#i literally never fully color/render anything so i hope this looks fine

[spookedbees]

post burning maze piper my beloved

alt version under the cut

[touchmycoat]

I love you and your writing and I hope you have a wonderful day! Not sure if this is hardcore enough, but can I ask for Sabo and Ace being super possessive/jealous of Marco after they find out Marco and Shanks have a past?

ksjdfnsd hi anon filling this prompt was a Full Journey of Self-Discovery™ and that self-discovery was that a bitch! can’t! write! jealousy! you can literally pinpoint the exact moment I decided this wasn’t going to progress further without emotional resolution first ksjdnfksjdnfksdjf

So. Here it is. Marco/Ace/Sabo, past-Marco/Shanks, rated M for all kinds of grabbiness.

“It’s not that,” Sabo said, Ace’s knife pressed to Marco’s throat, “we’re jealous.”

It was a testament to the progress of their relationship, Ace thought, that Marco never even flinched. When the knife first came out, Marco might’ve even looked a bit excited, gaze like soot-strewn rocks with molten seams emerging from a forest fire. Now though, there was a dust of ashy confusion across his eyes, as his pupils searched Sabo’s face. Should I play along? the posture of his hands was telegraphing to Ace. Ace wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Of… what, yoi?” Marco finally asked, when neither lover gave him further clues. The knife sat just at the base of his Adam’s apple, angled up and lethal. But not to Marco, of course. Without the silver going black, Marco would, in a sense, remain ultimately unaffected by whatever Sabo did to him.

And that was the crux of Sabo’s upset, which Ace understood only too well. This was not a new feeling, wanting to gouge his mark upon the world. It wasn’t until Marco (and Sabo, but in a slightly different way) that Ace felt so keenly the desire to gouge his mark upon another person (after all, he and Sabo already carried each other under and over their skins—ink and scar tissue).

It was Ace who answered, tone laced with strangeness, “you and Shanks.”

The frown that twitched onto Marco’s face spoke of genuine perplexity before transforming into confounded comprehension. That was good.

“Oh—you mean…?”

In a deft and fluent motion, Sabo flipped his grip on the knife and plunged it into the wall right by Marco’s neck. Marco flinched, because Sabo had turned the knife, scoring a harsh line across Marco’s skin; the mark rapidly filled with red, but was kept from going blue.

Then, those fingers, gleaming with angry black chrome, transferred from dagger grip to Marco’s hair, knotting themselves in and yanking. Toward the blade. Its dull back bit and Marco bit too, incisors gritting in pain and defiance. Sabo was relentless—the diamond cutter’s insistent whet of gem on polishing wheel.

But Marco was no crystalline composition, just a man through and through (well—plus and minus some mythological bird bits and ocean magic bits). He was full of things like axons and myelin, while Ace, since youth, has always been pure action potential. Ace surged forward, clung flush to Marco’s torso before generously applying teeth, sharing Sabo’s mission to redden. They gave Marco marks of matching color on both sides of his neck. Fucking red all over.

Marco’s first gasps came out shocked. A hint of pleasure. However, the noises quickly deepened to affront.

“He told you?” Genuine aggravation was such an uncommon and delicious tone on Marco. Ace felt like he could eat it up directly, tongue lapping right against the buzzing vocal chords. Marco didn’t mean, of course, the simple fact that he and Shanks had slept together. He meant—

“Every detail,” Sabo confirmed. When Shanks had been the one here (alone; it took two of them to fill one Yonko’s sandals), it hadn’t been a small dagger, but the whole of Shanks’ sword. Ace worked really, really hard to not think about the symbolic comparison.

“We asked him to,” Ace added in a sullen mutter against Marco’s collarbone. Remembering Shanks’ tale, told to him and Sabo over drinks, Ace quickly plunged a hand down the back of Marco’s trousers. Buried his fingers into flesh until a groan stuttered out of Marco. “We had to know.”

“There’s nothing to—”

Marco’s denial stuttered out with a dull dark flush; he didn’t make a habit of lying to his lovers. He got a pinch on the ass for it from Ace, and Sabo tugged at his hand until it obliged the direction, curling over the back of Ace’s neck.

