Hey!
First of all, I'm a non-native English speaker, so there might be some mistakes!
This is a totally self-indulgent fic so it might seem desultory at some points, but I really wanted to write about Buggy, Shanks, and haki.
Anyway, I hope you'll like the fic!
It was bound to happen, honestly, one way or another. Mihawk wasn't particularly surprised by how things had unfolded, what's with having Buggy in the team with them. Somehow the guy seemed to always end up in crazy situations against his will, progressively rising to the top through convoluted ways he had in no way caused or anticipated.
But that was how Buggy was, a lucky beggar provoking unbelievable events with his awkwardness. And it always turned out well for him. It was no wonder, then, to see this directly impacting their so-called association.
Here they were, in the middle of a battle against four marine ships, being interrupted by the arrival of the Red Force pirates. Mihawk would have liked to go without this, Shanks' existence itself was enough to give him a headache, so his entire crew? It was much more than he wanted to handle right now, especially in the middle of an already engaged fight.
It seemed that Crocodile seemed to think the same way. He'd audibly groaned the minute they'd been aware of the ship's presence, his blows visibly increasing against the poor marines.
The only one who had stayed silent had, surprisingly, been Buggy.
Mihawk knew he and Shanks had some kind of history, but the red-hair himself had refused to talk about it to Mihawk on one of the rare occasions the swordsman had asked something to the pirate captain. It was rare for Shanks to refuse to talk about something, he who loved to babble constantly about idle things.
The atmosphere had changed drastically now that the marines were in front of a fish they definitely were in no way able to catch. But it was too late already, their commanders having taken too much time to react and order a retreat, the weakest members of both sides already dropping like flies as the Red Force drew closer, Shanks' appearance never one to be ignored.
Finally the boat came into view, and with it, the familiar figure of its captain. Mihawk frowned as he felt the atmosphere shift, it was as if he could feel the temperature dropping, and he was almost tempted to take a step back. It seemed like Shanks was not here on a friendly visit.
A wave of conqueror's haki reached him and he was taken aback by its intensity. Almost half of the people in the surrounding ships toppled, the clinking of weapons falling down deafening after the beat of silence that had preceded the attack.
Mihawk couldn't possibly call it any other way, because, really, Shanks had just straight up attacked them right now. And it wasn't like when he tried to start a playful spar with him, or how he teased marine officers at seas. Today, it was different.
It was probably the first time Mihawk saw Shanks act the way an emperor was supposed to in people's minds. By stumbling upon random conflicts and wreaking havoc just because he could. Because, right now, Mihawk didn't understand.
It was true that Shanks was a completely unpredictable man, but he never acted out of reason. At least Mihawk thought so.
The Red Force dropped the anchor and stopped its course in a roar as Shanks jumped from its prow as if it was mere centimetres from the Cross Guild's boat's deck.
Mihawk was almost tempted to put himself in a fighting stance, but he frankly didn't feel like engaging in a serious fight with Shanks at the moment. Crocodile seemed to share his mind, watching the man's movements carefully, on the defensive.
And Buggy was still not moving. The thing was that Mihawk didn't know if it was out of stupidity, or out of sudden defiance. As much as he didn't really wish to put himself between Shanks and Buggy, the blue-haired man was considered as his associate in public, and he couldn't possibly let him get knocked out by Shanks just because the other man felt like it.
The only thing was that Buggy was not even saying anything.
Mihawk realised that he'd been mistaken by Buggy's lack of reaction. The man was not frozen in fear, rendered silent by a terrifying sight, but impervious. His face was unreadable, his eyes hard in a way Mihawk never would have thought him capable. He wasn't hunched up on himself like he usually would be in front of a dangerous enemy, instead his back was straight, his head up.
Everyone watched, astounded at the way Shanks zeroed his attention on Buggy, overflowing haki aimed at him and him only.
Mihawk took a step back, feeling dizzy from the sudden burst of haki inevitably reaching him. He had a certain resistance to it, but even he had his limits, and Shanks at an increasing level reached way past it.
The swordsman stepped back until his head stopped spinning. He was only one of the few people still standing on the ships. The entirety of their men had fainted, just like most of the marines. He was the only one left alongside Crocodile, Daz Bonez, the marine vice-admiral, and Buggy.
Shanks stood there, amongst the heap of unconscious men he'd just created. His eyes still on Buggy's face, dark, threatening.
Mihawk watched as the red-hair slowly raised a hand to Buggy's face, and felt himself lose consciousness before he could see more.
Buggy stood there, unmoving as Shanks reached for him, the sound of his associates falling to the ground signifying that he was the last one standing in the seafaring battlefield.
He let Shanks put a hand on his cheek, but stopped him from getting any closer. 'What exactly are you doing?' he asked in a neutral tone.
Shanks let his hand fall back to his side and shrugged. 'Just stopping by, I wanted to see you.'
Buggy shook his head. 'And you needed to put my associates out for that?'
Shanks rubbed the back of his head, sheepishly realising what he'd just done right now. 'Ah, I think I got slightly carried away here, sorry for that.'
