Ah, I love this prompt ♡ Here's a bouquet: Daylily, Quince and Sweet pea for Makino/Shanks.
SOWING SMALL SEEDS // Shanks x Makino // daylily; coquetry, quince; temptation, sweet pea; delicate pleasures
It’seasy to believe he’s the most obvious flirt.
Oh,he’s obvious, make no mistake –affections honest to the point of shameless, and he makes no effort to temperhis appreciation. And he knows how to make her blush like he knows how to makeher laugh, and the combination of the two usually leaves him feeling like he’sknocked back a shot that’s gone straight to his head. But then she has that effect.
And she’snot shameless in any sense of the word, but that doesn’t mean she’s any lessobvious, her face too open to be convincingly coy, and her expression lettingslip just about everything. And if there was any doubt left about what she’sthinking, the roses spreading across her throat and cheeks is evidenceenough.
“Shewants me,” he tells Ben, with a dramatic sigh, lifting his glass to his lips. “It’sobvious.”
“She’syour wife,” Ben points out, and Shanks grins.
Benshakes his head. “You’re an embarrassment.”
“Hey, she’s the one givingme bedroom eyes! And not subtly, either.”
“You would know,” Ben says, cutting him a look. “Nothing about you is subtle.”
“Ihave been told I have something of a presence, yes.”
“Iwas referring to the hair, but sure,” Ben muses. “Let’s go with that.”
“Youwish you had my hair,” Shanks counters.
“Everyday,” Ben deadpans, not missing a beat.
Shankslifts his glass, salute punctuated by a cheeky grin. “Always knew it.”
Tippingit back, his eyes seek hers across the room – finds them dark and inviting, andthe warmth that drops into his gut has little to do with the drink.
He holds her gaze as she makes the rounds, weaving between tables with an easethat doesn’t require her full attention, land legs sure and steady; a captain in her own right, no ship under her feet but her authority a fact. And her attention she reserves for him, and the promise in hereyes makes the air in the room seem heavier, the muted babel pushed to the farcorners, leaving a vacuum where it’s difficult to remember that there’s morethan just the two of them present.
“Well,”Yasopp speaks up, after a lengthy pause, and the vacuum yields – like the roomitself heaves for breath. “I’m calling it a night, before Boss drops his pants.”
Hegets a crude gesture for that, but Shanks doesn’t drop his eyes from Makino,making her way over to the bar now. He tucks his grin behind the rim of his glass.“Don’t tempt me, Curly. I just might.”
“Whosepants are dropping?” Makino asks, stepping up to where they’re sitting. Shetakes one look at his shorts, gaze lingering a beat on the cheerful floralprint, before she’s lifted them back to his. “Is it too much to hope it’syours?”
Shankschokes on his drink, and Yasopp barks a laugh. “For all our sakes, Ma-chan, atleast wait until we’re out the door.”
“Nopromises,” Shanks coughs, the burn of the drink having cinched his throattight, but it’s a feat keeping his grin off, and when she passes him by hertouch remains longer than she does, fingertips sketching, light and meaningfulacross the back of his neck.
Hecatches Yasopp’s mutter about honeymoonought to be over by now, and sticks his tongue out. Ben hides his grin behind his glass.
Thehour creeps beyond Makino’s closing hours, and the room clears, little by little.Shanks retreats to check on the baby – finds him asleep, breaths heavy, andnone of his own worries to wear on that little heart. And it’s almost too easyto lose himself, watching him sleep; easy to forget, all his worries and burdens,under the spell of those soft breaths.
It’seasy – like it’s easy to forget when he’s home, that there’s a sea beyond theport. And it’s impossible to forget, when he’s gone, that he has made a homehere, with all that entails.
Re-enteringthe common room, it’s to find the others having taken their leave, and then it’sjust the two of them, a bottle of scotch on the counter between them, and herlaughter takes on a different quality – that soft, breathless thing that’saccompanied by the curl of her toes where she’s kicked off her shoes, and she’sdragged her stool so close there’s no part of them that’s not touching.
