#he never expects shanks to be great and he doesnt make excuses when he isnt. shanks is just the only man who's always exceeded expectations

[reineyday]

shanks, four years younger than mihawk, is usually granted the "starry-eyed crush on the cool older boy" trope (with good reason!), so i was thinking it'd be cute to grant that dubious pleasure to mihawk in an age swap au instead.

mihawk, scrappy nine year old, gets picked up by roger for a trip on the oro jackson to the next island (roger just wants to feed the kid lol), and gets sweet talked into it by dangling a duel with rayleigh, the current world's greatest swordsman, as bait. when mihawk gets there, rayleigh says mihawk has to be able to beat his apprentices first, and gets his ass summarily handed to him by a thirteen year old shanks, who both impresses and embarrasses mihawk, as shanks beats him without even trying but he's so cool when he does it.

and so mihawk declares himself shanks's rival, and when he wins, shanks will have to listen to a request. and years and years later, when mihawk finally does win, that request--which he's never changed his mind about--is permission to start formally courting shanks. charmed, and absolutely having seen this coming after years of observing an obvious crush and slowly warming up to it as mihawk grew and changed between their meetings, laughs and just kisses mihawk straight-up.

#rei rambles #mishanks #one piece #dracule mihawk #akagami no shanks #red haired shanks #akataka #shanks #there's more but that's the gist lol #actually in the half-drabble half-outline i have going rn rayleigh makes mihawk fight buggy first (also four years older) #and after mi loses it leads into a haki lesson that shanks teaches and *that* ends in a tiny duel where mihawk falls in love #there's also prob a part later where shanks says mihawk is just blinded by his childhood hero worship #and mihawk says it was never hero worship and explains that he's never once put shanks on a pedestal. #he never expects shanks to be great and he doesnt make excuses when he isnt. shanks is just the only man who's always exceeded expectations #always challenged him and made him feel like he was basking in the sun. #he's been traveling for years now and has never met anyone else like shanks. #also i was thinking of keeping roger's death at mihawk's age of nineteen making shanks 23 when roger gets executed. #and mb having a scene inspired by james blunt's 'monsters' #i digress #the other optiom is keeping roger's death at when shanks is fifteen and mi having to cope w the realization that love is hard #and that u cant always be what someone needs no matter how much u want to be. and he'll learn it at the tender ag of eleven. #and then he'll find buggy and bully him into taking care of shanks in only the way an annoyingly arrogant fifth grader can.