Note: So for the past year, I've been thinking of writing an AU with Ace dressed in greaser clothing... and this was the product. I'm really excited to start writing this story, hahaha!

This is gonna be a multichaptered fic and the rating is eventually going to go up! No warnings I can think of for this chapter!

Many thanks to lumbardy and savthekid on tumblr for helping me with ideas and proofreading respectively :')

Chapter 1: Flickering Neon

Wind whips through Ace's face as he drives down the highway, his motorcycle purring underneath him. It's a warm night, warm enough that Ace doesn't have to wear his jacket, but he chooses to anyways.

Streetlights and scenery rush past him as he rides, looking for any gas station that came along the way. He needs to refill his tank and he needs to get another pack of cigarettes and maybe a snack.

The twenty-one year old often went out driving around the small Californian desert town to clear his head until either the sun came up or he was too tired to continue.

It was pretty nice and relaxing, but he wasn't the only one out at this time by a long shot. Oddly enough, however, the others driving around him did nothing to deplete his mood.

He drives for a few more minutes until two neon signs stand out in the night sky and quickly catch Ace's attention. As he gets closer, its easy to see that they're both gas stations that are directly across from each other and very different from one another on first glance.

The gas station on the left side of the street is grossly crowded with cars even lining up at the side of the road. On the right side is a gas station that is completely devoid of any life even if it looks open for business.

Ace notices that the gas station on the right looks run down. The flashing neon sign and even some of the lights at the older looking gas stalls flicker on and off. The entire place looks incredibly old and, even if the lights are somewhat on, a part of him wonders if there's anybody actually working there.

Ace was a pretty reasonable guy and, to him, there was nothing reasonable about waiting in ridiculously long lines for gas when there was another completely empty gas station just across the damn street. (Whether or not the place had someone working in it was a completely different story however.)

He turns right and pulls into a stall that's labeled 'j'. Two of the stalls are numbered like you usually see at gas stations, but the others are labeled with random letters, like z and q. One stall is labeled with a symbol that looks oddly similar to the symbol Prince had used instead of his name for a while.

The lights inside of the small building are on and Ace can see a slumped over figure through a dirty window. The twenty-old year old hops off of his bike and takes a moment to check out his hair in the chrome plating of his bike when he has the chance.

It might be silly to some, but the state of his hair was very important to Portgas D. Ace.

Luckily, the wind hadn't messed up his slicked back hair very much at all while he had been driving. The sides of his hair are shaved in an undercut, so he doesn't have to worry about it for now.

He adjusts his leather jacket on his shoulders and sticks his hands into the pockets of his denim jeans. For the past few years now, he dressed like he was something straight out of a movie about rebellious 50's youth. It was a style he was comfortable with and it was definitely eye-catching.

When he enters the small building the place smells old, reminding Ace of certain thrift shops or the old abandoned houses he had been curious to explore with his brother when they were younger. It's damaged, too, the ceiling stained from leaks, a few tiles missing from the floor, and a poorly fixed hole in one of the back walls. Honestly, Ace can understand why the place doesn't have a lot of customers; a lot of people didn't really like coming to places like this. Ace didn't necessarily care, as long as he got gas and didn't have to wait in a ridiculously long line.

The place, ratty as it may be, did have a nice assortment of snacks, however, which was great in Ace's book.

There was one other person in the gas station besides himself, an employee who was sleeping with his sandal-clad feet on the counter next to a small TV playing something that sounds like wrestling.

Ace grabs a few snacks on the way to the counter and stares at the employee who was lounging and definitely sleeping.

The sleeping employee has messy black hair, tan skin, and a scar under his left eye. His face is round and his nose is slightly up-turned. Chocolate is smeared over one of his cheeks and his mouth hangs open as he sleeps peacefully. Now that he's closer, Ace can hear light snores. He wears a black shirt that was obviously part of the uniform, but there's no name tag on his chest.

To be honest, he has a pretty cute face.

Ace reaches over and pokes the sleeping person until they mumble sleepily, their face twitching and mouth closing as they squirm in their stool. He continues to poke the employee until eyes twitch open and a yawn escapes from his pink lips.

