For a prompt maybe Marco/Ace? Featuring Ace having Hanahaki Disease towards Marco? 🙈💖
"You look exhausted," Marco says slowly, raising an eyebrow at the stack of papers that Ace slams down on his desk. "Did someone get sick?"
"I," Ace says tiredly. "Am coughing up flowers. Please remove them from my lungs. I've spent the last six hours trying to burn them out and failing horribly. Then, I did that," he gestures at the paperwork as he falls back into a chair. "I hate paperwork."
Marco hums, skimming the top page. There's a handful of flower petals taped to the sample square, but nothing to identify them, which meant that Ace hadn't recognized them. Which actually knocked a number of them out of the running, since Ace could identify anything with medical or nutritional value.
"If I missed something, I will throw myself into the ocean."
"Don't. Namur might just let you drown," Marco states, turning to the next page and skimming it curiously. "I thought you would have told me if you had fallen in love."
"Yeah, apparently magical flowers get to know I've fallen in love before I do. I didn't even get a chance to confess, not that it would change the fact you have to remove the flowers."
"There's still time, I don't have time to do this surgery for at least a few more days," Marco taps his pen against the date written almost too neatly as the start date. "You got this in faster than I expected."
"Flowers are not fun to cough up, Marco."
"Petals, you're not going to be too advanced by Wednesday. Think you can hold out until then?"
Ace frowns, eyes narrowing for a moment before he nods, "Unless I start coughing up whole flowers, I should be fine? It's just uncomfortable."
"I'll start running tests to see what strand you've picked up, but it's probably the same kind that I had to remove from Izou last month. When you figure out who it is, let them know. It's awkward enough having to watch those two dance around each other again because Izou had to bring home the kind that doesn't go away after confession and reciprocation."
"Yeah, it'll be fun," Ace rolls his eyes, standing up slowly to crack his back. "Hope you can convince me to fall in love with you all over again when Kotatsu still hates you."
Marco groans, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I am going to take your cat back to the island you got it from and have Thatch tell you it died."
"No you won't, you're going to try and trick him into helping you win me over a second time. And just think, now that I've had this strand, at least I won't be able to catch it again."
"Would have preferred that you never caught it to begin with," Marco yawns, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll make sure there's ice cream after the surgery."
Ace leans close, brushing a kiss to his temple, "At least we won't take as long to work things out as Shanks and Benn did. Poor Benn, catching a strand that actually erases the memories instead of just the feelings."
"Helps that you spit out an invitation for a date two days after officially joining the crew," Marco adds, tugging Ace down into a proper kiss. "Go arrange things. I'll be here."
"If you figure out what flower that is, let me know. I know it's not roses, but it's been bothering me."
"I'll let you know as soon as the results are back."
