angryfistofgod | Locked to WhiteHunter // Prolly not Mags-safe? IDK

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Locked to WhiteHunter // Prolly not Mags-safe? IDK

So on a scale of 1 to 100, Ace fucked up on an imaginary plane. Yeah.

He trotted along to hunt Smoker down. Stupid fucking arrogant marine. So he'd never hunt Ace down, but Ace always had to find him? He didn't get it. Sometimes that was lonely. What was the point in dating the best hunter in the world if it didn't go both ways? He wanted to sit on a roof and think but he had a feeling Smoker wouldn't come find him. Hell, if it was reversed would Ace go find Smoker...?

Actually. Yes.

But still, that wasn't the point. Smoker wouldn't and they were different people.

"Think like Smoker, think like Smoker," he muttered to himself and walked to the nearest bar. Unless he missed his guess, Smoker was going to drink, pick up a girl, and do everything he could to forget why he bothered spending any amount of time on a stupid freckled fire brat in the first place.

Ace's heart was in a vise. The stronger it pumped, the more it seemed like it was going to get squeezed. A cage or a pair of seastone cuffs wrapped tightly around it. It still beat, but it hurt more than he knew it could.

He saw a man smoking with Smoker's hair color from behind and froze. Whatever he wanted to say wouldn't be enough. Whatever he could do to make up for it... wouldn't be enough. Was he always just kidding himself? Pretending he could be someone who could just be around one person to be happy. Ace was never happy.

He grabbed a seat on the barstool next to the man, calmly ordered a drink and kept his hat low. He spoke up, only barely caring if Smoker heard, forgave him, or left all over again. "Have you ever been so lonely, that sometimes all you can hear is a question about whether you even should have been born?"

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Shoulders were hunched forwards, eyes focused on the bar and not on the sounds behind him. He can hear kids outside asking after the marine who bought them ice cream and then just walked away without hearing their thanks. He can hear the couple upstairs fucking each other stupid, he can even hear the pirates in the corner of the bar making plans to get the fuck out of there because there was a marine suddenly in the joint. He puts a voice to a name and it doesn't even matter. He rolls the two cigars between his teeth, grinding them and sucking the smoke out, letting it escape through his nose.

If it had been another person, he bet he would actually be wrapped up in another woman right then, seeking comfort and not sitting with a bottle of Rhum off to the side and a crystal whiskey glass that had finger prints smeared over the sides in front. He wouldn't be stewing and getting angrier.

He wants to say he hates him for it, but he doesn't. Can't. That's what pisses him off so much more, because Ace could probably go and keep making out with fucking Roronoa (really? Why the fuck was he even doing that?) and Smoker would be more angry that he couldn't hate Ace for it.

The little shithead wormed his way into his life, burrowed deep under his skin and stole his heart. Apparently now he was done with it and just conveniently didn't tell him. What the fuck ever.

Smoker hears Ace before he actually hears him. It's the boots, if he were to be honest, they squeak just barely and there's nothing quite like it. There's also the thump of his dagger on his hip hitting something metal or just something on his stupid shorts, but the fact is, he knows the idiot is there before he hears his words.

He doesn't look up, just slides the bottle towards him and shrugs. He thinks about speaking meanly or just telling him to scram instead what comes out in a low growl is, "No, but I'd rather you not think like that." He wants to smack Ace upside the head again for this.

"Yeah...." Ace hung his head. He was tempted to grab the bottle, but he couldn't drink in this state. Not yet. Not while he was being honest and open and if he started drinking, it would just be to get out of this. "You don't deserve this. You deserve a shitload better and it's not something I can give." It took every ounce of Ace's self-loathing to admit that. To admit that there was something he couldn't do to help someone he loved more than he could explain to anyone, including his father, including his little brother, including himself. It took all his love for Smoker, weighed flat out against the brutal honesty that Smoker had way more to give and far better to receive than from someone as screwed up as Ace himself.

"I love you," he mumbled such that only Smoker could hear it. He didn't need Smoker getting mad at him for doing this in public on top of everything else. Bad enough they were sitting together, justice and Whitebeard side by side for the whole bar to see.

"But the days you can't find me..."

He wanted to die. He hated that. Hated that he could think that way. Luffy was his reason for living, really. Luffy, Pops, his nakama. But if he kept endangering them just by being himself, just by being stupid, just by being a fuck-up. He couldn't take being this co-dependent, he needed to leave. To ditch everyone he could and be alone. Because otherwise they'd just get dragged down with him. And he was always going to go down. There were a lot of highs, but too many lows.

