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At God Valley, Roger proves to everyone who the true ruler of the sea is. While Garp is handling Kaido and Linlin, and Rayleigh is handling Whitebeard and Shiki, Roger cuts Rocks clean in half with an explosion of haki like nothing anyone has ever seen. It’s so powerful that it bisects the entire island and turns the whole sky black. The haki floors them all, sends everyone to their knees. And then, the subsequent sinking of the two halves of God Valley sends them all scrambling for the shore where their ships are bobbing in the tumultuous waves. Rocks’ crew instantly disbands and goes their separate ways, not one single farewell to each other in their mad rush to escape Roger’s indomitable power. The marines flee, too, despite Garp’s earlier threats to take Roger down after Rocks had been dealt with. He’s a thug, but he’s not a fool. No one can touch Roger now.
As the Oro Jackson pulls out of the bay, raindrops start speckling Rayleigh’s face. One trickles down his cheek onto his lip, and when he swipes it up with his tongue, it tastes like Roger’s sweat.
They take off into the forbidding blackness of a dense haki-fueled thunderstorm over the open sea, white-capped waves tossing the boat from side to side with increasing ferocity as the minutes pass. Rayleigh is trying to stay focused and assess who of their crew has been wounded in the battle, what needs to be done, but he can’t tear his eyes away from either the sky or from Roger. The captain is hanging off the starboard side of the ship, one arm holding the rigging, the other spread wide to catch the salty spray of the water. The fierce wind is whipping his black hair, and his eyes are glowing red. The inky storm clouds overhead are also tinged with the same red glow, and occasionally, red lightning flashes. It’s him, it’s all him, all his legendary haoshoku. And it only seems to be getting fiercer. Rayleigh can’t help but grin as he watches it all.
By the time what’s left of God Valley has sunk beneath the waves, the storm is throwing the ship around like a toy in a bathtub and the waves are high enough to crash over the main deck. The wind is so strong that Rayleigh can’t take a breath when he’s facing it, and most other people can’t even stand because the weight of Roger’s haki is so heavy in the air. Some of their crew are puking over the side of the ship from the force of it. Rayleigh is the only one who’s handling it fine; he can certainly feel the power crackling in the air, but rather than sending him to his knees, it’s making his heart pound. He’s invigorated by it. He loves it.
They’ve never been entirely certain why Roger’s haoshoku affects Rayleigh the way it does. Rayleigh is a powerful haoshoku user himself, which of course gives him an innate ability to withstand the haoshoku of others, but it’s more than that. Roger’s haoshoku thrills him. It doesn't feel oppressive or burdensome like it should. Roger has never been able to compel Rayleigh to do anything through haoshoku, because to Rayleigh, it doesn’t feel commanding in the slightest. Roger’s haoshoku is completely ineffective against him; the only tangible effect it produces is excitement. Rayleigh has a sneaking suspicion it all has something to do with the blood oath they swore to each other in their early twenties, in which they promised to remain loyal to one another until death. Perhaps Roger, on some subconscious level, is incapable of violating that oath by turning haoshoku on Rayleigh, even in the most playful or accidental of ways. Because it goes both ways—Rayleigh’s haki doesn’t work on him, either.
But musing on the psychological undergirding of their power over each other (or lack thereof) really needs to wait for another day. Right now, Roger is brewing a literal typhoon with willpower alone.
“We’re gonna sink!” Gaban shouts to Rayleigh over the cacophony of noise. Rayleigh can barely see him through the pelting rain, and they’re right next to each other. “You gotta get him to chill out!”
Rayleigh looks again at Roger, still joyriding on the starboard rail. He’s got the old, familiar grin on his face, but he looks like a stranger—he has become a god of the seas, powerful as the deepest ocean, Neptune in the flesh. And like an ancient god, his frivolities are probably going to start killing mortals if Rayleigh doesn’t do something. Gaban is right, Roger needs a distraction, an outlet for all his unbelievable power and energy.
Rayleigh smirks. His heart starts pounding even harder when an idea pops into his head.
“Leave it to me.”
He marches across the deck, takes hold of the rigging rope, and climbs around to the opposite side where Roger is, perched over the water. Roger doesn’t notice him at first—he’s staring straight ahead at the horizon—but Rayleigh gets his attention by sidling up close behind him and pressing his lips to Roger’s ear.
“Hey,” is all he says.
Roger immediately turns full-body to face him. His grin widens. “Hey!”
“You need to calm down, big boy,” Rayleigh continues. It comes out more amused than stern, because Rayleigh is having too much fun watching Roger in this ecstatic state.
“I can’t!” Roger shouts gleefully. He leans way back so that the rain can fall right onto his face and shakes his head wildly like a dog.
