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Ergo, Shanks has it bad for this particular bartender.
TW: Drowning themes mentioned
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It was peaceful, so peaceful.
There was nothing comparable to the weightless, freeing sensation that accompanied you in your numbness. Caressing waves cuddled your skin, eased your aching muscles; they lovingly kissed every scratch, bump, and bruise on your body, like a mother would to console her crying child. Within this darkness, there was nothing to see. Nothing to hear. No pain. And most of all, nothing to fear.
Like the stars suspended in space, you floated, free from the fleeting emotions that life bestows on those blessed with its gift. For all intents and purposes, you may as well have been a babe curled up in the womb…
…But you weren’t, were you?
Because when you tried to take a breath, simply to breathe a sigh of relief, the cruelty of reality choked you as a rush of seawater permeated every branch and airway within your lungs. Your unconscious body thrashed slightly, a futile and pitiful response. This was the deceitful allure of the ocean’s siren song; a lullaby, the false promise of a mother’s embrace meant to assimilate one into an eternal sleep.
The stars suddenly seemed so far away now.
With an exasperated, exaggerated inhale, you awoke with a sudden jolt. Trembling, you brought your hands reflexively to your neck, as if you were trying to remove some invisible noose as you racked with a violent coughing fit. Your reaction would have been fitting, had you actually been coughing up seawater.
No, you weren’t drowning in the ocean, though it ebbed peacefully a stone’s throw away from your window. Instead, you were buried under fleece blankets, slightly sweaty and dizzy from disorientation. Ah, it was a dream. A bad nap was a much more welcome alternative to the finality of sleeping at the bottom of the sea.
You crawled out from your comfortable fortress and careened towards your open window, both appreciating the breeze on your flushed skin and the captivating view of the port down below. Ships of varying sizes and styles, all charismatically individual, littered the harbor; from your vantage point, they appeared like toys you could reach out and pick up in one hand. Recognition fired off in your brain at the sight of some of the vessels–Oh, so that group will probably be at the bar today, that one as well…
Disappointment nagged at the base of your skull when you realized that one ship still hadn’t made its way back to the harbor. Disappointment writhed in deeper parts of your psyche as well, since you weren’t particularly proud of yourself for checking to see if The Red Force had returned… Well, every day. You hadn’t blinked when the Red-Haired Pirates didn’t show for a week, two weeks, even at the three week mark. After that, you began to wonder.
The rational part of you knew that pirates come and go, yet you just couldn’t override the irrational part of you that wondered where they went. They’d been a group of familiar faces, and you knew better than to get accustomed to a transient population. Well, there wasn’t really any emotional attachment you had to any of the crew members. However, begrudgingly (and you wouldn’t admit this to yourself), you did want to see the captain of the Red Force again.
“Good,” you spoke aloud to yourself, lying, “Another night where I don’t have to feel him staring at me.” Humming in satisfaction (denial), you stepped away to freshen up and make your way to your job. Wash up, fix your hair, spritz some perfume, tie the corset.
Pushing the extent of your physical and emotional capabilities, you soaked in the stillness of the setting sun, the quiet hum of the town, enjoying the moment as much as you could in preparation for the hectic night that was sure to be ahead of you. The walk was tranquil, and the calm soothed you.
You needed that mindfulness episode, because as soon as you entered those tantalizing, tacky walls, you may as well have just walked into the first circle of Hell. The cooks were bellowing profanities at each other, threatening one another with wooden spoons, only to be met with cast iron pans. Sauce was slung, and prides were stung.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Manny,” you lamented to your friend–and current boss. “I’m hanging on by a thread here.”
“Yet you keep comin’ back here every day,” he replied, “You thrive in the chaos, don’t deny it. And besides,” Manny turned to look at you as he unlocked the front doors, opening up for business. “We both know you’re waiting for someone.”
“We? We? Don’t put that on me, I’m a free woman.” Polishing glasses, you huffed. “And I’d like to keep it that way, or I’ll be damned.”
Manny smiled knowingly in response. “Sure. Keep staring at that door then, maybe unicorns and fairies will pop through.”
All you could muster was a half-assed glare. If you entertained the conversation any further, you’d have to confront the fact that you had been waiting for a certain face to walk through that door, the same way you’d been staring at the ships outside of your window. And you, thank you very much, were a woman who was above such frivolity and pining.
