Work Text:
It had been a long time since Deuce had last watched a sunset. Since he had last properly watched one, at least. One thing was looking over his medical studies onto the red and orange of the sky, and another was sitting side by side with someone who had only shown him kindness since the moment they met, just mere centimeters from the other, not caring about the rest of the world as it moved around them.
When it was a night like the former, his first thoughts upon seeing the red would be of a beating heart. A beating heart on an operation table waiting for him. Taunting him. Taunting him for being a failure at the one thing he was meant to do. The thing that he had grown up knowing he had to be good at or else be considered a failure by his entire family. Taunting him for never speaking up and having to live the rest of his days as a doctor, because that was what he was expected to do. Showing him all the mistakes he's made in his life as he waited for it to get better by itself.
But of course, that was before he set sail.
Before he met Ace.
At that moment, with Ace at his side watching over the horizon, that taunting, annoying heartbeat disappeared, and was replaced by a different kind of heartbeat. A kind of heartbeat he wished Ace wasn't able to hear over the crashing of the waves.
A kind that he wished would never disappear.