concoursec | Family Meeting for the gang / Semi-Closed

Entry tags:

Family Meeting for the gang / Semi-Closed

Characters: Marco, Grell Sutcliff, Thatch, Namur, Espio, and Tobias Hayes
Location: ~Around the Garden~
Rating: Hopefully PG-13. Let's keep violence/sex to a minimum okay?
Open/Closed/Finished: Semi-Closed (if another character wants to grab Marco for something it's available!)
Summary: Tattoo adjustments, family meeting, Marco stepping up as Captain

Sometime after the whole mission with Grell & Thatch, but before Namur also leaves on missions, Marco finally addresses the family cohesion "situation." Okay, so it's not exactly a situation anymore, but he's still concerned and there are things he needs to address with each and every member of the family, and with all of them together. And if there are going to be anymore miniature explosions, he'd rather they were now when he can handle them, then later at a very very bad time.

He hunts down everyone individually to make it clear that this meeting is not optional and if he has to pick them up and carry them there, he will. He also has needles and ink with him... so that might be a bit creepy. He gave himself plenty of time before all this though, since the meeting will be at dinnertime (which he has prepared) and throughout the whole day he goes around hunting everyone down.

Luckily, Namur is probably the easiest -- ironically? -- since Namur already was on the same page as Marco about it, and why Toby would normally be the easiest, Marco had a tendency to fall into a giddy Papabird mode that just wanted to play around with his favorite son whenever he was with the kid. As such, Toby is saved for last, since Marco can just ask him to come.

[ooc: there will be a big family thread everyone can go in any order on, because there are too many to go organized, and then separate threads for everyone.]

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"So, now that you're all here," Marco said before the food, which, someone could have told him was a bad idea, but fuck you guys, he does what he wants, "I have something important to say."

He doesn't use words though. Just sets up a small mirror and starts calmly tattooing his chest. Yeah. The man is a little nuts, huh?

"Nam-chan! NAM-CHAN!!!" Marco loudly knocked on the bull shark fishman's door. "COME ON ALREADY!" Someone in the hall was going to kick his ass at this rate for the noise.

Marco wasn't sure where to hunt down the chameleon. USUALLY he was a freaking magician at it. Wherever Espio was, Marco could pretty much appear behind him like a ninja. A ninja phoenix pirate. But he'd been thrown off his game a little since the arrival of his other brothers. Maybe he'd been following "brother haki" instead of Espio specifically? No that surely couldn't be it. All right, ninja mode go!

Finding Thatch was as easy as finding apples in apple pie. Yeah, it was just that easy. So really was it any wonder that Marco had been so surprised his brothers had been in the same world all along and he hadn't found them before?

In any case, Marco tackled his hair-obsessed brother out in the Garden quad between classes from behind in a giant glomping hug as Thatch was checking out ladies.

Seriously. Easy as pie.

"Kitten," Marco kissed her cheek, and held up a finger, "Before I get distracted. Family meeting tonight for dinner. It's important, yoi."

"TOBY!" Marco called and ran to scoop up his kid before Toby could head off for dinner in the cafeteria.

[And in between all of that emotional family drama, Marco spends his downtime whistling with birds. Isn't that what anyone would do?]

[He's not too hard to find if you're looking, or even if you're just curiously looking around.]

"Shit."

Thatch covered his mouth with one hand and watched Marco work. He couldn't have given them some kind of warning? Damn him. Of course there had been. He should have known it was coming...and hell...hadn't they talked about it? But to just spring it on them? This sudden change...especially when he'd just gotten used to things.

He wanted to bolt, but remained where he was, propping his elbow on his other hand and pressing his knuckles to his mouth, trying to look unconcerned by the goings on even if he wanted to bolt as he watched what that idiot was doing.

He was not checking out ladies, you damn ninja pineapple. He was merely observing them. Still he grunted as Marco tackled him, turning his attention to the brother at his back.

"Why, hello, pretty bird." He patted Marco's hand and made little kissing noises. "Step up?"

To be fair, Espio hadn't been hiding in his usual places as of late. No hanging out on the roof, or in a secluded corner of the library - not lately.

Where and why had he been hiding?

Well, to be fair, he hadn't been hiding until somewhere in the last forty-eight hours. As for the why? Because maybe if he made himself harder to find, his best friend might ninja-locate him like normal and pay attention to him for five minutes. It was getting a little lonely while Marco had so many people suddenly to look out for - it was as though he didn't have time for Espio anymore, and as much as Espio had plenty of stuff to be happy about... that kind of hurt, man.

Today, he'd decided to hide out in the Training Centre's secret area before his classes, to do a bit of writing and enjoy his lunch. He was in human form, the potion due to wear off about ten minutes before classes, but on this occasion he'd left his hair untied and tucked the blonde streak into a baseball cap he'd found, making himself a little less recognisable even to those who knew his human form.

Grell could be certain that it wasn't sanitary to tattoo oneself while food was present. Perhaps Marco did not receive that lesson on cleanliness? Either way, she's pretty much what the Hell over what he was doing.

"Ah, darling? Shouldn't we eat first?"

She looked over to Thatch, wondering what was going on underneath that hair of his. Did he understand what was going on?

Kukuku.

As if such a feeble disguise could work on Mr. ninja phoenix pirate! "Gotcha, yoi!" he pounced, not really caring if he just randomly pounced some random stranger saying that. Okay, so once you knew the secrets behind his magic tricks they were far less impressive, but wasn't the case for all magic?

