Archive of Our Own

The thing about Benn Beckman’s captain was that yes, he was a fool, but for the most part he wasn’t actually an idiot. Barring a few stints here and there, he’d spent almost his entire life at sea, developing a sailor’s skills—a pirate’s skills, specifically, but thankfully, the skills of someone who wanted to remain a pirate. Unlike some other fools Benn had known, he didn’t think they could actually steal all their supplies and he was damn sharp about bargaining. After seeing the way he drank, Benn had been tempted to keep a tight hold of the purse strings, but then he’d witnessed Shanks’s knack for taking five minutes of dock gossip and one walk through a market and turning it alchemy-like into the lowest price on any given foodstuff it was possible to get.

So Benn tended to trust Shanks when it came to money, and it paid off in the form of a comfortably full smuggler’s hold and an even more comfortably full larder. And the wisdom that paying lavishly at a bar was worth it when the bartender was discreet, polite, and cooked a mean fried okra.

It was therefore somewhat of a surprise when Makino brought him a drink on the pier and let him know, “Beckman, I need to have a word with you about your crew’s finances.”

“….How far behind on the tab are we?” Benn asked, setting his drink aside with a grimace. This was very surprising, honestly. Shanks really liked this port—their deep harbor, the quiet, the friendly kid who lived in it, and not least the pretty bartender who wasn’t afraid to tease him. Benn would have thought he’d be making any excuses to leave treasure on the bartops.

“That’s not the problem.” Makino started fishing in her apron pocket. “The opposite, actually."

“The…opposite?”

His confusion only lasted as long as it took Makino to drop a fine set of bejeweled rings, threaded on a thick silver necklace, onto the table next to him. “I can’t do anything with this.”

Any excuse to leave treasure on the bartops, indeed. Benn nodded and scooped it up. Right, they probably didn’t have a proper pawn shop here. “Sure. I can give you the value in berris for it—”

“That’s not what I want.” Exasperation ran thick in her voice. “Beckman, I have more money than I know what to do with. And that’s not an exaggeration. It’s been six months of you all drinking in my bar and I could fix the roof ten times over.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“We don’t get many pirates in town, but there’s a lot of mountain bandits. Only some of them know better than to poach from down here. Over the mountains are the gangs who would be happy to risk crossing bandit territory if they heard our little fisherman’s bar was suddenly wealthier than before. And if the town finds out…”

“Don’t trust your neighbors?” Benn asked, mildly. Surely he could pay a few calls…

“I’m a young woman living unchaperoned being paid by pirates for far more than they could ever drink,” Makino said, flatly. “I don’t trust my neighbors not to gossip that I’ve started selling myself out of my late mother’s bar.”

“Ah.” And now Benn could see the problem. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You better. Because Shanks just laughed and if you can’t handle this, I’ll have to dump the lot in the harbor and ban you from my establishment.”

Well, Shanks wouldn’t be laughing then, but Benn had a feeling that if it reached that point, both of their troubles with his captain would only be beginning.

“Would it kill you to ask the lady out instead of playing magpie?” Benn asked, dropping the be-ringed necklace onto the little davenport all the Red Force’s paperwork lived on.

“Hm?” Shanks peered up from the naval report tracking government movements they’d filched out of a nearby base. “Hey, where’d you find that? I gave it to Makino, you sneak thief.”

“She gave it back to me.” Shanks started glowering at him, forcing Benn to hastily add, “Not like that! She just can’t use it.”

“She said something about that, so I let her know it was a gift.” Shanks frowned down at the jewelry. “I told her I’d get something else if she didn’t like the silver, but she said it was fine…”

Oh, seas help them all if their captain had tossed aside even the premise of payment and was determined to give gifts. Somehow Benn couldn’t see that helping the reputation troubles Makino was concerned about. “Shanks, how much money do you think a bartender needs?” Benn was well-informed, thanks to the months he’d spent working at a certain establishment in Sabaody while Shanks thought it was a good idea to sneak himself into the Holy Land. And on further consideration, given that Party’s Bar likely was involved in fewer extraneous expenses than Shakky’s, he could see the lack of need for alternative revenue streams.

“Well, I know what we spend on land.” Shanks pulled down one of the ledgers and flipped it open, looking over the costs of their last supply run. “And Makino’s on land all the time.” So Shanks had assumed she must need lots of money, clearly, and now Benn could see the root of the problem.

“I don’t think most bartenders are trying to get rich. Makes ‘em targets.” He tried to steer the conversation subtly, and could tell by the ferocity of Shanks’s glower that he’d already failed.