How had this started? Him and Smoker? When had it become inseparable? When had it become something that Ace could actually hurt Smoker over? That was the worst of it. Smoker. Strong impervious perfect Smoker. Nothing hurt him. But Ace had.

Fuck everything.

"Smoker," Ace slid the bottle back without taking a sip. Just got up and fought every ounce of tangled emotion inside him. He was alive, but he didn't know what it meant. "I'm so lost these days that I can't even find me anymore. If you don't come hunt me down? No one good will."

He stood, bowed lightly, tipped his hat politely and murmured almost eerily formally, "Good day," and started walking back out. Idly, he noted that Marco was right. He was kind of terrible at being a pirate. Too self-sacrificing for his own good.

He calculates the steps, the motions and the force he'd need to stop Ace. Instead, he stands up and puts money on the bar, nodding at the bartender and grabs Ace before he reaches the door. He doesn't go for affectionate, in fact the way that he just forces himself in front of the other, shoving his shoulder into his stomach and lifted him like a sack of potatoes. Smoker starts walking then, he doesn't go for the docks, he doesn't go for another inn, he just goes for empty beach where he could think and glare at the brat over his shoulder.

He doesn't let him down as he kicks off his boots and takes off his gloves. He just holds him there and thinks. He really did have a lot to say to Ace, so much, too much. It was overwhelming and dizzying and it caught him all off guard. He walks them to the shallows and just drops Ace into the water not deep enough to drown him. He stares down at him and then follows, squatting next to him.

"One," he held his finger up, wagging it at the pirate. "You're an idiot." He poked his forehead and snorted. "Two," he held up two fingers. "I want to know what the fuck you were thinking kissing someone when you know you're mine and you know you're mine, so don't even try that shit with me Blacksheep." He added another poke and just snorts low, voice dropping to a deeper growl. "Three," he waggled three fingers at Ace, "I don't hate you."

Ace let himself be carried without a word. Normally, he'd chat Smoker's ear off. Snark, babble, just ramble, but right now... he didn't have words. And for the first time in a long time the silence was nice. He wriggled a little to get comfortable, but other than that, silence. Pure silence. Hello town. Hello beach. Hello waves. Smoker was taking off his gloves and just left them on the shore with the boots. Ace blinked at that. Smoker barely took his boots off for sex sometimes, so they had to be going somewhere he didn't want them ruined? Or wet.

Wet.

Definitely wet. Ace was up to his chest in ocean and just let it sink over his boots and through the shorts. Good thing the knife was well sealed.

He let Smoker poke him, scold him, in quite some bemusement. Perhaps the strangest part was... it was equal. Smoker always treated him like an equal. Never more, never less. He was talking to him like a friend and lover. Not down at him, not angrily shouting at him, not even punching him the way his Grandfather instantly would have.

Which just made Ace love him all the more.

"One, I know," was it a good sign some of his snark was back? Ace wasn't sure. "Two..."

He hung his head again. He shifted his feet and wriggled this soaked toes in the soaked feet as best he could. He took his hat off and handed it to Smoker to keep it safe. Or Smoker could throw it. Whatever. It'd still be safer with Smoker than Ace.

Once freed of the orange hat, Ace held up a finger and carefully dipped his hair back into the ocean. He just held onto one of Smoker's arms, leaned back to let the salt water cool him off and them pulled himself back up and shook the shaggy wet strands out like a dog.

He needed his head as cooled as the rest of him, as incapable of burning. Because everything always seemed to burning, so it was a good idea Smoker had to put them in ocean.

"When something's important to you, you have to protect it. You can't take it for granted. You're not a pirate, so I know, treasure isn't your thing, but I am. Everyone will want to steal or kick or break your treasure. That's the kind of fucked up world this is." He idly remembered Sabo's final letter, that Ace and Luffy were his treasure. Luffy was his treasure, his nakama were his treasure. "You can't call me yours and then expect it to just be that way," Ace growled angrily. He wasn't angry at Smoker, not even a little. Sad, hurt, guilty, but not mad, not at Smoker. He was furious with himself though. And the way the world still worked.