Rayleigh takes the opportunity to slip under one of Roger’s arms so that he’s standing right in front of him on the ropes. He leans forward a bit, holding fast to the rigging behind him, and gives Roger a sultry smile. Roger snaps to attention right away; in this ultra-powerful state, with his haoshoku going wild, having Rayleigh captive between his arms is clearly appealing to him.
“I could help you work off that extra energy,” Rayleigh murmurs.
Roger’s eyes flash red with a burst of haki and the wind howls. Oh, Roger likes that idea, as Rayleigh expected he would. He makes a mental apology to the rest of the crew as he leans in to kiss Roger passionately. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, it seems. When their tongues touch, the waves toss the ship so hard he hears the masts creaking in agony. Alright, alright, he needs to move this along before time runs out. He breaks the kiss and pulls away.
Roger tilts towards him like he’s drunk, chasing after Rayleigh’s mouth, but Rayleigh evades him with a teasing smile. Roger pouts at being denied, and the pressure of the suffocating haoshoku in the air gets even heavier; at this point, crew members are probably passing out from the intensity. Rayleigh himself is quivering under the force, but for different reasons.
He’s about to turn and climb back onto the deck, but then Roger seizes him by the waist with one arm and leans in again. It’s an assertive move, a demanding move, the move of a conqueror. Roger kisses him like a dying man in a desert, scorchingly hot, ferocious with hunger. The taste of his mouth, oh god, Rayleigh’s head is swimming—he stupidly lets go of the rigging completely to wind his arms around Roger’s shoulders, and then it’s just Roger’s one arm keeping them both from plummeting down into the churning water below. Rayleigh isn’t afraid, though—so what if Neptune falls into the sea? They’re in no danger.
He eventually manages to get a grip of his own sanity for long enough to push Roger away for a second time and gasp for air.
“Come on, then,” he goads, and twists out of Roger’s embrace to clamber back onto the deck. He sprints for their room. He doesn’t look to see if Roger is following him, but he knows that he is. Of course he is.
They tumble onto their bed in a tangle of limbs, and Roger’s haki is like a heartbeat throbbing in the confined space of the cabin. Rayleigh loves it, fuck, the air tastes like Roger, everything smells like him, and it’s making Rayleigh drunk. Take, take, take pulses in the space around them, and Rayleigh can barely fucking breathe. Roger is kissing him, yanking at his clothes, hurry up, get naked— and in a fit of desperate passion, Rayleigh twists around so he’s on his hands and knees underneath Roger. Roger groans, and he grabs the fabric of Rayleigh’s pants and rips them straight off his body, as easy for him as tearing paper. Rayleigh gasps.
“Fuck me, now !”
The pleasure is unreal. Sex with Roger is always good, but this time, it’s mythical. Rayleigh melts like butter under Roger’s haoshoku, face down in the blankets, drunk on the waves of haki washing over him. It feels so good he can’t speak, can’t breathe—all he can do is lay there and take it, moan and gasp helplessly as Roger holds him down and thrusts into him. Roger wants it to be good, and so it is. More than good. Rayleigh is seeing stars. Distantly, he can hear the typhoon raging outside, getting more and more ferocious the closer Roger gets to climax, but he just doesn’t care, can’t possibly care, he’s doing all he can to stop it anyways, he doesn’t care, he just wants Roger on him, in him.
Roger’s groan is loud when he comes, but not as loud as the deafening rumble of thunder that follows. There’s one final crash of waves into the ship, so powerful that it sends them both tumbling off the bed and onto the floor, and then everything suddenly becomes calm. The howling of the wind dies down, the torrential rain thins to a light sprinkle, and the weight of haki in the air dissipates. Rayleigh gasps from the sudden lack of pressure on his lungs. The fog in his head clears, and he realizes he came, too, at least once, but from the look of the all the jizz splattered across his own stomach, probably more like two or three times. He heaves a big sigh of relief and melts into Roger’s embrace, tangled in blankets and with the corner of the nightstand jabbing into his shoulder.
Roger sleepily nuzzles the side of his neck.
“Mmm, my love…,” he murmurs. “What would I do without you?”
“You and everyone else would be drowning at the bottom of the ocean right now, probably.”
Roger gives him a tender kiss.
When they eventually emerge from the captain’s quarters, with fresh clothes and newly-combed hair, the sun is beginning to peek through the seams of the clouds overhead and people are wringing the rain out of their shirts while they chatter. The ship has all but stopped rocking. Gaban comes over and claps Rayleigh on the shoulder.
“You’re a selfless man, Ray.”
Rayleigh just waves him off. “Not even a little bit.”