A Gothic Tragedy (Happy Coradrag AU) - Bombshell Interlude
Happy Coradrag AU Masterlist
A Gothic Tragedy Masterlist
Summary: Shanks gets bullied while Mihawk asks Benn for dating advice. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Warning: Mentions of typical Celestial Dragons behaviours.
Context:
We don't really know much of Shamrock, so I've taken creative liberties once again.
Moria doesn't get super tall until after he fights Kaido in this. Right now he's just 7 feet instead of 22 feet 8½ inches (692 cm).
Dracule Mihawk - 23 (Birthdate: March 9)
Gecko Moria - 28 (Birthdate: September 6)
Buggy - 17 (Birthdate: August 8)
Shanks - 18 (Birthdate: March 9)
Figarland Shamrock - 18 (Birthdate: March 9)
Benn Beckman - 28 (Birthdate: November 9)
Mortimer - 24 (Birthdate: December 21)
Shells Marie - 18 (Birthdate: August 1)
Imagine the One Piece Narrator when you see this: {Words}
Italics = Thoughts
The Newspaper/Notes
-
Early March - Red Haired Pirates’ Ship - Somewhere in the Grandline
This was not how Shanks thought his birthday was going to go.
Shanks had thought that he would party with his friends and get a little drunk. Maybe even tease Mihawk a little about joining his crew or that man he had saved awhile ago.
Unfortunately, he ended up getting black out drunk and woke up at midnight with a raging headache.
Whatever he did somehow led him to where he was now: being held up against the wall by a strange woman he didn’t know and being asked about his shitty twin brother.
Oh, and he also had a gun pointed at his face.
That was nice.
How did I get here? Shanks thought, And how the hell do I get out of this?
“So, are you going to answer me?” The strange woman asked, “Or do I have to put a bullet in you first?”
“Well, if you shoot me, you’re not going to get any answers." Shanks replied without thinking, “And why do you think I’d know anything about Figarland Shamrock? I don’t even know who that is.”
“I mean I don’t have to shoot you in a vital spot, but I suppose it would be too loud.” The woman remarked, “And don’t lie to me, you look just like Shams. You’re like an unwashed version of him.”
“Hey! I bathe every other day!” Shanks yelled, “And are you like a spy or something?! What did that moon bastard send you or something?!”
{This is a lie. While Shanks does in fact bathe, he only does so when someone else makes him. Usually it is Benn’s job to throw a bucket of soapy water on him after a week or two. That or Mihawk bullies him into showering by telling him that Buggy wouldn’t like a greasy man.}
Anyways, the woman made a disgusted face when Shanks made the spy comment.
“Ew, no. I hate Garling just as much as you do.” The woman hissed, “I’m not a spy you dumbass. I’m Shells Marie, Gecko Moria’s first mate.”
Shanks tried to think of who this lady was talking about and why she would be here, but he was drawing blanks. So he just decided to ask her point blank.
“Okay, let’s say you’re telling me the truth.” Shanks started, “Why are you on my boat if it’s not to assassinate me or drag me back to hell?”
Now it was Marie’s turn to look confused.
“You… You really don’t remember?” Marie asked, “Wow, you really were black out drunk. Don’t know why I’m surprised though, you did sleep for almost ten hours after you cried about some clown.”
Almost immediately, Shanks was both embarrassed and furious.
“Hey! Buggy isn’t some clown!” Shanks yelled, “He is my clown and he is amazing! He- He is incredibly smart and great with chemistry! And he’s an acrobat!”
Shanks continued to rant about how great this Buggy person was while Marie just looked at him with slight disgust.
Wow, he is really down bad for this clown guy, Marie thought, It would be almost sweet if he didn’t look like he was on the verge of tears.
After a moment Marie just rolled her eyes as she put her gun away and covered Shanks’ mouth with her hand, shutting him up. She then picked him up by the waist and dragged him into his room. Marie sat the squirming man on his bed before locking the door behind her.
“Okay, since you don’t remember shit, I’ll do a recap.” Marie sighed, then she started speaking slowly, “Your buddy Mihawk saved my captain and we came across you guys. My captain, Gecko Moria, wanted to talk with Mihawk and he invited us on board while Benn dragged your wailing ass to bed.”
After hearing this, some of Shanks’ memories did in fact come back to him. He faintly remembered giving Monster the gun and then… Yes, the Gecko Pirates did pull up beside them and Shanks started crying after… Mihawk made that comment.
“Oh right, I remember that now.” Shanks sheepishly said, rubbing his forehead, “Wait, Gecko Moria is the guy Mihawk fished out of the water? Really?!”
“Yup.” Marie said, popping the “p”, “And he’s my captain.”
“Okay, but what does that have anything to do with my shitty twin?” Shanks asked, still confused about everything, “Do you have a vendetta against him or something?”