“If anyone comes after this village, I’ll destroy them,” Shanks said with an air of finality, obviously forgetting that once they actually acquired what they’d come East for, they wouldn’t be around for him to make good on that. Benn had an unfortunate suspicion reminding him of that wouldn’t…help.

“You should just ask her out. It’d work a lot faster than giving her gifts she can’t use.”

“So you’re saying I need better gifts.” Shanks sounded far too thoughtful for a man who clearly wasn’t listening to a word Benn was saying.

His captain wasn’t actually an idiot, but the man was a terrible, terrible fool.

The first time they’d made landfall at Foosha, the villagers hadn’t been at all prepared for a pirate ship to dock. It had been a ghost town once they disembarked, aside from the old man in a bucket hat at the end of the dock who’d demanded a docking fee high enough to compensate for, as he put it, the twelve berths they were taking up with their damn fool ship.

They’d paid without a murmur of complaint, because it was still cheaper than any of the big harbors would have been and they were looking for a more long-term port to base out of. If this place ended up suiting, better not to start on a bad foot.

Admittedly, it would be hard not to start on a bad foot when no one would talk to them, but there wasn’t much they could do about that but keep their eyes and ears open.

And noses. Lucky Roux ended up leading them to a little establishment not far from the harbor, on the smaller fishing docks along the water, half-overgrown with palms and wreathed in sea spray and the smell of curry. Benn, for one, had liked the place tremendously on sight.

Shanks had as well, and he’d fearlessly charged ahead past the wooden doors. He’d taken all of two steps into the bar, the rest of them chattering behind him, when the bartender, without even bothering to turn around, had thundered out in a piercing voice, “DO NONE OF YOU KNOW HOW A ‘CLOSED' SIGN WORKS?”

Roughly five seconds later they’d all been outside again, watching with some interest as their captain—already reckoned one of the strongest fighters in the Grand Line, with a steadily increasing bounty to match—stared at the little fishing port like he’d been smacked over the head with a board.

“Captain?” Benn asked him.

“You know, Beck,” he said in a faraway voice, “I think we ought to get to know this place.”

Further explorations around the town had turned up Luffy, a cheerful ‘almost six’-year-old who was not only delighted to meet ‘real pirates’ but perfectly happy to tow them around and show them off to everyone in town. On their best manners, of course.

He’d capped his enthusiastic tour off by taking them to ‘Makino’s’, which turned out to be the only bar in town, and towed Shanks in past the swinging wooden doors with a sign that now, fortunately, read ‘OPEN.’

Makino had looked about as gobsmacked to see them come in as Shanks had looked to leave earlier, and apologized profusely once a few jokes about the sign and her temper had been tossed her way.

“I’m afraid I thought you were my regulars,” she said, topping up a couple of pints. “And I’ve told them and told them not to darken my door before noon, but—“

“No harm done,” Benn had said, before Shanks had tagged him in to entertain a wide-eyed and big-eared Luffy.

She hadn’t yelled at them since. She also hadn’t seemed to notice Shanks following her with his eyes as often as he could get away with.

Neither of these things had put Benn’s captain off his foolishness, and now Benn was in the slightly ridiculous position of having to embezzle treasure back onto his own pirate ship.

The easiest way to embezzle money back into anywhere was simply to have it not leave in the first place, so that was where Benn started.

He passed the word to the crew that he was taking over the various tabs with local shops, and that he was going to do an audit, which meant nothing should be removed from the smuggler’s hold till he was done on pain of his displeasure. Which even Shanks understood meant he had to keep his light fingers out of there.

Unfortunately, Benn made the common and commonly fatal mistake of forgetting that Red-Haired Shanks had the devil’s own luck.

“Oh, Makino!” Shanks said, the next time they were at Party’s Bar. Benn hadn’t been watching him. He’d been enjoying a nice glass of whiskey while he watched Lucky Roux and Bonk Punch try and fail to teach Luffy a card game. The games kept getting simpler and Luffy kept getting confused. And the level of nuts in a bowl kept getting lower every time the two adults got distracted muttering to each other.

Suffice to say, Benn’s guard was far enough down that he couldn’t stop Shanks before he pulled out a pair of jeweled hair sticks and set them on the counter. “Here, for you. Something more useful than a ring or four.”

Makino looked at the sticks, looked at Shanks, looked at Benn—who attempted to convey an apology purely via wince—and looked at the sticks again. “These are lovely.”

“So you like them?” Shanks asked, pleased.

She lifted and examined one and set it back down. “It’s very kind of you, but they’re really too nice for me to wear around the bar.”

“But they match your eyes!” Shanks wheedled. They did do that. Lovely brown tiger’s eye, and the sticks wrapped with hair-thin gold wire.

