In which Ace gets promoted and Luffy can’t say narcolepsy.
“That's the third time in the last two days!” Marco shouts at Ace, arms crossed over his chest, Luffy thinks he sounds almost worried. “The third time that you've fallen asleep somewhere you shouldn't have and ended up in the ocean!”
Ace, kneeling as he drips water over the deck, says nothing, fists clenched on his thighs and his eyes focused on the deck. His hair's slicked back from his face and his shoulders still shake, the weakness the water brings still ebbing away.
Luffy watches them both, hands curled into the bottom of his shirt and his eyes darting nervously between them both.
“You need to see the nurses,” Marco demands.
“I'm fine,” Luffy ducks his head, watching them from under the brim of his hat. “I'm just staying up too late doing paperwork.”
Marco sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, “If this happens one more time, Ace...” He trails off, arms dropping to his sides. “You will sleep tonight, before nine.”
“Of course,” Ace returns, grin bright. “Sorry about the trouble, Namur.”
Namur waves him off and Luffy waits for Ace to stand back up before launching himself at his brother. Ace catches him and settles Luffy on his hip as he heads below deck.
“I'm fine, Lu,” Ace grins, the lack of sleep deepening the lines on his face and the circles under his eyes look they're about to take a life of their own. “Just tired, there's so much paperwork to catch up on and I don't want to disappoint them. They're family.”
“We can nap!” Luffy says hopefully.
Ace grins as he sets Luffy down on their bed, snatching up a towel from the few that hung haphazardly around their room, “Nap time sounds good,” he agrees, stripping out of his soaked clothes, Luffy's eyes closed and his nose wrinkled. “Maybe until dinnertime?”
“Yeah!” Luffy bounces on the bed, stopping only when tells him to, pouting as he does. “Sorry.”
“Alright,” Ace grabs Luffy under the arms, redressed in a new pair of shorts and his hat hanging from the back of his desk chair. “Bedtime,” He hops onto the bed and Luffy laughs, snuggling close.
Luffy narrows his eyes as Ace dozes off almost instantly, exhaustion taking over almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. Luffy hates the Narco-pepsi and it's only gotten worse, either Ace is falling asleep when he's not suppose to or he can't sleep at all. He waits another long moment, before dropping his head on Ace's stomach, falling asleep quickly.
Ace bites his tongue as he jerks awake, the nightmare still on the edge of his thoughts, breath coming in silent gasps as he jerks upright, careful not to displace Luffy from against him.
“Fuck,” Ace hisses, daring a glance at the clock and finding it's been only an hour since they laid down. “I'm not getting back to sleep.” He groans, before easing himself out of Luffy's grip to head to his desk.
Best to get some more of the back log of less important paperwork that had fallen to the wayside since the retirement of the last Second Division Commander a year before his arrival.
Ace can feel the exhaustion rattling through his limbs, the shaking that comes from too little sleep and the way his thoughts are slower then normal. The way his flames are starting to escape his control. It's too much and Ace can't keep this up, he can't, but he can't give up. What would the other say if he told them he wasn't able to be the Second Division Commander? What would they say about him giving up after a few weeks? He's stronger then that.
He is, he can't give up, not yet.
Thatch is the one that carries Ace to the medics.
Ace is carefully, so carefully, helping load the newest supply of lumber onto the ship and laughing excitedly with the others, when his knees go out from underneath him. He jerks enough that he doesn't drop anything on anyone but himself, but he lands hard and his knee bends a little too far in the wrong direction.
“Holy shit,” Thatch shouts, shoving through the crowd of people that have taken up places around him. “Move out of my way,” he demands, helping a few of the Second pull the wood off Ace. “Ace?”
“I'm good,” Ace gasps out, the strength returning to his legs as he starts to shove himself up right. “I'm fine,” he continues.
“You are going to see the nurses,” Thatches states, throwing one of Ace's arms around his shoulders, catching Ace as he stumbles. Ace's knee throbs as he puts weight on it. “Come on,” he turns to the crowd, face dark. “Move.”
