“Mind explaining this one more time?” Izou said from his side, and Marco didn’t have to see him to know the expression on his face. “Dumb it down for me, if you don’t mind.”
Marco wasn’t about to fall for that, not after last time.
“I’m not falling for that again,” he said as much, tilting his head in Izou’s direction.
“Be that as it may, I feel like you still owe me an explanation,” Izou said, sounding very put upon as usual when dealing with random bullshit.
The sigh he heard was everything he’d been expecting, and possibly more.
“So you have some unidentified poison in your eyes, and you’re not healing it even though you could,” he explained as if he was dumbing this down for Marco, “for science?”
“Well, technically,” Marco started, knowing just how much it’d annoy Izou because he was not a fan of technicalities, “I’m healing it just enough so it doesn’t kill me before someone comes back with my kit. We need a sample to make an antidote, so,” he trailed off without actually offering a full excuse for his temporary condition.
“Don’t get technical with me, you dick,” Izou said, audibly annoyed as he’d always been when one of them got hurt.
Barely a moment later, his hand brushed against Marco’s forehead, pushing his sweat soaked hair away. Of course Izou could see right through his casual demeanor and notice just how much this was taking out of him. Better for morale if he stayed calm and collected, but in the end, the ability to heal any wound didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt.
Izou could always tell how much he hurt.
“It won’t be long,” Izou said and Marco could hear him drop down to the ground next to him, immediately leaning his weight against Marco’s shoulder. “Your team was almost back at the ship when I ran into them.”
“They shouldn’t have left you here alone,” Izou said after a brief pause, voice still low, his warmth still bleeding over into Marco’s shoulder offering a fair amount of comfort.
“They didn’t leave me all alone,” Marco told him, “I sent them away.”
Izou scoffed at that, leaning a bit further into his shoulder.
“Always the martyr,” he said with that familiar old resignation when Marco’s mortality was brought up.
Wisely, Marco said nothing to start up that particular old argument when he was at such a disadvantage. When he was in as much pain as well, aware that Izou knew all of it.
“In any case, I’m safe now that you’re here,” Marco said instead. “My hero.”
It made Izou scoff, just like he hoped it would. From him, a scoff was almost as good as a full laugh.
“Your hero, indeed,” he said and Marco could hear the smile in his voice, that small fragile thing he reserved just for only a few of them.
His hand found Marco’s though, unclenching the fist Marco was almost unaware of, and tangled their fingers together just like he’d always used to when he knew Marco was hurting and hiding the pain behind his Devil’s Fruit.
“Won’t be long now,” Izou said again, and held his hand tighter.
