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“Good morning, Shanks!”
One call from Taro and the rest of the crew were quick to forget about the work they were doing around the ship.
“Shanks!”
“Mornin’, lad!”
“There’s our boy!”
More joyful shouts came from above them in the crow’s nest and along the shrouds. Every morning had been like this since they’d found him. Rayleigh had not ceased to be amazed at how the crew had adjusted to having a baby on board.
Momora darted up to approach Rayleigh, grin growing with each step, but his attention was directed solely to the red haired baby that he held in his arms. Isaac followed right behind and, when he offered a single finger out to the boy, Shanks wrapped his whole hand around it. Both men spoke cheerfully to him–asking how he slept and if he liked his breakfast and how he was feeling that day as though he’d ever spoken a coherent word back to them.
The boy babbled in response, as though making conversation, and the two men fawned. With each question, Shanks gurgled out a response.
“Alright, that’s enough. He’ll be here once you’ve finished up,” Rayleigh said. Isaac regrettably pulled his finger from Shanks’ surprisingly strong grip and the boy grumbled as the men stepped away.
“You don’t look so tough saying all of that with a babe in your arms, Ray!” Sunbell called from where he stood across the deck, ropes in hand. The crew laughed, Rayleigh smiled, and the Shanks, too, began laughing along with them.
Again, the crew gushed, their laughter growing more robust as they joined in with Shanks who bounced excitedly in Rayleigh’s arms.
“Back to work now. Once we get to the next island someone else can take ‘im.”
The two walked the deck, checking in on work as they went. While Roger and Gaban overlooked maps and discussed their next course, Rayleigh had come to love carrying the boy around during his morning check-ins with the crew. They had set up a routine to better accommodate him and Shanks had become his little partner–the two of them together ensured that the crew’s tasks were being completed.
Maybe it was just his imagination, but Rayleigh felt the crew had started working better and faster than before, eager to get their own time with Shanks.
Rayleigh shifted the boy so that he rested against his chest and Shanks let out a happy babble as best he could with one of his hands in his mouth. Rayleigh glanced down and that was all Shanks needed to take hold of the strand of blond hair that hung in his face. Shanks let out a laugh when Rayleigh winced and tugged harder. This was a game he knew well. One that he loved and played with Roger and his bushy mustache or with some of the others who had hair long enough for him to reach.
A glint of light drew his attention away and a burst of giggles left him. Shanks removed his fingers from his mouth and reached up to where he had seen it and grabbed Rayleigh’s glasses by the lens. “Hey, hey–” The words of protest came too late. Shanks released Rayleigh’s hair and the baby quickly tore his glasses from where they sat on his nose, bringing them into his lap to sit in the space between them.
Rayleigh sighed, exasperated. “Shanks–”
But the boy only spoke nonsensical gurgles back at him–things that could almost be described as words if he’d had any grasp on the language. They weren’t sure if he’d spoken before they’d found him alone in a cramped treasure chest, but he hadn’t said a word since they’d taken him into their home aboard the Jackson. He grumbled and babbled in conversation with them, laughing when they laughed, but nothing beyond the occasional simple sounds had ever left his busy mouth.
Should children be speaking at his age? Rayleigh wasn’t sure. It didn’t help that they didn’t know his exact age, either. They’d assumed he was about a year old–but not many of them were good judges of what he should be doing at that age. Assuming he was a year old when they found him in March.
Preoccupied with the glasses in his laps, the boy’s tiny brows furrowed and he moved them, searching as desperately as a boy his age could, for that glint of light he had seen before. Smudges from his wet fingers covered both lenses now and Rayleigh gave him a small bounce, “Aye–you’re making a mess of them.”
The boy’s head lifted at the sound of the familiar voice, but his eyes went wide at the sight of the man, shock written across his tiny features. His bottom lip wobbled and tears filled his eyes, suddenly unable to place who this man was without his glasses. The fear of being in a stranger’s arms was clear. He leaned back, whining, the glasses forgotten where they sat and recoiled from the unknown man.
“C’mon, now, lad, what’s with those tears?” Rayleigh cooed. He gave him a smile and shifted Shanks to his left hip, so he only needed one arm to carry him, and plucked his glasses from the boy’s lap with his free hand. Giving them a once over, Rayleigh sighed. He’d see better without them than with given the state they were in. “I’ve been feeding and changing you for weeks now and suddenly you don’t like me anymore, hm?”
At the sound of his voice, Shanks’ eyes brightened in recognition. He looked again, peering closer at the man, before he let out a delighted squeal, little hands reaching up to touch Rayleigh’s face in a much gentler manner than he had with his hair.
“Way!!” he cried out, bouncing. His palms excitedly slapped against the man’s cheeks. “–Way!!”
Rayleigh froze.
Shanks giggled, happy and carefree once again as soon as he realized he was in the arms of someone he knew and loved, all while Rayleigh’s whole world came to a stop. Little hands tangled into the fabric of his top and Rayleigh’s breath seemed caught in his throat.
Tears filled the man’s eyes and ran down his cheeks when he tried to blink them away but, still, he smiled.
Only a few weeks had passed since they’d left God Valley and what an incident it had been! The crew hadn’t thought anything could be bigger than Roger teaming up with Monkey D. Garp of all people. Taking down Rocks and letting the remains of the crew scatter had been world changing. Finding a baby in a chest had been a whole other surprise. But keeping him? Raising a child aboard a pirate ship? Maybe they were mad for doing so, but in this moment Rayleigh couldn’t imagine anything sweeter.
He leaned down and kissed the boy’s mess of red hair atop his head, even as tears kept running down his cheeks.
“Can you say that again, lad?” he asked, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “C’mon–Ray. Ray.”
He’d never spent time urging Shanks to say his name in the ways that Roger or Gaban had. Both men seemed to be competing over whose name he would say first, but Rayleigh had dismissed it as the usual childish ramblings that he’d come to know from the two men.
Rayleigh pulled the boy closer to his chest and a thought he wasn’t quite proud of entered his head. He smiled and lifted his sleeve to rub at his damp eyes.
“We ought to let the Captain know, Shanks–I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
Roger would cry too. Of that, Rayleigh was sure, but only after he was done seething with jealousy that his name hadn’t been spoken first.