Author's notes (Sorry! ´A`; Just skip if these bother you I have nothing smart to say anyway!) :

Ah, I finally got over that huge writer's block I got stuck with after the last chapter. I really had some issues trying to figure out how to continue and I was lost because my original plan wasn't gonna work anymore. I humbly thank everyone who has left reviews and ideas and speculations! *bows* Going through them and getting them really helped me to get excited about this story again. I'd like to give special thanks to HikaruWinter and zombie cookie hunter for fuelling me with suggestions, and I just really want to thank everyone but it's impossible to list all :'D GROUP HUG!

I have free time on my hand now and I feel really pumped up about One Piece (I just caught up with both anime and manga the other day omg Pica was so funny and Zoro holy shit I can't get over that he became even hotter than before dat black suit) and I wanna start some new fics so I can switch between them if I get writer's block again.

Hope you enjoy the new chapter! I added some world-building stuff oops I hope it's not boring. Also still no beta so there might be stupid mistakes sorryyyy ;_; Oh and I made a cover image for the story too!

- hansu

Chapter 7 - Keep Calm and Panic

Shanks peeked into Mihawks office lair, almost thinking it was empty before noticing a suspicious shape on the floor. He cautiously advances towards his friend's form laying on his stomach.

"Hawk-Eyes?"

The raven-haired man emitted an unintelligible strained noise and resumed what seemed like a passive-aggressive attempt to merge with the flooring. Shanks stared at him for a moment and then lowered himself beside him on the floor.

"...Mihawk?"

"What even is anything?"

"Ok." Shanks said calmly.

"I don't know what the shit is going on anymore."

"Ok."

Mihawk breathed a deep sigh. The two laid spread out on the floor for a moment, listening to the faint echoes from the building and eachother's breathing.

"Want some coffee?" Shanks asked softly. "I can grab something from downstairs."

"Yeah, ok."

"Emergency brew?"

"Yeah."

"...Spiked?"

"Yeah."

Consoling wasn't always lengthy verbal outpourings of emotion. Sometimes it was coffee and sitting on the floor with your best friend. Mihawk remembered the first time they had been in a similar position. Two boys slumped on the wet ground of the docks in the dark of the night, bleeding – mostly from wounds they had given each other –, hearts pounding over the sounds of the ocean and their pursuers. They had stayed there for a while, just staring at each other, away from the world. The heir and the raggedy street urchin. It was unnatural that they should have ended up meeting in the the first place, let alone for them to eventually become friends. But like many others they were both caught up in a desperate fight.

Times were different then. A war was raging all over the world – the war to end all wars. In the city gangsters and corrupted businessmen and officials were pulling the strings and everything was free game for powerful enough opportunist. The kids playing merrily on the streets today sometimes seemed surreal, twenty or fifteen years ago they would have been hiding knives and guns in their pockets and doing odd jobs to help keep bread on the table with dark determined faces. Some joined the gangs that were ruling over the areas of the massive city like kings – some benevolent, and some cruel tyrants.

Finally the war ended. The proud marines returned to the city and did their best to weed out the criminals. It was war all over again. They did manage to take down gangsters but the absolute justice of the marines made no distinction between good and bad intentions. Good people, protectors of the desperate,lost their lives. Men and women like Gol. D. Roger. He had fought against the insanity on the streets and was trying to keep the worst of the gangsters at bay before the marines even returned. When "Pirate King" Roger was publicly executed it was declared that the last of the great gangster threats was gone.

The papers printed out headlines rejoicing this peaceful new era. People could sleep soundly now and children could be children again. But there were still people out there who remembered Roger and the truth, and the truth was the gangsters and the corruption were far from gone. The majority of the people of the city might not know it, or ever find out, but needed the unsung heroes carrying on Roger's legacy. People like Shanks, who were dimwitted enough to not know when to give up.

Mihawk sighed and smirked. No matter how stupid and messy his life had just become almost overnight he could always point and laugh at 'head of security' Shanks, but first he would need to be properly caffeinated. 'Maybe things will turn out fine, somehow...' he mused as he drank the richly flavoured brew and attempted to strike up a conversation with Shanks who beamed, seeing his friend was recovering some energy.

Before they left his office he grabbed Roronoa's phone from his desk so the man could pick it up there. He had laid on the floor the whole night 'in contemplation' – he refused to call it panicking – and has come up with this brilliant plan. He couldn't come face to face with him now. He had accidentally started a correspondence with a random stranger online – actually Shanks had started it – and he had almost ran away from it because he was freaking out about developing attraction to words on the screen. And now it turned out that the person he had chatted with till wee hours of the morning lived in the same city, that he knew him, and had just employed him. He was still having trouble comprehending the mind boggling coincidence, and wanted to run away even more than before.

Shanks now knew for sure that whatever was bothering Hawk-Eyes wasn't just getting overwhelmed with work or regular brooding about things of the past. He wanted nothing more than to grab the man and shake it out of him but he had already learned the hard way that it wouldn't work. He has once long ago tried to pressure him to talk about his family but only managed to distance him. Over the years Shanks had learned to become remarkably patient and later Mihawk had opened up on his own accord bit by bit. He wasn't expecting the dark man to talk about what was going on anytime soon, but when he was ready he'd be there for him.

"Some crazy shit going on if it has the great swordsman lying on the floor. Just don't turn into a carpet ok?" the red-head joked as he was getting ready to leave. Mihawk seated himself on the sofa and made a face, sighing.

"It's just... there's this guy. The business is giving me some headache but I'll sort it out." he waved his hand dismissively, vaguely passing the whole ordeal off as work-related.

"'K, whatever. Catch ya later, toodles!" Shanks piped cheerily before waving and disappearing through the door. It took him a few steps to go over what his friend had just said and proceeded fabricate his own uniquely Shanksesque conclusions from it.

"There's... a guy...?" He started dashing through the halls and corridors like a maniac.

Benn was just about ready to begin explaining their newest addition the basic routine of his new position as a security guard when Shanks finally located him and barged into the room like a violent gust of wind, starling the two men. Ben recovered rather quickly thanks to years of experience and watched as he gasped desperately for air like a drowning man and shift to breathlessly gabbling something incomprehensible.

"Calm down, ya monkey. Stop alienating the new recruit."

Zoro stared at the red-head, mouth pressed tightly into a straight line and eyes big as saucers.

"Not everyone is like this – just him. I promise." Benn tried to assure him. " You remember Shanks, from the closet?"

The younger man nodded slowly. There was no way the other man could tell that he wasn't that shocked about being ambushed but rather recognizing the scarred amputee he had seen last night. 'Hawk-Eyes's' words about his closest friend plagued him – half of his face was scarred and he had also lost his arm. Maybe he was thinking too much into this... It was quite distinctive but there had been war decades before, it wasn't that out of place to see older people with extensive injuries. And besides this guy seemed too old to fit the part? At least this somehow didn't match the age group he'd put Hawk-Eyes in in his mind. Not that he had any way of knowing now that he considered it.

He had wondered about it before, but he couldn't really make a proper guess. He didn't seem that old to him – he seemed open to new things and didn't really discriminate anyone and wasn't too hung up on old stereotypes, which were some of the reasons he liked him so much. Apparently Zoro's imagination has also decided that Hawk-Eyes was a 'he'.

Besides it would be just too incredible a coincidence for this Shanks-person to be the man they had been talking about, but still he couldn't ignore his heart beating quicker in his chest. He grimaced as an image of Sanji writhing in a storm of howling laughter gasping "Zoro has an imaginary online boyfriend" flashed through his mind. He was screwed.