Buggy clicked his tongue, turning his back to the other man, walking towards his quarters. Shanks followed him, hurrying along.
From the deck, Ben had been watching his captain's act. He did not fear his captain, his best friend, but he would lie if he said that Shanks' show of strength didn't leave him slightly shaken.
It always left him a little breathless, the way Shanks so effortlessly put down hundreds of men in the blink of an eye.
He'd found it extremely charming and frankly sexy at the beginning of their journey, always getting flustered whenever Shanks used his conqueror's haki to put an enemy Ben had missed down.
But his dawning crush had quickly been burnt to the ground the moment their path had crossed Buggy's. Everything had clicked into place then, Ben thinking back about the previous days spent just the two of them, he and Shanks. He understood the playful teasing and the way Shanks had seemed to elude him the moment Ben had thought about acting on the flirting. Shanks was already taken. And Ben couldn't measure up.
Buggy burst into his bedroom with a shove to the door, walking to sit on the stool in front of his dressing table. He started to pull his hat off, taking his hair out of the way and letting it fall back behind him.
Shanks leant on the doorway to watch him angrily get out of his costume.
Buggy could feel the other man's eyes on the back of his neck, but he didn't pay attention to it, refusing to humour the man who'd just decided to burst in unannounced and fuck his day up.
Shanks had his own personal ways to steal the show whenever he wished to, which was whenever he showed up, really. Buggy had grown used to it, he'd been forced to, but it didn't mean that he was not fed up every time it happened.
It was no surprise, then, that people started thinking that he hated Shanks. He always stormed off or yelled at him whenever he showed up unannounced, and since he always did, it was constant. At some point back in the days these people would have been correct.
Now though, it was different. They had both gotten time on their own and grown to realise that the thing they shared could not be found anywhere else. As much as he never showed it, Buggy was happy to see Shanks. He just wished his boyfriend had better timing.
When Ben met Shanks, his soon-to-be captain, the man already had an almost complete control of his conqueror's haki. Almost.
He'd lost control once, in the midst of a fight against older pirates, on one of Shanks' bad days. It didn't happen much, but anyone who took to sea had those from time to time. It wasn't quite land sickness, even less homesickness, especially for a man like Shanks, but it was something similar.
Still, it had been one of those days.
Shanks had already been in a foul mood, which had only worsened the moment they'd been attacked by some pirates older than them. It turned sour the moment they started to talk about Roger.
Shanks lost control then, anger coursing through his veins, unleashing his conqueror's haki and knocking everyone around him out, his own crew included.
When Ben woke up, Shanks was at his side, worry written clear all over his face. He swore that day that he'd never lose control of his haki ever again. And Ben could only hope that he'd hold on to it. Because, after all, when he was in this state, no one could go up against Shanks.
Shanks came to crouch next to Buggy, eyeing his face silently.
'You're pissed off, huh?' He stated more than actually asked.
Buggy paused to look him in the eye. 'I'm not pissed, I'm fucking furious,' he answered, murmuring a low 'bastard' to himself afterwards before resuming his partial undressing.
Shanks tilted his head to get a better look at him. He knew it infuriated Buggy. The other man hated when he was silent for too long.
Buggy had told him one day that, when they were younger, a silent Shanks had meant a scheming Shanks, but that now a silent Shanks meant a spiralling Shanks.
The red-haired man had not quite understood it at first, but he'd caught himself afterwards, silent in a situation where he wouldn't usually have been, thinking about the past, about Uta, and about things he had ruined, and he understood.
If the passing of years brought experience, it was never specified whether it would be positive or negative. Shanks had never dared looking back on his, fearing that he'd realise that the negatives had outnumbered the rest.
Shanks had known about Buggy's acuity when it came to understanding and seeing people, but it always left him a little bit uneasy when he realised it also applied to him.
He didn't like to be read, Roger having already exposed him way too many times in front of everyone when he was younger, and he didn't feel like letting Buggy reproduce it.
But the other man had never done so. Always keeping his comments to himself even when it would have been beneficent for him to speak up. He'd kept Shanks' secrets to himself.
And Shanks loved him for that. Amongst other things, obviously.
Like the way he mumbled when he was furious, like it was the case right now. It was funny to watch him do so. Shanks couldn't keep a straight face when he was like this, thinking back about how they bickered when they were kids and Buggy reacted the same way.
Still, Shanks had to be diplomatic. He was here to see Buggy, and pissing him off wasn't exactly a good start to actually hang out with him. He'd run away more than once in the past because of it, Shanks had bore the consequences of it way too many times.
But no matter how many times Buggy ran away, Shanks always caught him up.
Ben often thought back to the day he became fully aware of Buggy's power over Shanks.
It was the first time he met him, actually. They'd been fighting against a crew of random pirates who seemed to have formed some sort of alliance in the nearby port and had decided to give it a go.
The flow of attackers never seemed to fall down and the Red-hair's crew started to get tired.
So Shanks decided to cut the confrontation off as he often did and used his haki to knock his enemies down.
Except that when their enemies fell down and silence came back amongst them, Ben watched, dumbfounded, a man stand in the middle of the battlefield, disgruntledly trying to grab a weapon to keep fighting.
