Chapter Text
Mihawk alights onto the deck of the Red Force, more nervous than he’s used to feeling—though of course none of this shows on his face. He’s here to invite Shanks to a duel, per usual, and if he happens to confirm that Shanks is hale and whole after that nightmare a few nights ago, then he will just keep that small relief to himself.
They’re docked at a small island in the East Blue, farther away from Reverse Mountain. Mihawk had been following Shanks’s vivre card, and he’s never been one to memorize maps unless necessary, so he has no idea what this island is called. Mihawk pulls Hitsugibune up next to the Red Force and hops up onto the deck railing, where there is absolutely no one present.
He’s just about to go to Shanks’s quarters when Beckman steps out from the hallway leading there. The man’s eyes go wide, and he immediately turns tail to rush back into the hallway—very uncharacteristic for a man so generally unruffled. He gets stopped when he bumps into Shanks, who was staggering his way out onto the deck behind his First Mate.
Shanks hisses, jostled, and Benn swears as he catches Shanks by the shoulder. “Shit, sorry Cap.”
“No worries, Benny,” Shanks replies absentmindedly, attention already turned toward Mihawk. Shanks looks haggard, but the look in his eyes as he rests them on Mihawk is full of wonder. “Hawkeyes,” he says warmly. “You’re here.”
“Shanks,” Beckman says sternly, getting Shanks’s attention to confer quietly with him. His Captain seems to reassure him of something and the tension in Beckman’s shoulders loosen, but the man sends a glare Mihawk’s way before leaving the boat entirely, jumping down onto the dock and leaving Mihawk and Shanks alone on the deck.
“Shanks,” Mihawk says, taking in his tired friend. He spots the gaunt look on his face, his missing straw hat, the way his posture sags, and how he’s shirtless beneath the cloak covering both his shoulders, abdomen peeking out from between where the cloak doesn't close perfectly—for once something that puts Mihawk off instead of something he tries to subtly ogle, as Shanks being shirtless underneath his cloak means something is amiss.
He still can’t see Shanks’s arms.
“Mihawk,” Shanks says again, stepping forward hesitantly. Mihawk goes to meet him, hand already reaching out toward the cloak covering Shanks’s body as he tries to push down the panic clawing up his throat. If he could just see that Shanks is okay—
His friend catches Mihawk’s wrist with his hand—his right hand. The movement causes the cloak to open enough to reveal bandages, though his other side remains stubbornly hidden. Without pausing, Mihawk darts out his free hand to push back Shanks’s cloak at his left shoulder, and—
Empty space.
Just like in his nightmare a few days ago, there is nothing where his sword arm is supposed to be. Just blank space; a heavily bandaged stump and then air.
“No,” Mihawk says under his breath, and then louder, “No.” He doesn’t want to believe it, that something he’d thought was a dream is real, in the worst way possible.
“Mihawk—”
“Is this my fault?” Mihawk asks, frantic. “Am I dreaming? Is this real?” He looks at Shanks for answers, but only gets a bewildered look back.
“I feel like I should be asking you that,” Shanks replies. “I dreamt about you the other day. I wanted you to hold me, and now here you are.” He smiles faintly, and then he blinks and flusters. “Um, I mean—in a platonic way? A friend way! Please don’t run away again, it’s been a bad month.”
Mihawk doesn’t process any of his comments. “You really lost an arm,” he says, still dazed. “That wasn’t just a nightmare…”
Shanks peers at him through messy bangs, confusion plain, but he explains, “I lost it saving this kid from a Sea King.”
Mihawk whips his head up as recognition strikes him, and Shanks actually balks a little. Mihawk must be acting untethered, but he can’t quite bring himself to care at the moment. “Luffy?” he asks urgently.
Shanks’s jaw drops. “I—yeah… How did you—? I’ve never mentioned him to you. Not in…” His mouth snaps shut, his face paling, and then immediately turning as red as his hair. “Was that you the other night? In my dream?”
“My dream,” Mihawk corrects. “I was asleep.”