“He said,” Sabo reminded as Ace felt the grounding sting of his hair being pulled, “you were rough.”

“Did he now.”

“He said,” Ace’s turn, nails scoring in four jagged aisles down the center of Marco’s chest before rubbing warmly at his belly, “you only got gentle in the end. Was that how you wanted the second time to go?”

“Would you have kissed his wounds better?” Sabo muttered as he did just that. Finally relenting his grip, Sabo’s mouth now found the knife mark he’d painted on. From where Ace held himself against Marco he could see warm blood under Marco’s skin touching one side of Sabo’s lips, cold steel the other. He could see the soot-eyed slip of tongue filling the gap between.

Breathing beneath him, Marco shuddered in and out of focus. The hand Sabo placed on Ace wasn’t pulling, instead cupping, a warm sheath of need holding Ace close. Marco’s other hand had found its way to Sabo’s belt, fingers hooked in and clinging. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t rough; they’d deviated from the script of Shanks.

“I was—” Marco once again fizzled out, his frustrated sigh sounding like water poured over burning charcoal. “If he told you everything yoi, then you know.”

“Do we?”

The tone of conversation had taken such a turn that Ace had to pull both hands free of Marco—for just a moment. Marco’s wrist though, soon fit snugly in his grip, and Ace pressed a discontented kiss to the center of Marco’s palm.

“You wanted—” The dagger came out of the wall with a generous jerk from Sabo, and it felt like the opening of veranda doors. Everyone all suddenly had more exits, should they need one. Marco looked peculiar, while Sabo looked hunted. Ace wondered what his own expression told them. “—a second time. Unless he lied.”

The roll of Marco’s eyes, when it came, was long-suffering, and in that, intimate. It did nothing to calm the race of Ace’s heart.

“He doesn’t lie.” Years. It must’ve taken years for that tone of Marco’s, when talking about Shanks, to ferment. Uncorked, the sound was so cloying that it put a frown on Ace’s brow, a sneer on Sabo’s lips.

Marco must’ve caught the unhappy scent too. Splitting a pleading look between Ace and Sabo, he kept his hold on both their bodies, willing them not to take off.

“Alright,” he exhaled. “He’s got his turn, is it mine now yoi? Every detail.”

They—the three of them—were way past the point where every little dissatisfaction, every seam of insecurity rendered a frighteningly brittle portrait of their futurity. Ace had to make sure Marco knew that they knew this though, so gathered Sabo in one arm and crowded them all much closer. Like seabirds huddling for warmth, an alcove habitat of surviving tissue.

“Yes, it’s true.” Marco sounded much more settled now, and Ace could take comfort in that. “I offered a second time yoi. I offered more than a second time. He turned me down.

“But it wasn’t—” The continuation was insistent, though not too emphatic that Ace would doubt the earnest entreatment of Marco’s hands, Marco’s eyes. “—something large. The way Red Hair wanted me was as an opponent yoi, and the way he treats his opponents and rivals? Like they’re not that at all. Just look at Mihawk.” It’s not like this was a painless interlude in Marco’s life though, both Ace and Sabo could tell. They silently offered support in the still of their bodies, and Marco peeled away from the wall, leaning gratefully in. “That’s not something I can stand, not for a serious relationship. I knew that going in, I did. But I offered anyways.”

“But only,” Sabo added on slowly, “the smallest slice of feeling you could give, ‘cause you knew it probably wouldn’t work out?”

That got a chuckle out of Marco, all three of them feeling the vibrating sound waves in their touching chests. “I do try to be careful, yoi.”

“Actually,” Ace confessed, “Shanks told us you’re the one who turned him down that second time.”

“He would put it like that, wouldn’t he?” That eye roll again. Ace felt a bit better prepared to weather it this time.

“But we knew, right?” This was the same, unspoken knowing Marco had been the first to bring up. “We could read between the lines. We know you.”

We know you fell for him, and you turned down his offer of a second night stand to protect yourself.