“I don't have to,” Ace starts.
“You are going to the nurses if I have to have Luffy pout at you,” Thatch says turning them both sideways to make it through the doorway. “Do you want to see Luffy pouting at you?”
Ace sighs, knowing he's lost. He says nothing as they make their way down the hall to the medical wing, everyone they run into ducking out of there way as they go. Flames dart around the wound, highlighting it, as Ace bites his tongue to keep them from moving elsewhere on his body. If he looses control, Thatch is too close not to be injured.
Ana meets them in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes narrowed at them both, before she steps to the side and orders Thatch to drop Ace on a bed.
“What happened?” Ana demands, reaching to pull her stethoscope up to her ears. “Are you going to melt this one?” She demands. “We don't have many left and Marco says we won't be hitting an island with medical supplies for another few months, unless something happens.”
“I wouldn't risk it,” Ace admits tiredly, his eyes feeling heavy and chills running down his spine. He passes out before his head hits his chest, shuddering back awake mid-sentence and blinking rapidly in confusion. “What?”
Ana stares at him, her head tipped to the side, “Ace, what were we just talking about?”
“What happened on the deck?” Ace asks hopefully. “Right?”
“No,” She says slowly, her gaze intent. “Was that, did you have a cataplexy attack while you were helping?”
Ace nods sadly, knowing he's beat. The crew assumes that his habit of passing out is something that has to do with being a D and Ace encouraged it, made sure that he was careful about how much people learned. The only person that should know is Luffy, who wouldn't say anything.
“Ace,” Ana looks furious, her hands going to her hips. “Did you purposely leave something out of your medical file? Did you,” she throws her hands into the air, and points at Thatch. “Get Marco and Oyaji here now.”
“Get me Oyaji and Marco, now!” Ana demands, before turning to shout at another of the nurses to get Ace's file, Ace ducks his head as Thatch tries to look at him. “Now, Thatch.”
Thatch hurries out, still just as confused as he had been, vanishing down the hall as Ana gets her hands on Ace's file.
“We,” she says with a smile that would look more at home on his Shitty Gramps, “are going to go over everything in your file, and if you lie to me one more time, I'm going to tell Oyaji, are we clear?”
Ace shudders, “Yes, ma'am.”
Marco drops into one of the chairs that Ana has set up, picking the one that is obviously not for Oyaji as he does, one of his feet resting on the opposite knee. He raises an eyebrow at Ace, who ducks his head and looks away.
“What is this about, Ana?” Oyaji asks, settled into his chair.
“Ace has been lying on his medical forms,” Ana says coolly. “Apparently the D curse of sudden sleep attacks, is not so much a curse, but narcolepsy.”
Ace nods, “At least for me,” he agrees, “I didn't say anything different because you all thought it was normal. And before that I was trying to kill you, I wasn't going to let you know one of my weaknesses.”
Marco feels something cold settle low in his gut, “You've been having more attacks the normal.”
“The stress of his promotion,” Ana answers for Ace. “The change was enough to throw off his previous routine and since he hasn't been able to settle into a new one, his symptoms has only been aggravated.”
“Is there anyway for us to help him?” Oyaji asks.
Ace startles, as if he hadn't expected them to say that, but says nothing as Ana pulls out the book that she had set on the bed beside him.
“There's several medications we can try,” She agrees. “We're going to start him on one before he leaves today.”
“Are we factoring in my metabolism?” Ace asks finally, “because if we aren't then the medicine is going to do as much as the first time you gave me a fever reducer.”
Ana looks like she's going to kiss Ace before she throws him overboard, “That is a very important detail,” she agrees. “Marco,” he blinks, “We might have to stop at an island with medical supplies sooner then expected.”
“I'll arrange it,” Marco agrees.
Oyaji taps his sake jug against the arm of his chair, “What are the symptoms of narcolepsy? Which ones does Ace suffer from?”