Nevertheless, that didn’t stop you from stealing glances at the door every time it swung open. As the night went on, you settled into your usual rhythm; pour a drink, wipe down tables, brush off attempts at flirting, rinse and repeat. Manny’s evaluation was correct, that you thrived in this chaos, and you found enjoyment this particular night while eavesdropping on other’s conversations. They did what? With who? Oh, the nosy woman inside you was absolutely being fed, and she was hanging on to every nitty-gritty detail of the scandals being thrown around tonight.
In fact, she was so absorbed into her meal, so engrossed into her internal auto-pilot, that the groaning cree-aak of the front door opening didn’t register–paying no mind to the footsteps, the voices, anything outside of the conversation about the romantic feud between two rival pirate captains. What could you say? Deep down, extremely deep, you were something of a romantic yourself.
A particular elusive man finally appeared in the flesh, the discreet Captain Shanks, who almost tip-toed while he approached the bar. He took a seat, away from his crew, and they went for the first open table they managed to spot. “Give the man his space,” they whispered animatedly among each other. “He’s had that distracted look in his eye for weeks now.”
Shanks leaned against the counter, cheeks contracting upwards as a smile spread across his face like butter. He’d been anxious to come back, not enjoying the sensation of there being unfinished business, and unanswered questions. Some part of him was insatiable, and he accepted that a long time ago. For a few minutes, he shamelessly watched you work, enamored with how engrossed you were in your inner world. The swish of your hips as you swayed to the music. The curve of your neck as you adjusted your hair.
You’d almost passed by him as you grabbed a bottle from a shelf on the wall across from him. The peripherals of your vision caught him as you spun back around, and you damn near dropped the bottle in disbelief.
There was that pirate you’d been waiting for, with a stupidly satisfied expression on his face. “Hey, doll. Did ‘ya miss me?” Shanks teased, pleased with your surprise. Your heart beat sped up, the rush of conflicting emotions fighting wars in your stomach.
“I–Um. Welcome back,” you stammered out, feeling very much overwhelmed from his red-eyed gaze being on you once more. “...What can I get you?”
Shanks breathed out a sound of admission. “Ah, is that how it is? Straight to business, huh?” He tilted his head, still happy to see you. “My usual, if you remember it. I know it’s been a while.” Shanks saw you take one distinct deep breath, chest rising. “Of course, just give me a moment.”
Honestly, you found it embarrassing how fast you were thrown off your rocker, just from one man’s presence. You found even more shame in how you lost no time on finishing your first customer’s order, so you could get Shanks his. A man of simple tastes, an easy glass of sake.
And that man had the audacity to coo at you as you handed him his drink, and he made sure his fingers brushed yours during the exchange. “So you didn’t forget all about me. You sure do know how to make a man happy.” That slight graze of his rough fingertips made your skin prickle in goosebumps–a detail that was not lost on Shanks. Fuck, you thought to yourself.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” you warned, holding your hands together and rubbing your fingers where Shanks touched you in an unconscious move. “It’s my job. Nothing special to it.” Shanks hummed as he took a sip of his drink, his eyes staying focused on you from start to finish. “And you have a way of putting a man in his place,” he stated, “Though I’m glad you’re using my words against me and not one of your daggers.”
“Keep it up, and you’ll end up with the latter.”
A chuckle. “Not one for polite conversation, are you?”
“Your version of ‘polite conversation’ is rather suggestive, isn’t it?”
Shanks leaned his head back, barking out another laugh while tapping his fingers against his cup. “You think so? Well, as long as it keeps your attention on me, then I’m exactly where I want to be.”
You began to glare at him, but with no real animosity behind your eyes. “Is this your attempt to charm me, to get me to open up?” Shanks just smirked at your response, leaning in as close as he could with the bar in the way. “Now, that depends… is it working?”
This cheeky bastard. Mimicking his motion, you leaned in as well, faces just inches apart. Shanks noted the vanilla perfume you were wearing, and his gaze dropped to your lips for longer than necessary. A sense of satisfaction washed over you when his adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He clenched his jaw, flexing as he swallowed, before meeting your gaze once more. A sweet smile on your lips, you whispered one breathy word to him: “No.”
You stood up, walking away with an arrogant pep in your step. “I missed you too!” Shanks exclaimed, laughing to himself, his own heart pounding. He ran his hand through his messy hair, coming back to planet earth. “You’re gonna make me work for it, aren’t you?”
Outwardly, you went about your business as if you hadn’t heard a word from him. It was an entirely different manner internally, because fuck, he really was interested, wasn’t he? What were you to do with that information?