“Why do I need to worry about that? It’s not like I’m trying to look pretty.” She grabbed her tray and went to collect various empty glasses, leaving the captain sighing forlornly in her wake.

“Where did those come from?” Benn asked, keeping his voice low. He was very sure they hadn’t passed through the smuggler’s hold. Shanks knew better than to mess with his quartermaster duties.

“Figured I’d clean my room. Found them under the bed.” Devil’s own damn luck, and the determination to send Benn’s hair prematurely white. Shanks glanced over the counter, brightened, and started trying to slip the hair sticks into a pottery jug where Makino probably wouldn’t spot them till after they left.

Benn heartlessly snatched them out of his hands and pocketed them. “The lady said no, chief.”

“I really thought she’d like them, though,” Shanks said. “She could wear them around and everything.”

“I’ve got plenty of handkerchiefs.” Makino returned to set the tray on the counter. “And I don’t need any gifts from you, Captain. I haven’t yelled at you again, have I?”

“That you haven’t,” Shanks agreed, in a tone that Benn knew was meant to imply that he wouldn’t mind if she did. If she picked up on it, Makino very wisely ignored it.

If nothing else, the whole failed attempt gave Benn an idea, and one private conversation later, he was smuggling treasure in his belt pouch on every trip back from the bar.

As much as they all enjoyed the peaceful interludes, the Red-Haired pirates weren’t only in the East Blue to vacation and drink in Foosha Village. By the time they took a junket around to terrorize a few potential rivals who would be pretty inconvenient if they managed to stick around long enough to inconvenience World Government ships, Benn had snuck a solid quarter of a chest’s worth of treasure and berry back into the smuggler’s hold and out from where Makino had to worry about it.

Though if he had hoped that the time away would be sufficient to stop Shanks from acting like a particularly silly bird, he would have been disappointed upon their return. Fortunately, he hadn’t actually expected anything else. On their return, he shared a corner table with his best friend in Party’s Bar while Yasopp and Bonk Punch worked up a round of shanties, and only occasionally had to kick Shanks under the table for staring a little too openly.

Once the musicians were taking a break, Shanks was happily distracted filling Luffy’s ears with a pirate story—one from his childhood, it sounded like, and if nothing else Benn would have considered the trips back to this village worth it for the lightness he could finally see creeping into Shanks’s shoulders, balancing out the anguished bitterness he had been carrying since Elbaf.

The story was interrupted by the thump of boots on the dock outside as an unfamiliar voice called out, “Ahoy the bar! And barkeep!”

Makino, who had been lingering near the edge of the bar most conducive to eavesdropping on pirate stories, abruptly straightened. She didn’t look upset, but Benn found himself paying close attention anyway. He could tell the rest of the crew was doing the same.

“Oh, Genji,” Makino said as the doors swung open to admit a stranger. He looked not-quite-local but similar style, fisherman’s boots and hardy working pants paired with a nicer white shirt than any of the ones Benn had seen in the village and a close-fitting jacket. Trim little mustache and a neat queue of hair. “I didn’t know you were coming down today.” Hm. Polite tone. Not as warm as she sounded to them, but friendly and familiar.

“I’ve had a very good run of business today and just thought I’d stop by with my free time and see how you were getting on.” His voice was smooth and confident, and he strolled past the Red-Haired Pirates with barely a glance around. “I see you’ve got plenty of foot traffic through here, at least. Out of towners?”

“You could say that,” Makino said, and gave a snickering Lucky Roux a firmly repressive look. “Are you here for a drink, then?”

“Well, if you’re offering.” Genji slid onto the seat at the bar that had remained unclaimed thus far because everyone knew it was Luffy’s. Fortunately, Luffy was too distracted to object, tugging at Shanks’s sleeve.

“Shanks, finish the pirate story,” Luffy complained. “What did the cabin boys do after they found the feathers?”

Genji laughed. “Kids and their imaginations. Ah, thanks.” Makino had pulled a pint without asking. So they were acquainted. “Here.” He pulled out some berry to pay for it, far more than any pint should cost. “Keep the change.”

Makino deliberately pushed the money back towards him. “Really, Genji, I can spare a friend a pint.”

“Oh, let me feel like a provider,” he said, lightly, pushing it her way again.

“It’s on the house,” she said, firmly.

“I can’t support a friend?”

“I really don’t need it. But congratulations on your fortune in business. It’s been a good fishing season then?”

“Shaaaaanks,” Luffy whined, completely uninterested in the intruder but clearly all too aware that he was holding his favorite target’s attention. He’d escalated from tugging on Shanks’s sleeve to hanging off his left arm. “The story.”

