Chapter Text
For a split second, Benn thought about knocking before he decided to just go in. It wasn’t like anyone here ever knocked, so why should he? A folder on the desk, an open window behind it, and a look at the computer screen found it in sleep mode, but not a soul was to be found in the office.
“What…?” Benn murmured, placed the files he had brought next to the folder, and closed the window. Where else could he be? The shelf came to his mind – a thought most would consider insane.
This office was the only room in the building with a single heater in the small space between one of the high shelves and the ceiling. For some reason, his boss liked sleeping in warm spots off the ground, like some kind of cat. He had once explained it as ‘hammock-adjacent’, but Benn had given up on understanding his reasoning for these kinds of things long ago. If getting sturdy shelves, a fluffy blanket, and having a safety-checked heater close to the ceiling saved him from the dreaded ‘waterslide-in-the-office’ debates he had had to deal with since they had bought the building, Benn would choose that any day.
A look at said shelf confirmed his suspicion, as he found his boss curled up on top of it. “Boss?” he asked into the silence of the room, but a barely audible grumble was all the answer he got. “Boss,” he repeated, louder, yet an answer still evaded him. With a sigh, Benn threw the remaining bit of intention to stay professional at their workplace out the window. “For fuck’s sake – Shanks!”
Finally, the red-haired human coil moved, and Shanks lifted his head. “Yes…?”
“The hell are you doing?”
Blinking, Shanks sat up. “Napping?”
A deep sigh escaped Benn. “Let me rephrase: Why are you up there, napping, when you asked me to get you some files and were forwarded a mail by me?”
“Well…” In a smooth, catlike movement, Shanks jumped off the shelf and stretched. “I looked at the mail, didn’t know what to write, and decided to nap instead.” He looked at the files Benn had put down on the desk. “And those I forgot about.”
Benn shook his head, but a fond smile had found its way onto his face. “Please try again with the mail. It might be a bit strange, but I still think she deserves a quick answer.” After a nod from Shanks, Benn was ready to leave and already back at the door when a quick yell stopped him in his tracks.
“Oh, Benn!”
He spun back around. “What is it?”
“Since I’ll be busy looking at – err, answering – that mail, could you get me a coffee?”
Benn blinked slowly and shrugged. “… Sure.”
“Thank you!”
With another small shake of his head, Benn left Shanks to it and headed to the cafeteria. Halfway there, he stopped, blinked, and questioned his doing. Why had he agreed? Literally any argument he could think of concerning this topic opposed the decision he had made. Any but ‘Shanks will be happy’. Not a great argument when put against the mountain of work Benn still had to do, or checking on their employees, but well. Apparently, Benn’s subconscious had decided it was worth it, and it wasn’t like he could change it now, anyway. He shrugged and entered the cafeteria.
A total of five coffee pots stood on the counter next to the coffee machine – one of the things rookies often got caught off guard by. He grabbed the smallest, red coffee pot that held Shanks’ coffee. It was a bit of a gamble what kind of monstrosity was inside it, but either way, no one but Shanks wanted to drink it. Option A was a black slurry that even Benn considered far too strong, and option B had so much sugar he was sure a spoon wouldn’t fall over if placed in the cup. Why Shanks preferred these absurd concoctions, Benn didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to lose sleep over it. He had known Shanks long enough to give up on understanding the man’s logic.
Benn grabbed a cup of not-coffee for Shanks and a cup of black coffee for himself and headed back to Shanks’ office. The door wasn’t closed all the way, so Benn could easily push it open with his foot. He walked over to Shanks, who was now sitting on his office chair, both feet on the seat with him, staring at the screen in front of him. Putting down Shanks’ cup of not-coffee, Benn rounded the table to look over Shanks’ shoulder. The view made him snort.
“Someone didn’t get very far with the answer mail.”
Shanks sighed deeply, took a sip from the cup Benn had brought him, and glared at the open mail program. “I got the salutations down!”
“Very impressive.”
Benn’s comment earned him a soft elbow jab and a pouty face from Shanks. “Yeah, yeah…” Shanks slowly turned to him and made large, round puppy eyes. “Can’t you write the answer?”
With a sigh, Benn shoed him off the chair. “I’ll write it, but you are in charge of the content. In the end, it’s your decision that matters.”
“You say that, but when it comes to the waterslide–” An icy glare from Benn interrupted Shanks’ muttering. “Never mind,” he mumbled and sat down on the desk. “What kind of decision do you need me to make?”
Blankly, Benn stared at him. “What do you mean? It’s an application, Shanks. What do you think you need to decide?”
“Well, obviously, I don’t mind employing her. Her background is decent – and even if it wasn’t, I can always find something to do for someone to pay them.”
“Right. Do you want me to accept her via mail immediately…?”
Shanks narrowed his eyes. “You make it sound like that’s not usually done.”
Chuckling, Benn shook his head. “Because it’s not. Most places do a job interview first, to get an idea of the applicant and offer them a chance to ask some questions, too.”
