Fine China on a High Shelf:::
"Where is he?" Makino whispers out worriedly as her hands subconsciously clean a glass behind the bar. Her attention shifts to the clock, it's ticking only making her worry grow stronger with every stroke of it's hand. Spade is late. With her focus still trained on the clock, Makino puts the glass down and unties her cotton apron. She sets it down just as the door swings open. The wind rushes in, sweeping Makino's eyes away from the clock to settle on the form of a man in her doorway. No one comes to her bar on Tuesday's, and even if they do it is only ever the Mayor or her neighbor Patty (the old lady has to be the kindest cynic Makino has ever met).
This form wears a coat as black as night, and his body shape is slightly...
It feels like her breath has high-tailed out of her lungs.
Her heart clenches in a way that cannot seem bitter or sweet, or filled with heartfelt longing. No, this squeeze that pains her heart and sinks its claws into her already wounded muscle, this is fear.
She says 'no, no, no' in her head, 'not now!', she wants to scream to him.
The shadowed figure steps out from the doorway and is unveiled under the bleak lights of her bar.
" Evenin' Seaweed girl."
Makino's eyes travel from his chin stuble filled face, to his quirked smirking lips, then his nose (that often nuzzled her neck-), to his eyes that gleam and twinkle. She had forgotten that. That Shanks' grey eyes twinkled; she had forgotten Spade had acquired that mysterious gleam from his father, that this trait was not just born from himself. It seems there was more oxygen able to leave her, as her breath catches in her throat, a chilling thought tapped to her tongue 'His father-'
"Shanks-"
"It's been so long." Shanks responds as he makes his way across the wood paneling floor to the bar she stands behind.
"It has." He almost flinches at her tone. He deserves that cutting edge, he supposes. He did not tell her he would not see her for a while longer than, well... two months like what was normal considered their "normal".
"Makino-"
Her heart swells this time, because with his raspy voice the claws from fear unlatch themselves but her pride, her secrets, force the feeling away, and the talons slowly creep back into place. Resentment bubbles over. Now, this, this feeling was not something she expected. She loves Shanks. Besides he won't be here forever, his presence was always fleeting, maybe she should tell him about Spade, and the loneliness. But no. He was not there. (She didn't want him there, she didn't.) He was out there, his son without a father's love. (She didn't want him here, she didn't. It would have made things unsafe- complicated). Shanks was not there for her either, not there to shield her or pick her up from wary glances of neighbors at the sight of Spade's hair that sent her fear into hyper drive, not there to protect Spade from those glares, those glares. (It was better that Shanks wasn't there, it was better-)
"No. Please, Shanks no."
It was better. Because it protected Spade, it saved him. And his father being here now-
"Makino, I know I said I would be back as quick as always and I wasn't, and I'm sorry! -"
She visibly flinches.
"Please, Shanks. Go."
"I will not."
Makino looks him staring in the eyes then, unflinching this time. She looks at him, and he feels like he is melting and freezing at the same time. Her chocolate eyes, so often were lovely, now seemed so hardened. Her eyes held a story, it was on the tip of his tongue to ask and understand, but then he sees a tear fall from them and his eyes lower. In that one damn dirty tear- because that was the thing about Makino, when she cried (which was rare) her tears didn't fall like rain, like crystals, they fell like murky grains of sand, like puddles carving their way in her face. And maybe it cleansed her and that was why there was dirt. Dirt tracks from a hard days of work but with that one dirt tear, it felt like a blood tear. And Shanks stopped short. His mind went blank. His only thoughts were of self-shame and how Makino never cries. In that tear, he saw the real consequences. And as it fell, it felt like the earth was crashing with it.
"You said I was different than the others. That you would always come back. And yes, you're back now, but how many years has it been?" She doesn't really need to count. She knows it's been nearly six years, 5 months and 19 days since she has seen Shanks in the flesh. In a way though, she sees him everyday. In the light reflected off of Spades blazing hair, in his mysterious glinting eyes that his son dons so well.
"You are my Seaweed Girl." He breathes out in a sigh because he doesn't want to hear this. Shanks does not want to hear what his head has told him every day, what his heart stretched to touch, to touch his mind: that he broke a promise. An important one, too.
He did not think it possible, but the wounded purple brown eyes- the ones he dreamed about on beaches across the world, the orbs he saw in his minds eye while watching the sunset as he leaned against the trunk of a white palm tree- the pain in them doubles at her nickname rolling out of his mouth.
"I'm not yours."
And maybe he is a little possessive, but this hurts. He knows Makino is her own, she always was. But the way she says it leads him to think that there is another. Is there another guy? And Makino reads his cringed face like a book.
"It's been six years. Shanks, you know me. You should have known. Please. Please. Get out." Her fingers are frantically rubbing her thumb together under the view of the bar. A nervous habit, she knows. But Makino needs to appear strong. A thought occurs to her: Spade will be home soon. This man needs to leave.
