X - VI
It's shrinkiiiiiing...
I have such random chapter lengths for this story.
Info: One-shot (will be posted in parts)
Status: WIP, 360 words
Genre: Suspense, and also Angst, apparently
Rating: M (for strong language and themes)
Pairing: Smoker/Ace eventually
Summary: [AU] Do the evolution
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VI
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person,
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Parva saepe scintilla contempta magnum excitavit incendium.
A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration.
(Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni)
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Ace blinked stupidly. "What."
Smoker glared. "I said to let me in, fucking idiot."
"Um." And so Ace complied. "There a particular reason why you're here? It's not like you'd voluntarily visit me." Seeing as Smoker had no snappy comeback, Ace was temporarily taken aback. "Wait. You are vis -"
"Shut the fuck up, Portgas."
"Ah, there's the bastard we know and love," Ace muttered.
Smoker snorted in derision and eyed Ace. "You look like shit again."
"Expand your vocabulary already, I'm sure I'm far more handsome than crap." Ace seated himself on his kitchen table. He watched Smoker scrutinize his apartment. "I'm sorry it's messy…?" he ventured, not knowing what the other man was thinking, as usual.
"You live here?" Smoker frowned.
Ace laughed. The unnatural noise grated against his ears and his nerves. "Uh yeah. Excellent deduction, my dear Holmes."
"It looks like my office."
And Ace stopped laughing. He knew what Smoker meant now.
"You don't live here," Smoker observed. "It's just an apartment."
Not a home.
He understood. Ace promptly eradicated that traitorous thought.
"You have a black eye." Smoker pointed.
Ace blinked stupidly for the second time in ten minutes. "I do?" He thought he had healed everything. He didn't want Smoker to think he had an abusive father or some other sobstory crap. He didn't need to seem more fucked up in the head.
"How did you not notice? Don't you have a damn mirror?"
"I used to. I broke it."
"Why the fuck would you do that?"
A wry smile stretched Ace's freckled face. "Because, as you so eloquently put it earlier, I look like shit."
There was a short pause. "Why do you think everything is wrong with you?" Smoker demanded.
"I thought you'd agree." Ace smirked.
"I do," Smoker said. "I just want to know why you think that."
Ace shrugged nonchalantly. "After twenty one years, there's still nothing to prove me wrong."
They dropped the topic and began a bland and neutral conversation on the coffee place near work.
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