“Huh.” Shanks shrugged. “Let’s do that, then. Tomorrow should be fine.”
What had started as chuckles turned into a full burst of laughter. “You know what?” Benn pressed out between laughs, “Sure. I’ll tell her to come in tomorrow morning.”
Shanks blinked at his sudden outburst before his eyes widened. “Oh. Tomorrow might be a bit sudden, huh?” It seemed Shanks had finally thought about what he was saying. At this point, though, Benn had already started typing. Silently, Shanks watched him type the mail and send it before poking Benn’s shoulder. “So, why’d you just send the mail anyway after I already noticed my mistake?”
Grinning, Benn got up. “I figured it was better to confront the applicant with your usual antics sooner rather than later. Besides,”—he put a hand on Shanks’ shoulder—“you could always send another mail, explaining how a later date might be better and that ‘tomorrow’ was just a mistake your second-in-command made when writing the mail for you because you were too lazy.”
Shanks poked his tongue out at him, but made no effort to write a second mail. Tomorrow it would stay. Well, if the applicant couldn’t make it, they would give her a different time – the actual time of the job interview didn’t matter, after all.
Benn had barely left when the notification sound of his mail program made Shanks jump. Sender was Kira Melor, the woman who had decided to formally apply for a position under a Yonko. A somewhat ridiculous idea in Shanks’ eyes, but then again… Clearly, her idea had paid off, so maybe it wasn’t as ridiculous as he thought. She had agreed to the job interview tomorrow morning. Blinking a couple of times, Shanks stared at the mail. He didn’t need to respond to this again, did he? No. There was no reason to. Instead, he forwarded the mail to Benn, adding a short request to remind him in the morning.
In the corner of his eye, Shanks glanced at the files Benn had brought. He should probably get back to work. Grabbing one of the files, Shanks started to cross-reference them with the bills in the folder he had already had on his desk. Halfway through the paperwork, his phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the messages.
Most were from during his nap and had already been handled by Benn and the other commanders; one message was from Benn, acknowledging he had received and read the mail Shanks had forwarded him; the others were from the commander-only chat they used to communicate about more important or covert matters. Quickly, Shanks scanned the messages. They were talking about an ongoing CP investigation that was in their territory.
“We could just leave them be, I guess…” Yasopp’s last message read.
Shanks gnawed on his lower lip and typed out a response. “True, but I don’t want them to feel like they can keep poking around however they like.”
“Even if they don’t go through with any arrests, etc?”
“Yes. They’re still in my territory. Even if no one gets harmed, they need to stop acting like they own the place and pushing around the people of my territory however they please. We’ve left them alone long enough.”
“Sooo… Beat them up?” Roo’s message made Shanks smirk.
“A little bit. Yes.” An idea came to him. “Actually, you can both go and take some rookies with you. They can use the field experience.”
His message had barely been sent when Benn’s answer already popped up on the screen. “And what about the stuff Yasopp and Roo are working on in-house? Pretty sure that has a close deadline.”
Shanks smirked. “I guess we’ll have to take care of that then.”
Benn’s response was immediate. “Let me guess: When you say ‘we’, you mean ‘Benn’?”
“Basically.”
“Every day anew, I’m surprised you’re still sane, Benn,” Yasopp wrote, earning an instant ‘+1’ reaction from Roo.
“Same, honestly,” Benn agreed, not long after.
Before Shanks could even consider responding as well, a knock sounded from the door, and Faris, one of the crew’s rookies, entered. “Sorry for the interruption, Boss, but Sengoku is waiting downstairs. Something about wanting to talk to you.”
Putting his phone aside, Shanks stretched. “Bring him here, then.”
Faris nodded and disappeared back through the door. Just moments later, he knocked again, and when he opened the door, the marine’s fleet admiral stood next to him. With a wave of his hand, Shanks dismissed Faris and beckoned Sengoku to come closer.
A wide grin on his face, Shanks cocked his head. “Well? To what do I owe the pleasure?”
As soon as Sengoku saw the expression on Shanks’ face, his own turned sour. “I hate dealing with this guy…” he mumbled, though it didn’t seem like he was trying to avoid Shanks hearing him. He took a deep breath and faced Shanks properly. “Two things. One, I’m aware that you are displeased with the CP investigation in your territory, but leave them be for now. They only need three more days, and–“
“No,” Shanks cut him off. “I’ve waited for them to finish for over a week now, and patience is not my forte to begin with. They’ll be done tomorrow.”
Sengoku’s face darkened. “You act like you can do whatever you like.”
Shanks’ grin widened even further. “And you act, like you very well know that you, at the very least, can’t change that.” He chuckled. “Not without accepting a pretty large risk, that is.”
Another deep breath found its way into and out of Sengoku’s lungs. “The second thing I wanted to talk about was information – your company’s bread and butter, so to speak.” Shanks nodded for him to go on. “I need everything from the marine’s archive from May last year to two weeks ago.”
Blinking, Shanks looked at him, processing what he had just heard. “You need… the files from your archive?”