"If you insist, eh." Marco drawled in phoenix before shimmering as he switched forms and perched on Thatch's arm. "Having fun?"

"No," Marco replied without even looking up, "I'm getting this done first." He was resolved, and once Marco decided on something, nothing could stop him.

The crescent moon 'stache slowly evolved on each side, Marco smoothly adding to the ends as if he was calmly stitching a pillow, not his skin. His tongue was out in concentration though, literally nothing would break his focus.

Normally, Espio would have complained about being pounced on, or said something to the effect of 'geez, can't you leave me alone when I want to be alone?!' or some other cranky comment. Today, however, he just grumbled, and made to jab Marco in the stomach with his elbow.

"You took your time. I was starting to think me trying to be alone didn't matter to you anymore."

"And what's 'this'?" Espio asked, resting his chin in his hands and looking at Marco with annoyance at the whole being dragged-to-family-meeting thing, but unable to hide the confused curiosity. That tattoo was extremely important and symbolic to Marco and his family - any idiot could tell you it had to be a big deal if he was actively changing it.

Edited 2013-07-26 23:51 (UTC)

"I suppose. Another day another beri." Or gil or whatever. No matter what Marco said, he was becoming tamed. They all were. He smiled though and scratched under Marco's chin and over his neck.

"And you? What's going on in that chirpy little head of yours?"

"Eh? I thought you'd want to be alone with my son," Marco tugged on Espio's petulant cheek affectionately.

"You do realize if you want my attention you can come get it, right? I swear, you're so like Ace sometimes." But he sounded a thousand percent affectionate and a little bit amused.

"Toby's in class right now," Espio pointed out, with a sigh as he swatted Marco's hand away. "And why should I break a fine tradition of you coming to harass me?"

Please. Marco can't be tamed.

Proof of which, he grins diabolically. No small feat as a phoenix.

"Family meeting tonight at seven for dinner. You will be there or I will pluck out goatee." He would too. The eerier part is still the way he says it, deadpan, and chirpy, in phoenix tone, it's completely nonthreatening and yet it's 100% serious.

"That's why I came to find you now, eh?" A bird-like head tilt. "Because I don't like always being the one to find people, it makes me insecure about being wanted," he stuck his tongue out and the whole thing was deadpan, but it was a truthful admittance too. Strange for Marco, someone who rarely admitted any sort of flaw or insecurity whatsoever.

"You don't have anyone more important to talk to?"

It was true that Espio didn't really go looking for Marco. It was mainly because Marco was usually just there when he wanted him - him not being there was weird. The concept of looking for Marco was practically a foreign one.

"Yeah, well, by this point I'm used to you already being there. I can't exactly go looking for what I already found - besides, you live across the hall from me. Besides, it's not like you've been particularly elusive - you've just been bugging other people lately.

"I know your family's important, but I'm here too, you know!"

By the sounds of it, he still didn't count Namur and Thatch as family.

He frowned.

"Did something happen?" Today had been quiet as far as he was aware. Did he miss something somehow? Were one of the others hurt? Or was Marco just planning something?

"One of the bravest and best people I've ever known in my life said that this was the emblem of Whitebeard's Era. That we weren't living in the age of pirates, but Whitebeard's Era. In this world, I thought it was my duty, my role, my desire, to carry on that era." He finished turning the mustache into a full circle and fixed them all with a look.

Was he sad about the end of the era? He couldn't say. Time was a funny thing. And no less difficult for a man who was timeless, in a place where Time was "Compressed." His eyes are serious, no glowing blue flames of intensity, and hardly deep like the ocean, but clear and endless like the sky.

"I was wrong. All six of us aren't here because of my father, but we do share something in common. We're all here because we're a family, eh? Up until now whenever I found new family, they were part of Pops' family. And by extension, everyone here is, but all six of us are family with each other, here and now. We're family because we want to be, we're family because of each other. Not Pops, not me, but all of us together, got it?"

He gestures to the revised tattoo. "That's what this means. Unbroken. It's a circle of life, of Pops hopes for us to continue into the future, and my hope for the rest of you to continue on too, eh?" A hand flippy wave, "More than that, I will actively do everything I can to protect that goal, okay?"

Marco set down the needles and quickly cleaned them. Don't worry, the food is all covered up, he's not an idiot. "No one has to have this mark or add to their own, though I'd appreciate it. And I do want Tobias to get one now that he's stronger. Partly so that I can start making my own mark on the world," Marco. Mark. God of war. Ahhh, too many thoughts. "And protect him from any idiots forever, but also so you can show that you're much stronger now, eh kiddo? And it's about eternity. It says I'll always do my best to come get you all, even if it means traveling through time and pulling you out of thin air." He nodded his head. "And I guess that's it. Any questions?"

Edited 2013-07-27 00:23 (UTC)

A quick head shake. "No no, otherwise I wouldn't wait that long silly. It's just been something I've needed to do for awhile and I didn't have the strength before. Or wisdom? I don't know the right word." A birdie head tilt and he nuzzled Thatch affectionately. "Thank you."

He could do it now because Thatch was there. Like a light showing him where to go, or maybe just by removing the darkness from Marco's mind and heart.

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Page 1 of 6

Family Meeting for the gang / Semi-Closed

FAMILY THREAD GO NUTS

Namur

Espio

Thatch

Grell

Toby

IF I FORGOT SOMETHING AND/OR Open for other/more

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