Chapter Text
He hadn’t thought much about marriage when he’d been younger. Granted, he’d had a pretty lousy example in his own parents, which hadn’t made it a tempting prospect, although not for the reason most would expect, Shanks thought: the age-old story of the sailor who couldn’t be tied down by marriage vows; who was compelled by the saltwater in his veins, to sail, and who valued his freedom too much to be anchored to any one port. Blood bound, to people and places, but water was always moving, its paths ever-changing, and never content to stay in one place.
He’d been like that for as long as he could remember, but it wasn’t for his own sake that he’d thought he’d never make that promise to someone, or because he’d feared he’d be unhappy in a marriage. It was because he’d seen with his own eyes just how much it tore at the person left behind, and he hadn’t wanted to be the cause of that kind of grief, when he already knew where the course of his life was set, and that it wasn’t back to a wife and kid in some remote port.
But then, her. And every assumption and expectation he’d had for his life had changed the moment she’d taken one look at him with those big, doe-brown eyes, and bound every last drop of saltwater in his veins to her shores before she’d finished telling him off for blocking her doorway.
No, he hadn’t thought much about getting married. Not until her, but then she’d altered more than the tides of his life, and even the moon couldn’t compel them to change back to what they'd been before her.
The night of their wedding feast swept over the shore with red skies, giving credence to the good omen with a party that seemed to embody the very definition of sailor’s delight, in cups running over with sake, and a joy filling the galley of his ship that was impressive even for his crew, whose very raison d'etre was reckless enjoyment. But Shanks didn’t need to wonder at the cause, observing his new wife as she made her way through the crowd towards the table where he was sitting, the pirates moving out of the way to let her pass, an exaggerated courtesy that wasn’t nearly as cheeky as she no doubt believed, their grins sprouting in her wake like the flowers she left on the planks.
His cloak hung off her slender shoulders from when he’d wrapped it around her earlier, but he watched as she slipped it off now, before sinking onto the bench beside him.
“Are you all warmed up, my girl?” he asked, his gaze drawn to the bare shoulders where the thin straps of her wedding dress perched precariously. The chill from the sea had left a pink flush across them, but the galley was warm, a fire roaring in the stove as Marsh tossed in another log.
“Getting there,” Makino said, a little smile lifting her mouth, before she chirped, “The finger of whiskey helped.”
“Wait, who’s been giving you whiskey?”
Looking around the galley found them turning their gazes away innocently, although he made sure his gentle warning was felt.
He made a mental note to get her a glass of water later. Or three. Given how tiny she was, he should probably keep them coming.
For her own part, Makino appeared wholly content. Then again, several cups of ceremonial sake chased by a finger of whiskey would do that.
“I’m not drunk,” she defended, catching his considering look. “I’m just…” she gestured to herself, in her humble regalia, her wedding dress one of few traditions they’d kept, “Feeling myself.”
His grin was helpless. “Oh you’re feeling yourself?”
The look she shot him demurely sidestepped his suggestive tone, even as her eyes hooded under her lashes. “Yes,” she said, adorably prim. “I’m the bride. I’m supposed to.”
Reaching out to tuck an errant snarl of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing one of the snowdrops tucked into the dark folds, “That you are,” Shanks said.
Smiling, she pressed her cheek into his hand, her lashes fanning down as she exhaled. He wondered if she was tired, but then it had been a long day. The first stars were starting to show on the darkening sky where they could glimpse it through the portholes, but he'd found a more compelling distraction in charting the constellations on her shoulders.
His eyes swept down the plunging neckline and the row of tiny buttons, the dress hugging her tiny figure snugly, her lithe curves pronounced by the tight fit. The slit of the skirt glimpsed her slender legs, and between her bare shoulders and her open back, there was so much skin, it was a feat deciding where to stare.
A small hand tipped his chin up, and, “My eyes are up here,” Makino laughed, her smile curving them at the corners, a tender look that had a way of making him forget that they weren’t alone.
His grin told her as much, and, “I can’t help it,” Shanks said, taking her in where she sat, her small limbs draped in ivory silk and her sea-glass hair wilder than usual where the salt wind had coaxed it free, but where he could have made another suggestive remark, all he said was, “You’ve never looked more beautiful.”
Her look softened, before a flustered smile trembled over her mouth, and, “Scoundrel,” she named him in a huff.
“A scoundrel you married,” Shanks pointed out.
Her eyes smiled, dark and kind, and the look in them new as Makino murmured, “My scoundrel.”
The hand under his chin moved to cup his cheek, her thumb brushing through his beard, pausing at the scar on his lip, before skimming gently across it, a soft laugh escaping her when he nipped playfully at her fingers.
The din wrapped around them where they sat together, a private world amidst the laughter and the noise. She didn't stop touching him, but there was nothing improper about her attentions, even if they felt somehow more intimate for it.
It was something he was still getting used to, even after so many years, but while he’d always been comfortable with intimacy, it had been a different kind, before her―had been about sex, and the mutual transaction of pleasure. He hadn’t been used to the kind of intimacy that came so easily to her, the touches that didn’t seek anything beyond touching him, and little acts of devotion, like helping him shave, or washing his hair; gestures that didn’t ask anything in return, that were simply given, and for no other reason than because she wanted to take care of him.
“What?” Makino murmured, when all he did was look at her.
Bending down, he kissed the parting of her hair, his hand wrapping around the back of her neck, and felt how she sank into him. Her braid was coming loose, brushing the bare expanse of her back where he trailed his fingers down the length of it, her skin like satin, catching against his callouses, all of her tiny and lovely, and making him long to be somewhere else, where they were truly alone, if only so he could pull those tauntingly thin straps off her shoulders with his teeth.
Trying to steer his thoughts back to something that wouldn’t announce to their whole wedding party that he had a hard-on, he reached for one of the ceramic cups of sake that had been put before them. “So other than yourself, what else do you feel?” Shanks asked her, raising his cup to her in a toast, his eyes glittering as he put it to his lips, noting how her eyes darted to his mouth as he said, “Newly married as you are.”