…Would it even be worth it to entertain him? To flirt whenever that rolling stone came into town? How far would it go after flirting? A night spent together? And what then? Feeling a ridiculous amount of anxiety, you began biting the inside of your cheek, and you got yourself a cup of cold water.
What would it do to you if you became involved with an emperor of the sea? Would you even be involved enough for repercussions to hit you? “You’re overthinking this,” you muttered to yourself. “Don’t let it get anywhere, then you won’t have anything to overthink.”
Unfortunately for you, Shanks was watching the whole meltdown, even if you were out of sight. How lucky he felt to live in a world with Observation Haki, because he sure was a nosy bastard too. Sure, he couldn’t look inside of your pretty little head–much to his dismay–but he could see your body language, how you got all worked up, your breathing patterns, how you bit your cheek. She’s got cracks, he mused internally. That wall of hers has cracks in it, and I’m going to break it all down.
Shanks got up, moving to regroup with his crew with a pep in his step as well. “Back so soon?” Beckmann teased, “You’re not striking out, are you?”
“All these weeks you’ve been moping, Captain.” Lucky Roux joined in the teasing, between bites of some mystery meat the size of a barrel. “She’ll come around,” Shanks corrected with a confident tone in his voice. “I’m sure of it.” He turned to glance at you from afar. She’s definitely thinking about it.
The clock on the wall had scarcely been able to move its minute hand from the two to the six, before more trouble began brewing. “Breeng me anuffah!” A gray-haired man slurred, cheeks rosy as he slumped unceremoniously against his table. “Auufff your fiinnesstttt.” A burp. “Plweaaaze.”
“Gerry,” you approached the man tentatively, with as much caution as if he were a famished predator salivating over his next prospect. “I think you’ve had enough now, yeah?”
“Noooonsense!” The man–Gerry—smacked his hand on the table’s surface, very much akin to a toddler’s tantrum. “I’mmm a paying *hic* cusstmer!” The poor guy wasn’t even holding his head up properly; it was tilted so far to the side it looked unnatural, as if his neck was broken.
“We do this every week, Gerry,” you pleaded, trying to soothe the tantrum where it was before it blew out of proportion. How gentle you were being with this man, compared to how you treated other unruly patrons. “Why don’t you go home and–”
“NO!” In true toddler tantrum fashion, Gerry stood and threw the whole table over, hands balled in fists at his side. Glasses smashed as they floor, tiny pieces scattering at your feet. Ugh, what a headache. “What wr…RIWGHT do YOUU have to tell me–”
Your gentle composure didn’t falter, not even for a second. There wasn’t a shred of anger in you; instead, your eyes softened. With a snap of your fingers, and from Gerry’s shadow cast on the floor, a pitch-black humanoid thing took shape. “Time for you to go, old man.” The shadow grabbed the old man by the elbow, and began dragging him out of the bar. The geezer went swinging, cussing, and kicking, and by the time Gerry was at the front door, he broke down into hysteric, drunken guffaws. “Juussst as feisty as you were, when I pulled you fr’m the wat’r, all thosseyearsago.”
“Goodbye, old man.” You sighed, and the shadow shut the door in the old man’s face before dissipating into nothingness.
Shanks and his crew witnessed everything in uncharacteristic silence. The gears in Shanks’s head began to turn. Pulled you from the water? Considering that Shanks was mildly desperate to know anything about who you were, a sense of giddiness panged through each avenue in his body. He felt elated. He was a dog, with a bone dangling in front of him. And that meant it was time to start chasing again. Shanks thought of the shadow-man; just what was the extent of your devil fruit powers?
Perhaps the crew could use something like that, on their ship. Shanks was nothing if not an opportunist.
The red-head wasted not one moment rising to his feet so he could tread over to you. The tables in the bar were solid wood, and generously wide in circumference, which made them rather heavy; so thus, there you were, trying to push it back on its side. “Need a hand?”
Side-eyeing him, your vision lingered on his shoulders–specifically on how his cloak covered them completely, concealing the fact that he only had one arm. “It doesn’t seem like you have hands to spare.”
His brows shot up in shock, and he licked his lips before letting out a hearty chuckle. “Oh, she jokes with me now, does she? How the tables turn.” Shanks’s voice was low, dark, and betrayed nothing on exactly how amused he was.
