Spoilers for chapter 1079! Shanks x Makino, follows this is what the kids call couple goals
Coasters are non-negotiable
“Are you sure that’s all of them?”
She was moving between the pirates on deck, most of them still out cold, while some were slowly coming to, coughing up seawater. Even with Brogy and Dorry’s help, it had taken some effort getting them all out of the sea, but then she had insisted on getting every last one.
Kneeling down beside one of the pirates who’d awoken, Shanks saw him look at her in surprise. It was the guy who’d surrendered their poneglyph rubbings, his confusion evident as he looked from Makino to the crew who’d gathered around her. “W-We’re not dead?”
“You’re in luck,” Yasopp said, his arms crossed where he leaned back against the mast. “Boss wasn’t messing around.”
Seated on the crate beside him, Shanks said nothing, observing her progress as she moved between the pirates, his haki having already assured him that they were all still kicking, but then she’d insisted on checking them herself.
Her voice was pitched too softly for him to hear what she said to them, but he saw their faces, shaped first with confusion, then something akin to wonder, their hands reaching after her instinctively as she moved on, until she finally arrived at their captain where he’d been laid out in the middle of the deck.
He was coming awake, blinking blearily up at the sky. Shanks saw that he was bleeding from his head, and didn’t envy him the headache. He’d heard his haki in its dormant form described as a mild hangover. After a direct hit of the undiluted stuff, Kidd would be nursing the mother of them all.
His crew had noticed him coming to, their voices sobbing with relief. “Captain!!”
For his part, Kidd didn’t look it, but then he’d looked like a mess before Shanks had stepped in.
He saw his eyes moving, his brow furrowing at the sight of Red Force’s masts, before they settled on Makino where she sat on her knees beside him.
He blinked up at her, before he noticed the rest of their crew where they loomed protectively behind her, and his eyes widened, his reaction as instinctive as his anger as his mangled arm reared back to lash out at her, but Shanks had already seen it, and didn’t move, even as his crew did, but before they could intercept him, the gentle touch of a small hand to his arm had Kidd seizing.
“No need for that,” Makino said, with the inflection Shanks had once heard her use with Luffy when he’d thrown a tantrum, as she lowered the scraps of his arm back down. “You should be taking it easy.”
Sitting up now, Kidd looked like he wasn’t sure where he’d woken up. “Who the hell are you?” he croaked, the seawater in his lungs leaving his voice even rougher than usual, as blood-shot eyes took her in where she sat, pausing on her kerchief and her velvet and silver-threaded cloak, before lowering to Siren on her hip.
A barkeep with considerable experience, Makino was unfazed by the rude address, although the same couldn’t be said for the rest of their crew.
“That’s no way to address our lady!!”
“And after she insisted we save your ass from drowning, too!”
“Boss, do you want us to toss him back in?”
That last question hadn’t been directed at him, Shanks noted wryly, and saw Kidd’s confusion where it pulled at his features.
“No one is going overboard,” Makino said. Then to Kidd, still gawking at her, “But there’ll be no violence in my bar. I’ll also expect you to use coasters on my new counter. Are we clear?”
Half-drowned and beaten within an inch of his life, Kidd just stared at her, before he blurted hoarsely, “What?”
Yasopp leaned in to ask Shanks, “Is he just thick, or did you hit him a little too hard?”
Kidd’s gaze moved from Makino to Shanks, who pointed towards the deckhouse and the door to their galley, above which the sign of their bar hung suspended, the carved siren on her rock swinging gently in the breeze.
Kidd stared at it for a long beat, before looking back at Makino and the crew gathered around her, pausing briefly on Ben where he stood holding the baby, before his gaze finally settled on Shanks, still sitting on the crate, his outward ease betrayed only by the hand resting over the pommel of his sword, but then if he made any sudden moves towards her, he’d be dead before he could finish thinking it.
Smiling, Shanks made sure he knew it, but what he said was, “She’s dead serious about the coasters. I forgot yesterday and she threatened to divorce me. Do I need to remind you who built you that pretty counter, wife?”
“The coasters are non-negotiable,” Makino said demurely, the words directed at all of them, before she turned back to Kidd, whose crew had gathered around him, sobbing with joy, and who still looked like he wasn’t sure where he’d woken up.
“So what will it be, Captain Eustass Kidd,” Makino said, the tilt of her head making the gold rings in her ears catch the light. “Will you have a drink, or will you keep resisting?”
She smiled, her kind eyes curving, and with a gentleness that Shanks felt compelled to point out was far more terrifying than anything he could have managed, said,
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
pixelskylines
stormborns
jacobvanloon
amandla
andulkaphoto
