow, speaking hurt. Not because of his bruised and beaten body, but because judgement was upon him. And instead of speaking in his defense, he just laid down all the proof of him being guilty as charged.

“No one could have foreseen that. Go on.”, the sound of her voice chilled him to the bone. Was her intention to torment him with everything he had wronged his crew in the past? Nonetheless, he continued. If it was someone’s right to do it, it was hers.

“I will never forgive myself for the things I put you through .. not .. not the crew, not our nakama. The things I put you through, Nami-san. Not only that my actions could’ve meant death for you .. oh gods ..”, he tried to swallow with increasing difficulty as his mouth was as dry as the desert. And smoking didn’t exactly help him with that.

“If not for Jinbe and the others, you .. you .. might have died, Nami-san.”, his voice failed him. The sheer thought alone was enough to tear open his wounds again. Sanji never wanted to hurt anyone. But when it all came down, his actions nearly killed the single most beautiful woman in the entire world who had been the center of his adoration for such an incredibly long time, no matter the hardships they faced.

“Until my last breath, I will not forget this, Nami-.., not a single line of this all. Not a single moment. Through my actions, I have chosen this burden. I deserve this penance. And everything that comes with it.”, he had consciously dropped the ‘san’, being sure that this meant the end. Whatever it was that developed between these two, whatever might have been possible before all of this had happened didn’t matter anymore, all that remained was a far cry, telling of what could have been.

Oh no .. please, please, please .. no .. not now .. please!

It was in the backdrop of his mind that his Kenbunshoku Haki slowly rose to power again. It had been awakened during his fight with Katakuri because the situation was life-threatening and it regained its sovereignty over his perception because of the increasingly high stress levels that this conversation put onto him.

The deepest, darkest fear of a human was the fear of the unknown. But somehow, knowing made it even scarier.

His eyes were fixated on Nami and he swallowed heavily when his Haki showed him everything and nothing.

Shadowy wraiths, the same he had seen before, but more numerous, were born from her body. They carried different shades of darkness, different colours .. but her voice. Some of them turned away from him, others silently accused him.

“I will never forgive you for what you have done, Sanji.”

“I swore that I would bring you back to the Sunny. Now that that’s done, we’re through.”

“You’re vermin, Sanji. I don’t care for your reasoning.”

“I want to never see you again, cook. And only because of our captain’s dreams will I even consider to suffer through your mere presence.”

“Maybe it would have been better if you starved as a child. For all of us. Think about it, if you died as a child, none of this would have ever happened.”

“Don’t you dare to approach me ever again, cook. We’re done.”

“If you ever so much as think about endangering our dreams again ..”

“I accept that you have to keep on travelling with us. But you’re no longer nakama. Not for me.”

“Couldn’t you just have ..”

“I will never ..”

“Don’t ever come ..”

“Never ..”

PLEASE, STOP!, his mind cried out in pain from all the things his Haki flooded it with. These perceptions were partly based on his knowledge and memories, but mostly they drew their influences from his present feelings and looking at her. Her body language, her voice that was as cold as ice. And it all felt so real. Everything was possible.

It only stopped when she made the next step herself. And for a moment, the slap he received felt .. unreal. Just another trick his mind had played on him. Her voice was just so different now, trembling, barely containing her ire.

“Do you remember Enie’s Lobby?”, she asked, seemingly in need to force herself through every word. The question itself surprised him, everything just seemed to be so far away .. still, he nodded.

Another slap, with more force behind it this time. So much that he nearly lost his balance. The cigarette between his lips fell to the ground.

And more words. More wrath.

“Do you remember the fight between Luffy and Usopp?”, again, he nodded and braced himself for the next slap to come. It didn’t do him any good. This time, it wasn’t the palm of her hand that hit him, but her fist. The sheer kinetic energy behind the punch was enough to effortlessly tear him down from the chair, putting him onto the cold ground. His wounds ached, but he remained silent. That was well-deserved.

“Do .. you .. remember .. me?”, what ..?, listening to hear voice brought tears into his eyes. Of course, he remembered it. Everything. Cocoyashi, Arlong, her tears, her wanting them to believe that she was a betrayer. Every line of it. He heard sobbing and thought that it was his own.

Nami fell to her knees, next to him. He expected another slap or punch or anything else that was supposed to hurt him. Yet seeing her, a neverending flow of tears running down her cheeks, realising that the sobbing belonged to her .. that was what finally did the trick. It was what hurt him the most of all.

“We could have avoided so much pain .. Sanji-kun, so many tears .. if we were only true to each other.”, and she was Just. So. Right. If only they had played with an open hand.

Still, he was at a loss for words. What answer could she possible expect?

“You’re right, .. you’re so right .. I’m sorry, Nami-san, please .. forgive me .. please ..”, Sanji forced the words out of his mouth and took a great risk by what he did next. He took her hand. And to his utter surprise, she let it pass.

More than that. Her fingers began to intertwine with his. And oh, her voice .. it seemed like it had finally found back to its roots. When she spoke to him again, a mighty wind blew away the clouds that hid the sun for so long.

“I swear .. to everything holy, Sanji-kun, that I will remind you to be sorry. Every day. Until the end of days. As long as the both of use still breathe.”

Wha .. does .. Nami-san .. is that .. am I losing my mind?!

It surely felt like it. A wonderful dream of Spring. The smell of tangerines in the air. Hair that playfully brushed over his face. Her warm hand in his.

Lips .. that tasted salty from her tears.

#SaNami #Sannami #SanjixNami #NamixSanji #One Piece Fanfiction #One Piece Fanfic #OP Fanfic #OTP #One Piece #Fanfiction #OP #Sanji x Nami #Nami x Sanji #Vinsmoke Sanji #Nami #Whole Cake Island #Whole Cake Arc #SaNa

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