“No, it was… me…” Shanks trails off, stunned. “Mihawk.” He sucks in a sharp breath, and before Mihawk can brace himself, still gobsmacked by the fact that it was Shanks the other night—has it been him all along?—Shanks has wrapped himself around Mihawk the way he does in Mihawk’s dreams—in their dreams—face tucked into Mihawk’s nape and arms—arm, gods, fuck—around Mihawk’s waist, so close it’s like he’s trying to become a part of Mihawk. But, Mihawk thinks, hasn’t he always been?
And Mihawk doesn’t need to speak, doesn’t need to think or process anything with Shanks in his arms—doesn’t need to worry about being understood, because this is Shanks and he’s always known him, and now Mihawk knows that is one hundred percent true. He does what he’s always done in his dearest dreams, and kisses Shanks’s temple, and holds him back so tightly, it’s clear that he can only be inviting Shanks inside—as close as physically possible, and then closer still, like maybe they can become one whole being somehow.
“It's been you this whole time,” Shanks murmurs in Mihawk’s ear, close enough to make Mihawk shudder, and it’s the same but it’s also so, so different.
Everything feels so visceral. Shanks’s warmth, the brush of his stubble, his breath on Mihawk’s skin and the scent of him, his hair—a little greasy—smelling like sweat and sea salt, his cloak a little like booze, and the sharp smell of something medicinal, probably whatever ointment Hongo’s prescribed for his arm. His arms feel full, the weight of him more real, the way their clothes shift as they move as loud in his ears as the way Shanks breathes and the thundering of Mihawk’s own heart.
Mihawk stumbles a little, overwhelmed, and with a tug, Shanks pulls him down onto the floor and presses his back flat on the deck the way Shanks had been when he said he wished he could meet Luffy—and Mihawk could, he realizes, because Luffy is real. The boy is real and alive because Shanks saved him from a Sea King.
Shanks climbs on top of him, his cloak falling around Mihawk like a blanket covering them both, and when Mihawk looks up at his face, he finds an expression of awe there. “Has it really been you this entire time?” he asks, hushed like anything louder would break the surreal bubble they’re in. “My whole life?”
Mihawk thinks about meeting an eleven year old boy in the wispy hallway of a long-defunct South Blue Marine base. The hundreds of thousands of conversations they’ve had, and all the times Mihawk’s marveled at having a true friend at night, even when he was isolated during the day. He thinks about how he’s always thought of Shanks as a part of him—his dearest friend, a figment of his subconscious, at once both the embodiment of his nicest dreams come to life grinning at him from behind Gryphon’s hilt, and the embodiment of the best parts of his life visiting him in dreams he dares to call sweet.
His whole life.
His dreams have been real, and his reality has been his dream, this entire time.
“Yes,” Mihawk breathes, “I believe so. Your whole life. Our whole life.”
Shanks huffs out an incredulous laugh, nothing but ecstatic, and his smile puts the whole world to shame. “Mihawk,” he says, enunciates like he’s tasting every letter and finding ambrosia in his name. He leans down to press their lips together, and it’s different but it’s so very the same—the way he moves like he wants to cover Mihawk completely from the world, trying to flatten him into the ground until Mihawk is completely overwhelmed. Shanks shuffles to cushion his hand underneath Mihawk’s head, tender as always and still breathing each others’ air, when Shanks suddenly yelps and his head knocks a little hard into Mihawk’s own, his balance thrown off.
“Ow,” Shanks groans. Mihawk has to blink a few times as well, shaking off the head pain. He half-expects to wake up in his bed alone, since physical harm tends to throw him out of the dream, but no, they’re both still here on the Red Force’s deck, inextricably tangled. A small measure of relief rushes through Mihawk from still having Shanks in his arms, even as Shanks grumbles in his ear about his missing arm preventing him from holding Mihawk like he wants to.
In response, Mihawk sighs. “We should get up,” he says. “You should be resting.”
Shanks whines into Mihawk’s neck. “I’ve been resting for three weeks.”
“You were in enough pain to have fever dreams not but two nights ago, Red-Hair,” Mihawk points out. “I would know; I was there.” He prods at Shanks shoulder. “Come on.”