And maybe she has broken one of the strongest men in the world. Maybe his face crumbles like an avalanche and his hopes fall from a high shelf, and like polished china those hopes break so easily when they hit the ground. Shanks does not look so big in the middle of her bar anymore. In fact, the man looks small. She almost wants to hop over the bar and run to him. She almost wants to hug him and kiss him and tell him she still loves him, and that she is confused but she forgives him for all the things she never condemned him for till now, and that she doesn't really resent him, she was just sad and lonely, but that it will be okay now, he will stay. Makino actually wants to do all those things. But she knows she can't. Because she will never make a man who belongs in the sea stay on land, because she loves Spade enough for the two of them. Makino knows her son wouldn't want his father to stay against his will anyways, and she could never bring herself to put Shanks in the position to stay where he does not belong, to cage him. And he would. Thats is the most daunting part: Shanks would stay. Makino also knows that if Shanks does stay, his trail will end here, in her and her son's home. That these tracks he leaves behind, someone will inevitably follow, leading danger to her son.
As Shanks makes his way to her from across the bar hall, she really hopes she doesn't give in. 'What is he doing!' she internally screeches. There really is only so much she can handle of this man before she succumbs to it all.
"Shan-"
"Shh"
His is in front of her then. His broad shoulders, his exposed chest- is that a new scar? Surely. Makino knows it must be; she has traced and retraced every wound in his sleep from years ago, and in her dreams now still. She knows this scar has healed nicely. Just like how this wound on his heart will. It will heal, and maybe leave behind scar, and maybe become a reminder, but this will heal.
Oh, all the things he will never know.
Because while his will heal, hers will not.
Makino's scar is constantly reopened with the hidden knowledge she guards.
Shanks smells like the sea, like alcohol, like old crackled, heated parchment and like something she can never quiet place. Something she always wanted to find out, put a name too, but never could. She use to blame time, but now she wonders if she would ever be able to label it anything other than "just a Shanks smell" if she had all the time in the world.
His lips touch hers and she misses this. There is an ache in her chest where her heart use to be because her heart has traveled up her throat with the claws still clenched. She almost throws up the truth, but then he is pulling away. His big hand, rough and calloused, slips from the top of her head (when did it get there?) to her cheek. He tilts her head up and she looks into his eyes. Big, sad and-
"I'm sorry. Truly, I am, mermaid. I'm sorry."
-Apologetic.
Makino can only stare back at him, brows trained to be narrowed still. Her mouth burns from his lips touching them and from the vile of a lie loosely stapled in her mouth.
And then he is walking away. He turns, and he becomes big again. She watches the way his shoulders bunch from a certain kind of unflinching sorrow, the way the fingers on his hand rub over his thumb repetidly with a nervous twitch in his index finger, the way his feet fall heavy on the wooden floors of her bar. The way he leaves. Makino makes a note to engrave this all. Because she did not want it, but it was had to happen.
"I know." She whispers, but Shanks steps do not falter. She wonders if he heard her at all. She wonders if it matter whether he did or didn't.
The door swings open with a push from his hand and Shanks leaves. He leaves.
Makino is left, tears trailing down her porcelain face, staring at a space that was once occupied. He was here-
And like porcelain, like fine china, her hope falls from her own high shelf. They shatter, the shards smaller then grains of sand, and Makino is left there to watch a scene that she knows she will never unsee.
She wishes, in a extremely selfishly twisted, strange way, that the powerful Marine soldier had not come to warn her two weeks prior of the terrible consequences that would befall Spade and her should Shanks become aware of his son.
...
Spade finds her staring blankly at the doorway.
A polished glass lies at her side.
He is about to apologize for being late and for breaking the rules, it's all on the tip of his tongue, and then she begins sobbing. Uncontrollably. These cries wrack her body and small frame. The five-year-old stares on in complete horror. His mother never cries. A thought pounds his brain 'is this my fault? Have i worried her so much that she is crying like this?'
She brings her hands to her eyes and he makes a mad dash to her, setting the crate of clay mugs on the bar counter before coming to her side.
"-Mom, -mom!"
She does not even seem aware of his presence. She is looking at something that his eyes cannot follow.
"I'm sorry I'm late! I didn't mean to worry you. I'll never do it again, I swear!"
She won't stop crying.
"I promise!"
Spade never really knew what he was saying right then. That he would never worry her. In that regard, Shanks was very much like his father, breaking promises. However this was a promise he couldn't very well truly make because what mother doesn't worry about their son, in in the best of circumstances? His mother's tears doubled at his words.
"Promise?" She asks, turning her attention to his beanie clad head and panicked eyes (something that seems too new to affiliate with Shanks or her) but it sounds like she is questioning the word. What it even damn well means, and questioning someone else who is not here. But that could not be, could it? No one is here but him and her. So he says, in a hushed tone that is entirely of his own, "I promise."
A/N::: I have no excuse. I am bowing my head and saying sorry here. I'm having a tough time at school, but i made a commitment with this story that i will keep. I will finish this story. I do not think it will be done any time soon but i will one day finish it. The most chapters i could predict this to end with would be twenty, but even then that is a lot. My deepest apologies here, guys. I hate to tell you this- but i've had this chapter done for a while, i just never had the time to fine tune it to my tastes and even now it doesn't seem to read quite right to me.
-Oh! and yes Spade does seem kind of advanced for his age, huh? I've never really been around kids, so i took a guess, sorry! Just consider him a super smart child :p
I would really appreciate some feedback on this one guys! This chapter was hard for me to write. But above all, thanks for reading!