“Yeah—” A dark flush had crept its way up to Marco’s ears, and Ace traded incredulous looks with Sabo when Marco glanced off sharply to the side. “—but it’s embarrassing more than anything else, yoi. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re right. Falling for Shanks is embarrassing,” Ace and Sabo managed to say in perfect synchronized stereo. What followed was a truly violent scuffle as Marco went full phoenix and tried to fling himself out the nearest window; Ace became a blockading wall of fire, while Sabo just fully jumped on Marco’s back to wrestle the bird back to earth. Even after he was pinned, Marco maintained all his dangerous talonpoints until Ace, exasperated, plopped a kiss to the top of his head.

“Okay, so we were a little jealous. But it’s fine. We get it now.”

Since Sabo was still sitting on him like a huge, self-satisfied cat, Marco just kept lying flat on his front, forehead and nose mashed to the ground.

“Do you.”

“I mean, we’d fuck him too,” Sabo shrugged. The speed at which Marco’s head shot up and the sheer temperature of the glare he shot Sabo were what finally soothed the last dredges of insecurity in Ace’s chest.

“Don’t you dare, yoi.”

But Sabo wasn’t going to be cowed by Marco; there was still something he wanted. Setting his knees on either side of Marco, Sabo pulled Marco up by the lapels, and Ace wordlessly slipped in from behind.

“Only if you make it up to us.”

“Make it up to you for sleeping with Shanks once, before I’ve even met either of you?” The words were sarcastic, but Ace heard only intrigue in Marco’s tone. He slid a hand back down Marco’s pants, the front this time.

“Shanks told us you left marks on him that didn’t go away for weeks,” Ace whispered conspiratorially into Marco’s ear. “Sabo’s been huffy after that.”

“Huffy,” Sabo scoffed, as his hands traced Marco’s neck. The transformation into phoenix had successfully rid Marco of all previous marks. When Sabo ducked it under Marco’s jaw, it was only to lick, not to leave more red. “I’m only trying to right a grievous injustice.”

“Revolutionary,” both Ace and Marco muttered, in matching tones of faux-sympathy.

“…Well.” The way Marco shifted between them felt like the relighting of a pilot flame. Ace saw Sabo being pulled closer by a hand on his back, and felt a matching grip on his own thigh. With a sinuous grind back into Ace’s hips, Marco pulled Sabo down into a kiss generous with tongue and suction. Ace conveyed his own pleasure at this sight with a stroke of his hands, and felt Marco sigh against his chest.

And then Ace, impatience getting the better of him, took a handful of Sabo’s hair. He pulled, and Marco laughed, obliging the order to get on with it already, applying teeth to throat.

“I’m sure we can fix that, yoi.”

[nadunacreates]

HEROES BLEED RED • FLUFFCEMBER PROMPT FILL

days one to six: sunrise // flower crown // humming // lake // gentle touch // cute animal

set somewhere after the epilogue that has yet to be written; a soft ending; 2k words, continued under the cut.

•

Radiant is sitting next to her, once again. They’re back out here, once again, with the same mountains and forests surrounding them, stretching as far as they can see. This time, though, time doesn’t matter. They don’t have to hurry back to the city, there’s no rush to be anywhere, no need to pretend that this is not exactly where they’re supposed to be and who they’re supposed to be with. This time, it’s easy to linger, to settle back against the grass that’s cold and wet with dew, to interlace their fingers and tip their heads back, keep their eyes on the horizon and watch the sun rise over the valley, watch the Mountain Beasts rip entire trees out of the ground and crush them to dust with their razor-sharp teeth, grazing contentedly and bleating ‘good morning’s at each other like overgrown, furless sheep.

The air is filled with birdsong and the smell of spring; there are flowers that crane their heads towards the first rays of light, that let the sun’s fingers caress their newborn bodies, and they sigh softly when the warmth of a new day seeps deep into their leaves, makes their blossoms flutter and the color pop. There are busy bees and hungry caterpillars, a wild bunny or two, and it feels like it’s the whole world that’s spreading out before them, finally at peace. Finally able to heal.

Moe startles when Radiant tugs her hand out of Moe’s grasp, when she sighs and tugs off her mask, shoots a sheepish smile in Moe’s direction as she lets her hair fall loose over her shoulders. “It’s better that way,” Kaliope says quietly. Her eyes glow. “I don’t even know why I put it on in the first place.” Moe smiles back at her, but in the end, there’s no need to say anything. She knows why Kaliope put it on in the first place, just as well as Kaliope herself knows it, probably, even if she doesn’t quite want to admit it.