Benn collected the empty glasses to take up to the counter. “I’ll get us both a refill, shall I?” And keep an eye on this character. “Finish the story, chief.”

“...Right,” Shanks said, and launched back into the story for an enthralled Luffy.

Benn wandered up to the bar, setting the empty glasses down gently, ears wide open.

“—hauled up a good catch out of this herring run last week,” Genji was bragging. “Flogged half of it at the Sheep Islands, sold the rest in Goa, made a pretty profit on the whole trip.”

“How nice.” Makino glanced at Benn, and following his nod for the same again and a jerk of his head at Shanks, pulled out two fresh glasses.

“I should have enough to get a place of my own soon. Well, I could get a place now, obviously, but I mean one of those fancy townhouses down by the port. And the servants to keep the place up while I’m away on longer trips.”

“And how’s your mother?” Makino asked. “Since you’re still at home.”

Benn didn’t dare let a smile crack his face. That had been nicely done.

“She’s…fine,” Genji said, the wind clearly taken out of his sails. Benn collected the drinks with a nod and drifted back towards the corner table. “Makino, you know you need to charge the customers if you want to make any money?

“It can go on their tab,” Makino said, voice sweet as syrup. “If I couldn’t keep track of a couple of drinks, I’d be a terrible bar owner. And you can see the place is still standing. How’s your father?”

Back at the table, Shanks had finished his story and Luffy was now acting out exactly how he would have taken down the giant roc.

Shanks raised his eyebrows as Benn set his drink down, a silent question.

“Not important,” Benn said. Just some twerp. “She’s got it handled.”

And, indeed, the ineffective braggart had been nicely deflated by the time he finished his drink. Makino didn’t offer him another, and he was clearly making his excuses and fleeing. Or...not. He was veering towards their table as soon as Makino turned her back on him to start the dishes.

“So who are you,” he said to Shanks, more a challenge than a question. “Out of towner? Tourist? Not much in this dinky town worth seeing.”

Benn sipped his drink, ignoring the brat. He didn’t even have to look to know Shanks was grinning in his stupidest way. “Oh, me? Just an unemployed bum. Far beneath a fine working gentleman like yourself.”

He didn’t sound at all convincing. Benn kicked him under the table. Fortunately for them both, Genji seemed to take the words at face value, stalking petulantly outside at a speed only slightly slower than Luffy running out to chase a seagull and pretend it was a roc.

Makino sighed behind the bar after another thirty seconds, and the entire crew took it as their cue to laugh and get back to the music. Though an impression of the idiot was starting up in the corner, in a way that made Benn pretty sure it was going to show up during charades at the next crew game night.

“Sorry you had to see that.” Makino came by with the tray and half a bottle of rum, setting it down between their glasses. “We used to step out together, he thinks we still might, I’m really trying not to encourage him. I make more than he does.” She paused, tucking the tray under her arm. “Not that I object to that in a man, to be clear. I just also don’t like him.”

“Fair,” Shanks said.

“He seems like a twerp,” Benn agreed.

Building Snake swung by and refilled his own glass from the bottle, dodging Shanks’s grab. “Funny, you’re nicer to our captain than that.” And Shanks, as much as they might all respect and follow him, might not be that unimpressive but he was hardly less obvious in his interest.

“Oh, well.” Makino’s tone was light and airy. “I know your captain doesn’t care what’s under my skirts after I yelled at him, so I can say whatever I like.” She used her free hand to knock the brim of Shanks’s hat back.

“Oh, I don’t mind a woman who yells at me now and again,” Shanks said, sounding just a little too casual for how soft his eyes had gone. “Especially if I’ve done something to deserve it.”

“And I’m sure that happens a lot.” Makino swished off, leaving a more organized bar room in her wake. Shanks watched with interest.

“Easy, chief.” Benn poured them both another drink. “Last thing you want is to be another twerp hanging around, acting like she can’t take care of herself.”

“Yeah…” He still sounded wistful, rubbing at his own forehead, staring after her.

Well. An unfortunate but true fact about Benn’s captain was that it was impossible to save him from himself all the time. Benn simply chugged his glass back and decided giving one warning fulfilled any reasonable expectation of that duty.

The bar stayed open late for them, the party going well past moonrise. For everyone except Yasopp, who lost the straw draw and went back to the ship early for watch. The rest of them hung on until they only had half the usual number of working legs between them. Bonk Punch falling over and almost squashing Monster was the clearest sign they needed to call it a night.

“Guess we’d better head out,” Shanks sighed. Benn made himself useful, as usual, kneeling down and lightly smacking their musician to get him conscious again. Monster uncurled from his napping spot and happily joined in.