“Nope, just thought it was funny.” Marie replied as she shrugged, “And if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead buddy.”
Shanks looked at her in disbelief.
“You thought threatening me with a gun was funny?!” Shanks hissed.
“Yup.” Marie laughed, “Did I scare you?”
“Wha- Yes you scared me?!” Shanks shouted, “Are you insane?! What is wrong with you?”
“Would you like me to go in alphabetical or chronological order?” Marie bluntly asked with a wide grin.
Shanks didn’t know what to say in response to that.
“Chronological order please.” Shanks replied after a moment.
“Great, I’ll try to keep it breif.” Marie gleefully said as she clapped her hands and grabbed Shanks’ desk chair.
Marie got comfortable and cleared her throat before she started speaking:
“My mother was a woman from the South Blue, an island called Kutsukku. When she was old enough she left to travel the Grandline. But when she arrived in the Sabaody Archipelago, she caught the attention of a high ranking Celestial Dragon. He made her one of his “wives” and I was born two years later.”
Shanks felt his skin crawl at the implications, but after a moment of processing, he prompted Marie to continue.
And so she did:
“So basically I was born a slave with only a few slight benefits. Like not immediately being sold or killed off as soon as they found out my mother was pregnant with me. I was mostly taken care of by maids and helped in the kitchen when I was younger. Although I wasn’t a very obedient child as you can probably tell, they just made sure not to scar my face and bring down the property value.”
Marie made a gesture to the scars littering her body. Shanks felt something vile twist in his stomach. It wasn’t disgust at the scars themselves, but rather what they represented.
However, the thing about not scaring Marie’s face didn’t make sense because she did have scars crisscrossing over her face.
I suppose that came later, Shanks thought sadly, Did Garling do that? Or was it my brother?
“After a while of that, they figured out that torturing me wouldn’t make me behave. So they started torturing my mother instead.” Marie stated as if it was nothing, but then her voice dropped almost to a whisper, “I was better behaved after that. Although, as I got older, I started to realise that it wasn’t worth it because my mother never loved me. I guess I should’ve figured that out sooner considering she named me after the place that caused her so much pain. I don’t blame her to be honest, I’d hate me too.”
Shanks felt his heart crack at hearing her say that, but he understood what she meant. What he didn’t understand though was why she was telling him all this.
“I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve any of that.” Shanks told her, “But why tell me this? What does it have to do with my brother or me?”
Marie gave him a crooked smile in return before continuing her story:
“Well, eventually my mother died. I was so sure they were going to kill me too because my father wasn’t having any luck in selling me off due to my attitude and scars. But then Garling stepped in. Apparently he wanted to climb the social ladder and decided the best way to do that was to get into my father’s good graces by offering an amount far higher than what I was worth.”
That made Shanks enraged.
“He bought you?!” Shanks yelled, “What he wanted you to be a maid? Or… Oh god, please don’t tell me he-”
Marie quickly garbed Shanks’ face and squeezed it so he’d shut up.
“Shush! You’re going to wake everyone up!” Marie hissed, “And it wasn’t anything like that! He wanted me to marry Shamrock!”
Shanks’ eyes went wide at that and he went completely still. Marie slowly let go of him and watched him like he was a deer ready to bolt.
“I first met Shams when we were children; thought he was an asshole and I pushed him into a fountain. After the contract was signed, when I was fifteen I went to live with them and was forced into etiquette classes.” Marie explained, “We were going to be married when Shams turned eighteen, but I always thought that was an excuse Garling made while he tried to find someone of a higher status.”
Shanks’ didn’t miss the way Marie looked softer when talking about Shamrock. It was a harsh switch from when she was talking about her own mother or Garling. He also didn’t miss the nickname she gave him.
When Shanks had been in Mary Geoise, he had been walking down a hallway with Shamrock and it was really tense. So Shanks had tried to lighten the mood by calling his brother Shams. He’d figured his brother would just reprimand him for being immature again or ignore him, but his brother had grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into a wall.
Shanks would never forget the expression of furious hatred Shamrock had looked at him with. His brother even went so far as to threaten to kill Shanks if he ever called him that again; Garling’s wishes be damned.
But now Shanks wasn’t so sure it had been hatred.
Maybe it was grief.
“What happened next?” Shanks asked.
“Well, I still don’t quite understand it all to be honest, but we became friends. Or as close to friends as people can be in Mary Geoise.” Marie replied, “It really isn’t a place made for love and he didn’t completely understand my want for freedom, but I think we both realised how lonely we both were. I mean we had both spent our whole lives being berated by our parents to be constantly perfect or being told to just die if we weren’t going to be useful. I guess I was just the first person to not put up with his shitty attitude and daddy issues.”
