Smoker had been about to kiss him back when the idiot slid off of his back into a puddle of sad. The freckles were sad, they weren't allowed to be sad. It wasn't allowed because it actually hurt when the freckles were sad. He didn't turn, instead pressed the heel of his palm to his temple and began rubbing, closing his eyes as he counted backwards from twenty slowly, matching his breathing to the circuits of the rubbing. He needed to thank Tashigi for that.

"Would I still be here if I wasn't willing to try, Portgas?" He was pretty sure he deserved a medal for not swearing colorfully at him. He bet the angry words lingering just under the surface would do more than rip everything apart. They weren't needed. Ace was forgiven, but it was still there. It festered like an open cut, puss leaking and blood pouring and it wasn't healing. Maybe it was finally settling just what he saw.

He didn't hate Ace, he forgave Ace, but it just wouldn't... "I don't get what you want from me." Not a question, not rhetorical, hell, he doubted waxing rhetoric would do nothing for him here, that it was lost on the idiot drowning in a pool of his own self loathing. "I don't know what you're expecting me to do, do you want me to tear a strip off of you? Do you want me to be angry? Portgas, you're a grown man, you're not a black sheep, I told you where you fit, you have that. But here you are a goddamned pile of sad freckles." He felt the anger, the fierceness of his words drain from him, as if saying them made it go away as he crouched down to lightly thumb at his jaw. His look wasn't pity, just sullen acceptance that Ace was on his low point. "I don't like sad freckles."