It’s still hard, after all.

Some days are still worse than others, and sometimes the memories press in on them both, barely let them breathe. Memories of both good and bad, of things past that they wish they could change and those that they wouldn’t ever, of light and dark and dark and light, and all these grey spaces in-between. It’s never easy, but sometimes it’s bearable. Sometimes it’s okay, because they’re going to be fine. Because somewhere down the road, they’re going to be okay. And right now, they’re just working towards that goal, day after day, step by step, along that winding path.

Moe realizes she’s still smiling when she blinks the shadow of these memories out of the corners of her eyes, blinks and notices that Kaliope still isn’t holding her hand again, but instead she’s now holding up a flower crown woven of forget-me-nots and daisies and other small plants that Moe doesn’t know the name of, isn’t sure if they’re even flowers or just random weeds. Then again, Kaliope has never needed perfection to love something, to be able to appreciate its inherent beauty in spite of all appearances. (She’s always been the one to look closer, deeper, to listen and wait and figure out the truth for herself, to see beauty from within.) Moe realizes she’s still smiling because it almost hurts when she wants to grin even wider at the sight, when her throat closes up as if that was where these flowers were growing, and even swallowing twice doesn’t do anything about the choking feeling at the back of her throat or about the sudden dryness of her eyes, the way they itch and water and— Moe keeps smiling despite the quiver of her lips, because of the quiver in her lips, and she closes her eyes, leans forward and bows her head in Kaliope’s direction, a silent acquisition followed by an agreeing noise from under her breath, a shaky hum to distract from the way she’s literally rendered speechless. Kaliope laughs a little to herself, softly, and takes care to arrange the flower crown on Moe’s head, to weave it into the short brown locks, to make sure it doesn’t fall apart at the slightest movement. She takes a moment to admire the image once she’s done, after, and there’s a pause during which Moe doesn’t dare to open her eyes. She feels the weight of Kaliope’s gaze on her, though, and it’s a comforting kind of burden. Then Kaliope runs her hand down the side of Moe’s face, oh so gently, cups her palm against her cheek, and lets her thumb stroke along the bone underneath Moe’s right eye, brushes a few stray tears away. She doesn’t say anything, for a while, just hums and stays close and leans forward to touch her forehead against Moe’s when Moe’s breaths finally start to calm, when there’s no hitch to them, anymore.

Moe’s hands itch to touch Kaliope back, return the gesture of reverence, to wrap her up in a hug and just… hold her close, for a while, to know that she’s here and she’s not going anywhere, and it only takes the span of a heartbeat for Moe to remember that she’s allowed to do these things, now, that Kaliope even requested she give in to such whims whenever she wants to — and oh, how she wants to.

Still, she’s careful when she raises her hand to come to a rest on Kaliope’s wrist, on the hand that’s still cupping Moe’s cheek. Kaliope doesn’t flinch or back away, so Moe runs that hand along Kaliope’s arm down to her elbow, up to her shoulder, back down again, following soft curves and well-known paths, until she reaches the cage of her ribs and lets her other hand join it there, and then she wraps both of her arms around Kaliope’s waist, oh so gently, pulls her close — buries her face in her neck and just breathes, for a while.

Kaliope’s own hands come to a rest on Moe’s shoulder blades now, and still she’s running her thumbs back and forth in soothing circles, a subconscious gesture that makes Moe relax a fraction more, until Kaliope is all but holding her up, capable and strong and unyielding, sarcastic and soft and gentle, and gods, how Moe loves her.

She loves her.

It’s not really a revelation.