Benn was busy enough with a heavy and heavily-drunk Bonk Punch that he only barely heard Makino ask his captain, “Oh, Shanks, could you help me with this heavy barrel before you go?”

Ah, help. What an excellent idea. “Roux, quit laughing yourself sick and gimme a hand, would you?”

By the time he and Roux had hauled Bonk Punch back to the ship and tipped him into the Drunk Bed (under a covering on deck, hard wood instead of a hammock, conveniently positioned vomit bucket) the rest of the crew was still trailing behind.

Benn left Roux on supervision duty and went back to round his wayward crewmates up. Shanks usually managed to keep everyone moving, but if he was still distracted by his own silliness…

Crew’s turn for silliness, apparently. They were checking behind various crates and piles of nets and low plants just at the edge of the houses, exaggeratedly shushing each other every time someone set something down a little too loudly.

“What the hell are you idiots doing?” Benn asked, and was immediately shushed in turn.

“We lost the chief,” someone announced in a terrible stage whisper.

Benn scanned the small crowd, frowning as he realized that Shanks was not in fact with the group. “Still at the bar?” How long could it take to lift a barrel?

A cheerful whistling drifted down the dusty road towards them, and the crew turned as one to shush the culprit. And then lurched forward in a disorganized fashion as they realized it was Shanks, and the chief was promptly hustled away before he could get lost again.

Benn’s captain was still grinning an extremely silly grin as they all staggered back onto the ship, and as he passed under the light of the lantern, Benn grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back.

Swollen lips, check. Bruise starting to rise on his neck, check. Shirt in far more disarray than even the crew manhandling him should entail…

“No barrel, huh?” Benn asked, feeling almost as foolish as his captain for not noticing that little trick in action.

“What barrel?”

Benn would give his best friend this much credit—he didn’t get noticeably better or worse for having made some progress in kissing the girl he was silly over. He still managed the crew with a command that was flawlessly steady, for all that it was light, his ambitions remained focused on the goal that had brought them to this Blue in the first place, and he was also paying enough attention that he set two silver-chased tortoiseshell combs on the counter for Makino less than a day after Benn finished up his audit of the treasure chamber. Despite that fact that Benn hadn’t even told him yet the treasure room was done, he’d just finished his write up and very stealthily slid the list under all of the paperwork inside the captain’s davenport where it would take ages to find.

“Don’t worry, Beck, I checked them off your list already,” he said, and strolled off whistling before Makino came back.

Which, unfortunately she did before Benn could just hide the combs and pretend they were never there. She picked them up and regarded them with a concerted air.

“He’s getting better,” Benn offered, which was not quite true. “We found a set of four that were ivory and gold.” Which was.

“Hm,” Makino said.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” She slid them into her pocket. “I think I have an idea.”

Benn considered the fact that Shanks’s taste in flings had never run to uncreative, finished the rest of his drink, and took himself off to the corner table where he would have a good view of proceedings and, hopefully, a safe distance from whatever fallout was imminent.

The fallout didn’t arrive until they’d all retired to the ship for the night. Furthermore, it arrived not with a bang, but with the many small rattling thumps of the wheels of a laden dolly clattering over the planks of the dock. Benn, on watch, was somehow not surprised to find it was Makino.

“I presume you’re on duty, Mr. Benn?” she asked. There was an impishness on her face that made him reflexively start reviewing his mental map of the sand buckets around the ship and light a fresh cigarette to soothe his nerves.

“You’d be correct, Miss Makino,” he informed her, on his best manners in return. “Shall I fetch the captain for you?” Though the clattering of the galley door behind him made him fairly certain that would be unnecessary. Even with the drinking continuing on the ship, Shanks wasn’t liable to drop his Observation.

“I thought I’d come to him.” Makino swung the crate around and cracked the lid, revealing a pile of different types of berry and several cloth-wrapped bundles that looked suspiciously like they might contain jewelry. “I have an offer for your captain.”

“Oh?” Shanks draped himself over Benn’s shoulder, sounding somehow puzzled and enamoured. “And what would you be offering?”

“Why don’t you invite me onboard so we can discuss it?” Makino smiled politely at them both, exactly as if they had just happened to show up at the bar to order, and Benn could practically feel his captain’s gleeful smirk over his shoulder. “In private.”

“In private?”

“If you have such a thing on board.”

“He’s got a room,” Benn said, and drove an elbow into Shanks’s gut before he could say anything else. It didn’t slow him down much or long, but it did let Benn finish his sentence. “Please go get it.”

