Sometimes you can tell the make of a man at first sight. Shanks would later look back and say that the first time he met Drakul Mihawk was one of those times. Mihawk stood stiffly and looked far too earnest while attempting to haggle over a ration of limes with a bushy whiskered old merchant stodgily unimpressed by his clear and polite speech and good posture.
Mihawk was thin, but looked unlikely to remain thin. He had just cleared that awkward stage where limbs grow longer than muscles can keep them well covered; he was beginning to fill out properly. He was attempting to experiment with facial hair, an endeavor of current boarding on the ludicrous. His waxed moustache was far too bushy and the whole beard thing itself was slightly too large to appeal to any usual aesthetics (in thick sideburns and running down the line of his jaw, lengthening at his chin).
Mihawk was attractively dressed, wearing a gold silk shirt with an embroidered black vest, pressed black slacks and polished but durable boots. A sword was slung at his belt, blade on which little expense had been spared from the look of the hilt. He wore a black tricorner hat. His hair, beyond the whole thing he had going with the facial hair, was cropped in bangs he brushed towards the left in front, and was growing longish in back. (It was a mullet! Hee.)
Mihawk was coming off entirely awkward, and then he said, he actually said:
"I only have seven belli."
Shanks knew at that moment that Mihawk was an honest man, a far too earnest man. Shanks saw that he hadn't any guile. Straight forward! Everything. From his mode of dress, which said "I'm stylish" with the heavy accent of youth, to the words falling from his lips, which were just no good. No good! He was clearly a downright decent fellow. A capital man. Absolutely capital.
"Then you're asking me for too many limes, boy," the old man was grunting. His arms folded over his barrel chest, an impregnable bastion between the poor young man and the limes.
Shanks decided to come to his rescue.
Mihawk swayed to the side as Shanks threw a companionable arm around his back, his sharp eyes widening in surprise. Shanks smoothed the whole thing over with a big, wide grin and leaned forward to survey the merchandise, hanging off the dark-haired main like a monkey out on a limb.
"Right, right, how much does he owe you?"
"Nineteen belli," the shopkeeper gruffed, glaring suspiciously at Shanks from underneath his bushy eyebrows as if he suspected the two men were running a scam.
"And you have seven?" Shanks said, glancing from the merchant to Mihawk to the merchant to his own wallet, whence he dropped his arm from Mihawk's shoulder and began rummaging around for the coins. He produced them with a flourish, pressing them down on the booth top and glancing back towards the gold eyed man, prompting him to follow through. (His eyes nearly made Shanks start!)
Those strange-ringed eyes narrowed, searching Shanks' grinning visage for some duplicity. There was none there and thus none to be found, so the fashion victim obliged, producing the last seven belli he had upon him to add to the twelve on the counter.
The merchant drew the money across the counter, sweeping it off the edge into the palm of his thick fingered hand. He counted the coins out to his satisfaction. He dropped the belli in the pouch he wore about his waist and turned to pick out a crate of limes from the produce stacked behind the stands, which he thumped down on the counter and slid across towards the patient pair before him.
The dark haired man reached down to pick up the bag at his feet and slung it over his shoulder, picked up the lime crate, tucking it under his arm, and turned to Shanks.
"Thank you," he said, nodding his head slowly with the formality of a bow.
"Had scurvy once, terrible condition," Shanks said dismissively, smiling up from under his straw hat, a dappled shadow on his brow where the sun shone through the weave.
Mihawk's eyes were striking, Shanks observed, gripping with an unnatural intensity amplified further by the slightly concentrated look that sharpened the whole of the young man's countenance. His eyes were a luminous gold with a ring of burnished brown a quarter ways out from the iris which drew in Shank's gaze hypnotically. It was all the red-haired pirate could do to keep his own eyes on them steadily. A man could be run through by those eyes, Shanks thought, with unwavering cheer and a growing curiosity. He couldn't just let this guy go now!
"So, you're heading out to sea?" Shanks asked, conversationally, got his hook in before the interesting chap could stroll away. He turned with him as he turned and fell in step with him as he walked, everything natural.