"I kissed him because it was fun. Because I don't want to go this long with never kissing anyone. I hate being disloyal. It's not me. It makes me hate me, and all I want is you, but when I can't have you, I'll settle for forgetting why I hate... me..." Even for Ace, even to Smoker, that was more honest than he ever intended to be. His shoulders slumped and he could look up. "I don't want you to hate me, I don't want me to hate me, but I don't want to ... I still want to play. I'd rather it was you," he looks up seriously, but drops the gaze down to Smoker's neck, "But I can't handle no one. I'm sorry."

Smoker watched him, watched him dunk himself over and over again and good god, that brat was annoying. He grunted, listening to him talk about treasure and he had to cover his mouth all over again. "You are my treasure, but I also highly enjoy the fact that I thought I could trust you not to go around kissing people who are not me. You know that trust is something I value above anything." He ran his fingers through the slicked down black hair and grit his teeth. "If you need to play, go play. Just remember who you belong with. Kiss who you want. But that's as far as you're getting from me."

He didn't even think this was a conversation that should be happening, but here it was, happening. "You're not off the hook, I'm fucking pissed, but there was more pressing matters at this point." Like cooling down Ace. "I don't expect to keep you all to myself. There are parts of you that aren't mine, just like there's parts of me that aren't yours. Just so we're clear."

Ace nodded slowly, though his neck was starting to burn up again. Rage? Embarrassment? Shame? Lust? Heat? He didn't even know.

"I don't..."

Don't what? Deserve the trust? That much was apparent. Want to hurt Smoker again? Yeah definitely.

He shook his head again and gestured more towards shore and started wading, at least as much as he could. Everything felt sluggish. He waited until the waves were just over his knees and sat down in the ocean.

"I get to surf again," he mentioned idly, referring to nothing in particular. "And I met a guy who's going to race me against my skiff. Whenever I can get it back." He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to share it with Smoker. The sides of him Smoker couldn't see because he wasn't there.

"I got my ass handed to me in gay chicken, I'm sure you're not surprised. So before me how many male marines did you fuck?"

He reached out a hand for his hat. He was ready to be deserving of it again and protect his treasure.

Smoker, however, was not. He held it away from Ace, looking down at the moron with a frown.

Why was his sexual relations important suddenly? He squinted down at the brat with a wary raise of the brow. "A few. Why?" He used the hand that had been wound in the black hair to rewind itself through the thick hair and tug. "Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't matter," Ace sighed and glanced down wearily, unfazed by the rough hand in his hair, "But you do."

He wriggled about. This was far less comfortable than he expected, which could only make sense given how he was chest deep in ocean, not wearing any underwear and there was wet sand threatening to wedge in the deepest worst parts of his shorts.

"You said there's parts of us we don't share. I don't want to be like that. I don't want separate lives. I don't know. I don't want you to stop being a marine, and I'll definitely never stop being Pops' son. But I still share those things with you. I don't know, I don't know..."

He pulled his knees protectively up to his chest. "Someone," Zoro actually, but Ace didn't want to name names here. "Said I need to learn to slow down. It's always full throttle or full stop with me, I guess. I never noticed with you. I never worried I could burn you. Somehow I didn't think what I did mattered. And that made me not care. I don't ever want to hurt you again. But I will, won't I? That's all I do. I burn people. Can't comfort like your smoke, can't touch ice or it'll melt. Just... fuck. Get away before you'll get burnt more." Ace could already feel his fire surging again, right around the neck, and he idly splashed at Smoker's legs, half serious, half playful.

Smoker felt sympathetic to Ace's plight. He had a lot to say to everything about his mini-rant, but now wasn't the time. Not when he began heating up and visibly looked like he was about to explode if Smoker didn't do something. So, he lightly shoved Ace backwards into the water and stared at him, making him surface with a light tug of his hand.

"Everyone has their secrets to keep, Portgas," he growled quietly, though he instead lightly pet through the wet black hair, tugging lightly closer to the scalp. "And our lives aren't separate, brat. They're singular, twisting and turning around each other, sometimes they stray away, but they're still ours." He ruffled the others hair lightly and kissed his forehead.

"Yeah, you'll hurt me and I'll hurt you, you can't keep trapiezing through life like you can't hurt someone. You'll hurt everyone that way." He watched the brown eyed brat and sighed, closing his own, he counted. "I don't like following anyones way but my own, Portgas. You? Need to follow your own justice, stop worrying about hurting me. I'm still angry, yeah, but that's because you're a stupid bastard sometimes." He ground down on the cigars. "Chu."