There’s a pause as Shanks refuses to lift his face from where he’s hiding it, and Mihawk is just about to ask what’s wrong when Shanks finally lifts his face up. He looked unsure, his mouth pursed and his brows tilted up with worry. Even though he’s been slightly bigger than Mihawk for years now, the expression makes him seem small. “Are you devastated, Hawky?” he asks.
Mihawk blinks. “What?”
“I’m still not sorry I did it, but I am still sorry that I can’t be—how did you put it?” He pauses to think. “The last good fight in all the Blues. I can’t be that for you anymore, not in the technical way you like.” Shanks grimaces.
Mihawk blinks again, and then remembers.
“You’re the last good fight out there on all the Blues. Everything else has gotten so boring, but you make me feel alive like nothing else.”
“Oh,” Mihawk says, and Shanks’s face scrunches up a little like he’s bracing himself. Ridiculous, considering the man is still lying very comfortably on top of Mihawk, and Mihawk is in no way, shape or form, throwing him off.
It strikes him as a little endearing, and Mihawk can’t help but bring up a hand to brush through Shanks’s hair, sweeping his bangs off his forehead and following through with the motion until his fingers are tucked behind Shanks’s ear, his palm gently cupping his friend’s—lover’s?—cheek with his palm. Shanks leans into it in an almost instinctive way, eyes still trained on Mihawk’s.
“Do you remember what I said to that?” Mihawk asks.
Shanks’s cheeks colour sweetly, and Mihawk swears he feels the way his face warms up in his hand. “Well, yes,” he says a little awkwardly, “but I wanted to make sure.” When Mihawk just raises an unimpressed brow, Shanks pouts. “And what if I wanted to hear you say it again out loud? For real?”
Everything in Mihawk softens, like he only can around Shanks. And even though they’re here in real life, on a very real wooden deck that is digging uncomfortably into Mihawk’s back through Yoru, with the very real weight of Shanks on top of him only making it worse, and the very real stubble brushing against the side of Mihawk’s palm in a textural way his dream apparently never got quite correctly, Mihawk can’t help but feel like he’s back in one of those sweet dreams he’s started having recently—the ones that turned out to be kind of real too, because he was together with Shanks after all.
He lets himself be softer with Shanks, even though he isn’t dreaming. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been soft for any version of Shank for years now.
“I love you, Shanks,” he says quietly, just between them. “Too much to leave you. You’ll always make me feel alive like nothing else.” Shanks looks like he’s going to melt into a puddle right on top of Mihawk, so he adds, “Despite your inferior technical skills in sword fighting.”
Shanks huffs but he’s grinning. He turns to press a kiss to Mihawk’s palm, and says, “I still have plenty of technical sword skills, y’know,” he says cheekily, an obvious glance downward making it clear what kind of sword skills he’s talking about. “I can still take you.” When Mihawk rolls his eyes, he giggles. (It’s cute.)
A moment later, Shanks begins to get up, and he does it so gingerly that Mihawk wonders if part of that conversation was just because he needed a moment. In any case, Mihawk is glad to give him however many moments he needs.
When he stands up properly, he stretches his back out, and then offers Mihawk a hand up, which Mihawk accepts. He grimaces a little as the motion clearly pulls something uncomfortable on his left side, and it sends a pang of worry through Mihawk that is eased slightly when Shanks steps forward to press a quick kiss to his lips.
“I love you too, of course,” he says happily, still close enough for him to speak the words into Mihawk’s mouth. He dives in again to kiss Mihawk a little more deeply, and Mihawk almost forgets where they are when Shanks pulls back again and his smile is so wide, he dimples. “Not just here, but everywhere. Probably forever.”
Mihawk smiles back. “Better than most of your lines.”
Shanks’s mouth drops open with mock-offense, too full of joy to properly look mad about anything. “Hey! I’m a bastion of suave pick-up lines.”
Mihawk just hums good-naturedly and takes Shanks’s hand, leading the way back to the Captain’s quarters to finally get some proper rest.
*