"Tomorrow," Mihawk replied, clearly uncertain exactly how he had managed to acquire Shank's company, but voicing no complaint.
"Tomorrow! I hope you've taken the time to take in the sights. This is a great city. I've been in port a week now, and everybody's been so friendly. Even that shopkeeper. I bet he's totally decent when he's not doing business," Shanks rambled cheerfully.
Mihawk seemed a little overwhelmed by Shanks' high cheer and fast talking. He was clearly uncertain what fell within the bounds of propriety in terms of addressing him. This was exactly how Shanks wanted him! No room for protest.
"I've been here several days," Mihawk managed politely.
"Have you been by the little bar they call Orlando's? The bartender mixes wonderful drinks and they have this barbeque chicken, they marinate it over night, and it's so soft it falls right off the bone," Shanks continued on, adopting a tone of fond reminiscence.
"I haven't," Mihawk admitted, continuing to be perplexed by his sudden involvement in the conversation. He had at last found some degree of mental footing by admitting to the inevitability of a conversation taking place.
"You haven't? You have to! It can't be missed," Shanks insisted with enthusiasm and gesticulations.
"I've no more belli," Mihawk apologized, imagining this reminder would ensure his freedom. But Shanks had been expecting them! He was already aware of the situation, of course.
"You're in luck. I've come to port with full pockets. It's on your way. It's even on this road, in this very direction. I was heading to join my crew there just now," Shanks rejoined as if it was decided already, his eyes set on the bar down the road.
"If you're looking to take some kind of advantage of me, I would recommend attempting more subtlety. Besides, I have little of value for you to steal," Mihawk said, gentlemanly but frank. Shanks's expression drooped momentarily, looking like a puppy that had been kicked in the ribs. It perked as soon, the smile returning to his lips, and his words, when he spoke, more even and less enthused in cadence.
"I'm not looking to rob you, you look like a good guy, that's all," he said, looking to his companion with an amiable smile.
Mihawk glanced to study him, his expression masking all suspicion with a studious calm. Shanks had a smile that promised sincerity, and there was something so downright puppyish about the young man that he had a hard time imagining Shanks meant to be wasting his time.
"Orlando's, you said?" he asked, looking ahead down the road, trying to pick the bar out from all the places of leisure that lined the street. Even if Shanks meant to rob him, Mihawk had little fear that he would be unable to defend himself. Although the truth was he had treasure enough locked away and concealed on his ship, it would have been a hassle to pawn it into belli just to have a nicer dinner the last night of his stay in town. He had meant to eat from the rations he just purchased, while the evening he would spend plotting out his course.
"Orlando's," Shanks confirmed, raising an arm to direct Mihawk's searching eyes to the right sign. The swordsman corrected his path, and the pair headed on towards their new destination.
The bar was filled with patrons, all men of the sea: off-duty marines and merchant sailors and men that were surely piratical, drinking together under the watchful eye of a strapping young bartender with a hook nose and thick black brows that was no doubt a good shot with whatever piece of armament was kept beneath the counter.
"Capt'n!" a voice bellowed over the crowd. As Shanks' face lit up, Mihawk's eyes picked out a rotund man seated near the back of the bar, waving one great, round arm to get Shanks' attention, his sausage fingers gripped around a hulking leg of meat. Shanks waved back, picking up his pace as he wove a path through chairs and waiters, leaving Mihawk to keep up. The swordsman followed more slowly, appraising the situation.
The bulked out man with no sharp angles who had called out for Shanks' attention wore tinted goggles and a striped bandana; his shirt was too short for his porked out belly. He sat before a spread of dishes that covered over half the table, half of them finished, the other half heaped with steaming food. Mihawk had no doubt that such a food intake accounted for his bloated condition. He doubted he had ever seen a man with so great a waistline as this. There was a gun tucked into the taunt waist of his pants. As Mihawk drew closer he could see the hilt of a blade peeking out of the other side of the great globe of his stomach. He wondered if it was possible the man could use them at any speed.
