Work Text:
Day 8: Thatch & Marco - Prompt: Christmas cookies
The forth division commander was growing increasingly annoyed with each passing minute. He’d spent a good portion of the afternoon baking Christmas cookies for the party they were going to be having later that night but every time he turned around to take another batch from the oven it seemed like he had less cookies than he’d started with.
Thatch was sure someone was coming into his kitchen and sneaking them when he wasn’t looking. It was just a question of whom. Of course Ace and Haruta were the most likely culprits. Haruta knew better though. Ace was still pretty new to the crew. There were many on the crew who could get in and out unnoticed after all. And there were even less that would dare steal from the chef, especially when it came to party preparations. As soon as he got someone to watch this next batch for him he was going to go out there and find that fire brat and get answers damn it!
Getting someone from his own division to take over the cookies for the time being, Thatch stomped out onto deck angrily. It wasn’t often that people saw him get that way but when he did, it was time to watch out. The fun loving cook was a man on a mission right now and a forced to be reckoned with.
“ACE!” he shouted as soon as he spotted the fire user leaning against the railing of the Moby.
“Huh?” Ace asked, looking up in confusion at hearing his name.
“Don’t you huh me. I know you’ve been stealing my cookies you runt,” Thatch told him, waving a threatening finger in the younger pirates face.
“I didn’t take any cookies?” Ace said though it sounded more like a question. To anyone else it was obvious that the fire user didn’t have a clue what Thatch was talking about. The fourth division commander wouldn’t see it though. He was too convinced he had the right person. Ace was the only one who was still new enough to try something like this.
“Don’t you lie to me. Just for this you’re not getting any cookies at the party tonight,” Thatch told him, deciding a punishment on the spot. He couldn’t enforce it of course but wasn’t aware of that.
“But!”
“No buts! Not stay out of my kitchen!” the chef declared before turning on his heel and heading back to the galley, leaving an extremely confused logia behind.
Thatch couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d just come back to the galley to finish baking his cookies and there his culprit was, caught red handed, literally as he had red icing all over his finger tips.
“Marco?!”
“What, yoi?” the first division commander asked with a raised brow and lazy look.
“It was you?!”
“Guess you caught me, yoi,” he said with a bit of a shrug. Like it wasn’t a big deal that he was stealing the cookies. “I do this every year you know. You never noticed before… guess I took too many, yoi.”
“Seriously?!” Thatch asked, going rigid. How had he not noticed? More importantly… He walked over and took the plate of cookies from Marco’s hands and turned to leave.
“Where are you going, yoi?!” Marco asked, confused because really he’d already eaten half the plate what was the point of taking it away?
“I need to apologize to Ace…” Thatch said, feeling a little ashamed that he hadn’t believed the kid. “You better be out of my kitchen by the time I get back!” he shot over his shoulder with a glare.
Marco put his hands up in surrender, clearly more amused than threatened as he left behind Thatch.
Ace wasn’t really sure what had happened but it didn’t really matter as he sat next to Pop’s chair, lazily munching on the plate of cookies Thatch had given him a few minutes ago along with an apology for accusing him. Well Ace didn’t know who had been the real culprit but he had cookies and that’s all that really mattered.