One could engage in a spirited philosophical debate between pirate crews, if so inclined, on whether a first mate’s duties were to their captain first and crew second or vice versa. Benn was of the opinion that it depended on the captain, the crew, and often the day itself; executed properly, his duties were often a mix of both.

And of course, sometimes they both involved the same thing. Such as being the one to check what exactly was going on in their captain’s quarters twelve hours after he and Makino had both vanished into them.

The crew had regarded this task with a certain amount of trepidation, as their captain’s previous liaisons hadn’t exactly been known to end...well, in a word. If this led to them all being barred from the only bar in Foosha, they would have to find somewhere else to drink—and deal with Shanks in a high dudgeon over it—for however long they had to stay in the East.

Benn was perhaps slightly more optimistic than the rest of the crew, after seeing Makino’s ability to exercise tremendous patience even when it came to a former partner at his most obnoxious. He was not, however, excessively optimistic, and so he made sure he had a tray of breakfast to use as a shield before he knocked.

His first knock went unanswered, and he briefly and morbidly considered that they might have killed each other in the night before knocking with slightly more force.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to resort to drastic measures. Makino slid the door open, wearing a slightly harried smile, an oversized shirt with a terrible pattern Benn recognized, and her hair loose around her shoulders.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Benn asked.

“I only considered the option briefly,” she promised.

“Tell him to go away,” Shanks’s voice drifted out, slightly muffled. “’M asleep.”

“Trust me, I consider the option regularly,” Benn assured their guest, and her cheeks dimpled. “You don’t get coffee unless I come in,” he announced, in a louder voice.

“Mmm, coffee…”

Makino stood aside to let him in, and he kicked the door shut behind him to keep the nosy parkers out before juggling the tray down onto the davenport.

“Coffee?” a hopeful voice asked, far too close, and Shanks without his clothes couldn’t honestly be called a new sight but Benn swore at him anyway.

“Put some damn pants on, chief, the lady and I have both already seen it.”

Shanks made an incomprehensible noise into his mug but obligingly detoured back towards his sea chest.

Makino’s brow creased as she collected a bowl of jook. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you two were…”

“We’re not,” Benn said, eager to clear up that misconception as quickly as he could. “Believe me, he’s all yours. There’s just no privacy on a crew.” He raised his voice, glaring pointedly at the door. “Case in point, the eavesdroppers who have ops!” Not a lot, since they’d been in port a few days, but enough that a scuttle of feet scrambled away from the door.

“All quiet on the overnight,” he said, once that died down. “But Yasopp wants a word right away.”

Since ignoring Yasopp’s Observation haki was the kind of thing that could get their entire crew killed, Shanks didn’t ask any questions or even make any jokes. He chugged the rest of his coffee, pulled on a shirt, and dropped a kiss on Makino’s hair on the way out. Benn would like to hope that was a good sign.

Benn waited five seconds, ten seconds, for him to get clear, and then told Makino, “If you need us to go—him to go—tell me now.”

She looked startled by the too-blunt question—another good sign—but recovered well. “Mr. Benn, I wouldn’t be here now if I thought I’d need to do that.”

“No shame in being wrong,” Benn said, without rancor or judgement. And he liked her, but this wasn’t even about her, really. This was about how he absolutely didn’t want to face Vice Admiral Garp in a fight, because that lunatic showing up without warning would be the easiest way she had if she wanted to get rid of them.

But she just looked at him, in a way that reminded him unnervingly of another bartender he’d once known, and the way someone once described his grand-mère staring straight through the glacier, and then she smiled.

“You’re sweet,” she said, like he was Luffy bringing her a seashell and not a pirate who’d seen the Grand Line. “I’ll be careful with his heart, Beckman.”

Benn would have liked to light a cigarette instead of worrying about how just he was supposed to answer that, but they were inside. “He can take care of himself.” He could, mostly. Usually. When he wasn’t being stupid.

“I know.” If she had been even a little bit smug he would have written the entire conversation off as a wash, but there was nothing but quiet assurance. And affection. “I like that about him. And I’m glad he has you there when he can’t.”

Benn decided to make his escape before he could feel he’d embarrassed himself further.

“No problems?” he confirmed with Yasopp, once Shanks was safely off the ship escorting Makino back to her bar.

“He didn’t seem suspicious.” Yasopp said, but he was staring off towards town in a way that made Benn twitchy.

“But?” Benn lit himself a cigarette, letting the nicotine calm him down.

“But he’s being weird about something. I told him it sounded like a you problem.”

