#good rest

The rhymes and rhythms have almost all fallen into place.

They didn't always have access to a ship; Sabo could requisition all manners of strange transport options from the RA, and Ace and Marco still traveled faster via Striker. They've gotten into the habit of meeting on islands with inns, or at least islands without extreme weather. Time together was precious, full of needs and the needs of needs. Sometimes that meant rope, so Ace started to always bring rope. Sometimes that meant chains, so if one of them could scrounge up some metal before meeting, they would always make it work.

Sometimes that meant ropes and chains but they still weren't enough. They all had days like that, frankly, when the fire got under their skin. Marco knew the symptoms best in himself, when loss creeped in at the edges of his dreams. His hands and tongue would gain a desperate edge that Ace and Sabo frequently indulged, knowing he just needed to ground himself in their pleasure (all while knocking away attempts at returning the favor) and get it out of his system. The times that they didn't indulge him though were often just as good; you don't want to lose us? Then lie back, lie back and just take it.

Ace was less predictable, brilliant with a flurry of moods and the beautiful willingness to trust them, all three of them, in this configuration of mutual healing. He came to them with all sorts of ideas, some complementary, some contradicting. When self-doubt hollowed him out, for example, Ace might ask to be whipped back into shape, push and push his body with so much pain that when he came out of the other side whole, he could find satisfaction again in corporeality. On another night though, he might just as easily ask to be worshipped and caressed. He might drape himself over Marco's lap and pout until he got a lavish full-body lickdown, drinking in the way Marco mouthed so ardently at his dirtiest places. He might slip on satin and sprawl back on a bed, his full body of freckles disappearing into the pretty pink flush that painted his skin when Sabo began working him with fingers and murmuring compliments. When it came to Ace and his eager variety of interests, Marco thought there was really nothing more beautiful than the way Ace could, at the end, sigh all the tension out of his back and resettle into his (lovely) body.

Marco thought he had Sabo figured out.

Not in the total and significant way Ace had Sabo figured out—Marco didn't think he'd ever match that soul bond they've got, no matter how hard he tried, which was honestly fine, he was happy enough being present to witness it, to be in proximity to it, but that's a digression—but Marco understood the basic equations at play. Sabo's ghost-hunting weapon of choice was violence, physical or verbal. Agitated Sabo plus ropes equaled calmer Sabo. Angry Sabo plus chains equaled happier Sabo.