It’s something she’s known for a while now, the same way she knows when the moon is full or when there’s a storm coming, something that’s ingrained deep in her bones and impossible to get out, something that’s as much a part of her as the blood in her veins and the heart that beats in her chest, only that now that heart beats for Kaliope, too, a thump-thump-thump of you’re-here-beside-me, of no-more-masks-I-know-you-and-you-know-me and let-me-spend-the-rest-of-our-lives-with-you. It’s— it feels like coming home. Coming home to the kind of home where the fireplace is lit during wintertime (because Emerson will never not complain when it’s cold outside and there’s no fire in the hearth), where it smells like fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies (because Maura found that new recipe and had to try it) and where there’s a new painting on the wall (because Lisa has finally found her inspiration again), a home where cat and dog lie curled up next to (and on top of) each other in front of the flames, where Kaliope looks up with a smile and ink-stained fingers when Moe enters, where Moe gets to come home and press a kiss to Kaliope’s lips, where she stumbles forward and lands in Kaliope’s lap (because Farren is a little shit and they just won’t quit match-making Moe even after Moe has found her match). It feels like coming home to a home that’s no longer a pipe dream made of mere wisps and smoke of hopeful thinking, but rather a home that’s made of solid bricks and mortar, steady, sturdy and reliable, comfortable and real, and it’s not something she has to wish upon a star for, but rather something that actually happened that way just last week, and... yes.

Moe might be more than ready to say it now, and she’s never considered herself a coward, doesn’t want to start now, so—

“I love you,” she says, and very much feels as though she just took a tumble down a cliff; her heart is in her throat and her are hands shaking, so she fists them in the material of Radiant’s cloak and hopes for the best. She took a tumble down the cliff and she can’t fly, anymore, but Kaliope will always be there to catch her. She holds her closer still, and Moe can feel the way her fingers shake as she stops drawing patterns on the bare skin of Moe’s neck, as she presses them flat against it instead, as though she has to steady herself. Kaliope breathes in and out and her hair tickles Moe’s nose and her heart beats a steady rhythm against Moe’s chest and then she turns her head to the side, presses her lips to the place where shoulder meets neck, where that scar runs down along Moe’s collarbone, and she says, whisper-quiet, “I love you.”

Moe smiles, again, or maybe still, and she lets herself melt back into Kaliope’s embrace, lets herself just enjoy the moment. There’s nothing more that needs to be said, nothing that couldn’t wait just a few minutes more.

The sun has fully risen now, the Mountain Beasts have moved on, a little, stopped eating trees and started ripping chunks out of the mountainside, instead, and a few of them have trotted down to the water to drink, and it’s their old friend who stops and stares on his way, who cranes his long neck and roars a greeting. Kaliope startles at the sound, but it only takes her half a heartbeat to recognize the sound and know that it isn’t a threat, and then she starts laughing, the full-belly kind of laughter that leaves her unable to hold Moe close anymore, that makes her stomach cramp and her voice go too high, her eyes crinkle and glow brighter, sparkle with mirth, and it makes the hiccups start again.

Kaliope leans into Moe’s side as she’s calming down, then, lets her fingers wrap against Moe’s and lifts those intertwined hands to her mouth to kiss the back of Moe’s hand, but doesn’t quite manage to follow through with the whole pressing-her-lips-to-skin thing, because she hiccups again. Opens her mouth in affront, to protest, hiccups again. She snaps her mouth shut and glares, and this is the moment that Moe’s composure dissolves into laughter as well, carefree for once, just happy to be here, with Kaliope, to enjoy this moment of peace. Freedom.

It’s not perfect. There’s grass stuck to Kaliope’s cheek and her fingers are stained with the color of the flowers she used for the crown, and Moe thinks there’s hair in her mouth and her own legs are getting numb from the way she sits and the fact that the cold and wet grass has really become a nuisance now, but it’s good. It’s good.

They’re alive, they have each other.

Tomorrow will come, and it will come with yet another beautiful sunrise.

It’s more than enough, and Moe loves every second of it.

•

author’s note at the end, because wow this has gotten long. 

i’m… not bad at writing daily, but rather at being able to produce something actually readable daily. which is why, when i saw how perfectly these first six days of the fluffcember prompts go together, i couldn’t resist writing a single piece for them all. i hope you enjoyed it!

also. i realized pretty late that this whole thing probably counts as a major spoiler because it’s literally an epilogue after an epilogue, but. i kinda don’t care. i also don’t care that i have no idea just what these two have been through, in the end, because i haven’t written it yet. i know what my PLAN is, and i know it’s gonna be ... bad, but honestly my writing rarely goes according to plan, so this might very well end up never happening like that. it was still a nice break from the angst.

(and mountain beasts count as cute animals, right?)