“Gee, thanks.” Benn wasn’t actually that concerned. He’d signed up for this, after all, and by now he had a few years of experience under his belt when it came to Shanks’s emotional quandaries and captaining challenges. Better that whatever was chewing on him come up if it needed to come up. If Yasopp thought Benn needed to handle it, Benn would trust his call.

Or so he thought until they were on the way back from their most recent scouting expedition and Shanks asked him, “Hey, Beck. How do you know when you want to be in love with someone forever?”

Actually, Benn was going to put kelp in Yasopp’s bunk. This was definitively not a ‘him’ problem. They had married men on this crew, dammit, including Yasopp, and Benn wasn’t one of them.

“Now why the hell do you think I would know the answer to that?” Benn demanded. Of all the damn fool things…He needed a fresh cigarette for this conversation.

Shanks blinked big guileless eyes at him. “Don’t you know everything?”

Benn was going to stick kelp in his bed, too. His glower must have gotten that across; Shanks grinned sheepishly and amended, “Well, you go with plenty of ladies in port, and I’ve never seen you run one off the ship in tears.” Unlike certain members of their crew, including him. That had been an unfortunate memorable port stop.

“Yeah, because I don’t bring up anything about love forever,” Benn informed him tartly. He knew better than that. Sex was fun, but it was more fun—and cheaper—when everyone involved wanted the same thing. “Chief, you know we can’t take anyone on who’s not crew.”

“I know,” Shanks said, but he looked more wistful than Benn liked. “She wouldn’t go anyway.”

He sounded very sure about that. For his own peace of mind, Benn was not about to ask. “And you know fucking around with crew is a bad idea.” That was the kind of thing that bred resentment and whispers and mutiny. It would be stupid for Benn; it was downright suicidal for a captain.

“I know,” Shanks said, and oops, that was tipping over into actual frustration.

“Then if you know it’s not going anywhere, why are we talking about it?” Benn was starting to feel pretty frustrated himself.

“Because—” Shanks knocked his hat off, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t know what to do about this. She doesn’t want treasure, she doesn’t want a wedding—” Benn choked on smoke, because when had that been on the table? His captain ignored him. “—and she doesn’t want to leave. But she says she wants me. For some reason.”

He was digging his fingers in around his left bicep and that damn tattoo again. Benn kicked him to make him stop.

“And you want forever.”

“I don’t know.” Benn had met his captain in a bar in Loguetown as a stupid teenager up for anything over his head. He’d never sounded this lost back then. “How am I supposed to know?”

Oh, boy.

Benn smoked in silence for a minute, thinking about this, and finally said, “Does it have to be forever?”

Shanks stared at the horizon, reaching back to touch his hat. “I think I want it to be?”

In a noble and heroic effort, Benn refrained from asking ‘why?’ He just blew out a long stream of smoke through pursed lips. “Does she know that?”

Shanks’s hand drifted back towards the tattoo where it was hidden under his sleeve, though he did catch himself before Benn needed to kick him again. “I don’t know if I should tell her. We’re going to leave once we find the fruit.”

“You might as well.” She had brought this problem into Benn’s life, she might as well have to deal with it. “We’ve learned already that if she doesn’t want it, she’ll tell you.” And while the crew would be upset to lose their watering hole if it went wrong, a sulking, pouting captain was at least back within the wheelhouse of things Benn knew how to handle.

Since Benn didn’t actually want the little chat Shanks and Makino were having to go down in flames, he offered himself up to the vital role of distracting Luffy. It took a couple of days before the little terror could be pried away from the captain’s side at all, but after he started explaining all the things he’d found in the tide pools down the beach, Benn volunteered himself to be shown around the next morning. Luffy was happy enough to have an audience he almost didn’t mind that it didn’t include Shanks.

It wasn’t like Benn didn’t know what to do with a kid Luffy’s age. Little hard to distract him when there was no one else around his size to make him play with, but fortunately there were crabs.

Though they had a bit of a bump when Luffy got his fingers pinched trying to make friends with a hermit crab and almost ran all the way home crying, but Benn managed to distract him with stories of little bugs he’d seen in the West Blue that walked on the water.

“They don’t—sniff—drown?” Luffy asked, dangling his pinched fingers in a colder, shaded pool.

“Only when it rains, and they get wet and fall in.” And wasn’t that a sight. “Someone told me they’ve got this oil on their legs, like fishing boots.”

“Huh?”

Come to think of it, the East Blue was a bit warm to walk around in rubber galoshes like the kind you saw out West, or even the oiled sealskin boots they had in the North Blue. So Benn told him all about those, with further explanations demanded on the topic of rubber, which wasn’t something Luffy had seen much of.

