Prompt meme from Aerle: ShanksBenn - Things you said after you kissed me.
2,083 words
Rated: K
It started with vehement denial.
"That party last night was wild!" Lucky-roo exclaimed, squeezing his round body onto the bench next to between Yasopp and Benn.
"Too wild for you to be shouting like that," Yasopp moaned, pressing his forehead against the rough surface of the dining table.
"Oh come on, Yasopp!" Shanks sat across from them and lifted his mug as if proposing a toast. Dark liquid sloshed inside the cup, coffee no doubt, but the strong scent of liquor wafted up as their captain brandished it. "Drink up some more! Nothing cures a hangover like more booze!"
Yasopp groaned and rolled his head to the side, away from his captain and the potent odor of alcohol.
Lucky-roo tipped his own glass to his captain before continuing. "Shame the food went so fast though. That meat was excellent."
"Oh god," Yasopp moaned again, clapping a hand over his mouth and going pale. "Don't talk about food either."
Lucky-roo chuckled at his friend's misfortune, and then his smile turned devilish. It was obvious by the foreboding grin on his face that he'd been waiting for this moment since he'd sat down.
"It was certainly a wild party…" he mused, peering at them each in turn through his sunglasses. His eyes paused on his captain and then ultimately settled on Benn. "I saw something good."
Benn quirked one eyebrow in warning. He figured he knew exactly what Lucky-roo had seen, and it would save him a lot of headache if his crewmate didn't run his mouth about it. Across the table, Shanks had gone suspiciously still, his forkful of food halfway to his mouth.
"What did you see?" Yasopp asked curiously, rolling his head back so that he faced the others once more. His hangover seemed to be forgotten in favor of his curiosity.
"I saw captain kissing Benn!" Lucky-roo declared, a self-satisfied smile on his face as he made his dramatic exclamation.
Benn brought his fist down onto his crewmates head, effectively erasing the pleased grin from his face. Lucky-roo cried out, ducking his head and shielding it from any further attacks.
"What?!" Yasopp asked, widened eyes shooting from between his captain and his first mate.
"Roo!" Shanks' voice boomed dangerously, causing Lucky-roo to shrink down further inside of himself.
"Benn?!" Yasopp turned his startled stare fully onto the first mate.
Benn took a quiet sip of his drink and peeked sidelong at his cowering crewmate. Lucky-roo watched Shanks with fearful eyes. The captain himself pushed himself up from the table, the full force of his power commanding their attention.
When he spoke, his voice was calm, but that calmness only vaguely hid the promise of danger. Like a steady sea before the onslaught of a storm.
"Nothing. Happened." Shanks said, looking from Lucky-roo to Yasopp. His eyes flicked in Benn's direction for a moment, but he was quick to look away.
"I won't have you making up such ridiculous rumors for the sake of a good joke," Shanks continued, the danger sliding out of his voice as he regained his cool. "Now, if you'll excuse me."
Shanks pushed himself away from the table, greeting a few of his crew members on his way out of the mess hall, and stopping to speak with their navigator in the doorway. The remaining three watching him go, and held their tongues until he was out of sight.
"I know what I saw, Lucky-roo frowned, shooting Benn a look.
Benn pushed himself away from the table as well, ignoring his troublemaking crewmate.
"You heard the captain," he said. "You'd do well to watch yourself, Roo."
He didn't stay to hear his remaining two friends begin to gossip. He deposited his dishes into the galley bin and saw himself out of the mess hall.
Next came the avoidance.
The kiss wasn't really a big deal, or at least Benn hadn't thought so. He wasn't even sure it could be called a kiss; it was more of a drunken smash of Shanks' lips against his own, leaving too much saliva and a lingering taste of soured grog behind. It happened in the heat of a celebration, a party thrown in honor of their latest treasure discovery. They were both more than a little drunk, and high on the exhilaration of their reward.
Benn hadn't paid the action any mind. He was old enough and wise enough to understand that sometimes these things happened, particularly when the booze was plentiful and emotions were high. People tended to get carried away with themselves. It was a harmless offense, really, and Benn would have let it go without mention… had it not been for Shanks' behavior about it.
Benn reported to the captain's office just after breakfast, the same as he did every day. He and Shanks would spend a little of the morning deciding on their next course, whether it was to make a stop for supplies or to trace the route to their next goal.
On this day however, Shanks' attention was only half was it usually was, and his energy was unusually high-strung. Rather than standing at the map beside his first mate as he usually did, Shanks paced the length of his office. If his rapid meandering to and fro brought him too close to Benn, he quickly righted his course so that he would give his first mate a wide birth. For a few minutes, Benn let his captain carry on that way, amused by the erratic, jerky movements and the strange, outright stupid behavior that Shanks was displaying. But after the first few minutes, Benn's amusement faded, and he started to feel the slightest tinges of annoyance pulling at him.
"Captain," he called. "Are we going to review today's course?"
"What?" Shanks seemed to snap from his thoughts as if someone had hit him. For a moment, his eyes connected with Benn's, and his movements ceased. His energy calmed down to its usual adventurous excitement. Then almost as quickly as their eyes had met, Shanks tore his away again.