He watched her considering her own cup, the tip of her finger tracing the rim as his eyes followed the movements of her hand, the slender fingers with their blunt nails, bared of any kind of ornamentation.
“It’s strange,” Makino said, looking around the galley, and the celebration in their honour, before lifting her eyes to the beams where they’d wrapped them in garlands and lights. “I don’t know if I feel any different, or like a wife, but then I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel.”
She looked at him. “I’ve always been yours,” she said, a gentle truth that hit him like she’d swept his feet out. “This is just making it official.”
Words eluded him, his usually-quick tongue feeling suddenly awkward in his mouth, but then she had a way of rendering him speechless with the simplest gestures.
He felt the weight of the pouch in his pocket. He’d had the idea for a while, and had asked Hamon when they’d stopped in Loguetown, and they’d been burning a hole in his pocket the last stretch of water across East Blue to Dawn, but when the time had come to ask her, he’d kept them. It hadn’t felt right then, as though he’d tempted fate by commissioning them prematurely, and then when she’d said yes, that was the only thing that had mattered.
But now they were married, and while it didn’t fit the conventional idea of a wedding, this pirate’s celebration, and her a pirate’s wife, he wanted to give her one thing that was conventional, and that she might have wanted once in her girlhood, when she’d imagined a normal wedding, to a different kind of man.
“This might help,” Shanks said, and saw her look up in surprise when he took one of her hands, turning it over to place the leather pouch into it. “I know we haven’t talked about this, but I thought you might like it.”
Her smile was bemused, and familiar intrigue brightened her eyes as she opened the pouch, tipping the contents into her hand, before her smile fell.
He watched her thoughts play out across her face, considering the two rings in the cup of her palm, before her eyes lifted to his, wide and brimming with a curiously vulnerable feeling.
“You got us rings,” Makino murmured.
Shanks smiled. “I gambled on the measurement for yours. I hope it fits, but we can have it adjusted if it doesn’t.”
Makino just looked at him, before her eyes lowered to the rings, cupped in her hand. Hers was so small it fit perfectly inside his, the bigger ring enclosing it, like they’d been made to fit.
The image held his eyes for a beat, before he looked at her where she sat, small beside him, enclosed by his crew and the galley of his ship. The safest he could keep her.
“It’s nothing fancy,” he continued, when she hadn’t spoken, and wondered why he was so nervous. “But they’re durable, and I know that for a fact, because I know the guy who crafted the anchor chain on my ship.” At her look of surprise, he smiled, and nodding to the rings, “They’re made from one of the links. I thought it was more appropriate than gold or platinum.”
Her brown eyes were still wide, a look in them now that he didn’t know what to call, as Makino touched the tip of her finger to them, before her eyes lifted back to his, and her voice was thick when she told him, “They’re perfect.”
He watched as she took the smaller ring, holding it up to the light as she turned it, inspecting the engraving on the inside, a tiny compass rose, a delighted smile shaping her mouth as she slipped it onto her finger; a perfect fit. He was always amazed by how tiny her hands were; that anyone’s hands could be so small, and still do so much.
She considered the ring, her smile small and holding a thought she didn’t share.
Then she surprised him by taking his hand, his one big enough to cover both of hers, her grip gentle but deliberate as she slid the ring onto his finger.
His breath held as she adjusted it, her hands soft and her moon-white skin unmarred; a sharp contrast to his, decorated with callouses and hair-thin scars, standing out against his sun-darkened skin.
She brushed the pads of her thumbs over his knuckles, before pausing on the ring, the hammered metal new and polished. When he’d made the request, Hamon had taken one wry look at him and said, I make swords, not jewellery, but he’d done the job, and a better one than a silversmith could have done, but then Shanks wouldn’t have asked it of anyone else.
He considered the ring on his finger, and the curious sensation; a weight that was present, but not uncomfortable. And he knew there were those who spoke of marriage in terms of shackles and chains, and for whom rings only enforced the implication of enslavement―that it was the very antithesis of freedom, and yet it wasn’t subjugation he felt, inspecting his wedding ring, and its smaller twin; a quiet declaration, not unlike a pirate’s flag―a sign of allegiance between two people who’d chosen each other.
The implication wasn’t lost on him, but then he’d known even before he’d asked her to marry him, exactly what he was asking her. And it wasn’t his own freedom he feared for, or that he’d be the one who’d one day regret making this choice.
He wondered if Roger had had a wedding like this, or if it had been in secret, because he’d already known what it would mean for the world to know about her.
Marineford blinked before his eyes, the battlefield momentarily replacing the lights and garlands, there before it was gone, although the after-image lingered, the faint outlines of the white funeral shrouds, the bodies wrapped and laid out along the embankment.
A small hand gripped his, and with a breath he was back, the noise rushing around him, their laughter washing away the howls of grief, and bringing him back to the present, to his wedding feast and his new wife, and when he looked up there were no funeral shrouds, only Makino in her wedding dress, the soft silk brushing his hand where she held it in her lap.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked him gently, and with a look that made him wonder, but then she knew about the war, and the things he hadn’t told anyone else; about burying his captain’s only son, and of the regret he felt, for being too late.
He looked at her hands, so small against his, and free of sin, an innocence few in this world could claim, even as he knew there were those who wouldn’t see it that way―who’d only see the ring, and what it suggested.
Wrapping his fingers around hers, he wondered if she felt how they shook.
“My wedding vows,” Shanks said, which wasn’t far from the truth, and her smile understood, and held no judgement for not wanting to invoke those memories here, on this day.
He thought instead of the moment under the shrouds, the red lanterns above and the sun setting on the horizon. His vows had been simple, but then for all his love of theatrics, this time he’d wanted the words to speak for themselves.
Makino’s smile was soft, before it quirked at the corners, and, “I’m actually a little surprised you didn’t sing them,” she said.
His grin widened, and he saw her smile faltering as she realised what she’d inadvertently done.
“Shanks―”
She wasn’t quick enough to stop him, and rising from his seat, he raised his cup, and watched as the galley fell silent.
“My fellow crooks and vagabonds!” he called out, to hollering answers, his grin growing when he saw Makino frantically shaking her head. “Scoundrels and blackguards!” Rousing cheers. “And Yasopp.”