Shanks, who had been exchanging words with the man enthusiastically, turned to see what was taking his new companion so long, leaning back against the table with a roguish smile on his lips and looking very pleased with himself indeed. He reached up to push his hat up, tipping his chin up, too, like a friendly spaniel.
"This is my crewman, Lucky Roo! Roo, I just met this fellow out on the street… He's…" Here he faltered, his expression as if he was indeed searching his memory for some identifying word, and then realization dawned upon him like a light bulb turning on. "Ah… I didn't catch his name, actually! Say, stranger, what's your name?"
Mihawk drew himself up, feeling he should not fall to informality because of the disorderly course his situation had taken, and introduced himself politely: "My name is Drakul Mihawk." He nodded his head to the man called Lucky Roo, and looked to Shanks, raising an eyebrow with all appropriate attention.
"I'm Shanks," Shanks said cheerfully, extending his hand to the swordsman. Mihawk accepted it. Shanks' shake was more of a firm squeeze.
"Red-hair Shanks," Roo added proudly.
"And the rest of your crew?" Mihawk inquired.
"Roo's all of my crew," Shanks replied, as if this was entirely ordinary.
Mihawk withheld any comment that might have suggested Roo could indeed account for three or four men put together. The thought crossed his mind somewhere cynical.
"We had a ship," Shanks added importantly.
"We lost it," Roo lamented without any flag in his cheer, taking a big bite out of his meat.
"It sunk," Shanks clarified, looking momentarily saddened before he shrugged and motioned to the serving girl to let her know she ought to stop by when she was free to. (She looked charmed, and blushed at the smile he gave her.) "I'll tell you what we did, though," he continued, walking around the table to tug a chair out and drop himself down comfortably. He motioned Mihawk towards the other one.
Mihawk drew the chair out slowly and took his seat with unerring good posture. He did not have to prompt Shanks to continue.
"We'd just done battle with the captain Steel-Boots Richard," Shanks said grandly, spreading his hands out wide before him in illustration of just how glorious it was.
"Blew a little misunderstanding way out of proportion," Roo commented from around his meat.
"And I just happened to have stolen his signet ring…"
"And all his loot. And one of his dinghies. Lost our ship, though," Roo added energetically.
"Well, it turned out there was a bounty on his head… So I turned the ring over to the marines and collected it!"
"Don't think he was dead," Roo said thoughtfully. "Fact, I'm sure I saw him getting up."
"Brilliant, mm?" Shanks asked, leaning forward on his elbows with a big grin.
"We got the loot and the bounty," Roo rejoiced.
"And the marines never even noticed I had a price on my head," Shanks said.
"He's worth two million berries now," Roo pointed out.
"It's a small bounty for this ocean," Mihawk observed. He did not appear to mean it as an insult.
"I'm working on that," Shanks assured him, and glanced to the serving girl as she came to his side. He ordered the barbeque dish for himself and his new companion, and spent a few moments looking concerned as the girl tried to balance Roo's plates all by herself. He ended up helping her carry them back, and returned to the table waving back to her flirtatiously, looking on top of the world. Mihawk and Roo had not spoken, the former being slightly taken aback by the rate at which the latter was consuming his food, the latter having little room for words around the intake.
"So how about you?" Shanks asked conversationally as he took his seat again, looking at Mihawk with bright curiosity. "Do you sail under a black flag?"
"I do," Mihawk replied, as if those two words would satisfy Shanks' inquisition.
There was a long silence.
…and Mihawk realized that Shanks was staring at him.
The silence continued.
Mihawk began to wonder if he was expected to elaborate.
…………………
It seemed so.
"I once lived in the country of Wallachia. I was exiled… for killing the man who murdered my father. Since then, I have sailed under my own flag," he said gravely in a low and quiet voice. He might have thought more of being so open, had it not been the first time since his exile that anyone had asked. It was difficult not to indulge Shanks' vacuously curious face.
