Shanks sighed happily, feeling more relaxed then he had for the last week. Mostly because his anchor was safely snuggled up against him and even listening to Sabo finally sharing his tale was not enough to ruin that.
Though the blast of anger that his haki picked up was large enough that his mood dropped a bit. He sighed wearily. "Well kids, I haven't looked around the place yet but whatever mess you made, Hawky is not happy about it."
The boys all winced and looked at each other. "Didn't you fix it?" Asked Sabo incredulously at Ace.
"Me! I wasn't the one who broke it." Ace snapped back.
"You started it! You know how Luffy and Zoro are." Sabo gestured at the two younger males.
"Hey! You weren't exactly innocent either. Besides Luffy is the one who actually broke it."
"Shishishi. Usopp and Frankie told me not to try and fix things." Luffy said happily from where he was wrapped in Shanks cape.
"Yeah, you don't want Luffy playing with tools." Zoro added as he napped on the floor.
"Well why didn't you fix it then!"
"I didn't want to." Zoro said, easily catching the pillows that were tossed at him without bothering to open his eyes.
They looked at the girls hopefully. Perona stuck her tongue out. "I'm not your maid. Besides it's going to be sooo funny watching you get your asses kicked by Mihawk."
Robin laughed. "You boys will never learn if I did it for you."
By now, all of them could feel and hear Mihawk storming towards them and the boys gulped.
"What are we dealing with here?" Sabo asked quietly. "He is a warlord."
"Yelling." Zoro mumbled.
"Grounding." Luffy added glumly.
"He's gonna kick our asses." Sighed Ace.
"Worse." Shanks laughed. "He's going to make you run drills and clean."
They heard a nearby door slam and footsteps approaching. Sabo looked around the room, thinking desperately. "Can we hold him off?" He asked, eyeing his faithful pipe.
There was a loud snort from Shanks and Benn rolled his eyes. "For about a minute." Zoro said annoyed as he pushed himself to his feet.
"So we run?" Sabo asked, looking at his brothers.
"I don't run from fights." Zoro sneered.
"Great. Zoro takes the fall and we get the hell out of here." Ace grinned, opening the window and grabbing at Luffy's arm.
Shanks tightened his grip and cocked his eyebrow at Ace. "Hmmm I don't know. I'm supposed to be a responsible adult here." Now Benn snorted, half falling off the couch. "Rude. I could be a responsible adult. At least in this company." Benn desperately hid his face behind his book to cover the laughter. "You suck." He said pouting at his friend. "Right, fine. You're right. Run boys." He added, pushing Luffy at his brothers.
Ace jumped out and Sabo gestured for Luffy to follow, cautiously eyeing the doorway. The two girls were still sprawled in their chairs and Zoro was bracing himself in the middle of the room, tying on his bandana. Luffy laughed as he leapt out the window, shooting an arm back and grabbing his swordsman by the waist.
"Luffy no! FUCK!" Zoro yelped as he shot after the brothers and Sabo snorted as he followed. They quickly bolted into the woods dragging a protesting Zoro with them.
Moments later the door swung open and Mihawk stormed into the room. "Oy you brats!" He yelled out the window, smirking at the shrieks he heard in the distance.
"Aren't you going to go after them?" Shanks laughed, sprawled across the couch.
"I don't need to." Mihawk drawled, before bonking Shanks on the head roughly.
"Ow! What the hell Hawky?"
"That was a pristine antique! Do you know how long it took me to acquire that! You're paying me back for it."
"What? It's not my fault. I wasn't even here."
"You're the reason these brats are here so you are responsible for them."
"You're the one who left them alone. Or blame Rayleigh for sending me off." Shanks pouted. "Honestly it's not like I'm not already contributing to their upkeep."
"Please, you're barely covering the food your bottomless pit eats. Which is frankly embarrassing. You'd think a mighty emperor of the sea would be rich enough to be a bit less stingy."
"Stingy!" Yelped Shanks, offended. "I've given you more then enough to cover Anchor and the Firefly! You grow your own food and they hunt! You're just being greedy."
"Yeah and what about the other 4 children on my island? Wait… You! You brought in more kids!"
"Ok why does everyone assume it's my fault?" Shanks whined to Benn.
