Chapter Text
Shanks tries very hard to be sneaky about his growing jealousy.
Key word: tries.
It’s no secret that Shanks is the jovial sort and that his welcome and cheer both extend easily to newcomers. He's won favor and friends and followers all across the seas with his bright smile and open palm. It's such a part of him that he doesn't even need to think about and he could count the number of rejections on his remaining hand. Even if met with dissent, he doesn't regret extending the offer of camaraderie. However, something curious happens when the next newcomer joins your large table.
You always have at least a part of Shanks’ attention, so the way you shift uncomfortably and curl slightly in on yourself does not go unnoticed. You catch yourself and relax back into your usual posture, but Shanks knows you well enough to see there’s a posed touch to all your expressions. It tames them from the genuine displays of your thoughts and emotions that Shanks so loves into something more suited to a diplomat seeking favor. Or even a model trying to cloak themself in perfection. It has him wary.
Worse yet, your attention is sucked to the newcomer like a ship round a maelstrom. It takes no genius to notice that each time a great laugh breaks out, your eyes sweep to that newcomer to take them in. Shanks can't help but watch how you flicker your gaze over to them every time you have the spotlight, as if seeking approval.
Gods Shanks hopes that isn’t the case.
Driven to seek comfort in your presence, Shanks leans into his affectionate nature to keep close to you. You can’t think too long on someone else with him constantly leaning into your space to whisper dumb jokes and silly observations. He made those laughs and he gets to be so close as to feel them shake your chest. You may look to others but you always look back to him when he ventures to lay his hand on your shoulder or hand or thigh and give a happy, hearty squeeze before retreating. He relishes in the fact that you had been uncertain of his touch when you first met, yet now you trust and even welcome his hand on you. Now you brighten with him or soften under him. If only he'd already taken that far enough for you to never question how close he needs you. Alas, you're yet to play any games together that end without clothes or move to touch past the line of crew and captain.
Shanks is burst right out of his bubble of avoidance when you suddenly jolt and sit straight, separating yourself from his side.
The cause of his sudden and very dire lack of you is that very same newcomer. The newcomer, who is leaning in so close to you. The newcomer, who now has all of your attention. The newcomer, who is giving you a smile that Shanks very much does not like. It’s very charming and holds a twinge of remorse, the kind that Shanks knows from experience would strike straight and true right to your heart. It's a reflection glaring back at him from every time he wanted to disarm you for just a little more affection.
“I’m glad to see you in happier times. You look good,” they have the audacity to say. The words even seep with honesty. Shanks isn't sure he focused on anything in his life as hard as he does on your reaction in this moment.
Your smile is breathtaking, one he isn't quite sure he’s seen before, all affection and understanding and a dusting of yearning. It turns his heart to goo right before it clamps tight and squeezes. That smile isn't for him. He needs that smile to be for him. His mouth is moving before the thought even sinks in.
“We do like to keep things cheerful here!” Shanks chuckles to the newcomer. He turns to you, making sure to catch your eye. “Life’s too short to anchor yourself to your sorrows.” Now back to the newcomer. “And this one-” an arm slips around your shoulders, hugging you to his warm side, “-helps to keep the ship bright.”
The smile you give him isn’t quite as overflowing with emotion as the one before, but he loves it all the same. At least it's because of him - for him.
Unfortunately, that’s not the end of it and the newcomer actually sits down on your other side and insists on catching up. Shanks is a damn charmer though, and he knows it, so he’s not one to give up on keeping your attention through the night. He stays in the conversation easily, not deterred by the newcomer outsider bringing up shared memories with you. Even though they squeeze at his heart and lungs tighter and tighter, Shanks persists in his merry way, glued to your side. He uses this to get to know more of you, a part of him truly enjoying the new insights, being able to fill in more of your life to cherish. However, a much larger part is simply set on keeping the reminiscing light instead of romantically charged.
As the time and drinks flow, his and the outsider's tactics get more obvious. Luckily for them, you get more oblivious, simply cruising on the comfy fuzz everything had taken on from drink after drink and enjoying the company sitting close as well as filling the room. Your unintentional refusal to pick a favorite has both of them getting desperate and daring. But, try as they might, the outsider is clearly outmatched.
By the end of the night you’re wearing Shanks like a perfume, he’s stuck to your skin at the heart of your body, chest always tight to your back or side, chin often hooked over your shoulder or on top of your head. His slight scruff tickling at your ear when he moves and talks is exceedingly distracting. So is the softness of his hair on your neck when he turns his head to bed his cheek into your shoulder and pull you a little tighter to him, saying its just 'cause he's a little sleepy and trying to get comfy. He unearths himself from his resting place only to seek it again every few minutes. His arm is always around you when he wasn’t using it to drink (of course) or toy with you - tugging at your clothes for attention, tickling your sides to interrupt you, sweetly scratching your scalp to derail your train of thought, teasingly rubbing a thumb into your hip or thigh to feel you squirm.
Shanks is a handsy devil, so you don’t take any of this as a proclamation of his love. The most you think is that it has just hit that point in your journey together where his vast appetite for partners has finally swept its way to focus on you. You've waited for that with both eagerness and trepidation; you want to be his, even if for a moment, so much it aches, but you fear that feeling that close and losing it would break you. Though you loved the person sitting to your other side, you never held such admiration, devotion, and respect for them as you do your Captain. When you started seeing the most human pieces of each other, you grew apart. When you do the same with Shanks, you both hold closer. Losing the warmth and sureness of that hold would leave you exposed to erode away from the torrents of life.
You end the night giggling the whole stumbling way back to the ship, tucked into Shanks’ side. You manage to stay there despite being at the mercy of both of your swaying, constantly blending who’s supporting and who’s slipping. Your ex is far from your mind when Shanks tucks you in sweetly (well… sweetly to a drunk; in all reality you kinda flopped in, but he did make sure you were shoeless and properly under the blankets, and he even shuffled back in to put water, crackers, and medicine where you could reach). While you wish you woke with him next to you, leaving your space as your own with devices to help you feel better is a much larger act of devotion from Shanks than selfishly taking that space for himself at the first chance.
Unlike you, Shanks does have a flash of your ex in his mind when he's happily gloating to himself that he won the night.
His last blurry thoughts are of how to make sure you and everyone else unquestionably know that you are off limits. The unspoken claim understood by the crew while he works at winning you over isn't enough anymore. Especially if that pesky ex comes sniffing around again. The difference between him and them just needs to be more apparent. Maybe they need a lesson in what staring down Conqueror’s Haki truly feels like.