“Hey!”
Laughter rippled through the compartment, as a cheerful middle finger was offered from where he was sitting with Lucky and Ben, the latter grinning around his cigarette.
Gesturing for them to settle down, Shanks inclined his head to Makino, who looked like she was trying to decide if it was too late to bolt for the door. “Care to accompany me in a song, in honour of my lovely wife?”
They answered with a deafening roar of agreement, so loud it drowned out her meagre protest as Makino stuttered, “This really isn’t necess―”
“Which one?” Yasopp shouted. Across the galley, the fiddle was already being strummed.
Shanks grinned, and meeting her eyes, trepidation and helpless curiosity taking turns shaping her expressive features, announced to the galley, “The Salt Wife.”
Their answering cheers announced their feelings, and he saw from the smiling purse of her mouth that she knew this one, but then her extensive repertoire rivalled his own, although he wondered where she’d first heard it―if it had been her mother singing, and he could picture it with ease; the little girl on the landing, her nightgown pulled over her knees as she listened, rapt, her brown eyes round as saucers and her ears soaking up every word.
The same eyes held his now, the tether of their gazes unbroken as he tipped back his cup, before putting it down, his fingers brushing her cheek as he straightened to his full height, a lock of her hair wound around a crooked knuckle as he tipped her chin up gently, his thumb brushing her bottom lip, before he lifted himself up on the bench, to hoots of delight.
It was an old shanty, common at weddings, or at least the less reputable ones. No one knew where it had first originated, but the more fanciful recounts claimed it was as old as the sea. Shanks had heard it sung to different melodies, had heard it told both without music and without words, but no matter which iteration, the story was always the same, of the two rival captains who on the eve of their wedding feast challenged each other to a duel to the death. Different versions disagreed on who was the victor, but most ended with one following the other, either by their own sword or their spouse's, while some claimed they were still duelling, and that you could hear them laughing when the salt wind blew a certain way.
The fiddle began, a few attempts needed to find the right melody, but their hands clapped the beat as Shanks sang, his eyes on his new wife as his voice lifted to the room, “Now my friends, the tale I’m about to tell you is old, and it’s nay a story of treasure or gold, but of things of far greater value and worth―of a sweeping romance, and impressive girth!”
Her demure composure shattered with her grin, and she ducked her head into her hands as he sang of the captain in question, a rake without equal who swept ashore like a storm, and broke every heart in his wake.
“He had no time for courting, and no plans to e'er wed, and so he went from port to port, singing girls into his bed.”
They were all clapping the beat, the tramping of their boots shaking the bench where she sat, her eyes tethered to his as he sang, this time in a deep, vulgar pitch that had Makino averting her eyes with a blush, “Spreading legs from north to south, first with his hands and then with his mouth; he knew his way around a snatch, but little did he know, he’d soon meet his match!”
Someone poured him another cup, and picking it up, he tossed it back to cheers of applause, the fiddle playing as he did a flourish, before sweeping into the next verse,
"A captain of a rival ship, she was feared on every sea; a vision as stunning as her mouth was crass, but the gods had blessed her with a mighty fine ass”―laughter and whistles sounded as he turned, his hip jutting out as he ran his palm over the curve of his own, and Makino buried her face in her hands―“and tits up to heaven and a razor-sharp wit, and you best believe the poor bastard fell like a twit!”
Calls of sympathy were offered, as Shanks continued, this time to Makino, “But she spared him no more than a glance, and no song or promise could make her give him a chance. And so he set out to win her, but he had to work fast, and how does he do it?”
“He brings her books!” Yasopp called back, to howls of laughter, a good-natured heckling that Shanks welcomed with a sweeping bow, and a middle finger to them all.
Meeting her eyes, he grinned, and throwing his hand out, he allowed the galley to answer―
“With his trousers shucked and his cock at full mast!”
“And when she saw it, hoisted proud between his legs, do you know what she said?” he sang, the question once again directed at her, but she was laughing so hard she didn’t look capable of answering, her slender shoulders shaking as Shanks finished, accompanied by the rest of the galley―
"That he better give as good as he got, if what he wanted was head!”
Their cheers nearly drowned out the fiddle, but his voice compelled the noise to yield as he continued, his eyes holding hers as he sang of their many encounters, raiding each other’s ships, and clashing with swords and tongues, the words sometimes leaving it unclear which was actually the case, but underlying it all was a story of paths crossing, by accident and intent, and a pair whose rivalry was only matched by a passion that had eventually seen them pledge themselves to one another.
The bow danced across the strings as the fiddle played, a quick, infectious rhythm that coaxed every pair of hands to join, and half of his crew out of their seats, and grinning, Shanks held out his hand to her.
He saw her eyes flicking to it, before they jumped back to his, the memory of a younger girl in the wideness of her eyes, as dark as the bottom of the ocean.
But then she pursed her lips with a smile, and the girl vanished, leaving his wife, a new gleam entering her eyes as Makino surprised him by tossing back her cup, her gaze holding his captive now as she pushed out of her seat, climbing up on the bench to a deafening roar of approval.
Shanks watched, wide-eyed as she demurely straightened her dress, pushing her braid over her shoulder as she righted her spine to look at him, adorably short where she stood but compelling the whole galley to hold their breaths as she proceeded to sing, in a clear, gentle lilt that carried above the sudden hush with ease―
“And so at last, to Hymen’s song they met, and bound their hands before the Fates; an anchor’s rope around their wrists and their course set to that most perilous of straits. But she pledged to him her sword and crew, and that side by side, they’d set their course anew.”
Their eyes held, the moment suspended, but Shanks didn’t miss a beat, picking up where she left off as he sang to her the last line of the refrain, the timbre of his voice carrying the words with the weight of a promise,
“And to her he vowed in turn, ‘I swear it on the brine: I’ll let no harm befall you, as long as you are mine’.”
He saw her smile where it trembled on her mouth, the hanging lights catching in the glassy sheen of her eyes, and when she blinked, her hand darted up to catch the tears that fell, before her laughter followed, equally helpless.
