Work Text:
The thing with grief is that it never really leaves your side. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—every goddamned thing in-between.
And it's not like Death picks favorites, either. It comes for everyone, eventually.
Deuce doesn't know if he's strong enough to deal with the news he's hearing.
But Ace is strong.
Ace was strong.
If not for him, Deuce knows his life would have been cut far too short on Sixis. It isn't fair, is it? He can't repay the favor.
He's gone now, and it isn't fair at all.
When he thinks of Ace, he swears he can hear his voice again.
He hears him at Sabaody shouting up at the docked Piece of Spadille for Deuce to hurry up and join him. He hears him on the Moby Dick swearing his allegiance to Whitebeard. Hell, he hears his voice straining against the loud waves of Sixis crashing on the beach, and he thinks he can taste the Mera-Mera on his tongue again.
A memory of Ace replays from when he pulled Deuce aside and into the captain's quarters of the Spadille and told him that he loved him.
Oh, god, he'll never feel okay again.