Work Text:
Shanks had stood before him, with an arm and a hat less, and yet there had been a fire in his eyes that Rayleigh hadn’t seen burning in roughly a decade.
“Ah, Rayleigh-san! It was a real shock. There was a kid in East Blue who said the same thing Captain Roger did!”
Rayleigh can’t help but answer the bright smile with one of his own, even if a thread of doubt weaves through his brain.
Shanks is anything but stupid, Rayleigh knows, even if he’s also aware that Buggy is able to make him bicker like the two are still twelve year old. Smart as he might be, however, grief leaves his mark, and the boy who had owed everything to his captain, hat included, had taken it the hardest when Roger died.
For a second, as he looks into Shanks’s eyes, Rayleigh is taken back to before. Before the Rogers pirates even disbanded, before Roger gave himself up to die on stage, instead of laying down in a bed like he otherwise would have. Roger had understood showmanship, had understood the power of sending a message, and most of all had understood the hearts of people. Rayleigh hadn’t had a single doubt back then, when his captain had placed his old straw hat on Shanks’s head. A promise of a future, whatever Shanks would make of it.
But that was then, and this is now, and Roger is dead and Shanks- Shanks has grown up and given his hat away along with his sword arm and Rayleigh is worried, but can’t help but hope that he’s right. He’s not sure what he’ll do if Shanks is wrong about this.
Looking at the man, fire in his eyes shining even brighter than his hair, he dares to hope, just a little bit. Because Roger’s final words sparked a flame in a lot of people, even if it extinguished it in some others, and to see it reignited like this-
Silvers Rayleigh was a good first mate, but that era has come and gone. As he invites Shanks in for another drink, taking note of the way the man’s balance has shifted to compensate for the missing arm, he knows that there’s a chance he will never see that straw hat again. But if he does? They’re not gonna know what ever hit them.
He has almost forgotten it, years later.
Almost, because on the dark nights where he can’t sleep, where even retired old men can’t do whatever they want, stuck in a past he can’t return to and a future he won’t be a part of, when even Shakky has gone to bed and left him to his thoughts, he can’t help but worry on that thread of doubt again.
Shanks is smart, yes, but he also has a weak spot for a pretty smile and a laughing pair of eyes, and he’s always been kind to kids. Always willing to give a chance the way he was offered one himself. Rayleigh can’t help but worry- not every kid who dreams of being a pirate turns out to become one, and even less become great ones. And he wants to trust him, wants to trust the boy who took that straw hat and ran with it, became a captain of his own with it, but surely- if a straw hat is all it takes, Shanks wouldn’t be fighting to keep his position as Emperor right now, would he?
The first time, Shakky is waiting by the door of her bar when he comes home. He pauses a few feet away, taking in the subtle but unmistakable amusement on her face.
“What’s this then, have you finally decided to kick me out?” He grins at her, even as she ignores his words to take a drag from her cigarette.
“The newspaper is on the counter, Ray-san. It’d do you well to read it.”
Rayleigh quirks an eyebrow at that, before stepping past her to get inside. For a moment, he’s worried, because it’s no ordinary day if Shakky is waiting for him outside the door, instead of behind the bar, but he also knows her well enough to see the glint in her eye isn’t one of fear. So he takes a seat and grabs the recently delivered newspaper to figure out what has made his wife so amused, as she follows him and steps around the bar to grab him something to drink.
At first glance, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary in the newspaper. The Revolutionary Army is continuing its work, Morgan continues his love-hate relationship with the Germa Kingdom, and in East Blue a marine base has apparently cleaned up their act and saved some villages from a pirate crew.
In East Blue some villages were saved from a pirate crew.
East Blue.
He looks up for a second, glasses glinting in the light as he makes eye-contact with Shakky, who just smiles and nods back towards the paper. Rayleigh grips it in his hands, ready to file through it more, when the bounty posters stuck between the pages shift, and he can feel Shakky’s laugh when he sees that familiar hat once more.
It’s a respectable amount for his bounty, Rayleigh supposes, especially for one just starting out in East Blue, but the number isn’t what catches his eye.
The hat and the smile feel like a punch in his chest, and it’s not even Shanks that his mind goes back to. For a split second, he’s not in Shakky’s bar at all anymore, but laying outstretched on that first little boat he’d stolen, and looking at a boy with a grin who knew he was going to change the world, even if Rayleigh didn’t yet.
Shanks didn’t know, couldn’t have known, how much the boy looks like Roger. Aside from the one unfortunate incident that had left Roger without his moustache for a month, Shanks had never seen the way the man had been before he’d been Captain. And yet-
He thinks back again, to that fateful day when Shanks came and told him of the boy who would be the king of pirates. And while Monkey D. Luffy still has a long way to go, Rayleigh knows the boy is going to go further than anyone could imagine.
Rayleigh gets a closer look at that same (familiar) loyalty-inspiring recklessness when it bursts in through the roof of the auction house some time later, and if there’s any doubts he had left about the kid’s fate, they’re gone quicker than the marines are after the boy (and he’s still a boy, isn’t he? Not quite the king yet.) teams up with the other two supernovas.
Rayleigh can’t help him in Marineford.
He’s retired, he’s always told others. Has always told himself. It’s why he kept away from the big events. It’s why he never looked for Roger’s boy. Whitebeard’s boy.
That doesn’t make it hurt any less to watch the boy die in Marineford, but it does awaken a certain resolve in him.
Shanks gave his arm and his hat for Luffy to become Pirate King. Ace gave him his life.
Roger is gone, but his legacy lies in this boy. Rayleigh is retired, but retired old men can do whatever they want. And Rayleigh wants to make sure Roger’s legacy wasn’t for nothing.
Shakky can tell, he knows, when he returns after the broadcast. They don’t need to exchange words, and he barely even needs to pack. The path to Amazon Lily is long, but not unfamiliar, and it almost feels like different memories overlapping as he arrives on the island. The place he once stole (Shakky would have his head for the word choice) his love from, except now he’s here to help out a boy who might as well have been his captain in a previous life.
Only those in the present can shape the new age, however, and so in the present Rayleigh grounds himself.
Luffy is stubborn, and free, and hurt, but Rayleigh has seen it all before. A different life, a different age, but a same flame in those eyes, a same grin on his face.
At some point, sitting next to the fire, looking into the flames next to the exhausted boy who is passed out but with few bruises to speak of, (and don’t tell Roger that, but Rayleigh swears the boy learnt faster than his captain did) he thinks it all over again. It’s been a long time, and it has become difficult to remember that shred of doubt in his heart.
It’s not doubt anymore, Rayleigh thinks, ignoring the snores next to him. It’s hope, and fear, and gratitude.
He’s happy to play his part, small as it is, but the rest Luffy will need to do by himself.
Rayleigh is wrong.
He won’t admit it to anyone else, although Shakky might figure it out anyways, because few things escape his wife’s knowledge, but he can admit it to himself, when he sees the Sunny finally depart.
He feels quite foolish, for missing it, especially considering his previous role, but Luffy isn’t alone. Won’t be alone.
Looking on as the Pirate King-to-be greets his crewmates, Rayleigh knows this age won’t be like the last one. He’s also pretty sure if Luffy tried to disband his crew and hand himself over to the marines, they’d bust him right back out. He’s too old to feel envy at the thought.
It’s a new age, and a new king is coming, and all Rayleigh can do is hope it’s the boy carrying Roger’s legacy on his head and in his heart.
When Shanks asks, Rayleigh never doubted him for even a second.