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[redforce]

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SHANKS

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[redforce]

( shanks has never asked for much in his life, was raised to share and divide equally and never steal from ordinary people. even as a child, what more could he want than what he was already given? the captain's treasured hat, the adoration of the crew that took him in, a friend he could have spent his whole life with. (he thought, naively, that it would have been him and buggy against the world, carrying on roger's legacy together. but that's not how the world works with the burden of fate on your shoulders.) the matter of what he wanted, personally, had never really been a question.

not until here. until saltburnt. until koby and set. until marriage and matelotage forced his hand, compelled him to consider what it is that he really wants. that he's allowed to want anything at all, that he's allowed to reach beyond the cards that have been dealt to him. and that is a gift in and of itself: to want and be wanted in return. to exchange vows and promises and hold them close to your heart. it's enough, for shanks. he wouldn't possibly dream of anything more. he doesn't need more, to be satisfied. material gifts carry little weight when action and emotion speak much louder.

which is also where shanks has the advantage, of course, in being able to feel the things people are often too afraid to say — or don't know how to say. even in sleep, some part of his consciousness is aware of his surroundings: set's touch, those sweet kisses, rain down upon him in his dreams, though not through set's visage, his skin flushed and flame-kissed — the heat radiating from the fire making him dizzy and parched, the winter snow beneath him melting and scorched by a sudden, wild blaze until the ground gives way to sand and the warm embrace of a red sun.

he mumbles something unintelligible at the sound of his name, blinking blearily as he shifts closer to his wife, wave after wave of emotion lapping at him like the soothing ebb and flow of the shoreline on the beach. it isn't always easy to parse set's chaotic emotions, but these he can feel clearly: pride, admiration, desire; a sense of safety and belonging buried deep below the surface; and something further below that with an unspoken name, a surprisingly gentle, unrestrained fondness that burrows into his chest and lives there. )

Mm. ( he reaches for set's face, drawing them closer half-lidded and half-awake, though just as eager to lick into set's mouth. when he finally opens his eyes, his lips quirk into a sleep-soft smile, his voice rough but no less fond: ) I know.

[redsoil]

[ ( Does he? Does Shanks really, truly know? Has Set conveyed it to him: the whole of the emotion, the sentiment that drives him to agony and angst in his private moments. To trembling upon the floors of the manor, fingers digging at his own scalp or throat, as if he could carve the feeling from him and maintain that warm, comprehensive-but-distant understanding that the two of them were together, with the knowledge that they would one day part. That they were mature, and accepting, and ready to live with the memories until the day they both returned to the cosmic sea from whence they'd first come, reunited again?

That he wants, sometimes, to capture the captain of the Red Force forever? To rob his world of him, and take him home a prize that would grow steadily miserable and despondent, until that love wilted within him and Set still could not release him because he was so desperate and monstrous that the moment he acknowledged love was the moment he'd be destined to begin their ruination? That he'd rather keep Shanks, than free him in any way and be alone again? )

What he feels, he feels deeply. The crushing weight of hot sands that steadily gather over a ruin, over a fallen corpse; the glimmering, dark abyss of something greater-but-imprisoned within Set that opens its lovely mouth and howls like a beast. It's overwhelming, the things he lets himself feel that morning and how they pour out of him like a broken vessel; how he twists in towards Shanks's body and hides the wetness gathering in his eyes and the heavy sound of his breath catching in his nose. A sniffle, a whimper that accompanies the softening of his too-powerful, too-dense sentiments that batter against the electric-ozone-snap of his husband's haki. ]

I can't say it.

[ A muffled, plaintive cry into Shank's shoulder. ]

Please, you have to know. [ Shanks does, he'd said. ( Set can't believe it. Faith had fled him long ago. ) ] You just have to know it.