“You can make goggles that seal on your face and keep the water out.” Benn poked him in the forehead for the fun of watching him go cross-eyed. “Helpful if you want to go swimming to look at things underwater.”

“I’m gonna make some of those,” Luffy decided. “Does Shanks know how?”

“Worry about learning to swim first,” Benn told him, and nodded very solemnly at Luffy’s protests that he did too know how to swim.

By the time they’d exhausted the tide pools and Luffy’s tolerance for stories of sea creatures he’d never seen, and wandered back for lunch, the full crew had arrived at Party’s Bar. Shanks was grinning in a way that let Benn hope that things had worked themselves out after all and he wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

And then the idiot had to go and lose the Devil Fruit they came East for, the only kid Benn had let himself get attached to since leaving home for good, and three quarters of an arm. In that order. Benn was going to worry for the rest of his life, at this rate, but at least they got the kid back.

The crew had enough experience at this point dealing with a bored, uncooperative captain that they were able to foil his first four attempts to escape. These, happily, tuckered him out enough he spent the next day in bed actually resting, giving them time to work on preparing the ship to sail.

The day after, when the ship still wasn’t ready but Lucky Roux and Hongo returned from breakfast delivery/checkup with a report that the chief was looking a little too lively for the fever he was running, they sent for strategic reinforcements.

Makino arrived with a small stack of books, a set of fresh bandages, and a steely sort of composure that made them all give the captain’s quarters a wide berth for the next hour or so. But at some point they did need captainly input on the resupply of nonessentials, so Benn made his wary way in.

He found Shanks sorting through a pile of treasure spread over a blanket on his knees while Makino read out loud.

“Beck!” Shanks said, his eyes bright and, in fact, a little feverish. “Where’s the necklace?”

“The necklace?”

“The one with that little gold anchor. I was going to give it to Makino again.”

Beckman looked at Makino, who was smiling, so at least he wasn’t being enlisted for further unwelcome courtship efforts directly in front of the lady in question. “Again?”

“I thought you brought it back,” Shanks said to the bartender.

“I think it’s one of the ones I gave to Beckman.”

Benn didn’t manage to cut in faster than Shanks’s face fell. “Not like that.” And here they were again.

Makino did seem to realize her mistake, eyebrows drawing together. “I’m sorry, I thought you told him.”

“I thought you told him,” Benn said. It seemed like the kind of thing that would have come up when she came on the ship with a crate of treasure.

“Told me what?”

Figuring he ought to take some kind of responsibility, Benn said, “I was bringing all the stuff she didn’t want back onto the ship a bit at a time when you weren’t looking.”

“I asked him to,” Makino said, taking her own responsibility. Nice of her.

“Wait,” Shanks said. The fever was making him flush. “You went behind my back and suborned my first mate because you found one of the only things he would actually go against me for?”

Benn would love to argue that he’d go against Shanks for a stiff drink, but on reflection, he really did let his captain have his own way far too often.

Makino didn’t say anything, but it was a very speaking silence.

“That’s kind of hot,” Shanks said, in a too-thoughtful way that meant he was either delirious or about to be very distracted. Makino burst out in a surprised little laugh, flushing to match him.

“I’m just going to buy the palm rope,” Benn said, and left the room as quickly as possible. Whatever kind of fools they made of each other, at least they were enjoying themselves. He was more than happy for it to be none of his business.

Coda

They sailed away from Dawn for the last time that year on an evening tide, leaving Shanks’s hat behind them, along with a barrel of extra treasure they’d offloaded on the mayor as ‘docking fees’ to make up for the trouble a young Devil Fruit user was bound to cause. And a few personally gifted pieces of jewelry that Benn had, thank the seas, not been asked to do anything with. Makino saw them off at the docks with a smile and a wave, keeping one hand on Luffy’s shoulder as he waved much more enthusiastically after them.

Shanks was still staring even after the dock had faded out of sight, the gentle wind and smooth tide making for an easy passage. Even the undergrown Sea King was minding its manners for once. Benn let him have his moment, drifting by when it seemed like he’d be ready to talk.

“How long do you think it’d take us to become strong enough to keep a place like that from ending up as ashes?” His bright hair hung loose in front of his face without the hat to hold it back, shading any brightness out of his eyes. Not much levity to his tone, either.

Benn lit himself a cigarette, hands still with long practice, not-quite-thinking about a family home in smoking ruins, or the island in the West Blue not found on any map Shanks had once navigated them to. They both knew the stakes of loving anything that couldn’t make an escape onto the seas. “Ten years?”

His captain gave this a moment of consideration. “I’ll do it in five.”

(It took seven. They settled the bet with a shared round at Shakky’s.)