“Narcolepsy's main symptom,” Ana starts, “Is excessive daytime sleepiness. Basically, Ace's body doesn't get the same amount of restorative sleep that a normal, healthy person would, and even if he gets an adequate amount of sleep for a normal person, he'll wake up and go about his day as he if he's gone a day or even two days without sleeping.”
“Which leads to sudden sleep spells, like we've seen happen previously. The second main symptom is one that we won't normally see since it'll take place during his sleep cycle, is Abnormal REM sleep, meaning the REM phase of sleep will start at the beginning of Ace's sleep cycle, unlike the rest of us.”
Ace kicks his feet, “There's also Cataplexy, sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations, automatic behaviors, night time wakefulness, and insomnia. Cataplexy is when the muscles go weak, hallucinations are kinda self explanatory,” he scrubs at one of his eyes. “Automatic behaviors is when I keep doing things after I pass out, like talking. The other two are rather obvious.”
Oyaji nods thoughtfully, “And which are the ones that you suffer from, son?”
Ace mutters something and Ana jabs her elbow into his ribs, “All of them.”
“All of them?” Marco repeats. He had thought that it was unusual for all the symptoms to show up in one person. “Ana is that normal?”
“No, but it happens. We've got several of the medications that would be used to treat Ace on board the ship, we're just going to have to figure out doses. Meanwhile we're going to start working on settling him into a schedule that will help keep his symptoms from being so obvious.”
Marco nods, “And that would be?”
“Cutting out tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine, which Ace has been doing, aside from the occasional drink, which we'll stop for now until we get everything back under control,” Ana says tapping a clipboard that she accepts from another nurse. “We'll start up a regular sleeping and eating schedule and Ace'll have several naps spaced out through the day.”
“And this will help?” Oyaji asks.
Ana looks unsure as she answers, “It might. However, if we can't reduce this back to the level that it was before Ace's promotion, we might have to take Ace out of the post.”
“What! No!” Ace shouts sitting upright, “I'm perfectly fine!”
“Ace, you fell overboard because you fell asleep against the rails three times, that I know of, in two days,” Marco says softly, “you're going to get hurt if we can't get this back under control.”
Ace frowns mutinously and turns his head away from them, his gaze burning a hole into the wall. Marco sighs, but turns back to Ana.
“We're going to run the numbers to see if we can estimate how much medication it will take for it to affect Ace of the hours that it would a person with a normal metabolism.” Ana promises.
Marco nods, moving to stand, only to drop back into his chair and bury his face into his hands for a long moment, “Ace,” Ace glances over at him, “Does Luffy have any medical issues that you haven't previously spoken of?”
“It's not exactly narcolepsy?” Ace offers. “At least not like mine? He has a little bit of the excessive? And a touch of sleep paralysis. Definitely the nightmares and I think he might have some of the hallucinations.”
“Ace,” Ana growls, her clipboard creaking ominously in her grasp, “Are you telling me that Luffy has a more minor case of narcolepsy and you didn't tell me?” She throws her hands up, before pointing at another nurse. “Get Luffy here now.”
Luffy looks nervous as he peeks in the door, “Ace?”
“Hey, Lu,” Ace offers him a smile, patting the bed beside him, “come on in, we're just talking.”
Luffy dashes across the room and scrambles up onto the bed faster then Marco's seen him move since the last time Teach had gotten into line for lunch behind Luffy and Ace. He throws his arms around Ace's middle and cuddles into his side, like he always does when something upsets their lives.
“Did the nurse-lady find out about the narco-pepsi?”
Ace sighs, “Lu can't say narcolepsy, I'm not really sure how it became narco-pepsi, but I figured it was close enough,” He blinks at them. “Luffy has to know his own medical issues, what if something happens and I'm not there to tell anyone? It's the responsible thing to do!”
“Marco,” Ana says finally, after a long moment of silence. “I need you to stop at a medical supply point. Between Ace and Luffy's metabolism, I think we'll have have enough medication for the two of them to last a week.”