And at his side, his captain's face turned from tiredness to disbelief in a second. Any trace of fight leaving his body as he straightened up, dropping his sword to the ground.
He started to walk to the pirate, ever so slowly, and everyone watched Shanks' excruciatingly slow walk to the other man.
Everyone held their breath as Shanks stopped in front of the blue-haired man. And then he embraced him.
Not in some flirty and friendly way like he often did with people they met on docks. No, he wrapped himself around the other man, one arm around his neck, his hand holding the back of his head, the other one gripping his hips and pulling him flush against him.
Ben couldn't remember the last time Shanks had held him like this. He doubted he ever did, actually.
Once they let go of each other they started to talk animatedly, Shanks' hands never leaving the other's body, touching his cheek, grazing his waist, twirling his hair.
It was obvious from where Ben stood that the other man was annoyed at Shanks' behaviour, but he didn't push him away. He stayed there, answering all of Shanks' questions and questioning him back.
It was when it hit him. The man had resisted Shanks' conqueror's haki. For the first time ever, someone had competed with Shanks, and the latter didn't even seem phased.
Ben never stood any chance.
'Sorry for knocking everyone out, Bug',' Shanks said.
Buggy tsked at the surname, Shanks only ever using it when he tried to pacify him. He didn't know why the other man kept using it, it never worked.
He put his hat on the table and turned his head towards Shanks.
'You always say that, but you never are.' He said in a way that made Shanks unsure on whether or not Buggy was mad.
He was a contradictory man, Shanks had learned. Learned how, when Buggy screamed, it meant he was hardly pissed, and that when he was silent, he simmered.
Right now, Shanks was not quite sure.
Ben wouldn't call himself a jealous man, but there were things he couldn't fight against. Some things he wished he could be a part of, but could never possibly be. Things he had no control over, some things Shanks himself didn't have control over.
Jealous of the fact that, even if Shanks wanted to, Buggy couldn't be struck by Shanks' haki.
It was something no one quite understood. It wasn't supposed to happen, and it was unheard of, actually. A person standing up to the strongest conqueror's haki's user in the world and withstanding it? Inconceivable. And yet, Buggy existed.
And it wasn't just that Buggy withstood it, no, he was impervious to it. It was as if haki didn't exist in his presence. The heavy atmosphere didn't affect him. Like a bubble enshrouded him and protected him from the alterations caused by the haki.
The only man who could defeat the undefeated emperor.
Buggy spoke up again. 'Mihawk and Crocodile are going to be fuming, you know that?'
'That's alright, I don't care', Shanks said, I only care about what you think, he didn't say.
Buggy tsked. 'Well, you did it knowing the full risks, anyway.'
Shanks didn't bother to answer, Buggy already knew he was right. The red-haired captain knew full well how pissed off people usually tended to be when he knocked them out unjustly.
Crocodile was going to be insufferable, and Mihawk would be sulking for days. They'd both take it out on Buggy.
But Buggy didn't care about that, not when Shanks was in front of him after having been gone for 5 months.
In the meanwhile, the blue-haired man had gotten the time to finally enter the Seven Warlords of the Sea, to be dismissed from the Seven Warlords of the Sea because of the group's dissolution, to flee from a marines' armada's attack, and to get forcefully enrolled into a fake alliance with two of his –though brief– former colleagues.
And now nothing mattered because Shanks stood right there in front of him and it was as if he had never left.
Buggy really didn't like how easily Shanks could dismiss all of his complaints, but he really didn't have the heart to push him away right now.
He got up from his seat and came to stand right in front of a still crouching Shanks. He put his hand under the other man's chin to make him look up, and Shanks wordlessly let himself be pushed around, pliant under Buggy's touch.
They both knew what to do next, it was a dance they'd played dozens of times ever since they decided to part ways twenty-four years ago.
Ben had asked about it one day, and Shanks had just shrugged. Ultimately, the reasons behind Buggy's unintentional imperviousness didn't matter, because the fact remained that, no matter what, Shanks couldn't hurt him.
Shanks had never been able to.
And Buggy had never been able to retaliate either.
Somehow, they went to bed on the rare nights they could spend together knowing that they fell asleep in the arms of the only man able to hurt them, and, ultimately, the only man who could never hurt them.
On an island far far away, whose name people had forgotten, waves had washed away any trace of what had happened 30 years ago. Evidence of a fight buried in the sand and long since forgotten by any person that had set foot on its soil decades ago.
Only the trees remained, sole repositories and witnesses of an oath taken knees deep in the gritty beach, of grabby hands holding tight to one another as ushered voices pledged to forever protect one another.
And here it is!
I really like this fic, it's totally all over the place, but I still find my way around so I think that's alright! It's rare for me to write such a neutral fic, there isn't much angst, and there isn't much fluff either. I really held myself back from writing Shanks as a scary asshole during the interrupting-fight scene, so I think I'll keep it for another fic!
Anyway, I hope you liked it, don't hesitate to leave comments and kudos, it always makes me happy to read and see them!