Shanks snorted at that. He couldn’t imagine his oh so perfect brother being anything but the perfect son. It was something Garling had consistently pointed out to Shanks that he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry for laughing, but I never would have thought someone as prim and proper like Shamrock would ever have daddy issues.” Shanks told her, “Or have any human decency really.”
“Oh please, you’re not any better, you have daddy issues too.” Marie said with a grin, “But I also don’t blame you for thinking that, he did say that I’d be taking his humanity with me when I left.”
Shanks had been ready to protest at the idea of him having daddy issues, but that was pushed aside by the surprise that Shamrock knew Marie had planned to leave and didn’t try to stop her.
“Really?! He knew you were leaving?” Shanks asked surprised, “He didn’t try to stop you?”
“At first he did, but he was actually the one that helped me escape.” Marie explained, “He came up with the plan to fake my death by pretending I fell off a cliff into the sea and then he brought me down to the port at night so that I could hide away on a ship. I was just going to fight my way out originally, I did still use a knife to scar my face and make it so I was unrecogniseable though."
He actually helped Marie escape?! Shanks thought, He didn’t even help me, his own brother, escape that hell hole! Just told me to take a swan dive off the- Oh… He was telling me to do what Marie did.
Another memory of Mary Geoise came back to Shanks. He had overheard some of the maids talking about a feral woman throwing herself off a cliff. He had tried to ask them about it, but they had scrambled away in fear before he could even ask.
They must have been talking about Marie, Shanks realised, She does look kind of feral and her eyes do remind me of a wolf.
And it seemed like Marie was leaning into it with the ripped up punk clothes she was wearing.
“After that, I kind of wandered around until I heard about Gol D Roger's execution.” Marie continued, “I don’t know why, but I went to go see it. I ran into Moria there and then we met Morty when he gave us shelter from some marines that we had stolen money from. Then we set out to sea on a stolen ship. However, there was a slight hiccup in our plans and we had to make a detour.”
“Why? Were they after you?” Shanks asked.
“Oh, no. I just found out that I was pregnant.” Marie stated, “Didn’t notice until the second trimester because I was never taught anything about pregnancy or how it happens. So we made a detour to my mother’s home island of Kutsukku in the South Blue.”
Shanks breath hitched and he choked on his own spit.
“I’m an uncle?!” Shanks sputtered, “Wait, is the baby here with you? Or did they not… make it?”
“Oh he made it alright, Kid weighed about thirteen pounds and split me open like a damn watermelon.” Marie laughed, “And no, he isn’t here with me. I left him with the midwife that helped me give birth.”
“What?! Why?” Shanks questioned, “You abandoned him just like that? And in the South Blue of all places?! The place where they are still searching for Gol D Roger’s supposed child?!”
“Hey, don’t push your daddy issues onto me.” Marie sternly told him, “I left him because I knew I would never be a good mother to him. I’m still a child myself and I’m still figuring out how this world works. So I didn’t abandon my child because I didn’t love him. I did it because I’m self aware enough to know I’m too fucked up to take care of a baby properly. I didn’t want to continue the cycle my father started.”
Shanks felt a feeling of shame creeping over him after hearing that.
“I’m sorry.” Shanks whispered, “But still, why the South Blue of all places?”
Marie let out a deep sigh and dragged a hand down her face.
“I don’t really know that myself.” Marie softly said, “I guess I just went there because it was somewhere I could actually name. It also isn’t affiliated with the government so I figured it was safe enough. The midwife, Eustass Blair, was an old woman who couldn’t have children of her own and she lived in a quiet part of town. I wish I was the mother Kid deserved, but… I loved him enough to know I wasn’t and give him to someone who could be.”
Shanks decided he wasn’t going to comment on the tears and just handed her a tissue.
“What did you name him?” Shanks asked.
“I already told you his name, it’s Kid.” Marie replied, “And he has Blair’s last name, so I guess his full name is Eustass Kid.”
“You named him Kid?!” Shanks asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, so? It’s what I had been calling him before he was born so I figured he was used to it already.” Marie told him, “If he was a girl, I would’ve still named him Kid.”
It was then that Shanks burst out laughing. The ridiculousness of this entire situation had finally caught up to him and he just had to let it out. Thankfully, Marie joined in too.
When the laughter died down, Shanks spoke up.
“So what was the purpose of telling me all this?” Shanks asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.” Marie stated as she stood up, “I just want you to be on the look out for the little shit in the future. My hope for him is that he has a normal childhood, but with the genes he has, he’ll be wrecking a lot of shit. I just want you to promise not to hurt him if he comes to fight you.”
“I promise not to hurt him.” Shanks chuckled, shaking her hand to seal the promise.
“Good, I’ll hold you to that.” Marie nodded before asking, “Wanna see a picture of him?”