“I'll go inform the navigators,” Marco agrees, standing from his seat. He pauses, hand hovering over the door knob. “Ace,” Ace hums, “this conversation isn't over.”
Ace sighs, “Of course it isn't.”
“You have to have talked to a doctor about your problems,” Ana says after Marco returns. “Name.”
“Well, Makino made us go to the one back home,” Ace answers, “I just told Doc what the guy told me. And,” Ace twitches, knowing he's going to have to figure out a lie, “we met up with this guy, lives in a lighthouse at the entrance we took to the Grand Line, he checked us over and told Doc more about what to expect.”
Ana frowns, “Light house?”
“Crocus?” Marco asks, eyebrow raising, again.
“Flower man!” Luffy agrees. “He said he wanted to make sure that we were healthy cause his Captain was a D! He sailed under the Pirate King!”
Ace bites his tongue at Luffy's enthusiasm, but the story isn't inaccurate. Crocus had noticed the resemblance between Ace and his father, and worried that the disease that had killed Roger might have passed on to him, had insisted on giving Ace a medical once over. He had given Luffy a check up on Ace's insistence, though they had both refused the medicine he had tried to give them.
Ace is starting to think he's never going to fully escape his father's connections, not when they all seem to be as interested in him as Crocus, Shanks, and Rayleigh are. Crocus had made him promise to stop by the next time he was by the entrance to the Grand Line for another check up.
“Crocus gave you a check up?” Marco repeats.
“He knew my mom,” Ace has to come up with a better lie that isn't exactly a lie.
Marco gives him a look, “Like how Rayleigh knew your mom?”
“She was the Oro Jackson's liaison to the Revolutionary Army,” Ace says calmly. “Mom got attached, I guess. Look, apparently Rayleigh was suppose to be my godfather, so I'm assuming mom liked them pretty okay. Can we get back to the medical issues that we were discussing?”
“Did either of your parents have narcolepsy?” Ana asks, making notes in his folder.
Ace shrugs, “My mom might have, most of her records were destroyed in a tsunami several years ago,” He bites the inside of his cheek. “My father had the normal D sleep shit, but it might have been narcolepsy, I would have to talk to some people to find out the answer.”
“And Luffy's parents.”
“His dad doesn't have it and his mom's records were lost with my mom's. Our Gramps does have some of the D sleep thing.” Ace offers. “Next question.”
Ana nods, “Okay, see it wasn't that hard.” She smiles, “I'll talk to Thatch about balancing your meals and to make sure we balance them in such a way that we're not harming your metabolism.” She turns to Marco and Oyaji, “Do you two have any questions?”
“I have none at this time,” Oyaji says thoughtfully, “but I will ask you if any come up, Ace.”
“Of course,” Ace says slowly, feeling Luffy bury his face into his side sleepily. “When ever you want.”
“Other then the times we set aside for your naps, Ace. You will be sticking to them unless something comes up.” Ana says calmly. “We'll have the schedule set by the end of the week, matching for you and Luffy, so that you only have to remember one. Marco?”
Marco hums, “Were you ever going to have told us?”
“I,” Ace shifts in uncomfortably, “I didn't think it was that important? No one ever said that there was a need to talk about medical issues.”
“There is a need to talk about your medical issues,” Marco deadpans, his mouth quirking up into the starts of a smile. Ace felt his heartbeat stutter as he grinned back. “You're to tell us about your medical issues from this point on.”
Ace nods, “I'll talk about my medical issues from this point on,” Ace repeats dutifully.
“Good. Ana, we'll be at the island you want within two days,” Marco tells her, turning his attention to her as Oyaji makes his way out the room, their conversation turning quiet as they spoke.
“Ace, are we in trouble?” Luffy asks in confusion.
“No, they're just worried about us, Lu,” Ace promises, glancing to where Marco and Ana are whispering to each other, ducking his head as Marco caught his gaze. “Want to go take a nap?”
Luffy nods, burying his face into Ace's shoulder, “Nap time.”
