:OP: Crazy Days

---Crazy Days---

It was a sunny day, the hot, damp sort of summer's afternoon that drives everyone crazy. Thatch was stuck outside doing repairs to the rigging, and he was determined to take everyone else down with him.

So far he'd recruited Vista, Rakuyou, Blamenco, Haruta, Izou and a few of their crews, but his collection was far from complete. Ace was nowhere to be found, and Jozu ran the instant he saw Thatch these days (he was surprisingly fast for such a big guy too), but Thatch had his sights set on another.

With luck, no-one had thought to warn Marco that Fourth's commander was on the prowl.

Thatch wasn't underestimating the phoenix, though- Izou was tagging along for that very reason. Marco's cabin had a window, so Izou was going to stake that out while Thatch went in the front way. It was a foolproof plan, as far as Thatch's plans went.

Thatch knocked courteously on Marco's door, grinning wickedly and shooing Izou around to the side of the ship where the window opened up. He didn't wait for Marco to reply, just pushing the door open and going in anyway.

Inside, Marco was sitting at his desk, writing something that didn't look very interesting to Thatch. He glanced up as the other pirate stepped over the threshold, then raised one eyebrow and waited for Thatch to start talking.

"You've turned your desk around since the last time I was in here," Thatch observed with a chuckle. Marco nodded in agreement.

"I have. Now no-one can take pot shots at me through the door without me seeing them, eh."

Priceless memories, Thatch thought, putting on an angelic expression. Marco looked slightly disturbed, and was about to say something scathing when the window creaked and clattered open.

Izou stuck his head through into the room, frowning prettily. "You need a new window, Marco. I hardly touched it. By the way, Thatch, Haruta's wandered off again."

Marco went back to his writing, projecting an aura of supreme disinterest, though Thatch knew he was listening intently. "Okay, now I know you're up to something. Spill, Thatch."

"Well, y'see…" Thatch trailed off, trying to think of a way he could blackmail Marco into helping. It was funny how all his schemes and plans started to feel so insignificant under the phoenix's scrutiny.

Then there was a strange noise. It started high and ended low, and somewhere in the middle became recognizable as a gargantuan burp.

"Um," Thatch said, because a situation like this really demanded the 'um', "what was that?" Izou just looked stymied.

Marco gave a much-put-upon sigh. "Ace is currently under the desk doing God knows what, and for whatever reason he's seen fit to take his lunch in with him."

There was a long pause.

Thatch looked at the desk. It wasn't big by any standards- not even enough room for Marco to stretch his legs out. That begged the question of how Ace was fitting in there…

"I take by your relative composure that it is not, in fact, what it sounds like," Izou ventured, a nervous smile hovering over his painted lips.

"Actually, I'm just looking at the graffiti," Ace's cheerful voice floated out from under the desk, making Thatch jump. "But I could do the other thing if you wanted."

Marco set down his pen with a quiet clink, leaned back in his chair and gazed calmly underneath the desk. "I can promise that if you try, you will be kicked. Hard. And you haven't been kicked properly until you've been kicked by me."

Several minutes later, out of suicidal curiosity, Ace tried anyway. Subsequently there was an Ace-shaped hole through two walls and the hull of the Moby Dick, and it took Thatch two hours and sixteen bottles of good beer to coax Marco down out of the crow's nest (the phoenix was, among other things, no featherweight at holding his liquor).