“Absolutely!” Shanks enthusiastically replied.
Marine pulled a piece of paper out of a zip pocket over her heart and handed it to Shanks.
It was a picture of a chubby baby giving the meanest mug face he had ever seen. The baby had a tuft of red hair and his little hands were curled into fists like he was already ready to fight the world.
Yeah, this kid is definitely going to fuck shit up in the future, Shanks thought as he smiled, And he definitely has Shams’ glare.
{Shanks would hold up this promise, he would in fact never hurt his nephew himself, but he did have his first mate Benn Beckman cut off his nephew’s arm later in life.}
-
Meanwhile, Benn Beckman was enjoying the peace. Between dealing with Shanks’ many issues and wrangling the crew members, it wasn’t often that he got time to just relax. So with everyone asleep after a day of partying, he took a moment to sit on the deck and have a smoke.
Benn watched the stars as they passed overhead and tried not to think of the disaster that would be the next morning. It was never fun when the entire crew was hungover, but it would be horrible with two crews.
“I suppose it’s lucky that I’ve already outgrown that phase.” Benn lamented, “Hopefully they do too.”
“Highly unlikely.” A monotone voice said from behind him, startling Benn.
Benn flailed in his lounge chair while trying not to choke on his cigarette and turned around to see Mihawk standing behind him in the darkness. He could tell it was him due to the bright gold eyes standing out against the darkness.
“Christ! You scared me!” Benn yelled, grabbing his own chest, “What the hell are you doing just standing there?!”
“Apologies, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just came to ask you for dating advice.” Mihawk bluntly told him.
Benn just looked at the younger man confused.
“What? Why? Who?!” Benn asked.
This wasn’t the first time someone had asked Benn for dating advice as he was the oldest person on the crew, but never in his life would he have guessed it would be Mihawk asking. The man always seemed like he was annoyed by everyone around him. Benn had seen people tried to flirt with Mihawk before and it usually went over his head or he threatened to kill them if they entered his space again.
“Well Shanks already gave me some, but then I realized I probably shouldn't take dating advice from a man with the emotional intelligence of a rock.” Mihawk told him, “As for why I am asking you specifically: you are older, so you must know something. And it is Moria I’m going on a date with.”
Benn tried to connect the dots on how Mihawk went from saving Gecko Moria from drowning to going on a date with him, but nothing about it made sense.
Maybe he has a thing for the horns or his outfit, Benn thought.
He was then snapped out of his thoughts by Mihawk walking over and sitting down in the chair beside him.
“You’re going out with Moria? Why?” Benn questioned him.
“Well, when most people meet me, they either immediately want me to join their crew or they cower in fear.” Mihawk explained, “Moria however saw me as an individual and didn’t run. Shanks said that when someone does that, they probably wanted to get to know him personally. Should I not have taken his advice?”
Wow, Shanks actually gave someone some good advice for once, Benn thought, Usually he just tells people to drink for courage and use corny pick up lines.
Benn quickly took a drag of his smoke before replying.
“No, that is some good advice to follow.” Benn told him, “And what are you two going to be doing on this date?”
He is going to help me slaughter a couple of human traffickers a few hours away from here.” Mihawk stated as if it was a normal answer.
Benn just choked on his smoke again.
“Wha-What?! He agreed to that?” Benn asked while hitting his chest and coughing.
“At first he thought I meant doing it with his crew as well, but I quickly clarified that I meant only him and me.” Mihawk replied, “Moria quickly agreed to do it, he almost seemed excited in fact.”
For fucks sake, Benn thought, These two are either a match made in heaven or hell.
Benn then spent an hour telling Mihawk about how to be a gentleman during his massacre date and dreading the fact that he would be babysitting two crews in the meantime.
-
Okay, so the original plan was to have Shanks be Eustass Kid's dad and then have Shamrock be Uta's dad. However, I couldn't figure out how to make that work because Shanks was still with Buggy when Kid would need to be conceived. Roger was killed sometime between late September and early October (side note: would I be a monster if I make it the same date as Dragon's birthday?) and Eustass Kid was born on January 10 of the following year. So I don't think Shanks would be hooking up with anybody as he was still trying to get with Buggy. In this story at least. So Kid is his nephew. (I may have also done the math wrong, but to be fair it was a bitch to figure out exactly when Roger died. Why is that info in the trivia section?)
I don't know if I will include Uta in this story. I have some ideas, but we'll see.
Also, we don't have an official height for Shamrock so I am assuming that it is the same as Shanks (6"6). That means that Eustass Kid (6"9) got his height from Marie (7"0).
I haven't posted in a while, but I am working between different projects. This is one of it! I have been procrastinating for making a character sheet of my botanic vampire named Mortimer (aka Morty). He's the son of Veneris, our lovely bloody artist lady.