"Actually I better get back to the deck. The doc had something he wanted to talk about. I'll leave the course to you."
Before Benn could comment, Shanks left the captain's office. With him went the sense of agitation that seemed to roll of him in waves, leaving the room feeling much quieter and more at ease than before.
Benn stared at the door his captain had disappeared through, a frown etched onto his face. Shanks' odd behavior couldn't have been caused by a simple kiss, could it? Benn hadn't even thought to bring the kiss back up this morning, and had it not been for Lucky-roo's gossiping, the whole event would have been forgotten along with many other of their drunken escapades. Shanks had already gone through the trouble of pretending it hadn't happened, and Benn had been content to go along with that ruse. Why retreat from a room Benn had barely set foot inside then?
It was high time for a confrontation.
"It didn't happen," Benn said, folding his arms over his chest. "Isn't that what you said?"
Shanks shot a furtive glance around at their surroundings, but Benn knew there would be no interruptions or interferences. Benn knew how to keep a private matter private, and he also knew how best to corner his captain so that he couldn't make a quick escape. He had been with Shanks for too many years.
"What didn't happen?" Shanks asked, a poor imitation of confusion on his face.
"The kiss you denied so completely at breakfast," Benn said.
Shanks winced. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Benn sighed. He had little patience for the childish games.
"I was content to pretend it didn't happen," Benn said. "But the avoidance is going a little too far."
"What avoidance?" Shanks asked. "If you're talking about this morning, I had a genuine reason to leave our usual meeting early, you see."
"Is it the same reason you're looking for an escape right now?"
Shanks' body stiffened and his posture sank back, relaxing into its usual state. He stopped craning his neck to try and see a way out around Benn's body, and he let his shoulders drop. As his body relaxed, some of the high-energy agitation that seemed to have been circling him since that morning faded as well. Instead, it was replaced with a heavier sensation of defeat.
Benn sighed again and let his arms fall back to his sides. "Look, it didn't mean anything," he stated. "We'll pretend it didn't happen, and there's no harm done."
He waited for his captain to agree, his terms seemed to be exactly what Shanks was hoping for. But the expression on Shanks' face only darkened, and the weight in the room seemed to grow thicker and more oppressive.
"It meant something."
The sentence was spoken so quietly that Benn almost missed it. Only the movement of Shanks' lips tipped Benn off, and the words seemed to fall into place after that.
"What?" Benn asked, his frown returning.
Shanks' didn't look his way. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on a spot somewhere to the left of Benn's knees, but Benn doesn't need to see the look in his captain's eye to make out the next words out of his mouth, or to hear their sincerity.
"The kiss, it meant something."
Shanks' eyes flicked up to meet his for a brief second, but they turned away again almost as quickly.
Benn stared at his captain, his eyes wide in shock and surprise as the words repeated over and over in his mind. Whatever he had expected to get from this confrontation, that wasn't it.
"Ah, shit." Shanks rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. "That's really not how I wanted this to go."
"What to go?" Benn asked, because he's still confused about what exactly just happened here.
"Well it's just we've been sailing together a long time, and I know you've always got my back, and I've really come to appreciate… you…" Shanks' ramble faded off and he let the arm at his neck fall back to his side.
"You… appreciate me." Benn repeated. Leaned back against the doorway of the canon room he had trapped Shanks in, and fought back the knowing smile that threatened to twist his lips upward.
"Well, yeah! You know but…" Shanks' hands spun intricate patterns in the air while he fished for the right words.
"Captain," Benn interrupted, "are you implying that you'd like to kiss me again?"
Shanks smirked. "Yes. Many times."
"Oh." Benn rolled his shoulder, pushing himself away from the doorway and towards his captain, pushing passed the acceptable bounds of Shanks' personal space. "Then I don't see why you're wasting time with words."
Shanks exhaled sigh of relief, one that Benn felt against his own lips as he leaned in to meet his captain's.
The door to the canon room swung in, banging against the opposite wall with such force that it cracked this hinges, and it ground against the wood planks of the floor until it came to a screeching halt, hanging lopsided halfway into the room. Shanks and Benn pulled apart, the sound startling them from their private moment.
"Heh. Hello, Captain. Benn." Lucky-roo picked himself up from the floor, twisting slightly to deposit Yasopp's body from on top of him. Several of the other Red Haired Pirates brushed themselves off behind him, recovering from the domino effect that their bodies had taken. "Lovely weather today, huh?"
"Roo…" Shanks' voice took on that same commanding, dangerous tone again, only this time he accompanied it by placing his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Lucky-roo pushed himself through the scrambling crowd of his crewmembers, using his surprising speed to his advantage.
"I told you I wasn't lying!" he shouted back to his crewmates as he fled from his captain. Shanks had given chase almost immediately, and in the blink of an eye the two have them had disappeared above deck. Only the telltale sounds of a struggle above gave any clues as to their whereabouts.
Benn sighed and folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the doorway as he watched the last of his crew following their Captain and Lucky-roo back up to the deck. What an inconvenient interruption. He couldn't be too upset, however. He was sure he and Shanks would have plenty to discuss later.