The refrain came again, as the whole galley picked it up, but this time instead of joining in, Shanks curved his fingers around the back of her neck, bending down as he pulled her in for a kiss, to a deafening response.
Makino was laughing when he broke it, and shrieked when he pulled her into a spin, her footing a little unsteady, but he made sure she didn't fall, dancing to the fiddle as they sang, their hands clapping as the rhythm rose and she turned under the garlands, one small hand in his and the other gripping the skirt of her dress, her dark braid wrapping around her and white petals falling as she spun.
A tug at her hand drew her to his chest, his arm wrapping around her back, and he heard her laughter, winded and lovely where he held her, her small shape enclosed by his arm as he tucked his nose into her neck, until they were just swaying to the fiddle, a gentler rhythm now, accompanied by her heartbeat, and the soft hum that left her as she wrapped her slender arms around him, her bare feet finding purchase atop his.
The singing continued, the refrain once more lifting under the beams, the din churning around them where they stood at the heart of the tempest, swaying to a different beat, his arm holding her and the last line of the refrain murmured into her ear, a promise for her alone, but if he could make her only one, then let it be this.
For I swear it on the brine: I’ll let no harm befall you, as long as you are mine.
―
Their wedding remained a much-talked about event, but their marriage was gentler, and settled quickly into a comfortable dynamic that was at once the same it had always been, and yet with subtle differences. But she loved the little changes, where my girl occasionally became my wife, even as he still favoured the first, but even different designations, the tender inflection when he spoke them was the same, murmured into her ear, or breathed against her skin, a proclamation or an invocation, it didn't matter, because she answered to both.
She loved being married, the everyday business of it, and the little transactions between them, husband and wife―of waking up beside him, before taking the time to wake him, another subtle difference in the way he held her, eased astride his hips, his eyes hooded with sleep but his look claiming, their vows renewed with slow, coaxing breaths as she rode him, bolder than she'd been, but there was something about having another person pledge themselves to you; a certainty that no matter what the world asked of him, there was a part of him that was hers, that nothing could touch. She'd been deferent before, letting him go, afraid to claim too much. Now she looked at that world and thought, defiant, try to take him.
That first year was the happiest she’d ever been, until their son was born, and she’d discovered an entirely new kind of joy, one that made her forget that they were living on borrowed time; that her husband was no ordinary man, and that there were certain expectations that came with being the wife of an Emperor of the Sea. But she'd been prepared to face it, and the things that might be asked of her.
Except this.
“Take it off?”
Surprise lifted her voice, her laugh small and startled, but then she’d been caught off guard by the request, made out of the blue one morning.
The sun was taking its time, rising from its slumber with a lazy stretch across her floors, a slight chill still touching the salt air where she’d thrown the windows open. A thick cover of sea mist draped heavily over the water, soft as chiffon where it crept up the shoreline to the foundations of her bar; a protective shroud veiling her little corner of the world, half-forgotten by the rest.
Shanks had been reading the paper while she got ready to open, a routine they’d created, bit by bit over the months he’d stayed, communicated in touches and gestures―the chairs taken down from the tables while she had her back turned; a cup of coffee placed by his elbow before he could request it―no words needed between them in this first, tender hour, and so she’d been startled when he’d spoken.
She considered him across the counter, the glass she’d been polishing cupped idly between her hands. The look on his face was unusually serious, which told her what he had in mind wasn’t roleplay. Not the kind she would have expected him to suggest, anyway.
Unease crept with a shiver up her back, and she had an inkling already before Shanks said, evenly, “If anyone shows up, I want you to take your ring off. And I’m not talking about Garp, although this is probably the only time he’d agree with me.”
“But I don’t want to take it off,” Makino said, tucking her fingers around the hand that wore it, as though that could somehow keep it there.
She saw his eyes going to it, before they lifted to hers, the barest furrow between his brows betraying a rare tension. “It would be safer.”
“But who’s going to make the connection? It’s not like it has ‘property of Red-Haired Shanks’ inscribed on it.”
His lips didn’t even quirk, which was so jarring her own smile fell. She knew him so well, it was only rarely that he ever responded in a way she didn’t expect, but it was becoming clear to her now that whatever was on his mind, it couldn’t be smoothed over with jokes.
She took in his face, his handsome features arranged in a look she wasn’t used to seeing, a hardness about him that didn’t belong here, on her gentle shores―that belonged to a different sea, one that asked different things of him, things she couldn’t ask, and she hated it now for finding him here, and for infringing on her peace as she’d made it.
Her eyes darted to the paper, open on the counter, wondering if something in it had inspired this change, but seeing the way he looked at her, behind the counter that was the only protection she’d ever needed, Makino knew it wasn’t anything in the news, but something they’d both known had been coming for a while. Ever since he’d come back, it had waited in the wings, a silent patron she could ignore most days, too happy to pay it any mind, but there was no ignoring it now that he’d brought it up.
They’d been holding off discussing his departure, even as she’d known it was bound to catch up with them eventually. But while she’d made her peace with him leaving, knowing he’d come back, the thought of giving up the tangible reminder she had of that promise met resistance now.
She’d spent ten years hinging her hopes on nothing but her memories, trying to convince herself she hadn’t imagined the promise he’d made her. Now they were married, and there was more than words binding them, and even the sea had to respect these vows, spoken on the deck of his ship, no church or mortal court to give their blessing, only that bottomless cathedral, and the ancient authority that had witnessed their union.
She felt the metal of her wedding band, warmed by her fingers. Their rings had been wrought from the chain of the anchor that had first dropped in her port twelve years ago, but it wasn’t sentimental value that made her react so fiercely now, at the thought of parting with it.
She didn’t want to take it off―to pretend she hadn’t made that vow, or that the last two years hadn’t happened. The ring was a declaration of what she was, the only way she could declare it, when the world couldn’t know she existed. She refused to give that up, and to pretend she was anything less than she was, even just for show.
“It’s not like there’s any evidence tracing back to you,” Makino said, when he hadn’t spoken. “We don’t have a marriage certificate in the records that they can dig up.” Ben had been the one to marry them; an old sailor’s tradition, shamelessly borrowed with a pirate’s cheerful contempt of the law; the flowers in her hair new as snow, and the sea their something blue. Unconventional by most standards, but she couldn’t have imagined it any other way.