In contrast, your brows furrowed, and you groaned at his awful joke. “How the tables–? Gods, you’re terrible.” The childlike happiness in his expression as he assisted you in getting the table upright was almost cute, the glee he was experiencing inside unable to be contained or masked. There’s a crack, he thought, triumphantly.
Shanks sighed dramatically, wiping fake sweat from his brow before patting the top of the table with two solid bump bumps. “Worth it. But, I guess I can keep the puns at bay, it seems like you’re dealing with enough… heavy lifting, tonight.”
At that, you barked out with laughter, hiding the unwitting smile that graced your face behind your hand as you rubbed your temples. “You really are terrible.”
The tinkling of your happiness, and that grin on your face, sent Shanks into a borderline euphoric state. He gazed at you, eyes half-lidded, feeling rather proud of himself. More cracks. “The worst, some might say.”
When you turned to go find a broom and dustpan, Shanks went back into lost puppy mode, trailing behind you, embarrassingly eager for a man of his stature. “So… What did that man mean, saying he pulled you from the water?” In response, you hissed out an agitated noise. “You really are persistent, aren’t you?”
“I’m terrible, remember? The worst of the worst.” Shanks smiled, so sweetly at you, and it caused your heart to twist. “Humor me, doll.”
He could see the mental back and forth argument you were having with yourself, as you swept up the broken glass. “When I was a girl,” the words dragged out of you, and you prayed internally that you weren’t going to regret opening up to him. “I, um. There was a shipwreck, and I washed up close to shore, and Gerry–the old man–he, he found me clinging to some driftwood, I guess.”
You held the rod of the broom close to your chest, and your gaze remained focused on the floor as you recalled the event. “I don’t–well, nobody knows what happened to that ship, or who it belonged to or anything. And I couldn’t remember a damn thing when I woke up.” Something sad swirled behind your reminiscent eyes. “Still don’t. I don’t have any memories from before that moment.”
Shanks listened with intention, stepping infinitesimally closer to you. His voice, once confident and flirty, came out with more reverence this time. “So you’re a fighter, and a survivor too, then. I can admire that.” You scratched your nose, still avoiding eye contact with him. “And your devil fruit powers? Where did those come from?”
“...I don’t know. I woke up with them, after the shipwreck. I don’t… remember eating a devil fruit, or how I even came to get one, anything before waking up on the old man’s ship is just blank.”
Shanks scratched his chin, humming softly, before reaching out to move a stray hair out of your face. He was pushing boundaries right now, and you hadn’t cursed his name yet, so he felt encouraged to delve further into the mystery that was this barmaid, standing in front of him, so strong, so pretty. You stiffened at the touch, eyes finally snapping back up to reach his gaze; perhaps you should’ve hit his hand away, yelled at him, yet you found yourself feeling warm from this little intimate interaction.
“A child, waking up with devil fruit powers, and no knowledge of where she came from.” He spoke in a hushed tone, mostly muttering to himself as his mind raced with possibilities. Could you have come from another pirate crew, one that lost a battle? Were you from a monarchy? This beautiful, enticing woman had to have brushed up against some group with power, for her to have received a devil fruit as a child. A stowaway that got into something she shouldn’t have, perhaps?
“Have you ever thought of setting sail to find any truths about your past?” His question was genuine, honest. A sigh left you, and you bit your bottom lip. “You’re asking me too many questions, now.”
Shanks clicked his tongue, and he reached out once more to fix your hair. Nothing needed fixing, but you weren’t aware of that, and the urge to touch you was irresistible. “Perhaps you came from a pirate crew yourself. Maybe you’re a kingdom’s long lost princess. Why, you could be anything and everything, doll.”
A scoff. “I’m not a doll.”
“Oh?” Shanks leaned forward, his eyes traveling teasingly slow down your face. He focused on your cheeks, nose, lips and chin–he moved down to trace your jaw with his eyes, down to your collarbones. With the same audacity as before, his gaze even went down as far as the swell of your breasts, peeking out from the white lace shirt you were wearing. One blink, and his gaze met yours. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Heat exploded in what felt like a volcanic eruption in your chest, warmth extending from the flesh he just ogled, up to your cheeks, reaching around to your ears. How flushed and flustered he just made you. Damn him. “Manny!” You shouted out, tumbling backwards from the pirate in front of you. “I’m going on break!”
Said pirate chuckled at your hasty exit, excited by your reaction in more ways than one. He was going to learn everything about you.
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A/N: I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN WRITING THIS RAAAAAAA MUAH MUAH >3<