“Thoseglasses are still going to be dirty tomorrow at this rate,” Shanks muses. “Andyou used to be such a stickler for routines. I can remember a time you wouldn’teven kiss me before you’d mopped the floor.”
Thenudge of her leg offers a soft reprimand, and he catches it, running his thumbover the arch of her knee, seeking bare skin. A different creature now, twoglasses into the bottle and with privacy a fact, she doesn’t bat his hand awaywhen he pushes her skirt up, and the gleam in her eyes chases the years off hisback, off his heart.
“Ihaven’t seen you in three months,” she reminds him. “The glasses can wait.”
“Yousure? This place might go under if you do.”
Shepinches his thigh for that, and he catches her hand – traps her fingers betweenhis, to tug her knuckles close for a kiss, and nips at her fingers when shetugs at his beard in retaliation. “Although while we’re on the subject of the past threemonths, I’d like to remind you that Isuggested a quickie when I walked off the ship earlier,” he says, browslifting. “You’re the one who didn’t take me up on the offer. Regretting thatnow, are we?”
“You,” Makino laughs, and the word holdstoo many things to count – an endearment, a fond reproach, contentment and thatsoft disbelief, as though he can still surprise her. “Sometimes I find it hardto believe you’re almost forty,” she says. “Twelve years, and you haven’tchanged one bit.”
Before he can offer a comeback to that, preferably something glib, she tiltsher head an adds, flicking her eyes low, “Well. Your dress-sense used to be alittle more discreet.”
“Stillon me about the pants,” Shanks sighs. Then, brow raised in challenge, “You’re welcometo take them off, you know. No one’s stopping you.”
Hehears her hum, and catches the downwards direction of her gaze, openly boldnow, and in a way that makes his grin stretch, unabashedly pleased. Then –“Thatpattern is stopping me,” she quips, dark eyes bright with laughter when hechokes in outrage. “But if you remove them, I might change my tune.”
Heshakes his head, but his heart feels light with her presence, and when hetightens his grip on her thigh she shifts closer, small shape seeking his.
Andfor all her claims to the opposite, he has changed, Shanks thinks, watchingher. There’s little of his old restlessness left, and he wonders if she’s feltit – if it’s as obvious as the rest of him, that it’s not the sea his heartseeks now, for rest.
She’snever asked him to stay, and he doubts she ever will, although looking at hernow, fingertips tracing the pattern on his shorts, almost absently, he has the sudden thought that he wouldn’t mind if she did.
Becausehe wants this, he realises – the little things that are his. Their son sleeping, and abottle shared between them. Little, intimate pleasures; small hands that never strayfar from where he is, and her gentle humour, the one that can so easily be wicked as entirelyinnocent. And they might be married and entirely too obvious, but that she canstill catch him off guard with the latter is a marvel, and anything but a given.
Thenudge of her glass against his own yields a tender sound, and, “I’ve missedyou,” Makino says softly. And it’s the closest she’ll come, Shanks knows, totelling him that she wishes he’d stay longer – that he’d stay.
Heknows the answer he’d like to give her, but it’s in the scars that he feels theonly answer he can give, although he’s never been moretempted to be selfish and choose the former, Teach and the New World be damned. And she knows, which is why she won’t ask. The only thingshe’s ever asked of him is to come back, which is a terribly small thing, givenall the things he’s asked of her – for her patience, and to have her for wife,both of which she’d accepted, and without so much as a pause for breath, let alone for thought.
“Youhave, huh?” he asks, palm curved around her knee. He finds her pulse, the skin above it soft and yielding.
“Hmm.”She flicks her eyes to his, laughter in them, and something far more tender. “Enough that I’m willing toforget about the pants.”
Hishand gripping her knee tips her off the stool, startling a laugh when she fallsagainst him, before she’s stifled it in his shirt, along with the reprimand thatthey’ll wake the baby at this rate, and then it’ll have to be a quickie, and he’llonly have himself to blame if they can’t get him to go back to sleep, and–
Andit’s good to be home, he thinks, and surrenders to that thought – and to her, whateverparts of himself he can. And it would be all of them if he could, but even if it isn’t, not yet, he’s never once doubted that it’s enough.