Shanks wasn’t budging. “It’s just safer if people believe you’re unmarried.”
“The whole village was at our wedding, Shanks. Half of them got blackout drunk, but I think they remember.” Her own memories were blurry at best, flowers crumbling under her bare feet, and laughing as he spun her, a wedding shanty that put their vows to shame, and laughter she could still feel in the bottom of her stomach.
The following hangover, though; that she remembered.
Still no smile, but then she heard how her attempted humour faltered, buckling under his seriousness. She didn’t like what it made of his face; the one she only knew as smiling.
“Not the village,” Shanks said, with a look and a pitch that said he knew she was being obstinate, and that left her breath feeling a little faint. He didn’t use that tone with her often, at least outside of more intimate settings, and she didn’t like it being invoked here, and in this way.
Shifting her weight, she squared her shoulders, all of her five feet brandished against his six and more, although even seated, it didn’t give her an advantage, but she saw the way his brow furrowed, as she said, gently firm, “I’m not taking it off.”
She didn’t know if the look on his face was affection or exasperation. “Can’t you just agree with me on this?”
“No.”
“Makino―”
“If anyone asks, I’ll just say my husband is out working the fields,” she said. “What are they going to do, go out and check? Because I can ask one of the farmers to put up a scarecrow by one of the ploughs.”
Her stubborn levity made no headway, his hardened features untouched, but she didn’t give in, her chin lifted as she stared him down across the countertop.
Then with a sigh, “You’d at least have to pick a believable lie,” Shanks relented, after enduring a full thirty seconds of her eyes. His look softened a bit. “And make it a good-looking scarecrow.”
“It could be asleep at the plough,” Makino suggested. “If we’re going for accuracy.” Her smile trembled, before it fell when he didn’t return it.
It was hard to swallow past the knot in her throat, and she heard it in her voice when she said, “I’ll tell them you’re out fishing.”
“And if they stick around and I never come in?”
“I’ll tell them I hope the sea king didn’t get you?”
This time she couldn’t even attempt a smile, and when his expression still didn’t change, she said, without teasing, “Then I’ll tell them you’re in Goa Port picking up a shipment of spirits. You’re a barkeep, but it’s hard getting orders delivered here. It’s a long way to Goa, too. You’ll be gone until tomorrow, at the earliest.”
“And if they come back and I’m still not around?”
She might have made another suggestion, but recognised from the stubborn set of his jaw that he wasn’t backing down.
His face changed then, something like regret chasing across it, there before it was gone, and she didn’t understand why before Shanks said, with a heaviness that held an almost portentous note, “Say that you’re a widow.”
She was surprised by the forcefulness of her own reaction.
“No.”
He sighed. “Makino―”
“No,” she repeated, fiercely. “I won’t.”
She saw that she wasn’t the only one surprised by her reaction. And she didn’t even know why it hit her so hard. She couldn’t claim to be particularly superstitious. Her mother had been too practical for superstition, but she’d also respected the sea; they all did here, who lived their lives beside it. It was a more pragmatic relationship than a sailor might devote himself to, which often had an air of fancy about it, but even if they didn’t read omens from the sky or pray to any gods, there was an implicit understanding among them that you didn’t challenge those forces lightly. They were thankful for fair weather and a good catch, but they didn’t invoke the Fates here, or seek to challenge them.
But the man seated across the counter from her had the authority to do that; the one who’d carved a place for himself on a sea most never lived to sail, one of few who could claim the kind of power it took to challenge that old authority.
She wasn’t like him. She knew what was owed; a debt she’d been paying for twelve years, for wanting him. She didn’t want to invoke that word, the fate that was all too common for those who gave their hearts to sailors, in case she invoked prophecy along with it.
Putting away the glass, Makino pressed her palms over the polished countertop. She saw how they shook, and the still-new gleam of her wedding ring where it circled her finger, but then she hadn’t been wearing it long enough for it to get scratches.
She didn’t want that to be their marriage, taken off when the going got tough, forever keeping its shiny new exterior. She wanted it to show signs of wear, of work, and love―of actually being a marriage, and not just when it was convenient, or safe.
“I’m your wife,” she said gently, although the fervour behind it refused to bend against her own fears. “I want to be your wife, even if I’m here and you’re not―”
The words faltered on her tongue, but then there was a reason she’d been avoiding thinking about him leaving.
Shanks’ look softened, some of the tension in his brow yielding as he said, understanding, “The ring isn’t what makes you my wife.”
“I know that,” Makino said softly. Turning her hand, she gripped his fingers. He wore his ring now, but she knew he wouldn’t take the risk when he left. But she understood that, even if part of her rebelled against doing the same. “It’s not like I don’t understand where you’re coming from. I know it’s a risk. What I’m saying is that I’m willing to take it.” To be what she was, she’d accept the danger that came with it. That was what she'd vowed that day, to the sea and the salt wind, and to him. Not empty platitudes about sickness and health, only the simple, unembellished truth.
Shanks said nothing, his gaze on their hands, but the look in his eyes like he wasn’t seeing a ring but a shackle, and a different kind of prophecy than the one she feared.
She decided to try a different tactic.
“If pretending is what you want me to do, I could always get someone from Dadan’s family to stand in as my husband,” Makino said, and saw him look up, the slightest tightening at the corners of his eyes betraying his otherwise unreadable expression.
Turning his hand over between her own, she traced the sword-callouses in his palm, the softer pads of her fingers catching against the rougher skin. “Magra, maybe,” she continued, and watched the barest flex of his fingers. “I’ve heard he’s quite handy. We could tell people we met when he helped me carry a keg from the storeroom.” Lifting her eyes found him watching her, but she only met his gaze calmly, as she asked him, “What do you think? Would he make me a good stand-in husband?”
His eyes held hers, her gentle challenge noted, the look in them somewhere between knowing and warning, and this time it sent an entirely different kind of shiver racing up her spine.