"That's terrible!" Shanks lamented, his expression shifting to one of sympathy. He sobered thoughtfully, feeling that he owned Mihawk as much for prying such a revelation out of him. "To tell you the truth, I don't know much about my parents. The way I understand it they were executed for piracy when I was little, the Marines put me in an orphanage…" He cheered as his next thought found him. "Well, soon as I knew my way around a blade, I ran right off and became a pirate!"
"Say it gets in your blood," Roo commented. He had made good headway into the spread of dishes before him. The empty plates were again in stacks.
It was then that the serving girl came with Mihawk and Shanks' meals, setting them on the table before the men with a smile for Mihawk and a smile more coy for Shanks, who gave her a wink in return. She had learned from her past mistake and went ahead and collected the plates Lucky Roo had cleared off before they piled up too high to be carried.
"Now this is the stuff," Shanks said as he dug in, forgetting for the moment the serious conversation he'd been carrying on before.
The chicken was as tender as Shanks had described, thick with spicy barbeque sauce and served with fried rice. It was not the kind of meal Mihawk usually chose for himself when he made his way into such an establishment. He had a taste for cuisine that he had thought ran more refined… But even if the sauce got all over his fingers, and if he'd a hard time keeping it out of his beard, the dish was simply delicious. If his expression never shifted far from stoicism, he yet found it impossible not to enjoy.
By the time he and Shanks had finished their meal, Lucky Roo had stuffed himself to satisfaction. The three sat slumped in their chairs. That is to say, Shanks and Roo slumped in their chairs; Mihawk deigned to allow his shoulders to relaxed against the back of the seat. They had taken grog with their meal, and Shanks soon began ordering mixed drinks from the bar 'to wind down with,' insisting that Mihawk and Roo try this and that and whatever he could come up with. The drinks came in all colors and sizes, from deepest black to impossible blues and greens, one or two decorated with exotic flowers. The room began to move, and the colors swirl together, and before the three of them left, Shanks bought a case of beer.
…………………
Mihawk woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar hotel room, missing his hat, his boots, and his pants -- although he found himself in possession of his sword, which he held to his chest with one hand. Shanks was asleep, his head pillowed on Mihawk's waist, lying widthwise across the bed. Mihawk imagined the pirate's feet were hanging off the end of the side of the bed, but never got to find out, because his next conscious moment found him leaning out over the street, peering with detached fascination at the vomit splattered out across the paving stones of the back alley bellow. His hands clutched the windowsill tightly; his knuckles were white. He felt feverishly hot from dehydration, and could hear Shanks vomiting in the bathroom. He rose shakily, drawing in a deep breath, and turned to find Lucky Roo's prone, slumbering form between himself and the bed, and lying half atop his pants. For a half-panicked and somewhat delirious moment he was positive his hat had been flattened, but spotted it hanging off the lamp.
His lower parts were feeling chilly now from the breeze coming in through the window. He had not been wearing undergarments to begin with.
Shanks stumbled out of the bathroom, peering at Mihawk blearily. Mihawk was not wearing pants. Shanks was not wearing a shirt. Shanks hoped that Lucky Roo was dressed, as often as he had seen him naked.
"Come over 'ere," he muttered, motioning Mihawk to follow him into the bathroom.
Believing his pants to be beyond recovery, Mihawk crossed the room at Shanks' behest.
"You gotta drink a lotta water…" Shanks said, gesturing towards the sink beyond the open door before him. "And then…"
"And then…?" Mihawk asked thickly, finding his throat surprisingly dry. He had never been hung over before. He preferred to drink wine, and then, not in excess. He drank grog, of course, but it was low in alcohol. It was mixed with herbs to make a drink that could be stored longer than water could, for water would go brackish on a long sea voyage. (It would be ten years later that the first onboard water purifier was invented to allow for the amenity of fresh water out on the ocean.)
"And then…" Shanks repeated, searching for his train of thought through a pounding heading. "And then, we go back to sleep," he decided, at last.
That was what they did.