The guy blinks up at Ace hazily, still half asleep. Even if his eyes are only half open and drooping like they'll close again at any point, Ace thinks that this guy even cuter than he was when he was asleep. He looks like he can't be any older than sixteen or seventeen.

Ace expects the guy to jump up from his laid back position, but he slowly swings his feet off of the counter as loud cheering from the tiny TV resounds around the place. His eyes open a little bit more, enough for Ace to tell they're blue and for him to see that the gas station worker is looking directly at his leather jacket.

"Hey man," The probable teen says in a high-pitched and sleepy sounding voice that fits his image. "That's a really a really cool jacket!"

The worker smiles large enough for his gums to peek past his lips. Something in that smile makes Ace pause for a second. The wide, sleepy smile was one of the most stunning smiles that the leather jacket wearing college student had ever seen and when it was combined with sleepy blue eyes it made the dark haired gas station worker look absolutely adorable. Ace honestly couldn't remember when he had seen another person so cute. It actually left him reeling.

"…Thanks," Ace says, shifting from foot to foot as his reply came out sounding a lot more awkward than he had planned.

"Are you like… an actual customer? Cause I haven't had anyone come in here all night! Well, I dunno if anyone came in while I was sleeping. Probably not!"

The teen seems to wake up more and more with word he speaks and it's clear that he's excited at the fact someone else is at the gas station besides him.

"Yeah, I'm a customer. Nothing's gonna make me wait in that line," He points at the gas station across the street. The line seemed to get even longer in the few minutes since he had pulled into the gas station with the flickering neon sign.

"Awesome! I don't think I had any customers yesterday, either! But that happens a loooot. I don't really get it. Is the gas special or something? Do you think it like changes the cars into like… Robots or something? Cause if I had a car, I would totally go there if it meant I could have a Transformer or something!"

Ace can't stop himself from grinning a bit as he listens to the worker go on and on. It's pretty amusing to hear and the teen grows increasingly more animated as he speaks. The worker bounces in his tall stool, an excited smile gracing his face, as the fact that he had been sleep seems to be completely foreign to the young worker. Ace just kept finding the worker even cuter with each word. It was a little bizarre if Ace was going to be completely honest.

"Oh yeah! So you needed something, right?" Wide blue eyes bore into Ace's expectantly.

"Yeah." He takes his wallet out and pulls out three tens. "Twenty on stall j, a pack of menthols, and the snacks."

"Okay!" the employee says, punching something into an old machine and plucking the money out of the twenty-one year old's fingers. He tosses Ace a pack of his favorite cigarettes that he takes out from behind the counter.

"Is it always this empty?" Ace asks even if he already knows the answer, catching the cigarettes with ease.

"Yeah! It gets really, really boring and I still gotta be here for another two hours!" The teenaged employee pouts, but his face brightens all of the sudden. "Oh! But there are a lot of snacks here and the owner doesn't care if I eat them, so it's not that bad!"

Ace chuckles, watching as the employee stuffs Ace's snacks in a plastic bag. "You get to watch TV, too."

"Yeah! But there's not a lot of channels! Just wrestling and kids shows; I don't really get why?"

"That's... A really odd combination." Ace replies slowly, one of his eyebrows rising.

"That's what I said! Shishishi!" The employee laughs uniquely, dimples forming in his round cheeks. He gives whatever change Ace had left – just a few spare cents that Ace doesn't really need – and the plastic bag of snacks.

"Have a great night! Nice bike, by the way!" The worker waves at Ace as the freckled male starts to turn around.

"Seeya later." Ace smiles at the younger male tentatively, missing the way the other's cheeks are flushed a light pink.

He fills up his tank quickly, wanting to get back on the road. He starts up his motorcycle and turns his head slowly to catch one last look at the worker. The worker is looking out of the dirty window with a bored expression on his face now that he has no one to talk to. He leans heavily on the palm of his hand. However, he catches Ace looking back and the bored look vanishes, replaced by an even larger smile that radiates warmth and is even more stunning than before. Ace's heart jumps up to his throat. He stops leaning on his hand and waves at Ace so excitedly that the freckled man can't help but wave back.

As he drives away from the gas station, the flickering neon sign in his rear view mirror and the messed up gas station quickly disappearing into the night the further he drives, Ace is positive that the worker is unusually cute and that he's definitely going to come back to the run down gas station in the future.