"Chu..." Ace muttered and blew a kiss up to the other man.

"My own justice huh?" Right now, he wasn't sure what that was. Everything seemed to be all over the place, like walls of flame, flickering in all the directions and Ace was trying to keep it from spreading in the wind. "Do you still trust my justice?"

"Yes." Smoker didn't even miss a beat, eyes focused down on Ace. He offered the other a hand and kept his eyebrow perked high. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because I'm not even sure what my own justice is. I didn't think gay chicken would be a problem, but then you got hurt and I don't want that," Ace stayed seated in the water though he put his arms around Smoker's leg.

"You do know what it is, it's just muddled because you're trying to do to many things at once." He kept the hand in Ace's hair, petting him lightly. "You can stand up, brat," he pointed out with a soft snort, rolling his eyes at the brat.

Ace stood up and gave Smoker's midsection a very wet hug. "I hate it," he growled, "I hate being the black sheep. I just want to fit in with my family. I can't, so I just try to embrace who I am, but maybe I don't know what that is. Why the fuck do you still love me?" He lightly bit Smoker's chest mostly because he needed to bite him somehow and the chest was there.

Smoker just continued to roll his eyes and lightly pet Ace's hair. He could whine and whimper and pretend he was a black sheep, but that was good. He didn't love someone who just fit in with everyone, he wanted someone who was rough around the edges and just did the best he could. Ace did all of that and more.

"Because I know where you fit."

"Oh," Ace mumbled and just hugged Smoker hard. Where he belonged was it? It was always so easy for the marine sometimes and Ace almost envied that, but mostly right now, he appreciated it in every way possible. "You really think I belong with you?" he mumbled, slowly letting his thoughts sort themselves out. "Yours?" it was a tentative question.

He was self destructive and it seemed like everyone else got caught up in that, but Smoker was still impervious, and Ace really needed that in his life.

"Would I be standing here if I didn't?" Smoker frowned and wrapped his arm around Ace, the hand on his head sliding to cup the back of it. "Yes, mine. Why else would I be pissed that I caught you kissing Roronoa, Blacksheep? Do you think that you don't matter to me? Stupid."

"Yeah. Yeah I did," he kisses Smoker hard on the side of the mouth lacking cigars and does his best to lean his forehead up to Smoker's. "I don't deserve to matter to you." Ace shifted in his stupid soaked shorts and hugged around Smoker's neck. "Take me home. I don't know where that is, but you do. Take me home and punish me, teach me a lesson, however you want. I just like being yours." He nibbled Smoker's neck.

"I'm probably just going to go to bed." He huffed, though let Ace hug him over and over again. Ace was so needy some times, such a bottle rocket. He did smirk a bit, carrying Ace back to shore and putting the ridiculous orange cowboy hat on his head as he shook his coat out from the sand and handed it to Ace.

Ace cheerfully put the coat on his own shoulders and snuggled into Smoker's neck. "Mind if I stay with you?"

"Considering you have my jacket on, what do you think the answer is?" Smoker was so amused and attempted to get his boots on with one hand.

"Good," Ace growled and latched himself onto Smoker's ears so he could bite and suck on them. "Does that make you home?" he squirmed about trying to find a comfortable way to drape all over Smoker even more. Clearly he didn't care that much about helping Smoker get his shoes back on. Oops.

Making a frustrated noise, Smoker huffed, his hands pausing in trying to tie his boots to gain a tiny bit of a tremble to them. "Yes," he muttered, nudging Ace with a nose before giving a soft warning growl of, "Portgas, watch it." He didn't actually mind too much, he knew, though he needed his hands steady and the slow burn of arousal sparked by the overly hot mouth on his ear was unwanted.

"I am," Ace pouted and sucked on Smoker's ears more. "I'm watching very very carefully," he grumbled, and didn't stop in the least. Clearly he and Smoker were talking about two very different things.

Growling more, Smoker removed his hands from his boot and whacked Ace lightly over the head. "Brat! Ears!" He bristled like a lion, eyes narrowed on the top of his idiots head. "Blacksheep, I swear," he groaned afterwards, though definitely not how Ace probably wanted him too. Lightly poking his forehead and bending down to quickly get his boots on before Ace could assault his ears again. It was bad enough how hard his hands were shaking. "You have two settings, three if you count Sleeping."

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