"Because it usually is." Benn said as he turned the page.
"Oy!" Shanks whipped his pillow at his sassy friends, wincing as it missed, knocking over the bottle of wine on the side table. The three men stared at the ever growing pool of red wine on the rug. "Now don't over react Hawky." Shanks said cautiously, hand raised imploringly.
"That rug came from Wano." Snarled Mihawk, glaring at his biggest annoyance and his hand lingering on Yoro.
"Hmm and it was a bottle of Déesse wine from your personal stash." Benn said dryly.
"Damn it Benn. You traitor." Shanks accused, before deciding the boys had the right idea, diving for the window and landing easily in the yard. He smirked and shot a finger at the window before turning to the tree line, colliding roughly with an unexpected body and falling back. "Damn you to Davy Jones!" He cursed as he looked up at his smirking Pa.
Rayleigh tsked at his son as he firmly stepped on his cape. "Still need more work on your observational haki I see." He had a struggling Luffy under the arm that was clenching a fistful of Zoro's shirt, and Sabo was thrown over the other shoulder. Ace sullenly lurked behind them, refusing to abandon his brothers despite being free to run. "I found these boys outside and figured someone was looking for them."
"My thanks Rayleigh. Roronoa, I am disappointed to see you decided to run instead of facing the consequences of your actions. Not what I expected from someone who claims to be my future rival."
Zoro struggled in Rayleigh's grasp, shaking him off and glaring proudly at the window. "Hey! It wasn't my decision. Luffy and these idiots dragged me along."
"Yes and that is why Rayleigh had to drag you back by your scruff."
Rayleigh laughed. "To be fair, I only had a grip on him cause the boy kept walking in the wrong direction and I didn't feel like tracking him down."
Mihawk sighed in exasperation. "Perona, send down a ghost to guide him back. GUIDE him, not torment him." The ghost girl laughed but willingly sent down a ghost. "And Rayleigh? If you don't mind, grab that child you call a son and ensure he makes it back in."
Rayleigh snorted and used his now free hand to haul Shanks to his feet, clasping him by the scruff. "I assure you, this is unnecessary. I'll walk by myself." Shanks muttered embarrassed, but letting his Pa guide him back inside.
Sabo meanwhile lay frozen over his other shoulder, silently panicking about how his brothers and himself were being held captive by the Dark King himself. Oh seas, they were gonna die. He flinched as Luffy stretched himself around the man and started poking at him. "Luffy, stop." He hissed in warning.
"Hey!" Luffy shouted. "Where's my present?"
"What makes you think I got you anything Brat?" Rayleigh laughed, letting the little monkey climb up onto his shoulders.
"You said so!"
"I meant your little doctor friend." Rayleigh reminded him.
Luffy hesitated for a second, looking pensive before beaming. "Yeah but you still got me something didn't you?"
Shanks sighed when he felt Rayleigh let go of him to reach into his pocket. "You didn't? Seas Pa, you're spoiling them rotten."
"Ha! Like you didn't bring them back a gift from your excursion."
"Well maybe I did, but I've been doing that since he was a little guy. It's tradition!"
"Lets just think about it as I'm making up for 17 years of no gifts." Rayleigh responded brightly, pushing Shanks towards a glaring Mihawk, and depositing Sabo on the couch. He presented Luffy with a large feather. "This came from one of the birds your doctor befriended. He was sorry that none of them wanted to join your crew, but this way you could have part of them with you."
"Wow! It's so big. Man, it would have been so cool to have one of them join us." Luffy said as he stroked the feather, marvelling at its bright colours.
Rayleigh grinned and passed matching feathers to the rest of the kids and Shanks whined. "You never brought me gifts when I was a kid."
"Aw, Red. Are you feeling left out?" He laughed.
"Well you could have brought me a feather too."
"Hmm, and here I thought you'd prefer this sake? But if you insist…."
Shanks beamed, making grabby hands and blocking Zoro's reach. "Now you're talking." Benn pointedly coughed across the room and Shanks quickly looked at Rayleigh. "Thank you for the gift." He said politely, the kids parroting him, before glancing back at Benn for approval. Benn nodded, continuing to read as Mihawk started to lecture the boys and a suddenly contrite Shanks.