Undeterred, she lowered her eyes to their hands, smoothing her thumb over his knuckles, pale under his sun-darkened skin. “Maybe he could help me out around the bar. To keep up appearances.”
Flicking her eyes up to his, she went in for the kill. “He could even stay in the guest room. Just to be safe.”
His whole look darkened, and her stomach did a thrilling little flip.
“Don’t like that idea, hmm?” she asked, and tried to pretend her voice didn’t shiver, but it was hard when he was looking at her like that. “Me with someone else.” She trailed her fingertips across the back of his hand, her own so small she couldn’t even cover half of it with all her fingers splayed. “A different man in my house.” A fleeting caress to his wrist felt the tendons in his forearm, pulled taut with a strain that left her feeling suddenly short of breath, even as she said, demure, “And my pantry.”
“You’re playing a very dangerous game, wife.”
The pitch of his voice had goosebumps pebbling her flesh, his naturally deep timbre touched with a note of warning that stirred something deep within her, although she couldn’t tell which was the fiercer feeling, desire or relief, finding her cheek finally parried with something other than that hard expression that couldn’t be coaxed into yielding, no matter how gentle her touches.
“Well,” Makino said, and even teasing, the sincerity was real when she told him softly, her small hand gripping his, mapped with the evidence of his life, their marriage included, “I don’t mind a little danger.”
Then, this time without teasing, “I married you,” she said, and didn’t care that her voice trembled now. She wasn’t hiding her feelings. “And I’ll be careful, but I won’t hide what I am, or pretend that I’m something else. Or someone else’s.”
Bearing the weight of his eyes, she didn’t shy away from them, or from the truth as she spoke it.
“I’m yours,” she told him, fiercely, and felt the way his hand tightened under hers. “And if they come here and they already know about me, nothing I say or do will change their minds. The ring won’t matter. And there are things I can’t hide that easily.”
She glanced towards the crib behind the counter; the one they’d fashioned out of an old barrel of their captain’s favourite whiskey. She’d found the gesture both characteristically inappropriate and undeniably perfect, but then she’d spent her first years sleeping in a liquor crate while her mother worked. And their child wasn’t just the son of a pirate; he was the son of a barmaid, too.
She saw Shanks’ gaze going to it, and the baby sleeping within. And it was more than her lack of protection that weighed on him, she knew, but as long as he was who he was, there would be a risk in being associated with him. Even retiring wouldn’t change what he’d been. Not in the eyes of the current Fleet Admiral, anyway.
And since it wasn’t something either of them could change, she was determined to make the best of the situation, but then she was good at that.
She thought it was time to remind him just how good.
It was still a little while before they were due to open, and smiling, “You could always help me practice my ruse,” Makino suggested, and saw his brows lifting, bemusement at what she had planned easing some of the tension from his features.
Leaning across the counter, she trailed her fingers along his wrist, following the contours of his arm, and the distracting tautness of corded muscle under her fingertips, “My husband isn’t here, officer,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. “It’s just me: a very lonely barmaid with a very spacious pantry.”
Her face fell when he pinched his lips, before his grin shattered his whole composure, and, “Wait,” she said, drawing back to stutter, “That sounded better in my head. What I meant was that―”
A broad hand reached around the back of her neck, pulling her in for a kiss that stole what she’d been about to say, and muffling her startled laugh, although his own was quick to follow, deep and rough where it rose from his chest, the kiss breaking when he couldn’t contain his grin.
Drawing back enough to look at her, he sighed, rough fingers slipping from her neck to tuck her hair behind her ear. “God, you’re terrible at this,” Shanks said, with such a fierce affection, her heart constricted. “Completely unconvincing.”
Balancing on her toes, the edge of the counter dug into her ribs, but the discomfort was fleeting and unimportant. Her smile trembled on her mouth, inches from his, his beard brushing her jaw as she murmured, “I know.”
Closing her eyes, she kissed him softly, her hands cupping his face, no pretence this time, only the honest truth, offered with all of herself, the only way she knew how.
He’d moved before she could react, the kiss breaking only for a second, and she’d barely had time to catch her breath when his mouth claimed hers again, his arm wrapping around her as he pushed her back towards the storeroom, and the door where it sat ajar.
They stumbled over the doorstep, fumbling between sloppy kisses, like they were in that moment younger people with less to lose, her little laughing shriek muffled against his lips when he hoisted her up onto the shelf where her ledger lay open, and she couldn’t contain her giggles even as he shushed her through grinning kisses, knowing from experience how little it took to rouse a three-month old baby but unable to help herself, something wild and reckless pushing like wings against her ribcage, refusing to stay hidden, wanting out, fearless in its desire, and its will to claim it.
They hadn’t brought a lantern, and the light hadn’t reached this far into her bar, the storeroom cool and dark and the heavy shelves keeping her spirits and secrets, the crates digging into her back as he pinned her to them.
“This is very rakish behaviour for a married woman,” Shanks rumbled, releasing her from the kiss, her breath hitching when his hand wrapped around her thigh, pushing her skirt out of the way. “Someone might mistake you for a pirate.”
Makino hummed, finding her balance on the shelf, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck as she swung her legs, her boots and stockings impishly bared, and saw how it drew his eyes, before she eased them apart, her smile small and demure, and utterly unconvincing. “Imagine that.”
His eyes held her, his features darkened by the shadows of her pantry, making his scars look more pronounced, but the look beneath was gentle as Shanks touched his brow to hers. His thumb traced the hem of her stocking, and the glimpse of bare skin beneath her skirt where he’d pushed it up.
The feeling from before seized her, that fearless thing, like wings waiting under her skin. And maybe it was easy to be brave here, within the walls of her pantry where it felt like nothing could touch them, but even knowing differently didn’t change what she felt, as Makino told him, soft, “Ask me again.”
His look changed, a sudden intensity in it that made her glad she was sitting, but she didn’t look away, accepting the full weight of the truth behind it, unfearing of what it meant to be loved like that, and by someone like him.
Bending his head, his mouth covered hers firmly, stuttering her breath with a gasp, a command behind it that left her hands shaking where she’d curled them around his neck, and if she’d had any more clever remarks prepared about stand-in husbands or navy officers, they fled her mind now as she melted.