“Do you not have them?”
Shanks laughed, leaned back in his chair, and placed his feet on his desk. “Of course I do. I’m just surprised you’re willing to pay me for your own information.”
Sengoku huffed at his words and shook his head. “Believe me: if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here…”
“How’d you lose them?”
“That’s none of–” Sengoku started immediately, but was interrupted by Shanks, once again.
“You don’t know, do you?” Silence. While Sengoku’s mouth had become as thin a line as possible, Shanks’ grin returned. “You don’t. Well, well… I could help you find out, you know? Then again, I don’t work for free, so let’s talk about money first.”
He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote down a number, and slid it over the desk to Sengoku, who drew a sharp breath when he read the price. “That’s a lot of money,” he grumbled.
Shanks just shrugged. “And May last year until now is a long time.”
With a deep sigh, Sengoku nodded. “Fine, but we can’t pay this kind of sum in one go. How about multiple installments of payment?”
Sitting back up, Shanks went over the numbers in his head. Usually, Benn was the one to handle the specific prices and payment plans, but getting him now would be a waste of time. Plus, while it wasn’t his favorite thing to do, Shanks was perfectly able to take care of it, so wrapping it up on his own right now was the best choice. He nodded slowly. “Sure, but only if the payment installments are tied to the information. You pay for a batch, you get it.”
“In that case, I want clear dates set for delivery and payment on the same day.”
“Alright, however, there’ll be interest in case of payment delay.”
“And price reductions in case of late delivery.”
Shanks shrugged and jotted down some notes to put into a formal contract later. All the files were ready, so he doubted they’d have any delivery delays. … And even if they did, the prices were fine reduced, too. “Anything else?” Sengoku shook his head. “Okay, I’ll send you the finished contract tomorrow morning. When do you want the first batch, and which one do you want?”
Sengoku thought for a moment. “Two days after we have both received the signed contract, and send the most recent files first.” He waited for Shanks to nod before taking a step back. “I’ll be taking my leave then.”
Raising his hand to see him off, Shanks was already picking up his phone to ask Benn if he had a moment. The message had barely been sent when the door connecting his office with Benn’s opened, and his second-in-command stepped through.
“Not another mail you need me to write, I hope?” he mused as soon as he reached Shanks.
Shanks huffed. “No, a contract I need drawn up.” He handed Benn his notes. “Sengoku came by. They somehow lost files in their archive regarding everything from May last year to now.”
Benn drew his brows together. “Everything?” Shanks nodded. “That’s problematic. I take it you’ll have it looked into, even though Sengoku didn’t ask you to?”
“Obviously. Someone deleting large amounts of marine archive files is more than suspicious – especially since they got rid of a pretty large timeframe. I’ll get someone on it while you finalize the contract.”
“Got it.” Benn scanned the notes and nodded. “This shouldn’t take too long. I’ll come over when I’m done, so we can head home.”
Shanks relaxed his face into a softer smile. “Alright. I’ll make sure to be done until then.”
As Shanks opened his eyes, the other side of the bed was already empty and cold, and the slightest hint of food scent came in through the gap under the door. Yawning, he stretched, got up and ready, and wandered into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Benn greeted him from in front of the stove, just turning it off.
Stepping next to him, Shanks shot him a groggy smile. “Morning,” he mumbled, and got pulled into an embrace. Shanks took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of the man in front of him. “You smell like smoke,” he stated, earning a deep chuckle from Benn.
“How surprising.”
“Mhm… What’s for breakfast?”
Another chuckle rippled through the chest Shanks was leaning against. “You’re right in front of the stove, Shanks.”
“So?”
“You can just look at it.”
Pressing his face further into Benn, Shanks shook his head the slightest bit. “No, I’d have to open my eyes for that and turn to the stove. Which is clearly impossible right now.”
“Of course.” Benn placed a kiss on his forehead, let go, and, instead, lifted Shanks to sit him on a chair at the dining table. “Then I guess you’ll have to wait until the food’s on a plate in front of you.” Moments later, plates wandered onto the table in front of Shanks, and some more moments later, eggs and bacon wandered onto them. When a freshly brewed pot of coffee and two cups joined them, Shanks beckoned Benn closer to place a small peck on his cheek. Benn was simply the best, and sometimes, Shanks still wasn’t sure he deserved someone as amazing as him. Cutting into his egg, Benn brought him back into the present. “The job interview is today.”
Shanks halted his fork in the air. “Fuck.”
“And that’s why I reminded you,” Benn commented, a smug grin on his face.
Trying his best to make the largest puppy eyes possible, Shanks turned to him. “Can you come along?”
“It’s your job, you know?” Shanks let out a quiet mumble that even he didn’t know what words it included, and Benn let out a tiny sigh. “Fine. I guess we can just have me be there as the company’s COO.” He shrugged, and the grin returned. “Or get back to the fact that we’re not a regular company and don’t even need to come up with a reason to begin with.”
Right. What use was there in being a Yonko if he couldn’t even make up some rules in his own damn company?