The next time Mihawk woke up, he was feeling considerably better, although his eyes and skin still felt dry. He was immediately indignant, and might have left, then, feeling ashamed of his behavior, had Lucky Roo not still been asleep on top of his pants.
As it was, he was left to lie beneath the covers, feeling neither ill enough to throw up nor hale enough to move, resentment welling in his breast.
……it was difficult to stay resentful long to see Shanks sleeping beside him. The man's face in repose was more guileless than even his cheer, his shaggy hair fell carelessly over his brow. If he lived too enthusiastically, Shanks's slept towards another extreme, so deeply his body was limp, his expression childishly untroubled.
If the swordsman chided himself for drinking until his thoughts became unclear, and resolved himself firmly against any such future excess, he had admittedly been under-prepared for the strength of the mixed liquors, which went down far more easily than wines or grog. He saw the experience as a warning to strengthen himself against such temptations, and vowed a responsibility to his own sobriety no matter how charismatic his company.
Which, unfortunately, did not do a thing to lessen the shame of having misplaced his pants.
He lay a long time in silent meditation of his glaring lapse of composure, feeling uneasy and marginally violated, listening to the sound of Lucky Roo snoring, and Shanks gentle exhalations nearer to his ear. He closed his aching eyes for a time and let the rise and fall of these sounds sooth him. When he opened them again he caught the glint of Shanks' gaze from the corner of his eye, and turned his head to find the pirate watching him, a boyish smile spread over his features. Mihawk's own expression turned towards one of confused inquiry with a slight unknitting of his brows.
"When you're out shopping, or getting drunk, even when you're just lying there… you look so angry!" Shanks said, by way of explanation.
Mihawk still wasn't exactly sure what the young man was so pleased about.
Shanks rolled over onto his back, peering up at the ceiling.
"I need coffee… We need to get some coffee."
"How authoritative," Mihawk commented, feeling as sour as his stomach. "I can tell why you're a captain."
"Someone has to decide when it's time to get coffee," Shanks agreed, uninsulted.
"Do you really think you'll make it anywhere? Just you and that behemoth…" Mihawk asked, studying the water marks on the ceiling as Shanks did.
"You haven't seen Roo get going yet. He's a monster in a fight," Shanks said easily.
"I'd have to see it…" Mihawk replied, some haughtiness lingering in his tone.
"I accept!" Shanks said, his grin widening.
Mihawk paused… and turned to look at him.
"Excuse me?"
"You can join my crew," Shanks confirmed, meeting his eyes, brows raised brightly.
Mihawk regarded Shanks incredulously. He had known the man for all of a day and had already ended up not only more drunk than he'd ever been in his life, but vomiting out the window of the lowest class hotel room he had ever deigned to stay in, with his pants trapped under the fattest and least competent looking pirate he had ever seen. There was no part of him that thought of repeating the experience with any semblance of delight.
"And if I refuse?"
Shanks looked momentarily confused, as if he couldn't actually fathom it.
"…to accept… that I've accepted… your self-invitation?" he asked, frowning slightly.
It was difficult to make an objection to a face that looked so honestly crestfallen.
"I am returning to Wallachia to give my sister the treasure I have won, for my exile has brought shame to her and she is deserving of far more than I can repay," Mihawk said, instead, banking no room in argument.
"That's great! We'll sail for Wallachia, then. I've never seen it," Shanks said, drawing in a deep and contented breath and folding his arms behind his head, settling down comfortably on the pillows.
Mihawk didn't think that Shanks got the point.
A month and one week later, when Mihawk, Shanks, and Lucky Roo pulled into port at the country of Wallachia, in Mihawk's small boat which had since been fitted with Shanks's flag, Mihawk felt Shanks had come no closer to grasping any point he'd been trying to make that day, but he had since found the smiling young man at his side impervious to even his most caustic comments, and the jolly, fat Lucky Roo as much a terror in battle as Shanks had claimed. Without being able to pinpoint the exact moment that he had submitted to being Shanks's strong arm, he found himself a part of a crew.