The big hand around her thigh tightened its grip, his wedding ring digging into her skin, as though he could imprint something that couldn’t be taken off or hidden, that was written on her skin, on her soul, and if she could have formed the words, she might have told him he already had, but they were lost when his hand slid up her thigh to part her legs, finding her with a shuddering breath that she felt in the way it left him.
And this was another unspoken language they’d made, communicated in touches―her legs parting to him in welcome, and his hand pausing, his fingers already half inside her, asking; her breath hitching as she lifted herself up to kiss him deeper, her hands threading through his hair as she gave herself, a silent affirmation that told him to take―no words needed as he entered her, carefully even if it had been months since their son, but she appreciated the restraint he showed, even with all of him unravelling under her hands, that iron-clad control included.
Her legs wrapping around his waist pulled him deeper, her gasp stuttering with a faint little plea as he filled her to her limit. And if she hoped he’d leave something in her it was a private thought, begged with her breaths as she took him inside her, each thrust a little harder, the bottles stirring in their crates as the shelf creaked, a steady rhythm growing in tandem with her gasps.
Her hands left his jaw, fumbling with the front of her stays as she slipped loose the little hooks until it popped open, and he was already reaching for her, his fingers a shock of warmth where they slipped past the low cut of her blouse to cup one of her breasts, tiny in his hand, his sword-calluses rough where he caressed it, and her shivering moan was well received, from the deeper groan that left him, as Shanks slowed his pace, touching her as he took her, until the shelves were rattling.
Bending down, he kissed her chest, his lips seeking the wide valley between her breasts, her flushed skin pearling with sweat. His beard scuffed her breast as he pulled it free, and she gasped, arching against the shelf as he curled his tongue around a painfully sensitive nipple, her lips parting over his name where it left her in a whimper.
He came like that, her skirt shoved up her hips and her silk stockings slipping down her legs, spread to him where she sat, the pages of her ledger crumpled and damp beneath her; the stereotype of the lascivious tavern wench, but she embraced it now, shockingly indulgent in her own lewdness, watching him as he finished with deep, pulsing shudders, a groan leaving him that had her toes curling in her boots.
His eyes slitted open, the grey steel muted, but even then his full attention was arresting; a single look enough to dismiss everything else in the world, as though she was the only thing in it.
She watched as they swept across her, her breasts bared to the air and her thighs spread, his cock still inside her, but she didn’t squirm or try to hide, only allowed him to see.
Bending forward, Shanks kissed the parting of her hair, his breath winded as he leaned some of his weight on her. His knuckles brushed her cheek, catching the tears that had spilled over without her notice. His ring was cool against her skin; wrapping around the back of her neck, she felt how they shook.
Carding her fingers through his hair, she felt him exhale, but he didn’t let her go, just held her like that, the protective frame of his body between her and the door, hiding her from view, and nothing could have touched her there, in that moment.
His fingers trailed down the dip between her shoulder blades. Her blouse clung to her skin, the air within the storeroom damp and smelling of them, but she couldn’t even worry that someone would stumble across them, although had enough presence of mind to think that she should probably fix herself up before their first customers arrived, but was distracted by the deep chuckle that left him, and his voice where it rumbled into her skin,
“Where’s your husband now, barmaid?”
Her laugh trembled, and her arms tightened around his neck, pulling him closer and pressing her nose into the hollow of his throat. She loved him like this, freed of worry, if only for a little while. And that was her power; the only one she could claim, but it wasn’t a small thing in this age, to command peace.
And she knew how he expected her to react, because he knew her better than anyone, and never let an opportunity to make her flustered pass him by.
But she knew him, too, and like him, she knew exactly how to nudge him off balance. Which was why she said, demure as anything, “He’s ploughing his wife.”
She felt the hand on her neck pausing, the slight stiffening in him betraying his surprise, before his shoulders convulsed, as Shanks bent forward with a laugh.
The sound filled her, loud and lovely, but a softness about it that was hers, that tender, half-winded thing. She thought the whole village had to hear it, and that it would wake the baby, but she didn’t care, her own laughter helpless, hearing his, and feeling the way his arm tightened around her, which said more than any other gesture or word, even as Shanks murmured roughly, “I love you.”
Cupping his face with her hands, she pressed her forehead against his. “It will be okay,” Makino said, and didn’t care that she couldn’t make that promise; that there were other forces that wanted their say. But she wouldn’t hide from her choices, and him least of all. “You’ll see.”
Shanks said nothing, only held her, but he didn’t disagree this time, which she counted as a small victory, and it was what gave her the courage to quip, “And if anyone asks, I’ll tell them my husband can’t be held down. His heart belongs to the sea. It’s just the way things are, in this day and age.”
His eyes found hers. In the dim light, they looked darker, but she knew the look in them, and like the laugh, that was hers, too. “I thought we agreed that we were going for accuracy,” Shanks said. A tender smile slanted his mouth, as he told her roughly, “And that you’re a terrible liar.”
Her grin couldn’t be contained, splitting her face, wide and without shame, and his.
The sound of the bat-wing doors swinging open reached them, followed by their first customers arriving, and her grin fell as horror widened her eyes, before she scrambled to pull her stays closed.
A voice from the bar drifted through the door―“Huh? Where’s Makino-chan?”
“That’s odd,” said another, as her mortification deepened, recognising one of her mother’s oldest patrons; a man who’d seen her toddle around in diapers. “Red-Hair’s not here, either. They’re usually open by now.”
Shanks’ grin grew, and she saw the punishment for her disobedience in the gleam in his eyes, and hissed, “Shanks, no―”
But she wasn’t quick enough, as he turned his head towards the door to call out, “She’s coming! Or she will be.” And before her horror could fully sink in, added brightly, “Just give me a few minutes to finish; I want to make sure she does.”
Her hands clapping over his mouth didn’t succeed in muffling his laughter, but then even her embarrassment couldn’t hold out against the grin that split his face now, which held no trace of his earlier seriousness, as he nipped and kissed her fingers until her mortification dissolved with her laughter.
When they emerged a few minutes later, after she’d blankly refused to let him get her off first (although had agreed to revisiting it after closing), it was to find their regulars waiting, knowing looks exchanged above poorly-stifled grins as she with every ounce of prim dignity she possessed asked them if they wanted their usual, all the while ignoring Shanks’ eyes following her as she made her way between the tables. Although having taken their orders, she caught the fond murmur as she made for the bar―
“Married life suits her, doesn’t it?”
“Aye, it does. Shame Em ain’t here to see it.”
Her smile ruined her prim composure, but she claimed it for herself, and kept her chin high as she walked to the bar where Shanks was waiting, leaning back against the kegs.
“What?” he asked, when she reached him, lifting up on her toes to steal a kiss; not something she usually did, shy about public displays, unlike him, and relished in his surprise at her brazenness, shaping his grin, a gentler thing than in the storeroom earlier.
Her own smile was small, as she lowered back on her heels, her head tipped back to look up at him, noting the dish-towel slung over his shoulder, a different kind of captain, with no sea underfoot, but a captain still.
“Nothing,” Makino said, before reciting, “One egg over easy, and―”
“―one sunny-side up, hash browns on the side of both, and a single serving of bacon, because old man Nakamura is watching his cholesterol.”
At her look of surprise, he only smiled, and bent his head to kiss her once, before he made for the kitchen, a grin thrown over his shoulder, leaving her staring after him, and wondering how he could have ever expected her to pretend to be the person she’d been before him.
The doors swinging open drew her gaze to his crew, and her smile blossomed as they greeted her, loudly and cheerfully. And there was no doubt in their minds what she was, catching their cheeky bows and tipped hats, but she didn’t shy from their reverence where it named her, and more clearly than any ring or vow.
“Hey, where’s that husband of yours?” Yasopp asked her, when she appeared at their table to take their orders. Someone had given him the baby, awake and peering up at all the faces around him. Yasopp made a face at him, and when he got a gummy little smile, asked him in a sing-song voice, “What’s his name again?”
“Keeps slipping my mind,” Ben agreed, grinning around his toothpick.
“Wait, who are we talking about?”
“Makino’s husband.”
“Oh, right! That guy.”
The others joined in, feigning forgetfulness, their laughter growing in volume, until there was nothing left of the quiet morning, dissolving like the sea mist as the sun claimed its seat in the sky.
Her playful look warned them, although her smile indulged their cheeky insubordination, knowing well just how far it was from the truth. Because she could imagine their reactions to the suggestion, however teasingly made, about a stand-in husband in their captain’s absence, endearingly protective, and not just of her. She would spare poor Magra that.
“He’s here,” Makino said, and heard in the words the fleeting truth, but didn’t care if she wouldn’t be able to say the same a month from now, or two. He’d be home again soon, with the tide. They all would.
Emerging from the kitchen, Shanks took one look at the room and stopped, a different kind of concern furrowing his brow now as every grin within turned towards him. “What did I miss?”
Coming over to where she was standing, he put the tray he was carrying on the table. The look he gave her said he had his suspicions, and that her innocent smile was fooling no one.
Then a gleam entered his eyes, and Makino knew she was in trouble even before he chirped, “Did you tell them about your plan to get a stand-in husband in my absence?”
Their grins fell, and Makino closed her eyes.
Poor Magra.
“A what?!”
―
She didn’t end up getting a stand-in, but she didn’t take the ring off, either―a small act of rebellion, but it was the only thing she could do in opposition to the system that governed their world, and the laws that would punish her for her choices. And maybe there was a little pride there, too, but then loving him was her greatest crime, and she’d accept all charges against her, pleading guilty to whatever court would see her put on trial, mortal or otherwise. Those were her wedding vows, too; the ones she hadn’t spoken aloud to him.
Her bar saw the occasional new visitor, on their way to Goa or further still, who’d seen the lights from afar and decided to have a look, but there was only one who asked about the ring, and who didn’t bat an eye when she told him her husband was currently across the island signing off on a shipment. He’d only remarked positively on their bar, and said that no tavern in Goa Port he’d been to had been as hospitable.
(She hadn’t questioned his manners, unfailingly good, almost military-like; hadn’t looked closely enough at the set of his shoulders, that proud bearing she’d known since childhood, from the grizzled marine who’d ruffle her hair until her kerchief sat askew and who’d sneak her gifts behind her mother’s back.)
Garp would have seen through him, she would realise later, but she’d been so busy trying to keep up appearances, she’d forgotten to question if her visitor was doing the same.
She was getting ready to open―had just finished lifting the chairs off the tables and had gone into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee when she remembered it wasn’t necessary, and had instead gone to wring out the rag to wipe down the counter when she heard the bat-wing doors swinging inwards.
Ace was asleep in his crib, safe under the counter behind the curtain she’d pulled closed, and she didn’t pause at her early visitor, as emerging from the kitchen, she called out, forgetting for a moment that she was alone, the we invoked so easily, even weeks after he’d left, “I’m sorry, but we’re not open yet―”
The words cut off, as she came to a halt.
She could smell the cigar smoke from across the room, the butt smouldering like the embers in her hearth, an almost unnatural glow in its burning eye where it fastened on her like a brand.
The white coat was the first thing she noticed, but she would have recognised him even out of uniform, the straight shoulders and the flower tattoo peeking out from under his shirt, the garishly patterned kind that reminded her of Garp, but that was where their similarities ended.
He was flanked by two officers, their caps pulled low over their brows, but she recognised the one on the left, dark-haired and dimpled and refusing to meet her eyes, his hands white-knuckled around the rifle he was holding. He’d loved her cooking so much he’d asked for a fourth helping; had said it reminded him of his sister’s, who he hadn’t seen in years.
The Fleet Admiral took her in, a single sweep of his eyes across her announcing his feelings, something far more personal than simple contempt in the furrow of his brow. Judge, jury, and executioner; he’d already decided her charges, and what her punishment would be, for the choices she’d made. The only crime she’d committed, but for a man like him, it was enough.
And she’d been right. In the end, the ring hadn’t mattered.
“Arrest her.”